Seal With a Kiss

by Jessica Andersen

  "I'll go see if Smitty's ready." Maddy headed for the door, turning when Violet called her back. "Yes?"

  "I, uh-" Violet cleared her throat. "I was thinking that maybe after the grand opening, you and I could go out sometime."

  "Out?" Maddy's voice almost squeaked on the word. "You and me?"

  Violet shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah. I want new curtains, maybe a bedspread, and some ... decorations or something. I thought with you running the inn for so long, you'd know the best places to go....

  Maddy's pleased smile was answer enough, as was her quick wash of color. "It's a date. We'll do it when you come back from your trip."

  Both women's eyes were drawn to the window at the sound of a large, off-tune truck pulling into the clamshell driveway.

  The horn beeped obnoxiously and Smitty hollered, "Truck's here, Vi! Hurry up and let's get going. We've got a sea lion to chauffeur and a deadline to meet!"

  Violet rolled her eyes and shouldered her overnight bag. "Yeah, we'll do it when I get back. That is, if I'm not in jail for murder or something."

  As she left the room, Violet thought she heard Maddy murmur, "Or something...."

  ccIt's about time, I was getting ready to leave without you." As the truck idled in the driveway of Maddy's inn, Smitty danced his feet over the gas and the clutch, winding the refrigerator truck's engine up to drown out the first part of Violet's response as she hiked herself into the high passenger seat and slammed the door.

  "-and another thing!" She paused when he just laughed and tapped on the gas again. "Oh, never mind."

  There was no backseat and the stick shift took up most of the middle, so she had to tuck her bag next to her feet. She squirmed around and kicked at the clutter until everything was where she wanted it, and Smitty had to force himself to look away from her legs, which seemed to go on for miles. There were days he could make himself ignore her legs. Then there were days like today.

  The idea of spending the next few days sharing the tiny truck cab with her was disturbing, and not because he disliked her. More because he didn't. Not really.

  "Here, this is for you two." Ishmael and Ahabone of them was actually named Peter, but Smitty could never remember which one-stood next to the truck with an empty specimen jar.

  "My parents always used a pickle jar when we road tripped as a family. I thought this would do." Ishmael leaned across Smitty and placed the jar on the dashboard. The label on it read "Pay to fight, make up for free. "

  Ahab nodded. "The rule is that whichever of you starts the fight has to put five bucks in the jar. At the end of the trip you take the money and go out for a nice dinner, where you make up for every nasty thing you said on the road."

  Smitty looked at the jar and imagined it bursting with fives, tens, and twenties by the time they passed the Maryland border headed south. His lips stretched into a smile.

  "Huh. We'll be able to take ourselves off on a short cruise, never mind dinner," Violet said, paralleling his thoughts like she used to do.

  He was relieved to see she was grinning. When she'd first come out of the house, she'd looked like she was walking to her own execution. It bothered him to think she was dreading their trip. Once upon a time, they would have loved just such a getaway.

  Once upon a time.

  "Oh, good." Brody approached the truck with his arm slung across his wife's shoulders. "The boys gave you their present. Great idea, isn't it?" Maddy looked up at her husband with a smile, and Smitty felt a quick jab under his heart at the sight of two people he loved so obviously in love with each other. Watching them fall for each other had reminded him of emotions long buried. Opportunities long missed.

  He glanced over at Violet, but she hadn't noticed the exchange. She was too busy rummaging in her "purse," a faded green canvas bag that had contained at various times everything from an oil-slicked herring gull to a diamond tiara donated for Dolphin Friendly's annual charity auction.

  "I think you're just sending us off so you can make some time with that pretty lady there." He grinned and gestured from Brody to Maddy. "If I'm not around, you won't have any competition, will you, boss?" He turned with a mock warning to the two younger members of the team. "Ishmael, Ahab, better watch out, he'll be sending you off on some trumpedup errand next, just so he can have some time alone with his wife."

  Ahab shook his head. "Oh, no sir. We're taking Streaker out to recount the harbor seal pups at the rookery off the Point."

