by Eve Gaddy
He’d been very kind. Maybe his object really had been to take her mind off her troubles. The tactic had certainly worked, she had to admit.
She and Jack weren’t due to go out on the bay again until the following week, since she was taking Friday off to move. So that gave her a little time to think how she would approach Jack the next time she saw him. Right now ignoring the whole situation sounded good to her.
She pulled the memory chip from her camera and downloaded the images onto her computer. These would go in the central database, to be matched against the ones already entered. If the picture didn’t match with one of those, she would have to sort through the analog images, and none of them were online. Book after book of them, many of which were in their library. She meant to do what she could to put them into the online database but it was a long, tedious process. Still, having to sort through books and match pictures manually made her work take longer, as well.
Someone knocked on her door. “Come in.”
“Dr. Vincent?”
A young man of about fifteen or sixteen stood in her doorway. She knew he was Jack’s son the minute she saw him. He had the same hair color, though he wore it longer. The shape of his face was similar to Jack’s as well, though his eyes were whisky-brown, rather than the brilliant green of his father’s.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“I’m Cole Williams. Dr. Long said I should ask you if there’s anything you need me to do. I work here after school,” he added unnecessarily.
She hid a smile at his manner. Trying hard to be offhand, but she could see the eagerness and curiosity peeking through. “Dr. Long doesn’t have something else in mind for you?”
Cole shrugged. “He said I could help with the dolphin tank, but right now there aren’t any dolphins needing to be rehabbed. So he sent me to some of the other offices to see if anyone else needs help.”
She started to say she didn’t need any, but it dawned on her there was a job he might be well suited for. And one that could help her out a lot. “How are you with computers?”
“Pretty good.”
“How would you like to help me convert analog images of dolphin dorsal fins to digital and transfer them to an online database?”
“Sure. You want me to use that computer?” he asked, pointing to her new pride and joy.
“No, that baby is mine,” she said with a laugh. “I’m going to set you up on my laptop in the library. That’s where the images are. It’s tedious work, but it’s important to my project.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind. I’d rather do something on the computer than some of the stuff they’ve had me doing.”
She got up to lead the way to the library. “What else have you been doing?”
“Helping the janitor.” He made a face at that. “And helping my dad clean his boat. He’s the research fleet captain.”
“Yes, we’ve met. He took me out on the bay yesterday.” And consoled her last night. “I’m doing a study of dorsal fin identification of dolphins in the Aransas Bay area.”
“Cool. So you’re a marine biologist?”
“Yes. A marine mammalogist to be exact. Are you interested in dolphins, Cole?” She opened the library door and motioned for him to go in.
“Yes, ma’am. They rock.” He looked around the library at the shelves full of notebooks. “Do all these have to be inputted?” He sounded apprehensive.
Ava laughed. “No, some are already in the database. Don’t feel you have to do it all. There’s enough to keep three people busy for a year. I just want to make a start. We’ll go from the most recent,” she said, pulling down a notebook. “About four years ago everyone began to switch to digital. These are from the years prior to that.”
“Is it hard to do?”
“Not really. Just time consuming. Dr. Long said he hoped we’d have a new computer for this, but in the meantime we’ll use my laptop.”
She accessed the data bank, shrank it, then showed him the program to convert the files. “Then once you’ve converted a file, you can scan it in and add it to the database.”
“Like this?” He went through the process, impressing her with how easy it had been for him.
“Just like that,” she said, happy that he caught on so quickly. “Are you sure you haven’t done anything like this before?”
“It’s a little like one of my computer games.”
“Really? Well, who’d have thought that. Let me know if you run into any problems, okay?”
“Okay, thanks.” He flashed her a smile that was remarkably like his father’s and went back to the computer, apparently eager to get to work.
“How are you at photography?” she asked.
He looked up and smiled again. “I have a camera.”
Ava laughed. “I just wondered if you might like to go out with your dad and me sometime to take pictures of the dolphin. One weekend, perhaps.”
He lit up like a neon sign. “That would be awesome. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not a bit. I could use the help.”
“Dr. Long only pays me for after-school hours.”
“I have a feeling the budget might stretch to include an occasional weekend. Especially since if any dolphins come in you’ll be working weekends anyway. We’ll see what we can do,” she told him and left him to it.
Nice kid, she thought. She wondered if he and his father got along. That was sure something outside her experience. She thought about Mark’s barbecue on Sunday, wondering if Jack and his son would be there. She hoped they would be. She could use all the friendly faces she could get.
“MARK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Cat asked him Sunday after lunch. “Don’t you know what time it is? People are going to start getting here soon.” She glanced at her watch. “Well, a couple of hours, anyway.”
Since he was sitting on the side of the bed doing dumbbell curls, he took that for a rhetorical question and grunted without answering.
She propped her hands on her hips, tapped her foot and narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Why?” He did two more curls and forced himself to rest.
“Gee, I don’t know. You wouldn’t go to church with me and the kids, you’re wearing your oldest, rattiest T-shirt, and as far as I can tell you’ve been doing nothing but lifting weights since we came back. I have no idea what you did before that, but it sure wasn’t cleaning up the house, which looks like a bomb went off. And, oh, yeah, we’re having a party in a couple of hours. So, I repeat, what’s wrong?”
