Seal With a Kiss Page 10

  "I still can't believe you talked the city council into okaying that trench," Smitty said, still amazed by the memory.

  She grinned. "I merely pointed out that six decaying pilot whales weren't going to add to their upcoming Harbor Arts Festival, nor would banners explaining how they sentenced helpless marine mammals to death because they didn't want their sandbar messed with."

  "And besides," Smitty remembered, "after the teenage chain gang you assembled dug out the trench and we herded the whales to safety, we filled it in good as new."

  "More or less. I wasn't really that worried about the sandbar." Violet smiled. "I just wanted to save the whales. Anyway, it was a good day."

  "The best." He repeated her earlier words, and a sense of contentment stole over the cab.

  "Here's the truck stop," she said as they passed another sign. "Want to read the next question before we pull in, so we can be thinking about our answers?" She downshifted and signaled before easing the truck onto the off-ramp.

  When he didn't answer right away, she glanced over. "What?"

  "Haven't you guessed the next question? They come in pairs."

  "Oh." She pulled into the truck lot and killed the engine, set the parking brake, and asked the question for both of them.

  "What was your worst day?"

  GGHow many bags of ice?"

  Violet rolled her eyes at the clerk behind the counter. "A hundred. Do you have that many?"

  "What do you need with that much ice?" The kid couldn't have been more than twenty, but he winked as if to say, Don't worry, baby. I can take care of 'a pretty little thing like you.

  Feeling raw from the impromptu soul baring that had taken place in the truck, and too tired to go through the usual I'm having a party, wink, wink, nudge, nudge routine, she snapped, "Because I have a twelve-hundred-pound trained sea lion outside in a refrigerator truck that's not refrigerating, and if I don't keep him cool between here and Cape Cod then he could very well die. Okay? Do you have a hundred bags of ice or not?"

  While the youth stammered that they only had fifty bags of ice on-hand at any given time, Violet felt a tap on her shoulder. She spun, figuring Smitty had snuck up on her again.

  It was a stranger with a baseball cap and a neatly trimmed moustache. "I couldn't help overhearing, ma'am, but did you say you've got a sea lion overheating in a 'fridge truck outside?"

  "Yes. Yes, I do, and no, you can't meet the sea lion." She pressed a hand to her eyes, trying to stave off the headache that seemed inevitable.

  Smitty had come up beside her during the exchange, and handed her a cup of coffee. She swigged it gratefully.

  "What Violet meant to say was `yes, we have a sea lion in a broken refrigerator truck outside.' " Smitty nudged her and she nodded at Mr. Moustache.

  "Sorry," she said. "I'm a little stressed."

  The stranger nodded. "Understandable. The reason I asked, though, is because I've worked on a few of those trucks in my time. Maybe I can help with the cooling unit."

  Quicker than he could say `moustache,' they whisked the man out to the truck, where he gave the old refrigeration unit a checkup. He muttered a few things while he tinkered, then went to his own truck and returned with a small toolbox.

  "This thing get banged around recently? You have an accident or something?" the man-whose name was Roy-asked as he fiddled with the compressor's guts.

  "No. No accident," Smitty answered, just as Violet said, "Yes, the unit was hit by a flying sea lion crate several times while we were trying to load it."

  "A flying ... ? Never mind," Roy said. "You knocked one of the hoses out of its fitting. I've got it cobbled back together now. Start 'er up and let's see what happens."

  Violet started 'er up and the unit chattered to life. She heard cheers from outside. It seemed that they had attracted something of a crowd. She supposed it wasn't every day that a sea lion visited the Travelers' Assistance truck stop.

  Cheered by the success of the repair, and just starting to think everything was going to be okay, she jumped back onto the pavement just in time to hear a squawk from Smitty. "Violet!"

  She saw that the doors at the back of the truck were open, and her heart sank to her stomach. She sprinted back, yelling, "What's wrong? Should I call a vet?"

  Not that the local cat and cow vet would be much help if Jasper was overheating.

  But Jasper wasn't overheating. It was better than that. And in a way, worse.