  Brody's self-satisfied smile was confirmation enough that he'd planned the distraction. It had taken the three senior members of the team a full day to be sure of the original count. It might take the junior scientists twice that.

  "Okay, here it is," Violet announced, pulling her wallet out of the disreputable green bag. She selected two twenty-dollar bills and folded them neatly before leaning across the stick shift and reaching for the jar on the dash.

  She was wearing a shirt that Smitty was particularly fond of, a lightly ribbed tank that clung to her torso and left her strong shoulders and arms bare. One of those arms brushed against his hand as she stretched across the truck. His muscles clenched and his foot depressed the gas pedal, causing the engine to race higher. If he moved just an inch, he could touch the bare skin of her shoulder. If he rotated his hand just a bit, he could trail his finger down the back of her neck, and then-

  And then what? If she'd wanted him that way, she would have married him when he'd asked her back in grad school. She'd turned him down back then because she hadn't wanted him enough. Why would things be any different now?

  The engine slowed down as his foot lifted. He consciously unclenched his jaw. She pulled the specimen jar over to her side of the truck, unscrewed the lid and dropped the forty dollars inside before returning the jar to the dash.

  "What's that?" Maddy asked with merriment dancing in her eyes. "An apology for past fights?"

  "Ha!" Violet snickered. "No way." She grinned wickedly and Smitty felt an answering grin touch his lips when she said, "That's a down payment on things to come!"

  She leaned back in her seat, slid on a pair of dark sunglasses, and crossed her perfect legs. "Drive on then, Mr. Smith. We have miles to go before we sleep."

  She soon contradicted herself by nodding off before they'd passed over the Cape Cod Canal.

  Violet dreamed of water. Ever since she was a little girl, she'd dreamed of water-of being in water, flying over it, or walking next to it while the sun set and the sky turned pink and an auburn-haired grad student held her hand.

  "What did you think of Prof. Murphy's questions on oceanic convection cells, Vi?" He let go of her hand, crouched down, and pulled a pink spiral shell from the sand. "Here, it's as pretty as you are."

  Violet, fresh from the Midwest and unused to boys other than her brothers and cousins, blushed and took the shell. "I thought the questions were fair enough, but they were probably easier for people like you who grew up near the water. Until I came out here for school, I'd never even seen the ocean."

  Except in my dreams.

  Smitty shrugged, took her hand again, and squeezed it. She felt the contact all the way up her arm. "Yeah, but you're better at the theoretical stuff than I am. I bet it comes from having to argue your way through a large family."

  He left her, picked up a few rocks, and tossed them in the water. His mother had died just that summer, leaving him alone in the world. He'd told her about it once, but it wasn't a subject he liked discussing.

  She knew he envied her the big, sprawling Oliver clan she'd come from. In a way, she hadn't appreciated her extended family until she left for the marine sciences program at U.C. Santa Cruz. She didn't miss them so much anymore, but the little bit that Smitty had told her of his own childhood made her realize that a large extended family might not be the burden she'd always thought.

  So she dared to step in close to him and slide an arm around his waist like she'd wanted to do since they'd started hanging out together on the first day of orientation. She
gave him a little squeeze and relished the warm muscles beneath her hand. "I think what's important is what you learn from how you grow up. I didn't realize it before, but having so many relatives around was a good thing. I won't go back home to live-it's too far from the sea-but I like knowing they're there if I need them."

  He tipped his head toward her. "Sounds nice. You going to have a big family of your own so your kids will grow up with what you had?"

  Violet shrugged. She was twenty-two and hardly ready to consider that sort of thing. She'd think about children later, once she had her career firmly established. She wanted to work with marine mammals. Maybe manatees. Then perhaps she and her husband would talk about starting a family. "I guess. Someday."

  She felt Smitty's arm slide around her shoulders and loved the warmth of it, and the huskiness in his voice when he whispered, "Me too, Vi. Me too."

  And the world shook convulsively.

  "What the-?" Violet swore as the truck jolted again and her head smacked against the window. She grabbed for the door handle and hauled herself upright as the truck bucked like a frantic porpoise. "What's wrong?"

