Coast Guard Sweetheart. Lisa Carter

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      Amelia caught hold of her hand. “Sounds like a lonely life. I’m sorry Braeden got reassigned so soon after we were married. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

      “Don’t ever be sorry for your happily-ever-after, big sis.” She gently extricated herself from Amelia’s grasp. “You deserve every happiness in the world.”

      “So do you, baby sis.”

      Honey leaned and gave her sister a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m not that baby you and Dad have to watch out for anymore, ’Melia. I’m grown up now, and I can take care of myself. This inn proves it.”

      “You don’t have to prove anything to me or Dad, Honey.”

      “Prove it to myself then. And this town. Especially after the way I acted the fool despite your warnings about here today, gone tomorrow Coasties. You were kind to never say ‘I told you so.’ Some of the older village ladies weren’t so kind, believe me.”

      “Is that why you haven’t been to church in a year? You know how those town ladies talk. Too much time on their hands. Besides, we grew up worshipping there. It’s always been such a safe haven, a sanctuary of peace.”

      “A safe haven for you maybe. Not for me.” Honey pushed back her shoulders. “This house is my sanctuary.”

      “Oh, Honey...”

      “It’s true. Only safe haven I need. And anyway, Sunday morning breakfasts are a big deal. Part of the advertised package. A long, leisurely time for guests to relax before checking out and returning to their stressful off-Shore lives.”

      Amelia frowned. “I’m not going to stop praying for you. And for your happily-ever-after, too.”

      “Pray away. Though I’d appreciate it more if you and God could get this storm to take a detour away from the Eastern Shore and my bottom line. Not everybody is lucky enough to have a Max and Braeden in their life.”

      “Not lucky, Honey. Blessed.”

      “Whatever. Speaking of Max, time for me to pick him up at Mr. Billy’s house. He was excited about feeding the baby goats, but I promised Max as soon as I got you settled we’d spend the rest of the afternoon clamming in the tidal marsh.”

      After leaving her sister, Honey did a quick check of the guest bedrooms in the Victorian inn. Fresh towels hung from the en suite bathrooms she’d installed at tremendous cost. She’d already changed the sumptuous bed linens before leaving for the Sandpiper this morning.

      She’d have a full house this weekend if the storm didn’t scare the tourists away. And the big wedding scheduled on the lawn for Sunday should be fine. Although the bride from off-Shore with her last-minute demands might make Honey lose her carefully wrought reputation for no-hitch weddings, not to mention her mind. But with the deep-pocketed father of the bride renting out the entire property—inn, cabin and dock—for the day, Honey could afford to give his diva daughter some leeway.

      Her current guests were no doubt busy kayaking through the Inner Passage off Kiptohanock. Birding, boating and doing a hundred other Eastern Shore activities she and the Accomack County Tourist Board had worked so hard to highlight. So far, so good. This season had been a tremendous success and blessing—she grimaced.

      Amelia, get out of my head.

      With registration complete for the day and her guests otherwise occupied till breakfast the next morning, the rest of the day belonged to Honey. She had yeast rolls rising in the commercial-grade kitchen and a load of laundry going in the front-loading washer on the back screened porch. Off limits to non-Duers.

      She trailed her hand down the graceful, curving bannister as she did a look-see of the downstairs common area. Guests found her dad’s piecrust table checkerboard folksy. The sea glass and driftwood decor she’d collected from the barrier island charming and beachy. The knotted pine interior rustic and homey.

      Homey Honey. That was her.

      She straightened an errant sofa cushion, which had gone catabiased—to use one of Dad’s favorite Eastern Shore expressions. And as usual, whenever in the remodeled family room, her gaze drifted to the one thing she refused to change. The Duer family portrait taken on the lawn overlooking the inlet. Taken when everything had been safe in her childhood world.

      Before Caroline went off to college and never returned. Before Mom succumbed to cancer. Before Dad lost himself to a decade of grief. Before her oldest sister, Lindi—like Honey—unwisely loved a Coastie and in the process paid for it with her life.

      Other than Honey’s nonexistent love life, things were better now. With Amelia happily married, Max healthy and whole, and her dad once more in business with his oldest love, the sea, Honey had the time to make her fondest dream a reality—bringing the Duer Lodge back to life. Home to seven generations of Duers, Virginia watermen one and all.

      During the last century, Northern steel magnates roughed it at the Duer’s fisherman lodge while her ancestors oystered and served as hunting guides in the winter. Crabbed and ran charters in the summer. The lodge’s heyday—and the steamers from Wachapreague to New York City—had long ago passed into history. But with Honey’s hand on the proverbial rudder?

      What had once been lost would finally be regained.

      She bit her lip.

      If only everything else in her life could be so easily restored.

      * * *

      Sawyer drove around the Kiptohanock village square, occupied by the cupola-topped gazebo.

      Not much had changed in the seaside hamlet. The post office and bait shop. The white-steepled clapboard church. The CG station. Boat repair business. Victorian homes meandered off side lanes.

      But he’d not understood until he left this place behind three years ago how much the village and its hardy fishing folk had seeped into his heart.

      Especially Honey.

      By his own choice, he’d believed himself cut off from her forever. And he’d worked hard—on and off duty—to forget her. To no avail.

      The emptiness remained no matter what he did. California girls had not proven—like Honey’s favorite song declared—to be the best in the world for him. He’d stopped hanging out with the guys when off watch. Because nothing stopped the ache in his chest when he thought of the doe-eyed girl he’d left behind on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

      Nothing and no one—until that last tragic search and rescue off the coast of San Diego. At the end of his strength—mental, physical and spiritual—he’d reached in a last desperate attempt for the God the Duers served. And in the reaching—he’d been found.

      And in turn found peace. Sufficient to wash away the sadness and the fears. More than enough for any situation he faced.

      It had been the picture of the white-steepled church hugging the shoreline of coastal Kiptohanock that came to his mind amidst the uncertainty and fear of that mission gone wrong. The steeple—rising like a beacon of hope above the tree line as the boats came into harbor—which he remembered when pitted against the elements in a life and death struggle. The image kept him tethered to life in those horrible hours in the Pacific when he struggled to survive.

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