Coast Guard Sweetheart Read online

“Let’s see what we can scrounge up if we need to break out of our watery prison.”

  She sighed and her arms dropped to her sides. “A prison of our own making?”

  “My making. My fault.” He turned away lest she see the sudden welling of his eyes. “Charlie Pruitt’s a lucky man...”

  “What?”

  Squaring his shoulders, he moved around her.

  “Wait.” She caught his arm. “Sawyer...”

  His heart pounded at the touch of her hand. How he wanted to hold her. Forever. To never let her go. To show her how much he loved her.

  But cool reason prevailed. What he really wished was that he’d been born someone else. Someone other than the son of a convict and drug-addicted mother. Anyone else. More deserving of a sweet, gentle woman like Honey Duer and her remarkable, faithful family.

  He reluctantly, but firmly, twisted free. And ached inside at the confusion etched across her lovely oval face.

  “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  Sawyer turned toward the hall. Call it pride or self-protection. Because if ever he explained who he really was, he couldn’t bear her pity. “Best thing we can do is pray.”

  Honey gave him a mock salute. “Have been and will continue to do so, Petty Officer.”

  Sawyer slipped across the hall, past Max and his snoring Labs, to Seth’s room. She dogged his heels. He set the lantern on top of the dresser.

  “Here’s hoping your dad has some tools squirreled away inside the house. Life preservers are probably too much to hope for.” He wrested open the closet door. “I thought you were mad at God.”

  “I’m working on that. I’m mainly mad at you.”

  * * *

  He laughed and rummaged through Seth’s closet. “Good to know, Beatrice.”

  She huffed. Which made him laugh again.

  “I’m glad to hear you and God are communicating.”

  She leaned against the bedpost. “Why is it whenever you’re around, I always seem to find myself in a storm? And then one way or the other, you or it drive me to my knees.”

  He grinned.

  She steeled herself against the all too familiar buckling of her knees. His smile ought to be licensed. And that cocky Coastie probably knew it.

  “Glad I could be of service. Always Ready is our motto. ’Cause in the Guard, we—”

  “Live to serve.” She waved her hand. “I know, I know. So you’ve told me. I just want us to live through this never-ending day.”

  He disappeared into the confines of her father’s closet. Sawyer reemerged, triumph glowing in his blue eyes, a fire ladder in his hands. “If worse comes to worst—”

  “Every time you say that,” she moaned. “It does.”

  His lips quirked. “I meant we’ll make our own lifeboat out of anything floatable. Break a window and crawl out.”

  She wrapped her arms around the quilt, clutching it to her chest. “Get into the water again?”

  His eyebrows rose. “What happened to my brave Shore queen now?” His eyes glinted with mischief.

  “She did her best and then decided she’d rather go shopping.”

  “Her best saved my life.” He gestured toward the common area. “And only you could turn a natural disaster into something cozy.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

  “I’m sure enough for both of us.” He broadened his shoulders. “And might I also say that you glow in the lantern light? Always the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

  Something released in her heart and soared free. She’d not understood until this moment how his walking away had shattered her confidence. “Then why did you...?”

  Clenching his jaw and carrying the rope ladder, he walked out of the room, leaving her question unanswered. But she found him waiting for her at the end of the narrow hallway. At the door to the walkup attic she’d converted into her own special place.

  If he wouldn’t answer her questions about the past, perhaps he’d open up about more recent events.

  She held the lantern to his face. “Where did you get the scar on your jaw?”

  He reddened. “A mission gone wrong.”

  “San Diego?”

  “No. After that.” He stared at her. “You knew I was in San Diego? Were you keeping track?”

  Her turn to blush. “I wasn’t keeping track.” So not true. “I—I was making sure we kept our distance.”

  Sawyer motioned toward the attic stairs. “Can we check out the condition of the roof?”

  Honey ushered him forward. “Be my guest.”

