Читать книгу Coast Guard Courtship - Lisa Carter - Страница 13
ОглавлениеAt Station Kiptohanock, a female seaman apprentice vacated Dispatch and ushered him into the chief petty officer’s office. Braeden saluted.
Throwing down papers, the fiftysomething Thomas rose from his chair behind the utility desk and returned Braeden’s salute. “At ease, Scott.”
Braeden assumed the position, legs hip-width apart, hands clasped behind his back.
“Welcome to Station Kiptohanock.” Thomas offered his hand. “A day early for your watch rotation. I’m pleased to have you serving here as my executive petty officer.”
Braeden shook his hand. “Just wanted to stop by and say hello. Meet the duty personnel today.”
“Reviewed your record.” His new chief motioned toward a file folder. “Heard more about you through the chain of command.”
Braeden winced. “About Florida, Chief...”
Chief Thomas waved a hand. “Good things, XPO. Good things. We’re lucky to have you here at Small Boat Station Kiptohanock, where we’re tasked with search and rescue or maritime law enforcement of the recreational boating type, mainly.” He laughed. “I only hope an adrenaline junkie like yourself won’t be bored out of your wits.”
Braeden stiffened into attention once more. “I’m here to serve you, Chief, the Guard and the public.”
Thomas eyed him. “Relax, Scott. No criticism intended. Somebody at headquarters thinks highly of your skills...and your potential for command.”
Braeden scrutinized Thomas. “Permission to speak freely, Chief?”
“Granted.”
“Master Chief Davis was an old friend of my father’s. Both from the same Alaskan fishing village near Homer. After my father died, he’s made it his business to—” Braeden licked his lips, searching for the right word “—shepherd my career.”
A knock sounded.
Thomas shifted his gaze over Braeden’s shoulder. “Come.”
Kole poked his head around the door frame. At the sight of his future XPO, Kole’s face darkened. Braeden pushed back his shoulders. Thomas’s gaze darted between the two men.
“I take it you and our landlocked Oklahoma Coastie have already introduced yourselves.” Thomas rounded the desk and took a single sheet of paper from Kole. He scanned the document. “No mayday?”
Kole shook his head. “Wife reported them missing when her husband’s boat failed to arrive in Wilmington yesterday. She’s been unable to contact them by radio for several days due to the nor’easter last week.”
Braeden stepped forward. His nerve endings vibrated with the familiar rush of excitement. “Chief?”
Thomas glanced up. “A twenty-eight-foot white center-console vessel with a red stripe, the Abracadabra has done a vanishing act. Two men aboard sailed out of Cape May, New Jersey.”
Chief Thomas angled toward Kole. “Get the boat crew to increase their patrols.” He strode to a nautical map of the Eastern Shore tacked onto the office wall.
“Our range of operational territory in the Virginia Inside Passage extends from the tip of Assawoman Island south to the Great Machipongo Inlet.” Thomas tapped his finger at the Atlantic Ocean and drew an imaginary line.
Kole stood at attention. “The cutter Mako reports they spotted no sign of the Abracadabra or any debris field on their way to their home port in Cape May, Chief.”
Thomas tensed. “Has Sector Hampton Roads notified Air Station Elizabeth City, Boatswain’s Mate?”
Kole nodded. “Affirmative, Chief.”
Thomas pursed his lips. “Good. Time to call out the big guns. Dismissed, Kole.”
“Yes, Chief.” And Kole headed out toward the radio room.
The female Coastie watch stander—Darden, Braeden noted for future reference—returned to remind the chief of his appointment at the Kiptohanock marina for the annual blessing of the fleet.
“You should attend, Scott.” Thomas dismissed Darden.
Braeden pursed his lips. “Is that an order, Chief?”
Thomas favored him with a long, slow look. “No, not an order. A recommendation to get to know the locals you’ll be serving. I hear you’ll be staying at the Duer place.”
Braeden nodded.
“Good people. Friends of mine from church. I sent your details Seth’s way when I received your orders and your request for a place to dock your boat.”
“Th-thank you, sir.” Braeden flicked a glance in Thomas’s direction. The jury was still out in his mind on the Duers, one strawberry blonde in particular.
The OIC leaned against the corner of his desk. “Shore command isn’t all bad, Scott. With only a sixteen-member crew, you’ll be on the watch list, too. I usually work the seven-to-four watch. But we’ve all learned to do more with less.”
Braeden smiled. “It’s the Coastie way.”
He’d miss, though, the swell of the sea beneath the deck of the last cutter to which he’d been assigned. But Station Kiptohanock would be another step toward qualifying for officer candidate school.
Thomas nodded. “Something to be said for getting home to dinner with the wife and kids every night, though.”
Wife? Kids? Braeden kept his opinions to himself about relational entanglements.
Thomas snorted. “Besides, I hear command’s grooming you for bigger things. But there’s maybe something here they want you to learn first.”
“I promise I won’t let you or the Guard down, Chief.”
Thomas’s granite face cracked into a smile. “Fishing’s good here even off the station dock all year. Summers are busy. Winters slow. I expect the people who report to Station Kiptohanock to be able to handle responsibility and take care of themselves. You do that, Scott, and you and I will get along great. You copy that?”
