by Delia Latham
“Not at all. I like it.” Summer’s eyes widened, and turned once more to the majestic scene spread out before her. “Miss Angie…do you think that’s what’s happening? All this loud roar and rumble from the ocean, the slap of the waves, the shriek of the seagulls…is that nature praising God?”
The woman smiled and touched a gentle hand to Summer’s cheek. “Well, who am I to say, child? But I like to think it is. Yes, I believe the sea is praising its Maker, just as we should when we behold all the beauty He gave us to enjoy.”
Tears misted Summer’s gaze, and she swallowed a little lump of immense gratitude. For better or worse, Cambria seemed to bring out the emotional in her. “That’s exactly what I was thinking while I stood here. God must have sent you to confirm what was in my heart.”
“Well, it would be just like Him to do that for you. He loves you that much!”
With one last smile and a squeeze of Summer’s hand, the woman turned and made her way back toward the lodge. Summer watched her for a moment, and then returned her gaze to the water, where she mulled over the brief conversation.
Something about Miss Angie spoke to her spirit. She couldn’t put her finger on what was so intriguing about the woman, but there was something…something almost divine…that overshadowed the beautiful lady like an invisible cloak. She stood a long time, silently praising the Master of the sea, and the Savior of her soul.
Her toes twitched, and she glanced around the quiet beach. Not a single living creature in sight—not man, woman or child, not even the aforementioned seagull at the moment—but what if, like her, someone else had found a hidden nook in which to enjoy the ocean’s magic?
Should it matter? As part of the praise team at her church in Three Rivers, she lifted her heart to God in dance in front of others at nearly every service. Reaching a point where she could shut off her natural shyness and simply praise had required much prayer and a terrific longing on Summer’s part to worship God in a way beyond the ordinary.
Still she hesitated, while her bare toes dug into the damp sand. But the pull to uplift her Lord at last overcame her reticence as she recalled yet another verse from the Psalms—the one that had been her strength and her song during the time she’d sought enough boldness to dance in front of the congregation at church: “Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”
Overcome with the desire to express her appreciation for the surrounding beauty in a way that words could not, she cast one last, quick glance around. Not seeing anyone else on the beach, she began to bend and sway, her toes spinning across the sand almost without her direction. Her head filled with music and lyrics from one of her favorite praise and worship songs, her heart overflowed with love for God, and her body responded in a slow dance that poured her feelings out on the sand at her feet, across the waves of the mighty ocean, and upward—into the heavens. She had no banner to wave, no pennant to incorporate into her moves. She didn’t need one.
Tears flowed and her heart sang praises as the ocean breeze cooled the sun’s touch on her face and arms. Summer lost herself in the moment and released her heart in dance.
Until, in one terrifying instant, a huge, icy cold wave slammed into her from behind, with enormous force. She uttered one, instinctive cry—“Jesus!”—and then she was in the water and tossed into the swirling depths.
Never a strong swimmer, Summer’s strength was no match for the ocean’s. She posed no more challenge to the sucking, pulling tide than a piece of weightless driftwood. Although she fought with all her strength—even clawing her way to the surface once, and then twice to gulp in precious air—Summer hadn’t a chance of survival.
Her head bobbed above water once more as her strength dwindled to nothing. Still, she inhaled a deep breath before going under again. For the last time. As the water flowed over and around her, she succumbed to the battering waves, no more fight left in her. She knew Christ, so she wasn’t worried about what awaited her at the time of her death. What she regretted was her life.
Why, oh why, had she not lived while she had the chance?
****
Logan climbed the boulders and rocks to his favorite spot on the Paradise Pines beach and settled in for another session with his paintbrush. Within moments, his easel was set up and secured, and he clipped the canvas onto it, his gaze already traveling the scene he’d been creating for over a week.
