Page 24 of The Scent of Salt & Sand

“I’m not sure that’s an improvement from your first statement,” Dean muttered.

“I’m not helping?” Lester said.

Dean shook his head before turning to Melody. “Okay, now it’s your choice. Pick any book in the store, and it’s my gift to you.”

“Nice gift, boy,” Lester said. “You might be growing some sense under all that hair.”

Melody snorted as she left Dean’s side to move through the store, running her fingers reverently down the spines of hardback books, picking up one and then another before moving to another section.

Nothing in Tartarus was truly hers—everything was shared or borrowed, but not this. She would have her very own book. Her sisters would be so jealous. She stilled, her fingers lingering on a smooth cover. She couldn’t tell the others about this gift or any romantic details. Harmony expected today to be the end of their relationship. The end of Dean.

Panic roared to life, making her fingers tremble. “It’s okay,” she whispered, checking to make sure Dean hadn’t seen her trepidation. She didn’t have to tell them. She wouldn’t tell them. She would let Harmony believe she’d done her duty, and she would keep Dean to herself. She peered over at him, seeing him chuckle as he flipped through the pages of a children’s book. It would be better this way. And she would finally have something of her very own.

Taking a calming breath, she ran her hands through her hair and focused on the world of unread stories. A slick, cobalt cover caught her attention from across the store.

“Wow! Books about the ocean!” Melody shook off her worries and made a beeline to the oceanography section. Stretching her arm overhead, she lifted herself onto her tiptoes to reach the shiny book.

“Hey, let me help you.” With ease, Dean plucked the hardback off the shelf.

Melody cooed and gasped over the glossy, full-color pages filled with ocean life. “This is the one I want.”

Dean glanced at the title. “San Francisco Bay: Portrait of an Estuary,” he read aloud. “Will you be turned off if I tell you I have no clue what an estuary is?”

She shrugged, not understanding how he could manage to achieve such a thing. “Will I turn you off if I tell you that I do know what it is?”

“Turned off? Hell, no! Brains are always a turn-on, Miss Melody.”

“Glad to hear it, Officer Dean.” She nodded.

“Let’s take it to Lester and make it yours.” He snagged her hand and whispered, “But what is an estuary?”

“It’s where the mouth of a river meets the ocean—a brackish tidal inlet, really.”

Dramatically, Dean clutched his chest over his heart. “Be careful, I can only take so much of your sexy brainpower in public.”

• • •

Melody was beaming at him, full wattage, as they left the store. With each look, Dean’s heart did a funny little jumpy thing. Warm happiness took firm root within him and branched through his core.

“Okay, next stop is across the street,” Dean said, pointing to the little restaurant called Seed & Salt. They entered, and he watched Melody’s forehead furrow in concentration as she read through the vast chalkboard menu. “Will you trust me?” he asked her.

Her hands balled, then she relaxed a little and shrugged. “Okay, but I don’t like to eat fish. Or shellfish. Or really anything that swims. And, um, I don’t like blood. At all.”

“I remember. Trust me. You won’t find anything with blood here. It’s a vegan restaurant.”

“Vegan?”

“Yeah. You know, no meat of any kind. Also no dairy. Nothing in here comes from killing any living animal.”

“Really?” Exuberance lifted her to the balls of her feet. “There are restaurants like that?”

It was strange how new the concept was to her, especially since it was right up her alley. But hell, he wouldn’t have known either if he hadn’t Yelped it the night before. She was new to the area, and probably new to the lifestyle too. He filed it away to ask about later.

“Really,” said a tall waiter who approached Dean. “As my girlfriend says, nothing we eat in this restaurant ever had a face.” He handed Dean an old-fashioned picnic basket—the kind that was made of wicker and looked like something his Nana would have carried to picnics in Italy in her youth, mostly because the ancient picnic basket had, until last night, belonged to Nana. “Here ya go, Officer Dean. Enjoy.”

“Thanks, Evan,” Dean said. Then he crooked his arm for Melody again. “Shall we?”

She took his arm, saying, “Shall we what?”