by Jaci Burton
Dolphin’s Playground
Jaci Burton
Dedication
To my wonderful editor, Briana St. James, for taking the time to brainstorm this idea of an undersea civilization. Thank you for always lending an ear and helping bring life to the thoughts running through my head. Your guidance and your friendship are the best.
To Desire’, for your thorough and extensive research on dolphin life. Your keen insights and valuable information brought validity to my writing, and I’ll be forever grateful for the time you took to read this book.
To Sandra Webb, the best proofreader an author could ask for. Your enthusiasm and comments make me smile. Thank you for reading my books.
To Mel and Jodi, my friends and critique partners who walk through this process with me, who give their unending support and who manage to keep up with my frenzied writing—You know I could never do this without you. Love and hugs to you both.
And, as always, to Charlie…the man who brings me joy every day. Without your love, none of this would make sense. There would be no fantasy, no magic, and no happily ever after. I love you.
Chapter One
Dr. Jasmine “Jaz” Quinlan peered out the window of her office inside southern California’s California Bay Aquarium. The sun fought to break through the early morning fog, a gray wall so thick she could barely see the water.
Distinctive shapes lay at the water’s edge. Her pulse picked up a rapid pace as she willed the sun to breach the last of the chilling summer fog.
Please don’t let it be She hoped she was wrong, she hoped what lay in the sand was some washed up driftwood, not the living, breathing creatures she loved.
As if in miraculous answer to her fervent prayers, the mist lifted just enough to showcase at least a dozen bottlenose dolphins.
They’d beached themselves, which meant they came to the shore to die.
Shit! She offered up a desperate wish that these dolphins weren’t suffering from the morbillivirus, which could wipe out entire pods. Knowing time was of the essence here, she called for a rescue crew. Dressing quickly, she grabbed for her medical kit as she was running out the door. There were no people on the beach yet, so the dolphins hadn’t been discovered.
The last thing she wanted was a crowd to gather. It made her work so much more difficult when both the good intentioned and the downright curious got in the way.
In a few adrenaline-filled seconds, she’d flown down the back stairs, her shoes filling with sand as she raced the short distance from the beach to the water line.
Her heart broke at the sight of the struggling dolphins. She grabbed her kit and examined the first few she came upon, breathing a sigh of relief when she detected their heartbeats.
“They’re still alive. Let’s get these hoists going!” she shouted to the approaching staff members. Trucks with hoists were brought onto the beach so they could get the dolphins lifted and taken inside.
They worked tirelessly through the morning, loading the struggling dolphins one by one while volunteers poured water on the sick mammals to prevent dehydration and overheating.
Jaz wiped the sweat from her forehead, pushing away the annoying curly red strands of hair that flew in her face from the stiff ocean breeze. She’d long ago discarded her jacket and sweatshirt, her body soaked with the efforts of maneuvering dolphins weighing several hundred pounds. Thankfully, there were enough hands available. They turned each mammal enough to slip the hoist lines underneath them.
The last of the dolphins were loaded up and delivered to one of the aquarium’s tanks by nightfall.
But her work wasn’t finished. Now she had to figure out what was wrong with them, and how to keep them alive. Simply returning them to the ocean would have done no good. Dolphins beached themselves when they were too sick to remain in the water. They’d just end up on the shore again tomorrow.
Crowds had gathered around the beach and watched the process. News crews hovered nearby, reporters begging for an interview. Talking to the press was not her forte. She looked frantically for Mandy Daniels, the aquarium’s PR representative. Unfortunately she was nowhere to be found.
That left her to tell the press something, anything to get the cameras out of her face.
“Dr. Quinlan, do you have any idea what’s wrong with the dolphins?” asked one reporter, shoving a microphone under her nose.
“Not yet, but we’ll start tests right away.” She headed toward the aquarium, knowing that the media couldn’t follow beyond the gates.
“Do you think it’s pollution? Perhaps an oil spill?”
“Doubtful. There’s no record of a spill and the ocean around the aquarium is tested regularly since we pump sea water into our tanks.”
“How long do you think before—”
“No more questions.” Jaz reached the gate, swiped her ID card and slid through without listening to the tail-end of the reporter’s question. She’d never before appreciated the sound of the lock automatically clicking the gates shut, but now she was glad they kept the hungry reporters at bay.
With a sigh of relief, she hurried up the back stairs and changed into her wetsuit, then rushed to the pool. Her staff were already busily taking blood samples and monitoring the vital signs of the ailing dolphins.
“Skin temperature and tone on this one seem within normal ranges.” Bob Pine, one of her assistants, looked up as she entered the shallow part of the water, then bent his head to his work again. She waded over to one of the dolphins and immediately started taking temperatures and extracting blood samples, shouting out data to one of the other assistants standing beside the pool.
They worked systematically on all the dolphins, who seemed to exhibit no external symptoms of illness or injury. Which meant whatever was wrong with them was internal.
After putting identifying markers on all the dolphins, the staff hurried to the lab to process the blood work. Jaz exited the pool and stripped off her wetsuit, intent on rushing up to her apartment to change clothes and head to the lab. Unfortunately, she was blocked in her progress by the one person she did not want to see today.
