Seal With a Kiss (12 page)

Glancing down at the table to where Candi's
chipped pink nails rested lightly on Smitty's forearm,
Violet grimaced. It would be easier not to see him at
all than it would be to see him fall in love with another woman. Again.

So, very deliberately, Violet touched Chaz's hand
and regained his attention. She gave him her best
smile and said, "So tell me more about your plans
for the new team."

He'd been right. It had been an endlessly long
night, Smitty thought, as he slumped in the corner of the elevator, blissfully alone. After Chaz and Violet
had elected to stay at the restaurant and listen to the
live jazz quartet-and Smitty knew for a fact that
Violet wasn't partial to horns-he and Candi had
taken a cab back to the hotel.

He hadn't been able to think of a good reason to
refuse her invitation to share a last drink at the bar,
but an hour later he was wishing passionately that
he'd managed to find a reason. Any reason. Because
his head was killing him, and he was pretty sure that
the next time she giggled, he was going postal.

Then lady luck had smiled on him in the form of
two Seaquarium employees who'd waved to Candi
and asked her to join them.

They must've seen the desperation in her date's
eyes, Smitty thought as he dragged himself down the
hall towards his room, fumbling for the key card. He
wanted nothing more than to sleep through the night
so it would be morning and he and Violet could load
up their passenger and head for Smugglers Cove. Because if they stayed here another day, Smitty was
sure he would go crazy and do something he'd regret
for the rest of his life.

Like get down on his knees and beg Violet not to
leave Dolphin Friendly.

He glared at the door to her room-next to hisas he swiped the key card for the third time. The darned things never worked right for him. Ever. He
would've banged on her door to see if she'd let him
in through the locked door that connected their
rooms, but why bother? She wasn't back yet. She
was still out with Chaz.

He swiped the card again. Cursed. He drew back
his foot to kick the door.

"Here, let me." Violet deftly slipped the key card
from his suddenly nerveless fingers, swiped it
through the lock, and pushed open the door when the
light flickered green and the mechanism clicked
open. "You never did figure key cards out, did you?"

Smitty didn't answer. He was too busy gaping. She
was holding a bucket full of ice packed around a can
of soda. Her feet were bare. Her hair was down
around her shoulders like he rarely ever saw it-she
almost always wore it up for convenience. And she
was wearing an oversized T-shirt covered with pictures of big, mean sharks surrounding a single
worried-looking goldfish.

Still holding his door open, she cocked her head.
"You okay, Smits?"

He felt an odd stirring in his chest. Possibly the
extra spicy calamari.

Or else it was something else.

"Don't go," he blurted out.

She raised an eyebrow. "Where? To my room? In case you hadn't noticed, it's almost midnight. You
and ... Candi must've lost track of time."

Which made him wonder how long she'd been
back at the hotel. She and Chaz the Magnificent must
not have stayed at the restaurant long. He smiled at
the thought, but felt his nerves sizzle when he said,
"No, don't leave Dolphin Friendly. Don't take the
job here."

She froze and his stomach sank. "Oh. That." She
stepped away from his door and he stuck a foot in it
so he wouldn't have to wrestle with the key again.
"Well, it's a good position, a good group of people,
and the manatees...."

He knew she loved manatees. And since they
weren't found in Smugglers Cove-or anywhere
north of Florida for that matter-that was the one
thing Dolphin Friendly couldn't offer her.

"Still," he said, looking for the words to make her
stay. "Dolphin Friendly is expanding. There'll be
those new boats soon, assuming we get the grants,
and then who knows what? New people, new projects-just think of it!" When she shook her head
and turned towards her own door, he called after her,
"Will you think about it? Please?"

She turned back. "Things are changing at Dolphin
Friendly, Smitty. You know it and I know it. It's time
for us to recognize that and move on. It's time to grow up. Let's be realistic, pretty soon there'll be nothing
really keeping me in the group."

Looking at her, seeing her with both the eyes of a
lonely young grad student and the eyes of a grown
man who'd only just begun to realize that he was
still lonely, he thought she'd never looked more
lovely as she did standing barefoot, holding a plastic
bucket of melting ice.

"I'm in the group," he said quietly. "And if things
are changing, we need to make sure they're changing
for the better. Besides, Brody would miss you."
Smitty figured that had to be worth something. He
wanted to make some sort of sweeping declaration
of his feelings-even though he wasn't even sure
what they were anymore-but she hadn't wanted to
hear them ten years ago, and he was sure she didn't
want to hear them now. So he grinned and said,
"Come on, Vi. We've been pals for a lot longer than
we were girlfriend and boyfriend. Can't we keep it
that way?"

He thought he saw a flash of pain in her eyes. Her
lips turned up wryly at the corners and she shook her
head. "That's exactly the point. We're pals. Let's
keep it that way."

With that, she let herself into her room and closed
the door.

Smitty stood in the hallway for a long time, wondering exactly what he had missed.

ccCareful, careful! Don't bang the crate around.
This isn't a case full of frozen fish, you know!" Chaz
waved his arms wildly as the crane operator goosed
the winch too quickly.

Jasper emitted a startled "Hork!" as the compact
car-sized crate he was in swung ponderously through
the air and bounced off the side of the refrigerator
truck.

"Hey, watch it!" Violet-who had been standing
near the open doors at the back of the truck-dove
for cover as the crate whistled overhead. If Jasper
weighed about twelve-hundred pounds, and the crate
another thousand ... she didn't want to think about the damage the two could do together. The poor guy
was probably frightened out of his head!

"Put it down!" Smitty waved furiously at the crane
operator, who finally played out enough line to set
the crate gently on the ground.

"Is he okay?" Chaz asked worriedly, and Violet
glanced into the crate.

