Page 49 of Sucker For You

One of Isabel’s palms gave a light, wordless pat to the dashboard; Baby decelerated smoothly into a stall.

His grimace smoothed into a grin, too. “She likes you! Did I mention that her name’s Baby?”

“Right, yes.”

“Yeah.” He yanked the parking brake, slung the Nikon back over his shoulder, then waited for Isabel to join him on the pavement. Passing a waterside sign that implored tourists not to feed the sea lions, he followed his nose away from the parking lot and toward an alfresco market on the charmingly colorful and ramshackle Old Fisherman’s Wharf. MORI’s briefing had included historical information on the area, including some old local children’s doggerel: “Carmel-by-the-Sea, Monterey-by-the-Smell, and Pacific Grove-by-God.” It wasn’t inaccurate. “Will it seem weird to our immigration interviewer if I have a nickname for my Jeep, but not for you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think it might. So—what’s it going to be?”

Isabel’s elbows tucked into her sides. She ducked her chin as they maneuvered by a railing cluttered with bicycles, a taffy-pink gift shop selling Golden Gate Bridge snow globes, Old Fisherman’s Grotto with its waiters balancing toasted garlic bread bowls of clam chowder, and through the first lineup of market stalls: live bait, heaps of invasive European green crabs, oysters on ice, and rows of mackerel.

“NotBella,” she said. “Notbabe.”

“Done.”

Around them, lobsters in tanks clicked their elastic-bound claws. Chips of abalone clinked against wind chimes. There were bait fish and goldfish on sale, and packets of nitrifying bacteria and fluorescent bulbs were available from an aquariumaccessories kiosk. Hawkers yelled about their discounted prices for the day’s remaining haul of salmon, shrimp, sardines, and more. Having missed the market’s morning prime time, a few harried restaurateurs shoved past the browsing tourists. Trays of filets sailed overhead. The air was heavy and ripe. Gulls screamed.

Head down against the noise, Isabel was fastidious in choosing a sampler of delicacies to tempt their two-spot. She sniffed through the reek of iodine and fish guts, selecting a replacement protein skimmer and some rock to build an aquascape, then a few shrimp from one stall, a crab from another, plus a bundle of sardines. Octopuses could be finicky eaters. Who knew what the sneaky creature’s tastes were?

Or what the institute had offered her at feeding time.

Wes could have eaten for two weeks on the cost of Isabel’s choices. Despite her caginess in the Grocery Outlet, she didn’t look at prices here.

“What about Buttercup?” he asked while she debated buying a dozen oozing sea snails.

She stepped sideways to evade a tourist’s bulging canvas bag. She winced when a gull swept low above them and an oyster seller answered with a shout and flapping hands. “Didn’t you already. . . But yes, that—that’s fine. Buttercup is fine.”

“For me, I like the Dread Pirate Roberts. Wes can be a start.”

He was acutely aware that she hadn’t called him by his name yet.

“What if we name our guest, too? Then we can talk about her in public without advertising the fact that we’re keeping,” he dropped his voice, “an illegal octopus next to our television.”

It was a good suggestion, wasn’t it?

But Isabel didn’t respond. She just paid for her snails and started across the thoroughfare toward a stall selling mussels bythe pound, her head still lowered against the ebb and flow of the seething, gawking crowd, her sarong whisking her calves. Now she was frowning.

Damn.

“Do Not Touch,” read a sign taped to a tray of glistening cod.

He didn’t touch the fish. Shadowing Isabel over to the bivalves, he didn’t touch her either, not even to steer her around an oil slick. Sharp elbows, sharper chin: her signals were as clear as any wild creature’s defense mechanisms. Prickly as an urchin, solitary as an oyster. He kept half a step behind her. But when a vendor pushing a cart heaped with mackerel lost control of his wheels in that oily puddle of guts and scales, when the load gained sudden and careening speed as it barreled toward Isabel’s careful inspection of crack-shelled mollusks in ice—well, if Wes’s brain had good intentions, his body had other ideas.

Shit!

He reached for her instinctively.

With a single stride, he interposed himself between her and the wheelbarrow. One hand extended to redirect the cart’s trajectory into a nearby trash can. His other arm wrapped around Isabel. He spun her away from the tumbling fish, turning her into his chest.

“Ah!”

She jerked. That sharp, stiff chin collided with his collarbone, followed by the wet slap of a bag of shrimp into his stomach.

He grunted. “Sorry, there’s a—”

Behind him, the trash can toppled. The fisherman cursed. So did the mussels vendor and a scandalized family of tourists in ruined sandals. Seagulls dove, shrieking. When Isabel’s startled gaze flicked past his shoulder to the noise, she blinked. And shivered.