He’d painted her into it, with no more to go on than hazy dream images. Little detail existed in the slender form dressed in white, arms spread wide, head uplifted in praise. Yet the entire painting revolved around her—not the vast, choppy ocean beside which she stood, not the flawless blue sky. Despite how insignificant her figure in proportion to the other elements, the woman dominated the scene.
He touched his brush to her hair, adding a bit more light into the long, golden locks in which dwelt a tantalizing hint of silver. His dream-memory told him those silky strands absorbed and reflected every ray and beam of sunlight. Before he was finished, no one would look at this work and not see the sunshine in her hair.
An hour passed, during which he accomplished little. He couldn’t stop looking up from his work, checking the water’s edge. Ridiculous, of course. That same, disturbing dream—the swaying girl, the crushing wave, the horror of watching her disappear beneath the ocean’s surface—had visited him nearly every night during the past month. It hadn’t come true yet…why did he keep expecting to see her here on this stretch of shoreline? His chances of ever meeting the lovely dream dancer weren’t great, especially considering the fact she most likely wasn’t even real.
With a sigh, he laid his brush on the easel’s built-in tray and stretched. Sitting for such long periods of time created kinks and knots in his neck and back if he didn’t take time to move a little. He stood, and his gaze traveled once more to the quiet beach. Logan froze, unable for a moment to move even the slightest muscle.
There she stood, long, silver-gold hair blowing in the constant ocean breeze. The wind whipped at her white skirt and billowed around her ankles like something alive. The gracefulness of the woman’s movements captivated him, just as it had every time she’d appeared in his sleeping world.
He didn’t even breathe as he watched his dream re-enacted almost scene for scene. Her bare toes curled into the sand. Her head raised to the sky. Her shapely body swayed with incredible grace, moving to a rhythm only she could hear.
Finally free of the temporary paralysis brought on by seeing the woman of his dreams in his waking world, Logan vaulted himself forward, making his way down the slick, often unstable boulders toward the beach. Long strands of damp seaweed caught at his ankles and sent him sprawling, but he didn’t slow down to assess any damage, despite the fire in his skin where his knee struck a pile of sharp, broken shell and stone. He prayed aloud as his feet finally hit the sand and propelled him across the distance between himself and the white-clothed stranger.
“God, You put me here.” He huffed out a breathless spew of pleading words as he jerked his shirt over his head on the move and tossed it onto the ground. “You showed me what was coming. Now please, please let me reach her in time!”
He saw the wave rolling in and called out to her, but of course she didn’t hear over the roar of the ocean. Once again, he lived through the horror of seeing the woman of his dreams pulled beneath the choppy surface and out of sight.
Logan reached the water’s edge only a moment after losing sight of her. Barely slowing to kick off his sandals, he hit the water at a run, at the precise spot from which she’d disappeared. The instant he reached sufficient depth, he dove under.
Beneath the surface, his gaze darted here and there, watching for a glimpse of white in the murky, underwater world. Nothing. Just kelp, sea life and currents of water movement.
God, help me! His heart cried out again, Please…where is she? He surfaced for air and dove again. This time he caught a glimpse of the girl—just a bare half-second’s view of whi
te cloth and a splay of long hair around a pale face. He plowed his way through the water toward her.
Then she was gone again.
He shot to the surface, his gaze tracing a rapid swath across the waves. He spotted one tiny, white hand flailing atop the water for a second or two before sinking once more beneath the water. Sucking in a lungful of precious air, he dove under one more time. There. He saw her.
She’d stopped fighting…that couldn’t be good. Her body bounced around at the ocean’s whim like a piece of hollow wood.
Ice shot through Logan’s veins, colder than the frigid water on his skin. Was he too late? Was she dead already? One more desperate heart-plea for help, and he shot through the waves toward her. A moment and three eternities later, his fingers closed around one slender arm. He tugged her closer, fighting the pull of an ocean that seemed determined to win the tug-of-war.
