The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  Tears glossed his red-rimmed eyes as he bobbed his head. “Be well, all of you.” He turned his horse around and softly plodded away.

  As the hoofbeats faded, Ethan laid his hand on June’s head and kissed Cora Mae once more, and her heart overflowed with hope.

  Jocelyn Green inspires faith and courage as the author of more than a dozen books to date, including The Mark of the King; the award-winning Heroines behind the War Civil War series, which includes Wedded to War, a Christy Award finalist in 2013; Widow of Gettysburg; Yankee in Atlanta; and Spy of Richmond. She also co-authored The 5 Love Languages Military Edition with bestselling author Dr. Gary Chapman. A former military wife herself, her passion for military families informs all of her writing as well as her numerous speaking opportunities. Jocelyn graduated from Taylor University with a BA in English and now lives with her husband and two children in Iowa. Visit her at www.jocelyngreen.com.

  The Swelling Sea

  by Joanne Bischof

  Chapter One

  Coronado Island, California

  Late June, 1890

  Cold water slid across his body, the dip and rise of the swell bringing challenge to his course. Jonas plunged his arms in forward strokes, heard his breath quicken over the rustle of water—felt his pulse pounding in his chest, burning in his legs and back. Most often this single sacred hour at dawn found him outdoors, though normally, instead of swimming in California coastal waters, he would have been rowing near the grounds of Stanford University.

  But thanks to three of his friends, he’d traded in a single-man rowboat for ten days that held something much grander. A quest. A bond of brotherhood. A feat they were soon to face in a four-man scull designed for two-thousand-meter races. And so they’d come south to this grand resort, their sights on both their past and their future, which meant yet another attempt across the bay that would be anything but easy.

  Jonas didn’t want to push his crew too hard, too quickly, so with them sleeping in after mumbling something about enjoying the first day of their holiday on Coronado Island, he had opted for a different kind of release.

  The water grew warmer. The shore close, he dipped down and let the tide swallow him up as he swam into the shallows. He rose with a gasp, lungs on fire. Salt water dripped down his face. The familiar tang of it on his lips. His feet struck loamy sand, and with waves crashing behind, he took the dogged, leg-weary walk to dry beach. Up ahead loomed the massive Hotel del Coronado, glinting in the sunrise with its white corridors and gables, all topped with sprawling, brick-red rooftops. As if it all belonged in a fairy tale and not on the coast of California.

  Fondly known as just the del, the seaside resort had opened the summer of 1888, but Jonas could remember a time, three years prior to that grand event, when this resort island had been covered with little more than shrub brush and quail. And among that, four defeated lads about to give up on a dream.

  He glanced back across the bay—those memories of old colliding into him.

  Sinking to the ground, Jonas pulled a hotel towel into his lap and ran it over his face. The shorts of his black bathing suit clung to his thighs, and the tank covering his torso stuck to his chest like a chilled, second skin. He drew in careful, steady breaths. With asthma a black spot on his athletic career, he knew how far to push himself, but lately he’d taken to challenging himself harder than ever to see if he couldn’t increase his stamina. Jonas watched the water for a few minutes as his heart rate slowed. When he was more than ready to warm up with a hot bath and a change of clothes, he rose in the light of the brightening dawn.

  Something glinting a few meters down the shoreline caught his attention. Scrubbing the towel against his hair, Jonas tossed it aside and started that way. A crash, and foam rushed over his feet. Realizing that the glinting was a metal bottle sticking up from the sand, he broke into a light jog as it disappeared from sight. The wave twirled back where it came from, and the bottle caught the glare again, this time buried a little deeper. Jonas reached it and gave a tug, but it was wedged in firm. Before another wave could come, he knelt and began to dig.

