The Kiss on Castle Road (A Lavender Island Novel) (4 page)

“No, I’m just stopping by to see the three sea lion pups that were brought in last night—I found them in Diver’s Nook and wondered how they were doing.”

“Oh! We love when people follow up! Let me check on them for you. Don’t you look cute! Are you a model?”

Natalie shifted uncomfortably. Her modeling days were long over. “No. I—”

“Do you know who brought them in and what time?” The woman had already moved on.

Natalie breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. “Jim, I think. About seven p.m.”

“They might be in ICU. I’ll go check. Have a look around, and I’ll be right back. My name is Doris.” She pointed proudly at the name pin attached above the friend proclamation.

“Thank you, Doris.”

“We have a tour coming in five minutes. You should join them. We take them all throughout the facility.” She cupped her hand near her mouth like a whisper. “You can slip in in the back.”

Natalie slid her hands into her cargo pockets. “I might.”

“And here.” Doris pulled a flyer out of her blue half apron and shoved it at Natalie. “Be sure to come to our Bars and Barks Event. It’s the last Saturday of every month, and it’s a fund-raiser for the sea lions.”

While Doris shuffled up one of the cement walks toward the barnlike building, Natalie read the flyer. Lavender Island sure had a lot of events—it seemed as if every weekend there were three or four charity events to choose from. The problem was, unless it was tourist season, they were mostly populated by senior citizens. Or sometimes thirtysomethings with small kids, like Olivia and Jon. Although Lavender Island might have been magical for her when she was a child, it just wasn’t a fun place to hang out as a single young adult.

She tucked the flyer into one of her pockets and followed the sound of barking sea lions to one of the four fenced pools, which had five two-hundred-pound animals swimming around inside, with two additional ones sunning themselves on the sidelines. They looked healthy and shiny brown, their wet coats glistening in the sun. One stretched his neck up toward the sunshine, wriggled it back and forth with seeming appreciation for the warmth, then slid back into the pool and dove out on the opposite side. He seemed to like that spot better and turned his whiskered face toward the sun again. He gave a contented bark.

In the next pool, five more sea lions, a little bigger than the last set, acted rowdier. Two were arguing over their position in the corner, while another three swam in circles together, then all leaped out the other side in a wet, blubbery slither. They barked at one another, as if to get out of the way, then finally settled on a comfortable dog pile, overlapping one another, to enjoy the dapples of sun.

The third pool had a different mammal—smaller, with lighter-brown bodies, more doglike faces, wrinkled furry necks, and larger eyes like puppies. Three of these creatures swam together and let off higher-sounding barks, leaping over one another in the water like a game of leapfrog before slithering out to the sidewalk for some sun.

“Those are baby fur seals,” came a deep voice behind her.

Natalie whirled. There, not twelve inches away, was none other than Nerdy Awkward Guy.

“What are you
doing
here?” Her voice was embarrassingly breathless. She had the brief, horrible thought that she’d somehow conjured him from the unthinkable number of times today she’d hoped to see him again, then remembered her mancation and hoped
not
to see him again.

“I work here.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I came to see . . .” The words escaped her. Her hand fluttered in the direction of the buildings.

Men didn’t normally make her clam up. Especially intellectual-looking guys like this. Today he actually had a
lab coat
on. And
glasses
. Her usual guys had antiestablishment glowers, not curious expressions. And motorcycle jackets, not lab coats. Yet for some reason she couldn’t stop staring at this guy and his soulful eyes. He peered at her as if he were studying her under a microscope—not in the leering way most men did, but in an intense way, as though he were looking at the unicorn in his living room again.

“Did you come to see Larry, Curly, and Moe?” he asked gently.

“Larry, Curly, and Moe?”

“The rescuer usually gets to name them. I thought I’d go with something cheerful.”

She finally had to look away. She knew what to do with leers, with suggestive smirks, with half-lidded eyes that dropped to her breasts. She’d been enduring those since puberty. But
this
. . . she didn’t quite know what to do with what looked like sincere curiosity. Or such a kind, no-expectations smile.

“They’re in the back, if you want to see them,” he said. “They’re still in ICU. We usually don’t let visitors back there, but if you—”

“Dr. Sherman! Dr. Sherman!”
Doris tottered through the courtyard, a deep look of concern on her face. “What are you doing down here? You don’t need to be out here. We’ll take care of the guests.” She grabbed his lab-coat sleeve and tugged him toward the walkway.

“It’s all right, Doris.” He slipped out of her handhold. “I know this guest.”

She looked at Natalie with a new sort of appreciation. “You didn’t say that. Well, I found the three patients you mentioned from last night,” she said, turning toward Natalie. “They’re still in ICU. We don’t let guests back there, though, but if you want to come back in about three days, they’ll probably be on their way to a great recovery.”

Behind Doris, Dr. Nerd dropped his gaze to the ground and seemed to bite back a smile. He glanced up at Natalie, his eyes begging her not to reveal that he’d just been inviting her to break the rules.

“Thanks, Doris,” he finally said.

“Or, you know . . .” Doris winked at Natalie. Her hand came up again to channel her whisper between girls.
“Slip into the tour.”

Natalie suppressed a smile and nodded.

Doris headed up the path. Once she was out of earshot, Dr. Nerd slid her a glance. “Want to sneak around the back to see them?”

“Doesn’t Dr. Sherman get to do what he wants around here?”

“I’m just a visiting scientist. The lead vet is my friend Jim, and he runs a pretty tight ship around here. Elliott Sherman.” He held his hand out.

She shook it. “Natalie Grant.”

He frowned while he held her hand too long, as if perhaps he was concentrating on her name. “I like your hat,” he blurted.

“Thank you.”

