Seal With a Kiss (18 page)

GGThar she blows!"

The hail should've been laughable, because there
wasn't a crow's nest on the riverboat Manny-T, but
Smitty just grinned and called, "What do you see,
Ishmael?"

"Trichechus manatus, sir," came the prompt reply
from the ex-intern, who was on loan to Dolphin
Friendly South for a month.

"Manatees," cried Violet. She hustled up from below deck, where she'd been changing Eyebee.

The child had been christened James, but the
members of Dolphin Friendly had quickly rechriste ned him Little Smitty, because the resemblance was
so uncanny. That had evolved into Itty Bitty Smitty,
which had been shortened to I.B. Violet and Smitty
had given up the fight, and even called their son Eyebee at home. They figured the kid could blame his
Godfather Brody for it when he got older.

Violet handed the six-month-old redhead to his father and leaned over the rail to get closer to her favorite creatures in all the waters of the world.

The animated brown pillows bumbled in her direction, waving their paddle-like flukes in greeting
and snuffling at her with their soft, toothless mouths.
Smitty grinned at the look of absolute rapture on his
wife's face.

Ever since Brody had negotiated a merger with
Chaz's group so they could exchange staff from Cape
Cod and back again without paperwork, Smitty and
Violet had commuted back and forth regularly, keeping up their research at Dolphin Friendly North while
continuing to build the reputation and strength of
Dolphin Friendly South.

It was a perfect arrangement.

"Gah!" Eyebee waved at his mother, and Violet
reached for the baby as she slid over the side of the
shallow-draft riverboat. Smitty tossed his son's floatee over the side and jumped in himself.

The manatees weren't disturbed by his cannonball
entrance any more than they were by the baby tugging at their stiff whiskers. They were used to swimming with the Smith family.