“You don’t need to do anything,” Brooklynn said, wishing she could rewind time just five minutes and give a better reaction. “Let’s eat.”
“Brooklynn.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her access to the kitchen and the fried chicken. He hadn’t said her name often, but she sure liked how it sounded in his voice.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Well, I’m not fine,” he said. “First it was that coffee mug, which I threw away, by the way.” He exhaled and ran his hand over his short hair. “But I might need a cheat sheet of things we can and can’t eat. Or places we can’t go. Or whatever.”
“There is no cheat sheet. I can eat at Royal Rooster.”
He gave her a hard look she didn’t like. But she couldn’t glare back, and she ended up dipping her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just…had a bad reaction.” And it had been completely involuntary.
“Will everything remind you of him?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly, hoping he wouldn’t think a relationship with her would be too hard. But in this moment, even she thought it was too hard, and the ache behind her eyes felt endless.
“I think I’ll go,” Dave said, and panic coursed through Brooklynn.
“Go?” She hated the alarm in the word, sure it was etched on her face too.
“Brooklynn, I’m not sure…I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t need to do anything,” she said, stepping around him to get into the kitchen. She reached into the bag and pulled out the box of fried chicken. “Honestly, Dave, I’m okay.”
When he didn’t move and continued to wear a dark look on that beautiful face, she stopped trying to distract him with food. “Okay, look. Yes, I reacted badly. I know that, but I couldn’t…it just happened. I don’t know what will make it happen again. Could be something one day that’s fine the next.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know what to do either. But I know I don’t want you to leave.” Tears pricked her eyes again. “The only thing that would make this worse would be if I had to do it alone.”
“Okay,” he said, stepping over to the counter. “I just…I want you to be happy, Brooklynn.”
“I am happy,” she said. “And you can’t make everything better by throwing away a mug, and I can’t pretend I didn’t have a life before Ryker died.”
“I’m not expecting you to pretend anything,” he said. “I know you had a life before. It just seems like—well, with Robbie not reacting well, and you crying over the fried chicken. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It feels hard tonight.”
“We can do hard things,” she said.
“Do you have a saying for everything?” He chuckled and shook his head, reaching into the bag and pulling out the container of mashed potatoes. “First it was the human heart had an unlimited capacity to love, and now this.”
“Guess you’ll have to stick around and find out,” Brooklynn said with a smile, glad when Dave smiled back, loaded a plate with food, and sat down at her kitchen table.
Now she just needed to figure out how to move forward without breaking down. If she couldn’t, she felt certain she’d lose Dave, and she couldn’t bear to go back to being alone.
Chapter Eleven
Dave didn’t go to Brooklynn’s the next night. Or the next. A week of weekdays passed, and they only talked through texting. He really didn’t want to spend another Friday night alone, so he called her and asked her to dinner.
“I’d love to,” she said. “I have a late appointment tonight, so it’ll have to be later.”
“How much later?”
“Probably eight?” she guessed.
“No problem,” he said. “Anywhere specific you want to go?”
“Somewhere with great dessert,” she said, a smile in her voice. Dave worried all day about where to take her for dinner. Would it trigger another episode like the one on Monday night? Was she really ready to be in a relationship with him?
He didn’t know the answer to any of his questions, but he wanted to spend his time with her, so he tried to set aside his doubts and worries and focus on the task at hand.
The problem was, the Adelie wasn’t doing much today. Patrolling the shoreline and looking for sections of the shore that needed some environmental help. It was utterly boring, and everyone on the ship did their jobs, so he didn’t have much to do himself.
He left the cabin where the controls were and went out on deck when he saw Ben and Jake through the glass. “Hey, boys,” he said to his friends.
“Captain,” they said in unison, their salutes identical too. Dave wasn’t bothered by the formality. He’d spent enough years in the military to be used to it.
“Heard the captain got himself a girl,” Jake said, passing a sandwich to Ben. “You want one, Captain?”
“Sure.” Dave took a sandwich too, not even trying to deny that he had a girlfriend.
“Yeah?” Ben asked. “Who is it?”
“A girl I knew growing up,” he said, unwrapping his lunch.
“Oh, he likes her,” Ben teased. “Look at his ears turn red.”
Dave had no idea if that was true or not, so he simply rolled his eyes. “I’m not fifteen,” he said. “I’m allowed to date.”
“Yeah, you just never do,” Jake said with a laugh. “And I’m pretty bummed, by the way. I lost fifty bucks because it wasn’t Audrey.”
“Oh, jeez,” Dave said. “Me and the helicopter pilot? Please. They have egos as big as the sun.”
“Uh, Captain,” Ben said, his grin so wide it could’ve split his face. “So do you.”
“I do not,” Dave said. “I have to be commanding. It’s not like I’m really that arrogant.” He scanned the shoreline, finding nothing out of the ordinary. He seriously hated the environmental scoping assignments, and retirement once more crossed his mind.
He did love the swell of the waves though. The scent of the fresh air out on the water. The way the very wind seemed to have conversations with itself.
Thankfully, the conversation moved to something else, and Dave enjoyed his time with his friends.
