Dead Over Heels

of Con Con the Survivin’ Man (mahn), how he’d insisted on keeping distance between his little boat and the larger rig, the one with the camera crew, the producer, and the food.

How he’d ignored the storm, instead shouting survival tips to the camera over one shoulder while braving the squall. How he’d lost his balance and gone sprawling, how everything had gone starry and dark, and by the time he sat up, the crew boat was nowhere in sight. The storm had howled and nothing was in sight, and for a while he’d assumed he was in real trouble. And all this before sweeps week!

But just as suddenly as it had sprung up, the storm disappeared, leaving him stranded.

Yeah, he’d write all about that. He could see it now: The Memoirs of Captain Dumbass. Chapter One: I forget every single nautical rule of safety and survival.

No, he was in a mess of his own making, and writing about it wasn’t going to help. He and the silver coconut were on their own.

And where did that come from?

Well. It was the only thing to look at, for one thing; small wonder most of his attention was fixed on it. Wherever he looked he saw the endless ocean, the cruel unrelenting sea (hey, that was poetic, kinda, he should remember it for his triumphant comeback show), no islands, no greenery, no birds . . . just the silver coconut.

The survival expert flopped back into the bottom of the boat and realized that he had never seen a silver coconut. And the nearest tree was probably a zillion nautical miles from here. He studied the sky, which was an irritatingly cheerful blue. A “no dumbass got his bad self abandoned on my watch” kind of blue. The most annoying blue in the world, come to think of it. Arrggh.

He sat up, scowling. Better to look at the coconut. Which was quite a bit closer. Maybe the tides had changed? No, that didn’t make any sense. Maybe—

The coconut had a face. The coconut was a severed head!

Chapter 2

Oh Gawwwwwwd help me!” he cried in a baritone that would have sent gulls screaming from their perches—if there had been any gulls. He flopped back down in the boat.

Just what he needed. Tom Hanks’s character in Cast Away had Wilson the volleyball; he, Con Conlinson, would have Silver Severed Head. He should have listened to his mother. She’d wanted him to take the Civil Service exam and stay the hell out of showbiz.

He peeked over the rim of the boat. The head was very close now. He could see at once why he’d mistaken it for a silver coconut . . . the face was very pale, the eyes wide open, with silver pupils and long, flowing silver hair. Not old lady silver. Silver silver. The color of old nickels, polished by an obsessive. It was sort of striking and frightening at the same time.

The cold, dead lips opened. The silver eyes blinked. “Do you require assistance, biped?”

He flopped back down in the boat. Day two, and already the hallucinations were setting in. No fresh water, no food. What had he been thinking, taking the smaller, poorly equipped boat? He hadn’t, that was all. After all, the crew was always there to pull him out of a jam. Why should last weekend be any different?

“Excuse me?” the severed head said, much closer. “Are you all right?”

He flopped an arm over the edge and heaved himself off the bottom of the boat, making it rock alarmingly. The severed head was very close now, only a few feet away. And . . .

“Holy shit, a mermaid!”

“If you like. I am of the Undersea Folk. And you have not answered my question.”

“A friggin’ mermaid, right here next to me! I thought you were a severed head!”

The mermaid swam cautiously closer, easily parting the water with her long, pale arms. Her silver hair streamed behind her. She was sleek and pale and sweetly plump; her round face was set in a frown. “I think you have been exposed overlong to the sun.”

He stuck his hand over the side of the boat. She stared at it. “I’m Con Conlinson. Well. Just Con.”

Tentatively, she reached up and brushed his fingers with her cool, wet ones. “I am Reanesta.”

He burst out laughing. Maybe he had been in the sun too long. “Seriously? That’s your name? Reanesta? It sounds like a prescription sleeping pill.”

“I do not know what that is. And you have not answered my question, which, in a way, answers my question.”

“Huh?”

She disappeared with a flip of her silver tail and reappeared seconds later on the other side of the boat. She shook her head so that her long hair fell back, and blinked water out of her eyes. “Your craft is intact,” she announced, startling him so that he nearly fell overboard. “And you have the means to propel yourself elsewhere.” She gestured to the oar. “So are you harmed? Or ill?”

“No, I’m fine.” Also: dazzled, besotted, horny. Those eyes. That hair. Those—

“Then why are you still here?”

“Where am I gonna go?”

She seemed taken aback and made a vague gesture, one encompassing the ocean. “Where would you not go?”

“Uh . . . I don’t have a tail. Not that I have anything against tails. Particularly yours. In fact, yours is gorgeous,” he hastened to assure her.

“Gorgeous?” she repeated doubtfully.

“Gorgeous.” It was the color of candlefish, all sleek silver, wider at the hips and narrowing to wavy silver fins. “In fact, you are really gorgeous.” And those tits! He was having a terrible time maintaining eye contact. She was delectably curvy, and her breasts bobbed sweetly in the water, the nipples so pale a pink they were almost cream colored. She was like a ghost . . . or a dream.

“No, I am ugly,” she replied simply, as if she were explaining that two and two made four. “And I think you must be ill. Perhaps you should rest. Or eat.”

“Ugly!” He nearly toppled out of the boat again. “Are you shitting me?”

“I . . . do not believe so.”

“You’ve at least got some meat on your bones, unlike all those anorexic big-mouthed Hollywood brats. Your hair—your tail—your eyes—your ti—your brea—you’re the best-looking woman I’ve ever seen. Ugly! Sheee- it!”

“Well,” she said, swimming idly around the boat, “my blubber does keep me warm.”

“We’re in the South Pacific,” he said, feeling stupid. “What do you need to keep warm for?”

“I travel all over. And if you swim to the bottom, it can be chilly. But my coloring is bad. My friends are yellow and blue and green and anything you can imagine. I am”—she looked down at herself—“I’m a noncolor. I am practically not here.”

“Noncolor, my Alabama butt.”

“Your—what?”

“Where I come from, silver’s just about the most precious thing there is. We use it for money. It’s really valuable. And pretty.”

“The habits of bipeds are not known to me,” she admitted, rolling over on her back. She idly splashed with her tail, and yawned. “That is why I followed you for the last two days. When you seemed, ah, confused, I thought I might offer assistance.”

“Well, that was nice of you.” Two days? “Appreciate that.”

“Due to recent events among my people, we are allowed to show ourselves now.”

“Get outta here!”

“I beg your pardon.” She splashed, harder, and he was instantly drenched from eyebrows to belt buckle.

He coughed for five minutes while she watched impassively and finally wheezed, “Sorry, it’s a biped saying