Britt knew exactly what Tess was trying to convey because it matched what she was experiencing. At first, Tess had been a stranger at the beach. Then she had talked to Britt—asking her out while making sure Britt wouldn’t be surprised if Tess didn’t even hang around for an entire meal. Now, she was sharing her passion through her words, body language, and voice. With each step, Britt was drawn further in, wanting to learn more about her, wanting to find out what Tess would say or do next. But Tess’s love of whales aside, she was still temporarily on the coast, at the marine center, and in Britt’s life.

  No matter if Britt had been tempted to accept Tess’s terms. The moment of opportunity had passed, and they were meeting in a professional way now. Plus, Britt was aware of how desperately she needed to find stability. The grant work was fun and gave her something positive to do, but she needed to reestablish the security and solidity she had felt in her old job and home. Probably not back at Randall Chemical and maybe not with Cammie, but somewhere else. As much as she might have wanted to give in to the feelings she had for Tess in another time or place, right now she couldn’t stand the thought of falling too deeply and losing yet another piece of herself.

  Britt continued to eat while Tess moved on to the less personally exposing details about the marine center’s equipment and research projects. She seemed particularly animated when she started describing an offshore pod that was behaving like a resident one—or was it the other way around? Britt was rather shamefully aware that more of her attention was on Tess and her expressions than on the information she was sharing. Britt would make sure to study killer whales more in depth once Tess herself wasn’t around to distract her. One thing nagged at her, even though she should be putting her interest in Tess the woman aside and seeing her only as Tess the marine biologist. Tess had made it clear what she wanted in a relationship, but she seemed completely different when talking about her work. She had spent her life caring about these killer whales, studying them with single-minded focus, and fighting to protect them. Was she really two people—one a carefree lover and the other a devoted, loyal scientist?

  Britt wiped her greasy fingers on her napkin and left the crumpled ball on her plate. She had enough to worry about in her life without spending too much time trying to figure out the enigma that was Tess. Or wondering if anyone would ever make Tess feel as passionate about a relationship and love as she did about her career. She was working so hard at not thinking about any of those things that she didn’t realize Tess had asked her a question until she caught her expectant look.

  “What? Sorry, I was thinking about killer whales. And dorsal fins.”

  Tess pushed her empty plate aside. “I just asked what the story is with this grant. Do you have any specific objectives, or are you interested in environmental research in general?”

  “Oh, um, I guess the second one,” Britt stammered, clawing her way out of her daydreams and back to the conversation. She hated to tell Tess how random the decision to create a grant had been—along with the random decisions to flee Seattle, drive to the middle of nowhere, and rent a cabin in La Push—when Tess was so thoughtful and future-oriented about her career. “I suppose I’m using the money in the same way the recipient will. As research.”

  Tess cradled her coffee mug in her hands, waiting patiently while Brittany clearly struggled to express what she wanted to say. Tess was ready to take a back seat in the conversation. She was used to talking about herself and her lab in this type of interview, but she didn’t feel as comfortable as usual today. Still, she had made it this far without making any embarrassing overtures toward Britt—despite how much she wanted to—and she only needed to hold herself together long enough to wrap up the interview. In normal situations, this would have been easy for her to do, but her every nerve fiber seemed to be on high alert these days, even as she felt herself growing almost eerily calm on the surface. The pressure of interacting with her family, the longing to be back in Olympia at her lab, the discouraging talk about trying to save pods of whales that seemed destined to disappear forever. Adding Brittany’s focused way of watching her—as if every word was being internalized, processed, compared, and contrasted—Tess felt ready to snap.

  “What are you researching?” she asked, when Brittany didn’t seem about to elaborate.

  “I think I told you I was considering a career change, didn’t I? I guess I thought it would be helpful to talk to other people who are working in environmental fields. See what some of my options are.”

  Tess leaned across the table and spoke in a loud whisper. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Most environmentalists are happy to talk about the work they’re doing. You don’t need to bribe us with grants.”

  Brittany smiled. “I know. But I wanted to get rid of this money, and I thought it would be a good thing if I did both at the same time. Help a researcher and explore some directions I could possibly take on my own. Or at least learn about the processes involved with this type of work.”

  Brittany had reduced both hers and Tess’s napkins to shreds while she spoke, and she gathered up the confetti and piled it on her plate with an apologetic-looking smile when the server came to get their dishes. She had an anxious energy about her, especially when she talked about her career, and Tess wanted to calm her by touching her restless hand. By stroking her beautiful hair, which was loose and wavy today. By kissing her…

  No kissing, Tess reminded herself. She had been given another chance to get to know Brittany without the possibility of sex or anything personal between them because their relationship was a professional one now. She could satisfy her curiosity about this woman who intrigued and surprised her. Spend time encouraging her to laugh and smile, with no worries about entanglements or awkward dating conversations. Now if only Tess could keep herself from thinking about kissing Brittany, the situation would be ideal.

  “Must be nice,” she said, taking a sip of her newly refilled and hot coffee, “having money you’re just itching to get rid of.”

