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CHAPTER 13

After Dawson’s parents had died, he’d become afraid of almost everything. A thud in the dark night would send him into a panic. Hell, a stroll down the street in broad daylight could make his heart race like he’d been running all day. It was as if the boogeyman were chasing him. Had it not been for the love and strength of his nana, he never would have had the courage to face his fears.

To forge the path that led him to the Navy.

He’d traveled a difficult road. One riddled with obstacles that took conviction to overcome. His battles were internal, and most never even saw them—but he felt them to his core.

The hum of the airboat vibrated through the ear protection. The warm air blew across his face like the first rush of a tropical storm. A flash of lightning in the distance—way out over the ocean—filled the sky. It was like the tentacles of an octopus reaching down and snagging its supper. That storm would dance over the sea, moving slowly toward shore until it dumped its destruction on Calusa Cove. A small vessel warning had already been issued and would be in place for the remainder of the day. The sea would be no place for the faint of heart for the next twenty-four hours, with waves between ten to fourteen feet and only two seconds apart.

The python hunters would have their own challenges with wind ripping across the Everglades. While protected by islands that created a barrier between land and ocean, it would still cause them issues.

Not to mention the torrential downpour that was expected to begin in a few hours and last well into the evening. Between high winds, the rain, and poor visibility, those hunting for snakes should’ve stayed at home. The smart ones did.

He glanced at his watch. They had left fifteen minutes before their scheduled departure. He shouldn’t have been surprised when he swung his legs to the side of the bed before his alarm went off that she, too, was already awake.

Audra was perfect.

Everything about her was everything that excited him about a woman, right down to her fiery personality. That included her stubbornness. He loved a lady who dug her heels in when she knew what she wanted. That meant she had conviction. He admired that. Respected it. He didn’t want a partner who would roll over and do whatever he expected.

He’d thought Liz was that woman until she’d gone and done the one thing Dawson couldn’t stand.

She’d lied. Worse than lied. She’d betrayed his trust. His love. And, in turn, had crushed his soul.

He slowed the boat as they approached Loon River. Legend had it that those who dared to follow the river at night met with Edgar Watson’s men—or worse, the Skunk Ape—and they either died or came back a changed person. Crazy as a loon.

Everyone in Calusa Cove perpetuated this silly ghost story. It was literally the first thing Dawson had been told the second he’d rolled into town a couple of months before the rest of his team. When he and the boys had started up their Everglades Overwatch tour boat business, they’d been told not to go back there—or give tours in the area, but not because of the tides and the fact they could get stuck—another tall tale because most airboats could handle a tide that low.

But because of Captain Edgar Watson.

The ten-year-old kid inside him had been utterly terrified.

The Navy SEAL thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard.

The chief of police making the port turn into Loon River wasn’t sure of anything.

He took off his ear protection and set them on the center console. He looped his arm around Audra. “It could be a nasty ride back between the wind and rain.” He pointed to another flash of lightning that blew up the sky over the ocean. In the distance, it was a beautiful sight. He loved to watch storms roll across the sea—as long as they stayed miles offshore.

“Did you know you can get back here on foot from the island with no name?” she asked.

“Yeah, but only at low tide, and it’s a three-mile walk. I wouldn’t want to do that between the snakes, gators, Skunk Ape, and I’ve also heard about the Stigini or the Owl Witches.” He grinned.

Audra chuckled. “Some people in this town still believe I’m a Stigini or somehow related to them.” She turned, catching his gaze. “That I practice some old form of witchcraft, which allows me to turn myself into an owl.”

“I’ve heard a lot of weird shit in this town, but that’s one of the stranger ones.” He eased the boat up to Coonts Island. “Makes them look like the nutty ones, not you.”

“It’s not that they actually believe I can turn into an owl.” Audra laughed. “It’s that they believe when I was a little girl, I’d come back here and practice witchcraft with the Stigini. That’s why I was always barefoot, with ratty clothes, and my hair was always a mess. They never considered that for six years my mother was dying. That after one full round of chemo and radiation, she was done. She didn’t want to do it again and tried a holistic approach, but it failed, and my father, while a loving man, struggled to care for both me and my mom, all while trying to run a business and keep the bills paid. It didn’t help that his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.”

Dawson didn’t know what was worse. To lose your parents suddenly or to watch them slowly die. He palmed her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

She leaned into his hand, curling her fingers around his wrist. “I honestly had a happy childhood with my parents. I knew I was different—that they were different—and I didn’t care. My folks wrapped me in a big blanket of love. But it couldn’t protect me from the cruelties of the world. Not after my mother died. Once she was gone, it was as if the bubble burst, and the bad parts of this town wormed their way in.” She stared into the distance. “What sucks is that Calusa Cove is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.”

Dawson’s chest tightened as he ran his thumb across her cheek. “We can’t change the past, but we can change our relationship with it.”

“Can I ask you a question about Ken?” she asked.

“I suppose.”

“How did he die?”

