Page 33 of A Spot of Trouble
Since then, he’d rebuilt his life entirely, specially designing his new existence to avoid such pain and misery. Not just avoid it, butpreventit. Catastrophic fires like the last one he’d fought wouldn’t happen here on the Carolina coast. He wouldn’t let them.
Nor would he let himself be broken like that again. He couldn’t handle it. His new life revolved around his work and his dog. That much he could handle.
So maybe on some level he admired Violet’s willingness to wear her heart on her pretty sleeve. She was opposite him in every possible way, which Sam found maddening the vast majority of the time. But somewhere beneath the frustration was a magnetic pull he didn’t understand, and sometimes it was almost too much to resist. He was duty and rules and neatly made beds. Violet led with her heart, not her head. She was chaos and cupcakes, and right there, at the top of the fourth inning, he’d wanted nothing more than to take a rich, sugary bite.
“Does Violet realize it was an accident?” Griff said, shooting a furtive glance toward a table where Violet sat with three older ladies from the senior living center. “Because she seems to see things differently.”
Of course she does. Sam tossed his slice of pizza onto his plate. He didn’t have much of an appetite anymore.
“She’s staring daggers at you, bro,” another of the firefighters said.
“I realize that,” Sam said.
He could feel the fury of her gaze on him all the way across the crowded pizza joint.
Lunch at Island Pizza—Turtle Beach’s one and only Italian restaurant, complete with red-checkered tablecloths and repurposed Chianti bottles used to hold drippy candles—was apparently a post-game Guns and Hoses tradition. Given the over-the-top competitiveness of the softball league, Sam had been surprised to find out that both teams headed to the same place after every game. Like so much else about the tiny beach town, it made little sense, but he didn’t bother questioning it. Traditions were sacred around here, and he figured it would give him a chance to talk to Violet again and dispel the ridiculous notion that he’d somehow orchestrated Sprinkles’s latest antics.
Sam stared down at his pepperoni. “I’m going to go talk to her.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Griff said. “Just take the win.”
And let everyone think he’d cheated? Heck no.
“I’m doing it.” Sam stood, ignoring the collective sigh that rose up from his colleagues.
The chatter in the room hushed as he approached Violet’s table.
“Hi, Sam,” one of Violet’s friends said. She smiled and arranged the checked napkin she’d tucked into her shirt collar so it completely covered the #FreeCinder message printed across her chest.
“Would you like to join us?” The woman who never seemed to go anywhere without the Chihuahua in the basket of her walker nodded to the lone empty chair. Even inside the restaurant, the tiny dog trembled atop its blanket.
Being an official working dog meant Cinder had accompanied Sam inside as well. She waited quietly at his side while he greeted Violet’s friends. Sprinkles was notably absent, but Sam wasn’t about to ask where the little monster might be.
“I don’t think we’ve formally met. I’m Mavis.” The older woman gestured toward the other two retirees at the table. “And this is Opal and Ethel. We’re friends of Violet’s.”
“Nice to meet you, ladies. Thanks for the offer. I’d love to join you for a few minutes,” Sam said, winking at Violet as he took a seat.
Her stormy eyes, the same shade of blue-green as the deepest, most mysterious part of the ocean, met his. “What could you possibly want now? Your team already won, remember?”
Sam sat back in his chair, making himself at home, despite the fact that he could see both of Violet’s brothers rising from their chairs and heading his way. “Don’t tell me you actually believe I tried to lure Sprinkles out of the cupcake truck.”
“Of course she doesn’t,” her trio of elder friends said in unison.
“Absolutely,” Violet said at the same time.
“No, you don’t,” Sam countered.
He didn’t believe her for a minute. They’d shared a connection in the moments before Sprinkles had busted loose. She might not want to admit it, but they had. And as he narrowed his gaze at her, he could see the memory of it flickering in her mermaid eyes. In the boom of her pulse at the base of her throat. In the way she couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with her hands…
Her fingertips fluttered around her collarbones like fragile little birds looking for a place to land. “You made a clicking sound. I heard it. Clearly it was some secret Dalmatian code.”
“I’ve made that sound a thousand times before. So have a lot of animal lovers. It was just a greeting, and it was hardly a secret.”
Sam thought about telling her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—that he’d simply wanted to bestow a little affection on the sweet dog. Sprinkles could be a mess at times, but she’d clearly filled an important void in Violet’s life. He’d spent more nights than he cared to admit lying in bed wondering why on earth she’d adopted a Dalmatian. He’d just never expected her reason to put an ache in his impenetrable heart.
He couldn’t tell Violet those things, though. Not now. They were in a pizza parlor, not a court of law. Besides, Joe and Josh had shuffled over in their blue softball jerseys and cleats and were currently regarding him through narrowed eyes.
“Is everything okay over here?” Josh said.
