Page 71 of A Spot of Trouble
Nothing about today could be left to chance. It was the fire department’s one and only opportunity to take the championship in a shutout. Chief Murray had sent out an email in the wee hours of the morning, announcing that he would spring for a deep sea fishing trip for the entire department if they could beat the TBPD for a third straight time this morning. Griff had responded in a private text to Sam. The message contained no text, just a link to a new fishing pole he intended to buy once they sealed the deal.
Sam definitely should have gone to batting practice the night before. Not that a couple of hours at the cages would have made much of a difference in skill level. In fact, Sam had always been a big believer in rest the night before a big game. But by not showing up, he knew that he’d be the one to take the blame if the Hoses didn’t win today. In Murray’s eyes, any potential loss would be one hundred percent his fault. There’s no “I” in team, etcetera, etcetera.
Fine. Sam would rather Murray be mad at him than at any of the other guys on the team. They’d really stepped up in the past few weeks. Not one of them had struck out in the last game. The pitcher hadn’t walked a single player on the police department’s roster. For the first time in his life, Griff had hit a home run. The following Monday, he’d put the game ball in a plexiglass display cube on the top shelf of his locker in the firehouse, as proud as if they’d won the World Series.
Sam smiled just thinking about it as he and Cinder picked up their pace, running to the dog beach so he could let her off her lead for a few minutes of free playtime before they had to get back and change for the game. If Guns and Hoses had been just a normal first responder rivalry instead of whatever lunacy it had devolved into in Turtle Beach, Sam might have been forced to admit that he was starting to rediscover his love of the game.
Baseball, or in this case softball, had a lot in common with firefighting, as it turned out. There was the same spirit of camaraderie and friendship on a sports team that came with working alongside a firefighting crew—living, eating, and sleeping under the same roof each and every shift. Playing ball had almost made Sam miss his days fighting fires instead of working a desk job, doing inspections, and issuing fire code violations.
He couldn’t go there again, though. Sam had already violated almost every rule he’d made for himself before his move to Turtle Beach. He’d formed friendships when he’d intended to stick to himself, he’d become deeply involved in a community that was only supposed to be a quiet place to lay his head at night, and he’d let his emotions get in the way of his job by issuing citation after citation to Violet.
She’d deserved them, to be sure, and Sam had only been doing his duty as fire marshal. But he’d enjoyed scribbling those tickets out to her time and time again. He couldn’t help it. He’d loved every minute of it, just as she’d seemed to enjoy doing everything within her power to get under his skin.
Now she seemed to live there—under his skin. And in the most flagrant of all the violations of his self-imposed rules, Sam had gone and developed feelings for her.
His footsteps slowed to a stop as he and Cinder arrived at the dog beach. He bent to unclip his Dalmatian’s leash, and then he pulled a tennis ball from his pocket and threw it into the surf. Cinder leapt over shallow waves and dog-paddled into the whitecaps to clamp the ball in her jaws. Sam shaded the sun from his eyes as she galloped back toward him and dropped the ball at his feet. He picked it up and tossed it again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
“Cinder sure seems to be enjoying herself,” someone behind Sam said.
He turned to find Mavis Hubbard, Violet’s friend from the senior center, watching his dog with a sparkle in her eyes. Her little Chihuahua pranced in dainty circles around her feet, darting away from the water anytime a wave rushed close.
“Good morning, Mavis.” Sam grinned at the tiny animal. “You too, Nibbles.”
Nibbles batted at his shins with her impossibly small paws, and he bent to run a hand over her narrow back.
Mavis gave him a curious glance. “I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you’d be busy getting ready for the big game today.”
“We’re about to head down to the softball field. I just wanted to give Cinder a chance to run off some steam first.”
Cinder returned with the tennis ball, dropped it onto the sand, and nudged it toward Nibbles with her nose.
“Ah, yes. I heard that Cinder has been rather excitable lately. Something about a dip in the bay last night?” Mavis’s right eyebrow shot up.
Of course she’d heard. The whole island was probably talking about it.
“Cinder is fine,” Sam said. “It was nothing.”
“Was it, now?” Mavis studied him.
Sam looked away. This conversation was getting a little unnerving. “It was sort of fun, actually. But I’m sure you heard all about that too.”
A smile tugged at Mavis’s lips. “There’s more than a little truth to the old notion about opposites attracting, isn’t there? Sometimes the last thing we expected turns out to be the very thing we needed all along.”
Sam wasn’t dense. There was no way they were still talking about dogs and Cinder’s recent Dalmatian insubordination.
“Mavis,” Sam warned. “You’re not supposed to be playing matchmaker anymore, remember?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. I wouldn’t dream of interfering in your personal life.”
A fib if Sam had ever heard one. Oh, if sprinkler heads could talk…
“For your information, I was referring to my new boyfriend.” A smile danced on Mavis’s lips.
Well. This was news.
Sam grinned and tried not to think about the fact that the seventy-plus crowd apparently had a far more active social life than he did. “New boyfriend? Go Mavis.”
“Violet introduced us.”
