Coast Guard Courtship

Amelia’s lips tightened.

Her drawings were in there. The one place where nobody in her crazy family bothered her. Her refuge during the long winter months when her problems stacked as high as crab pots and the water proved too choppy to venture from shore. Her father had always encouraged her art, but seeing it made him feel bad she’d quit school to take care of Mom, then Max and now him after his heart attack last fall.

So Amelia had confined her drawing to the boat and stashed the sketches in the abandoned boat shed. She’d spent hours laboring over each angled nuance, scale and perspective of the wildlife and people that populated her Eastern Shore world. But with taking care of Max, who was always fighting colds due to his compromised immune system, and getting ready for the upcoming charter season, she’d not had the time to indulge in her art over the past month.

Amelia set her jaw.

Those drawings belonged to her. Not great art, but they were all she had left—the drawings and Max. And she’d be keelhauled before she’d allow someone to steal what little remained of her youthful hopes and dreams.

Gripping the hooked stick, she approached the cabin. Oyster shells crunching beneath her boots, she sidled to the small porch and stretched beyond the bottom step to the second tread to avoid its telltale creak. She curled her fingers around the door handle, the metal cold against her palm. Rotating the knob, she pushed it open and held her breath.

Nothing.

Poking her head inside first and observing no sign of life, she followed with the rest of her body. The sound of running water from what had once been a kitchen drew her toward the back of the three-room structure. She pressed her spine flat against the interior wall. A faucet valve squeaked, and the sound of running water ceased.

One of the ladder-back chairs scraped away from the table she’d claimed as her art bench. Paper crackled. She closed her eyes, both hands clutching the stick, and prayed for courage.

Taking a deep breath, she lunged hook first around the door frame in an ancestor-worthy yell last heard at Gettysburg.

A man—a tall, handsome man, early thirties, whose broad shoulders tapered to the waist of his Coast Guard uniform—jolted to his feet.

The chair crashed to the floor. A long john hung from his gaping mouth. His eyes, as brown as Hershey’s Kisses, were the size of sand dollars.

She jabbed the hook in his direction. “Wh-who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m—” He choked, the doughnut lodging in his throat. His eyes bulged. He bent over the table, gasping for air. His face turned an interesting shade of puce.

Amelia dropped the stick, letting it clatter to the floor. Stepping forward, she whacked him across the massive planes of his back.

He went into an apoplexy of hacking.

Without a second’s thought, she wrapped her arms around his middle, locked her hands together at his midsection. With an upthrust, she squeezed once, then again. The doughnut sailed out of his mouth and landed with a thud against the wall.

Sputtering, he collapsed against the table. Glaring, he twisted away, sidestepping her, and in one smooth motion snatched at the stick between their feet.

Her breath hitching, she realized her mistake and dived for it at the same moment his hands grasped hold. Her hand tingled from the inadvertent contact with his, but she tugged, refusing to let go. He held on, his chest heaving.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Let go.”

She gritted her teeth. “You let go first.”

“Fine.” He held both hands, palm up. “I don’t know what your problem is, lady, or who you think I am, but I have a rental agreement that says I have the right to be here on a month-to-month basis. And that includes breakfast and dinner.” He gestured at the table.

She stared at the key on the table, a key Dad usually kept hanging on a pegboard in the mudroom of the house. Through the window, she glimpsed a black F-250. “What’s going on? Who are you?”

He pointed to the name embroidered on his Coastie-blue uniform. “Scott. Braeden Scott. Seth Duer...”

She chewed at her lip. This had her sister Honey written all over it, too. What had Honey and Dad been up to while she’d been coping with Max’s treatments and keeping the business afloat?

For the first time, she became aware of the pungent aroma of fresh paint. A bouquet of daffodils graced the countertop. She fought the urge to roll her eyes.

Yep, Beatrice “Honey” Duer had been here. The Eastern Shore’s own Martha Stewart wannabe.

He groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re the other Duer sister?”

Amelia winced.

Story of her life.

Amelia smoothed her hand down the side of her faded jeans and frowned at the encrusted fish guts. “I’m Amelia.” She squared her shoulders. “And yes, I am the other Duer sister.”

His eyes raked over Amelia from her marsh mud–splattered boots to the top of her head. Flushing, she skimmed stray tendrils of hair from her face and tightened her ponytail.

Once, just once, she wished she could pull off pretty like Lindi, or ultrafeminine like Honey. Anything less boyish and more womanly.

All she ever managed was “good ole buddy grungy crabber.” She licked her dry lips, wishing she possessed some of Honey’s lip gloss. Her eyes dropped to the floor.

Great first impression, Duer. Especially with someone so...collected? Gorgeous? Masculine?

She glanced up to find the Coastie’s gaze fixed on her hair.

Her heart hammered.

Chapter Two (#ulink_e3a0bdf1-7026-5040-ae61-efc9c2ff295a)

“What’s with this place?”

Braeden ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. “Should’ve known you’d be another redhead.”

Her eyebrows curved. “What did you say?”

Braeden folded his arms across his chest.

Amelia jabbed her thumb toward the dock. “I take it that sailboat out there is yours?”

Biting the inside of his cheek, he nodded.

“And just what have you got against redheads?”

“I think my boat speaks for itself.” He cocked his head at the grappling hook in her hands. “Redheads are nothing but trouble, plain and simple.”

She curled her lip. “By the way, you’re welcome.”

“For what?”

“For saving your life.”

His mouth dropped open. “You didn’t...”