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Matt shook his head. The lighter rods made for a better
fight, but the thirty pound test line reduced the margin for error. “I’m going down,” he said to Tom. “He’s going to lose it.”

The radio crackled behind him as he came off the bridge. Scott had braced his knees against the side of the boat as the line screamed out, the big fish fighting for freedom.

“Tighten the drag just a little,” Matt coached. “That’s the way.”

Pump and reel, pump and reel, recovering the lost line. One minute. Two. Their other passenger, Bill, hung over the side, watching the battle.

As Scott cranked, Tom descended from the bridge. “We’re heading back to shore.”

“Screw that,” Scott puffed.

Bill glanced over his shoulder. “No way. He just hooked this baby.”

Matt turned and saw his father’s face, gray and set as concrete. “What?”

The old fear—of a knock on the door, of a Casualty Assistance Officer in dress blues coming up the walk—hollowed Matt’s chest. “What is it? Is it Luke?”

Or—a fresh wave of panic—one of the kids.

Josh.

Tom met his gaze. “Your mother.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “There’s been an accident.”

“S
O BOTH MEN
try to conceal their crimes.” Allison perched on her desk, gently swinging her feet, addressing her fourth period class. “Dimmesdale becomes an articulate, inspiring minister. Bigger becomes a brutal murderer. Is that a function of individual choice? Or are they simply fulfilling the roles society created for them?”

She was encouraged by the way her students flung themselves into the discussion.

“Dimmesdale tries to confess. He even tells Hester to, you know, name the kid’s daddy.”

“Because he doesn’t have the balls to do it himself.”

“At least he doesn’t chop her up and put her in the furnace.”

A tap on the door interrupted them. She glanced toward the hall. Principal James Oates’s ruddy face peered through the glass into her classroom.

Sliding from her desk, Allison hurried to the door. “Mr. Oates.”

“Miss Carter.” Oates was a large, gentle, rather remote man with a ginger mustache, his round face folded in serious lines. “I’d like a word with Joshua Fletcher. Tell him to bring all his things.”

Her students nudged each other with their elbows and shifted in their chairs.

Allison flashed a glance at Josh. He shrugged, all innocence.

“Of course.” Allison lowered her voice. “Is anything wrong?”

He blinked. “I think it would be best if I talk to Josh first. I’ll speak with the staff later today.”

A rush of protective feelings washed over her, fierce and surprising. She took a step forward, crowding Oates back, into the hall. She closed the classroom door behind them, fueling the noise inside. “Josh isn’t in trouble, is he?”

“No, no.” Oates hesitated. “Well, I guess I can tell you.”

She caught the faint emphasis on the last word. Tell her because she was Josh’s teacher? Because she was sleeping with Josh’s dad? She didn’t know. She didn’t care as long as she could help Josh.

“Matt Fletcher called,” Oates said. “Tess Fletcher was involved in a car accident on the mainland this morning. Matt needs Josh to watch his cousin Taylor after school.”

Allison sucked in a distressed breath. “Oh, no. Is she…Is Tess…”

“Alive,” Oates said. “But it’s pretty serious. Carteret General life-flighted her to the trauma center in Greenville. Matt and Tom are driving up there to be with her.”

M
ATT WATCHED THE
waiting room clock outside the surgery doors, his eyeballs gritty and his hands cold. Sometimes he paced and Tom sat. Sometimes he sat while Tom paced.

He needed to move. His heart pumped with adrenaline. His skin crawled with frustration. He wanted to do…something, anything, to fix this. But he was useless, his hands tied by ignorance and lack of training.

The dread of not knowing pressed on him even harder than the weight of helplessness.

The three-hour trip from Fletcher’s Quay to Pitt County Memorial Hospital had stretched like a nightmare. But at least while Matt was driving he’d been able to focus on traffic. At least he’d had something to do.

He jammed his hands into his pockets. He couldn’t even call out on his phone. Cell phone reception in the building was crap. He’d called his sister from the cafeteria when he’d gone downstairs to fetch the coffee that sat, cold and unnoticed, at his father’s side. He’d finally gotten through—briefly—to Josh, telling him Grandma was okay, the doctors were doing everything they could, Josh should watch Taylor, Matt would call again soon. He and Tom had agreed there was no point in contacting Luke in Afghanistan until Tess was out of surgery.