Braeden straightened and went into a salute. “Copy that, Chief.”
* * *
Leaving Nandua Elementary and Highway 13, Amelia steered the Jeep toward Kiptohanock. She wished for a do-over in meeting a particular XPO. Or better yet, to avoid him altogether.
“What’s that?” Strapped in his booster seat, Max pointed toward the marina, where a group gathered on the wharf.
Sailboats, fishing vessels and catamarans bobbed in the waters off the Kiptohanock pier. Flags fluttered in the midmorning breeze. One small boat manned by Coasties harbored alongside. OIC Thomas stood near the podium, Reverend Parks at his side.
Amelia circled the town square and slowed to give Max a better look-see. “I forgot today’s when the Kiptohanock Coast Guard chief blesses the fleet—” she sniffed “—such as it is, for the start of the fishing and tourist season.”
Max wriggled underneath the booster’s harness. “I wanna see.”
She frowned at him in the rearview mirror. “Sit still, Max. You need to go home and rest. Anybody too sick to go to school—”
“I’m not sick,” he shouted. “Just tired.”
She recoiled at the decibel level. “Don’t yell at me, Max. I can hear you perfectly—”
“I don’t need to rest.” He tugged at the safety catch. “I wanna see the Coasties like my dad.”
His dad... The good-for-nothing lowlife who’d deserted her sister and baby nephew.
Amelia’s mouth hardened. “Stop twisting the seat belt, Max. We’re going home and that’s—”
Max yelled at the top of his lungs.
A sound not unlike the one she’d employed against a certain petty officer this morning. But Max’s temper tantrums were a new outgrowth of the experimental treatments he’d endured over the winter.
Or, as her dad insisted, they were his attempts to test the boundaries of Amelia’s parenting.
Although she supposed if she’d been subjected to as much pain as Max in his short life, she’d be mad, too.
Perhaps she already was, judging from the way she’d attacked an innocent Guardsman this morning. Sometimes she wanted to yell and scream and throw things like Max.
“When you yell like that—” she trained her eyes on the parking lot beside the diner “—I shut my ears.”
He stopped, a silence so profound and sudden it was as if he’d switched off a faucet.
“We could park at the diner.” She engaged the blinker, grateful for the reprieve to her nerve endings. “And watch from there.”
“I didn’t get to see the blessing last year, Mimi.”
She squinted at him in the mirror. “No, you didn’t.”
“Because we were in...” He fell silent.
Putting the Jeep in Park, she swiveled to face him.
His lip trembled. “...that Hopkins hospital place.”
She contemplated his impossibly blue eyes, so like her sister Lindi’s.
Amelia blew out a breath. “Okay, Max. We’ll—”
“Yahoo!” He fist pumped the air.
Grimacing, she suspected she’d been handled by a carrot-topped five-year-old. Slinging open her door and scrambling out, she stuck her key ring into her jeans. Amelia placed her hand on the passenger door handle as Braeden Scott reached for it, too.
* * *
“Here, let me—”
“I’ve got—”
Braeden retreated a pace. “Thought I’d help get you to the ceremony on time.”
She crossed her arms over her ribbed gray henley shirt. “I told you I don’t need your help.”
A little boy pounded on the door. He smashed his face against the glass, giving his lips and eyes the appearance of a puffer fish.
She sighed. “Max...”
Braeden laughed. “And I thought I’d introduce myself to another member of the Duer clan.”
“The crazy Duer clan.”
Her lips quirked. Soft pink lips, he also noticed.
“Be my guest.” She gestured. “Proceed at your own risk.”
Opening the door, he leaned in and unlatched the safety harness, freeing Max from its confines. With a whoosh, Max paratrooped to the ground.
She took firm control of his shoulders. “Calm down, Max.”
Her nephew squirmed, mutiny written across his face.
“This is the man I told you about, Max. He’s renting the cabin from Granddad and Aunt Honey.”
Braeden dropped on one knee to Max’s level. His tropical-blue trousers brushed the gravel. “Braeden Scott.” He extended his hand to the boy, man to man.
Max wrapped his fingers around his hand and grinned. “I’m Max Duer.”
The boy appeared small for his age. Skin and bones. Pale, with dark purple smudges etched under his eyes. Fragile...
Braeden lifted his gaze to Amelia. “Another redhead, I see.” She fisted her hands on her hips and glowered at him. Braeden gave her a winsome smile. “Why, I bet you couldn’t throw a rock in this place and not hit one.”
“My dad was a Coastie.” Max extended his index finger at Braeden’s insignia with the crossed anchors. “But not a boatswain’s mate like you. He was an electrician’s mate.”
Braeden ruffled Max’s short hair. “You know a lot about the Coast Guard for someone so young. Got our hairstyle, too.”
She pulled Max toward her. “It’s starting to grow again after—”
“I’m going to be a Coastie one day.” Max yanked free. “Like my dad.”
“Not just like your dad. He—” She bit her lip and fixed her eyes on the toes of her Wellingtons.
Something was going on Braeden didn’t understand. “Is your dad at sea?”
