His Last Defense

by Karen Rock

  “Well look what the cat dragged in,” boomed a voice behind Dylan. “Ma said she invited you over.”

  He twisted around, rose and automatically grabbed the hand thrust at him.

  “Didn’t actually think you’d come.” Robbie arched an eyebrow.

  “Me, neither.” Bemused, he stared down at his big brother, a vantage point he’d never had growing up. Odd.

  “What are they feeding you in the Coast Guard? Shit. Ma, how tall do you think Dyl is?” Robbie stuck his hand in an open bag of chips, then deposited one in his mouth. Chewed.

  She angled a knife over a sandwich and cut it in the precise, diagonal direction Dylan’s father preferred. “Well over six feet, I’d say.”

  Robbie leaned a hip against the countertop. “I’m five ten and you’ve got me beat by five inches. No more whupping your ass in the wrestling ring.”

  “Four,” Dylan corrected, feeling his shoulders begin to loosen, lower. Robbie? Admitting Dylan could ever best him in anything?

  “Whatever, asshole. Hey. Wanna ride with me up to Bear Trap Lake and go ice fishing? If you still remember how...”

  Dylan closed his mouth around the quick yes that rushed up and over his tongue. A longing to hang out at the spot where they’d held their annual fishing derbies seized him. His dad had turned it into a nail-biting, stomach-cramping competition for who caught the biggest and most trout. But there had been good moments, too...

  “Nah. I’m heading out in a few minutes. Just wanted to stop in like I said I would, and now that I have, I’ll be—”

  His brother squared off against him. “You’ll be what? Running away? Again?”

  “I’m not running away,” he denied, his mind returning to Nolee. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah. For two seconds.”

  A beeper rang from the counter beside his mother and she jumped.

  “What’s that?” Dylan asked.

  “Dad.” A cloud seemed to pass over Robbie’s face.

  Dylan’s muscles clenched. “He can’t even come in for his own sandwich?”

  Leave it to his father to interrupt even this small reconciliation. Not that he wanted to see the jerk. But he didn’t have to make everyone jump to do his bidding every second of every day.

  “No. Honey. It’s just—”

  The beeper buzzed again. Louder. Harder. Longer. Short, staccato beats. Demanding. He could hear his father’s voice in it.

  Dylan snatched up the plate. “I’ll take it to him.”

  “No. Dylan. Wait!”

  He ignored their protests and marched into the living room, his mother following close behind.

  The sight of a wheelchair pulled him up short. A small, old man slumped in it, his chin resting on his concave chest.

  Sharp dark eyes swerved to him. Narrowed.

  The plate dropped to the floor. Shattered.

  “Dad?”

  His mom’s trembling hand fell on Dylan’s arm. Squeezed. “I wanted to tell you at the restaurant, but your father insisted he didn’t want a pity visit from you.”

  “The hell he’d get one,” Dylan declared. The room seemed to tilt slightly.

  “Damn straight,” barked his father in the gruff voice of his childhood. It rammed straight down through Dylan’s vertebrae, locking each one. “Have a seat, son.”

  He gestured to the couch beside him, as in command as ever, then wheeled himself to face it once Dylan and Robbie perched on its edge.

  “What happened to—”

  At his father’s raised hand, Dylan snapped his mouth shut. Swallowed back his questions. Old habits die hard, he thought as he watched his broom-wielding mother whisk ceramic shards into a dustpan.

  “Six months ago. Ischemic stroke. You were in that Saint Thomas hurricane. Your mother couldn’t reach you. I told her not to bother when I woke.” His jaw jutted. “You are not to blame your mother.”

  Regret, heavy and tight, banded around Dylan’s chest. Oh. His proud, proud father.

  He could have lost him.

  “Yes, sir,” Dylan exclaimed, mind racing. He should have known about this, damn it, but his father was right. His mother, who rarely went against her husband, wasn’t completely responsible.

  Dylan had played his part, too.

  He’d turned his back on them. Walked away. Put distance between him and a complicated relationship...just like Nolee said.

  “Sandwich, Marlene.”

  “Coming up, Joe.” Dylan’s mother disappeared into the kitchen.

  “I’ll take one, too—oomph!” Robbie’s voice cut off when Dylan jabbed his side with his elbow.

  He spied a scrapbook on a coffee table. “What’s this?” He stood and flipped through it silently, then returned to the first page, which held a large picture of Dylan in his graduation gown. “Where’d you get this?”

  “We took it.” His mother returned, handed over a fresh sandwich to his dad then drew back when he waved away her efforts to tuck a napkin into his collar.

  Surprise walloped the backs of Dylan’s knees. “Huh? You were there?”

  “You graduated with honors.” His father nodded to himself as he chewed, then continued. “We were proud of you.”

  “Proud?” Dylan asked, skeptical. All he’d heard, all his life, was every which way he’d let down his old man, including, and especially, his lack of interest in the family excursion business.

  He flipped through the pages again. Each one held articles and pictures chronicling his rescues and places he’d been stationed with the Coast Guard. “Why do you have these?”

