by Teri Wilson
Long romantic walks on the shore. Right.
Violet’s beautiful face flashed in Sam’s mind—her sea-glass eyes, her tousled mermaid hair, her cherry-red lips. Sugary sweet…achingly kissable.
His breath clogged in his throat. “That’s not…”
“Relax, I was just kidding. Are you interested in the job or not?”
“I’m interested,” Sam heard himself say. Until that precise moment, he’d had no clue how he might respond. “Maybe.” He swallowed. “Probably.”
What was he saying? This wasn’t the kind of decision he should be making on a whim—particularly not after the day he’d had.
Cinder pawed at Sam’s leg, and she let out a mournful whine.
Sam shook his head. Not now, Cinder.
“I’m going to take that as a tentative yes,” Chief Dodd said. “I’m not asking for a commitment yet. I just needed to know if I was barking up the entirely wrong tree.”
Sam’s gaze strayed toward the bay again, and his breath hitched when he saw Violet riding her bicycle along the boardwalk again. Sprinkles ran alongside her, as usual. Sam couldn’t take his eyes off the pair of them, cruising along the bay against the backdrop of the setting sun.
Chief Dodd’s voice on the other end of the phone barely registered. “Sam? Hello? Are you still there?”
“Barking…tree,” Sam said absently.
“What was that?” Chief Dodd said.
“Actually, something just came up.” Fresh energy filled Sam. If he didn’t act now, he’d probably change his mind. “Can we finish talking about this later?”
“Um, sure. Give it some more thought and—”
“Great. Talk soon.” Sam ended the call and tucked his phone away.
Violet and Sprinkles were coming more into focus as they drew closer, like a beautiful mirage somehow coming to life.
“What do you think, Cinder? Are you in the mood for a bike ride?”
Ten minutes later, Sam and Cinder were riding toward Violet and Sprinkles on the opposite side of the boardwalk. Violet didn’t see him at first, which meant Sam got to witness the moment when her face lit up at the sight of him. Backlit by the deepening sunset, her strawberry-blonde hair looked almost fiery red. The smile she gave him made Sam’s heart feel like it was being squeezed in a vise.
Sam lifted his right hand to wave at her, but just as he let go of the handlebars, Cinder launched into warp speed. Her leash, wrapped loosely around Sam’s left hand, went taut as she dragged him—bicycle and all—toward Violet and Sprinkles.
Violet’s eyes went wide and she called out for him to be careful, but no sooner had the words left her mouth than Sprinkles took off, barreling toward Cinder.
Sam took his feet off the pedals and tried to slow down by planting his feet on the pavement, but Cinder was moving too fast for him to get any purchase. Before he knew it, the bike bounced off the curb, through a thick patch of seagrass, and into the middle of the street. Cars honked, mopeds swerved, and an ancient VW van with surfboards tied to its roof slammed on its brakes to avoid running over him. Sam sailed past the van just in time to see the pile of surfboards fly off the roof and scatter in the roadway like fallen dominoes.
“Cinderrrrrrrrr!” he yelled.
At the same time, he could hear Violet screaming Sprinkles’s name, but neither of the dogs was listening. They just kept sprinting at one another in a flurry of spots and happy barks.
“Cinder, stop!”
Sam could barely look. They were barreling straight toward a full-on Dalmatian disaster of epic proportions. When they made it to the other side of the boardwalk, Cinder dragged him through a group of beachgoers walking out of the ice cream shop. People darted out of the way and ice cream plopped onto the ground with a splat.
Sam jerked his handlebars hard to the left in order to avoid plowing into a patch of grass where a few residents from the senior center had gathered to play bocce ball, and when he did, the two Dalmatians ended up running side-by-side. The dogs slowed down just enough for Sam to try planting his feet on the ground again, but it was too late. They’d reached the end of the boardwalk.
Sam’s bicycle slid right into the cool blue water of the bay, followed immediately by Violet’s cruiser bike. Their front wheels lodged into the wet sand, stopping the bikes abruptly while Sam and Violet tumbled into the shallows.