Sometimes his wife just didn’t know when to talk and when to leave it alone. “Nothing’s wrong. I’ll be ready when I’m ready. It’s just a barbecue, for God’s sake. Don’t have a hissy fit about it.”
“Hissy fit?” She started toward him, ready to rip his face off, he was sure, but she apparently thought better of it. “This is about Miranda, isn’t it?” She sat beside him and put her hand on his leg. “Mark—”
“Her name’s Ava, remember?” He switched hands and began curling with his other arm.
“It bothers you that Miranda changed her name.”
He barely restrained himself from hurling the dumbbell at the wall. “Every damn thing about it bothers me. What’s a little name change?”
She moved her hand from his thigh to his arm and patted. “Put that thing down and talk to me. Please, Mark.”
Big, brown eyes beseeched him. He didn’t want to, but he knew his wife. She wouldn’t give up until he did what she wanted. Aiming to control his temper, he set the dumbbell on the floor and sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Of course you do. I know you’re hurt and you don’t understand why Mir— Why Ava won’t or can’t talk to you about what happened.”
“Now why would I be upset? Just because my long-lost sister can’t bother to come up with a good reason why she let us think she was dead all these years? No big deal.”
“Of course it’s a big deal, and s
he knows it, too. But the fact is, she’s not going to talk about it. She either can’t or she won’t, and it doesn’t matter which one, frankly. So you have two choices. You can continue to be angry and hurt and let her know it. If you do, you’ll probably never get the chance to be a family with her again. At best, you’ll be polite to each other when you run into one another, and the rest of the time you’ll pretend the other one doesn’t exist.”
He shot her a sardonic glance. “What’s my other choice, Madame All-Knowing?”
“Be as sarcastic as you want. You know what I’m saying is the truth.”
He shrugged bad-temperedly. He wasn’t about to admit she had a point.
Undeterred, Cat went on. “Your other choice is to accept her. Just as she is, without pushing her for answers. Start fresh from today and rebuild the relationship that was so important to you for all these years.”
Still, he couldn’t say anything. Maybe he wasn’t ready to accept what Cat said was true.
She got up and look down at him, her eyes locked on his. “Think about it, Mark. What’s the important thing here? Your pride? Or having a real relationship with the sister you thought was gone forever?”
He wanted a relationship with her. With Miranda, anyway. Ava…she was a different person. Or was she? Whatever had happened, whatever her reasons, she was still his younger sister. Sure, she’d changed, but then so had he. He still loved her and wanted to know her.
“What if I can’t do that?” he asked gruffly. “What if I can’t just forget it?”
“Then you both lose.” She leaned over and kissed him. “But I don’t think that’s what you’ll do.” She hesitated before leaving. “I love you, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” He caught her hand and pulled her to him, tugged her onto his lap. “I love you, too.” He slipped his arms around her and kissed her.
Cat returned the kiss, then pulled back as he slipped his hand up to cup her breast. “No hanky-panky. We’re having a party,” she said severely.
“Not for hours. Where are the kids?” Her breathing quickened, which made him smile.
“They’re at Jack’s. He and Cole offered to keep them busy while we get ready for the party.”
He tumbled her onto the bed and grinned at her. “So, do you want me to let you up?”
“Not yet,” she murmured and pulled his head down to hers.
CHAPTER TEN
“DAD, CAN YOU COME HERE?” Cole yelled, loudly enough for Jack to have heard him in the next county.
Jack went into the den, where Cole and both of Mark’s kids were. Cole and Max were sitting on the sofa, video controls in hand. He spied the problem as soon as he walked in but couldn’t resist teasing the boys.
“Something wrong?”
“’Randa,” Max said disgustedly.
Cole gave him a dirty look. “Can you do something with Miranda? We can’t play our game. Every time we start she stands in the middle of the screen and blocks the view.”
Jack laughed but went to pick her up. Luckily, her little hands weren’t strong enough to have done any damage to the screen, but she’d been giving it a good try. “Come on, sweetheart. We’ll go get a Popsicle and let those old boys play their games.”
“Me too, me too,” Max said as they left the room.
“In the kitchen,” Jack told him, wondering if video games or food would win out. A few minutes later all three kids were in the kitchen with Popsicles, so obviously food played a major part in what the little ones thought important. Cole had always been a bottomless pit, so he wasn’t surprised that Popsicles had lured his son away from the TV.
He wasn’t surprised that Cole had agreed to occupy Max, either. Since he’d got up that morning and seen another car in their driveway, he’d been more pleasant than Jack could remember him being since he’d become a teenager.
Cole had stared at the small car for the longest time, then turned to Jack with guarded but ridiculously hopeful eyes. “Whose car is that?”
“Whose do you think?”
“It’s mine?”
His voice nearly squeaked, reminding Jack of when it had changed. He smiled. “It sure as heck isn’t mine. Happy birthday, Cole.”