“Captain,” someone called behind him, and Dave turned to find his executive officer waving to him from the cockpit. He headed toward Mitchell without saying goodbye to his friends. Mitch wore a look on his face Dave had seen before—they had a new job to do.
“What’s up?” Dave asked as he joined Mitch inside the cockpit and out of the wind.
“We just got notice of a boat coming over from Victoria Island they want us to inspect.”
“Board?”
“Yes.” He tilted the tablet toward Dave, who took in the boat’s features.
“All right. You have the coordinates.” All correspondence came with precise coordinates, and Mitch got their eighty-seven-foot long boat going in the right direction. “Speed, twenty knots,” he reported, and Dave repeated it back to him.
The sky looked darker than it should have at just after noon, and Dave hoped it wasn’t a sign for what was to come. “Let the crew know,” he said, and Mitch picked up the radio to inform the other nine people aboard about their new directive from the port.
Dave read the report on the tablet, realizing that he’d have to inspect the boat for weapons, drugs, and illegal immigrants. He’d need to see paperwork, check the engine room, make sure all the controls worked on the boat, count the lifejackets, all of it. That way, he’d have access to all the compartments to find anything, should it be there.
In his twenty-two years with the Coast Guard, he’d boarded plenty of boats. Since becoming Captain five years ago, he sometimes sent his First Officer, and sometimes went himself. In this situation, he’d go, and he’d take three people with him. It was one more than usual, but the port had flagged this as a potential threat.
“Get me Ben, Jake, and Fi,” he said, and Mitch got the job done.
“You’re taking Fiona?” he asked.
“She’ll be great with the boaters,” he said, though he didn�
�t owe Mitch an explanation. Though, Fi had gotten herself in a bit of trouble back at port, and Dave had said he’d take her on his crew. Everyone else was male, and she’d fit in just fine in the few months since joining the crew of the Adelie.
Ben arrived first, and Dave waited until everyone had joined them in the cockpit before he fully explained what they’d be doing.
“We’re ten minutes out,” Mitch said, and Dave acknowledged that he’d heard him.
“Ben, I want you and I to go inspect together. There could be refugees or illegal immigrants on board, and I don’t need to be alone if I encounter them.” He turned to Fiona, a petite brunette who had plenty of firepower packed in her small frame. “Fi, I want you to stay with the boaters. Make this sound routine. We’re just making sure everyone’s safe coming over from the island, that kind of thing.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Jake, you’ll keep their boat secure.” He didn’t need to explain further. Jake had plenty of experience in boarding boats, as he’d worked out of San Diego before traveling north along the Pacific Coast.
“It’s just routine,” Dave said, though something told him to make sure Mitch called in every few minutes. “Should take thirty minutes. Everyone ready?”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused, and Dave nodded. “Let’s get our jackets on then.” He turned back to Mitch and waited until the others had stepped outside. “Mitch, I want you to call in every five minutes.”
“Got a bad feeling?”
Dave looked over his shoulder at the sky outside. “Yeah, something like that.” He knocked twice on Mitch’s controls and said, “Report to port the moment we board too.”
“Yes, sir,” Mitch said, his eyes round and watchful.
Dave turned away from him and exited the cockpit to get his own lifejacket on. He grabbed the boarding checklist from the wall and said, “Fi, tell me the first thing I should look at.”
“The engine room,” she said quickly. “Unless you know where certain holds are and suspect there might be drugs or weapons.”
“We don’t have the schematics for this boat.”
“Then the engine room,” she said. “First aid station. Life jackets. Paperwork. We ask them questions and keep them calm when we get to weapons and drugs.”
“Alarms,” Jake added. “Fire extinguishers.”
“Good,” Dave said, leading the way to the boarding area. “There she is.” He spotted the boat in question on the horizon, and the radio on his hip beeped.
“They’ve been hailed captain. They’ve responded that we can board.”
“Good.” So there wouldn’t be any problems there. He didn’t need an open-ocean showdown today, and the ominous feeling pressing into his shoulders dissipated.
“Jake, you lead out,” he said as they approached the boat. Jake was one of two Boarding Officers on the Adelie, and he had loads of experience with inspections and enforcing the law on the ocean.
“Yes, sir,” Jake said, stepping to the railing and lifting his hand to the three men on deck. “Ho, there,” he called. “United States Coast Guard, requesting to board your boat.”
Dave watched as the two men behind the first exchanged a glance, and he nudged Fi by moving his elbow a couple of inches. “The guy in front is in charge,” he muttered. “Keep your eye on him.”
“The other two are nervous,” she whispered back.
“Keep them calm.”
Jake told them they were performing a routine inspection and they’d need to see their paperwork. “Any weapons on-board?” he asked as he swung from the Adelie onto the boat in question.
“We have two handguns,” the first man said. “In a safe in the office.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded and looked back to Dave. “I’ll secure the boat. First Class Officer Downs will stay with you. Anyone else that should come up?”
“Just the three of us,” the man said, and Dave didn’t like how the guy behind him looked toward the steps.
“I’m the Boarding Officer,” Jake continued, nonplussed. “My Captain, Captain David Reddington is coming on-board to complete the inspection. He’ll be assisted by Senior Chief Petty Officer Erwich.”
