The Sea Before Us

by Sarah Sundin

  “I know.” He clamped his lips together, but he had to keep going. “As I said, I don’t like it. It’s out of character for him.”

  “He practically thinks of you as another son.” Each word tight and crisp.

  The pain made him wince. “I know. And I really like him, respect him. I don’t think he’s capable of it. But that’s how it looks from the outside. I wanted to warn you in case something happens. If someone looks into it and suspects your dad, I want you to be prepared.”

  He ventured a glance.

  Her face was as pale as marble, cool and indifferent. She looked down her nose at him. “If you should ever return to London, there will be no more investigating. And no more hospitality.”

  “Dorothy—”

  “Good day.” She marched away and into the building.

  Wyatt sagged back against the wall and bonked his head on stone. Not only had he failed in the investigation, but he’d failed in his friendship with Dorothy. And he’d never see her again.

  Wyatt sat squashed by the train window next to Ted Kelvin and Jerry Hobson, who were working a crossword puzzle. Jack Vale and Irwin Slobodsky sat across from him, lulled to sleep by the train’s motions. The officers’ sea bags were crammed into the overhead racks.

  The English countryside rolled by under an overcast sky. Wyatt gripped his copy of Hard Times with the letter burning inside.

  Why did it have to arrive today after the fiasco with Dorothy? He was already torn up inside. He’d wanted to warn her, prepare her, protect her, but all he’d done was hurt her. And he’d severed their friendship.

  And now the letter.

  He didn’t get much mail. A few letters from buddies in the Pacific Fleet, but this was his first from Kerrville. Over two months had passed since he’d mailed his letter. He’d assumed they didn’t want anything to do with him.

  Now this. He cracked open the book. Daddy’s handwriting hurt his eyes with its hard, slanting script.

  He ought to wait for some privacy to read it, but curiosity and a masochistic urge drove him to open the envelope. A single sheet of Paxton Trucking stationery, covered both sides in his dad’s hand. He closed his eyes and braced himself to hear from his father for the first time in almost three years. Lord . . .

  He didn’t even know how to pray, so he read.

  Dear Wyatt,

  Your mama and I were overjoyed to receive your letter. We haven’t stopped worrying about you—or praying for you—since that horrible night. We’re relieved to hear you’re alive and well, and even more that you’ve repented.

  Mind you, no one but Adler blamed you for Oralee’s death. Clay vouched for you, and that’s good enough for Mama and me. The sheriff officially ruled it an accident, and Oralee’s family accepts it as such.

  As for the theft, we can’t begin to tell you how shocked and angry we were, and how Clay felt betrayed. We’re glad you’re sorry for what you did and are working to make amends. Mama and I have forgiven you, and we’ll always welcome you home.

  Wyatt squeezed his eyes shut, overwhelmed by the image of Daddy and Mama running down the road to their Prodigal. He didn’t deserve it. But he’d take it.

  We wish we could tell you Adler saw the light, but we have no way of knowing. He ran away that night also, and we haven’t heard from him since. We pray he’s all right and pray he’ll be led to write to us as you did.

  Wyatt stared at the paragraph. Adler ran away? Why? To hunt down Wyatt and kill him? Nonsense. He might have done so the first night—but three years later? He might hold a grudge, but not murderous intent.

  So why? He stared out the window, at a village in the distance. Had Adler been so overcome with grief that he couldn’t bear to see the places that reminded him of Oralee? He could understand not going home for three years—that made sense. But not even writing? That made no sense at all.

  Wyatt held a puzzle piece his parents lacked—Adler had joined the Army Air Forces. But was that good news or bad?

  As for Clay, we wish we’d had the means to pay for his college, but our biggest client went bankrupt in the spring of ’41. Paxton Trucking took a big hit. Besides, with you and Adler gone and so many of our men enlisting, we couldn’t spare him from the business.

  We held onto him as long as possible, but last February the government got rid of occupational draft deferments for men twenty-two and younger. The Army snatched Clay right up. He volunteered for the Rangers, and he’s now in your neck of the woods.