As a teen, he’d worked two summers as a lifeguard on one of the public beaches near Cambria. Now, he frantically sought highlights of the training he’d been required to take, and settled on the right rescue tow to get a limp body to shore without injury, and without putting both their lives any further at risk. Several exhausting moments later, with his lungs threatening to burst, he gained the shore and pulled her out of the water. Oh, God, is she alive? Please…I can’t lose her now!
He set to work, going through the necessary CPR steps without even thinking about them. Prayers for help tumbled from icy lips as he worked, refusing to give up.
At long last, she sputtered and coughed.
It was the most beautiful sound Logan could remember ever having heard.
Then she opened a pair of stunning green eyes and looked straight into his soul. “Am I…alive?” Water bubbled from her mouth just behind the weak whisper.
He spun her on her side.
An unbelievable amount of the ocean spewed onto his chest and soaked the sand around the two of them.
He didn’t mind in the least. She was alive.
Wilted on the sand, her skin so pale it was almost translucent, she seemed to barely draw a breath.
A skitter of fear shot through Logan. Despite his own exhaustion, he slid his arms beneath her and struggled to his feet. The trip from the water’s edge to Paradise Pines Lodge would be forever lost to his memory. He prayed all the way to the lodge—for strength to get there, and that the woman in his arms would live.
She was real.
He couldn’t lose her now.
Later, when he thought about that day, the first thing Logan would remember after setting out from the beach with the girl in his arms was Miss Angie’s face.
She waited in her open doorway as he stumbled across the yard.
“Bring her on in, Logan. I have a warm bath ready.”
A warm bath? How did she know…? No matter. He shot through the door as fast as his flagging strength would allow and followed Miss Angie’s tall, imposing form into a large bathroom, where he lowered his burden into the tub, clothes and all.
Miss Angie knelt beside the girl and waved a dismissive hand toward the door. “Logan, dear, please wait in the kitchen, if you don’t mind. I need to loosen poor Summer’s clothing so she can breathe better.”
Summer.
He headed for the kitchen and a cup of the coffee he smelled, but the name rolled over his tongue again and again, in a low whisper.
“Summer.” She was alive, and would be a part of his life in some way. Why else would God have brought her to him, straight out of his dreams?
Miss Angie shot into the room long enough to drop a blanket still warm from the dryer over shoulders Logan hadn’t even realized were shaking. The heat felt like a hug from Heaven, but he barely registered the welcome warmth—all his mind could absorb for the moment was that perfect name.
Summer.
2
By the time Miss Angie helped her into a thick, fluffy robe and led her into the living room, Summer had almost stopped trembling. Bits and pieces of her horrific, near-fatal run-in with the ocean were coming back to her, although she hadn’t the strength to react or to place the events into organized, sequential mental compartments, as was her practice.
Miss Angie settled her onto a cushy-comfy sofa and tucked a thick blanket around her. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the ultra-softness, which was infused with far too much warmth to have come from a closet. Miss Angie had taken time to give it a tumble in the dryer.
God bless the woman’s kind heart!
“Summer, dear, drink this, if you can. It’ll warm your insides.” Miss Angie set a dainty cup filled with steaming amber liquid on a table next to Summer and left the room.
She was enjoying a first sip of the tea when her hostess returned…followed by a man—a handsome guy, in spite of his current state of blanket-wrapped dishevelment. He honed in on Summer through a pair of greenish-gray eyes that turned her tummy into a jumpy mess. Dark hair, a little long around his neck and ears, lay plastered to his head—not quite wet, but not dry either. Why did he look so familiar?
“Hi, there.” He took a seat across from her and smiled. “Are you feeling better?”
“I’m—uh…” She raised a confused gaze to her hostess, who stepped in with easy grace.
“Summer, I’d like you to meet Logan Bullard. You may not remember him, but—”
“Oh!” The tremors suddenly returned to her hands, and she lowered the pretty teacup onto the table for safekeeping. Memories flooded her mind in broken images—one of which showed her hurling a great deal of the ocean all over this man’s broad chest, while he held her upper body cradled in his arms. “You—you saved my life, didn’t you? And I…” Mortified, she squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed!”
