Which meant that right now, she could let herself actually look forward to seeing the penguins.
And her husband.
The trip took nearly two hours, weaving south onto the peninsula, along ragged cliffs and rocky shores, finally pulling into a massive parking lot surrounded by rocks and scrub and fields of burrows.
She disembarked, the wind chapping her face, and followed the crowd into the reception center.
Lost herself in the gift shop, eyeing a penguin sweatshirt. Why not?
Dakota appeared at her elbow, two cups of hot chocolate in hand. “From the café. Figured you might need warming up.”
She took the cup. Their fingers brushed. “Thanks.”
“Ready for this?” He blew on his cocoa.
“To see the smallest penguins in the world make a run for home? I’m in.” She bumped his fist.
He grinned at her, and yeah, she completely forgot she was a spy. Or ever wanted to be.
She followed the crowd out down a massive stretch of boardwalk to bleachers and a roped off area on the sand. She ditched the bleachers and took a seat at the very bottom, next to a rope, the sand chilled beneath her, but warming as she sat.
Dakota sat beside her, against her, also warming her. She didn’t hate it. Not at all.
A guide got up and gave them a safety talk—no flash photography, no going out beyond the ropes. Quiet, so as not to scare them.
A tall spotlight puddled luminescence on the shore.
The air smelled of salt and kelp, the only sounds the soft murmur of waves upon the shore.
The sky deepened from gold to purple to the particular blue of twilight. The crowd hushed.
And then?—
A small shape rose from the surf, paused, then retreated. Another followed, then a cluster—stepping onto the sand, stopping, turning back again. They gathered at the water’s edge, waiting, testing the sand, until one finally broke into a sudden, awkward run. The rest followed at once, a scatter of tiny bodies waddling up the beach in the fading light, determined at last to go home.
Something in Jayden’s chest came unmoored.
“Look at them,” she whispered.
“Brave little guys,” Dakota said softly into her ear.
More penguins appeared, hesitating, retreating, then surging forward in bursts—dozens, then hundreds—until the beach filled with motion. They passed the bleachers in loose lines, pausing to shake the sea from their feathers or call to one another in rough, braying cries, a brave, stumbling procession disappearing into the night.
“I read that they do this every night,” Dakota said, his voice low. “Every single night. They go out to sea, fish all day, then come back.”
Jayden watched a particularly small penguin hesitate at the edge of the sand, flippers fluttering as it took a few steps forward, then stopped. “Every night?”
“Every night. Same beach. Same path. Same burrows waiting for them.” He paused. “And there are things out there that know it. Gulls. Foxes. Anything hungry enough.”
The penguin bolted. The others rushed after it, a sudden scurry of movement.
“That’s why they go together,” Dakota said. “So none of them has to be brave alone.”
She turned toward him. His face was softened by the dusk, something open there that she wasn’t used to seeing. Unprotected.
“I move around a lot,” she said after a moment. “I don’t really have a place that waits for me.”
He didn’t answer right away. His shoulder rested against hers, steady, warm. “Maybe it’s not about the place,” he said. “Maybe it’s just knowing someone’s moving with you when the danger’s still there.”
