Free A Dolphin's Gift by Patricia Watters

you're upset about what happened," she
said. "It's okay for you to feel that way. It's not wrong."
    Mike didn't
respond and Nellie was beginning to think he hadn't heard her. Then he picked
up a bottle cap, hurled it into the water, and said, "I thought you loved
Daddy."
    "I did
love Daddy and I still do," Nellie said, "and losing him saddens me
more than you'll ever know. But he's gone, and my life is still going on, just
as yours is." She waited for Mike to respond. When he didn't, she said,
"You've got to understand, Mike, that I can't just wither and die because
Daddy was taken away from us. He wouldn't want that." She reached for
Mike's arm and he snatched it away. She sighed. "He'd want us to be
happy."
    "You
kissed him on the mouth," Mike said, disgusted, "like you kissed Daddy."
    The heel of
Mike's shoe thumped repeatedly against the piling and Nellie could feel the
anger roiling inside him. "I'm sorry you walked in on us," she said,
"but that can't be helped. I didn't intend for it to happen. It just
did."
    Mike picked up
a clam shell and started scraping the pier. "Are you gonna marry
him?"
    Nellie let out
a short, nervous laugh. "Just because we kissed doesn't mean we're going
to get married. A kiss is a sign of affection between two people. And we are
good friends. But if we did decide to get married, would that be so bad?"
She was surprised to hear herself verbalized the idea. But the notion had taken
root, and she couldn't seem to set it aside. She sensed that Will was a man who
could give her love and understanding. And he had an almost uncanny way of
sorting through Mike's problems and getting to the core of things. She could
certainly do worse.
    "I don't
like him," Mike stated. "If you marry him I'll run away."
    "You don't
mean that," Nellie said, attempting to hide the worry in her voice.
    "Yes I
do," Mike insisted.
    "Running
away won't solve anything," she said.
    Mike hurled the
clam shell into the water and stood. When he turned to leave, Nellie jumped up
and grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"
    "No place.
I just don't want to go back there," Mike said, looking toward the
boathouse.
    Nellie stared
at Mike's troubled face and considered his threat, and vowed she'd resist
Will's advances, no matter how difficult it might be. "I'm almost finished
painting trim," she said, "so why don't you come back to the
boathouse and get Katy and take her for a walk, and after that, you and I will
go to the store and buy some candy."
    Mike gave a
shrug of indifference, then followed Nellie back to the boathouse, where he
untied Katy from the cleat and left. "Don't be too long," Nellie
called after him.
    The door to the
boathouse slammed.
    Nellie jumped
to the deck of the Isadora and went
inside. She hadn't been there long when Will climbed up from the galley and
stepped into the salon. "You know what," he said, his eyes roaming
over her. "I'd like to nibble on your neck." He reached out and took
her arm, pulling her to him, and before she could protest, he kissed her
soundly.
    Bracing her
hands on his chest, Nellie pushed against him, and said, "We’ve absolutely
got to stop this. Mike threatened to run away."
    "Lots of
kids threaten to do that, but they rarely mean it," Will replied.
"Mike's probably just testing to see what kind of reaction he'll
get."
    "Well, I'm
scared," Nellie said. "He's so upset, he might just do it."
    "You can't
believe he'd run away simply because he saw you kiss me," Will said in a
sober voice. "There's got to be more to it than that."
    Nellie
shrugged. "That's basically it… almost."
    "Almost?"
    Nellie gave him
a nervous little smile. "He said he'd run away if we... got married."
    "Married?"
The word seemed to hang heavily on Will's lips, and for some moments he said
nothing. Then he eyed her warily, and said, "Why would he think we'd get
married?"
    Feeling
chagrined, Nellie shrugged and replied, "I suppose because to Mike kissing
means love, and love means marriage. It's a fairly simple