Max jutted his jaw. “He died. But I’m going to be just like him. Or maybe a rescue swimmer.”
Amelia plucked at Max’s arm. “Come on, Max. Aren’t you in a rush to see the blessing of the fleet?” She lugged him toward the crowded dock.
Braeden fell in beside her. “At my last duty assignment, I got to drive the response boat as a coxswain.” He peered out over the water, pensive. “Kind of miss the action and being a part of rescuing those in need. Now it looks as though I’ll be stuck with administrative work most of the time, one of the downsides to higher rank.”
Max stopped in his tracks. Amelia ran aground into him. Max’s big eyes shone. “Could you teach me how to be a rescue swimmer, Mr. Scott? Mimi sometimes lets me help her drive the boat as her coxswain. But I really want to learn to dive.”
She shook her head. “Max...”
“Call me Braeden, Max.” He shrugged. “Aren’t you too young to be thinking about that? You’ve got plenty of time.”
Amelia flinched as if he’d struck her. Her mouth quivered. “Max doesn’t even know how to swim yet.” She cupped the crown of his head.
Max threw off her hand. “’Cause you won’t let me learn.” His eyes blazed.
“We’ve talked about that. You’re not strong enough. Maybe next year...”
Max scowled.
She softened her tone. “Besides, the water’s too cold this time of year.”
“I’m not a baby,” Max growled.
Braeden furrowed his brows and tried to defuse the situation. “I’m sure your mother knows—”
Max stamped his foot. “She’s not my mother. My real mother’s dead, too.”
Hurt flickered across Amelia’s features.
Max’s nostrils flared. “She’s my aunt Mimi and she’s not the boss of me. I’m not a baby anymore.”
She snatched at his sleeve as heads rotated in their direction. “We’ll talk about this later at home.”
Max jerked out of her grasp and huddled next to Braeden. “I want to go to the ceremony with Braeden, not you, Mimi.” He didn’t bother to lower his voice.
Braeden raised his brows at Amelia, seeking her direction as to his next move. She gave a tiny shake of her head. Tears welled in her eyes. “Let’s not make a scene. Please, Max?”
An unfamiliar tenderness threatened to swamp Braeden’s carefully constructed indifference.
Max stared Amelia down.
Her shoulders slumped. “We’d better go closer so Max can see better.”
She slid Braeden an uncertain sidelong glance. “If you’re sure you don’t mind...or not too busy.”
Braeden’s pulse ratcheted a notch. “It’s okay. No problem.”
Amelia gazed at him with those big blue-green eyes of hers. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble on your first day.”
Braeden focused for a long moment on her eyes and processed the information he’d acquired via Max. Not his mother. Probably, therefore, judging by her lack of rings, not married.
He tamped down an irrational surge of joy.
Not that Braeden was in the market for a woman. Especially a redheaded one.
“Here, Max.” Grasping him by his upper arms, Braeden heaved the little boy atop his shoulders. Max entwined his legs around Braeden’s torso. “Best seat in the house, champ.”
Max grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.
Chief Thomas took his place behind the podium. “Today we gather to bless these boats. We ask a blessing for those who work on them, for those who fish from these waters providing food to our country. For those who utilize these waters for recreation and pleasure.”
His arm swept across the expanse toward the Coast Guard boat. “And to bless those who protect our nation and its citizens. I’m honored to be here today,” Thomas intoned, “representing the United States Coast Guard.” Thomas’s cap visor gleamed in the sunlight. “My prayer for each of you is for fair winds...”
“And following seas,” the crowd finished.
Braeden squared his shoulders.
A devout man, this OIC. Reminded Braeden of his father. And Master Chief Davis.
Braeden fidgeted. His arm brushed against Amelia’s shoulder and his heartbeat accelerated. Unsettled, he shoved his hands into his pockets.
He needed to put a cork in his unexpected attraction to the strawberry blonde. After all, he didn’t do relationships. And this woman came loaded with complications.
A fortysomething man—“Reverend Parks,” Amelia whispered—ambled to the podium. His voice boomed across the water.
“They’re praying,” Max whispered in a volume only slightly softer than a foghorn. “Everybody, bow your head.”
Braeden darted his eyes at Amelia. His lips twitched. She covered her mouth with her hand before lowering her lashes.
“We pray, O Lord, for every seafarer. Grant them Your strength and protection. Keep each safe as they face the perils of the sea.”
For the first time in a long while, Braeden closed his eyes in prayer.
The reverend continued, “God of unfathomable love, as boundless as the deep Your spirit hovered over at the dawn of time, hear our prayer. Protect them from the dangers of the wind and the rain. Bring each soul safely home to the true harbor of Your peace. And may the saving power of our Lord guide and protect them, for Christ’s sake. Amen.”
“Amen,” murmured Amelia, her hands clasped.
“Amen,” extolled the Kiptohanock residents.
Blond, gray, brunette—Braeden sighed—and redheads bowed in prayer together.
Safe harbor? Was there such a thing? Here in Kiptohanock?
“Amen,” he whispered.
His first prayer since his father’s sudden death. Braeden pondered what, exactly, God had in store for him in this tiny village on the shores of the Atlantic.
