by Teri Wilson
Did he want to become an actual islander, though? Sam’s determination to start a new life in Turtle Beach was beginning to waver. Something about being set on fire at bingo night had given him serious pause.
“You sure you’re all right, bro?” Griff took a long pull from his beer.
“Fine. I told you, I’m not even burned,” Sam said.
He would, however, be pitching his uniform shirt in the trash. It was probably still wearable, but he didn’t particularly want a scorched reminder of his mortifying lapse of judgment.
What’s the worst that could happen?
He’d tempted fate by asking himself that very question. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he’d end up in flames.
“You sure? I noticed you keep flexing your fist.” Griff waved a peanut shell in the direction of Sam’s right hand.
“Writer’s cramp,” Sam said through gritted teeth.
After the disastrous kiss he’d shared with Violet and the chaos that followed, bingo night had proceeded as usual. As the caller yelled out letter and number combinations, Sam had written out half a dozen additional citations to Violet. Overkill? Perhaps, according to Griff.
Sam disagreed. Vehemently. She’d set him on fire. If that wasn’t worthy of a stack of pink tickets and a few hefty fines, Sam didn’t know what was.
“Writer’s cramp.” Griff snorted. “That’s pretty funny.”
Sam wasn’t amused in the slightest. He sighed and tossed a peanut to one of the seagulls swooping and diving overhead.
“Don’t you think you were a little hard on her, though? I know she’s the one who started the fire, but she’s also the one who put it out.” Griff shot Sam a meaningful look.
He was right, of course—which was the most upsetting part of the entire ridiculous ordeal. Sam had been so caught up in their kiss that he hadn’t even noticed what was happening around him. Once he finally did, he’d just stood there. Paralyzed.
What the heck was wrong with him?
Maybe he needed to talk to someone, like he had back in Chicago. Maybe moving to a desk job in a small town hadn’t been enough—maybe he should have left firefighting altogether and pursued something different. Something safe.
But what? Sam wouldn’t know what to do with a life that didn’t involve firefighting. It meant something to him. It always had.
“Yeah, she did,” Sam said.
“You know I would have done it, but she got to the fire extinguisher first.” Griff shook his head. “Who would have thought?”
Not Sam, that’s for sure.
Cinder leaned her warm, spotted form against his leg. Since they were off the clock, Sam offered her a peanut. Her black nose twitched, but she refused to take it.
She’s worried about me. Sam swallowed. Even his own dog knew he was in trouble.
“What are the odds everyone in town will forget about what happened and it won’t make the gossip rounds tomorrow?” Sam said.
“Zero, my dude.” Griff grinned into his beer. “Absolutely zero.”
Sam’s phone chimed with an incoming text. Had the rumor mill started already?
He pulled the phone from his pocket and snuck a glance, fully expecting to see a reprimand of some sort from Chief Murray pop up on his screen. The message wasn’t from Murray, though. It was from Jameson Dodd, Sam’s fire chief back in Chicago.
Don Evans just turned in his notice of retirement.
Interesting. Don Evans was his old department’s fire marshal. He had a good five or six years to go before he was eligible for a full pension, so he must have decided to take an early retirement package.
Another text popped up on the screen.
The job is yours if you want it.
Sam went still.
When he’d left Chicago, it had been for good. He‘d had no intention of ever going back.
Not that he had any ill will toward Jameson or any of his other former colleagues. Jameson had been like a surrogate father for years, especially after Sam’s father had died from a heart attack five years ago. Sam would have laid down his life for anyone at his old station in a heartbeat. He still would…especially if it meant he could undo all that had gone wrong in that last fire.
He’d just needed to start over again someplace new—someplace that wasn’t steeped in loss and painful memories. Someplace where he could keep to himself. Turtle Beach was supposed to be the beginning of a simple, stress-free life with no emotional attachments.
Of course that had been before Sam realized that the only reason Murray had hired him was because he’d been a college baseball star.
It had also been before he made the mistake of kissing Violet March.
“You know how to stop small-town gossip in its tracks, don’t you?” Griff gestured toward Sam’s phone with his beer bottle.
Clearly he’d assumed the text had been about the latest bingo night fiasco. Sam opted not to correct the misconception. There was no reason to tell his new friend about a job offer he had no interest in accepting.
“How?” Sam asked.
“You just give everyone something else to talk about. It’s as simple as that.” Griff shrugged. “Hitting a few home runs at the game on Saturday would definitely do the trick. If there’s one thing Turtle Beach loves more than gossip, it’s softball.”
A few homers.
Sam could definitely arrange that. Maybe he’d go up to Wilmington and hit some balls at the batting cages before Saturday’s game. Maybe he’d take a few of the guys from the fire station with him and teach them a thing or two. He did have a bet to win.
“This town is nuts,” Sam said. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“Everyone does,” Griff said. He pulled another bottle of beer from the cooler and offered it to Sam. “But it’s home.”
Is it?
Sam took the beer and twisted the cap off it. There was another gull hovering overhead, angling for a peanut. He tossed one up in the air, and his phone chimed with another incoming text from his old boss in Chicago.
