Coast Guard Sweetheart

by Lisa Carter

  Flinching, he ducked as the detonation spewed jagged shards of twisted metal. Underwater, he dodged the flying debris and waited for the fiery hailstorm to abate. Below, he watched in horror as the red hot fragments ignited the water around him. He scanned the surface above for an open space in which to emerge. A place free of the flames. A place where he could find breathable oxygen. He couldn’t wait much longer...

  Rocketing upward, his body shot out of the water, his lungs heaving. Coughing and hacking the vile brew out of his lungs, he erupted into a world aflame. Fire engulfed the water around him in all directions.

  Scissoring, he dove again. The circle of fire tightened like a noose in his wake. But there was nowhere left to return to.

  And he knew in that instant he’d never make it. Time was up. No more second chances.

  It seemed to him he’d been fighting, one way or the other, to survive his whole life. And he was tired. So tired.

  Sawyer couldn’t hold his breath forever. He could choose to drown. Or to burn.

  He prayed Wiggins had gotten the boat away in time. And in that instant, Sawyer was overwhelmed with gratitude for being reassigned to Kiptohanock. For one last opportunity to make things right. Despite his best efforts, bubbles of oxygen escaped his mouth and nostrils.

  Sawyer’s chest deflated. He was losing oxygen too rapidly. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  In his memories, he experienced again the eight-second thrill of riding an equine tornado. He felt once more the spray of the surf on his face. He beheld from long ago, his five-year-old sister torn out of his arms. He basked in the pride he felt every time he donned the Coastie blue uniform.

  He envisioned the Duer home glowing with light. The sound of an old-fashioned melody. The white steeple piercing the sky above Kiptohanock.

  Something exploded somewhere close by. Churning the water—along with Sawyer—like the wringer on a washing machine. And his last coherent thought?

  Of brown-eyed Susans.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After a sleepless night, she’d gotten a late start on the move-in. One of those days when nothing seemed to go right. Honey grimaced. Make that a lifetime of nothing going right.

  Her sister and Baby Patrick left for an infant well-visit. Honey ended up taking Max to school. Before she knew it, half the day had gotten away from her, and it was afternoon before she managed to shake her lethargy, gather some boxes and head to the inn.

  But the real reason it took her so long to get moving? It took her that long to summon the courage to return to the inn and face how, once again, Sawyer Kole had torn her heart in two.

  With enormous dread, she drove alone to the house. Unlocking the door, she heaved her suitcase over the threshold. She ignored with a fierce determination the doused candles and silent phonograph. She headed straight for her bedroom to unpack.

  It was the bell she heard first.

  The sound of the bell rang over the trees. Above the rooftop. Over the watery expanse separating the inn from the village.

  Stuffing her folded jeans into a drawer, she paused and lifted her head. Across the marsh, a flock of startled birds rose, cawing.

  Honey cocked her ear toward the window. There it was again. The bell. Tolling as relentless as the tide.

  She shivered. A cold metallic sound. Dull as impending death. Her bones vibrated with each clamor of the bell. Clanging across each tidal creek the bell rang, summoning Kiptohanock residents in situations of extreme maritime disaster.

  Honey’s breath caught. Never in her lifetime had the bell rung, except for the annual blessing of the fleet. Dad still talked about the nor’easter that crushed a half-dozen fishing boats when he was a boy, and how the bell had tolled then.

  She covered her hands over her ears. No, God. No more.

  Her first thought was of her dad out on a charter. And then her mind jerked to Sawyer. Because whatever had happened, she knew as sure as she knew Sawyer he’d be in the thick of it. That’s who he was. More than likely, both he and Braeden.

  She raced out of the attic, down the stairs and out the front door toward her dad’s truck. Cranking the engine, she hit the accelerator. Oyster shells spitting beneath her spinning tires, she hurtled out of the driveway and toward Kiptohanock.

