Джерри Хилл: Gulf Breeze

Dr. Carly Cambridge, wildlife biologist, returns to the Texas Gulf Coast to manage the latest Habitats for Nature project, restoring the woods and wetlands to their natural state.

She is devoted to the environmental cause with a passion usually reserved for a lover — something she hasn’t had since a disastrous love affair ten years earlier. Having sworn off women and relationships, Carly is perfectly content to live her life alone while she focuses on her latest project.

Wildlife photographer Pat Ryan is duped into volunteering her talents to the cause, but she wants no part of the overzealous Dr. Cambridge.

While they spend most of their time sparring and bickering, an early season hurricane finds them fighting nature — instead of each other — to save the wetlands and the birds that brought them together.

Soon Carly finds her heart opening, little by little, and struggles to ignore the feelings that are growing between them. And Pat, always searching for that certain someone to take her breath away, can’t believe for a moment that the woman she's been waiting for could possibly be Carly.

One blue eye peeked out from beneath the mass of tangled dark hair an instant before a fist unceremoniously silenced the alarm for the third and final time. She groaned and made herself get up. It was either that or throw the alarm across the room again.

Long legs swung over the side and Pat Ryan immediately grabbed her head, wincing at the memory of tequila shots the night before. She straightened her tall frame and brushed long hair out of still-closed eyes. She walked into the bathroom without turning on any lights and stumbled into the shower, letting the cold water bring her around.

"Jesus!"

She quickly turned the knobs before sticking her face into the warmer spray.

One of these days, she would learn. She was getting too damn old for this, she thought wryly. The local guys down at The Brown Pelican always thought they could out-drink her and she was never one to pass up a challenge. Especially when it involved money.

She usually started her day with a jog along the beach, but not this morning. And it had nothing to do with tequila shots. She had to be in Rockport before dawn. Texas Wildlife Magazine had commissioned her to photograph nesting shorebirds and she had found a nest of newly hatched Curlews the day before. She was familiar with the Long-billed Curlews, after she finally found out their name, but the local birders in Rockport assured her that it was rare for them to nest this far south. Old Mrs. Davenport had offered her a hundred dollars to show her where the nest was located.

She shook her head. Bird watching! What a total waste of time! She didn't doubt that the news was already on the birding hotline and she pictured a thousand Mrs. Davenports combing the area, looking for her nest.

She found her favorite baseball cap and pulled her hair through the back before grabbing her two camera bags and hurrying, somewhat gingerly, to her Jeep. The gulf breeze felt good on her face and she breathed deeply, the damp salt air bringing a smile to her face. She loved the mornings…especially before dawn, when the tourists were still tucked safely in their condos and hotels, out of her way and out of her sight. Pat Ryan hated tourists. The normally peaceful Mustang Island was transformed, in the summer months at least, into total chaos. Bumper to bumper traffic on every street, hour long waits for the ferry, the beaches crowed and littered, not to mention the restaurants. Even the old dives that only served baskets of fried fish had long lines on the weekends. About the only place the locals could still go without worrying about tourists was The Shrimp Shack. The old building, tucked away off of the main drag, was in desperate need of a paint job. If the building didn't turn people away, the blaring country music from the jukebox would. That, and the colorful assortment of patrons who frequented the place. Tourists rarely ventured inside.

But Pat knew, without the tourists, the island would die. And she depended on their dollars as much as anyone. She had photographs for sale in nearly every gallery in Port Aransas, as well as Rockport. It hadn't always been that way. When she first moved here, she'd had to beg and plead just to get a few to carry her small prints and she'd relied mainly on her magazine credits to pay the bills. But she had made a name for herself as a wildlife photographer and most of the gallery owners came to her now. That was why she'd been toying with the idea of opening up her own gallery, selling only her on work.

It was ironic, really. Pat couldn't tell the difference between a Sandpiper and a Plover if her life depended on it, but she had a knack for capturing them on film. She had little patience for tourists, but she could sit for hours waiting for that perfect shot, if need be. She remembered the Great Blue Heron, her most famous photograph. She had found him splashing in the marshes around Copano Bay, seemingly playing in the water without a care in the world. But she found what he was playing with was a snake. She shot three rolls of film as the heron jumped, hopped, and splashed circles around the snake. She wasn't sure which one was hoping the other would be dinner, but she got a perfect shot as the heron bent low to the water, feathers ruffled, eyes wide just as the snake jumped vertical out of the water and over the heron's head. The expression on the bird's face was priceless and she had made a small fortune on the reproduction of that photo alone.

But that was five years ago, she reflected, as she waited for the ferry. Nothing had really changed, except she could pay her bills without worrying now. She still lived in the same old beach house, still drank the guys under the table at The Brown Pelican, still got up before dawn in search of the perfect shot, and still lived her life alone. She had thought that, at thirty-six, she might have found someone to share her life with by now, but she hadn't met anyone she could stand being around long enough to develop a relationship. Patience to wait for that perfect shot, she had plenty. Patience with people, women, she had none.

She stood at the edge of the grass and watched the sun rise out of the water, turning the sky into brilliant colors of pinks and reds. The cool breeze off the water lifted her short blonde hair slightly and she absently brushed it away from her face, her eyes never leaving the sunrise. Two Pelicans flew into her sight, crossing the sun, the colors bouncing off their white feathers and she watched them for a second, then slid her eyes back to the pinks and reds. Carly had missed this. It had been too many years since she'd been here.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Carly jumped as the voice startled her.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Cambridge. I didn't mean to sneak up on you."

"It's okay, Martin. I just didn't expect anyone else to be out here this early."

"I was at the site when I saw your lights."

Carly nodded. She couldn't believe the progress they had made on the Visitor's Center in just a few short months, but Martin had been pushing the contractors hard, trying to get it finished before fall, when the migration would be in full swing.

"Got some news last night," Carly said. "The Federal Grant passed. We'll have enough money to begin restoring the marshes now instead of next spring."

When Habitats For Nature had purchased the ranch last year, they found that most of the marsh land had been drained and filled in, then replanted with non-native grass for cattle. It would be a huge undertaking to try to restore it all to its natural state, but if they were going to make this preserve work, Carly had insisted that be their first priority. The migrating shore birds, ducks and especially the endangered Whooping Cranes relied on marshes for survival. Without healthy marshes, they would be hard-pressed to attract any wildlife to the preserve.