Evans’s last day is next month. You’ve got thirty days to decide.
And then one last message, just as Sam was sliding his phone out of view.
Give it some thought. Maybe it’s time for you to come on home, son.
Chapter 11
In the days following the minor fire at bingo night—emphasis on minor, because really, Violet had seen votive candles with a bigger flame—Violet did her best to avoid Sam Nash.
He made it annoyingly easy.
They didn’t cross paths anywhere—not at the senior center, not at the dog beach, not at any of the local businesses lined up on either side of Seashell Drive. The only thing more irritating than his constant judgmental presence was his sudden absence. Where on earth was he hiding?
Violet didn’t have a clue, nor did she care…except that she was still waiting for a proper thank you. She had, after all, saved the man’s life. There’d been two firefighters in the room—three if you counted Cinder, which seemed legit since she was an official working dog and all—and Violet had been the one who‘d extinguished Sam’s flaming shirt sleeve.
No one seemed to care about that, though—probably because she’d also been the one who’d set the fire in the first place. But that had been a smooch-related accident, and it would never happen again. Ever.
Violet couldn’t even think about the kiss without wanting to put a paper bag over her head and hide for the rest of her life. Hot…so hot. She’d actually thought Sam had been referring to her when he’d said those things when in fact the man had been on fire. How could she have been so foolish?
“No more kissing,” she said as she piped frosting onto a tray of cherry vanilla cupcakes.
The second game of the Guns and Hoses softball tournament was set to start in half an hour, and Violet was ready.
She’d decorated dozens of cupcakes to look like softballs, complete with tiny red “stitching” she’d meticulously piped with her most delicate pastry tip. She’d also created a completely new blueberry–lemon cake recipe for her Team Blue cupcakes in support of the TBPD. She’d even gone to the blueberry farm just over the bridge yesterday and picked all the berries herself, because that was the sort of thing that serious bakers did.
Violet didn’t need a cranky-pants fireman in her life, no matter how great a kisser he was or how much he loved Dalmatians. She was a career woman. A lady boss. Wherever Sam had been and whatever he’d been doing the past four days, ten hours, and thirty-five minutes was none of her concern.
“No. More. Kissing,” she said again. It was her new mantra. Violet might never kiss another living soul for as long as she lived.
Except for Sprinkles, obviously. That was a given.
Violet glanced at her Dalmatian, sulking from the confines of her new dog crate at the far end of the cupcake truck. Poor thing. She missed lounging in her window seat, but Violet wasn’t taking a chance on her dog making another wild run around the bases. Sprinkles was just going to have to take one for the team, so to speak.
“Don’t worry.” Violet wiggled her fingers through the bars of the crate. Sprinkles gave them a mournful lick. “This is only temporary, I promise.”
“Mercy me, why is Sprinkles in jail?” Mavis’s voice drifted through the open window of the cupcake truck as Violet washed her hands.
Violet smoothed down her best frilly apron and headed toward the order counter.
“She’s not in jail,” Violet countered, although actually, it sort of looked like a doggy jail cell. At least it was pink and therefore totally on-brand for Sweetness on Wheels. “Sprinkles is just taking a little break in her new den until the game is over in case Sam tries to lure her out of the food truck with his magic clicking sounds.”
“Magic clicking?” Mavis snorted. “Is that the secret to Sam’s popularity?”
Violet wasn’t taking the bait, not this time. She was tired of talking about Sam Nash—almost as much as she was tired of thinking about him.
“No more kissing,” she muttered under her breath.
Mavis’s eyes narrowed. “What was that, dear?”
“Nothing.” Violet dusted a fine layer of sugar from her hands. Nothing at all. “Where are Opal and Ethel? They’re coming to the game, aren’t they?”
Violet hoped so. She wanted everyone in town to witness the crushing defeat of the fire department.
“Of course. They wouldn’t miss it. They’re in the bleachers, snagging seats in the front row.” Mavis waved a hand toward the grandstands. From his perch in the basket of Mavis’s walker, Nibbles the Chihuahua shivered in agreement. “I was hoping to chat with you in private for a minute.”
“Oh.” Violet looked up from her buttercream. “What’s up?”
She wondered if Mavis wanted advice on the little flirtation she had going with Larry Sims, Jeopardy! enthusiast extraordinaire. Then again, why would anyone come to Violet for dating advice?
The memory of Sam’s voice rose from her consciousness. So hot…
A messy blob of frosting came flying from her pastry bag and sailed straight through the pink bars of Sprinkles’s prison/crate and landed on the tip of Sprinkles’s nose. The Dalmatian’s tail beat against the inside of the crate in stunned surprise as she licked it away.
“Oops.” Focus! Violet set the pastry bag down and tried her best to concentrate on her friend. “What were you saying, again?”
“I started volunteering at the senior center’s library,” Mavis said. “We’re organizing all of the old issues of the Turtle Beach Gazette into binders for easy reading, and I came across something I thought you might like to see.”
Mavis reached into her handbag, nestled beside Nibbles in her walker basket. She pulled out a neatly folded bundle of newsprint and slid it across the counter of the food truck’s order window toward Violet.
