Page 67 of A Spot of Trouble
Sam didn’t mind being teased, but jokes about his dog rubbed him the wrong way. He was well aware that this made him the worst sort of hypocrite, given his preoccupation with Turtle Beach’s original Dalmatian. This unflattering realization made him even less inclined to go out and hit balls. Murray and the guys could live without him for one night.
He kicked back in one of the Adirondack-style chairs on the wraparound deck of his beach house and tried his best to embrace what he’d come to the island for in the first place—relaxation. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out, the roar of the ocean in his head, the damp sea breeze on his face.
No one had gotten hurt today, only his pride. The safety of the islanders was his first, hisonly, responsibility. There hadn’t been a single active fire in Turtle Beach since the day he arrived…
Unless Violet setting him aflame counted, which it didn’t.
Except Sam had written her a few citations for the circumstances surrounding that little mishap, so technically it did.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Sam opened his eyes, grateful for whatever distraction was pulling him away from the memory of the stolen kiss at bingo night. No good could come from reliving that dangerously sublime moment, especially since he and Violet were adversaries. Or, as she’d so eloquently told Griff,arch-enemies, even.
His gratitude took a hit when he realized the chomping sound he’d heard was Cinder gnawing on one of the legs of the chair he was sitting in.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.
Cinder blinked at him and panted with her tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth and one of her ears folded inside-out. She looked ridiculous. And happy. Delighted with herself, actually.
Sam narrowed his gaze at the dog. “Who are you, and what have you done with my Dalmatian?”
A loaded silence stretched between them until Sam’s cell phone buzzed to life, jarring his thoughts away from the impossible.
“Saved by the bell,” he told Cinder as he tapped the accept button on his phone. “Hello?”
“Nash. Finally, you pick up the phone,” Chief Jameson Dodd said from the other end of the line. “I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
“Never, sir,” Sam said, raking a hand through his hair and fixing his gaze on the smooth surface of the bay. His cottage was situated smack in the center of the narrow island, with views spanning from the bay and the boardwalk on one side, all the way to the ocean on the other. “Just busy, that’s all.”
“Not busy fighting fires, I hope.”
No, busy facilitating bingo night, making ludicrous wagers with impossible women, becoming a de facto softball coach, and myriad other things he hadn’t realized he’d signed on for when he’d moved to Turtle Beach.
Like trying not to fall for your nemesis?
“Not at all. Things here are…” Crazy pants. “…slow. Not what I expected, though. It’s just different.”
“You know I wish you well, Nash. The last thing I want to do is try and steal you away if you’re happy there, but when Don Evans put in his notice of retirement, I had to get in touch. The job is everything you said you wanted back when you said you needed to stop going out on active calls.” Chief Dodd chuckled. “Minus building sandcastles and going for long romantic walks on the shore or whatever it is you’re keeping busy with in Turtle Beach.”
Long romantic walks on the shore. Right.
Violet’s beautiful face flashed in Sam’s mind—her sea-glass eyes, her tousled mermaid hair, her cherry-red lips. Sugary sweet…achingly kissable.
His breath clogged in his throat. “That’s not…”
“Relax, I was just kidding. Are you interested in the job or not?”
“I’m interested,” Sam heard himself say. Until that precise moment, he’d had no clue how he might respond. “Maybe.” He swallowed. “Probably.”
What was he saying? This wasn’t the kind of decision he should be making on a whim—particularly not after the day he’d had.
Cinder pawed at Sam’s leg, and she let out a mournful whine.
Sam shook his head.Not now, Cinder.
“I’m going to take that as a tentative yes,” Chief Dodd said. “I’m not asking for a commitment yet. I just needed to know if I was barking up the entirely wrong tree.”
Sam’s gaze strayed toward the bay again, and his breath hitched when he saw Violet riding her bicycle along the boardwalk again. Sprinkles ran alongside her, as usual. Sam couldn’t take his eyes off the pair of them, cruising along the bay against the backdrop of the setting sun.