With everyone on board, Dave shook hands and got to work. “How many lifejackets are on board?”
“Six,” the first man said.
The inspection continued, and a measure of relief coursed through him when he went below-deck and got away from the men. He opened every cupboard and cabinet, every closet, every door. He didn’t find anyone or anything out of the ordinary. They blew the horn and checked for fire extinguishers.
He completed the entire checklist, and all he could find was that there wasn’t a carbon monoxide detector in one room and the placard above the garbage was missing. So he had Jake write them up for that, and he asked, “Where are you guys headed?” while Jake checked the paperwork.
“Fishing vessel,” Jake said. “They told Officer Downs they were going to Hawthorne Harbor Bay.”
Dave’s heard skipped a beat. That wasn’t far from where he lived. “What kind of fish?”
“Oysters,” the man said. “Crab.”
Made sense. They wouldn’t be the only ones fishing for crab in Hawthorne Harbor Bay. Dave wasn’t sure what his bad feeling was about, because there was no one else on this boat, and no drugs that he’d seen. Of course, a trained dog might be able to sniff out something he couldn’t, but the Coast Guard didn’t employ dogs on the Adelie.
“Two violations,” he said, handing the list to Jake so he could fill out the report and get the guy to sign it. He explained what they were to the men while Jake filled out the paperwork. The man signed it, and Jake gave him the yellow copy.
Once they were all back on board the Adelie and sailing away, Dave finally relaxed. “Something shady about them,” he said to Ben, and Ben agreed.
“But we saw nothing,” Ben said. “So at least they aren’t smuggling over teenagers for a sex trafficking ring.”
“This time,” Dave said.
“Paperwork checked out,” Jake said. “Called it in and everything.”
“All right,” Dave said, sighing. “Good job, guys.” He nodded to Fi, and she saluted him back.
Dave wasn’t sure why he still felt unsettled, and as the afternoon wore on and they completed a couple more boardings of commercial fishing vessels for a company operating out of Port Angeles that had had several violations over the past year, nothing happened.
All in all, it was a better afternoon than morning, but nothing of consequence happened. So maybe his nerves had everything to do with Brooklynn, and nothing to do with his job.
But at least with her, he wasn’t bored.
“This place is nice,” Brooklynn said, glancing around. “I haven’t been here in so long.”
“Me either,” Dave said, keeping his hand in hers as they edged toward the hostess stand. He said there were two of them, and they got taken back immediately, as the night life in Hawthorne Harbor wasn’t exactly thriving.
They sat and their waiter brought water, but Dave needed a whole lot more than that. He ordered his caffeinated soda, and Brooklynn ordered raspberry lemonade. Then she looked up at the waiter with a playful edge in her eyes. “And I want dessert first,” she said, smiling. She pointed down to her menu, which he hadn’t even noticed was open to the treats. “This chocolate lasagna cake.”
“With ice cream or without?”
Brooklynn looked at Dave, who grinned at her and gestured for her to decide.
“With,” she said, and the waiter left.
“You eat dessert first?” he asked, intrigued by her more and more every time he saw her. Tonight, she wore a pair of gray slacks and a blouse the color of the lavender that flooded Hawthorne Harbor in July. She was elegant and beautiful, and he felt like the luckiest man in the world.
“I’m always too full after dinner,” she said. “Then you can’t even enjoy it.” She grinned at him and put her elbows on the table. “So, how
was the ship today?”
“Great,” he said. “It didn’t start raining until we were almost done.”
“Tell me about your boat,” she said, and Dave cocked his head.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes,” she said. “I….” She looked thoughtful for a few moments, and Dave let her have the time she needed to organize her thoughts. “I need to get over my fear of the ocean if we’re going to be together.”
“You do?” he asked. “Why’s that?”
“You work on the ocean.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to come out on the boat with me.”
“Yeah, but I have to kiss you good-bye every morning, and I don’t want to then spend the rest of the day in pure panic mode, hoping you’ll come back.” Brooklynn tucked her hair behind her ear. “At least, I don’t want to live like that.”
Dave allowed the conversation to stay serious, though all he could think about was kissing her every morning. Having her in his house with him. Or him in hers. Whatever. He just wanted to be with her, wherever she was. “So what’s your plan for that?”
“I’m doing some group therapy,” she said. “I just got an appointment for next week. And, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I thought if I knew what your job was, then I wouldn’t have to worry so much.”
“So you worry about me. Now?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“And you want to kiss me in the morning.” He grinned at her, hoping to lighten the mood. After the day he’d had, he didn’t want tonight to be serious.
She giggled and shook her head, looking down at the menu. “What are you going to get?”
“Oh, I see how it is.” He laughed too, choosing something quickly when the waiter reappeared with Brooklynn’s chocolate lasagna cake and taking their orders.
He picked up the second spoon that had come with the dessert. “Before I came back to Hawthorne Harbor, I worked on an icebreaker on the Great Lakes.”
“An icebreaker?” She paused with her spoonful of cake and ice cream halfway to her mouth. “That sounds dangerous—and exciting.”
“It was both of those things,” he said. “Sometimes I regret leaving.”
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