The paper was yellowed with age, but otherwise in pristine condition. Violet wasn’t surprised. The residents of the senior center had enormous respect for the history of Turtle Beach. In so many ways, they were the glue that held their little oceanside community together.
Violet unfolded the paper, and the first thing she noticed was the date printed in the upper right-hand corner—December 25, 1982. Christmas Day, ten years before Violet had been born. A border of holly leaves surrounded the words Local News just below the banner, followed by a headline. Scenes from Christmas Eve in Turtle Beach.
Violet scanned the photos, which included a lovely shot of the town Christmas tree in the gazebo by the boardwalk, where it had been placed every year for as long as Violet could remember. There was a cute picture of a group of kids surrounding a “snowman” made from sand on the beach side of the island, topped with a Santa hat, along with a shot of a group of surfers dressed in Santa suits riding a wave. Violet felt herself smile, and then her gaze drifted further and her breath caught in her throat.
“It’s my mother.” The newspaper shook in Violet’s hand. “And Polkadot! I’ve never seen this picture before.”
“I didn’t think you had, and I knew you’d like it.” Mavis’s eyes twinkled. “Polkadot was just a tiny puppy, see?”
The dog’s tiny black-and-white spotted form was curled into the crook of Adeline March’s elbow—except Violet’s parents hadn’t gotten married until the following year, 1983, so she’d still been Adeline Sterling back then. She looked so young, smiling up at Violet from the faded newspaper. So happy.
“Look.” Violet squinted at the picture. “Polkadot has a big bow around her neck. Do you think she was a Christmas gift?”
Violet had always assumed her mother had adopted Polkadot, the way that Violet had rescued Sprinkles. From what her brothers had told her, Adeline was a big animal lover. She was one of the founding members of the Turtle Beach Sea Turtle Rescue Project and helped babysit turtle nests on autumn nights in order to help turtle hatchlings make it safely from the sand to the water’s edge. It had never occurred to her that someone may have given her Polkadot as a present.
“Maybe.” Mavis shrugged. Did she seriously not remember, or was she simply reluctant to talk about it, just like Violet’s dad? “I should probably go join Ethel and Opal. You keep that, dear. Just don’t tell anyone where it came from.”
Violet pressed the newspaper to her heart. “Are you sure? Don’t you need it for the binders at the senior center library?”
“I don’t think that one small section of a single day of the Gazette is going to make much of a difference. Besides, something tells me you need it more than the library does.” Mavis flashed Violet a wink before steering her walker in the direction of the bleachers.
Violet’s chest filled with warmth. Part of her thought she should return the photo to the senior center, but another part—the sweet, sentimental part that was constantly trying to drag more information about Adeline out of her father—was already planning on framing it and hanging it in a place of honor in her wing of the beach house.
She took a closer look at the black-and-white picture. Her mother wore jeans and an oversized fuzzy sweater that draped off one shoulder, the epitome of ’80s fashion. The smile on her face was so huge that it stretched from ear to ear. Polkadot couldn’t have been more than eight or nine weeks old. The bow tied around the baby Dalmatian’s neck looked comically huge in comparison.
The dog had to be a Christmas gift. Was it possible her mother had just been given the dog right before the picture was taken?
Violet was dying to know. She was mesmerized by the photo—so mesmerized that when someone greeted her from the other side of the order window in a familiar masculine voice, she jumped.
“Hello.” It was Sam, at long last. Cinder stood loyally by his side, as usual.
Violet acc
identally smiled at him. Ugh. “Good morning. I haven’t seen you around much the past few days. I was beginning to think you’d scooted back to Chicago.”
A girl could dream, right?
Although the thought of Sam moving away didn’t give her the jolt of elation that she might have expected it would. In fact, the prospect made her feel slightly sick to her stomach for some inexplicable reason. The words no more kissing swirled in her head, and it took superhuman effort not to stare directly at his mouth.
“No.” He shook his head, his expression a perfect blank, as usual. “I’ve just been busy getting the team in shape for today’s game.”
Oh. Violet blinked. Look who suddenly cares about softball.
Sam’s unprecedented enthusiasm for the game was her fault, of course. Nothing like a friendly wager and the prospect of dressing up like a cupcake to light a fire under a man—figuratively speaking of course. (This time.)
“That’s…great.” No need to worry. The police department will win. They have to win. “Can I get you a cupcake?”
“No, thanks. I was just walking past and you seemed like you might need someone to talk to…” His voice drifted off and he cast a glance at the newspaper still clutched tightly in her hands.
Violet practically had to bite her tongue to keep from telling Sam about Mavis’s find. She was desperate to share the picture with someone, and Sam had seemed genuinely interested when she’d told him about the other photographs she’d found of Adeline and Polkadot.
But she didn’t want to get Mavis in any sort of trouble, and Sam was the absolute last person she should be confiding in. They were adversaries. Competitors. Sworn enemies.
“I’m fine.” She slid the newspaper out of sight. “Everything is great.”
“Great,” Sam echoed. His gaze drifted over her shoulder for a second, and his brow furrowed.
Violet tilted her head. “What?”
“Nothing,” Sam said.