  Smitty hung on to the steering wheel with one hand and downshifted with the other, muttering about air brakes, bald tires, and grooved pavement. "Sorry to interrupt your nap, but Interstate 95 seems to be under spontaneous construction."

  Violet glanced out the window that still bore the imprint of her face. Great, she'd been drooling in her sleep. How attractive.

  Jersey barriers and orange barrels zipped past the window, slowing now that the truck was coming back under Smitty's control. The road in front of them was grooved and torn up. No wonder she'd been beaten back to consciousness. They were lucky they hadn't blown a tire, coming on such road conditions without warning.

  Life was simply easier on the ocean. No roads. No construction.

  No detours.

  She glanced over at Smitty again. His face had relaxed back into its familiar lines now that the immediate crisis had passed, and she couldn't help seeing the boy she'd been dreaming about in the man sitting beside her. Couldn't help wishing things had been different.

  Stupid, she chided herself. Don't be stupid.

  Feeling unaccountably raw, she aimed low. "There's no such thing as spontaneous construction. I'm sure you've been passing signs for miles that warned drivers like you not to speed through the construction zone." Then another thought struck. Her voice sharpened. "And why are we on 1-95? The Pike's quicker, or even 1-84."

  "Not on a weekday and not coming from Smugglers Cove." Smitty's fingers tightened on the steering wheel and she could see a muscle in his jaw tick. Like most men she'd known, Smitty always thought he knew the best set of directions, and woe to the woman-usually Violet-who dared challenge them.

  "But there's always construction on 95 and it meanders all along the coast. It's going to take forever to get through New York City, and by then we'll hit lunchtime traffic."

  Violet enjoyed the way his eyes went dark when his temper rose. She loved the feeling of blood humming just beneath her skin when their anger started to crackle. She wondered which one of them would owe five bucks for the battle she felt brewing. Then she decided she didn't care. She'd put forty dollars in the jar. She was fighting on account.

  And arguing with Smitty had become one of her favorite pastimes. At least when they were fighting, she knew he was paying attention to her.

  "Well if my copilot hadn't snored her way across Rhode Island and into Connecticut, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?" They were bumping slowly along the ruined road now, stuck behind an overloaded truck that was laboring to climb the hill ahead.

  "I don't snore," Violet said, offended. Okay, maybe she'd drooled, but she certainly hadn't snored.

  "If you say so, Vi." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "You ready for a snack and a gas break?" Clearly tired of the conversation and the traffic, Smitty took the next off ramp and pulled into the optimistically named Lovely Truck Stop.

  It was anything but lovely. But then again, anything short of the open ocean left much to be desired in Violet's opinion.

  "Sure. Whatever." She flipped the visor down to check how badly her nap had messed with her hair. Then she frowned. No mirror. What kind of a vehicle was this, anyway?

  She ignored Smitty's eye roll and hopped out of the truck as soon as it stopped. "See ya inside."

  If she played her cards right, Violet figured she could avoid pumping gas the whole way to Florida and back. She didn't mind fueling up Streaker or any of the other boats, but something about working with cars bugged her. She was a sea creature through and through, which was why there was no way she was letting Brody demote her to land duty. Even if it meant being nice to Smitty for the next few days.

  And who knew? Maybe they'd even have some fun on the way.

  She bought sodas and snacks for the two of them, grabbing Smitty's favorite sticky buns and chips along with pretzels and peppermints for herself. Figuring the caffeine would be a welcome jolt-they'd probably drive through till dark and stop somewhere in Virginia-she ordered a pair of coffees and added the fake sweetener and low-fat milk she knew he preferred-though why he used diet products she'd never understand. His body was perfect.

  Not that she noticed such things, of course.

  They passed each other in the parking lot and she tried to ignore the fact that he looked extra handsome with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his pants wrinkled slightly at the knees and cuffs.

  Maybe there was a touch of sentiment left in her mind from that dream, or maybe it was seeing him out of their shared element, but it struck her just how many years they'd known each other.

