by Teri Wilson
Big mistake, obviously. All of it. Sam had seen the error of his ways in the hard glitter of tears in her eyes the moment she’d spotted him waiting for her in the police station lobby. If looks could have killed him, he’d already have been dead after coming face to face with Ed March and signing Violet’s exit paperwork while juggling the ridiculous ice cream cone. But the tearful glare Violet sent his way was far worse. It hit Sam right where it hurt most—the aching center of his soul.
“Come on, Cinder. We’re not giving up this easily,” he said, pushing through the door of the station and chasing Violet down Seashell Drive.
He sidestepped a couple walking arm-in-arm and nearly crashed into a group of pre-teens headed toward the beach access with flashlights in their hands, chatting excitedly about chasing ghost crabs in the sand. By the time he caught up with Violet, the ice cream was dripping all the way to his elbow.
“Violet, please. Can we talk?” he said to her ramrod-straight back.
Sprinkles cast a longing glance at him over her spotted shoulder and slowed to a stop.
“Sprinkles, no.” Violet gave the Dalmatian’s leash a gentle tug. “Come on. We are not stopping to chat with Marshal Sam right now.”
The Dalmatian refused to budge, though. She planted her four paws in place, dipped her head down low, and stayed put.
“Sprinkles, please.” Violet’s chin quivered, and Sam thought it might be the death of him when her tears spilled over and started streaming down her face.
He took a tentative step toward her. “Violet, love, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t call me that. My own father just arrested me because of all those tickets you kept giving me. In no way are you a hero in this scenario. You don’t get to bail me out of jail, call me sweet names, and bring me ice cream.” Her sea-glass eyes darted to the melting mess in his hand. “Are those sprinkles?”
A flicker of hope stirred deep in Sam’s chest. “Of course they are.”
“Nice try, but no thank you.” Violet’s eyes met his, she took a ragged breath, and for a second she looked so uncharacteristically defeated that Sam scarcely recognized her. “Sam, why are you here?”
Cinder and Sprinkles touched noses, greeting each other as if an eternity had passed since they’d last seen one another instead of just a few minutes. Sam clung to hope. Their dogs were two sides of the same coin, but that had never mattered. The Dalmatians were crazy about each other. If they could see past their differences and be the best of friends, couldn’t that mean that he and Violet could do the same?
Sam didn’t want to just be Violet’s friend, though. He wanted to be more—much more. He’d lost his heart to Violet from the very start, way back when she’d accused him of being a Cruella de Vil in fireman’s clothing. He just hadn’t realized it until Mavis had said those fateful words to him as seawater swirled around his feet on the dog beach.
Just remember, Sam. Love is a rare and precious thing. And when it’s real, it’s more than just black-and-white.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said tenderly, and he meant it in so many different ways.
He hadn’t meant to get her arrested. He hadn’t meant to make the current softball season even more embarrassing for her than the previous one. He hadn’t meant to fall in love.
But he had, and now there was no going back. He had no regrets…except maybe all those pink citations.
“Well, it did happen. And just because you bailed me out doesn’t mean it simply goes away.” Violet wrapped her arms around herself, and it looked she was trying her best to keep herself from falling apart. “You do realize that everyone on the island will be talking about this for weeks, right? Just like…”
“Just like Emmett,” he said. “I know.”
The Dalmatians tiptoed at his feet, trying to catch melting drops of ice cream on their pink tongues. Sam pitched the ice cream cone into a nearby trash can. He needed to think. He needed to figure out how to fix things before it was too late.
“This wasn’t like that. I had no idea you weren’t paying the fines. And I definitely had no idea that you’d end up in jail.” Sam’s shoulders slumped.
Fire code violations were like traffic tickets. This would never have happened in Chicago. Turtle Beach was a tiny community, though. Unpaid tickets didn’t go unnoticed, particularly when the offender was the police chief’s daughter.
