Seal With a Kiss (10 page)

"Of course," Violet answered for both of them.
"We'd love to have you along. Meet us in the Seaquarium Hotel lobby after the park closes-say
seven-and we'll go from there, okay? And if you
don't mind driving, that'd be great. Our wheels are
less than stylish."

Chaz nodded, Smitty grumbled, and the welcom ing committee-some of whom had started shifting
restlessly during this exchange-ushered the newcomers into the Seaquarium to meet their new passenger.

Jasper the sea lion was huge and very, very
friendly.

Violet discovered this when she leaned down to
examine his feeding chart and he poked his whiskered nose through the mesh of his holding pen and
gave her a wet, fishy kiss on the cheek. "Ugh! Um
... I mean, thanks, Jasper."

Smitty snickered and she glared at him. He'd been
easier to deal with when he'd been fast asleep in the
truck. Then at least she could glance at him from
time to time and indulge in bittersweet memories of
the good times they'd had together. Now that he was
awake-and looking as devastatingly rumpled and
unshaven as she'd ever seen him-he was bothering
her again on a very deep, very primitive level.

She'd thought that once they talked about their
grad school breakup and put it in the past, her characteristic twitchiness around him would be gone.
She'd always blamed it on leftover anger from the
way he'd married Ellen right after she'd turned him
down. But if anything, it seemed worse. She was
aware of his every motion. His every mood.

That's why she'd been so glad to see Chaz. Like
Brody, he could provide a badly needed buffer.

"Hork! Hork!" Jasper applauded himself for the
kiss and Violet grabbed a corner of Smitty's shirt and
used it to wipe her face off.

"Hey!"

She shrugged. "Like anyone will notice another
smear on your ensemble."

She had a fleeting thought that maybe she'd borrowed his shirt to warn the circling vultures away.
The women who worked at the Seaquarium were already giving Smitty the once-over ... and his filthy
shirt was the last thing they were looking at. Violet
bared her teeth at a particularly interested-looking
blond whose logo polo shirt was a wee bit tight.

"That's Candi with an `i'," Chaz murmured in her
ear, noticing the direction of Violet's gaze. Then he
raised his voice. "And I've got a great idea. Candi,
why don't you join us for dinner tonight as well?
You can be Smitty's guest and I'll be Violet's. Four
is a much more comfortable number than three, don't
you think?"

Violet winced at the idea, but her protest was
drowned out by Candi's squeal of glee. Smitty just
glowered, which seemed to be his fallback expression of the morning, and the arrangements were
made.

"Can we please," Violet said through clenched
teeth, "get on with this? We're going to load Jasper
first thing tomorrow morning and drive him round
the clock until we get him to Smugglers Cove right
before the opening ceremonies. That's the way Brody
has it planned. So we're going to need to know how
to work the commands you've taught him for the
ceremony. Chaz, I'd like you to run us through his
routine, please."

"Of course, Vi." One of the other women produced
an enormous pair of fake scissors, a dog whistle, and
a bucket of fish. Chaz hopped into Jasper's holding
pen and gave three short peeps on the whistle, which
brought the enormous creature out of the water and
up onto a floating dock.

At sixteen years old, Jasper was a full-grown California sea lion, and looked much like the wild ones
off the Monterey coast. She might have been saddened that the twelve-hundred-pound animal lived in
captivity, even though his accommodations were
large and well designed, but she could also see the
gnarled white scar running down his flank, and could
tell that one of his hind flippers-which sea lions use
for steering-was damaged.

The Seaquarium was primarily a stranding rescue
center. Its seal, dolphin, and manatee educational
programs were populated with animals that had been rescued and were too badly hurt for rehabilitation. Its
sea lion show was made up of animals who'd been
rescued from their native waters off California and
shipped to Florida for placement.

She watched Chaz run Jasper through a warm-up
routine of spins, jumps, and ball balancing, and she
felt herself relax. The sea lion was obviously enjoying his work. As the behaviors grew more complex,
Chaz provided a running commentary on the cognitive research that was also taking place at the Seaquarium, using the sea lions and a few rescued
dolphins. Violet soon found herself nodding and asking questions.

It wasn't quite the open seas that she loved, but
she decided it wasn't bad either. The research done
at the Seaquarium provided information that would
help Dolphin Friendly with its new stranding research center.

"It's all based on targeting, see?" Chaz demonstrated by cueing Jasper to place his nose on a ball.
Wherever he moved the ball, Jasper's nose followed.
"Just say `Jasper, target' and he'll latch on to the
prop." He demonstrated with the fake scissors and
Violet saw Smitty nod.

He didn't seem to be frowning as hard as he had
been. Maybe he was looking forward to dinner with
Candi.

Now Violet scowled.

"Why don't you two come in here and practice
with him?" Chaz handed over the props and ushered
her and Smitty into the pen. "Just do what I showed
you, and if he gives you a behavior that's even close
to what you want, reward him with a short blast on
the whistle and a piece of fish. Once he's got the
idea, you can shape the behavior until it's where you
want it. That's called `modeling,' or `shaping.' "

Smitty took the trainer's place, and Violet felt incredibly foolish holding a piece of ribbon and an
oversized pair of fake scissors. They ran through the
behavior a few times until Jasper was taking the scissors in his mouth and using them to `cut' the ribbon
on Smitty's command.

"Okay, now switch so he's heard the cues from
both of you," Chaz suggested. "That way you'll be
all ready for Brody's show the day after tomorrow."

Violet was happy to relinquish the ribbon, but with
her, Smitty, and Jasper all on the float at once, it was
difficult to swap places. She tried to edge around
Jasper's rear end so she wouldn't have to go near
Smitty, but a couple of low, annoyed-sounding
grunts from the sea lion let her know that wasn't
going to work.