Sam scrambled to get to his feet. “Violet? Are you okay?”
“What was that? Your perfect dog just lost her mind,” she wailed, pushing wet hair from her eyes. Then a tiny silver fish leapt from inside the bodice of Violet’s drenched eyelet sundress and flopped into the water.
Sam clamped his mouth shut. Whatever you do, don’t laugh. She could have gotten seriously hurt. They both could have, plus the dogs. It really wasn’t funny.
But when the fish shimmied past him, Sam lost it. He laughed so hard that he nearly doubled over. And when Violet joined in, the sound of her laughter smoothed away his worries of what could have been.
So this was what it was like to live in the moment? It had been so long for Sam that he’d forgotten what it felt like. He wanted to bottle it like one of those messages that people wrote and tossed out to sea.
Violet splashed him, and he splashed her back. Sam’s fingertips were beginning to prune.
Meanwhile, their Dalmatians stood in a perfectly matched pair, peering at Sam and Violet from the edge of the boardwalk, heads cocked just so.
Dry as a bone.
***
“That was totally your dog’s fault.” Violet glared at Cinder, resting in a heap of black-and-white spots with Sprinkles in the living room of Sam’s beach cottage, and then back at Sam.
Sam did his best to appear contrite, but it was awfully difficult when Violet March was standing in his home with her damp hair piled on top of her head and her graceful legs sticking out from beneath one of his favorite faded Chicago Fire Department T-shirts.
What kind of gentleman would he have been if he hadn’t offered up the use of his washer and dryer for her pretty dress while he changed the tire on her cruiser bike? As she said, the entire ordeal had definitely been his dog’s fault. It was the least that Sam could do, even for his sworn enemy.
“Yeah, she’s having an off day,” he said, as if that could explain away being dragged into the bay.
“I thought Cinder didn’t have off days.”
So did I. “Your clothes should be dry soon. And your bicycle is good to go.”
“Thank you.” She glanced down at the fire department crest splashed across the T-shirt she was wearing. “There’s no way I could possibly go home like this. People would talk.”
“I hate to tell you this, but people are probably already talking.” Sam wouldn’t be surprised if a picture of them both being dragged down the boardwalk by their unruly Dalmatians made the front page of tomorrow morning’s Gazette. Accompanied, of course, by an exclusive interview with the fish that had popped out of Violet’s dress.
“I can deal with that. But this…” She took the edge of the T-shirt between her pointer fingers and thumbs and did a mock curtsy. “Not so much.”
Sam laughed, but he wanted to tell her to take the shirt with her, to sleep in it on moonlit summer nights and think of him.
How had his calm, quiet life spun so completely out of control? Nothing was as it should be—not his job, not his dog, not his carefully guarded heart. He needed to reel himself back in before someone got hurt. And make no mistake, if these crazy Dalmatian antics continued, someone would.
“Is that the dog beach?” A smile tipped Violet’s lips as she studied the framed watercolor he’d bought in the new gallery on the boardwalk.
“Looks like it.” Sam had the sudden urge to throw himself between her and the painting before she discovered her own tiny image delicately rendered on the horizon.
/> But if she noticed it, she didn’t let on. “I like your cottage. It’s not at all what I expected. It’s very homey.”
Sam wondered if she was alluding to his unmade bed but thought it best not to go there. “It’s rented.”
I haven’t put down roots here. I don’t even know if I’m staying.
“I see.” Her smile dimmed somewhat, and she wrapped her arms around herself.
“Violet, you can sit down if you like. I’m not going to bite.”
“My previous experience with firefighters says otherwise,” she said, but she lowered herself onto his sofa and tucked her legs beneath her.
Sam pulled a blanket from a nearby easy chair and handed it to her. “Yeah, I heard a little something about that.”
“Of course you did. This is Turtle Beach.” Violet rolled her eyes, but beneath her bravado, Sam could see a hint of vulnerability.
