Page 37 of A Spot of Trouble
“In the middle of the game.” He raised his brows. “Yes, I noticed. Everyone did. You two seemed to be having a quite a conversation at your cupcake truck.”
“We were just chatting, that’s all. There’s no secret love affair going on between us. I have no intention of repeating past mistakes.”
“Good.” He nodded and for a second, he looked far older than his fifty-seven years. “You know I just want you to be happy, right, Cupcake?”
“I know, Dad.”
“And the fact of the matter is that I just don’t trust the man.”
“That makes two of us,” Violet said quietly.
She would have added Sprinkles to the equation, but the Dalmatian was clearly enamored of Turtle Beach’s newest fireman, just like everybody else in town.
“For what it’s worth, though, I’m notentirelysure Sam intentionally set out to get Sprinkles to interfere with the game.” Violet cleared her throat. She would never have admitted as much to Sam, but she wanted to be honest with her father. “He made a cute little clicking noise, and Sprinkles just threw herself at him like he was the long lost inventor of dog biscuits.”
That was what had upset Violet the most—not that the game had been forfeited, but that her dog might actually have a canine crush on her nemesis. The possibility stung more than it should have. She knew without a doubt that she was her dog’s favorite person in the world. But if Sprinkles had to have a crush on someone, did it have to behim? Clearly, Sprinkles—sweet, innocent soul that she was—had learned nothing from Violet’s tumultuous romantic past.
“Anyway, it won’t happen again, Dad. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure the police department wins the tournament.”Obviously. “We’re just one game down, but I know we can bounce back.”
“Heck yes. We can. Sam doesn’t seem to be quite the softball savior that Murray seemed to think he was, particularly if he keeps walking off the field in the middle of the game.” A small smile crept its way to Ed March’s face. And just when Violet thought the conversation was over and she was free to hunker down in her wing of the rambling beach house to plot Sam’s demise, her father held up a finger. “One more thing, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Sure.”
“What were you two talking about for so long in the middle of the fourth inning?”
Violet’s face suddenly felt as hot as if she’d just spent an entire day baking on a beach towel by the shore. Visions of Sam’s charming dimples and his perfectly chiseled jawline danced in her head.
I think you and I should be friends…
“Nothing, really.” She kept her gaze glued on the horizon, where a row of pelicans swooped low over the sea, letting the tips of their wings skim the surface of the water. “Just chitchat, mostly about our dogs.”
Her dad nodded, and that should have been that, but Violet realized if she elaborated just a little bit, she might have an opening to push for an answer to the question she’d been dying to know for as long as she could remember.
She swallowed hard, brushed her windswept hair from her face and tried to keep her voice as calm and even as possible. “Actually, Sam asked me how I ended up adopting a Dalmatian.”
Dad went still, like he always did any time Violet tiptoed anywhere close to the topic of her mother. She never pushed, though. Ever. The last thing she wanted was to make her father feel like he hadn’t been enough for her or that her childhood had been traumatic. Honestly, it hadn’t. Of course she’d wondered what it would have been like to have a mother to read her bedtime stories or braid her hair, but Dad had stepped up and done those things himself. And when he’d been busy with work, the OG Charlie’s Angels had stepped in to make sure she was always taken care of, always cherished.
But no matter how much the town rallied, Violet was still curious. She wanted to know more about the smiling woman in the pictures who’d sacrificed everything to give birth to her. She’d just never figured out a way to make her father talk. He seemed to want to leave all those yesterdays right where they belonged—in the past.
Violet kept talking in an effort to fill the loaded silence. “I told him it was because Mom had one a long time ago. But of course you already know that.”
Was she imagining things, or did the salty evening air go heavy all of a sudden? Thick with memories, secrets, and family lore that went deeper than old pictures pressed between the pages of leather-bound books. “How did she end up with a Dalmatian, Dad? I don’t think you’ve ever told me.”
“It’s getting late, Cupcake,” he said.
His rocking chair creaked as he stood and raked a hand through his hair and gave her one last smile before heading inside. Sprinkles sprang to her feet as the sliding glass door closed behind him and came to rest her head in Violet’s lap. Her dark eyes glittered in the moonlight.
“Good girl,” Violet whispered.
Sprinkleswasgood, no matter what Sam thought. She was sweet and loving, and always seemed to know when Violet needed a little extra comfort. Surely that was just as important as sitting on command or rolling over or knowing how to dial 911.
Okay, maybe that last one really was extra-important. Still, in Violet’s eyes, Sprinkles was the most perfect dog in Turtle Beach, if not the world.
She ran her fingertips along the Dalmatian’s smooth head, pausing to touch each black spot with the pad of her thumb, like tender little kisses. She wondered if her mother had ever done the same with Polkadot or if Adeline’s Dalmatian knew how to do fancy tricks like Cinder or if she’d ever gone to obedience classes like the ones Sam wanted her to attend. What sort of dog had Polkadot been, and where had she come from?
Like so much else, Violet suspected she might never know.
Chapter 9