She reversed direction and tried to slide past
Smitty without touching him as he tried to do the same, but her foot slipped on a fallen piece of fish.
She squeaked as she fell towards the water, grabbing
for Smitty, who tried to catch her. He snagged a
handful of her shirt ... and they both pitched into the
water of the sea lion's tank.

ccHork, hork, hork!" Jasper barked joyfully and
hopped into the water, swimming around his two new
best friends as Smitty clawed his way back to the
surface and hauled Violet up with him.

Somehow they'd wound up tangled together on the
way down and her arms were still wrapped around
his waist. He glanced over at the dock and saw about
a hundred amused-looking faces-well, at least
twenty-peering down at them.

"HORK!" Jasper swam right up and bayed in
Smitty's ear, making his head ring with sea lion enthusiasm.

"You guys want a hand, or are you enjoying it in there?" came Chaz's voice, and Violet must have realized that she was snuggled up against her least favorite person, because she pushed herself away from
Smitty with such force that he went under again.

When he bobbed back up, he tried to be a gentleman and help her up onto the float, but when he
grabbed her ankle to boost her up, his hand slipped
on her wet leg and he accidentally grabbed her khakiclad rump.

Violet squeaked and seemed to leap up the rest of
the way onto the float. "Well, I never-"

Smitty was pretty sure she had, on at least a few
other occasions, but he didn't think now was a good
time to mention it. Instead he said, "Now Violet, I
didn't mean-"

"We had an agreement!" she yelled, "A truce!"
And she dumped the bucket of fish on his head.

"Hork!" The sea lion's delighted bark drowned out
Smitty's less-than-delighted response, and Jasper
darted around collecting bits of mackerel as Violet
stomped squishily out of the pen.

There was a moment of stunned, amused silence.

Chaz finally stepped forward and offered Smitty a
hand. There was a barely masked chuckle in his
voice when he asked, "Want me to help you out of
there, or do you like Jasper licking fish out of your
hair?"

Smitty grumbled under his breath and let Chaz
haul him out of the tank. Once he was on the dock
and a rapidly spreading puddle was forming at his
feet, he shrugged and forced a chuckle. "Well, when
we got here I was wishing for a shower. Guess I got
my wish."

Chaz sniffed and wrinkled his perfect nose. "If you
say so. But if I were you, I'd still vote for the
shower-at least before we all go to dinner." He
paused and cleared his throat. "Are you sure there's
nothing going on with you and Violet? I don't want
to get in the middle of it if there is."

Smitty shook his head, discouraged. Little droplets
of water sprinkled from his hair. "There's nothing
going on with us. Right now, I'm pretty sure she
hates me or something."

"Or something," Chaz repeated.

Smitty rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Why does
everyone keep saying that? What do you know that
I don't about my own life?"

"I don't know anything about your life," Chaz allowed, "but I remember Violet when she first joined
the Puget Sound study. She was pretty broken up
about you marrying that Ellen girl from the agronomy program."

"I know what program Ellen was in. She was my
wife." He never quite understood how he'd come to be married to a woman who'd majored in organic
pig farming. He'd woken up one day about a year
after his mother's death and found that Violet was
gone, he was married to a woman who didn't love
the ocean, and there was a gaping hole in his chest
where his heart had been.

Somewhere in the twelve months following the
death of his last remaining family member, he'd
made some very bad decisions.

Chaz nodded. "Of course. Regardless, Violet did
almost nothing other than work for the first year she
was on the Puget project. She volunteered for all the
extra shifts, did the sonar logs when she wasn't on
call, and slept most of the rest of the time." He
paused, then lowered the boom. "And she cried."

Smitty almost scoffed at the absurdity of it. "Violet
never cries." Though she had sniffled against his
chest the day before. But that didn't quite count as
tears.

Chaz shrugged. "Believe what you will, but take
it from me, she was a mess. She got over youeventually-and decided to go back to Dolphin
Friendly. I've seen her one other time since, when
you guys were working off Chincoteague Island and
the group I was with passed through, and she seemed
happy enough. But she doesn't seem so happy now."

Not knowing what to say, Smitty nodded reluc tantly and thought of her failed relationship with
Brody. "I know. I wish I could fix it, but I don't
think it has anything to do with me this time."

Chaz shrugged. "Suit yourself. And don't say I
didn't ask. I believe in playing fair, and you just declared the field open for a kickoff." He sniffed,
grinned, and said, "Not to be rude or anything,
Smitty, but I'd suggest you hike across the street to
the hotel and hit the showers before the play commences."

Showered and refreshed, Violet sought out the
manatees. Oh, how she loved manatees. She'd been
fascinated with them ever since the first time she'd
seen a picture of one in the encyclopedia at her Midwest grade school. Meeting them in person had only
strengthened the emotion.

They were like giant, animated sofas.

Although it seemed a little disloyal of her-being
a member of Dolphin Friendly and all-she loved
manatees more than anything, though she'd never
been able to work with them full-time. Now, she
grinned in anticipation as she sat at the edge of the
wide, shallow tank and dipped her feet in the brackish water. A trio of the young animals swam slowly
towards her at top speed, which meant they took almost a minute to reach her.

There were lettuce leaves and other tasty offerings
floating about the tank, so the strange, soft-looking
creatures weren't looking to her for a handout. They
simply wanted to cuddle. When one of them reached
her, it began to suck on her toes, and she felt the rasp
of the dull bony ridges that they used to chew their
plant meals. They had no teeth. Everything about
them was soft and slow.

Harmless. Vulnerable.

Violet rubbed the baby manatee's broad, flat back
with her other foot and winced at the slashing white
scars. "You've got to be smarter about avoiding those
motor boats, little guy," she said to the brownish gray
creature.