Beneath all of her whimsy and charm, Violet was a real person with real feelings. And as he looked at her, curled up on his sofa, a world away from her quirky bingo-playing friends and the food truck topped with its spinning pink cupcake, he realized something.
On the surface, Violet lived a charmed life—the town darling who resided in the biggest house on the island with her doting family and lovable-but-naughty Dalmatian. She believed the best in people, Sprinkles included. Until she’d discovered he’d been a baseball star, she’d even chosen to believe the best in Sam and ventured into enemy territory to bring him apology cupcakes. Her chosen profession involved frilly aprons, cake, and copious amounts of buttercream.
But all those things weren’t evidence of a life without hardships. Quite the contrary. Violet had known loss since the day she’d been born. She’d been hurt and taken advantage of by a man she’d trusted, and every living soul on the island knew about it. And still she’d chosen to embrace the lighter side of life—the good side.
If anyone knew how brave that choice could be, it was Sam. They were the antithesis of one another. When things had gotten tough in his own life, he’d withdrawn. He’d chosen to hide in his darkness while Violet was determined to bloom, leaning as hard as she could into the light.
“Do you want to know what the worst part of it was?” Her eyes were huge pools of endless blue, and Sam wanted to dive right in.
“Tell me.” He sat down on the opposite end of the sofa. There couldn’t have been more than half a foot between them, but it felt as wide as a canyon.
“I should have seen it coming. It was just so obvious. Everyone tried to warn me—my dad, my brothers, my friends. He was the star player for the Hoses, and suddenly he was madly in love with me, right at the start of the season.” She sighed. “I knew better. I knew that dating a firefighter would be complicated, but I wanted so badly to believe in a happily ever after that I charged ahead anyway.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, Violet,” Sam said. “Even Cinder, remember?”
Violet shifted so that they were shoulder to shoulder, as they’d been back at the senior center on Mavis’s loveseat. “Well, I’ll never make that one again.”
“Believe in happy endings?” Sam couldn’t see it. Believing in such things seemed built into her DNA. He reached for her hand and his fingertips wound through hers, seemingly of their own volition.
“Date a fireman.” Violet turned toward him, and her gaze dropped slowly…purposefully…to his mouth. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Sam echoed, heart pounding hard in his chest. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to cup her face in his hands and kiss her silly.
“I mean, take you and me for instance.” She rested a delicate hand on his chest. “It just couldn’t happen.”
“Nope,” he said, as he reached to wind a lock of her hair around his fingertip. He’d been wanting to do that since the day he’d first seen her on the beach, accusations of dognapping notwithstanding.
She inched closer toward him. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re not attracted to each other, then.”
Sam’s head dipped lower, until her lips were just a whisper away. “Who says I’m not attracted to you?”
“You can’t be attracted to me.” Violet’s breath was warm against his mouth—warm and impossibly sweet. “And I can’t be attracted to you. That’s how this whole enemy thing works.”
“I’m beginning to think having an archenemy is overrated,” Sam groaned.
This was torture. If he didn’t kiss her, he thought he might die from longing.
He moved toward her, brushing his lips against hers as slowly and gently as he possibly could. They were playing a dangerous game here, and he didn’t want to push her into anything. Not ever.
She smiled against his lips. “Careful, there. The last time we did this one of us burst into flames.”
“Worth it,” Sam murmured, and just as he prepared to give her a proper, thorough kiss, the dryer buzzed, indicating her clothes were dry.
Sprinkles and Cinder sprang to life, barking in alarm at the sudden noise. Their spotted heads swiveled to and fro, searching for Sam and Violet. Then the dogs wedged their way between them on the sofa, tails wagging, covering their faces with Dalmatian kisses.
Sam was going to have to have a serious chat with Cinder. Being dragged into the bay was one thing, but interrupting a kiss was crossing a line. Even so, this was the best night he’d had in as long as he could remember. He just wished he knew what it meant. Were he and Violet really enemies, or were they something else…something more?