  Wyatt pressed his fist to his mouth to stifle a moan. Clay never went to college? He was supposed to be a physician, a good one. The best. But Wyatt had stolen that from him. Clay hated the trucking business, but Wyatt had dumped it on him when he ran away.

  Oh Lord, no. Now Clay was in the Army, in the Rangers, in England?

  The map of Normandy flashed in his mind, of the German gun battery at Pointe du Hoc, where the Rangers would storm the cliffs in a daring commando raid. Dangerous. Deadly.

  Oh Lord. No, no, no. Had Wyatt sentenced his little brother to death? Clay with his sweet smile and warm brown eyes and caring disposition? He didn’t deserve it, any of it.

  Wyatt could barely read the last few lines.

  There’s more with Adler and Clay, but those aren’t our tales to tell.

  Mama sends her love and lots of it. She’s too emotional to write to you right now. You understand. But she’ll write soon.

  We’re praying hard for all our boys. Please join us in praying for your brothers. Mama believes you’ll all be reconciled someday and come home to us, but as far as I’m concerned it’ll take a miracle.

  Before he could make a fool of himself, Wyatt excused himself and stepped over all the blue-clad legs to leave the compartment.

  He strode down the swaying passageway, vision blurred. Lord, forgive me! Forgive me!

  He’d destroyed what he loved most—his family. He’d violated his most cherished principle—loyalty.

  At the end of the railway car, he leaned his forehead against a window. His eyes, his fists, his stomach, all clenched shut.

  No money could repay those debts. How could Clay forgive him for wrecking his life?

  And Adler? What had driven him to cut every tie to home?

  All Wyatt knew was that he’d started it. With his jealousy for Adler’s success. With arrogant interference. With greedy self-preservation. With cowardly flight.

  And his brothers paid the price. Wyatt had shattered their dreams, and now they were both in harm’s way.

  All he’d ever wanted was to protect his loved ones—and he’d ruined them.

  The letter turned damp in his fist. Like a flash flood, the news had washed away his road to redemption.

  24

  Allied Naval Expeditionary Force Headquarters

  Southwick House, Hampshire, England

  Wednesday, April 26, 1944

  Dorothy hauled the box out of the operations room at Southwick House. Two dozen officers and enlisted personnel, British and American, Army and Navy, men and women—gathered around tables, pointed to diagrams, and stood on ladders by a painted wooden map of southern England and Normandy that filled one wall.

  Once an elegant drawing room, it had been transformed for Neptune. The only clues to its refined past were the Georgian woodwork and the white-and-gold wallpaper.

  Dorothy passed through the adjoining sitting room with walls the same gray blue as Wyatt’s eyes.

  She harrumphed and crossed the hallway to the staircase. The carpet on the stairs muffled the sharpness of her steps. Wyatt—the traitor. How could he accuse her father of embezzling? She thought he’d had her father’s best interests at heart, but it was all a lie. What could she expect from a man who betrayed his own brother?

  She paused on the landing to let two Wrens pass—and to correct herself. That wasn’t true or fair. He’d stolen from his brother out of fear, not malice, and he was deeply sorry and he worked hard to make amends.

  Regardless, he’d betra
yed her and her father.

  She hiked the stairs to her departmental office. To her right, First Officer Bliss-Baldwin conferred with Lawrence, Commander Pringle, and several other male officers over a table. To her left, Gwen, Muriel, and the enlisted Wrens unpacked boxes.

  Dorothy set her box on the table where Muriel worked and hummed. The tune’s Latin lilt took her back to the conservatory, to a dreamy-eyed Texan crooning as if she were the only woman in the world, to his invitation that she’d torpedoed just in time.

  She ripped open the box and unloaded the contents. Bother that man. How dare he ask her out when he harbored such an opinion about her father? How could he . . .

  Her thoughts hovered over a different memory. Hadn’t he said, “Why ask a girl out unless you really like her?” His invitation hadn’t been a passing whim after all, had it? But accepting would have been a grave mistake given what she now knew about his character. Besides, she’d probably never see him again, thank goodness.

