Page 2 of A Line in the Sand
Molly waited a beat for the man to resurface, but all she could see was sunlight glinting off something shiny floating in the water. She shaded her eyes with her hand.Eyeglasses.Not a good sign at all, considering they were missing the head that they belonged to.
“Wait here!” she said to Ursula. “I’m going in.”
Hoyt Hooper, the senior center’s bingo caller, rolled to a stop nearby in his mechanical scooter. His pug, Hops, sat in the scooter’s basket, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt that matched the one Hooper was wearing, down to the last hibiscus. “That man’s got to be in trouble. I’m calling 911.”
Molly nodded. “Good idea.”
But would they get to the dog beach in time to help him? Doubtful.
She glanced at the red Igloo cooler strapped to Hoyt’s scooter with a bungee cord. “Hoyt, remember that safety demo the fire department gave at the library last year?”
He nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“I’m going to need your cooler.” According to the fire department, a fiberglass cooler could be used as a flotation device in an emergency situation. And this was definitely beginning to feel like an emergency.
“Does this mean you’re going in after that guy?” Hoyt grabbed the Igloo and handed it to her.
Molly dumped out the contents—three frosty cans of root beer and a pile of ice. “I sure am.”
Ursula’s tail wagged as she licked the spilled ice cubes.
“I’ll watch your pup. Be careful, Molly,” Hoyt said as he climbed off his scooter. “Please.”
“It’s going to be fine,” she said, not quite sure whether she was talking to Hoyt, Ursula, or herself.
Molly waddled as fast as she could into the water while Hoyt scooped Ursula into his arms and the other seniors made their way toward the scene with their walkers leaving winding trails behind them in the sand. The dogs gathered round, barking at the ocean while their ears flapped in the salty breeze. Molly suddenly felt like she was in a very bizarre episode ofBaywatch.
It occurred to her that she didn’t even know if her costume was waterproof. She’d never actually gotten it wet before. Some mermaid she was.
She held her breath, dove into the waves and breaststroked her way with one arm to the place where the man had disappeared, clutching the cooler tightly with the other. The water this close to shore was murky, filled with tumbling seashells and stirred-up sand. Molly’s eyes burned, and her chest ached. A wave splashed into her face, and she couldn’t see a thing. Then she blinked a few times and spotted him.
The man’s arms flailed at the waves. He gasped for air. Molly could feel the riptide pulling at her ridiculous fishtail, threatening to drag her out to sea. She clutched the cooler as tightly as she could.
No way. She wasnotgoing to die like this—costumed, while the greater senior citizen and dog populations of Turtle Beach looked on. Absolutely not. She flat-out refused.
“Grab my hand,” she yelled above the roar of the waves and sea spray.
The panicked man’s head jerked in her direction. Their eyes met, and his gaze filled with a combination of wonder and relief. Molly’s heart thumped hard—adrenaline, no doubt. Still, there was just something about those soulful eyes that made Molly’s head spin.
She only hoped it wasn’t because they were about to drown together. Drowning was nowhere on Molly’s to-do list, and the stranger was far too cute to get lost at sea. She simply couldn’t picture him with a Tom HanksCast Awaybeard, crying over a volleyball with a face.
Why on earth were these crazy thoughts flitting through her head? Was she drowningright now?
She reached for the man as hard as she could, kicked her mermaid tail against the current and yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Wilson!”
***
The first, and last, time that Max Miller had eaten a raw oyster, his first impression had been that it tasted like he’d just licked the ocean floor. Salty…wet…
And gritty. Soverygritty. Max had not been a fan, nor had he been inclined to repeat the experience. Besides, oyster reefs were currently the most endangered marine habitat on the entire planet. Best to leave the poor, non-delicious things right where they belonged.
At the moment, though, Max was having some sort of gustatory flashback, because that highly memorable oyster taste was permeating his senses again—in his mouth, his nose, the back of his throat. Even his eyeballs, glued shut with sand and salt and any and all manner of fish excrement (sometimes being a marine biologist afforded a person with more knowledge than was preferable in moments such as this one), seemed to taste the oyster.
But when at last Max managed to pry his eyes open, there wasn’t an oyster in sight. Just a mermaid, gazing down at him with worried eyes the color of a stormy sea while her lush, blonde mermaid hair whipped around her face. Max closed his eyes again. Mermaids weren’t real. Maybe he was dreaming, or maybe he’d died. He certainly didn’t feel particularly alive at the moment.
Salty bile rose up the back of his throat. He gagged and sputtered until someone—the imaginary mermaid, probably—rolled him onto his side and he coughed up what seemed like a gallon of seawater. An upturned Igloo cooler sat about a foot from his head for some odd reason.