Jasper's eyes were bright and he was bobbing his
head enthusiastically. When he saw Violet, he
greeted her with a happy "Hork, hork, hoooork!"

She laughed. "He thinks he's on a carnival ride.
I'm pretty sure he just said higher, faster!"

Smitty shuddered. He hopped down from one giant
caterpillar crane tread and walked over to inspect the
side of the truck. "Not much damage, but can we try
to keep it that way? Brody'll have my head if we
end up owning a dented fifteen-year-old refrigerator
truck."

The concept was simple-load Jasper into his traveling crate and use the crane to place the crate on the
hydraulic lift at the back of the truck. Because of the
high moats surrounding the sea lion arena, and the fact
that the fork truck that usually moved the crates
around was out of commission, this had seemed the
best plan. Now Violet wasn't so sure.

"Okay, one more try." Smitty hopped back up to
confer with the crane operator. The big engine mo tored up, the cable grew tight once again, and the
crate was lifted-gently-into the air.

Violet engaged the hydraulic tailgate and waited
near the back deck of the truck. The lift was enough
to stabilize the ton-plus load and slide it into the
truck, but not enough to bring the load up by itself.
They were trying to coordinate the crane and the lift
together. In theory, it would work.

But in theory, it should've worked the last six tries
too.

"I should've been a horse trainer," she muttered to
herself as the crate descended towards the lift.

"Why's that?" asked perky Candi.

"Because horses know how to load themselves on
trucks," Violet answered shortly. She might not have
liked the other woman when she'd been hanging on
Smitty's arm the night before, and she certainly
hadn't liked her when Smitty had reeled back to his
room near midnight, smelling like chocolate perfume, but Violet had to admit that Candi was doing
her job now. The blond was in charge of keeping
Jasper cool and happy while he was being loaded.
She had a hose with a spray nozzle, and was wetting
the sea lion down regularly as well as feeding him
small pieces of fish now and again to keep him thinking this was all fun and games.

Sea lions, like most marine mammals, overheated
easily-with disastrous consequences.

"Okay, bring it down now," Violet called and
waved her arm for the crane operator to start lowering Jasper's crate.

Besides, she thought, Candi wasn't the problem.
Smitty was the problem. If he didn't see her as anything more than a "pal"-and he'd made that pretty
clear the night before-then there really wasn't any
hope for them, was there?

Violet wasn't sure when she started thinking that
there might be hope for the two of them. It was probably when she'd played with that little boy at the
water park and thought how much she'd wanted children, once upon a time. That was right about the time
she realized that if she and Smitty tried another relationship and it failed, then one of them would have
to leave Dolphin Friendly.

Then when Chaz had made his offer, she began to
wonder whether it might just be better to avoid the
inevitable heartbreak all together and switch jobs
now.

Cowardice, maybe. But it was the safe, painless
option. She glanced at Smitty and her heart turned
over in her chest. Okay, she amended. Maybe just
the less painful option.

"Are we still on target?" The shout returned her
attention to the descent of the heavy crate, and
through a combination of fair winds, clear skies, and general dumb luck they managed to drop Jasper
squarely on the hydraulic lift this time.

There was a ragged chorus of cheers from the Seaquarium staff, and a general sigh of relief when the
crate slid into the refrigerator truck without further
incident. A few of the trainers waved or shed a quiet
tear as Violet shut the doors on Jasper's last sight of
sunny Florida.

"He'll be okay in Boston, won't he?" Candi's
lower lip trembled as she looked to Violet for reassurance.

"Er-" Violet backed away a step. "Sure, he'll be
fine. The trainers at the Boston Aquarium are topnotch. Good people."

"Thanks," Candi whispered. Her big blue eyes
filled with tears. "I'll just miss him so much. He's
such a good boy." She launched herself against Violet and clung, crying hiccuppy sobs.

Violet struggled to free herself without being too
obvious. She patted the blond's heaving shoulder
with one hand while waving frantically for help with
the other. She glanced up for rescue, and saw Smitty
standing nearby, grinning. She mouthed Get her off
me! and he shook his head. He knew full well that
emotions-particularly female ones-worried her to
no end.

"Come on darling, it'll be okay," Chaz came to the rescue, peeling Candi off Violet and handing the
sobbing blond over to another staffer. "Jasper will
make lots of new friends in Boston."

He shook his head and grinned as Candi was led
away, sniffling. To Violet, he said, "I promise if you
come work with me that I won't let her hug you more
than once a month." He grinned at her shudder. "And
I won't assign her to your team, okay?" He passed
her a card, which was almost blown away when
Smitty started the truck's engine and revved it until
it belched a black cloud all over Chaz.

Violet suppressed a smile when her one-time partner in crime leaned his head out of the cab and called
a completely false, "Sorry!"

Chaz pulled her away from the vehicle and tapped
the card. "Here are the numbers where you can reach
me. I'm serious about the offer."

She nodded and didn't glance over when Smitty
revved the truck again. "I'm seriously thinking about
it. You said housing was included?" She thought
about the years she'd spent with Dolphin Friendly,
either sleeping onboard in a hammock because they
couldn't afford a hotel, or staying in those crummy
apartments they rented by the week. Then she
thought of her pretty room at Smugglers Cove, and
the view of the ocean she had out her window. About
the curtains and bedspread she and Maddy were going to shop for when she got home.

Except it might not be home for long.

"Yes," Chaz replied. "Housing is included."

"Would I get my own closet?"

He laughed. "You'd get your own condo." He put
his hand on her back and steered her to the front of
the truck, opened her door for her, and handed her
up. "Think about it and get back to me after the opening ceremony. I want to flesh out the new team by
the end of the month."