  Gwen sorted folders into piles. “What are you humming, Muriel?”

  “The song’s called ‘Amor.’” She sang a few lines in purring Spanish.

  “Do you speak Spanish?” Dorothy asked.

  “Si, si, señorita.” Muriel struck a pose like a flamenco dancer.

  Dorothy tucked in her lips. Wyatt had asked her that question, and he’d been glad when she’d said no. “Do you know what ‘Bésame Mucho’ means?”

  “Ooh. Such a romantic song. Bésame means ‘kiss me,’ and mucho means ‘a lot.’”

  Kiss me? A lot? Wyatt sang that to her?

  Gwen leaned over the table, her gray eyes sparkling. “Did Lieutenant Commander Eaton sing it to you?”

  “No.” She spun away to conceal the telling heat in her cheeks. “Simply curious. I heard it recently and wondered what it meant.”

  Bother that man indeed. She busied herself with a box on the next table. Who was Wyatt after all? An unassuming accountant? A passionate romantic? Or a heartless cad who ate from a man’s table and then accused him of theft? Whatever made him think such a thing?

  Her mind ached.

  But she was on duty, an invasion was scheduled in early June, and she had more important things to consider than Wyatt Paxton.

  Bliss-Baldwin strode across the room, her cheeks bright pink. “The latest reconnaissance photos. So much for your vaunted eyes, Second Officer Fairfax.”

  “Pardon?”

  She slapped a photograph onto the table in front of Dorothy. “You missed something.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her face felt numb, and she scrutinized the photograph taken from a low-flying airplane. “It’s the house in Vierville where we took our holidays.”

  “You never mentioned a shack under that tree. How could you overlook it?”

  “There wasn’t a shack . . .” But now there was, crystal clear under the tree. “That—that wasn’t there when we visited.”

  Bliss-Baldwin sniffed. “I highly doubt it. Look how dilapidated it is.”

  “But I climbed this tree every day. I’d remember.”

  “Apparently memories can be as faulty as eyesight.”

  Gwen handed Dorothy an envelope. “Here are the photographs from that sector.”

  Dorothy spread out the images on the table. Her family photograph—the tree was rather far away, but no shack was visible, thank goodness. The later photographs neither condemned her nor vindicated her. The angle was wrong in this one, the rise of the land obscured the area in that one, the next was blurry, and the next was from straight above. Dorothy scrutinized the previous week’s photograph. The space under the tree was dark and unclear. Was that a shack underneath? Or an illusion created by distance and shadow?

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Second Officer Fairfax. Please be more observant in the future.” Her blonde head high, Blissy marched back to the male officers.

  All the air leached from her lungs. She always recorded even the slightest detail.

  Gwen and Muriel inspected the photographs.

  “I don’t see it either,” Muriel said. “Who could?”

  Gwen squinted at the shadowy picture. “If you knew what to look for, you could imagine that was a shack, but I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.”

  Muriel peered over Gwen’s shoulder. “I never would have suspected a shack.”

  “Thank you, but I should have.” Dorothy slipped the evidence back into its envelope.

  “Don’t take it so hard.” Gwen patted her arm. “Old Blissy’s a martinet. But you—I’m concerned about you. You’ve been quiet the last few days.”

  Of course she was. A close friend had wreaked havoc with her emotions and then betrayed her. And she’d had to leave London. She returned the envelope to its file. “I’m concerned about my father, all alone.”

  “If it’s any comfort,” Muriel said, “the Little Blitz seems to be over. The Luftwaffe has turned its ugly eyes from London to the southern ports. They know something is brewing.”

  The previous night’s air raid on Portsmouth had rattled Dorothy more than it should have. “Small comfort indeed.”

  “Second Officer Fairfax, may I have a word?” Lawrence’s voice, as refined as the Georgian mansion.

  “Aye aye, sir.” She followed him out of the room.

  He gestured for her to lead the way down the stairs. “Have you seen the grounds?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let’s explore. We’ll have some privacy.”