Dawson stared at her for a moment and contemplated his answer. Telling her the truth meant he’d have to disclose Top Secret information about a mission. And worse, he’d have to admit his failure. The latter he’d come to terms with. The former, well, what difference did it make now? He trusted Audra like he trusted his brothers-in-arms. “The official story is we took on enemy fire during a mission that went sideways. He was injured, as we all were, and died because of a gunshot wound to his chest.”

“And the reality?”

“Ken was the first of us not to re-enlist. That was supposed to be his last mission. He had forty-two days left. The problem was the minute I got those orders, I knew we were screwed. I knew we’d be making some hard decisions on the ground and doing it blind.” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth. He couldn’t be sure of her question, but no matter, he wasn’t answering anything. If he was telling this story, he was doing it his way. “We learned our target had not only moved positions but had gained gunpower. We decided—based on intel—to come in from a different direction. We did question that information, but we only had a small window of time. It was ultimately my call. Fletcher plays it like he pushed me since he was my communications officer. But at the end of the day, I sent Ken out as point man. Eight minutes later, we were all captured.”

“Oh no,” she whispered.

Mindlessly, he rubbed the scars created by electric currents bolting through his muscles. “For three days, we were all tortured.”

“The burns,” she said. “That’s how Ken died?”

“No.” Dawson squeezed his eyes closed. “They couldn’t break us, so they tried a new tactic. They took Fletcher and Ken in another room, and they… they…” He blinked. Could he even say it?

“What did they do?”

Dawson sucked in a deep breath and swiped at his cheeks, his fingers wet with tears he hadn’t been aware he’d shed. “They slit Ken’s throat in front of Fletcher.”

Audra gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. Her teal eyes grew wide with a combination of fear, anguish, and rage.

Dawson wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight to his chest, stroking her long, lush hair.

She wept softly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him. That I didn’t make a different?—”

“No. You don’t have anything to apologize for.” She jerked from his embrace and glared. “You did what you were trained to do, and don’t you dare go and tell me any one of those men would’ve made a different decision because we both know they all would’ve made the same one. Hindsight is perfect vision.”

Running his finger across her cheek, he gazed into her eyes, searching for a reason not to allow his heart to beat with hers, but he couldn’t find a single one. “It’s hard when Baily and Julie often look at us like we might as well have taken that blade to?—”

She touched a finger to his lips. “I don’t know Ken’s wife, so I won’t say a word about her. But Baily doesn’t blame you for Ken’s death. She might say she does, but she blames Fletcher for taking him from Calusa Cove. For giving him something other than the marina, and then there’s the fact she still loves him, even if she won’t admit it.”

“He’s been madly in love with her for as long as I’ve known him. We followed him back here, partly to honor Ken and keep him alive in our hearts, but also because Fletcher’s a miserable man without Baily. We can only hope she comes to her senses soon.”

Audra laughed. “She’s almost as stubborn as I am.”

“No one is as stubborn as you.” He kissed her sweet lips and then pulled away.

“That’s true.” She bit down on her fingernail, something he’d never seen her do before. Ever. She always screamed confidence, even when it came out in anger.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, but I feel like there’s something I should’ve told you about Ken. Or something I’ve been wondering about Ken.”

“To be honest, we’ve all been wondering a lot about Ken, and it’s not good.” Dawson gripped the steering wheel with both hands, bracing himself for whatever betrayal was coming his way. “I’m listening.”

“Ken worked for Paul for about a year right before he decided to join the Navy,” she said softly.

“I know.” Dawson nodded, releasing the tension in his hands but not his heart. He hated secrets. Had she held back important information? Was that going to be her betrayal?

God, he hoped not. He prayed this was the thing that had haunted Ken, and she was just now seeing it.

“I have no idea what happened. I just know that he and Benson got into a fight—a public fight. Ken lost his shit and punched Benson. Ken never went back to work, and we stopped eating at Massey’s. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. He swore it had nothing to do with me, which I didn’t believe, but now, I’m not so sure. Maybe he was telling the truth, and it had to do with something entirely different because that’s when Ken decided college would never happen. Not that he had the money, but he had the opportunity—through Paul. Instead, he joined the Navy.”

Dawson let out a long sigh of relief, grateful there was no deep hidden secret. He adored Audra more than he wanted to admit, but there it was, and he could no longer deny it. He turned. “That’s not quite the way Ken told that story, and Fletcher tried pushing him a couple of times to tell him what really happened—why the sudden switch—because Fletcher said it happened literally overnight. He even tried to get Baily involved.” Dawson glanced toward the stars as if they might have some answers. “Only, that caused more issues between those two. Hayes, Keaton, and I would walk away, and we all stopped asking.”

“Maybe Ken knew something. I just don’t understand why he wouldn’t say anything to someone.”

“That’s the million-dollar question.” The boat tapped land, and Dawson nudged it forward a little.

Audra hopped to her feet.

He watched in awe as she jumped off the boat. Not that he expected her to wait for him to give her a hand. She wasn’t the kind of woman who waited around for someone to help. If she could do something, she did it. If she didn’t know if she could, she tried it, and if she failed, she learned from it and forged on.

Just the kind of woman he’d always wanted. And that was dangerous.

That kind of woman always ended up breaking his heart, and he worried that when this was over, he’d be watching her walk right out of his life.