proximity.
Beatrice “Honey” Duer was the loveliest woman he’d ever known. As beautiful in her kindness and generosity as her beautiful honey-colored hair and chestnut brown eyes. Seeing her again, despite the circumstances, was both a pleasure and a stabbing ache he’d never quite managed to rid himself of.
He’d never understood until face-to-face now with Honey how one person could inspire within him—all at the same moment—such joy and pain.
This newly embittered, enraged Honey was entirely Sawyer’s own fault. A product of his previous misjudgment in allowing the twentysomething Shore girl to get close to him that spring. His father’s words—though the man was long dead in a state penitentiary—reverberated in his mind.
Whatever—and whomever—Sawyer touched, he ruined.
Sawyer straightened. “I take full responsibility for what happened here, Chief. My mess. I’ll clean it up.”
Honey’s eyes flickered to his.
Sawyer looked away and focused over her shoulder to the mounted wall map. With his eye, he mentally traced the outline of the Delmarva Peninsula. Delaware. Maryland. Virginia.
His Coast Guard family and his career were the only things he’d ever succeeded at.
Sawyer kept his posture tall and his feet pointed toward Braeden. “I also want to compensate the Sandpiper owner for lost revenue and supplies, Chief.”
Honey bristled.
Sawyer sneaked a glance her way before resuming his perusal of the framed map.
The Atlantic Ocean. The Chesapeake Bay. Highway 13. Chincoteague. Onley. Nassawadox. Willis Wharf. Kiptohanock nestling on the Great Machipongo Inlet.
His Coast Guard family and career were also the only things in his life he’d not ruined or self-sabotaged. Until now.
Sawyer steeled himself. “I understand you’ll have to file an official reprimand in my service record. And if I’m demoted and transferred—”
Honey’s breath hitched. “Wait. This wasn’t his fault.” She caught hold of Braeden’s sleeve. “I started it. Not him. I’m to blame. He shouldn’t be punished for defending himself.”
Sawyer angled. “You don’t have to...”
Her face clouded. “Actually, he was defending me. I’ll reimburse Dixie and the owner for lost wages. I’ll clean—”
“You’re all going to clean up this mess, baby girl.” The jean-clad Seth unwound from where he leaned against a booth. “You, Guardsman Kole here and—” He harpooned Max with his hand and reeled him closer. “And my grandson, Max, too.”
Mutiny written across his features, Max squirmed. “But I’m s’posed to go with Mimi and Dad for Mimi’s doctor visit.”
The very pregnant Amelia sidled next to her husband, Braeden. “Granddad’s right, Max. Every action has consequences. Time for you to own yours.”
“But—but...”
“No buts.” Braeden bent to Max’s level. “A good Coastie learns to accept responsibility for his actions.”
He speared Sawyer with a look. “You’ve got major damage control to take care of here, Kole. Not to mention prepare for a late season storm threatening landfall anywhere between Delaware and Charleston, South Carolina, over the next few days.”
Sawyer nodded. “Affirmative, Chief. The cafe will be shipshape by the time you and the missus return this afternoon.”
“I’m counting on it.” Braeden straightened to his full height. “I know I can also count on you and Honey to supervise my boy, Max, until I return. Giving him an example of what integrity looks like.”
Seth moved toward the door. “I’ve got a short charter this morning, but I expect a full report from you, XPO Kole, when I return midday. Me and you are going to have a chat. Long overdue, in fact. You roger that?”
“Daddy... This has nothing to do with you.” Honey frowned. “Why are you always trying to ruin my life?”
Sawyer went ramrod stiff at the echo of his own thoughts. “Roger, Mr. Duer. I’ll be waiting for you on the harbor dock.”
Honey’s father exchanged glances with Braeden and Amelia. “I’m not trying to ruin your life, baby girl. Can’t nobody do that to you but you.”
Flushing, Honey drew a circle in the confectioner’s sugar with the toe of her shoe.
Heading out, Seth settled his ball cap firmly about his graying head and adjusted the brim. “Something you ought to ponder as you’re cleaning up this mess the two of you made.”
After several hours of cleanup, Honey stole a look at Sawyer’s shuttered face as she handed him another rinsed plate to towel dry.
Standing on the other side of the stainless steel commercial sink, he refused to meet her gaze. In the adjacent dining area, Max—his usual no-holds barred bravado gone—mopped up the remains of their shared folly.
For a moment, she allowed herself the pleasure of lingering on Sawyer’s craggy Nordic features. His features once as familiar to Honey as her own.
The straw-colored, stick-straight hair cut in a Coastie buzz. Same brawny muscular build, which befitted the former rodeo rider and boat-driving coxswain.
His sharp bone structure and hooded brow missed handsome by a smidgeon. But somehow it suited him better. And to Honey’s way of thinking always made him more fascinating. At least to her.
Yet she noted new lines bracketing his mouth since the last time she’d seen him. A hairline scar on his chin. A somberness out of place on the puddle pirate, full-throttle Coastie she’d previously known.
And loved beyond all reasoning. Until he’d broken off their relationship one night on a deserted moonlit beach outside Ocean City for no explicable reason.
Three summers of unanswered questions as to why Sawyer Kole so abruptly ended their burgeoning romance fairly burned a hole in her tongue. And as for her brother-in-law, newly appointed Officer in Charge of USCG Small Boat Station Kiptohanock? Make that her former favorite brother-in-law, Braeden Scott.
Honey had a few choice words for mother hen big sister Amelia, too. After their mother’s early death, Amelia had semiraised Honey. But how dare Amelia keep Sawyer’s transfer a secret and allow Honey to be blindsided by him? Her cheeks reddened at the memory of how once before his rejection exposed her to total public humiliation in the eyes of the close-knit fishing community.
Small towns. Small minds. Big mouths.
And after today’s incident... Okay...that was on Honey’s head.
But enough with the suffocating silence. “Look, Kole...”
Her deliberate use of his surname accomplished her intended effect. His lips flattened into a tight line. And something else—hurt—flickered across his eyes before his customary aloofness returned.
Yet somehow her small victory felt hollow. Much less satisfying than she’d imagined in the thirty-nine months, five days and ten hours since he’d broken her heart.
But who was counting, right?
Distracted by the nearness of him, Honey fought to convey a nonchalance she didn’t feel. Not with Sawyer a mere elbow’s length away. Not when every traitorous, torturous nerve ending quivered with longing every time he breathed.
She found it hard to breathe with Sawyer Kole this close. So she settled for sighing to release her pent-up store of oxygen.
“For whatever reason, we’ve been the victims of