  Sawyer stepped through with a strange look in his eyes as if he didn’t quite trust her. Holding the light aloft, she brushed past him on the stairs and blazed the trail toward what had always been her refuge from every storm life threw her way. Her mom’s death, her dad’s depression, Lindi’s death and Max’s cancer. And somehow most devastating of all, Sawyer’s abandonment.

  He moved beyond the quilt-covered sleigh bed to the window.

  “So what happened to your face?”

  He didn’t turn around. “Adds so much to my features, don’t you think? Makes me look dangerous and more ruggedly handsome.”

  “You’re dangerous, all right.” Dangerous to every red-blooded American female heart. Or at least, dangerous to hers.

  “And handsome...?”

  She sniffed. “Vain much, Kole?”

  He laughed. As she’d meant him to. The tension in his shoulders eased a notch. She fought a desperate urge to wrap her arms around him.

  She’d missed this easiness with him. An almost instinctive familiarity she’d never found with any other man. The lighthearted banter and the surprisingly tender, heartfelt talks of that long ago spring had made Sawyer Kole possibly the best friend she’d ever had.

  “The scar?” she prompted in an urgent need to take her mind off the past and the gaping uncertainty of their present.

  He deposited the rope on the window seat. “If you must know, maritime law enforcement with a Central American task force in the Caribbean. Drug interdiction. Boat chase ended with my team boarding a fast boat. My chin,” he adjusted his jaw with his hand. “Caught the sharp end of a knife.”

  She gasped and laced her fingers through his. “You need to be more careful, Sawyer.”

  “Tell that to the cornered drug lord.” He blew out a slow breath. “But no worries, he’s cooling his heels in a Mexican prison as we speak. And I’m doing okay.” He ran his thumb over her hand. “Actually today, I’m feeling better than okay.”

  “Says the Coastie trapped in a hurricane with a little boy, two dogs and an innkeeper whose only skills are more decorative than essential.”

  He let go of her hand and grasped both of her shoulders. “Someone as pretty as you doesn’t have to be anything other than what she already is. And for your information, Beatrice, your presence is essential to everyone who loves you.” A pulse pounded in the hollow of his throat.

  Sawyer dropped his hands and moved away. “I’m glad you were able to save the family portrait.” He gazed at the framed photo she’d deposited earlier for safekeeping on her bed. “Your sister Caroline looks the most like your mom. Whatever happened to Caroline?”

  Honey shrugged. “After Mom died, Caroline returned to college off-Shore and never came back. We get Christmas cards. But nothing else. Dad can’t even bear to say her name. So none of us bring her up.”

  She traced the outline of her mother’s face in the portrait with her eye. “This house...” Her voice broke. “Was all I had left of Mom. And Caroline. The last place we were together as a family. I don’t understand how someone walks away from everyone who loves them and never looks back.”

  He hooked Honey about the waist, surprising her into a hug.
/>   “Perhaps Caroline believed she had to leave. Like she had no other choice. Maybe the best choice for the people who loved her.” Both arms around her torso, he pressed Honey’s spine against his chest.

  “How could that kind of loss be best for her or those who loved her so much? How could you—?”

  “We’re going to get out of here.” His mouth grazed the top of her head. “And you’ll always have your home if I have to personally reframe and nail this house together again myself.”

  She angled. Placing her palm against his shirt, she felt the drumbeat of his heart through the fabric. “Why would you do that for me, Sawyer? Why, if you stopped caring for me that way?”

  With a sudden crescendo, the wind picked up speed. Torrents of rain slashed against the glass panes. Something thudded against the roof overhead. She jerked.

  “Because I never stopped...” He bit his lip so hard dots of blood appeared.

  Leaning closer, she ran her finger across his bottom lip and wiped away the smear of blood. “You never stopped what, Sawyer?”

  His eyes locked onto hers. “I—”

  “Aunt Honey? Where are you? Sawyer?” Max’s panicked cries sounded below.

  Releasing her, Sawyer jerked toward the stairs.

