Coast Guard Sweetheart

Max hung over the cutout window, elbows planted in place. She wondered how long he’d perched there. How much he’d overheard.

“I don’t like you today.” His lower lip trembled. “And I don’t want to stay with you and Granddad this summer while that stupid baby’s born.” Max frowned. “Inside I feel as mean as you treated Sawyer.”

Remorse fretted at her conscience. What was wrong with her? She used to never be this way. That is, not until Sawyer had cut her heart to the quick.

“Is that why Mimi left me here? ’Cause I’m so mean?”

“No, Max.” She reached for him. “You’re not mean. Amelia had to go to her doctor appointment. Like last month. She told you why you couldn’t come today.”

Max slung his legs over to the kitchen side. “I want her to come home. I want things to be the way they used to be before...” He shook his head. “But once the other boy comes nothing will ever be the same.”

She gathered him close. “Mimi and Braeden love you. That is something that will never change.”

Max leaned his forehead against hers. “Do you think she wanted this baby ’cause I got too big to hold? I tried not to grow. Honestly.” He captured her face.

She ignored the gritty feel of his palms on her skin and focused on his blueberry eyes where moisture welled. “Oh, Max.”

Max had been born mere hours before his dying mother, Lindi, the oldest Duer daughter, bequeathed her infant son into the trustworthy hands of Amelia. And when Max turned two? Honey shuddered to recall those horrible years after Max was diagnosed with childhood leukemia. How she, Dad and most especially Amelia—Max’s beloved Mimi—suffered with the little boy through every treatment until he reached remission.

The frail, sickly boy Braeden Scott first met had been replaced by this healthy, suntanned, mischievous bundle of energy. This same redheaded boy had been instrumental in Amelia finding her own happily-ever-after with the handsome Coastie Scott.

“Nothing will change when this baby’s born, Max. Only then, you’ll have someone else to play with and love, too.”

“It won’t be the same...” His voice dropped.

She kissed his forehead. “It’ll be better, Max. Better than before, I promise.” His skin tasted of cinnamon sugar, a legacy from the Long John war.

“Like Sawyer promised?” Max peered at her. “I like Sawyer. Don’t you remember when he—”

“When he showed his true character.” Honey remembered that glorious spring far too well. “Sawyer Kole doesn’t keep his promises. Me you can trust, Max. Him, I can’t afford to.”

* * *

Sawyer grabbed the mooring line Seth Duer threw to him. He secured the rope around the cleat on the Kiptohanock wharf. Motorboats and other small fishing vessels also docked alongside the pier. The briny aroma of sea salt perfumed the air.

He took a deep, steadying breath.

Because this conversation promised to be about as fun as sitting on a desert cactus. Unpleasant, but a necessary part of Sawyer’s self-prescribed penance. He’d hurt this man’s daughter. Sawyer prepared himself to be slugged in the jaw and dropped in the Machipongo drink. All of which he deserved.

And more.

“Mr. Duer, sir.”

His hand hard with calluses, Seth passed him one of the now empty bait buckets. Sweat broke out on Sawyer’s forehead at the older man’s unnerving silence. He stepped back as Honey’s father hoisted the other bucket onto the pier. And with a light-footedness that denied his fifty-odd years, the rugged Shoreman bridged the gap between the Now I Sea and the dock.

The wiry waterman brushed his hand over the top of the mounted iron bell on the end of the pier. A bell, Sawyer remembered, used only for the annual blessing of the fleet at the start of the fishing season in spring. And to summon the villagers in times of maritime disaster.

“I’m assuming the Sandpiper has been restored to proper working order.”

Sawyer nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“You starting your two days on or two days off, son?” Seth squinted at him, his eyes a variation of the blue-green teal many of the Shore residents sported. “May I call you, son?”

Sawyer swallowed past the large boulder lodged in his throat. If only his own father had been a tenth of the man Seth Duer was.

How often that spring he spent with Honey he’d envied her strong, loving family. Envied the faith that bound the community together. Wished he had somewhere and someone to call home.

A seagull’s cry broke the silence. Sawyer realized that Seth Duer still awaited his response, the old waterman’s head cocked at an angle.

“I’d—I’d be honored, sir. It’s my two days off.”

Honey’s father studied him. Sawyer remained still under his gristly-browed scrutiny, ready to take whatever blow Seth dealt him. Something Sawyer had learned from his no-good drunken excuse for a father.

The older man blew a breath out between his lips. “Braeden’s right,” he declared in that gravelly smoker voice of his. “You’re not the same brash boy who left here three years ago.”

Oh, how Sawyer prayed he wasn’t.

Sawyer trained his eyes on the inlet that meandered past the barrier islands until emptying into the Atlantic. A cormorant dive-bombed for fish in the marina. With the wind picking up, seagulls wheeled aloft in graceful figure eights.

“I know what you did for my daughter.”

His gaze swung to Honey’s father. “For your daughter, sir? Don’t you mean to your daughter?”

“The sacrifice you made.” The waterman scrubbed his hand over his stubbly jawline. “Reckon you believed you were doing her a favor. Saving her future heartache. Didn’t turn out that way, though. That’s why I put a word into Braeden’s ear. Why I asked, if possible, you receive a temporary posting to settle things once and for all.”

“You were the one?” Sawyer jammed his hands in his pockets. “I figured you’d be the one meeting me at the Bridge with a shotgun.”

The old man grinned. “Don’t think that idea didn’t cross my mind three years ago.”

Sawyer inserted his finger between his neck and his collar. And tugged. Despite the bracing sea breeze keeping the marina flags aflutter, the air had grown a bit too close for comfort.

“You’ve got your current chief, Braeden Scott, to thank for saving your life once upon a spring night.”

“Chief’s been a good friend. Better than I deserved. The brother I always wished I had.”

Tenacious about staying in touch the past three years wherever Sawyer found himself assigned. Three long years when all he could do was lick his wounds and work hard to make his CG mentor proud.

“Braeden also told me about your past, son.”

Sawyer reddened. “He shouldn’t have done that, sir. I—I—” He dropped his eyes to the gray-weathered planks unable to face Seth Duer.

The old man heaved a sigh. “I understand better than you could ever know.”

He darted a glance at the waterman’s face as a faraway look crossed Seth Duer’s stern countenance. “I’m not the kind of man Honey deserved. Wouldn’t have been a welcome addition to the Duer clan like Braeden.”

Seth gave him a faint smile. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that or Honey if I were you.”

He opened his palms. “I promise you, Mr. Duer, I’ll stay far away from Honey till my permanent reassignment comes through. Braeden—I mean Chief Scott—promised if I’d give it through Labor Day, he’d arrange a transfer.”