Page 8 of A Line in the Sand

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But Tom got along just fine after Wilson drifted off into the sunset, and Molly would too.

She sat up a little straighter on her barstool. “He was definitely a tourist.”

“That again?” Caroline rolled her eyes. “You do realize that if you eliminate tourists from the prospective dating pool pretty much all that’s left around here are senior citizens.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not dating anymore, remember? I have a dog now.” Molly rested a hand on Ursula’s dainty back. The puppy blinked up at her with huge, melting eyes. No man had ever looked at Molly with such complete and utter devotion. The very suggestion was laughable.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive, you know. Plenty of dog owners date.” Caroline reached to give Ursula a scratch behind one of her copper ears.

“Well, this one doesn’t. My life is perfectly full at the moment. The last thing Ursula and I need is a man.” Molly stabbed aggressively at her latte with her straw.

“Even a man who just washed ashore and magically landed at your feet?” Caroline said.

“Max didn’t wash ashore. I dragged him there, which just proves my point.” Molly didn’t want or need a Wilson. She’d always hated volleyball, both literally and now metaphorically. “He’s basically dead weight.”

Dead weight with an impossibly square jawline and the bluest eyes Molly had ever seen, but dead weight nonetheless.

“Wow,” Caroline said.

Ursula swiveled her cute little head as she glanced from Molly to Caroline and back again. Thank goodness dogs couldn’t talk. Molly had a feeling Ursula would have had a lot to say on the subject at hand, given the way she’d seemingly tried to give Max mouth-to-mouth.

“Can we talk about something else now?” Molly polished off her latte and glanced at the time on her phone. She needed to get to work. “Are you going to bingo tonight?”

Ursula spun in a circle and barked, like she always did whenever she heard the word bingo. Everyone on the island loved bingo night, but no one loved it quite as much as Molly’s puppy did.

Caroline laughed. “Where else would I be on a Tuesday night? You are too, right? Opal would send out a search party if we no-showed.”

“We’ll see you tonight, then.” Molly slid off of her barstool and tucked Ursula under one arm. “I’ve got to get to work. Thanks for the coffee.”

Caroline tilted her head. “Is it weird that I have an overwhelming urge to scream ‘Wilson’ as you depart?”

“Don’t you dare.”

***

Max didn’t make it through the rest of yoga.

He tried. He really did. He moved through a series of poses with ridiculous monikers and did his best to keep up with Uncle Henry and the room full of surprisingly limber octogenarians and nonagenarians. But Max bailed during final relaxation at the end of class, and not just because Violet called it “murder victim pose,” although, truth be told, it freaked him out a little bit.

Max had bigger things to worry about than lying spread eagle on the floor and pretending that he’d just been the victim of a serial killer—most notably, the bomb Henry had just dropped about the aquarium.

His uncle had refused to elaborate, probably because his announcement caused Max to fall out of his downward facing Dalmatian and land squarely on his face. His glasses, which had already taken a thorough beating the day before, were now bent and sat crooked on his face. Again, Max couldn’t have cared less. He just wanted to get to the aquarium and figure out what sort of disaster he’d unknowingly signed on for.

“Where are you going?” Henry asked from his spot on the floor as Max scrambled to his feet.

“To work,” he said flatly.

“I’ll save you a seat tonight at bingo.” Henry closed his eyes and resumed playing dead.

Max stared down at him and contemplated killing him for real.

Nope, that wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, part of the reason Max had moved to Turtle Beach was to repair their relationship. Doing so was apparently going to be far more complicated than he’d anticipated, but he couldn’t give up on it already.

Still, the very last thing on Max’s mind was bingo.

He made his way through the maze of “murder victims” and stalked toward the exit with Violet’s Dalmatian hot on his heels. Just as he pushed the door open, the dog latched onto the hem of his khakis and tried to drag him back inside the building.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Max said to the dog.