That would be awful for your business,’ Hayden murmured below his breath.
‘They stay because they want to.’ The volunteer held his own. ‘They find us interesting. This is their routine, not ours. We just bring people here to meet them.’
‘Yet you charge for the privilege?’
‘Hayden,’ she muttered. ‘Do you remember why we’re here? Can you contain your cynicism for a few minutes, please?’
But the volunteer didn’t need her help. He stood taller. ‘Twenty-eight dollars of your entry fee goes directly to cetacean research. The other two dollars helps pay our wildlife licences and fees. All our staffing is volunteer-based.’
‘What would stop me from walking up the beach this time tomorrow and waving my own fish?’
Shirley pressed her lips together.
‘Nothing at all,’ the man confessed. ‘Except that here you’ll learn a whole heap more about these amazing creatures than just how much they like fish.’
Hayden stood straighter and considered that.
Heh. Volunteer: one … Bitter, twisted cynic: nil.
‘What sort of things?’ she asked, moving the man on and giving him her best Shiloh.
Amazing things, was the answer.
He plied them with stories of dolphin intelligence and resilience and sentience and even unexplainable, extra-sensory experiences, and all the while the dolphins wove in between them, trying to trip them up, playing with each other.
‘My colleague, Jennifer, had worked here four years and then one day Rhoomba, the big male—’ he pointed at one of the dolphins ‘—started to nudge her mid-section. Every day he’d shove his snout just under her ribs and stare there intently. He got quite obsessed. One of the old fishermen who knows these waters told her to go for tests. They found a tumour behind her liver. She was away from the beach for over a year with the surgery and her chemo but on her first time back Rhoomba nudged her once, just to check, and then never did it again.’
Hayden lifted just one eyebrow over the rim of his sunglasses. Shirley hurried to fill the silence before he said something unpleasant.
‘How is she now?’
‘Good as gold. No further problems.’
They spent fifteen minutes out in the water, even after the dolphins swam off to re-join their pod. Volunteer talking, Shirley questioning, Hayden glowering. But the chill coming off the water finally got their attention.
‘Make sure you give us a good rap, Shiloh,’ the volunteer said, winding up.
‘No question,’ she assured. ‘It was amazing, thank you so much.’
He turned for shore. So did Hayden.
He had taken a few steps before he realised she wasn’t following. ‘Shirley?’
‘I’ll be a sec.’ She let the onshore breeze carry her words back to him and she stared out into the sea where the dolphins now swam deep. The rhythmic slosh of the waves against her middle was hypnotic. Hairs blew loose from the pile atop her head and flew around her face.
‘Another one done, Mum,’ she murmured to the vast nothingness of the sea after a moment. ‘I would have preferred to do this with you, instead of—’ She cut herself off. ‘But it’s a start, hey?’
There was no response save the beautiful language of air rushing across water. It was answer enough.
Then right behind her, a voice spoke, cold and curious. And male.
‘Why exactly are you so determined to make me start this list?’
I would have preferred to do this with you, instead of—
Him.
If there was any doubt in his mind as to what she meant, it evaporated the moment Shirley spun her horrified face to his. It was more ashen than usual.
‘I thought you’d gone in.’ Flummoxed. Discomposed. The only sign he’d had of the real person beneath the make-up since the barest eyelid flinch yesterday.
‘I bet you did.’
But she didn’t answer his question. She just started pushing towards shore, hurrying ahead of him. He gave her a few moments, mostly enjoying the view as the sea floor rose to become the shore and first revealed the curve of her sodden wraparound skirt and then those ridiculous stockings. Except they weren’t entirely ridiculous; they were also one part intriguing. The way they clung just above her knee. It made the narrow strip of skin above the stocking but below the wrap into something really tantalising. Even though there was much more gratuitous flesh on show higher up.
This was forbidden.
This was private.
And, from the back, it was insanely hot, because even she didn’t get to see that angle.
He took his time following her as his cells blazed.
Onshore, she retrieved her towel and turned back to him, clutching it to her body. It did a reasonable job of helping him focus.
Down the sand, the teenage girl who’d gushed earlier called out, ‘Bye, Shiloh!’, as if they were now best friends. Shirley threw her a dazzling smile in return and waved, making her day.
Gracious.
He should have expected that of a Marr.
The brilliant smile looked out of place with lips coloured like black blood, but he realised that somewhere between yesterday and today he’d forgotten his first impression of her, standing over him with those forever boots, and she’d just become Shirley. Quirky and courageous and fast with a comeback.
She spun back to him and the dazzling smile died.
‘Was she that easy to forget, Hayden?’ Hurt blazed in her pale eyes. ‘Or was it just some kind of dramatic, absinthe-fuelled gesture for an audience? And you expected everyone else to do the hard yards?’
He had pledged. He had vowed.
Then he had done nothing. Not one thing.
But he wasn’t about to cop to it. ‘Why are you so concerned about what I do? How do my choices mean anything at all to you?’
‘Because she gave you her life. She gave you all her days teaching and her nights assessing your work and her Saturday afternoons giving her star pupils extra credit.’
‘Instead of being with you? Is that what you mean?’
She shook her head. But she also flushed. ‘She gave you everything, Hayden. But when she died you just … shrugged and moved on?’
He hadn’t worked at the top of his field without learning a thing or two about subtext. This wasn’t really