  Tiny sand crabs scurried out of the way, burrowing from sight, only to be unearthed again by his efforts. A small wave came, bubbling and swirling against his legs. Fingers numb, Jonas gripped the bottle neck and tugged, finally winning. He rose just as a wave slammed into him. The bottle looked old. Was dented in several spots and scuffed in others. Maybe not worth much, but he was curious all the same, especially when he noticed a flash of filigree etched along the top. Jonas squinted and ran his thumb over the wet metal. Filigree and…Latin? The latter he’d studied plenty of at Stanford, but he would have to clean the bottle up before he could begin to decipher each letter.

  Jonas turned and trudged along drier sand toward his things. Salt water dripped from his hair, and he ran his face against his upper arm.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” A young woman’s voice made him turn.

  Clad in a cloak, the hidden little figure yanked at the bottle, claiming it from his slick, sandy hands. Jonas froze. Her black hood fell away and a mass of white-blond hair tumbled free, barely bound in a braid as thick as any sailor’s knot and just as sturdy, he discovered, when she spun away and it whipped him in the face.

  He winced. “I beg your pardon!”

  She strutted off.

  “Excuse me, miss. That’s mine.” He jogged to match her pace.

  “Is not.” Wide-set eyes, as pale blue as the rising dawn, flashed in his direction—vulnerability and anger clashing in every blink.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Request granted.” She brushed past him.

  He jogged forward then walked backward to face her. “Is something the matter with you?”

  The young woman slammed to a halt and, gripping the bottle by the neck, hitched the butt of it closer to his face. “You poachers come all the time to glean treasures from these shores, and I’m done with being trounced by fellows who have no real appreciation for the sacredness you discover.”

  Eyes widening, he raised his hands peaceably. Was she insane? He looked at the bottle, which she yanked down into the folds of her skirt.

  “Let’s begin again.” He forced an even tone. “You see, I was standing there. Right there on the beach.” He pointed the way they’d come. “I happened to look down, saw the bottle half-buried, and used these very hands to free it.” He raised ten sandy fingers.

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve been coming here every morning waiting for this bottle.”

  “Waiting for a bottle to be washed ashore?”

  She rolled her eyes. “This is mine.”

  “Actually it’s mine because I found it.” He went to pluck it from her, but she stepped back.

  “No. You just scavenged where you didn’t belong.”

  “Which qualifies as finding first.” Were they really having this conversation? There was no way this young woman could be serious. But as ridiculous as this was, two years of studying law made it impossible to stand down. “Let’s take a moment to go over what’s occurred: one minute ago I felt rather victorious in my discovery—the evidence in question being of course the bottle—and I took no care to check behind me in preparation for you to swoop in and snatch it.” Maybe not the greatest plead, but it was what popped out.

  The wide-eyed look she was giving him triggered something in his mind.

  Jonas tipped his head. She seemed familiar somehow. “Don’t you work at the hotel?” He tried to picture her in a maid’s uniform, but truly, he hadn’t been at the hotel long enough to have a good impression of any of the resort’s staff. Still, he remembered seeing hair that color in the hallway last night. This very face. He was sure of it now.

  “What of it?”

  Aside from the fact that he could now have her fired?

  She eyed his sopping wet and rumpled appearance; then her gaze slid over to his things, the plush hotel towel lying there. She was a fair thing, but he was certain she just grew a shade pa
ler as her gaze slowly lifted back to him.

  “McIntosh,” she whispered, “3323.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “That’s the one.”

  “You’re here with those other young men. The ones with the boat.”

  “Yes, and—”

  “You’re all on Mr. Babcock’s tab.”

  One of the hotel founders who had taken an interest in their insane endeavor? “Right again.” And now for the apology she owed him.

  But she just set her mouth and, though she was surely near to his own age, looked at him with blue eyes that held the solemnity of an old soul. “I apologize for my rudeness,” she said softly. “And for calling you a poacher.” But she tucked the bottle farther against her skirt.

  He eyed the scuffed relic, then her face. Noted the gentle pinch to her brows that confessed what they both knew to be true: she had much more to lose from this encounter than he. She took a small step back, gripping tight to their discovery. A fierce hope that made him more than willing to let her have it.

