Page 56 of A Line in the Sand

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Molly was upset about the comment he’d made about the Charlie’s Angels forcing his hand regarding her employment. No wonder things had seemed strange between them all day. Why hadn’t she said anything?

Perhaps because you’d just offered her the chance to get her job back and she didn’t want to rock the boat?

Max took a deep inhale. “Molly.”

They needed to have a conversation about the blackmailing. He could explain. And he would, but he’d have preferred to do so in private, not with the entire Turtle Team as audience.

“Max.” Molly arched a brow.

“Last night, I didn’t mean—”

But before he could complete that thought, Ursula came strutting back into the room, tail wagging like a little white flag and carrying something in her mouth. The puppy strode directly toward Max and spat her treasure at his feet. The round white object rolled until it bumped into the toe of Max’s dress shoe and came to a stop.

“Oh, dear.” Mavis gasped.

“That’s not what I think it is, is it?” Opal said.

Ethel rubbed at her purple glasses with the hem of her Turtle Team T-shirt. “It can’t be. Max, what is it?”

Max glanced up at Molly—who for once looked properly horrified at her dog’s behavior—and fixed his gaze with hers. “It’s exactly what it looks like. A sea turtle egg.”

Chapter 14

“For the last time, it wasn’t arealegg.” Molly rolled her eyes as she arranged a pile of stuffed turtle plushies in a pyramid on one of the picnic tables that Violet’s brothers Joe and Josh, both police officers with the TBPD, had dragged onto the beach early Saturday morning.

The turtle release was scheduled for ten o’clock, an hour away, and Molly and the Turtle Team had been at the dog beach for hours already, getting everything set up.

Beside her, Violet stacked pink boxes of cupcakes. Chocolate Turtle Drizzle, dripping with caramel and piled high with chocolate shavings. Molly had already eaten one for breakfast.

“Are you sure?” Violet asked. “In the version of the story that I heard, it was a genuine sea turtle egg.”

“I’m positive. It was a replica of a sea turtle egg from the model nest in the aquarium’s beach ecology wing. Ursula probably thought it was a ball she could play with.” Honestly, why was everyone on the island still talking about this? It had happened almost a week ago.

Six whole days, during which Max had returned to his original grumpy demeanor every time they came into contact with one another—particularly when Molly had Ursula in tow. Which was 99.9 percent of the time, obviously.

Gone were the lingering glances and the flirty little comments that had begun to slip into their conversation. Since Ursula spat the egg at his feet, Max definitely hadn’t had any trouble pancaking his eyes off of Molly. They’d also been going back and forth for days over what to do about the grant application Molly had been working on. Max wanted to send it in with a bunch of dry, boring numbers about sea turtle nests and the island’s efforts toward conservation. Molly thought the application needed a bit of pizazz—something special and interesting to set it apart from all the other scientific entries. She just couldn’t figure out what. The fact that she and Max couldn’t agree only added to the tension between them.

Molly told herself that was for the best. She wasn’t interested in a relationship with anyone but her dog. She just wasn’t sure why she had to keep reminding herself that was the case.

“Maybe you’re right. Ursula might have thought it was a ball. Sea turtle eggs actually look a lot like Ping-Pong balls,” Violet said. “Sprinkleslovesthose.”

Violet glanced toward the water where her boyfriend, Sam, was walking their matching Dalmatians. Molly couldn’t tell the two dogs apart. Sprinkles was always on her best behavior around Sam. He had a way with dogs. He’d even trained his own rescue Dalmatian, Cinder, to be an official fire safety demonstration dog.

See?a little devil on Molly’s shoulder whispered in her ear.Some men aren’t all that bad. Some of them even love dogs just as much as you do.

And then she looked up to see Max crossing over the dune, scowling at Ursula, who’d found a perfect spot in the shade to do some digging in the sand. The devil on her shoulder took a swan dive straight into the ocean.

“I’ll be right back,” Molly said to Violet under her breath.

Violet shrugged. “No rush. I think the sales table is ready to go. We’re just waiting on Caroline to get here with the boxes of iced coffee, and the Charlie’s Angels should be here any minute to help with the customers.”

Excellent. Everything was perfectly under control…with the notable exception of Molly’s puppy.

She hustled across the sand as fast as she could manage in her mermaid costume. For once in his life, Max wasn’t dressed in his usual dress pants and crisply ironed shirt. In his sea turtle hospital tee, board shorts, and flip-flops, he looked like a bona fide local. It should have been difficult to pick him out of the crowd, but as usual, Molly’s entire body had gone on high alert the moment he’d crested the dune. Awareness flooded her senses every time he was anywhere in her vicinity. Even this past week, when they’d both been doing their best to avoid one another, she could always tell when he stepped foot inside the lobby. It was beginning to get annoying.

Equally annoying was how good he looked in beachwear—laid back, casual.Chill, even. Which was completely laughable, of course. Max didn’t have a chill bone in his irritatingly chiseled body. Did his T-shirt really need to hug his biceps so closely?

Says the woman dressed as a mermaid…