Chapter 11 #2
“—speculate? Sure. Given how everything went down with Ethan, though, Erin’s headed for quicksand if she tries to pass judgment.
I know how to shut Adrian up, too. My mom will be thrilled.
My dad might, or might not, notice that anything’s different.
Unless you like model trains. So—let them wonder.
They’ll get our story now, and our facts when it’s safe.
Any speculation only matters if they do it in court. But why would they?”
A frown persisted in wrinkling her nose. Isabel evidently believed him enough to nod, however, even while she nibbled at her thumbnail and said, “They. . . they still might not like me. Even without the whole truth. I’m not always. . .”
“They’ll like you,” he said again.
I like you.
Which he didn’t say.
But there wasn’t much point in denying that he did like her.
Not to himself. Not when the memory of her gentle, clever hands in the shower was branded on his skin, more vivid than the moon jellies’ stings.
Not after their dive and daring octopus rescue.
And a sweet-bitter ache lingered in his throat from their kiss on the wharf.
. . All this, in under forty-eight hours!
His desire wasn’t part of their agreement, though.
It was just another complication for Isabel.
He was supposed to make her life easier.
Simpler. She shouldn’t have to worry about him. Or about herself with him.
She needed him, but she didn’t need this.
So, easy and simple: I won’t tell her.
Still, if an admission would have complicated things between them, wasn’t it also true that his.
. . liking. . . her—God, dancing around this attraction like he was an embarrassed, needy teenager, instead of an adult who could manage an honest conversation; what the hell was wrong with him?
—would make their fraud easier to perpetrate for the immigration interviewer?
Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.
“They’ll like you because you’re a science nerd like Erin,” he went on, determined to help her understand. “Don’t be fooled by Adrian’s cool, either. He’s just as weird as the rest of us.”
Again, slowly, Isabel nodded.
Just as slowly, silence resettled between them. But it wasn’t an empty silence. I like you. If he hadn’t spoken aloud, the truth was here in his body and his brain, in his smile. As for their kiss? That was with them, too. The rasp in Isabel’s throat, her lips parting for him. . .
He risked another look at her.
She was already staring straight at him, and startled sideways into the passenger window.
She fumbled with her seat belt, then with Baby’s recalcitrant door handle.
“Sorry, I. . . I need to register at the institute before MORI’s front desk closes for the day.
I need to start investigating its octopus research practices—”
“Wait.” Wes’s words shot out before he could wrangle them back. “Will you come with me to see Erin and Adrian during my time here in Monterey? Will you meet them?”
Halfway between her seat and the pavement, Isabel hesitated. Her fingers fisted on nothing.
“Please,” he added, instead of something worse. “I want you to come. But only if you want to.”
“I. . .”
She was going to refuse.
“Yes,” and she was gone, rushing into MORI with her naked hands twisting.
His flash of triumph lasted exactly as long as that observation.
Damn.
He had to get her a ring. Soon. Joking aside, a bargain market cereal toy wouldn’t cut it.
Not when her neurologist ex-fiancé—Dr. Chase Meyer Jr., with his fancy degree and fancy car, his prestigious job and his condo in San Francisco—had foisted a halo of diamonds on her.
The center stones and setting on that ring were probably worth more than a down payment for the Nauti Lass.
But the degree, car, job, and condo didn’t change the fact that Chase was an asshole.
Yes, he was a rich asshole, and Wes was scanning coupons at grocery stores, but: this isn’t a competition.
A cereal-box toy was a prize. Not Isabel.
Plus, she’d agreed to meet his noisy, nosy family.
From her, that was. . . something.
He followed her into the institute.
“We’re always glad to have more hands. Especially with the summer student interns headed back to class soon.
” Brianne Nichols, the Monterey Oceanic Research Institute’s interim facilities manager, covered a Sunday yawn.
She shifted her Stanley cup off a clipboard and slid an application form across her desk to Isabel.
“You missed our most recent volunteer orientation. You can join the next one in late September, though. Fill in this paperwork and we’ll get you processed. You’re available to start on Monday?”
“Yes.” Isabel uncapped a pen.
“Your background check might take a little longer than that to clear. But MORI’s short-staffed, so—”
“A background check?” She stalled on the form’s address line.