“Dr. Quinlan, who authorized this rescue?”
Claude Morton, administrator of the California Bay Aquarium, peered at her over stylish glasses that probably cost more than she made in one year. His Armani suit was completely out of place in this environment, but to Claude, image was everything. He spared no expense, at least as it related to his own personal attire and lifestyle. But spend a dime that wasn’t in the aquarium’s budget, and he paled as if the money came out of his own bank account.
“I authorized the rescue. Did you want me to stand by and watch a dozen dolphins die on the beach while a marine mammal center stood less than fifty feet away?”
He wrinkled his nose, no doubt protesting the smell of the water and mammals. Good. She hoped the smell made him nauseous.
“We are not responsible for what occurs outside the aquarium’s property, Dr. Quinlan.”
“Now’s not a good time to get into this, Claude,” she said, knowing calling him by his first name would irritate the piss out of him. Claude preferred to throw around his own PhD as if it were a Nobel Prize and insisted the staff call him “Dr. Morton.” In fact, it was well known he came from old money, the colleges he attended practically bought and paid for by his family.
Typically, she ignored him. Today wasn’t typical. She started to push past him but he blocked her exit.
“We need to talk about this. You have to move these dolphins out of here, now.”
Refusing to let him intimidate her, she said, “They’re ill. They need medical attention. I’m not moving them.”
His face reddened. “You will move them. We do not have the funds for this kind
of rescue.”
“No, Claude. They’re staying.”
With a glaring look, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Fine, I’ll just have them removed if you won’t.”
Jaz breathed deeply to keep herself from kicking her moronic boss in the balls. Then an idea struck. “Fine. You do that. In the meantime, I’ll go talk to the reporters currently drooling at the gate for a juicy story. I think I’ll tell them the administrator of the aquarium would rather a dozen dolphins die because it might cost his multi-millionaire family a few thousand bucks of pocket change to save their lives.”
The redness left his face in a second as he peered around the corner of the building, finally noticing the camera crews and photographers. Straightening his jacket, he turned away from the crowd and sent her a scathing look that didn’t scare her in the least.
“You’ve won this round, Dr. Quinlan, but I can assure you as soon as possible I will be relocating those dolphins.”
“You do that, Claude, and I will go to the press. Only it won’t be the kind of public relations you’re looking for.”
They stood practically nose to nose. Jaz was mindful of the reporters behind her. Thankfully they were out of earshot.
“Why do you care so much?” he asked. “They’re just animals.”
This was one of those days when she wished she could dive in the ocean and live with the creatures she loved so much, instead of imbeciles like Claude.
“They’re mammals, Claude. Not animals. Mammals. Just like you and me. Only they’re smarter than a lot of humans I know,” she finished, hoping he’d grab the insult.
“They are a lower level life form. At the aquarium, they’re here for the entertainment of our paying customers. Hardly the same as humans.”
His comment brought her blood pressure up another notch, as if she hadn’t already struggled to hold in the ire which rose by the second. The only reason she stayed on at this circus fest was her fear that Claude would stop caring for the dolphins if she left.
“If I had my way we’d free them all, or close the stupid shows you insisted on bringing on board. This place used to be for study and research. Paying guests were more than pleased to simply observe the dolphins and other mammals without having them jump through a stupid hula-hoop to entertain them.”
Claude sniffed. “The aquarium’s income has increased dramatically since I instituted the shows two years ago.”
Two years ago. Two years of a living hell. More for the dolphins than for her. Why couldn’t things go back to the way they were before?
“You don’t need the shows, Claude. Why don’t you let me help you put a program together that’s educational instead?”
He crossed his arms and peered at her over his glasses. “You? I think not. Go back to your lab, Dr. Quinlan. I’ll speak to the reporters about our rescue mission.”
And when exactly did the rescue mission become his rescue mission? Jaz shook her head and brushed past him without another word. Before she did something stupid, like call him a dickhead.
Somehow, some day, she’d get Claude Morton out of this aquarium and get all their lives back to normal.
Until then, she had dolphins to save.
* * * * *
“Dammit! Five more minutes and I’d have been there.”
Triton paced in front of the monitors. The sick dolphins now resided in an aquarium. He’d heard their cries of distress and raced to the shore, only to find the aquarium’s doctor had already arrived, as had her crew. What a fucking disaster.
For a month they’d been sick, and all of Oceana’s medical advances had been unable to help them. Triton had watched them all, waiting to see if they’d beach, only they’d gotten to the shore without him knowing.
“She seems to care about them.”
Triton nodded in response to Ronan’s voice. “True, but she’s a land human. I want the dolphins away from her and out of that zoo.”
“Nothing you can do about it now. You know as well as I do that we can’t just make twelve dolphins disappear from the aquarium.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “Yeah, I know.” Oceana’s rules forbade calling attention to their civilization. Removing the dolphins would be impossible. At least right now. “Let’s just hope the female knows what she’s doing. If she further harms the dolphins, I’ll—”
“You’ll do what?” Ronan interrupted. “You can’t do anything to a land human. Our laws do not allow interference.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Trey,” Ronan said, using his nickname. “You have a warped view of land females. You can’t blame every woman for the pain Leelia caused you.”