  She skidded to a stop and stared. Whitish goo oozed out of the back of the truck and fell with a plop onto the dark pavement. The interior light of the refrigerator compartment wasn't great, but it was enough to illuminate Smitty's form next to Jasper's crate. Smitty was holding a limp torn piece of black plastic. More of the white glop dribbled from it.

  "Hork, hork!" Jasper bobbed his head and then, incredibly, belched. Instead of looking dry and overheated like she might have expected, he looked wet and vaguely ... slimy.

  "What happened?" Violet squeaked, aware that the crowd of truckers had pressed closer to see Jasper.

  "I think ..." Smitty's voice sounded funny, like he wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or run screaming. "I think he ate through one of the bags. Or two." Another blob fell. "Or all of them."

  Violet's gaze landed on a chunk floating in the white goo. It looked like a half-eaten pepperoni pizza. The goo could've been melted ice cream. The slime on Jasper's back could be liquefied Popsicles. "Oh man. Brody's going to kill us. We've fed an entire freezer case to the sea lion."

  Jasper burped again.

  "Can seals eat pepperoni?" called a voice from the crowd.

  "He's a sea lion, not a seal," Violet replied, shutting the doors on Smitty and Jasper. "And you can ask me about the pepperoni tomorrow. I'll probably know by then." She thanked Roy profusely, got in the truck, and drove to the truck wash at the back of the lot.

  They had a half hour to wash away the incriminating evidence and get back on the road. Then they could only pray that sea lions actually could eat pepperoni. And ice cream. And popsicles.

  Every hour from Virginia to Maryland, they pulled over and checked on Jasper. Each time, he greeted them with a cheerful `Rork!' and a flipper wave. The truck had cooled right down now that the compressor was working, the cargo area had been washed out thoroughly, and home was getting closer by the mile.

  So why was she feeling, if possible, even more on edge than she had been before?

  "You ready to keep going on that quiz now that we seem to be on the right track with Jasper and the truck?"

  She glanced at Smitty. That was why she was edgy. That last question. "I'm not sure I'm still in the mood for that silliness, okay Smits? Let's just head home and forget about the quiz."

  His soft chuckle carried over the hum of the engine. "Running again, Vi?"

  "I'm not running," she snapped. "I'm ... Oh, fine. I'll answer the darn question. Then can we toss that magazine out the window, please?"

  "No littering," he said mildly. "And the question was to name your worst day."

  She thought a moment. Just as her best day had been with Smitty, her worst day had been with him also. Or rather, without him. "I thought about picking that day at the water park when you asked me to make a family with you. Or the day I found out you were marrying Ellen. Or the day you actually did." Smitty shifted in the passenger's seat as the list grew long. "But I think my worst day was the day I left the Puget Sound Project and came back to Dolphin Friendly."

  "Was it such a bad choice then? Do you wish you'd stayed with ... Chaz?" he asked quietly.

  She turned and thought she saw real pain in his eyes. She shook her head. "Don't be silly. I love Dolphin Friendly and I wouldn't trade the last eight years for anything."

  "Then why are you going to leave?"

  He said that like it was a foregone conclusion. Like she'd already given her notice. The idea made Violet sad. She stared into darkness that was marked only by a dashed line on the open highway. "Do you want to know w
hy that's my worst day or not?"

  "Go ahead."

  She took a breath. "When Brody wrote and told me that you and Ellen had divorced, I was glad. Not because I wanted you to hurt-though maybe that was part of it-but because I thought it meant there was still a chance for the two of us. So I quit Puget Sound and came home to Dolphin Friendly."

  "We were all waiting for you on the dock," he remembered, his voice hoarse.

  "Yes. You and Brody and a couple of interns I'd never met. Brody hugged me. The interns shook my hand. And you faded into the background. After two years, you barely even said `hello.' "

  She felt that unfamiliar burn in her eyes and told herself it wasn't time to cry now. Maybe after she'd given her notice, she'd lock the door and let the tears come-but not until then.