“It’s because MORI receives government funding. Plus: security. You’re Canadian, aren’t you? But you won’t need a visa for a volunteer role. The background check shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Yes. And. . . no, the check won’t be an issue.” She wrote in the address for Chase’s condo; MORI’s escaped octopus was at the bungalow. Besides, San Francisco was legally still her place of residence in the United States.
That condo was also the address listed on the marriage license she’d filed with Chase earlier this summer.
In her pocket, her phone remained still and muted.
She didn’t need to check her missed calls and texts to know that their number had continued to multiply over the afternoon, though—and, despite the quiet, a new skitter of anxiety whisked up her neck.
But she redirected her attention to MORI’s volunteer paperwork.
This is what matters right now.
The cephalopods matter.
Chase could—would have to—wait.
Brianne watched her complete the form’s Relevant Experience section.
“You’ve worked with octopuses before? Didn’t the wildlife photographer mention something about you being a consultant?
If you have a background in biology, we can probably find something more specialized for you to do here that keeps you out of the fish guts.
Maybe data or basic sample analyses? We don’t normally let volunteers work in the computer lab—but if you can provide credentials? ”
“Manual labor is fine.”
Cutting up fish would keep her near the Octopus bimaculoides tank.
She couldn’t show credentials anyhow.
As for the background check? She had no criminal history.
Yet.
“You might not say that after you see our work rotation.” Brianne scanned the rest of Isabel’s inked responses. “How about I walk you through the chore list before you sign up for your shifts, in case you change your mind?”
She wouldn’t change her mind. However, this was an opportunity to get inside MORI’s biological research facilities again, even sooner than she’d hoped. “Yes, please.”
“Follow me.” With a glance down at Isabel’s sandals while she locked her computer and swiped her badge at the lab door, Brianne added, “Like yesterday, watch your step.”
She’d have to buy different shoes. Open-toed footwear wasn’t safe around fish hatchets, soluble chemicals, and venomous specimens. She’d need waterproof muck gear, or something similar to Wes’s steel-capped hiking boots—
One of which blocked the industrial door from closing behind her.
Her stomach warmed and lurched, her breath catching.
“Mind if I join you?” With a crooked, eye-crinkling smile—his mouth on hers, her fingers in his hair, sunlight and wind and salt—Wes raised a hand to greet Brianne and came after them down the hall.
“Sorry to barge in, but I forgot to get MORI’s species catalog on Saturday.
It’s probably in my assignment brief. The audio’s hard to search, though, and a laminated copy would be nice to reference when I’m diving.
Especially if it’s illustrated. Something like that poster over the weighing scales, by the sea cucumber tank? ”
“Well, there are brochures on the front desk.”
“Great.” He waited, leaning against a refrigerator, a seawater supply pipe humming over his head.
“Do you want me to get one for you right now?”
An eyebrow lifted.
“Wait here.” Brianne pushed back through the lab door. “Please don’t touch anything.”
The steel plates and hinges swung shut with an electronic snap.
Wes stepped closer to Isabel, across the antiseptic threshold.
His murmur was no louder than the ceiling-mounted filtration systems, too quiet for the few researchers and volunteers (high schoolers getting community service credit while chatting about flounders?) who were working late shifts on a Sunday afternoon to catch.
“We know something bad’s happening here. I’m going to stick close today.”
She swallowed. “I’m fine.”
She was. She was also focused—almost—and at least in a marine lab she knew what she was doing. Did he think she hadn’t considered the risks? She always knew her risks.
Right?
The elbow of his sweatshirt brushed lightly against hers. “I know.”
Yes, right—but her skin prickled. Her lower lip tingled.
Don’t touch. She stepped back to put a little breathing distance between them.
Then the facilities manager reentered the hall with Wes’s brochure and led them farther into the facility, greeting MORI’s scientists and another volunteer as they passed.
“The Monterey Oceanic Research Institute cares for more than three hundred and seventy species daily. That’s close to five thousand individual animals.
Some are being rehabilitated or bred for release into the bay.
Some are cultivated for research purposes here and at other labs—like the Hopkins Marine Station and our sister institute, the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Others are unidentified specimens collected by long-range underwater vehicles during their expeditions into the deep-sea canyon. ”
Brianne moved them by the tanks of young squid and octopuses, not pausing.
(“Days Since Hatching: 28”)