  Brittany shrugged. “It’s not like I’m a millionaire with more cash than I can spend. I’m just not really proud of the way I earned this money.”

  “Ponzi scheme? Drug dealing?”

  Brittany tossed a wadded-up straw wrapper at her. “No. I am…was…am a chemist. When my company would make mistakes—spills or products that might have caused unexpected problems—I was the one they’d put on the stand to represent the plant. I wanted to do something good with the bonuses I got from testifying in those cases.”

  “Blood money,” Tess said. She felt the pressure of her hands tightening, and she set the coffee mug on the table before she shattered it. Thoughts of kissing Brittany disappeared, replaced by images of her beloved orcas slowly strangling in chemical-filled water.

  “That’s how it started to feel,” Brittany said, continuing her story, seemingly unaware of Tess’s spiking blood pressure. She must be better at maintaining a calm facade than she had thought.

  “Anyway, after this last trial, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I left the courthouse and started driving, without any real direction. Somehow, I ended up on the beach in La Push, where we met. I’m trying to figure out what to do next, making a real plan instead of drifting. All my friends think I’m crazy, though, and expect me to go back to my old life.”

  “Maybe you need different friends.” Tess heard the ice crystals forming on her words, and Brittany looked away from the window and at her with a shocked expression.

  “What?”

  “Friends who don’t think you’re insane for deciding to help the environment and not destroy it. Seems to me the thing they should be saying is What took you so long?”

  “Whoa, Tess, I’m trying to make it better.”

  Tess shook her head. This was too much for her to process. “Those pictures I showed you are whales that might be the last of their kind. In our lifetimes, the Southern Residents could become nothing more than a memory. A few photos, the echoes of their songs. All because of depleted and damaged ecosystems, polluted water. I don’t know if I could even consider using this money to help them when it represents what put them in danger in the first place.”

  “Randall Chemical was never even near the Sound. They…we didn’t hurt your whales.”

  Tess was aware of the way her voice had risen in volume during her last speech and she made an effort to get control again. “It’s all connected, Brittany. Remember that, even if you learn nothing more from playing around with these grant applications. Everything is connected.”

  Tess was finished, and she wasn’t about to let her lunch be provided by Brittany’s chemical company. She dug in her pocket for a couple of twenties and tossed them on the table before walking out of the diner.

  * * *

  Tess pulled over twice on her way back to Forks, idling on the side of the road and waiting for her hands to stop shaking. She couldn’t untangle the emotions she was feeling. The knot had started the night Kelly had called, and Brittany’s betrayal had been the final tug of the thread, making it nearly impossible to undo.

  The grant had seemed ideal on the surface. It offered her a chance to do some good while she was exiled from the home and job she loved. It was an opportunity to remove herself from her parents’ house and the company of her family, and it would have given her some money to both subsidize a term away from work and support the needy marine center. But the grant was nothing more than a guilt offering, as bad as those offered by oil companies after spills, as if they could wipe away all the death and destruction they had caused if they funded an artist who took photos of seagulls.

  Okay, Brittany wasn’t that bad. At least, Tess didn’t think she was. She merged back onto the highway—if she could even call it merging when there was no other traffic in sight—and replayed the conversation in her head, trying to distance herself from the personal feelings involved. She hadn’t given Brittany a chance to explain what her company had done, but judging by the amount of money she was offering from her bonuses, the damage to the environment must have been significant.

  Tess had thought Brittany was something special. She had been attracted to her, of course, but it went deeper than anything physical. She had been drawn to her as a person, for the intelligent and kind traits she seemed to possess, and Tess had been happy when they had smoothly transitioned into a comfortable relationship while talking about the grant, when all possibility of a romantic relationship was removed.

  And the moment Brittany proved she was an imperfect human, Tess had stormed away.

  She parked in her parents’ driveway and turned off the engine. She stood by her belief in what she had said in the diner, but she could have handled the situation better. Brittany was looking at the grant applicants as mentors, in a way, and Tess had shut her down completely. If she really was honest about wanting to get to know Britt—and wasn’t just expecting her to be an ideal woman to fantasize over—then she had to accept Britt where she was and who she was. Someone who acknowledged the negative aspects of her past and was determined to change them.

  Tess went into the house reluctantly. Everything had happened too quickly after Kelly’s initial call to allow her to really think through each step of what had changed in her life. She decided that today, for once, she would give in to her dad’s constant efforts to rush through his exercises, letting him hurry back to his video game and her back to her room where she could think.

  Her family seemed to have other plans. When she walked into the living room, she saw everyone but her father settled in for the afternoon. Kelly was sitting on the couch with a guitar, of all things. Justin was next to her, bouncing on the seat cushion as if in anticipation of some music. Her mom was on the recliner, crocheting something that looked like a sweater in the exact shade of dark green she always loved Tess to wear. Please don’t let it be a sweater for me.

  Worst of all was her dad’s exercise mat, unfolded and spread across the center of the room.

  “Hey,” Kelly said. “Dad’s been asking me to play the guitar for him, and I thought we could bribe him with music to make him do his exercises without fighting you.”