  The moment passed and she hurried after him to comfort her nephew who’d awoken frightened by the renewed intensity of the storm.

  In truth, she grimaced as she enfolded Max in her arms, her moment and Sawyer’s had passed a long time ago. Three years ago. On a moonlit beach outside Ocean City.

  Chapter Ten

  Hours later, Honey awoke to utter silence. A silence all the more eerie in contrast with the nightlong banshee of the wind. Stiff, she shifted, careful not to wake Max.

  The air lay heavy and moist on her skin. But they were alive. They’d survived, and the hurricane had blown itself out to sea.

  A yawning pit opened in her stomach. Her gaze ping-ponged. She bolted upright.

  “Sawyer?” she yelled. Max stirred in her arms. She disentangled herself from his arms entwined around her neck.

  “Mimi?” he murmured, his eyes still closed. “I want Mimi.”

  Panic clawed at her heart. “Sawyer? Answer me. Where are you?” Laying Max aside, she scrabbled to her feet.

  “It’s okay, Beatrice,” Sawyer called from below the landing. “I’m down here.”

  Max sat up and stretched. “Is it over? I’m hungry.”

  She hurried toward the stairs. Her pulse leaped at the sight of the bandaged Coastie leaning against the stairwell. Light from the open door and broken windows dappled the contours of his face.

  “The water’s already receded. Like somebody pulled the stopper on a bathtub.” He dropped his eyes. “But it’s a real mess. I’m sorry.”

  She gulped. “I may blame you for a lot, Sawyer Kole. But I’m pretty sure Hurricane Zelda was beyond your control.”

  He held out his hand. “Just remember, everything can be fixed. The important thing is we’re alive.”

  She slid her hand in his and allowed him to help her step over the debris cluttering the staircase. She made her way to what had once been the first floor of seven generations of Duers.

  Her feet encased in muck, she gasped, unprepared for the complete devastation. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand. The brackish stench overwhelmed her senses.

  All the money she’d spent on the remodel gone to waste. Her eyes welled. The waterline, like the dirty ring on a bathtub, etched the four walls.

  She closed her eyes, unable to cope with the total destruction of her childhood home and the complete demolition of her greatest dream. The ground floor—kitchen, dining room, living room and stairs—was a total loss. The home equity loan she’d taken out and was still repaying for naught. She sagged, the spiraling debt dragging her downward as if she were caught in an oceanic vortex.

  He hugged her close. “It’s going to be okay. I told you. All of this is fixable.”

  She shook her head. “I’m without resources and out of business for the duration.”

  “You’re not without resources. You’ve got friends and neighbors—”

  “Whose homes and businesses are probably as destroyed as mine.”

  “And you’ve got me.”

  She stepped out of the circle of his arms. “Since when have I ever had you?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Glad to see you haven’t lost that fighting Duer spirit.”

  She waved her arm. “Yeah, probably the only thing I’ve got left now.”

  “Bitterness doesn’t become you, Beatrice.” Mouth twisting, he turned toward the gaping front entrance. “God will make a way.”

  Shame darkened her cheeks. His all too apparent disappointment in her stung. Her mouth quivered.

  “Don’t remember you and God being so buddy-buddy when you courted me up and down the Delmarva three years ago, Kole.” Her chest heaved. “I also don’t believe you’re standing on any moral high ground yourself after the way you dumped me.”

  Sawyer pivoted so suddenly, she took an involuntary step backward, her Wellingtons squelching in the mud.

  In two sloshing strides, he was at her side, grasping her elbows. “You don’t know anything about my relationship with God. And you’re right. Three years ago, God and I weren’t on speaking terms. But a lot has changed. Something you’d already know about if you weren’t so determined to make me the culminating scapegoat for every bad thing that’s ever happened in your life.

  His face hardened. “Truth is, we were no good to each other then. Maybe God had a higher purpose in separating us than either you or I could imagine at the time.”