“We can get past this.” Sam nodded to himself, remembering Griff’s advice from the night they’d sat on the pier together drinking beer and eating peanuts. “Once everyone in Turtle Beach has something else to talk about, they’ll forget all about this.”
She crossed her arms. “If you think that something else will be us going to the Fireman’s Ball together, you’re gravely mistaken.”
Ouch.
“And it doesn’t matter if everyone else forgets about it, because I won’t.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “This wasn’t just your fault, Sam. It was mine too. I feel like a complete fool. Again.”
Violet sighed and began walking down Seashell Drive again. The Dalmatians—who in the absence of the discarded ice cream had stretched out on the ground together side by side—scrambled to their feet and followed, leaving Sam no delusions about whose side they were on.
“Cinder, come back here,” he said as her red leash grew taut.
But as Sam well knew, there was no stopping a stubborn Dalmatian. So he chased after his dog, and when he’d gotten a few paces behind Violet, she spun around again.
“And another thing…” she said, jabbing her pointer finger at his chest.
Sam stopped as abruptly as he could, but they still crashed into one another. Violet toppled, and he reached out to grab her and keep her from falling.
It felt so good to touch her again—too good. He pressed his forehead against hers and whispered her name. A plea. “Violet.”
In a seemingly choreographed effort to keep their owners together, even if just for a short while, the Dalmatians both trotted in circles around Sam and Violet, winding them closer together with the dog leashes.
“Well, this is awkward,” Violet said, cheeks blazing Sam’s new favorite color—cupcake pink. “You know, Sprinkles has been on her best behavior lately. This is your dog’s bad influence.”
Thank you, Cinder. Sam arched a brow. “You think so?”
He could feel Violet’s heart crashing against his own, and he didn’t want to move. Not ever.
“Absolutely. Your Dalmatian is the one who tossed us into the bay and your Dalmatian went a little nuts today at the softball game, too.” Violet glanced at Sam’s mouth and then back toward his eyes. “I’m pretty sure that’s why you hit that bloop single.”
“How do you know I didn’t do that on purpose?” He dipped his head closer, close enough to brush his lips along the soft skin of her cheek. “Maybe I wanted softball season to go on forever.”
“You must really want to climb into that cupcake costume.” She took a deep breath, and her softness pressed more firmly against Sam’s chest. “Which is a good thing, because Sprinkles doesn’t need obedience lessons. She’s even started making my bed in the mornings. I didn’t have to teach her how. She just picked it up on her own. I told you she was naturally sweet.”
Violet tipped her face upward until her mouth was just a breath away from Sam’s. Every cell in his body was on fire, and there wasn’t a culinary torch in sight. He’d never longed for a kiss so badly in his life. But something she’d just said was fighting its way into his consciousness, wrestling for proper attention.
He pulled back a fraction of an inch. “Can you repeat that, please?”
“I said that Sprinkles is naturally sweet. I’ve been saying that all along.” Violet rose up onto her tiptoes, and her arms wound around Sam’s neck. “Now kiss me before I change my mind. I’m still quite furious with you.”
&n
bsp; Just shut up and do as she says, idiot. But he couldn’t. A bad feeling had begun to crawl its way up his spine, and he needed to get to the bottom of things. “That’s not what I meant. I’m taking about the bed-making thing. When exactly did that start?”
“I tell you I want you to kiss me, and you want to talk about my dog?” Violet tried to take a backward step, but the dog leashes kept her tethered to Sam. She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I don’t know…a week and half ago or so.”
“Right around the time we got drenched by the fire sprinkler at the senior center.” Sam shook his head. He couldn’t believe this, but it explained so much about Cinder’s bonkers behavior lately. “The day we lost sight of the dogs for a while, yes?”
“I guess so, why?” Violet glanced down at her Dalmatian.
