Page 11 of A Spot of Trouble
Yes, she still lived with her family in the house where she’d grown up. But living at home wasn’t so bad when it meant a sprawling, three-story beach house propped up on tall pilings with sweeping views of the Carolina coast. Especially since her brothers had taken over the third floor apartments for themselves, leaving just Violet and her Dad in the main residence. Plus there was plenty of room in the open air garage beneath the house for her shiny silver Airstream trailer with its spinning cupcake on top.
When her cupcake truck wasn’t parked on the boardwalk or the softball field or anyplace else sugar-starved tourists and locals gathered, she kept it right here at home, alongside her dad and brothers’ police cruisers, a towering pile of sun chairs, and various other beach paraphernalia. Like Josh’s kayak. And the family croquet set. And her dad’s fishing poles, which she had just nearly plowed into, thanks to Sprinkles.
“What is it with you and the smell of fish, all of a sudden?” Violet wailed as she gave the handlebars a hard yank to the right.
Her front wheel bumped up against the kayak as she came to a wobbly halt. Sprinkles promptly pounced inside the narrow boat, and it rocked from side to side. With her pink tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth, she looked like a dog enjoying an amusement park ride.
“Get out of there, silly.” Violet grabbed the cardboard holder of frosty, whipped coffee drinks she’d just pedaled to the boardwalk to procure from her bicycle’s wicker basket. “It’s time for coffee.”
It was also time to clue her dad and brothers in on Sam Nash’s secret identity as a baseball phenom. Oh goody, this should be fun.
Not.
After leaving the firehouse yesterday, Violet had nearly walked directly across the street and straight into her dad’s office at the police station. She couldn’t do that, though. One look at the pink box in her hands, and her father would have blown a gasket. She knew better than to go waltzing into the firehouse laden with cupcakes and good intentions.
She should have, anyway.
It was fine, though. She could take care of herself, and she definitely wouldn’t be making that mistake again. Her dad, however, didn’t need to know about said mistake. The last time she’d fled the firehouse with her heart in tatters, he’d ended up in a screaming match with Chief Murray right there in the middle of Seashell Drive. They’d both been so red-faced that Violet had worried one of them might have some sort of cardiac episode. Griff Martin had nearly been forced to turn a fire hose on the two men.
What this situation needed was delicacy, so that the police chief and the fire chief didn’t accidentally end up brawling in the street again. Delicacy, plus frozen coffee with a heaping dash of chocolate and caramel should do it. The Milky Way frozen latte from Turtle Books, the island bookshop that doubled as a coffee bar down on the boardwalk, was her dad’s favorite thing in the entire world—as evidenced by the wide smile that creased his face when she plopped it down in front of him on the long table on the beach house’s second- floor porch.
The March family gathered on the deck every morning for coffee and most evenings for dinner. The house sat on the southernmost tip of the island, known as the crest to locals, separate from Turtle Beach’s neat rows of beach cottages. Violet’s great-grandfather had built the rambling house by hand back in 1952, when the Marches had been among the first families to move onto the secluded island, seeking their own little slice of Southern paradise.
All these years later, Turtle Beach still felt that way to Violet—serene, idyllic—despite the recent Dalmatian migration and the accompanying arrival of Sam Nash. Out here on the crest, where the water from the bay spilled into the salty depths of the Atlantic and dolphins frolicked just offshore, it was easy to forget about Sam, his annoyingly sweet dog, and his major league–worthy bod.
Then why can’t you?
“What’s this?” Violet’s dad picked up his frozen coffee drink and took a big sip from its oversized, colorful straw. “Is today a special occasion?”
She shrugged. “I just felt like taking a little bike ride this morning, and while I was over at the north end, I stopped by the boardwalk.”
It wasn’t atotallie. Sprinkles needed her morning exercise, and Violet wasn’t quite ready to show her face or her Dalmatian at the dog beach again. Not without police backup. Or possibly a bag to wear over her head.
“Don’t worry, I got one for each of my favorite police officers.” She plucked two more frozen coffees from the cardboard carrier and offered them to Josh and Joe.
“Thanks, sis,” Josh said, gulping half of his down in one big swallow, an ice cream headache waiting to happen.
Joe, the more patient brother, narrowed his gaze as he took his cup from Violet. “I’m with Dad. What’s going on? You never go for a bike ride this early.”
“Can’t I do something nice for my family without being interrogated?” Honestly, sometimes it wasn’t easy being the only member of the household who wasn’t actively involved in law enforcement.
“Don’t question it.” Josh shook his head. “At least she’s not down at the dog beach trying to arrest people.”
Joe arched a brow. “Or bringing random mutts home and bathing them for free.”
Violet glared at her brother. “That only happened once.”
It had happened a handful of times, actually. But they’d all stemmed from a single misguided, altruistic episode in which Violet thought she was rescuing a stray chocolate Lab mix she’d seen trotting up and down the shore all alone. Violet had a certain fondness for Dalmatians—a Dalmatian infatuation, some might say—but she was also a proper, equal-opportunity dog lover. She wasn’t a Dalmatiansnob, for goodness’ sake. So she’d taken the lost dog home to bathe and blow-dry him. She might have also spritzed him with her favorite lavender-and-marshmallow-scented body spray from Bath & Body Works, only to find out that he belonged to the reclusive fisherman who lived right next door.
In true Turtle Beach form, word of Violet’s dog-saving efforts had spread like wildfire. Other loose pups started popping up on the beach directly in front of the March house. It only took her three more rounds of sudsing and spritzing for Violet to realize that people were “losing” their dogs on purpose to take advantage of her complimentary grooming services.
Really, though. That had nothing to do with the matter at hand. Why did her brothers insist on bringing it up so often?
Violet sat down with a huff. “If you must know, I have some news.”
She was just going to have to rip the Band-Aid off and tell them about Sam before they heard about his baseball prowess from someone else. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She’d tried—oh, how she’d tried. Much to her irritation, Sam Nash had even popped up in her dreams, which could only be attributed to the giant secret she knew about him. Once the police force knew he was a ringer, she could properly forget about him once and for all.
“News?” Her father glanced down at the newspaper spread in front of him, anchored to the table with a conch shell.