When she finally wrestled her hand back, he cleared his throat.

A small silence welled. Natalie was normally good at filling these—usually with a smart-assed comment or inane observation—but for some reason, she didn’t want to take any chances with this man. She didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing. Turning toward the pool, she gripped the fence, concentrating on the baby fur seals. Shifting her focus felt like a self-preservation tactic.

“Thanks for your rescue last night,” he finally said. “You really should have named the pups instead of me. Or your daughter should have named them.”

“She’s not my daughter.” She didn’t mean to look back at him, but she did.

He gave another of those thoughtful nods, seemingly waiting for her to fill in.

“Niece.”

The nod continued, became more thoughtful.

The nudge from her gut, or maybe her heart, told her to move away.

“Sherm?” Another lab-coated man shouted from the barn-building doorway.

Dr. Sherman turned.

“Seizure!” the man yelled.

Nerdy turned back to Natalie. “Domoic acid,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“Sorry. Nothing. I’ve . . .” He made a motion with his hands back toward the building but looked at her with entreaty.

“Yes! Go!” Natalie said.
Seizure?
Did sea lions have seizures?

“I’m sorry.” He seemed distraught. “Can we . . . ? Or can you . . . ? I know you want to see the sea lions you helped rescue.”

“No, go!” Natalie said.

He lingered for what seemed like too long, frowning at her, and then jogged up the walkway.

Natalie watched the perfect crease in his chinos that fell from beneath his lab coat, noted the natural step in his dress shoes as he jogged up the bricks, and knew she had never in her life been attracted to such things.

And yet here she was.

Attracted.

She frowned and turned back to the baby fur seals.

The feeling of self-preservation returned.

Elliott hustled up the steps and ran a few curse words through his head at his stupidity.

I like your hat?
Had he seriously just said that? That had to be about the lamest line in the universe.

At least he got her name. And found out the little girl wasn’t hers. And saw that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

But damn, what good did all that do? She looked like a supermodel, with that wide smile, perfect body, and all that shiny braided hair. And a smart supermodel at that, with those fierce brown eyes. She probably had guys hitting on her all the time. Cool guys. Guys with moves. Guys who said things that were a hell of a lot more clever than “I like your hat.”

He groaned and decided to banish that line from his memory forever. He’d never think about this incident again.

“Room two?” he asked Jim, who was waiting for him to pass through the big door.

“Yep. It’s Mr. Warbler. We thought it was the leptospirosis, but looks more like domoic acid poisoning.” Jim slammed the door behind them and lumbered after Elliott. “We might be back to ground zero. I was going to administer an injection but thought you might want to take a look at him first.”

He did. Jim was great about letting Elliott view everything as a scientist, which most centers didn’t. The results were inconsistent and confusing: Mr. Warbler had seemed as if he was suffering from leptospirosis, but now a seizure indicated domoic acid poisoning; the three pups that came in last night—Larry, Curly, and Moe—were not fluttering their flippers over their midsections in the manner expected of an animal with leptospirosis. They were exhibiting dehydration, similar to the frightening number of sea lion pups that had been washing up on California coasts since March. It was only April, and they were already showing record numbers.

“Thanks for letting me take a look.” Elliott jotted everything down on his notepad, then turned the gurney with Jim and they both rushed Mr. Warbler down the hall. On the way, Elliott almost ran right into the Colonel, whose five-foot-five frame lingered near the doorway. He wrung his gloved hands, waiting to assist with the gurney. He was one of the center’s oldest volunteers at ninety-five—a veteran of World War II who’d lived on the island since the 1940s. He looked as if the wind could blow him over at any second, but he was still strangely intimidating and smart as a whip.

“Sorry Jim had to interrupt you out there,” the Colonel’s gravelly voice drawled. “We didn’t know you had such pretty friends.”

“She’s not a friend.”

“Doris said she was.”

Elliott blinked. “How did Doris get in here and already say
that
?”

“She came gallivanting up here and told us. We were watching you through the window.”

They pulled the gurney into place, and everyone grabbed a pair of gloves.

“Sorry, Sherm,” Jim said, snapping his on. “I don’t mean to be such a lousy wingman. I was planning on being better at setting you up than my wife.”

Elliott waved off the apology and helped Jim and the Colonel contain Mr. Warbler from his seizure. He took a few more quick notes as Jim drew blood. The three of them held Mr. Warbler down while Jim gave him injections of antiseizure medication. It didn’t work for all the sea lions—about half still died—but it worked on many. It was the best they could do until they figured this out.

Elliott left his hand on the sea lion’s fur as the seizures slowly subsided, offering gentle strokes. He was going to have to work faster.

And stay focused. And stop chasing model-looking women like Natalie Grant down brick walkways.

He was embarrassed he’d told Doris he “knew” her. He simply
hoped
to know her. He’d hoped she’d return to see the sea lions she’d helped rescue. And when he’d seen her from the window, he’d thought for a second she was some kind of mirage, with her stylish, funky clothes; her braid shimmering in the sunlight; and the menswear fedora that reminded him of something
he
might wear from the box of hats his granddad had given him.

But he’d been his usual lame self and had bored her away.

Story of his life.

When the animal finally calmed and drifted into a tranquilized state, Elliott helped Jim and the Colonel move Mr. Warbler back to the recovery room.

“Do you think he’s going to be okay?” the Colonel asked, tugging off his gloves.

It was always interesting to see what types of people became attached to the marine mammals. The Colonel was a sharp-tongued, martini-drinking, orders-spitting man, who’d probably been a hard-ass in World War II, but he’d become attached, for whatever reason, to Mr. Warbler, along with several other mammals at the center. He spent every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday there with other senior volunteers, like Doris and Marie and George.