“Because that’s not Sprinkles you’re looking at. That’s Cinder.” Sam shook his head. Those meddling retirees had gone too far. They’d crossed a line, big time. “Don’t you see? We’ve been tricked into falling for a Dalmatian impersonation. Mavis, Opal, and Ethel switched our dogs’ collars when we weren’t looking.”
Chapter 18
In retrospect, Violet really should have seen it. How had she not? Overnight, Sprinkles had gone from being her naughty, mischievous self to practically perfect in every way, à la Mary Poppins.
The bet was to blame, and Violet herself, obviously. She’d been so eager to believe that Sam was wrong about her Dalmatian—that Sprinkles was completely fine and lovable just the way she was and didn’t need any formal obedience training—that she’d somehow convinced herself that her sweet, spirited dog had transformed into a model Dalmatian on a dime.
It seemed so obvious, looking back. What she really didn’t understand was how Sam had failed to catch on to what was happening. In Cinder’s place, Sprinkles had wreaked havoc on his predictable, orderly life. Someone like Sam should have noticed right off the bat that something was wrong.
“I can’t believe I fell for this,” he said, as if echoing Violet’s sentiments. He scrubbed his hands over his face as he paced back and forth in front of Mavis’s little sofa.
The moment Sam shared his realization with Violet, they’d untangled themselves from the Dalmatians’ intertwined dog leashes and gone straight to the senior center. Something this dire couldn’t wait until morning. Now the Charlie’s Angels sat in a row on the loveseat in Mavis’s room, looking contrite and every bit their age in the fluffy terrycloth bathrobes and matching slippers that Violet had given them for Christmas the previous year.
“Please explain what you were thinking.” Violet threw her hands in the air, exhausted on every possible level. Would this awful night ever end? “How could you think that switching our dogs was a good idea?”
Mavis, Opal, and Ethel exchanged guilt-ridden glances.
“It was Mavis’s idea,” Ethel muttered.
“Oh, please.” Mavis rolled her eyes. “You act like I forced you and Opal into it. You were the one who called the firehouse and lured Sam here, or have you forgotten?”
Ethel cast a sheepish glance at Sam, who looked as tired as Violet felt. Cinder and Sprinkles, back in their proper collars, sat lumped together, yawning intermittently as if bored stiff by the entire episode.
Opal, sandwiched between Mavis and Ethel, held her hands out. “Stop bickering. All three of us are equally guilty. If one of us is going to get tossed into jail for luring Sam to the scene of the doggy crime, then all three of us are going.”
Mavis held out her wrists, ready to be strapped into invisible handcuffs. “Go ahead, Sam. Throw the book at us.”
“No one is going to jail, ladies,” Sam said.
Violet’s annoyance flared. “Excuse me?”
“Right.” Sam hung his head. “No one else is going to jail.”
Violet wouldn’t have gone so far as to say that she was grateful for the canine switcheroo, but she was definitely thankful for the timing of the discovery. Had Sam’s realization occurred a second or two later, she’d have kissed him right in the middle of Seashell Drive. Would she ever learn?
No, apparently not. Which was why the moment this confrontation was over, she was ceasing any and all interaction with her nemesis. In fact, from here on out, he wouldn’t even be her nemesis anymore. She was pulling out of the bet. From this point forward, Violet would have no reason to interact with Sam in any capacity.
She pressed on her breastbone to still the ache in her heart. She could do this. The epiphany she’d had back in her jail cell had been real. New leaf, new life, new priorities.
“You still haven’t explained why,” she said to her friends.
“It’s simple, really.” Mavis shrugged. “We just thought if you took care of Cinder that you might develop an appreciation for Sam’s positive traits, and vice versa. If Sam got to know Sprinkles, for example, he might…”
“…come to love her sense of whimsy? Realize that life is sweeter with a dash of the unexpected?” Sam said. His gaze slid toward Violet, and his dreamy blue eyes were full of questions.
She looked away. “I suppose you three thought Cinder would make me appreciate the comfort of her heroic sense of honor.”
“Something like that,” Mavis said quietly.