  Dorothy headed outside, under the colonnaded portico and onto the manicured lawn, but her stomach squirmed. After the last few days, she couldn’t muster the proper sophistication to banter with Lawrence, and she certainly didn’t want to risk having her CO see her with him.

  “I talked with First Officer Bliss-Baldwin earlier.”

  She faced him on the sloping lawn. “Oh dear. That shack. I’m certain it wasn’t there when I was a girl. How could—”

  “It isn’t about that.” He motioned for her to keep walking. “First, I vouched for you. I was well acquainted with the grounds, and there was no shack.”

  “Thank you.” But Dorothy frowned. If Lawrence had validated her observations, why had Blissy ranted at her?

  “Second, not one soul in aerial reconnaissance identified that shack from earlier photographs. The angles and lighting were wrong. It was impossible to sight. No one blames you. Julia was in a flurry because Commander Pringle blamed her, so she had to pass the blame to someone beneath her. As a woman, Julia has a difficult time being taken seriously.”

  “I understand.” But Dorothy would never pass the blame to someone beneath her.

  “I hope this next bit of news will help you see Julia in a more favorable light.”

  “Oh?”

  He stepped close, his hazel eyes warm in the sunshine. “I told her how distraught you were to leave your father, how he has a poor constitution and is in low spirits, and how you’re the only balm to his weary old soul.”

  Her chin drew back. For the second time this week, someone she trusted had spoken ill of her father. “That isn’t true.”

  He gave her a pinched smile. “You must admit, it’s partly true. And I must admit, I exaggerated to make my point. Your father needs you.”

  Dorothy glanced back at Southwick House. Yes, her father needed her, but her work here was vital to the war effort. “Am I being transferred back to London? I’d rather not.”

  “Of course not. The Admiralty can spare you even less than your father can. But Julia agreed to grant you leave each weekend until we’re locked down for D-day. You can take the train home on Friday evening and return on Sunday.”

  “Every weekend?” Lightness lifted her chest. How thoughtful of Lawrence to think of the arrangement.

  He wore a satisfied smile. “Julia saw my point and agreed to my plan.”

  Of course, she did. She’d have Lawrence to herself every weekend.

  “In all honesty, my motives weren’t entirely unselfish.” He ed
ged closer with that roguish look that usually sent her heart to pattering. “If I should happen to have business in London—and I’ll make sure I do—you shall have no excuse not to be seen in public with me.”

  Her emotions were too wrung out for her to respond with enthusiasm, but enthusiasm wasn’t sophisticated anyway. She sauntered back toward Southwick House. “You sly fox.”

  “The slyest.”

  Once inside, she and Lawrence parted ways, and Dorothy returned to the upstairs office.

  First Officer Bliss-Baldwin met her right inside the door. “I’d like a word.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.” She followed her to a small office. Was she going to receive another reprimand, or an apology?

  Dorothy closed the door. “I do apologize for not noticing that shack in earlier photographs.”

  First Officer Bliss-Baldwin gazed out the window, every blonde hair rolled in place. “While I’m disappointed in your professional performance, I called you in here about your personal behavior.”

  Dorothy clenched her hands together. “My personal . . . ?”

  “Several months ago, Lieutenant Commander Eaton made an impassioned plea for you to remain in London with your ailing father. And this morning, he made an even more impassioned plea for you to return home on the weekends for the welfare of that same ailing father.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She eyed her commander cautiously. “Thank you for agreeing. He needs me.”

  “Your father? Or the lieutenant commander?”

  Her breath swished in. “My—my father, of course.”

  The first officer rested her slender hand on the window frame. “I happened to look out this window a few minutes ago, and I saw you and Lieutenant Commander Eaton talking rather close and chummy.”

  Dorothy swallowed the nasty taste in her mouth. “We’re old family friends. My brothers went to Cambridge with him.”

  “And he took a holiday in Normandy with you. Quite romantic.”

  “Romantic? Not at all, ma’am. I was only a schoolgirl—thirteen, fourteen.”

  First Officer Bliss-Baldwin turned to her with a regal smile. “Are you aware that he and I are walking out together?”