  “Pop here’s obsessed.” Robbie crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes.

  “Bullshit,” Dylan bit out and met his father’s stare head-on. “Sir.” Here it was. Clear-cut evidence that he cared. Exactly what Dylan had chased after, dreamed about, despaired over getting as a boy. Nothing he’d done had ever made a damn difference then.

  “Dylan. Please don’t talk that way to your father.”

  He strode to the window and peered out at the gray day. His thoughts wrestled each other, piling on top of one another, struggling to free themselves.

  “The boy’s got a right, Marlene.”

  At his father’s unexpected words, he whirled.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said it.” His father brushed a veined hand over his head. “I wasn’t the best dad.”

  Robbie’s snort cut off at their mother’s death glare.

  “Of course, you were a regular pain in the ass, too,” continued his father. “Stubborn. Rebellious. Hotheaded. Always wanted to go your own way. Got that from me.”

  Dylan’s mouth dropped open.

  “When we sent you off to live with Bill, it didn’t take me more than a week to regret it. But I was too proud to go after you. Figured you’d come around eventually. Sure as hell wasn’t going to go crawling. Never thought you’d leave Kodiak for good, though.”

  His words punched Dylan in the gut. Air rushed out of him, leaving a sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  “Reading about all you’ve done in the Coast Guard, the people you’ve helped, the lives you’ve saved...well...it opened my eyes. I should have supported you instead of trying to hold you back. Because of that, I didn’t just lose a guide for the business, I lost a son. I don’t want to lose you again, if you’ll give your old man another chance.”

  “No.”

  At Dylan’s sharp word, his brother b
olted to his feet and his mother gasped.

  His father hung his head and spoke to his lap. “Well. Guess I deserve that.”

  Two strides closed the distance between them. Dylan dropped to one knee beside his dad. “NO. I mean that you’re not taking all the blame. Jesus. It always has to be about you.”

  Silence. Then his father’s sudden laugh rumbled from him, his brother’s guffaws mingling. “Son of a—”

  “I screwed up, too.” Dylan crushed his eyes closed for a moment, willing the sting in them away. “I shouldn’t have left Kodiak without a goodbye and I should have kept in touch. This separation’s my fault, too. I—I’m sorry, Dad. Mom. Robbie.”

  “Ah. Don’t get all soft on me, now,” griped his dad as he returned Dylan’s fierce hug.

  “I hope you’ll stay for dinner, sweetheart.” His mother’s vanilla scent enveloped him as she kissed the top of his head. “We need to make up for lost time before you transfer.”

  Dylan straightened, thinking fast. “Actually, I’m not so sure I’m leaving.”

  He’d not only pushed his family away for past hurts, he’d done the same to Nolee. He saw now that he had preferred distance from people. Had beaten a path away from them to have it. He couldn’t do that with Nolee, too. Or himself.

  He deserved love after all and had the right to home and hearth and family. Gone were his days of wandering. He wanted to stay in one spot, Nolee his North. His South. His East and West.

  “I have to go. But I’ll be back.”

  And he would. First stop would be to his commander’s office to rescind his out-of-rotation-year transfer request. He wanted a life here with Nolee and his family. With three and a half years left for this regular rotation, and another three to four years if he requested a follow-on tour and an additional twelve-month extension, he’d have enough time to cement his relationship with his family...and start one of his own, he hoped, with his first and only love.

  Nolee.

  * * *

  FROM THE PACIFIC DAWN’S BOW, Nolee watched the sunset bleed orange and blue into the edge of the earth. The sea, sparkling indigo, was benign and calm, and the deck hardly moved as the boat floated serenely in her slip. Silent gulls perched like stone sentries atop the pier’s wooden poles. Some poked their bills beneath lifted wings while others sank onto their webbed feet, eyes closed.

  She tipped her head back and her lungs expanded, drawing in a long cold gulp of salted air. Usually she relished solitary moments like this on deck, quiet times when the ship slumbered. The one time she could imagine herself the only person in the world. Except now, after these passion-filled weeks with Dylan, she no longer wanted to be alone, an island, a woman unto herself.

  Her gaze swept one last time over these beloved waters, this ship, and she mentally said her goodbye. Kodiak had been her home, her refuge and comfort. But it wasn’t her heart. That belonged to Dylan. Now that she’d made up her mind to leave and find him and had formally resigned from Dunham Seafoods after a quick meeting with her bosses, she suddenly couldn’t wait to go.

  At a light step behind her, she whirled.

  “Dylan!”

  He strode across the deck, tall, broad-shouldered and impossibly handsome in a hunter-green parka, jeans and work boots. Her heart stalled for a long moment, then picked up a high-speed thump like a coiler winching full blast. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just saw my parents.” He reached for her hand, enveloping her fingers in his.

  “You did?” she asked, struggling, the act of communicating or thinking right now with him so close nearly impossible. “Then you know about your dad. I didn’t want to keep it a secret, but your mother insisted your father should be the one to tell you...”

