Page 19 of A Line in the Sand
Max plopped into a deck chair and stared out at the moonlit sea. Foamy waves tumbled against the shore and retreated back again in the timeless push and pull of the tides. Max sort of felt like he was being dragged along for the ride.
Idiot.
He shouldn’t have dug in. He should have simply stuck to his plan, admitted he’d jumped the gun, and asked her to come back. But he hadn’t anticipated the cupcakes or the costumed dogs or the feeling that he’d suddenly been cast in the role of town villain. He was ascientist. He ran a hospital for turtles. He’d spent the afternoon hand-feeding squid to an endangered animal. How could he possibly be the villain in this scenario?
When Molly had announced that he was forgiven before he’d uttered a word of apology, he’d lost it, plain and simple. No way.No possible waywas he going to grovel after she’d launched an all-out, cutesy offensive against him. Not now, and not ever.
Max didn’t do cute. Science itself was the antithesis of frivolity. There was nothing wrong with being logical and focusing on things that mattered. It didn’t make him a robot. Or nonhuman. Working together would have been a disaster of epic proportions, that’s all there was to it. He’d probably just done them both a favor.
Although somehow he suspected that Molly wouldn’t see it that way.
He pushed out of the Adirondack chair he’d been sitting in and took the deck stairs two at a time as he headed toward the open-air storage area beneath the house. Like all the other homes on Turtle Beach, the cottage was built on pilings. Beach houses used the ground level for storing sun chairs, fishing poles, bicycles, and other summer paraphernalia. The space was piled with things new and old, but Max found what he was looking for right away. The old buckets and shovels were precisely where Henry always kept them, tucked beneath the hammock that stretched between two of the rough-hewn columns that held up the house.
Max’s throat closed when he saw his childhood bucket, still sitting beside Henry’s larger one, faded from decades of sun and sea air. He wasn’t sure why it caught him off guard. The interior of the beach cottage looked exactly the same as when Max had last visited, years ago. Nothing about the pine paneling or rows of seashells lined up on the windowsill got under Max’s skin like seeing his old bucket did, though. It was almost like Henry had left it there all this time, just waiting for Max to come back…to comehome.
Max reached for it. Henry’s larger bucket would have been more convenient, but old habits died hard. Bucket in hand, he grabbed one of the long-handled shovels that were propped against the wall, slung it over his shoulder and headed toward the beach.
The shore was dotted with holes, just like it always was during tourist season, although fewer than if it had still been high summer. Max filled his bucket with sand skimmed evenly from the berm. Then he moved methodically from one hole to the next, filling them and patting down the loose sand with the back of the shovel. There was something comforting about the ritual. Timeless. Max’s shirt whipped in the wind and his glasses fogged over with damp sea air. Ghost crabs skittered sideways in his path, and he remembered flashlight beams moving over the sand on warm summer nights when he was a kid. While friends back home had been shut inside playing video games, Max had been on Turtle Beach, chasing crabs and hoping for a sea turtle sighting. Life had been so much easier back then. So pure.
Which made his current predicament all the more baffling. He should have known better than to mess with a mermaid, though. Folklore was full of cautionary tales about doing so.
Since when do you pay attention to folklore?
Since never, which was precisely the point.
He patted down one last hole, then turned around, took two steps, and stumbled into a shallow dip in the sand.
How was that possible? He was on the same stretch of beach that he’d just covered.
Max inspected the hole as best he could in the dark. It was on the small side, but definitely too big to be the work of a crab. He peered into the darkness as he used his shovel to spread sand into an even layer. Once, when Max had been about fourteen years old, he’d spotted a sea otter on Turtle Beach. At first glance, he’d mistaken it for a cat, scampering straight toward him early one morning from the direction of the pier. Then the animal had veered off course toward the water. Max had gasped out loud when he’d spied the telltale hump on the otter’s back. It had been his one and only otter sighting on the island.Enhydra lutris.
Max glanced overhead. The moon was high in the sky, but it was still too early for otters to be out foraging. He must have missed the hole somehow on his first pass. The beach was quiet, save for the gentle rush of the surf. Max got the feeling he was the only person out walking in the dark.
Probably because the rest of the island was still playing bingo. Max couldn’t be sure. He’d lost track of the time since his escape from the senior center.
Either way, he needed to get home. Tomorrow he’d have to break the news to Nate that the aquarium would remain mermaid-free. Good times.
But as soon as Max took a few more steps, his gaze landed on another shallow hole. And another…andanother.
What the—?
“Ursula?” someone called.
Not just someone.Her.Max’s favorite mermaid—a sentiment that didn’t necessarily mean anything, considering that Molly was the only mermaid he’d ever met.
Max groaned. He’d forgotten about the puppy from the balcony next door. Apparently, the tiny spaniel was indeed Ursula, which meant that Molly was Max’s neighbor. What were the odds, even on an island this small?
Max stood there, frozen in the moonlight, hoping against hope that Molly and her little dog would head back home and he wouldn’t be forced to deal with this new, wholly inconvenient twist in his and Molly’s nonexistent relationship until morning. But then Ursula suddenly burst toward him from the shadows in a flurry of sand and floppy puppy ears.
The sweet Cavalier wiggled at his feet as she made cute little whimpering sounds.
Max’s ever-logical heartstrings gave a definite tug. He had no choice but to drop the shovel and pick up the puppy. It would have been rude not to, as if confirming that he was, in fact, a dog hater. Which he wasn’t, all evidence to the contrary. Max was already treading on thin enough ice where the island’s canine population was concerned, so he scooped the puppy into his arms. Ursula immediately planted her paws on his chest and commenced to lick his face.
“There you are, Ursula. I…”
Max shifted Ursula to the crook of his elbow and waved at Molly. “Hi, there.”
“You.” Molly crossed her arms. “Again.”