  "What did you expect?" he asked as though truly surprised. "We'd drifted apart even before you left. And you'd turned down my proposal. How was I supposed to know you were expecting flowers and a marching band?"

  "Don't make a joke of this," she snapped. "Of course I didn't want a parade." Her voice softened. "I just wanted you to hug me and say you were sorry. Then I could say I was sorry and we could go from there. But we never did that."

  "No, we didn't." His voice seemed to come out of the darkness. She felt him take her hand where it rested on the gearshift. She didn't pull away.

  "You want to hear about my worst day?" he asked quietly.

  She nodded.

  "My worst day was the day my mother died."

  Violet was surprised. She'd expected him to say his worst day was at the water park in California, the day he married Ellen, or the day she divorced him. But though her own parents were alive and well in the Midwest, surrounded by her landlocked siblings, she imagined that she might consider it her worst day if one of them died unexpectedly.

  "You didn't know me before she died," Smitty said. It was true, they'd met at U.C. Santa Cruz when school started in the fall. His mother had died that summer. He continued, "So you didn't understand how much it had affected me."

  They were driving into a storm, and the first fat raindrops hit the windshield. Violet slowed down and turned on the wipers. "You talked about her sometimes. You loved her very much. I always felt a little guilty because I had such a big family and you ... didn't."

  "It was more than just missing her, though there was some of that," he said. "It was the feeling of being all alone. Nobody cared what my grades were anymore. Nobody was going to nag me to go to the dentist once a year or call me on Sundays just to chat." He rubbed a hand across his face and Violet heard the auburn stubble rasp across the calluses on his palm.

  Unaccountably, she found herself growing irritated with him. "Didn't it matter to you that we were together that fall? I cared what your grades were-at least enough to make sure I was beating you in at least half our classes. I cared whether you went to the dentist. I called to chat with you. Brody did too." She knew it wasn't the same thing, but it still stung. She had cared. How dare he make it seem like it wasn't enough?

  She frowned as the truck hurtled through the rainy night and crossed into Pennsylvania.

  She'd loved him. Had it really meant so little?

  Apparently. He shrugged and said, "I'm not saying I was right, but at the time I thought I needed more. I needed to have someone I believed was going to care about those things for the rest of our lives." He paused. "Remember that trip we took on the Outreach?"

  "Of course. It was our first real taste of open ocean fieldwork, and it was almost a disaster when that squall came up. Brody was washed over the side and you went in after him. For a minute there we couldn't see either of you."

  Violet shuddered with the remembered chill. She had never been so terrified before or since. For several minutes, they'd all thought Brody and Smitty were both lost. How had that memory been supplanted by the black days that followed it? She hadn't thought of Outreach in years.

  "Well, that scared me silly. I realized that if I'd drowned that day, there was nothing to prove I ever existed." Smitty squeezed her hand. Violet was surprised to find him still holding it. "And the next day you and I went to the water park and I made a hash of proposing to you and not listening to why you said no. I was so caught up in the idea of having someone who was legally obligated to care whether I came home from every voyage, I lost track that there was someone else involved in the equation. You. I think I was even a little glad you said no, because I knew you were going to be out on the water with me-and what if something happened to you? Then I'd be alone again."

  Violet sniffed. "I'm not finding this explanation particularly heartwarming." But in a way she was. It hadn't really been about her, even back then. She could still hate him for being foolish, but she couldn't totally blame him.

  "I'm just trying to tell you about my worst day, and how it led to a string of bad decisions I'm still trying to recover from." He paused. "So anyway, I'm sorry. I was so caught up in being all alone in the world that I ended up hurting the one person in the world I loved. The one person who wanted to be there for me. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Vi, and I blew it."

  Now the tears were threatening in earnest. Violet felt one slide down the side of her face and brushed it away on the pretext of scratching her cheek. "Would've been nice if you'd said all that when I got back from Puget Sound." Her voice broke and she hated him for what he could still make her feel. He accused her of running away from other people's emotions? This was why. He'd taught her well that emotions could only hurt.