Sam moved to stand in front of Violet so she had no choice but to meet his gaze.
“Did it work?” He smiled into her eyes.
Yes. Oh my gosh, yes!
Longing whispered through her. The old Violet wanted to throw her arms around Sam and admit how much she wanted him. She didn’t care if people talked. She didn’t care what her dad and brothers had to say. She didn’t even care about the stupid softball tournament. She just wanted to be with him. For real. No more sneaking stolen kisses, no more pretending that she couldn’t stand the sight of him. She’d fallen hard for Sam Nash, and as crazy as the fall had been, Violet never wanted it to end.
But she wasn’t that girl anymore. Violet had left that naive, romantic soul back in the jail cell at the Turtle Beach police station. She’d promised her father she’d be more responsible from here on out…and as torturous as it was, the here on out started right now.
“Don’t be silly,” she lied. “Of course it didn’t work.”
Sam‘s eyes narrowed, and his gaze bored into her with such intensity that she started trembling from head to toe.
“You sure about that, love?” he said in a voice so soft and tender that it made her want to weep.
There it was again—the endearment that had caught her so off guard the first time he’d said it, Violet had nearly crumbled inside.
She couldn’t keep having this conversation. She had to put an end to things once and for all.
“Completely sure.” She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away.
Behind Sam, Mavis, Opal, and Ethel watched her with so much love and concern in their eyes that Violet couldn’t help but think that maybe she hadn’t missed out on a mother’s love as much as she’d always thought she had. Maybe she’d actually experienced it threefold.
She squared her shoulders and forced herself to meet Sam’s gaze. “This Dalmatian flirtation, or whatever it was, is over.”
“I guess everything can go back to normal now,” Sam said, and his tone carried just a hint of the straitlaced man she’d first met back on the dog beach—the one she’d thought had been stealing her dog when in fact he’d come to steal her heart.
“I guess it can,” Violet said.
Then she clipped the pink cupcake leash onto the actual Sprinkles’s collar and left without a backward glance, all the while wondering if perhaps normal wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
***
Thirteen days later, Sam knocked on the open door of Chief Murray’s office at the firehouse. “Chief Murray, can I have a word?”
Murray Jones looked up from his desk and scowled. He’d bee
n doing a lot of that lately—scowling. Mostly at Sam, both on and off the softball diamond. “Fine. But make it quick. We have practice in less than an hour.”
Sam was aware. Murray’s dreams of winning the Guns and Hoses softball tournament in a sweep had died, and the following Saturday he’d watched from the sidelines as his star player struck out a record three times. It seemed that when Sam had been reunited with his lost Dalmatian, his mojo went inexplicably missing.
That had been Griff’s take. Sam knew better, of course. He wasn’t missing his mojo. He missed Violet. He missed her joie de vivre. He missed her unflappable optimistic attitude. He missed the happy chaos that had taken over his life from the instant he’d fallen in love with her.
Sam still couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it had happened. He just knew that it had. He’d arrived in Turtle Beach a broken man, and somewhere along the way, Violet March and her kooky Dalmatian had put him back together.
He loved his dog, and he was happy to have Cinder back. The trouble wasn’t with his Dalmatian—it was with Sam himself. He’d gotten a taste of how it felt to be alive again, and he couldn’t go back to be being closed off and isolated. If Violet ever gave him another chance—which was looking increasingly doubtful since she hadn’t spoken a word to him since they’d confronted Mavis, Ethel, and Opal at the retirement center—he wanted to be worthy of her this time around. He knew that wanting him to trust her was asking a lot, and he needed to show himself, and Violet, that he was willing to do the same. He was willing to risk everything to build the kind of life he wanted. A life rich with feeling and possibility.
“What is it, Nash?” Chief Murray folded his hands on the surface of his desk as Sam took a seat in the only available chair in the room.
“I’ve gotten an offer to go back to my old department in Chicago,” Sam said.