  In the village, a crowd lined the seawall, the wharf and the Sandpiper Cafe parking lot. The red-and-white lights of three ambulances whirred. The paramedics waited on the Coast Guard dock with multiple gurneys.

  Not a good sign. What had happened? Who was hurt? And despite the crowd, an eerie silence hung over the waterfront, broken only by the sharp cries of the seagulls swooping above the harbor.

  In the distance, a Coast Guard response boat approached. Circling the square, she slipped into one of the last remaining parking spots near the church. She vaulted out of the truck and plowed her way through the bystanders to the outer edge of the adjacent town pier. She spotted a tight-lipped Braeden catch the rope a guardsmen threw from the fast boat chugging into the station dock.

  Relief for Amelia and Max flooded her heart. But what about her dad? Her gaze ran over the people pressing at her back and out toward the fishing boats moored in the marina. There, tied at another slip, the Now I Sea.

  Her father—Honey’s head swiveled—he had to be somewhere close. But where was Sawyer? She scanned the guardsmen emptying out of the rescue boat.

  Paramedics rushed forward as one by one the guardsmen staggered onto the dock, their arms slung across the shoulders of the foreign nationals they’d rescued. Both the American and foreign-born seamen sported an assortment of burns and wounds.

  Honey took a mental count. Marshall. Endicott. Perez. Schilling. Braeden took hold of Wiggins. Her heart pounded at the utter grief etched on the bosun mate’s face.

  Shaking his head, words poured out of the young man’s mouth. The words floated across the water. Natural disaster. Explosion. Flying shrapnel. Couldn’t get to him.

  Her heart skipped a beat. Her eyes searched the now empty fast boat. Where was Sawyer?

  “Come on,” she muttered under her breath. “Let me see that blond towhead of yours.”

  Wiggins sagged, and Braeden transferred him to the care of a paramedic. Braeden caught her eye across the channel. He shook his head at someone behind her.

  “No.” Honey fisted her hands. “No.” Someone touched her shoulder.

  “Honey...” As if in a dream—a nightmare—the gravelly voice of her father. “Wiggins radioed the station as soon as he could.”

  She flung off his hand. “It isn’t true.” Her gaze searched the horizon.

  Her father launched into a brief summary of the events of a SAR gone wrong.

  “Why did they leave him? He’s out there, Daddy.”

  Her father closed his eyes momentarily. “The boat was caught in the explosion, too. There were injuries. Wiggins did the right thing. He had to get those men medical attention. But the cargo ship—there’s a huge debris field, Honey.”

  She jabbed her finger toward the open sea beyond the barrier islands. “They need to get back out there and find him.”

  Her dad took hold of her arm. “The Hercs from Air Station Elizabeth City are on scene now. The ROMEO fishing fleet, we’re headed out, too, to help with the recovery. But Honey, it will be getting dark soon...”

  She wrenched free of his grasp. “Recovery? What happened to rescue? He’s not—” Honey strove to contain the rising note of hysteria in her voice. “It can’t end this way. Not like this.”

  “Braeden says we can wait inside the station for updates.” At her elbow, tears coursed across Amelia’s face.

  She’d not noticed her sister’s arrival. Honey shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

  “The Guard is doing everything they can, Honey. But—”

  “I
won’t believe it. Not until I see him.”

  Amelia’s mouth quivered. “Honey, you grew up here. You know sometimes they never find—”

  “Stop it!” Honey yanked free of their restraining hands. She shouldered through the silent bystanders, past her friends, past the men and women she’d known her entire life.

  “Honey...” her dad cried.

  “Let her go,” Amelia called. “She needs to come to terms with this in her own way.”

  Unable to bear the sympathy in their eyes, she stumbled past the diner. Somehow without realizing it, Honey found herself on the lawn of the church.

  Her gaze shot to the white steeple Sawyer had almost broken his neck to restore. And a seething rage—the anger she’d kept stuffed inside herself since she was a girl—rose, lava-hot, to the surface. Foaming. Out of control.