Nothing he can do
, Tom grunted, closed inside his own pain.
Don’t worry him.

Matt retreated to the window and stood staring out at the parking lot. Nothing any of them could do until they knew for sure that Mom…That she…

He rubbed his bristly face as if he could scrub away his fear. Head-on collision with an SUV. The other guy’s fault. Damn drunk driver, dead on the scene, since his stupidity had extended to not wearing his safety belt. Tess had suffered blunt abdominal trauma with internal bleeding, the nurse had explained when Matt rejoined Tom after parking the truck.

The words rolled over them like boulders, crushing in their import.
Chest tube. Pelvis. Fracture. Hemorrhage.

Tom had signed everything the nurses put in front of him, his face lined and aged, his words and movements rigidly controlled. Matt had no idea how much his father actually comprehended. He took the clipboard to read the forms himself, chilled by the standard warnings. Whatever they did to his mother beyond those closed doors might not work. All procedures carried the risk of bleeding. Complications. Infection. Death.

Assuming her injuries didn’t kill her first.

Matt glanced again at the clock. Where the hell was the nurse? She’d promised to come back as soon as she knew what was going on inside, promised the doctor would be out to talk to them soon. But the minutes bled by, and no one came.

Tom’s hands shook. He gripped them together between his legs, his elbows resting on his knees, staring sightlessly at the carpet. Matt couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this. Not when Meggie broke her arm trying to fly from the garage roof, not even when he’d come home from the Gulf. For the first time in his life, his father looked frail.
Old.

He was a tested combat leader, trained for battle in uncertain and chaotic conditions. Military families prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.

But none of them were prepared for this.

Men who made their living from the water developed a certain fatalism, broader than acceptance, deeper than faith.
The sea giveth and the sea taketh away.

But Matt had never imagined in a million years that his
mother might be taken from them so soon. Tess was their rock, their anchor, calm in crisis, constant through moves and deployments. Without her, they were lost. Adrift.

Matt swallowed the ache in his throat.

“Dad.” He touched Tom’s arm, searching helplessly for the magic words, his mother’s words, that would make everything all right. “What do you need? What can I do?”

Tom met his gaze, his eyes like stone. “Pray.”

A
LLISON SQUARED HER
shoulders and knocked on the cottage door. The sound of crashes and explosions from the television inside penetrated to the stoop.

The last time she was here, she’d been invited for Sunday dinner. Now the woman who had welcomed and fed her was fighting for her life.

Allison couldn’t do anything for Tess. But she could try to help Josh.

She knocked again, louder.

A dog woofed once.

Josh answered the door, game controller in hand, big-screen battle raging behind him. Doing his teenage best, Allison thought, to keep his mind off what had happened, to keep his cousin distracted.
Good boy.

He nodded. “Miss Carter.”

“Hi.” There was a fiery crash on the TV behind him. She did her best not to wince. “I came to see how you were doing.”

“I’m fine.”

Sure you are, she thought. You and your dad. Always fine.

She offered the box she held. “I brought pizza.”

“Thanks.” As if recalling his manners, Josh stepped back to let her in.

Taylor hunched on the couch behind him, clutching the
other controller, Fezzik at her feet. On the coffee table in front of her, on the counter behind her, crowding the table and set on the floor, were dishes, plastic-wrapped deli trays and bags of sandwich buns, foil-covered casseroles and baskets of fruit, cakes, cookies, fried chicken, a…ham?

Allison blinked. “Wow.”

Josh surveyed the outpouring of support with her. “Yeah. People like to bring food around here. Mostly when somebody dies.” He smiled, but his voice was bleak.

Allison’s heart squeezed.

“We should get some of this labeled and into the freezer,” she said, deliberately brisk. “Your grandmother might be glad not to cook right after she gets out of the hospital.”

Josh looked more cheerful. “I guess.”

“Got masking tape and a marker?” Allison asked.

“Duct tape.”

She smiled. “That’ll work.”

Taylor watched Allison from the couch while Josh rummaged in the kitchen for supplies.

“Hi, Taylor. How are you doing?”