  And just how much she'd loved that red-haired young man who'd walked with her on the beaches of Monterey.

  "Everything okay?" He took the coffee from her and drank deep, sighing his appreciation. When she didn't answer, he cocked a brow. "Vi?"

  She shook herself mentally. That was a long time ago. Lots of water had passed beneath each of their keels since he'd been that boy. Since she'd been that green, naive girl.

  Since he'd turned from her to marry Ellen, and then after his divorce had welcomed her back into his life with nothing more than a pat on the shoulder.

  Smitty touched her arm where it was wrapped around the bag of snacks. She realized she was clutching the chips hard enough to grind them to dust. "What's wrong?" he asked in concern.

  Jumping at the sting of the contact, she almost spilled her coffee. She used the move to place her arm out of his reach. "Nothing's wrong. I'll see you back at the truck." She spun on her heel and marched back to the ugly box truck.

  And wondered why, for the second time that day, she felt like crying.

  Smitty watched her go and wished he knew what he'd done this time to upset her.

  Wished he knew how to fix it.

  Shaking his head, he walked into the truck stop to pay for the gas. The next few days were going to be difficult, just like the last few months had been. He didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to stand by and watch Violet mourn her lost relationship with Brody.

  He hadn't thought it was serious when his two best friends dated a few years ago. At least he'd convinced himself they weren't serious, because as much as he tried to hide it, the alternative bothered him. He'd wanted to ask Violet out when she'd returned to the group after her internship in Seattle, but the memory of his spurned proposal had held him back. She hadn't wanted to marry him in grad school, so why would he think she'd want him two years later?

  Then she and Brody had started dating, and it hadn't been an option. Smitty didn't poach on his best friend's girl.

  When Brody and Violet had broken up, it had barely caused a ripple in Dolphin Friendly, and Smitty had been relieved. Still, he hadn't found the guts to ask her out. Instead, he'd gotten her attention by sewing her into her hammock and sounding the alarms.

  It had been one of his finer moments, and it
had begun a new facet of their relationship. Perhaps they couldn't be a couple, Smitty had reasoned, but at least they could be friends. They had existed in an unsteady, practical joke-filled truce ever since.

  Since Brody's wedding, though, Violet's temper had grown steadily worse. Smitty knew her well enough to know that she used anger to beat back other emotions. The best he could figure, she was upset that Brody had married Maddy. And the thought annoyed him.

  Frowning now, he stepped up to the gas window. "Paying for pump six."

  "That it?" asked the pretty blond locked inside the bulletproof compartment. He nodded and pushed his company card through the slot. Glancing past the plate glass window, he saw a gleaming convertible next to the refrigerator truck. A tall, dark-haired man was leaning against the front of the expensive sports car, talking to Violet. He grinned, and perfect teeth flashed.

  Violet smiled back at him.

  Smitty clenched his jaw and signed the slip hard enough to tear the carbon paper.

  He crossed the parking lot just in time to hear her laughter ring out across the tarmac. He paused. When was the last time he'd heard Violet laugh? Really laugh? Not the brittle chuckle that signaled a practical joke gone well, but the carefree, young sound she was making now?

  He wasn't sure, but it seemed like it had been a long time. Maybe Brody was right. Maybe they all needed a change. However, he thought, narrowing his eyes, that change didn't need to include some roadside hustler in a sports car.

  Planning to dispatch the guy in short order, Smitty scowled as he walked up behind Violet and draped an arm around her shoulders. "Ready to hit the road, babe?" He glared at Mr. Convertible, who got the hint right away and backed off even before Smitty cocked an eyebrow and said, "We have lots of driving to do before bedtime."

  When the sports car had departed in a swirl of expensive fumes, Violet turned on him. Her eyes glowed with temper and she poked him in the chest, just above his heart.

  "Just who do you think you are? I was talking to him about the stranding center. You know... donations? Besides, we have plenty of time to get the sea lion back up to Cape Cod, and Brody said we should enjoy ourselves on the way down, didn't he?" She was toe to toe with him, ready to do battle. "So what was that little act all about?"