  “Why, Sawyer?” she screamed at the steeple. “Why do you always have to be the hero? Why do you take such chances?”

  She shook her fist at the steeple. “And this time, you lost. What about the people you leave behind? The people whose lives will be devastated because you’re not here.”

  “People whose lives you will ruin,” she whispered.

  But she knew why. He risked his life because he did care. Because he was a hero. It was who Sawyer was. What she loved the most about him.

  And what she’d feared most about him.

  She marched up the steps of the church and flung open the doors, which were never locked in peaceful Kiptohanock. She stalked down the aisle toward the altar. Head tilted back, she glared at the wooden cross on the altar table.

  “Why did You let this happen to him? After what he went through as a boy, didn’t he deserve to live to be an old, old man?”

  She blinked rapidly. “Why do You hate Sawyer?” Her voice broke. “Why do You hate me?”

  Only silence answered her.

  She sank to her knees beside the front pew in the century-old church. And resting her head against the armrest, her body shook with sobs. Over the loss of her mom. Lindi and Caroline. For what she’d neglected to say to Sawyer.

  “I love you.” Her lips grazed the wood. “I love you...” Arms wrapped around herself, she rocked back and forth on the floor. “I love you.”

  Too little, too late. She’d never know if she’d spoken those words to him last night whether it might have altered the choices he’d made today. An image of him floating face down in the water filled her mind.

  Honey moaned. She’d lost him for good this time. Like she’d lost everyone she ever loved. And she was so tired. So tired of trying to be perfect. Of maintaining this untouchable, always-got-it-together persona she’d created.

  She wasn’t perfect. Perfection was an illusion of control. Only God was perfect. Somewhere along the way she’d turned away from Him because He didn’t do things her way. Condemnation for the choices she’d made flooded Honey. Condemnation—something Sawyer had struggled with until he found—

  Honey opened her eyes. A black Bible nestled against the corner of the cushion. An old bulletin stuck into its contents piqued her curiosity. Romans, he’d said.

  She pried the Bible loose. Her knees scraping the hard wooden floor, she held her breath and opened the book to its bookmarked position. And her eyes widened. What were the chances...?

  There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.—Romans 8

  The “in Christ Jesus” part was key. Like for her mom and Lindi. Despite sickness and mistakes.

  Another highlighted section toward the end of the chapter snagged Honey’s attention.

  What then shall we say to these things?... God did not spare His own Son...

  Her eyes drifted toward the cross on the altar. Her gaze dropped to the printed page.

  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

  She understood about separation. First, her mom. Then, Lindi. Caroline’s inexplicable desertion. Sawyer. One after the other, she’d lost them.

  But had she? Despite her father’s encompassing grief, he’d fought his way through the darkness toward faith. As had Amelia and little Max. As had Sawyer.

  Were those she loved the most gone forever?

  No...

  Her breath hitched as if the words written two thousand years ago had been written today, just for her. Though she’d probably skimmed these words a dozen times, they became suddenly alive with meaning.

  She hungered for the peace those words had given Sawyer and her family. To know. To believe.

  Her mother. Lindi. Wherever Caroline and Sawyer even now found themselves. They weren’t lost to her forever. Not gone. Because of God’s love for them and for Honey, too—they were okay. Better than okay. Just okay somewhere else.

  “Forgive me.” She bowed her head. “Help me to trust You.”

  She knelt in a pool of sunlight at the foot of the cross. Bathed in the rainbow squares of stained glass that dappled the altar. And she knew, whatever the search revealed, she’d be okay, too.

  Never alone or forsaken. Forever safe in the loving arms of God. Like her mom and Lindi.

  Like Sawyer?

  “Please keep him alive,” she breathed. “Please bring him back to me.”

  In the end, though, everything always came back to trust. Faith. And surrender.

  “But Your will...” Her mouth trembled. “Not mine, be done.”

  Chapter Twenty

  As the fiery sunset faded to dusk, her sister found Honey in front of the altar.

