A girl with a canister of pepper spray. A guy with an odd recurring dream. A tiny colony of nervous California sea lions.<br /><br />They all come together in Dana Point Harbor...<br /><br />Author&#39;s Note:<br /><br />A random and seemingly irrelevant question totally inspired me to write this short story. &quot;If the characters [from my historical novel The Legacy of the Marshall Cousins] lived now in California, what would they be like?&quot;<br /><br />I was at Dana Point Harbor. A sea lion was loitering in the water. My imagination ran wild. So did Clare.