  “Don’t you dare preach to me about God. What kind of higher purpose? What kind of way did God make when my mother lay dying of ovarian cancer?” Honey smacked her fist into his chest. He staggered.

  “When Daddy fell into a decade-long depression and his heart almost gave out?” She shoved Sawyer. “When Lindi died with Max in her arms—”

  “Aunt Honey...” A small voice wobbled from above. “Why are you yelling at Sawyer? Why are you being mean again?”

  The black Labs’ noses poked through the banister. Their tongues lolled, hassling.

  Max’s face looked small and scared as he hung over the railing. “Mimi says stuff happens not ’cause God doesn’t love us, but ’cause that’s the way it is down here. ’Cause this isn’t our final home.”

  Honey grabbed the newel post for support. Was that the problem? She’d made this house her god? Like once, three years ago, she’d put Sawyer before God and her family?

  Max jutted his jaw. “When my birth mom died, Mimi became my forever mom. And God made a way for Braeden to be my dad, too.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. The anger and bitterness were a cancer that had squeezed out everything good and right in her life. Max’s childlike faith smote her conscience.

  “I love Sawyer, Aunt Honey. I thought you did, too.”

  She opened her eyes. That was the problem. She couldn’t deny the truth any longer. Only someone she’d loved that deeply had the power to wound her so deeply. Clamping her lips together, she didn’t trust herself to speak. Afraid she’d fall to pieces.

  “Thank you for your vote of confidence, buddy.” Sawyer moved away from Honey, his eyes hooded. “I love you, too.”

  She hardened her heart. Words Sawyer Kole had never spoken to her. He’d used her that spring. She’d been just another diversion, a babe in every port. “What makes you think, Coastie, we’re any good to each other now?”

  He flinched as if she’d physically struck him. His eyes dulled. His face resumed the stoic expression he wore of late.

  She wanted to weep. Hurting him as he’d hurt her somehow didn’t provide the satisfaction sh
e’d imagined. “Sawy—”

  “Ahoy in the house!” Braeden’s voice bellowed from outside.

  Max took the stairs two at a time, vaulting over the debris toward the ground floor. “Dad? It’s me, Max. I’m here.”

  Braeden along with an EMT from Riverside clambered up what remained of the porch.

  “Max!” The relief on Braeden’s face as he spotted his son nearly broke Honey. Braeden opened his arms wide as Max crossed the distance between them and jumped into his embrace. Braeden buried his dark, short-cropped Coastie head into Max’s scrawny neck.

  The child trembled with repressed sobs. “I knew you’d come. I knew you’d find me.”

  Braeden’s shoulder blades twitched. He stroked Max’s back as if not just reassuring the little boy. Braeden’s chocolate-brown eyes lifted, scanning the destruction. Sizing up the tension and gulf between Sawyer and Honey with one glance. “Everybody okay, here?”

  “Sawyer saved my life, Dad. Blackie and Ajax, too.”

  Braeden blinked away the moisture in his eyes. “Seems I continue to be in your debt, Petty Officer. Now you’ve gone and saved my son. How can Amelia and I ever thank you?”

  Sawyer went into regulation stance, arms rigid at his sides. “Just doing my duty, Chief. And it was your sister-in-law who saved me actually.”

  His duty? Is that what last night had been?

  Honey slumped against the soggy wall. “We saved each other. How is Amelia?”

  Braeden held Max close. “Resting at the hospital with your dad. Baby Scott decided the middle of a hurricane was not the best time to make an appearance after all.”

  Sawyer raked a hand over his face. “Smart kid.”

  Braeden nodded. “Let’s get you all out of here.”

  She stiffened.

  “For now, Honey.” Braeden motioned toward a waiting four wheel drive truck. “Everyone’s meeting at the church to count heads. Giving thanks to God so far no one appears to be unaccounted for. Kiptohanock needs time to regroup and plan the recovery. God will be our strength.”

  She cut her eyes at Sawyer. He avoided her gaze and broad-shouldered his way out the door, leaving her to follow. Or not.