Home For A Hero

“The fog lifts and I walk into town.”

If the fog lingered, she would have a lot of time to figure out how to make contact with Mr. Evans.

She looked away from Luke to the room they were in. “You’ve lived on the estate for a while?”

“A while,” he echoed.

“Where did you come from?”

He rested his mug on his thigh and countered her question with his own. “Where did you come from?”

Okay, he was going to do it his way, and she went along with it since she was totally dependent on his generosity at the moment. And maybe if she spoke about mundane things, he’d let something slip about his boss.

“I was born in San Diego and lived there until I was eighteen. Then I moved to Houston, then Maine, spent a bit of time in San Francisco, then went back to San Diego again. Now I’m up here on a temporary assignment at the Sound Preservation Agency.”

He studied her. “Thanks for that rundown and insight, but I actually meant, where did you come from tonight?”

She thought he was making a joke and started to smile, but he was dead serious. “I told you, I’m a marine biologist at the agency. They’re having problems with the marine life dying with no apparent cause. I’ve done research on a bay for them at an extension near San Diego, and they asked me to visit for a couple of months to look into the problem here. Anyway, I was at work and decided to take a look up this way before I signed out for the day to check on a few things I’ve been uncertain about.”

“Alone?”

“I was about the only one left at the office.” She wouldn’t mention how she realized she was the only one there, the only one without someone to go home to. That she was heading back to the small hotel room where she’d stayed for the past month. Or that she was having trouble getting past today, past the anniversary, and in some way, being on the water seemed to help. She’d been a fool, and she’d been reckless when she shouldn’t have been.

“I didn’t have anywhere to go,” she said, giving a partial truth. “Then I saw the island and thought a trip over would be a good idea. I got lost in thought, and before I knew it, the fog was coming in, the motor quit and I couldn’t start it.”

He listened without comment now, sipped more coffee, then looked at her as if waiting for her to say something that might interest him. He wouldn’t want to hear about how she’d sat on the deck of the boat, wishing Graham were there, that he’d never died, that the life she’d thought two years ago that she’d have now hadn’t disappeared completely. “I called the coast guard, was waiting, turned and…I tripped. I fell over the railing and got caught in a current. I don’t remember much more, until you found me on the beach.”

She really was babbling now, and thankfully he spoke and stopped her. “You said you were alone on the boat?”

Very alone, she thought. “Yes. Most everyone else at the agency has been gone all week for the holidays.”

“Why weren’t you?” he asked, hitting the mark with his words.

She bit her lip, not at all comfortable telling this man so much about herself. Here she was, hoping to learn more about him and his boss, and she was practically spilling her life story. “I’m in Seattle temporarily, and celebrating just…” She shrugged, truly at a loss to explain how the holidays had come to mean little to her recently. “I had work to do, so I was doing it and ignoring the new year that’s coming.”

He sipped more coffee. “It’s overrated.”

“What is? Celebrating?”

“No, the concept of a new year making everything fresh.”

There weren’t any Christmas decorations in this space or anywhere she’d looked around the house. “So, I guess that means you ignore the holidays?”

He studied her, then said more at one time than he’d said since he’d found her on the beach. “A new year is just a new year. Nothing changes. There’s no magic at midnight. It’s just time passing the way it always does. People tend to make a hell of a lot more out of it than makes sense to me.”

There was little emotion in his voice, yet his words made her almost shiver. She more or less agreed with him, not just at the new year, but day in and day out. Time passed. Life went on. Things didn’t change. But hearing it from him filled her with a sharp sadness. “You’re here alone?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“No family?”

“No. How about your family? Are they here?”

She felt herself sinking back, putting an arm around her middle and pressing hard across her stomach. Family? She hadn’t had family since Graham. With Luke asking her about family, it drove home that family for her didn’t exist and wouldn’t again. “No,” she said, adopting his less-than-chatty attitude.

“No one’s looking for you?”

The pain stabbed at her again. The man was suddenly making her feel more alone than she had for a long time. “No one will until someone shows up at the center, finds the boat gone and sees that I put in the security code to get the keys for it.”

“When’s that?”

“I guess after New Year’s, maybe a day or so after.”

Luke studied her and, for a moment, he frowned as his eyes flicked to the simple gold band she still wore on her left hand. “What about your husband?”

She covered the ring with her other hand and found herself biting her lip so hard she was surprised she wasn’t tasting blood in her mouth. “He…” She cleared her throat. “He’s gone.”

Luke didn’t push. She didn’t have to say the words she hated, but she did, as if voicing them to this stranger would make them more real somehow. “He’s dead.” She looked down, easing her grip on her hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice.

She didn’t want his sympathy or really to think about Graham right then, so she thanked him and changed the subject. “I wonder if the coast guard was able to find the boat.”

He nodded toward another phone on the table by the tray that had held her food. “Call 911 again, and find out. Maybe you should tell them you aren’t going to make it to the police tonight, either.”

She reached for the receiver and once she was transferred to the coast guard, dialed extension twenty-three. Another man said they’d picked up the GPS signal from Shay’s boat and they’d have it within the hour. The problem was they would have to impound the boat at their facility in Seattle for two working days. She just had to come in, show the ownership papers and pay the fees.

She hung up and muttered, “Just great,” as she sank back on the couch.

“What’s wrong?” Luke asked.

“They’re impounding the boat when they get to it, and I’ll have to pay to ransom it.”

He didn’t respond to that, but stood abruptly and came to collect her dishes. He took them out to the kitchen, and she heard running water, then the clank of china on china.

Money was tight, but she could manage the fines or fees or whatever they’d call them. The agency might be upset, but then again, she was a temporary employee. The worst they could do was cut short her contract and she’d go back to San Diego.

Luke came back, but didn’t enter the room fully. “You can have the bed in the guest room. There’s plenty of blankets in the closet.”

She scrambled to her feet. “Oh, no, I can sleep on the couch, right here. No problem.”

“There’s no heat going—the furnace was never turned on, and it can get cold in there.”

“What about a fire? I’m great at building one.”

He glanced at the empty hearth, then back at her. “Not overnight.”

“Where do you sleep?” she asked.