Page 45 of Fire and Rain
He was in trouble.
He had a few hours before he went on duty, so he reached for the copy ofFractured Honorhe’d borrowed, hoping to distract himself with Sierra and Beckett’s story. Maybe they could take his mind off Eden.
* * *
After a light supper,Eden packed Maverick in the car and drove the two of them down Aviation Hill and onto base. She craved fresh air but wasn’t yet feeling up to anything strenuous. Given that it was now low tide, it was the perfect time for one of her favorite pastimes—beachcombing.
She passed the air station and wondered what Sean was doing right now. She was so grateful for his help—and more than a little surprised he’d stayed. The man who didn’t want to be a father cajoling Maverick into taking his medicine and changing poopy diapers?
He helped because he’s Justin’s best friend and a good guy, not because he’s interested in you. When he could have kissed you, he turned away.
That thought brought her mood down a couple of notches.
She parked as close as she could to the water, got Maverick from his car seat, and retrieved their two buckets—a little orange plastic pail for him and a five-gallon bucket for her. “Are you ready to go beachcombing, Mavie?”
He pointed toward the water. “Sheshell.”
“We’ll find seashells and maybe sea glass and who knows what else.” Her grandmother had once found a piece of ancient walrus tusk.
Wearing rain boots, they walked slowly along Jewel Beach, Eden teaching Maverick the names of things, the ocean lapping at their feet. Maverick stopped every few feet to look at something, collecting small treasures and putting them in his pail as she had done at his age. Cockle, clam, and mussel shells. A stick worn smooth by the water. A rusted bottle cap.
Eden looked for sea glass, picking it up as she went—bits of green, white, and occasionally blue glass worn smooth by the sea. She probably had ten pounds of sea glass in the garage at home. She’d always wanted to make something with it—jewelry, maybe, or a mosaic.
Maverick pointed to several ochre sea stars left behind a large rock by the outgoing tide. “Mommy, see?”
That was his way of asking her to explain something he’d seen or found.
“I see! Look at those sea stars. We don’t want to bother them. They’re taking a nap so they can be rested when the tide comes back in.”
Maverick looked up at her through innocent brown eyes. “Naptime?”
“Yes, it’s naptime for the sea stars.”
They moved on, the fresh air and sea spray exactly what Eden needed after being so sick. The beach was her favorite place. There was something about the rhythm of the surf and the lapping of the waves that seemed like the earth breathing, the retreat of the water an inhale, waves spilling over rock and sand an exhale.
When Justin had been alive, she’d come here almost every day, but she hadn’t been here since his death. It had been too hard to face this place. Jewel Beach had been their spot, their special place. For that reason, it was full of bittersweet echoes.
Justin had kissed her for the first time just over there. He’d gotten to one knee and proposed on a sunny September day there where the land jutted into the sea. She’d told him she was pregnant when they’d stood together at the far end over there. He’d been with her a week before Maverick was born when she’d found her favorite piece of sea glass—the big cobalt blue piece. She’d taken that to be a sign that they’d live a long and happy life together.
She’d been wrong. Out there, fifty miles offshore, he’d died, consumed in a flash by flames. It hit her in a way it hadn’t before that the water lapping at her boots was his grave.
Oh, Justin!
She looked out over the water, let grief wash through her. She wanted to tell Justin that she missed him. She wanted him to know she and Maverick were okay. She also needed to tell him that she had feelings for Sean.
Did she want his blessing, his permission to move on, his approval to have feelings for another man?
Maybe.
Eden knew Justin couldn’t hear her, but she spoke to him anyway. “Sean has been good to us. He blames himself for your death. I know he does, even if he won’t come right out and say it. I care about him, Justin. He’s—”
Something in the surf caught her eye as it rolled over her boot—something red. She bent over and caught it before the waves could take it again.
Red sea glass.
Red sea glass was rare, the color most beachcombers hoped to find.
It was small, not much bigger than a dime. She washed the sand away and held it up—and saw that it was shaped like a heart.