  Tess hesitated in the doorway. It was about the friendliest thing Kelly had said to her in years, and she suspected a trap was about to be sprung. She glanced at her mom, who ignored her and concentrated on the shiny blue crochet hook as it poked in and out of the green mass of yarn. She must have told Kelly about the arguments she and her dad had been getting into about his physical therapy.

  “Um, okay,” Tess said, finally moving all the way into the room and shutting the front door behind her. “Do you play well enough to function as a bribe?”

  Kelly smirked. “Of course I do.”

  Tess wasn’t sure what of course there was about it. Neither of them had ever displayed any musical talents while growing up. Kelly had always had the ability to be extraordinarily self-confident, though, so maybe her smugness passed as skill.

  “I’ll get Dad.”

  He was waiting for her with the television turned off. She helped him into a warm sweatshirt, expecting a complaint about the exercises or her rough way of tugging shirts over his head or something, but none came.

  “Is Kelly really good on the guitar?” she asked, puffing slightly as she supported most of her dad’s considerable weight and helped him stand. He was taller than she was, and more muscular even after idle weeks of bed rest. Helping him was proving a more effective workout than exercising at the gym, but these repetitions increased her stress level, so it wasn’t much of a tradeoff.

  “You haven’t heard her play before? Yeah, she’s great.”

  Tess’s parents both seemed to be constantly surprised when reminded of her long absences. It sometimes seemed as if they still thought she was around, visiting relatives with them or listening to Kelly’s impromptu concerts. Oh, I forgot you didn’t go with us to see Uncle Billy in Kansas. That’s right, you weren’t at your sister’s latest guitar recital. Tess, on the other hand, felt as if she had never really existed in this world. She woke up every morning surprised to be in her old bed.

  Tess carefully lowered her dad to the floor in the living room and started gently warming up his back muscles by bending his knees one at a time. Kelly strummed the open strings of her guitar a few times before launching into her first piece. Tess almost dropped her dad’s ankle when she heard the first notes of what sounded to her like something by Bach. She had been expecting the guitar equivalent of “Chopsticks,” not anything classical.

  It was by far the strangest concert Tess had ever attended, what with the crocheting and physical therapy. Her dad was soothed like a savage beast, and because he was relaxed, the exercises were easier on both of them. Kelly moved on to a new piece, and Tess helped her dad into a straight-backed chair near the couch. She sat next to Justin, and he scooted over and curled against her side.

  Tess’s childhood had left her battle-scarred. She had fought with her parents over every detail of her life from the time she was a toddler, over everything from what she wore to whom she dated. Her liberal views about the environment and animal rights had been the main wedge between her and her dad, though, and they had never been able to get past a fundamental difference of opinion. He was a logger, the son and grandson of loggers, and Tess hadn’t been tactful in her denouncement of his career. She had come at her parents with all the self-righteousness of a budding teen activist, but the truth was, she was being supported by her dad’s money. Until she got out on her own.

  Should she be judged because she stayed as long as she did instead of setting out on her own at the age of fourteen? Criticized for letting financial reasons keep her with her family until she started college? No. But today she had done the same thing to Brittany. Instead of supporting her as she made a serious financial sacrifice—if the amount of the grant was any indication—and started life on a new trajectory, Tess had told her she should have changed sooner. Tess’s experience had taught her activists were made, not born, and something had happened to Brittany to make her want to change. Tess should have honored the reason behind the transformation, and not dismissed it. Every year, she saw students change while at Evergreen, growing as their world views expanded. Was Brittany a bad person because she was older than a college student when she decided to make a difference? Or older than Tess had been? Of course not.

  Tess felt ashamed as she sat with her arm around her nephew, letting the soothing notes wash over her and start to heal some of the pain she had been carrying around. She didn’t own environmentalism or make decisions about who was worthy to join the fight. Brittany had deserved more from her today. She wondered if she could get another chance to make this right, and if she would ever find a way to relate to Brittany somewhere in between hitting on her and yelling at her.

  Kelly stopped playing, and Tess realized Justin was almost falling asleep against her.

  “I should get him home,” Kelly said softly. “He didn’t sleep well last night and needs a quiet evening before I put him to bed.”

  “I should put Dad to bed soon, too,” Tess said. “Those six pain pills I gave him should be kicking in soon, and he’ll be passing out any moment now.”

  “Very funny,” Roland said. “I’d like to see you try.”

  Tess and Kelly laughed, and Tess tried to remember the last time they had done so at the same time. She couldn’t come up with a memory of laughter unless she hunted in the deep past, and she covered up the discomfort of that realization by gesturing toward the guitar Kelly held loosely in her lap.

  “You play beautifully,” she said. “What was the last piece? I thought I recognized it.”

  “Thank you. It was part of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The third movement of ‘Spring.’ It’s one of Justin’s favorites.”

  Tess watched the way Kelly looked at her son. She hadn’t left town or pursued a career like Tess’s, but she had obviously found her own passion in life. She somehow recognized the connection between Justin and Kelly’s music. “Is he why you play?”