Page 31 of A Line in the Sand

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“Molly! Sorry, I’m just so surprised to see you here. I stopped by to check on Silver.” Nate’s face spread into a wide grin. “This is so awesome. I guess this means you’re back working at the aquarium.”

“Oh, well—” Molly said.

At the same time, Max shook his head. “No.”

Nate frowned, glancing back and forth between them. “No?”

How could such a basic question seem so loaded? And why did Max’s simplenosuddenly seem like the worst possible answer he could have given?

Molly glanced at him through a veil of unshed tears and looked away. A moment ago, he’d been on the verge of asking her on a date—ofkissingher—and now Molly wouldn’t even look him in the eye.

“You heard Dr. Miller,” she said crisply.Dr. Miller?Ouch. “Absolutely not.”

“We found an injured green turtle on the beach. Molly and I rescued her.” Max nodded toward the tank where the turtle swam in happy circles.

“And now she’s right as rain, so I should really be going.” Molly brushed past him to gather Ursula into her arms. The sleepy puppy sighed and planted her chin on Molly’s shoulder to gaze at Max while she had her back turned to him.

You blew it, genius, Ursula’s big brown eyes seemed to say.

Max’s stomach hardened. “Aren’t you forgetting something? I drove you here. Let me grab my keys and I’ll take you and Ursula home.”

She couldn’t just leave. Max could fix things between them. Heneededto fix things.

Molly shook her head. “No worries. Nate can give us a ride, can’t you, Nate?”

She turned a blinding smile in Nate’s direction.

Nate nodded, oblivious. “Sure.”

Ursula aimed a pleading look at Max, as if imploring him to do something.

There he went again, anthropomorphizing. Ursula was a dog, not a person, and she certainly had no interest in making sure that Max and Molly went to SandFest together. Max was probably just projecting his own feelings onto Molly’s puppy.

He just wished he’d realized how badly he’d wanted the aforementioned truce before Molly and Ursula walked out the door.

Chapter 9

Max wasn’t in the mood to go home after Nate left with Molly and Ursula in tow, especially since “home” usually meant sitting on the deck and pretending not to wonder what was going on in the cozy cottage next door.

Molly liked to keep her windows and French doors open so her gauzy curtains danced in the breeze. Max could sometimes hear her television in the evenings. She apparently liked to watch that English baking show everyone was so wild about. Between snippets of conversation about “soggy bottoms” and “saucy puds,” he often heard her talking to Ursula, her tone all sweetness and light.

Then he’d open his sliding glass door and step inside his own cottage, with its knotty pine paneling and relics from his childhood, and feel alone in a way he never had back in Baltimore.

Max liked living alone. As an only child, he’d grown accustomed to his own company, particularly after his parents’ divorce when he was so often shuttled back and forth between his parents’ homes. Around that time—fifth grade—he’d started spending summers on the island with Uncle Henry. Max and Henry both pretended it was in order to avoid an ugly tug of war between his mother and father. Max suspected the truth was quite the opposite—both of his parents seemed too caught up in their new lives to want him around during the summer months. Staying with his uncle at the beach seemed preferable to signing up for summer school just to have a way to pass the time.

He wasn’t used to being alone here, though. Not in this house. Not on this island. That’s what he told himself, anyway. Because he definitely didn’t want to believe his restlessness in the evenings had anything to do with Molly’s presence just a stone’s throw away. That couldn’t be it. In any event, he didn’t want to face that kind of emptiness after coming so close to asking Molly out back at the turtle hospital. If Nate hadn’t interrupted them, they might have kissed. Max had wanted it so bad he’d nearly tasted it. Molly’s lips, bubblegum sweet.

So once he’d checked on the recovering green turtle, whom Molly had begun calling Crush, and Silver the seahorse one last time, Max climbed into the Jeep and drove to the senior center. He’d been on the island for days and still hadn’t managed to have a lengthy conversation with his uncle about the aquarium. Their interactions thus far had been limited to yoga classes and bingo, and as far as Max was concerned, there was no time like the present.

It wasn’t until Max activated the parking brake in the gravel lot outside the senior center that he realized he still wasn’t wearing a shirt. His oxford was currently sitting atop the laundry pile at the turtle hospital, along with a heap of towels that smelled like fish. He probably could have grabbed an aquarium T-shirt from the modest gift shop if he’d thought about it.

Too late now.

No big deal, though. This was a beach town, after all. He’d gotten plenty of ribbing this week about being overdressed. Now, he’d finally fit in. Also Max doubted the retirees would even notice, much less care.

Wrong again.

As fate would have it, Opal, Ethel, and Mavis were sitting in the lobby when Max walked in and they most definitely noticed.