“Oh, wow! This so totally rocks! Thanks, Dad.” He rushed out the door and got in, cranked the engine and turned up the car radio.
Jack had even got a hug out of it, and those had been few and far between lately. They were going to get Cole’s license first thing after school tomorrow, so he couldn’t take it out by himself yet, but Jack had gone with him to drive it around that morning. It was a small, economy model in a sort of off-green color, which wasn’t the prettiest thing Jack had ever seen, but it ran, and that’s all Cole cared about.
“How did you keep it secret?” Cole wanted to know.
“Hid it in Mark’s garage.” Which was how they’d ended up taking the kids for a couple of hours so Mark and Cat could get ready for the party. It had seemed like the least they could do for them.
Miranda was a beautiful child. Both the kids were, but Miranda was something else. Right now she was flirting with his son as only a two-year-old could do. Jack thought it was funny to see her wrap Cole around her little finger as firmly as she did her father.
He and Cynthia had planned on having more kids. At least one more, they’d always said. But after Cole Cynthia had had a hard time getting pregnant and before they had decided to really pursue it, she’d had the accident.
He knew men his age and older who had young kids. If he ever married again… Suddenly Ava’s face came to mind. He quickly shoved the image out of his head, knowing neither one of them wanted to go down that road.
But, damn, he thought about her way too much for comfort.
He realized the two younger kids had been throwing Popsicle sticks at each other. “Why didn’t you stop them?” he asked Cole, going to pick up the mess.
“They were having fun. It’s just a few sticks, Dad.”
“And red, purple and orange splatters. Which you get to clean up.”
“If we had a dog we could just let him do that.” Cole sent him a sly glance as he said it.
Cole occasionally mentioned wanting a dog, but so far Jack had resisted. For a long time he’d figured that a kid was enough to worry about without having a dog added in. But Cole was plenty old enough to take care of a dog if he wanted to.
“We’re not home that much,” he said, testing the waters.
“Every night and most weekends. I’m here every weekend. You usually are.”
“Dogs are a lot of responsibility.”
“So’s a car, and you got me one of those.”
“Yeah, and if you’re irresponsible with the car it can go away. It’s not so easy to get rid of a dog. Would you want to take it back to the shelter?”
“We have a parrot,” Max announced. “His name is Buddy. He talks a lot.”
“I know,” Jack said. “I’ve met him.” Buddy was Cat’s African gray parrot. According to Mark, she’d had to work hard to make sure he didn’t utter some of his more colorful phrases around the kids. She’d been mostly successful, though Jack had heard Max utter a few zingers that he doubted the kid had learned from Mark or Cat.
“Dad, we were talking about a dog.”
“Want doggie,” Miranda put in. “Pease?”
“You’ll have to take that up with your mom and dad,” he told her. To Cole he said, “Are you willing to take care of it? Not just feed and water it but clean up after it and everything else that goes along with it.”
His face lit up. “Oh, sweet. Can we get one, then?”
“You haven’t said you’d take care of it.”
“Of course I will. Let’s go now!”
“Can I go?” Max asked. “I’ll be good, I promise.”
Jack laughed. “Sure you can, if it’s okay with your parents. Let me call your dad and see if he minds if we take you and Miranda with us.”
Jack was just about to leave a message on t
he machine when Mark picked up. He told him what he wanted and got the impression that Mark was more than happy to let him take the kids with him. Something told him that getting ready for the party wasn’t the only thing Mark and Cat were doing.
“ARE YOU SURE you don’t want a puppy?” Jack asked Cole dubiously.
“Well, yeah, sure I do. But look at him, Dad. If we don’t take him no one will.”
Jack sighed. Pretty, he wasn’t. A three-legged mutt with the unlikely name of Lucky, the dog had laid its head on Cole’s knee and was looking at him as if the boy was his last friend in the world. Which he probably was. But at least he seemed sweet, and the people at the shelter said he was good around kids and other dogs. Max and Miranda hunkered down next to Cole and, patting Lucky, obviously thought he was a good choice.
Crouching by the cage next to Lucky’s, Jack called softly, “Here, Princess.” Chocolate-colored, Princess was a Lab mix who looked to be about six or seven months old. She came over and pushed her nose against the chain link so he could stroke it with his fingers and looked adoringly at him with big, brown puppy dog eyes. Damn, he should have known better than to come to a shelter and expect to leave with only one dog. If they didn’t get out of here quickly he might even end up with three.
“Can we see how she and Lucky get along?” he asked the woman who’d showed them around.
“Of course.”
Cole looked up. “We can have two?”
“If they get along. One dog might get lonely.”
His son said nothing, just smirked as the two dogs sniffed each other.
“What?”
“You’re a sucker, Dad.”
Princess snuggled against Lucky and rolled over on her back for the kids to pet her. Jack smiled. “Hey, if you can pick one, I should be able to pick one too.”
“No argument from me,” Cole said. “Look, they like each other.”
“We’ll take them both,” Jack said. It was worth it to see the smile on his son’s face. But if he’d known he wanted a dog so badly he might not have had to spring for the car.