Logan chuckled. “I’m not sure why you feel that way, but don’t. God put me there, in the right place at the right time to make sure you didn’t die today.”
Summer opened her eyes to find his expressive ones tracing her face with something more than concern. Or was she being wildly imaginative?
“I’m glad He did,” Logan finished.
“So am I! I’m incredibly grateful—to God, and to you.” Summer’s hands fluttered to her face. “But I think I remember throwing up, and…oh, Mr. Bullard, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—” Heat flooded her cheeks, and she heaved an inward sigh. When would she ever stop blushing?
He grinned and winked. “It’s Logan, please. And I’ve never been so happy to see someone throw up in my life. It was only water, after all. A lot of it, but still…just water. Don’t give it another thought.”
Miss Angie had disappeared for a short time. She returned now and, sitting next to Summer, she patted her hand. “Drink your tea, dear. Logan’s already had hot coffee, and now that I’ve had a moment to look around…” She smiled and waved him toward the restroom. “I found a pair of pants and a shirt in one of the closets—probably from the former owner, or perhaps a guest left them at one time or another. They may not be a perfect fit, but they’re dry and waiting in the restroom. You’re welcome to them. Please change, dear boy. I’d hate for you to get sick after saving Summer’s life.”
Logan stood. “I have to admit I could stand to warm up a bit.” He left the room.
Summer took another long sip of the slightly cooled tea. “Miss Angie, who is he?”
Eyes the color of a robin’s egg twinkled her way. “Logan? Oh, he’s a talented artist—you must see some of his work while you’re here—and a wonderful young man…upright and true of heart. He lives just around the bend and sometimes paints from the little stretch of the coastline that belongs to Paradise Pines, which is why he was there to pull you out of the water today.”
If Summer hadn’t been so exhausted, she’d have laughed. Had Miss Angie been reading a Shelby Callan novel? All of her heroes were “upright and true of heart,” although she sometimes chose different phraseology. Both terms were sadly outdated and hopelessly romantic, but that was the kind of hero Summer hoped to fin
d someday, so it was probably inevitable that she painted those traits into her fictional heroes.
“Well, I’m very glad he was there, even if I did hurl half the ocean onto him.” She grimaced and closed her eyes again.
Miss Angie laughed softly. “I think it’s pretty safe to assume Logan was thrilled to see that bit of ocean leave your body. It meant his rescue efforts weren’t in vain. Now just relax and try to think of pleasant things, dear.” She placed a soft, gently lined hand on Summer’s and chuckled. “That’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She relaxed into the cushions and drew a deep breath. Miss Angie’s tea tasted amazing, unlike any flavor she’d ever experienced. A hint of chamomile, and perhaps a touch of citrus, along with something unidentifiable. The warmth in her tummy soothed her, and her eyelids drooped. Logan came back in the room, and she tried to open her eyes but found it far easier to simply drift away. Someone took the cup from her hand—she’d forgotten she still held it. A tiny smile of thanks tickled her lips, but her eyes would not be opened.
Hot tea, a blanket soft as down and plush as a long-haired kitten, and the soothing sounds of soft conversation—Miss Angie’s refined, slightly throaty voice, and the deep, pleasant rumble of Logan Bullard’s baritone—combined to take Summer, without any real protest, into dreamland, even though she would have loved to look once more into the man’s green-gray…gray-green eyes.
Perhaps she’d write them into a novel…another day.
****
She slept until dusk and awoke feeling refreshed. Not even a hint of weakness or shakiness remained from her encounter with the sea. How was that even possible? Summer thanked Miss Angie for her kindness and care and then took her leave.
Rounding the front corner of the lodge, she grinned. The lingering warmth of the dying sun on her skin felt wonderful. The crisp sea air dialed her senses all the way to acute, and the distant roar of the ocean—even after it so nearly claimed her life—played like music in her ears.
