the piano. “That’s us ten years ago.” She ticked off the names. “Dad, Mom, Lindi—who is Max’s mother and the eldest Duer sister—the pretty one.”
She gestured to another sister forever captured in time, a replica of their auburn-haired mother. “Caroline—”
A college student, Braeden surmised from the Virginia Tech hoodie.
“The smart one.”
He frowned at Amelia.
“You’ve met Honey. She was in elementary school when Mom died of ovarian cancer.”
Braeden winced. A slow, painful death.
“Honey’s the baby, and there’s me.” She veered toward the kitchen. “I’ll dish out the stew.”
Braeden caught hold of her wrist. “Which are you?”
She tilted her head. “I showed you. Between Caroline and Honey.”
Braeden ran his thumb over her cheek.
Her blue-green eyes widened.
As deep and fathomless as the Great Machipongo Inlet.
Deep enough for a man to drown?
He lifted her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Which are you? The talented one? The strong one?”
She quivered and stepped out of his reach. “Just Amelia. I’m just me.”
The one who’d made a career of sacrificing everything for her family.
Something tore inside his chest. Braeden hunched his shoulders.
Amelia Duer. His exact emotional polar opposite. Since his dad’s death and his fiancée’s betrayal, he’d made a career out of not getting involved with anyone outside the line of duty.
Especially not with redheads like Carly.
Or Amelia Duer.
She called from the kitchen. “Coffee or sweet tea?”
“Tea, please.” He followed her into the cheery yellow-and-white-tiled kitchen. “I get enough coffee when I’m on watch to float a battleship. Can I help?”
She signaled toward a drawer. “Spoons.”
Amelia ladled the stew into blue crockery bowls, steam rising. “As far as the tea goes, since you hail from Alaska, I think it only fair to remind you that you’re in the South.” She placed the bowl on top of a yellow place mat.
“How’d you know I was born in Alaska?”
Amelia’s mouth opened in an O. Closing it with a snap, she gripped the handle of a glass pitcher.
She’d taken the time—amid getting Max into bed for a nap—to look him up.
He grinned as red—a lovely color on her—crept up her neck.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “It’s sweet.”
He dragged his attention from his contemplation of her pink-tinted lips to her sea-flecked eyes. “What is?”
She shoved the pitcher into his hands. “The tea. Real sweet, if you think you can stand it.”
Their fingers brushed. His heart jackhammered. She recoiled as if she’d been stung.
Braeden decided to crank up his flirting another notch. Just to see if her skin could approximate the color of her hair. For scientific purposes, of course.
He smacked his lips. “The sweeter the better.”
And laughed when her color went off the charts.
Rinsing the soup bowls, Amelia gazed out the kitchen window across the lawn to the water. Shorebirds wheeled over the marshy creek. The barrier island refuge shimmered like a tiny dot on the horizon.
“You’ve got a nice view from your cabin, too, Braeden.”
He leaned against the counter. “Looks mighty good from where I’m standing.”
But he wasn’t looking out the window.
Her pulse palpitated like butterfly wings. Why did he keep staring at her that way? Men didn’t notice her. Unless to remind her to pull her weight on the boat. Men noticed Honey.
Was he making fun of her? Setting her up to be the butt of a joke?
She edged past him to give the table a good scrub.
He pursed his lips. “Ah.”
She cocked an eyebrow into a question mark.
He pointed to the soap dispenser. “Lime.”
Now she was sure he mocked her. “It gets the fish smell off.”
Honey smelled of flowers. She, on the other hand...
Blinking fast, she swiveled toward the table.
“Hey, I wasn’t...” He cleared his throat. “I was thinking—”
“That’s dangerous.”
“I made a call to the Chief.”
She continued scrubbing, keeping her back to him.
“To Reverend Parks, too.”
She tensed.
“He recommended a fellow parishioner in Onancock who owns a heated pool.”
Pivoting, she focused on him, the dishcloth hanging from her hand. “What are you talking about?”
He eyed the cloth as if it were a weapon. “Max.”
She narrowed her eyes into slits. “What about Max?”
“He’s surrounded by water, Amelia. It’s irrespons—”
Amelia sucked in a quick breath.
Braeden held his hands, palm up. “Wrong choice of words. But you know after what happened today, he’s got to get right back in the water or potentially be enslaved to a fear of it forever.”
She clamped her teeth together so tightly her molars ached. “What’s this got to do with you?”
“I want to teach him. On my off-watch days. Work on it this summer with him as a friend.”
Summer... So far off. Maybe unreachable for Max.
Fighting the fear, Amelia seized on the next best distraction—her anger.
“Be his friend?” She snorted. “Until you’re transferred to a more exciting assignment.”
“Stop smothering him. It’s clear he resents that.” His rugged profile hardened. “Two-or three-year assignments, Amelia, and then you move on. You grew up here. You know that’s the Guard way.”
Amelia flung the dishcloth toward the sink. The hand-launched missile missed his head by a few inches. A few carefully calculated inches.
“What I know is after Mom died, Lindi and Caroline both went offshore. Lindi took up with this Norfolk-based Coastie who she later discovered kept a woman in every port. By the time she found out, she was pregnant with Max.”
Braeden pushed the sleeves of his sweatshirt to his elbows. “Men who stray will stray whether they’re military or civilian.” His scowl deepened. “And as often as not, it’s the home front sweetheart who Dear Johns returning sailors, soldiers and Coasties.”
“That Coastie, whom Max posthumously adores, got stinking drunk one night on leave in San Diego, fell into the water and drowned his sorry self.” She crossed her arms. “So Lindi came home. But two weeks shy of her due date, a drunk driver crossed the median on Highway 13 and plowed into her car.”