There was no other way to say it, so she just blurted out the truth. “Sam’s a ringer. He’s in the collegiate Hall of Fame and could have played professional baseball but joined the fire department instead.”
Now that she thought about it, Sam had made a most unusual choice—a heroic choice, as much as she loathed to think about him in such glowing terms. It wasn’t every day that someone gave up a lucrative sports career to fight fires.
“You’re kidding,” Joe said flatly.
Josh shook his head. “No way. I don’t believe it.”
Violet’s father didn’t say a word, even as his face turned an alarming shade of red.
“It’s true. He’s even got a framed newspaper article about it hanging on the wall of his office,” Violet said.
Seriously, who did that? There was nothing that could explain that level of egotism. Sam might be a literal hero, but he was also obviously some sort of Dalmatian-loving narcissist.
“This is bad,” Josh said.
Joe nodded. “Really bad.”
“Surely there’s something we can do. Does Turtle Beach even need a fire marshal?” Josh’s gaze slid to their father.
The older man’s brows drew together. “It’s Murray’s call. Emmett left, and it’s up to the chief to replace him with whomever he sees fit.”
Oh, so this whole mess is my fault? Violet’s chest went tight. No one could seem to look directly at her all of a sudden, just like every other time Emmett’s name came up in conversation.
Sprinkles abandoned Joe to tiptoe toward Violet and drop her sweet spotted head into Violet’s lap. She rubbed one of the Dalmatian’s soft, supple ears between her thumb and forefinger and wondered if any of this would be happening if her mother were still alive. Surely not.
Violet had never known her mom. Adeline March had always been something of a legend in Turtle Beach—the hometown girl everyone fell in love with, most notably police chief Ed March and fire chief Murray Jones. After she died giving birth to Violet, it was as if the whole town lost its mind.
At least that’s what Violet’s friends at the retirement center always said. Adeline’s untimely passing cast a long shadow over their quaint little island, and sometimes Violet still felt like a little girl, fumbling her way through the dark.
“Maybe it’s time to put an end to the annual tournament,” Violet said as calmly as she could manage. “Don’t you think twenty-eight years is long enough?”
Nearly three decades, and somehow, the animosity between the two teams grew deeper and deeper every year. Whoever coined the phrase “time heals all wounds” had clearly never sat through nine innings of Turtle Beach’s first responders doing their best to annihilate one another on the softball diamond.
Josh snorted. “You can’t be serious. We’re not going to run scared just because Chief Murray brought in a ringer.”
“He’s right,” Joe said. “It’s a matter of honor. We beat them last year, and we can do it again. This just means we have to work harder to crush them.”
“No,” Dad said tersely. Sprinkles’s tail drooped between her legs at the sudden hardness in his tone. “This means war.”
Violet sighed. So much for trying to defuse the situation. She’d have a better chance of teaching Sprinkles to make her bed in the morning than she would getting the TBPD to forget about softball.
Her dad grunted, pushed away from the table, and stormed inside the beach house. Josh clomped after him.
Ugh, men.
Joe was the only human who stayed, staring quietly out at the water rushing gently ashore beneath the pink morning sky. Sprinkles stayed by Violet’s side too, of course. Until a pelican glided by overhead, and she scrambled after its shadow moving across the deck’s worn wooden slats.
Joe shook his head at Sprinkles and then turned his attention back to Violet. “Can I ask you a question?”
“No, I haven’t accidentally bathed any random dogs lately. Let it go, already.” She was never telling him about the one cat. Ever.
“My question isn’t pet-related.”
Violet shrugged. “Okay, then. Ask away.”
Her brother’s gaze narrowed, and all of a sudden, he seemed to be looking at her with his Resting Interrogator Face, which Violet swore he must have learned from binge-watching Criminal Minds on Netflix. The only real-life interrogating he ever did on Turtle Beach involved benign things like misappropriated beach chairs and missing towels—most of which had been swept away by the tide rather than legitimately stolen.
The look didn’t have anything to do with misplaced terry cloth, though. Not by a long shot.
“How exactly do you know what the inside of the new fire marshal’s office looks like?”
Chapter 4
“He didn’t ask you that!” Ethel Banks, owner of the corgi who’d recently taken a bite out of Violet’s lululemons, gasped, eyes wide behind her purple-framed trifocals. “What did you say?”
Violet had forgiven Max the corgi for chomping on her yoga leggings. In an effort to reclaim her dignity, she’d chosen to forget most of what had gone on yesterday morning at the dog beach—other than the bits involving Sam’s smug attitude and the TBFD logo stitched onto his T-shirt. Those things were important to hang onto, lest she become tempted to bake for him again. She had no reason to hold a grudge against an innocent dog, though—especially when the stout little pup belonged to one of her oldest and closest friends.
Ethel was one of a trio of residents at Turtle Beach Senior Living Center who were near and dear to Violet’s heart. A volunteer yoga teacher probably wasn’t supposed to have class favorites, but Violet couldn’t help it. Her affection for the three older ladies was quite involuntary. Violet had been drawn to Ethel Banks, Mavis Hubbard, and Opal Lewinsky from her very first day as their instructor. She loved the neon spandex they always wore to yoga class and the way they frequently tied colorful balloons to the other residents’ walkers when they weren’t looking.
The three women also remembered Adeline March in perfect detail and often told Violet stories about her mother—stories she’d never heard from her father before. Getting her dad to share anything about her mom was like pulling teeth. Ethel, Mavis, and Opal were convinced his stoic silence was because Violet reminded him of Adeline. According to her friends, Violet and her mother had much in common—the same strawberry-blonde hair, the same delicate features, and, most notably, the same sense of chaotic whimsy. Violet was never sure if the older women were telling her the absolute truth or exaggerating for the sake of sentimentality, but it didn’t really matter. She hung on their every word, rapt.