  “Where are Baby Patrick and Max?” Honey whispered.

  Amelia hugged Honey. “With Miss Pauline.”

  Darkness descended across Kiptohanock. Reverend Parks arrived and lit the candles on the altar. She winced as the light from the tapers flickered across the sea blue walls of the sanctuary. Because she remembered other candles. Another night. Last night.

  The reverend was joined by his wife, the Sandpiper Cafe owner and Honey’s waitress friend, Dixie. Others, too, like Mrs. Francis, the troop leader. The town postmistress. The soon-to-retire librarian, Mrs. Beal. And Mr. Keller, newly released from rehab.

  Praying. Singing hymns. Comforting each other.

  It was the way of the Kiptohanock faithful. Humbled, she was struck with how much larger her true family was, more than she’d imagined. And she was grateful.

  But the hours ticked by with no word of Sawyer. She breathed in the scent of wax and the leather of the Bible she’d clutched to her chest during the long night. The candles burned low on the altar.

  Yet as the darkness of the night surrendered to the first streaks of dawn, she heard the bell.

  Slumped against the side of a pew, Honey jolted. Amelia seized her hand. Heads turned.

  Throwing off Amelia’s arm, she staggered to her feet. Squinting at the glare of the sunrise, she dashed out of the church. Behind her, a steady stream of prayer warriors followed close on her heels.

  One of her dad’s ROMEO friends rocked the mounted bell from side to side. The clapper clanged against the metal. Catching sight of Honey, Seaman Apprentice Reaves on the adjacent dock gestured toward the open channel.

  Where a small flotilla of vessels—Coast Guard, fishing and recreational—chugged into the harbor. Honey identified Braeden at the helm of a response boat. Her dad manned the wheel of the Now I Sea.

  Please... Please bring Sawyer back... Please.

  She raced toward the Coast Guard dock. She stopped a few yards away, her eyes floating toward the morning sky. Red sky last night, sailor’s delight.

  Let him be okay...

  And if he wasn’t? She lifted her face toward the steeple. Either way, in the end, they’d both be okay.

  W
iggins, a bandage swathing his forehead, leaped to catch the mooring line Dawkins tossed. Braeden cut the engine. The station-side Coasties went into action. Honey strained on her tiptoes to see, but their height blocked her view of the interior of the boat.

  Hands knotted, she held her breath. Time went into slow motion. A surreal quality fogged her vision. At the sudden caw of seagulls, her eyes shot skyward before dropping toward the end of the pier.

  Then...

  A straw-colored head emerged from the boat cabin. Cut high and cropped close on the sides in the Coastie buzz. Braeden’s arm around him on one side. Wiggins surged forward to support him on the other side.

  She dug her fingernails into her palms. Her eyes stung. She blinked the moisture away. “Sawyer!”

  His head lifted. His face blackened with smoke, those sky blue eyes of his burned bright.

  She ran the length of the pier. Tears rolling down her cheeks, she crossed the remaining distance separating them. He was alive. Thank You, God. Sawyer was alive.

  Honey flung herself at him, knocking Braeden’s arm from around Sawyer. The restraining hand of Wiggins on Sawyer’s back only just prevented them from falling into the Kiptohanock drink.

  “Whoa there,” Braeden reared. “Give him a chance to—”

  “Are you hurt?” She gripped Sawyer’s shoulders. “I love you.” She brushed a kiss across his cracked lips.

  His mouth opened, but no sound emerged.

  “Are you bleeding anywhere?” Her gaze flitted from the top of his wind-blown hair down his torso. “I love you.” She kissed the corner of his mouth.

  He stared at her.

  “Is anything broken?” She scanned his torn uniform for injuries. She cupped his cheek. “I love you.” She kissed him again.

  His forehead creased.

  “I’m so sorry, Sawyer.” She smoothed his collar into place. “Will you forgive me for not telling you before how much I love you?” She plucked at his upturned sleeve, straightening it.