Lisa Carter - Coast Guard Sweetheart

“Muddier is better.” Max scooted a few inches farther. “Got another one, Aunt Honey.” He grinned. “And another one. I hit the mother lode.”

Sawyer cut his eyes at her.

Against her will, a smile tugged at her mouth. “He went gold panning on a recent trip to visit Braeden’s Alaska hometown.”

“Bring the bucket, Sawyer. Get the rake, Aunt Honey.”

She laughed. And at the sound, Sawyer’s eyes crinkled, the corners fanning out.

Ignoring the heart palpitations his eyes ignited, she slogged toward the neon yellow bait bucket resting next to Sawyer’s bare feet and the canoe.

Sawyer motioned toward the words on her T-shirt. “It’s a Shore thang that only you, Beatrice Honey Duer, could look beautiful while clamming in a tidal estuary.”

He thought she was...? She came to an abrupt stop and lost her balance. Her arms flailing—Sawyer’s eyes went big, Max shouted—she landed butt first in the muck. Sinking to her elbows.

Sawyer let out a rumbling belly laugh.

Honey glared at him. “Don’t you dare laugh, you landlubbing cowboy.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Max! Get over here.”

Max hustled over, sending a tsunami of marsh water over her head. She sputtered and coughed. Extricating her hand from the mud, she swiped at a rivulet of water cascading down her nose.

Sawyer smirked.

“What?” Her gaze ping-ponged from a chortling Max to the Coastie.

“You wiped mud all over your face, Aunt Honey.”

Honey poked out her lip.

Sawyer crossed his arms over the broad muscular chest she couldn’t help noticing and rocked on his heels. “I hear women pay big money for a mud bath like this. And you got yours for free, Eastern Shore-style.”

Honey muttered something under her breath about she’d show him Eastern Shore-style. Max flung out a hand. Her tug threw Max off his feet.

“You’re too heavy, Aunt Honey.” He shot a mischievous glance Sawyer’s way. “Too many Long Johns, I reckon.”

“Max!” she yelled.

Her nephew snickered. “Too many Long Johns. Get it, Sawyer?”

Sawyer unsuccessfully attempted to keep the mirth off his face.

“Help me, Max. I can’t get up.”

Max let go of her. “She’s fallen and she can’t get up.” He made exaggerated bug on its back motions.

Sawyer extended his hand. “I’ll help you, Honey.” He flashed her a snarky smile. “I mean, Bee-ahh-triss.”

Fluttering her eyelashes at him, she wrapped both her hands around his.

And at his sudden, wary look, she yanked Sawyer forward into the marsh. Fighting to right himself without landing face first, he landed with a plop beside her. Mud particles flew in every direction, including her Shore Thang shirt.

Okay... Maybe not the best idea.

Especially when, taking his cue from the grown-ups, Max belly flopped between them. Brackish water blasted over both Honey and Sawyer.

“Max!”

“Dude!”

Cupping his hand, Sawyer funneled a wave of water in Max’s direction. Grinning, Max splashed back.

“Stop it, Max.” She struggled to pry herself from the muck. “And Sawyer, stop egging him on. Will the two of you look at what you’ve done to me?” Honey plucked a long strand of sea grass out of her hair.

Max clasped his arms around Sawyer’s neck. “We ought to do this more often, Aunt Honey.”

She grunted.

With the boy dangling off his back, Sawyer staggered to his feet. “I agree, Beatrice. Why don’t you?”

Always particular about her appearance, she wrinkled her nose at the reeking odor of marsh mud at low tide. “Because we’re going to have to hose off the canoe, not to mention us, when we get to the dock.”

“Yahoo!” Max fist-pumped the air. “No bath tonight.”

“That’s not what I said, Max.”

At the sandbar, Max slithered off Sawyer’s back like an eel.

Sawyer flicked a daub of mud off the boy’s cheek. “Try to de-sludge yourself as much as you can, Max, before getting into the canoe, okay?”

And once again venturing into the water, Sawyer offered his hand to her. “You pull off gorgeous even if you are covered in slime.”

“Trusting soul, aren’t you? Who’s to say I won’t pull you in again?”

“Who’s to say I’m not hoping you’ll do exactly that?”

The Oklahoma drawl of his sent a tingle down her spine. Cheeks burning, she grasped hold of his hand.

Both feet planted, he pulled. And with a squelching, sucking sound, he extracted her from the muddy tomb.

He stepped back a pace, giving her breathing room. “Thanks for trusting me.”

She scowled. “Forgiveness is one thing. Trusting is another. Trust has to be earned one day at a time.”

“I’d like the chance to earn back your trust. We were friends... Before.”

Before. Always before. She was so sick of Before.

“Thought you were shipping out next week after Labor Day. Your eight-second, bronco-busting attention span kicking into gear again? Takes more than a hand up to earn trust, Coastie.”

“Well, you know what they say?” His lazy cowboy grin buckled her knees. “Got to get right back on the horse that threw you.”

“Did you just compare me to a horse, Kole?”

“Mule-headed is more like it.” He retreated toward the kayak when she reached for a glob of mud. “How about I follow you to the lodge?”

“How about you keep paddling toward England?”

“Aboot.” He pursed his lips, imitating the lilting local cadence. Sawyer gave her a wicked grin. “You know how I love it when you Shore-talk me, baby.”

With as much dignity as she could muster, she pushed the canoe off the mud and held it for Max to climb aboard. “Don’t call me baby. I’m nobody’s baby. Not Dad’s. Not Amelia’s. And definitely never yours. Steady, Max,” she instructed as she joined him in the canoe.

Max grabbed hold of both sides as the canoe rocked until she evenly distributed their weight.

“What aboot your clam bucket, Beatrice?”

She thought aboot—about—cracking the paddle over his cocky Coastie head until she remembered the eight-year-old eyewitness and her responsibility to be the grownup. “For the love of fried flounder, just hand me the bucket, Kole.”

“Your wish is my command.” He waded in and positioned the plastic bucket between her feet and Max.

“That’ll be the day.”

After shoving off in the kayak, Sawyer pulled alongside their canoe.

“Even strokes, Max.” She congratulated herself on the tremendous willpower she exerted in averting her eyes from the play of muscle along Sawyer’s bicep. “Paddle on the right, Max. I’ll take the left.”

And then Sawyer started singing an old Irish sea shanty her dad used to sing to her when she was a little girl. A song called “Holy Ground.”

“Fare thee well, my lovely Dinah,

a thousand times adieu.

We are bound away from the Holy Ground

and the girls we love so true.

We’ll sail the salt seas over

and we’ll return once more,

And still I live in hope to see

the Holy Ground once more.

You’re the girl that I adore,

And still I live in hope to see

the Holy Ground once more.”

It annoyed Honey to no end that by the chorus Max matched his stroke to Sawyer’s rollicking cadence. Yet at the sound of his mellow baritone, she worked hard to keep from smiling.

“Oh now the storm is raging

and we are far from shore;

The poor old ship she’s sinking fast

and the riggings they are tore.

The night is dark and dreary,

we can scarcely see the moon,

But still I live in hope to see

the Holy Ground once more.

You’re the girl that I adore,

And still I live in hope to see