Coast Guard Sweetheart. Lisa Carter
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She jutted her chin. “I just did.”
Max nudged her with his elbow. “Mimi says it’s not nice to throw things, Aunt Honey.”
“He deserves it.” She palpitated another Long John. “This one, too.”
And she flung the donut in Sawyer’s direction again. But her aim was a trifle off. The Long John only grazed his tropical blue Coastie uniform, leaving a trail of sugar across his chest.
His rugged profile remained stoic. The arctic blue of his eyes smoldered. But otherwise, no reaction.
Maddened, she palmed another pastry, which she let fly in a curveball worthy of the Kiptohanock church league champions. “And another. And—”
It ricocheted off his jaw.
A muscle ticked in his cheek. But he said nothing. Only opened his stance to hip’s width and folded his hands behind his back. He lifted his face as if bracing for the next onslaught. Preparing to take whatever she pitched his way.
“Tough guy, huh? I’ll show you—”
Max laughed. “This looks like a fun game, Aunt Honey.”
Grabbing a Long John for himself, he propelled it across the length of the cafe. It landed with a plop into the cereal bowl of a redheaded girl from his Sunday school class. She screamed as the milk cascaded over the rim and onto her Girl Scout uniform.
Honey made a futile grab for her nephew as he appropriated two fistfuls of fried dough. “Max! Don’t—”
But too late.
The little girl yanked a Long John off a fellow scout’s plate and chucked it toward Max. But instead of Max, it hit a grungy waterman in the nose.
“Hey!” The boat captain jumped to his feet. His reactionary winged donut walloped the troop leader, Mrs. Francis, upside the head.
Mrs. Francis rose with battle fury in her eyes. “How dare you, you crazy ole—”
“Boys against girls!” Max scrambled atop Sawyer’s vacated stool. Using the stool as a shield, with machine-gun rapid fire, he launched the doughy projectiles at the rest of the Girl Scouts.
Who returned fire with targeted accuracy.
Max retreated toward a table of his granddad’s contemporaries. Who, when the barrage sailed their way, responded with a volley of catapulted sugar and cinnamon. Ducking behind the padded booths, Mrs. Francis, the Kiptohanock postmistress and the town librarian, directed the Girl Scouts’ cannon assault.
“Score!” Max fist-pumped as another donut grenade connected with the little redheaded girl.
Her answering shot left Max with a mouthful of pastry. Spitting and coughing, Max retreated behind the counter.
Donuts a-flying, Sawyer and Honey gaped at the ensuing melee taking place around them. An island of calm in the midst of mayhem.
“Your turn, Aunt Honey.”
She dodged too late as the Long John smacked her in the forehead.
Max clenched another pastry in his right hand. “Bull’s—”
“Don’t do it, Max... Drop it...” Sawyer stepped in front of her and scooped a mangled Long John off the floor. “Don’t you dare hit your aunt Honey again, Max.”
Max chuckled and took aim. As did Sawyer. Peeping through her fingers, she covered her face with her hands.
The bells jingled as the door whooshed open.
“Executive Petty Officer Kole! What is going on in here? You will cease and desist immediately.”
Sawyer groaned at the sight of his boss, Senior Chief Braeden Scott, framed in the doorway of the cafe.
“Max Duer Scott! Honey!”
Honey lowered her hands. Her older sister, Amelia, glared. Max dropped the donut and shuffled his feet.
The surreptitious thud of twenty other donuts hit the floor as the townspeople came to their senses and surveyed the sugary wreckage of Kiptohanock’s favorite hangout.
“Storm’s a-coming.” Seth Duer, her father, crossed his arms across his flannel plaid shirt. “But what in the name of fried oysters is going on in here?”
* * *
“What were you thinking, Kole?” Sawyer’s superior—and Honey’s brother-in-law—stared at him. “We’ve got a tropical depression barreling up the East Coast and you’ve started a war in Kiptohanock?”
“I’m sorry, Chief.” Sawyer scanned the deserted and wrecked diner. “I accidentally ran into Honey and we sort of...collided.”
“Do you think this is a laughing matter, Executive Petty Officer Kole? Do you think this is any way for the second in command at Station Kiptohanock to treat the local populace? Represent the United States Coast Guard? Provide an example to the station crew?”
Sawyer wiped the emerging smile off his face. He went into a rigid salute, feet clamped together. “No. Not at all, Chief Scott.”
Braeden glowered. “I should hope not, BMC Kole. Or I might have to rethink requesting your reassignment here on the Delmarva Peninsula.”
“Permission to speak freely, Chief?”
Braeden narrowed his eyes. “Ankle deep in powdered sugar, I’d speak carefully if I were you, Kole.”
Sawyer cut his eyes around his thirtysomething commander toward the kitchen where the chief’s pregnant wife, Amelia, reamed out a much-subdued Honey. A firm hand clamped on her orphaned nephew and adopted son, Amelia kept Max affixed in place. Fixed like a bug on a pin until his turn for her strawberry blonde wrath.
“This was a bad idea, me being reassigned to the Eastern Shore again, Chief.”
Braeden’s eyebrow arched. “Oh, really?”
Sawyer nodded. “I thought after what happened three years ago...after our last conversation that night...” He slumped. “That you understood... It was better for everyone, especially Honey, for me to never—”
“What I understand, XPO, is that you acquitted yourself extremely well at your last duty station in California. You are an asset to any boat station, especially this one.” Braeden skewered him with a look. “And let me remind you the Coast Guard does not exist for the benefit of the Coastie but the other way around.”
Sawyer went into regulation stance again. “Yes, Chief.”
Braeden took a deep breath. “However in this case... In the weird—albeit endearing—way of southern families, when Amelia and I got married, the Duers adopted everyone on my side of the marriage, too. Including my father’s best friend, Master Chief Davis. And I promise you the Master Chief no more enjoyed watching Honey go from depressed Honey to angry Honey to cynical Honey—”
“I’m guessing we’re back at the angry Honey phase.” Frowning, Sawyer took a quick, surreptitious look across the cafe.
“Exactly. So one word in the Master Chief’s ear and it was no problem getting you reassigned here. Time to work out the unresolved issues chaining the both of you to the past. Nothing worse than might-have-beens. This way—barring a few damaged donuts—better for both of you in the end. Get each other out of your systems.”
Braeden’s clipped voice gouged at Sawyer’s heart. “Or not, as the case may be. Time to let nature—or donuts—take their course.”
“So now we know.” Sawyer gulped. “She hates me.”
“That what you took from this?” Braeden gestured. “Don’t know if I’d agree.” Braeden’s lips twitched as he surveyed the culinary disaster zone. “I already hear this skirmish is going down in the annals of Kiptohanock lore as The Battle of the Long