  He tugged her closer, oblivious to the occasional fisherman wandering along the dock. “She was right. If I’d known, I might not have visited for the right reasons.”

  “Why did you go?”

  “You,” he rasped. His hands skimmed up her spine. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said in the restaurant. About needing to face my past and reconcile it before moving on.”

  A sinking thought bowed her head. “So you came here as part of your goodbye?” She wanted to go with him, but what if he’d changed his mind and didn’t want her anymore?

  He gently touched her face. “No.”

  “No?” She lifted her chin.

  “Those things you said about me being closed off? Distancing myself? All true. Or they were before, but I’m different now. You...this time together...it changed me. I want a family. A home. A future with you, Nolee. And I’m not leaving Kodiak. At least, not until I have to.”

  Everything went still as she processed what he’d said. He was staying here? Willing to give up the excitement of traveling the world? On the heels of her amazement, however, concern followed.

  It’d be easy to agree and stay. This was the only world she knew, and she feared leaving it. She’d be ten kinds of a fool to say no to him, but she’d come too far to go back to the cautious woman she’d been. “No.”

  “No?” The light seemed to fade from his eyes, a lowering shade.

  “I mean that you don’t need to leave me. I want to go with you.”

  His arms tightened around her as he turned her away from an oncoming knot of fishermen. “You’ve got a career here that you’ve busted your tail to break into. How can you even think about walking away?”

  “I can fish anywhere. Maybe I’ll even buy my own boat.” She liked the sound of that, liked the idea of being her own boss in a way that’d be even more autonomous than working for Dunham Seafoods. “It wouldn’t be as big, but I’d call all the shots.”

  “And you’d do that just so I could transfer?” He didn’t look skeptical so much as...astonished.

  Men! If he was willing to make a few changes for her sake, then he should be able to accept that she would do the same for him. Then again, no one had ever put him first before. Certainly not his father, who’d dragged him through backcountry for most of his childhood, reprimanding him every step of the way for never proving himself to the family.

  In that moment, Nolee felt the last remnants of her fear channel into a new, fierce protectiveness for Dylan. A desire to be there by his side, supporting him, loving him, in countless states. Countries even. Instead of making love in Alaska, they could lose their inhibitions on far-flung beaches and sultry seas.

  The group of laughing fishermen passed on the pier, whistling and shouting for them to get a room. Nolee didn’t care. Dylan didn’t even register it. The man’s ability to focus was awe-inspiring, especially when she happened to be at the center of all that intense attention.

  Now to convince him she wanted this for both of them so he didn’t pull some selfless hero crap and decide to plant himself in Kodiak anyway. She could, and would, be a captain anywhere, but there was only one Coast Guard and that meant traveling. “Being a rescue swimmer is all you ever wanted.”

  “You’re what I want, Nolee.” His green eyes were all on her and she felt his sincerity, down to her toes. “You make me happy.”

  “But Dylan,” she argued, needing him to see that he didn’t have to sacrifice after all. “I don’t want you to—”

  “God, woman,” he cut in. Everything he was feeling was right there in his eyes—a hint of exasperation, a touch of laughter. “You are difficult.”

  “I’m not!” she insisted. “It’s just that I—”
<
br />   “You lock your jaw and won’t let go, and I’m helpless.” He cradled her face in his hands, stroked her cheek with one finger. Her knees almost buckled from the sweetness of the gesture.

  “Every time, I’m completely helpless with you, Nolee. The way we fight is exhausting and hot and exhilarating and frankly weird. But you know what? I can’t imagine sparring with anyone else.”

  He leaned closer, brushing the softest whisper of a kiss over her temple. “Kissing anyone else.”

  “Dylan,” she murmured.

  “Making love to anyone else.” He slid his hand down to her hip and then spanned the circumference of her waist. “I’m glad you made me leave years ago. Otherwise, I’d never have anything to compare to the way I feel about you.”

  Tenderness and heat mingled in his eyes. Maybe even a little awe. “I’m in love with you.”

  Happiness bloomed inside and she sucked in a breath. It was like being winded. She grabbed hold of his shoulders. The declaration felt so solemn, so significant. “You’re insane. You know that?”

  One side of his mouth hitched up. “Yes. Yes, I do.” Dylan swooped down and his lips captured hers. He kissed her with hunger and longing, his hands pressing her whole body to his in a head-to-toe connection.

  Nolee broke the contact, not ready to lose herself in a sensual firestorm just yet. She had something important to say. Pulling back, she put her hands on his chest for a very temporary barrier.

  “I love you, too.” She blurted out the words with zero finesse and all feeling.

  Dylan’s face exploded in a smile and he gave her another teasing kiss, his palms covering her butt and pressing her against him right...

  There.

  She shivered in response. This definitely felt right. Clear down to her toes. “And sooner or later I have to leave Kodiak. No. I need to leave Kodiak. I want to see more of the world with you, travel together. How about we leave after your tour of duty in three years?”