Page 13 of A Line in the Sand

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Again, this morning, he’d looked so adorably charming sitting at his uncle’s desk with his glasses all askew and his hair rumpled, as if he’d recently rolled quite handsomely out of bed. He had a whole absentminded professor thing going on that made Molly swoon. Last night when she’d climbed into bed with Ursula snuggled by her side and closed her eyes, she kept hearing Max’s voice in her head.

Caretta caretta.

She had a soft spot for men who appreciated sea turtles. It was a most unfortunate occupational hazard, especially now.

Molly was taking a much-needed break from dating, though. Maybe even permanently, given what had happened last summer. Also the man hadfiredher less than twenty-four hours after she’d saved his life.

“What exactly are you suggesting?” Molly heard herself say.

Maybe she wasn’t so opposed to fighting back, after all.

***

Even after the fateful yoga class with his Uncle Henry, Max fully expected firing a mermaid and a puppy to be the low point of his day. Oh, how wrong that assumption turned out to be.

Within minutes of Molly’s departure, the aquarium erupted into chaos. The veterinary school intern who was supposed to work the morning shift in the turtle hospital called in sick. One of the PVC pipes that filtered water into the largest loggerhead sick bay burst. Seconds later, Max was wading through ankle-deep water, while at the same time trying to haul a three-hundred-fifty-pound sea turtle out of the broken tank and into another one—with very little assistance. To top things off, a five-year-old visiting the aquarium with his kindergarten class tried to sneak a live starfish from the touch pool into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts.

Any of those various catastrophes would have been bad enough, but they were all made exponentially worse by the reaction of whatever aquarium staff happened to be nearby at the time of occurrence.

“Where’s Molly? She’d know just how to handle this.”

Max had heard the sentiment so many times that the words were now on permanent repeat in his head, like one of the vintage vinyl records from the roller rink above the post office. He got it now. He’d messed up big time.

Max had no excuse, other than the fact that he’d been overwhelmed by the sudden responsibility of saving the aquarium, his job, his uncle’s legacy, and the island’s endangered sea turtle population, all in one fell swoop. The turtles, he’d been prepared for. Everything else? Not so much.

He’d acted on impulse—something that Max never did—and now he was paying the price.

Never? Not quite.The truth was that Max had been flying by the seat of his pants since the day he’d found out he hadn’t been selected as the new director of the National Aquarium.

He’d been so certain the job was his. Something inside of him had apparently snapped once the announcement was made, especially given the board of directors’ reasoning. They thought Max had no concept of work–life balance. They worried he’d burn himself out. Since when had that become a bad thing from an employer’s point of view? Not the burnout, obviously, but the work ethic. Max couldn’t make sense of it, even now. In the span of three weeks, he’d quit his job, sold his condo, and moved to the island without ever having set eyes on the aquarium that he was now solely responsible for.

Maybe Max was having some sort of midlife crisis, although he hated to put such a dismissive label on it. All he knew was that he’d suddenly started thinking with his heart instead of his head, and consequently, he’d managed to turn his life into a total train wreck in record time. He never wanted to hear the phrase “work–life balance” ever again.

Max hauled a wet vac from the storage closet into the garage-style space that served as the sea turtle hospital. It smelled like fish and wet concrete.

Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

He flipped the power switch, but nothing happened. Because of course it didn’t. Par for the course.

“That old thing is tricky.” Nate, one of the vet school interns, nodded at the wet vac. “You have to jiggle the on-switch at least four times before you try to power it up.”

Max wiggled the power switch back and forth and tried again. Nothing.

“At least four times,” Nate said. “That was only three.”

Max gave him a tight smile. “So the machine knows how to count?”

Nate frowned. “Dude, it’s a vacuum.”

“Sorry.” Max raked a hand through his hair. He needed to get a grip. The kid was only trying to help. “Four times. Got it.”

He tried again, and this time, the wet vac roared to life. Max felt like whooping for joy. At last, something had gone right.

He grinned at Nate as he went to work vacuuming up the standing water that had collected on the ground in between the turtles’ individual pools. “How did you discover that trick?”

“I didn’t. Molly figured it out. She’s been here since the aquarium started, apparently. She knows everything about this place.” Nate’s gaze darted in the direction of the lobby. “Where is she, anyway? I haven’t seen her today. Or her cute little puppy.”

“I fired her,” Max said.