  He was quite finished here anyway. “Enjoy your treasure, miss.” He touched the brim of an invisible hat and started toward his things.

  Reaching the towel, Jonas snatched it up and draped it over a shoulder. Next he grabbed his book and watch with its chain. Without looking back, he headed for the oceanfront access of the hotel. He looked back just once. Just once over his shoulder in time to see the young woman doing the same as she neared the servants’ entrance. The distance proved too far to read her expression as the sun pierced over the red peaked roof and she disappeared from sight.

  Chapter Two

  Jonas crossed through the carpeted lobby just as a porter was greeting departing guests. “Let me see these to the carriage for you,” the uniformed man said. “I hope you enjoyed your stay at the del.”

  Striding around them, Jonas headed up the stairs to the third floor and, after rounding the corner of the hallway, let himself into room 3323. He paced to the far windows and flung back the curtains, sending a trio of groans around the room. “Wake up, little children.”

  His cousin Oliver, with his pumpkin-orange hair, rolled over and peered through one eye. “What’s wrong with you?” He flopped a freckled hand around on his nightstand, groping for his pocket watch. “It’s not even…” He squinted at the round plate. “Seven o’clock.”

  “Right. All the more reason you should be awake by now. We wasted an entire morning of practice. The water will be swarming with people within the hour.” Pinching that freckled cheek, Jonas rattled it.

  “It’s called a vacation, Jonas.” Thomas Oakes—just Oakes to the four of them—sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Most people vacate.”

  “You don’t even know what that means.”

  Oakes scowled all the way to a sitting position. “Oh I’m sorry, magna cum laude. I forgot you know everything.”

  Jonas shot him a look, and Oakes fired one right back. An hourly occurrence between the pair of them, and a type of normal that still had them the best of friends.

  Jonas peeled off his damp tank while the others shoved blankets aside and sat up. Most of the rooms weren’t designed to accommodate four bachelors, but wanting to squeak value out of the pricey resort and the generosity of the hotel owner, they’d committed to sharing a room. As that girl on the beach had put it—they were on Mr. Babcock’s tab. But not wanting to take advantage, they’d all agreed to a rotation with two sleeping abed, the other two dozing on rickety cots. Jonas had gotten a bed last night; Oliver, too. Which was probably why Oakes and Dexter—the long, lean stroke man—were both eying him as if they had a crick in the neck.

  Nothing good could come of a grumpy middle oarsman, so Jonas ran his hands down his face and sat on the edge of the unmade bed. He didn’t mean to be short with them, but that girl from the beach had been his undoing this morning. Already exhausted from his swim, the last thing he’d needed was a confrontation that had propelled a nice little blow to his ego. Probably best that none of his friends had witnessed that. Maybe there was something to be said for them sleeping in.

  Oliver stepped behind the dressing screen and, by the sound of his stomping about, was swapping nightshirt for pants.

  Dexter, as red in hair but not nearly as modest, stripped down to his shorts in the center of the room, grumbling about a hot cup of coffee. Oakes, too, but instead of grumbling for coffee, he reminded Jonas that the bay wasn’t all that big. That they were all older now. “Nothing to it.”

  Jonas wasn’t so certain. He rose and moved to the table near the window where rested a map of the island. He studied the pencil line they’d drawn when they’d all been around fourteen years old. The rough line that led from the beach just in front of the resort, out into the bay, and around the rocky lighthouse point, then around to the other side. “It’s more than being older. I’m not sure that we’re prepared for this—”

  “We’re prepared.” Dexter flexed a sinewy bicep and kissed the muscle.

  Oakes smirked. “That wasn’t very comforting.”

  And Jonas didn’t want to let on how much the swim alone had taken out of him. Was he truly up to this? He’d spent his entire life on the water, feeling the burn of oars against the tide as it grew him into a man, but when it came down to the bottom line—his lungs, well…

  There was a reason he’d chosen a university that had yet to develop a rowing team.