Taylor gave her a dark look from under the bill of her cap.

Okay, stupid question.

She had nightmares, Matt had said. In a few short months, the little girl had lost her mother, said good-bye to her father, been uprooted from her home. And now her grandmother was in the ER.

Allison tried again. “You want to help me start a list?”

Taylor regarded her suspiciously. “What kind of list?”

“What people brought over, what dishes they came in,” Allison said patiently. “So you can give the dishes back and say thanks to the right people.”

“Josh already said thank you.”

“We should still write a list.”

Keep them busy, she thought. Keep them from brooding.

With all three of them working, organizing the donations
took less than half an hour. Most of the casseroles came labeled already, so they could quickly be added to the list and carried across the yard to the inn’s freezer. The rest Allison divided depending on whether the items needed refrigeration or not.

“You want to keep out this fried chicken for dinner?” she asked Josh.

“Nah.” His smile was so much like his father’s it took her breath away. “I’d rather have pizza.”

She turned on the oven. “We’ll keep the chicken in the fridge, then. Your dad might be hungry when he gets home.”

“Maybe. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

She slid the pizza onto a cookie sheet to reheat. “When was the last time you talked with him?”

“Before you came. He’s not allowed to use his cell phone where he is, and reception sucks anyway. He had to call from outside.”

“How’s your grandmother?” she asked quietly.

A quick shoulder jerk. “It was a bad wreck. She’s out of surgery, Dad said. He hasn’t seen her yet.”

Four…No, five hours later? Dear God. Matt must be out of his mind with worry and grief.

How is he?
she wanted to ask, but she would not lay the burden of her concern on Josh’s young shoulders.

“He sounds okay,” Josh volunteered, surprising her. “But it’s hard to tell with Dad. He’s tough.”

She smiled and risked a pat on his arm, trying not to overstep her boundaries as his teacher. Trying not to undermine his boy’s dignity. “Must run in the family.”

Josh looked at her, his face unguarded, open, only sixteen. Sudden tears glittered in his eyes.

She remembered her brother, Miles, who felt everything and had no way to show it, and she thought of Matt, weariness in his eyes, saying flatly,
We’re handling it.

Maybe so, she thought. But Josh shouldn’t have to handle this alone.

She put her arms around him, and he ducked his head against her much shorter shoulder to hide his tears.

M
ATT STOOD TO
stretch. Outside, the sky was fading, but the harsh lights of the waiting room held time still and the dusk at bay.

His sister Meg blew into the cold stale air like a summer squall, dark and fast and crackling with energy.

“Dad!” She went into his arms and hugged him tight. “How’s Mom?”

Tom raised a shaking hand to stroke her hair, his granite composure cracking. He closed his eyes.

Matt’s heart wrenched with helpless pity. He was reluctant to take the lead, to take control with his father standing there. But Tom had never been one for talking. Without Tess, he was speechless.

All Matt’s life, his parents had been there, an unquestioning support, an ever-present backup, a port in the storm. Now that their roles were reversed, he had to be there for them.

Matt cleared his throat. “You missed the doctor. Mom’s out of surgery.”

“Matt.” Meg flew to his arms.

He held her hard, absorbing her strength and the smell of the world outside the hospital. She was still wearing what he thought of as her City Girl clothes, black skirt, big bag, knotted scarf.

She raised her head from his chest, her blue eyes damp. “Are you okay?”

She sounded so much like Mom Matt almost lost it.

He ignored her question. “We didn’t expect to see you till tomorrow.”

“My secretary found a flight from Newark to Raleigh. I rented a car and drove the rest of the way.”

“Expensive,” Tom said, finding his voice.

She shrugged. “I can afford it. I wanted to be here.”

And his sister didn’t let anything stand between her and what she wanted, Matt thought, amusement warming the coldness inside him.

“So.” Her gaze lasered in on Matt. “What’s up with Mom?”

Tom turned away again to stare down the hall.

“Steering wheel broke her rib and her hip. Pelvis,” he corrected, dragging the heavy words from the depths of his fear, trying to arrange them in order for Meg. “The surgeon said they repaired the most life-threatening injury and the rest will just take patience and time. She had a lot of bleeding. The, um, rib punctured her lung.”