Page 80 of The Women of Wild Hill

“I owe everything to Calum,” Jacobs said. “If it hadn’t been for AMN’s coverage, I would still be slaving away for Goldman Sachs. ’Course, I paid him back handsomely over the years.”

“And now that Calum’s son has taken over the company?”

“Oh, we’re all expecting great things from Liam. If anything, he’s even bolder than his dad. I have an election coming up soon, and he’s already stepped in to help promote my latest book. He says he loves the message.”

“Is that the book about the dangers of feminism?”

Jacobs winked at her and finished his Scotch. “No offense,” he said. “As you can tell, I actually like strong—”

Brigid could hear the man talking, but her mind had left the scene and focused instead on one a few minutes in the future. What she saw there brought her great pleasure.

“So you two aren’t involved?”

“Sorry?” Brigid returned to the present. “What was the question?”

“If you and Liam aren’t an item, maybe you and I could spend some time together.”

“I thought you were a happily married man. Aren’t you and your wife outspoken advocates of traditional marriage?”

He wasn’t thrown. If anything he seemed encouraged. “Absolutely, and our marriage bond is unbreakable inside the state of Arkansas. But this here’s the godless state of New York.”

“Well, in that case...”

Brigid had draped her dress over a driftwood log. Now she stripped out of her bra and underwear and left them on the sand beside it. Under the light of the moon, her skin glowed like the will-o’-the-wisp.

Jacobs turned his eyes to heaven. “Thank you, Lord,” he said.

“I promise, your god had nothing to do with this,” Brigid informed him. “You next.”

She watched as he disrobed down to his pale blue boxers with creases down the side where his maid must have ironed them.

“Those, too,” she ordered.

Once he was naked, he started for her. Staying out of reach, Brigidlaughed and ran for the ocean. When the water was waist-high, she turned and beckoned for him to join her.

He wasn’t certain. “You sure about that?” he called. “Don’t the sharks come out at night?”

“You’re not going to get eaten by a shark, sweetie,” Brigid told him. “Ipromise.”

The Old One had something much worse in store for Josh Jacobs.

SHE WAS UP TO HERshoulders when he finally joined her. Beneath the surface, she could feel long, thin tendrils brushing against her skin like a mermaid’s hair.

When Jacobs reached out to touch her, he found them first. “Shit!” he yelped, pulling his hand back. “Something just stung the fuck out of me!”

“Probably a Portuguese man-of-war,” Brigid told him.

“Jellyfish?” He splashed as he circled around, searching for the culprit.

Brigid’s limbs leisurely tread the water around her. “That’s a common misconception. They’re not actually jellyfish. They’re siphonophores—colonies of thousands of tiny creatures working together to take down big prey.”

“What the fuck!” he exclaimed as a second tentacle wrapped around his forearm.

“No, for real!” Brigid continued. “They’re one of nature’s miracles. When I was a kid, we rarely saw any this far north. But thanks to corrupt politicians and the polluters who fund them, the water here in the sound is much warmer now than it used to be. Everything else is dying off—the lobsters, the scallops, the menhaden fish—but the Portuguese men-of-war seem to love it.”

“I’m getting out!” He was panicking.

“I don’t blame you for trying. I hear their stings are quite painful.Fortunately, they’ve never bothered me very much,” Brigid said. “I actually find them quite lovely. They light up like pretty lanterns when they’re hunting.”