Nikki Logan - Once a Rebel...

Even if Shirley wasn’t certain she could.

Today wasn’t about how good or otherwise she looked in a swimsuit, and it wasn’t even about the man waiting outside the changing rooms. Today was about living another experience that her mother had never had the chance to.

Making good on her promise to her fourteen-year-old self.

She swung away from the mirror and stepped through the door into the light.

‘What were you doing, sewing the—’ His impatient words dried up when he saw her, his mouth frozen half-open. The fascination in his gaze should have annoyed her, not made her pulse jog.

Not everyone appreciated her fashion sense. She understood that. And she got that look a dozen times a day. But somehow on Hayden it rankled extra much.

She walked towards him and retrieved her towel. ‘Ready to go?’

‘You can’t … Can you swim in that?’ he muddled.

‘I’m not expecting to swim, just wade. The dolphins will come to us.’ A blessing, because waist-high water would disguise her worst assets and highlight her best. And the dolphins below the water wouldn’t care about her sporting thighs.

It didn’t take Hayden long to recover his composure and he followed her down to the water’s edge, glancing sideways at her and smiling enigmatically. She kept her chin high the entire way, ready for another crack about her body.

None came.

She smiled at the girl working at the edge of the water and breezed, ‘Hi, I’m—’

‘I know who you are,’ the teenager gushed, ticking off her name on her register. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw who was in today.’

Hayden glanced from her to the young girl and back again. Confused. Small revenge for how off-kilter he’d tried to keep her yesterday.

‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Shirley smiled. ‘What do we do?’

The girl stammered less when she was in official mode and so their instructions were quick. Head right out into the low tide, where a distant volunteer was waiting for them, and then stand still when the dolphins come.

Simple.

But not for Hayden. He stood rooted to the spot as she waded ahead of him into the surf, stockings and all.

She turned and looked back at him, the slight waves buffeting her. ‘Coming?’

Or was he going to bail?

His eyes narrowed and he slid his sunglasses down against the glare of the water, then followed her out.

His longer strides meant they reached the volunteer at the same time. The man launched straight into a security drill, although the only emergency they really ever had was if the dolphins got too boisterous and knocked someone down. Then he opened a pouch on his side and retrieved a defrosted treat.

‘Bait fish,’ he announced as he held it under the surface and shook the morsel.

Shirley glanced sideways at Hayden, who was concentrating in the same direction as the volunteer. Except he had the tiniest of smiles on his lips. Exactly the same size as hers.

Within minutes, they found themselves circled by three curious dolphins.

‘They come in every day about this time,’ the man told them. ‘And in the afternoon too, in summer. Three, sometimes more.’

Shirley held her footing against the repeated close buffeting of the soft warm mammals. Hayden did the same.

‘They’re well trained,’ he commented.

‘Not trained. They come in because they want to. We just make sure we’re standing in the right spot when they come.’

Hayden’s snort could have been a puff of air as one of the larger males ran up against him. ‘It has nothing to do with the fish you were waving around.’

Shirley glanced at him. Really? He was going to be like this? When they were here in her mother’s name?

‘We only use one fish to encourage them over. We don’t want them to get habituated,’ the man said.

‘Yep. 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.