  "Yeah, well. I still had some growing up to do. You said the other day that we were both too young and too stupid to have made it work back then, and you're probably right. But still, I wish it could've been different. I wish Ma hadn't died that summer. I wish you and I had met at a different time in my life. I wish it had ended differently between us."

  Ended.

  And there it was. As far as Smitty was concerned, it was over between them. They were pals. Buddies. Friends. There was no going back, no going forward.

  Violet sniffed and wiped her cheek again. "Are there any more questions in this dumb quiz?"

  He didn't flick the flashlight on to check, and she wondered whether he was reciting from memory or asking the question he wanted to know when he said, "If you could have one wish granted, what would it be?"

  "You first."

  He shook his head. "Nope. I'm changing the rules. You first."

  She didn't argue.

  I wish we could try again, she wanted to yell. I wish we could go back and do it all over. But she couldn't say that. She'd look foolish. Desperate. Like she was clinging to the memory of a relationship that was, by his own words, ended.

  The rules had said she couldn't edit her answers to save the other person's feelings. They hadn't said anything about her own.

  So when she answered, she intentionally lied to Smitty for the first time in their rocky ten-year friendship. "I wish that the job at Seaquarium is as wonderful as it sounds, that I get to save hundreds of manatees, and I don't give in to the urge to drown the eternally perky Candi."

  In the cab of the truck there was silence except for the swish of tires on the wet pavement and the rhythmic thump of the wipers as they dashed the rain aside. A mile marker passed. Another.

  Then Smitty said huskily, "Then that's what I wish for too, Violet. I just want you to be happy."

  He cleared his throat, threw the flashlight and the magazine in the foot well, and pointed at an exit sign. "Pull off here and let's switch. I need to drive for a while."

  Well, that pretty much said it all. Smitty scowled as he sent the truck hurtling into the morning's bloody light. She was leaving Dolphin Friendly and starting a whole new life down in Florida, and nothing he could do was going to change it. She'd as much as said so.

  He glanced over. She was sleeping now. He was pretty sure she'd been faking when they first got back on the road-unless she regularly slept with her shoulder muscles bunched, her
fists clenched, and her breath hitching. If she'd been any other woman he might've thought she was crying. But hey, this was Violet. She never cried.

  Either way, she was asleep now and he was grateful for it. All he wanted to do now was get the heck back to Smugglers Cove, deliver their belching, lactose-intolerant sea lion to Brody's tender mercies, and sleep until it was time for the grand opening gala that evening.

  They were somewhere in Connecticut now, and home was feeling closer by the mile. In spite of all their adventures, they would arrive on or near their noon deadline.

  Had they really left Smugglers Cove just four short days ago? It seemed like a decade had passed since they'd set off, and Smitty was feeling every one of those years as he downshifted to pass a school bus full of children. He hit the accelerator and sped by, trying to ignore the small, waving hands and laughing mouths.

  He kept the pedal down once the bus had disappeared in the distance. It would be good to get home.

  "Violet? Come on, Violet. It's time to get up now so you can go sleep in a real bed." She was dimly conscious of gentle hands shaking her, of a female voice talking to her.

  "Maddy? What're you doing in Pennsylvania?"

  The other woman's laugh tinkled, sounding like home. "You slept through Pennsylvania, silly. And the rest of the ride. You're in the driveway." Maddy helped Violet out of the truck.

  "I never want to sit in another bucket seat as long as I live," Violet croaked as Maddy helped her across the clamshell driveway and into the inn. A feeling of peace descended on her when she stepped into the welcoming front hall.

  She was home.

  Then she frowned. No, that wasn't right. Home was going to be a condo in Florida. This was only a place she was staying temporarily, before she officially left Dolphin Friendly.

  The thought brought an ache that almost stole her breath away.

  "How was the ride?" Maddy asked as she and Violet climbed the familiar staircase with its pretty oriental runner.

  Violet shrugged, dredging up some of her usual defenses as her head started to clear. "Not bad. Smitty and I talked. A lot." Too much. So much that she finally believed there was nothing left for her here except memories. "It was okay."