  He looked at the three young men before him. Each of whom had signed up for this crazy adventure, once again. They exchanged glances, and Jonas wondered if anyone else was thinking of that summer day in ’85 when they’d rowed out beyond their boyhood playground of sagebrush and jackrabbits. Far away from the safety of this beach.

  They’d set off in an old skiff, intent on being the first boys to row from one end of Coronado harbor to the other. Or so they’d imagined. They walked away from that day with a near drowning and four battered spirits. The boat, smashed to pieces. But that day they’d made a pact to try again when wounds were healed and backs were stronger.

  Now five years later, they’d pooled their resources for ten days at the hotel with sights set a little higher than rowing across the bay. A five-mile route around the lighthouse. A journey past waves and rocks that, as far as they knew, had never been attempted by a four-man scull designed for sprinting.

  Jonas looked at his friends, who all wore pinched brows and sober expressions.

  Rushing to mind was the memory of their skiff unable to make it past the break.

  Only to crack apart among the rough waves. They struggled to swim amid it all. And all bore the scars from that day. Oliver on his left leg, and Oakes, a thin white strip along the side of his jaw, which the ladies always fussed and swooned over. Dexter had a dozen healed cuts across the bases of his palms. And Jonas’s right shoulder and forearms still tingled with the scars he bore. From the minutes they’d been tossed in the rush of the bay, being pummeled by waves and the broken fragments of their own boat. Though healed and faded, he’d carry the scars of that day with him forever. Just as they all would.

  Realizing he should get dressed himself, Jonas threw on dry clothes while his roommates set about shaving. He needed to look halfway decent to dine at the hotel, so Jonas buttoned up a vest over his pressed shirt then finished with a few tugs of his collar. Some pomade overrode the briny feel of his hair. As his stomach grumbled for breakfast, he followed his comrades out into the sunroom that would lead them to the courtyard stairwell.

  The long, window-lined corridor was quiet until Oliver elbowed Dexter. “Did anyone order more towels?”

  “I did it because none of you cream puffs can seem to do anything.” Oakes’s quip was met by a couple of shoves. Chuckling, he pulled out a comb and fixed his hair. “They said they’d send some up.” He started down the stairs, and the rest of them followed.

  Famished, Jonas trailed his friends beneath a bright sun. Two maids were starting up the stark white staircase, clutching stacks of clean linens—towels, sheet
s. Jonas and his friends formed a single file, and not a one of them kept their eyes down as the two ladies passed. Jonas slowed when he spotted the second maid. In a black dress with a white apron and cap over her pale blond hair, it was the girl from the beach. Her gaze rested on the steps ahead, but when she glanced to Jonas, her feet slowed.

  She was so easy on the eyes that he nearly smiled, but remembering what a pest she was, he checked it. They passed one another without a word. At the bottom of the steps, Jonas glanced over his shoulder, but his friends nudged him onto the courtyard path and toward the nearest café. Once there, they settled at a table by the windows that overlooked the seaside.

  Surrounded by diners feasting on puddings and sausages, the four of them ordered humble fare of orange juice and hash, the latter not even being on the menu. While they ate, Jonas tried not to think of the girl or the way she’d boldly stood in front of him, lit by the cool gray of dawn, but his gaze kept wandering that way.

  By the time they finished eating, Dexter suggested a warm-up row on Glorietta Bay, one of the calmer, smaller bodies of water nestled against Coronado Island.

  Jonas seconded that notion. A glance through the polished glass showed that the main beach was filling with vacationers and their striped umbrellas. The water beyond, dotted with bathers in swim costumes that offered both modesty and an opportunity to enjoy the waters and seaside air that were rumored to offer comfort for anything from rheumatism, to tuberculosis, to his very own asthma.

  With it his turn to pay, Jonas downed the last of his juice, dropped enough cash for their meal and a tip, and then led the way from the café. Starting back up the stairs, he slowed when Dexter slapped a hand over his chest and squeezed past.

  “How did the windpipes treat you this morning?”

  “So-so,” Jonas answered.

  “Then we’ve got our work cut out for us.”