So much for living in the moment, he thought as he waited for Violet to change out of his Chicago FD shirt and back into her white eyelet dress.
He didn’t know why he was letting himself get carried away like this. His life had never been such a mess. Adding romance into the mix seemed like the worst possible decision he could make, especially if that romance was with the police chief’s daughter.
“It’s just you and me, Cinder,” he whispered, running his thumb over one of his Dalmatian’s soft ears. “Right, girl?”
Sam wished the dog could talk. Not only did she have a lot of explaining to do for her recent behavior, but he could have used some advice from someone who knew him inside and out.
The door to the bathroom swung open and Violet stepped out with Sprinkles trailing in her footsteps. Violet had twisted her hair into a messy bun on top of her head, and her dress looked as good as new.
“We should probably get going,” she said. “There’s a big game tomorrow.”
She offered him his T-shirt, folded into a neat square.
He pushed it back toward her. “You keep it. Just don’t let anyone catch you wearing it.” He winked. “Obviously.”
Surprise splashed across her face, but she quickly recovered and echoed him as he’d done just a little while ago. “Obviously.”
Violet pressed the shirt to her heart, then bent to clip Sprinkles’s leash onto her cupcake collar. Sam held the front door open for them and they stepped out onto the deck.
The moon shone high overhead, and stars filled the sky, shimmering like tiny diamonds on a dark velvet pillow.
Violet smiled up at him. “I’m still waiting for a thank you for saving your life, by the way.”
He laughed. “Never going to happen, nemesis.”
And then she was gone, pedaling her way back to enemy territory on her cruiser bike with her black-and-white dog trotting alongside her. Sam stood barefoot on the deck and watched them until they disappeared from view. To his right, he could hear the tumbling roar of the ocean, and to his left, moonlight glittered on the quiet surface of the bay. Sam’s rented cottage lingered in the space in between.
When he went back inside, he found Cinder sleeping in a tight ball in the center of his perfectly made bed—not a wrinkle or rumpled bedsheet in sight.
Chapter 16
Sam wasn’t sure w
hat to make of the made bed. He wanted to take it as a sign that Cinder had come to her senses and everything about their orderly, predictable life was once again intact.
The following morning, though, the Dalmatian jumped off the foot of the bed at first light and headed straight for the deck to bark at passing seagulls. Sam stumbled behind her, pausing to turn on the coffee maker and pull on some clothes so he could take his dog for a quick run on the beach before the softball game.
Nothing about today could be left to chance. It was the fire department’s one and only opportunity to take the championship in a shutout. Chief Murray had sent out an email in the wee hours of the morning, announcing that he would spring for a deep sea fishing trip for the entire department if they could beat the TBPD for a third straight time this morning. Griff had responded in a private text to Sam. The message contained no text, just a link to a new fishing pole he intended to buy once they sealed the deal.
Sam definitely should have gone to batting practice the night before. Not that a couple of hours at the cages would have made much of a difference in skill level. In fact, Sam had always been a big believer in rest the night before a big game. But by not showing up, he knew that he’d be the one to take the blame if the Hoses didn’t win today. In Murray’s eyes, any potential loss would be one hundred percent his fault. There’s no “I” in team, etcetera, etcetera.
Fine. Sam would rather Murray be mad at him than at any of the other guys on the team. They’d really stepped up in the past few weeks. Not one of them had struck out in the last game. The pitcher hadn’t walked a single player on the police department’s roster. For the first time in his life, Griff had hit a home run. The following Monday, he’d put the game ball in a plexiglass display cube on the top shelf of his locker in the firehouse, as proud as if they’d won the World Series.
Sam smiled just thinking about it as he and Cinder picked up their pace, running to the dog beach so he could let her off her lead for a few minutes of free playtime before they had to get back and change for the game. If Guns and Hoses had been just a normal first responder rivalry instead of whatever lunacy it had devolved into in Turtle Beach, Sam might have been forced to admit that he was starting to rediscover his love of the game.