Trey ignored Ronan, concentrating instead on scanning the dolphins’ vital signs. “It’s strange. Whatever made them ill isn’t showing up on our scanners. None of the common ailments are causing their distress.”
Ronan sighed. “Probably something man-made, or a pollutant we haven’t come across yet.”
“Fucking great. Just what we need. A mystery we can’t solve.” And in the meantime, they could lose twelve of their dolphins. Unacceptable. But what could he do? They were in the hands of Dr. Jasmine Quinlan now. He knew of her, had heard she was a brilliant marine mammalian veterinarian, but she was still a land human and ignorant of the extensive knowledge available in Oceana.
“Go up there and work with her. See if you can’t speed her along, or at least find out the cause so we can work on a cure down here.”
No way had he heard Ronan correctly. He turned and arched a brow at the tall, imposing figure who was his brother and the leader of the guardians of the sea. “Wanna tell me that again?”
Ronan crossed his arms. “You heard me. Go up there. We’ll set up impressive credentials for you. You can be another marine mammal veterinarian like Dr. Quinlan. I’ll make sure that the land humans believe you’ve been assigned to assist her.”
“Get someone else to do it, Ronan. You know I hate land.”
“You’re the guardian of the dolphins, Trey. Who else would you suggest I send?”
“Let Dane do it.”
“Dane may have some of your dolphin skills, but he doesn’t have the same scientific knowledge.”
Shit. He knew he’d have to be the one to go. The safety and care of the dolphins was his responsibility. “I guess it’ll be me, then. But I hate this and you damn well know it.”
Ronan smiled. “I also know you don’t want anyone else messing with your dolphins.”
He had a point. “Fine. Get me a background and I’m outta here.”
Ronan disappeared, leaving Trey to ponder the hundreds of reasons why he didn’t want to go on land. None of which had to do with Dr. Jaz Quinlan. Impressive credentials, seemed to be genuinely concerned for the dolphins’ welfare. But all he really knew about her read like a resume. What he did know was she was bound by land, something he simply didn’t understand.
The lure of land. What was it about living above the water that was so appealing? Leelia had found terra irresistible, and had chosen a new life as a land human rather than spending the rest of hers in Oceana.
With him.
Women. They never knew what they wanted. Trey knew, though. They wanted whatever they couldn’t have and no matter what they got they were never satisfied.
He stayed as far away from land humans as he could, preferring a quick fuck with one of the water sprites who wanted nothing more than to get him off, and themselves in the process.
That’s all women were good for. On land or under the sea.
So, he’d go and play undercover guardian and figure out what was happening with the dolphins. No better way to find out what was going on than to go directly to the source and get as close as possible to the doctor.
First, he wanted to check on the dolphins.
And he knew exactly how he was going to do it.
Chapter Two
“Another dolphin has beached.”
Jaz’s
gaze snapped to Tricia, the heavily panting assistant leaning against the doorway to the lab.
“Another one? Just one? Where?”
Tricia nodded, bent over and rested her hands on her knees. “Just one. Same place as yesterday. I ran as soon as I spotted it.”
“Grab the hoist and let’s get it up here, stat!”
Three hours later, they had the dolphin in the tank with the others.
“Wow, this one’s huge, isn’t he?” Tricia asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Has to be at least thirteen, fourteen feet.”
He was beautiful. Long, sleek, clearly irritated as hell that he was ill. Funny enough, this one had no scarring. Most dolphins were riddled with scars and markings, but he was nearly perfect. And he didn’t exhibit any of the symptoms of the others.
“I don’t think this one is sick,” Jaz said, extracting a blood sample and stroking the dolphin’s back. “I think he’s looking for the others and beached himself to find them. He must be the dominant male in the pod.”
“Then he’s one hellaciously brave guy to follow them to the beach.” Tricia looked over at the tank and smiled.
“Yes, he is.” Something about this one struck her. Perhaps his willingness to throw himself onto the beach in an effort to stay with his pod?
He certainly was a sight to behold. Strong, muscular, and healthy, too. After checking his vitals, she was convinced he did not have the same illness as the others.
“Hey there, pal,” she said, rubbing her palms over his back. “You just wanted to be near your clan, didn’t you?”
He responded to her touch by swimming closer to her hand.
“You like attention, don’t you?” When she bent over and kissed his snout, his eyes followed her movements. Then he stared at her in a way she could only describe as…unusual. Almost like some intelligence lurked inside him, and if she willed it hard enough, he’d speak to her.
If only he could. She’d think she had died and gone to heaven. The dolphins had ten times the personality of any man she’d ever dated, and more charisma, too.
How bizarre to compare a dolphin to a man. And yet, considering the men she’d been with in her lifetime, she’d rather spend time with the dolphins. At least they had a personality, unlike the boring scientists she’d had relationships with. No wonder she preferred her vibrators to real sex.