Page 68 of A Line in the Sand

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And just like that, a little zing of hope coursed through Molly once again. “Smoke is totally a scent. That counts.”

The corner of Sam’s mouth quirked into a half-smile. “So we’re really going to do this?”

“If Ursula can find sea turtle eggs, I know we can teach the other dogs to do it too.” Molly reached into her handbag and pulled out a small notepad and a turquoise pen. The pen was topped with a plastic sea turtle and had the words TURTLE BEACH AQUARIUM AND SEA TURTLE HOSPITAL printed on it. “Tell me exactly what you need. I’ll get everything together and we can start tomorrow evening.”

“The most important thing is the sample smell,” Sam said.

“Oh.” Molly bit her lip. “I can’t dig up sea turtle eggs. We think Ursula familiarized herself with the smell from being at the turtle hospital so often.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. We don’t need actual eggs. In fact, it might be better if they learn to identify sand where sea turtle eggs are present.”

“Maybe I can remove a bit of sand from one of the nests that Ursula found. I’ll need to check with Max first, but would that work?” Sand surrounding the egg chamber helped incubate the turtle eggs, but perhaps if a small amount would do the trick, she could safely remove a sample.

“We don’t need much—just enough to fill a few small scent containers, depending on how many dogs we’re trying to train.” Sam held his finger and thumb a couple of inches apart to indicate the size of the scent containers.

Doable.Totallydoable. Molly was starting to feel better already.

“I can get the scent containers if you get the sand,” he said.

Molly jotted downturtle sand. “What else do we need?”

“Dog treats. Tiny bits of turkey hot dogs tend to work great, especially if you cut them up and microwave them so they dry out.”

She nodded. “Turkey hot dogs. Got it.”

“We’ll need dog-training clickers, but I’ve got plenty of those,” Sam said.

“Super.” Molly looked at her short list. “I can definitely get these things ready by tomorrow.”

Sam tilted his head. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

He laughed. “The dogs.”

Oh, right. The dogs.

***

The following morning, Molly presented Max with her detailed plan to train a group of six dogs to scent track sea turtle nests for her grant proposal. The amount of work she’d done since yesterday afternoon was astounding.

She already had a proper dog trainer lined up, a team of volunteers with dogs who were willing to commit to nightly training sessions for the next seven days, and over twenty pages written on the grant proposal. All she needed from him was some sand, apparently.

“Sand?” He squinted at her from behind his glasses. She was already dressed in her mermaid costume for the day. Max wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a mermaid carrying a file folder containing grant documents before. In fact, he was certain he hadn’t, but it was a sight he could get used to. “I’m not following.”

“We need sand from one of the turtle nests, as close to the egg chamber as possible. Just a tiny bit, I promise. We’re going to use it to help get the dogs familiar with the scent.”

That made sense, although Max wasn’t at all crazy about disturbing one of the nests.

“I was thinking that maybe you could collect a sample from the nest at the dog beach and then you could stay and watch class.” She tilted her head. “What do you think?”

Ursula—who currently occupied one of the office chairs on the opposite side of Max’s desk—panted and her mouth stretched into a wide doggy smile, as if delighted at the prospect of Max attending class. He was anthropomorphizing again, and he wasn’t even sorry.

“You realize if you say no, you’re going to permanently seal your reputation as a dog hater.” Her eyes narrowed into an exaggerated glare.

Max smoothed down his tie. He still hadn’t found time to replace his Baltimore wardrobe, but thanks to the island humidity, his dress shirts were decidedly less crisp than they’d been when he’d rolled into town.

He grinned. “We can’t have that, can we?”