True Devotion

by Dee Henderson

  Lord, where is she?

  He had never learned to pray as eloquently as Nick or as knowledgeably as Kelly. They had both been Christians a long time. They had a comfortable knowledge of God, and it showed in their actions and their prayers. His own prayers were heartfelt but short.

  He wished he had been a Christian longer. After Nick died he hadn’t been much help to Kelly when the grief hit, and that still troubled him. Other than Liz she hadn’t let many people near her, had put up a protective front, and it had left him struggling to help her out. He’d failed at that somewhere along the way, for she had gone quiet, noticeably quiet in the last few months, when normally she talked easily about God.

  Now this. She needed him and the idea that he would let her down at a time like this . . . he’d never be able to live with himself if they didn’t find her in time.

  Please, Jesus. Keep her safe. Help us find her. She’s the most important person I have left in my life. I can’t face the idea of losing her.

  * * *

  The stars were bright overhead. In the dark ocean expanse, no city lights anywhere nearby, the stars shone in their full glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God . . .” Kelly knew she ought to be praying. The words were not there. She was so tired now. Three years of wandering away—a prodigal, a hypocrite, she could think of numerous labels that applied—had diminished a vital relationship to one with few words. However she looked at her life in the last three years, God had not been in the center of it. It made her ashamed.

  Oh, people who met her didn’t know. She had been more active in the church than ever, almost frantic in keeping herself busy with all her good works. But her Bible had only been opened in public; her trust in God had changed to doing for herself. She hated people who pretended yet she had done it beautifully. God had taken away Nick and she had walked away from Him, blaming Him for her pain.

  She had already apologized.

  There was peace now but not words. Prayer had once been as easy as breathing, now she didn’t know how to begin. It made her want to cry to realize what she had lost.

  A wave slammed over her face and she tried to shake off the water without releasing her hold on Ryan.

  It’s not too late to change.

  It was a reassuring, profound reminder. If she survived and had a chance to try again, to restore what she had allowed to decay and pick up her dreams again. She had never been happier than when she was a wife dreaming about being a mother.

  For years she’d let herself drift rather than accept that she was going to have to fight for a future again, that she would have to pour herself back into life if she wanted something more than the grief.

  She’d given up for years. It was time to stop giving up.

  Finding energy she didn’t have, Kelly strengthened her kick.

  * * *

  She was swallowing too much water. Kelly knew it in a clinically detached kind of way. Part of her mind was screaming for her to kick harder, to keep her head farther out of the water, but she couldn’t. The cold had crept deep into her muscles.

  She was going to die of hypothermia. She knew it, could feel her heart rate slowing down, could feel herself drifting off to sleep, and couldn’t rouse herself to fight, even for Ryan’s sake. At least it didn’t hurt. Her eyes closed as she sighed.

  Don’t.

  She got shoved by a wave and rolled over. She blinked and tightened her arm around Ryan, instinctively righting herself, the panic startling her body back into motion.

  Of all the stupid . . . She wanted to swear at herself as she realized what had happened. She forced her hands to lock together, gritted her teeth, and strained to rhythmically kick her legs again.

  How she would die was now painfully clear. Hers wouldn’t be a peaceful ending, but rather a series of adrenaline-induced scares until she finally didn’t recover in time and she drowned.

  Her breathing slowly came back to normal. For the moment she was awake, wide-awake. Lord, thanks for the shove. She would have chuckled if she could have done it without swallowing more salt water. It had been quite an effective wake-up order.

  She was not going to die in the middle of the ocean.

  The decision settled firmly inside, and it resonated the same way the decision I’m going to marry Nick had once resonated. No matter how cold she got, how tired she became, she was going to survive.

  It was going to be a long night.

  She blocked out the cold and thought about the future, determined to keep her mind active. When she got out of this mess, what in her life was she going to change first? Where did she start rebuilding?

  It wasn’t a simple question or an easy one. She knew what she wanted most to change. She missed being a wife, being part of someone’s life. She had married Nick when she was nineteen and she didn’t enjoy being alone.

  There was no longer any reason to wake at the crack of dawn. In the past she had groused good-naturedly at Nick’s cheerfulness as she fixed him breakfast. But she missed the few minutes of beauty that had been the compensation: sitting with Nick on the front stoop watching the dawn come up, leaning against his shoulder as she covered a yawn and sipped her coffee.

  She missed watching soccer games with him, fixing him chocolate chip cookies, going whale watching—Nick’s one intense hobby. She really missed the way the house felt alive when he was home. Now it was just a place to stay. She had not yet found ways to fill the voids in her days in more than piecemeal ways. Being alone was the pits.

  When she had been the wife of a military man on deployment, she had been part of a close-knit club. The wives of men who were deployed had common things to talk about and practical help to offer each other. Military widows didn’t have a comfortable home anywhere. Not in the civilian world, which didn’t understand that training accident probably didn’t mean what it implied, or in the military family gatherings, where her presence was a painful reminder of the risks.

  Out of a sense of kindness her friends avoided talking about their husbands coming home, about the way they were counting down the days, and about the welcome home celebrations that were being planned.

  Kelly knew her friends worried more about their husbands now. Nick’s death had robbed the entire unit of a sense of safety. The risks hadn’t changed, but the false sense of confidence had been stripped away. She had shed tears about the loneliness in private.

  Joe’s been there.

  The reminder made her smile. Yes, Joe had been there. He came by because he was a good friend. When she wanted to remember and reminisce, he was one of the few people in her life who was comfortable listening. He had almost as many stories about Nick as she did—and the shared laughter had deepened their friendship.

  They had always been friends through Nick; without him it had been distinctly awkward at first.

  “Come on, Joe, five more to go. You can do it.”

  His arms were quivering, sweat rolling off him as he lay on his back on the weight bench. Kelly hurt with every grimace, every flinch of pain, he gave. His healing shoulder was fighting every step of this recovery. She was spotting for him on the weights because she was one of the few people he didn’t have the heart to throw out of the rehab center. It had been six weeks since Nick’s death and Joe’s injury, and she had pushed aside her own pain to make sure Joe recovered. She wasn’t going to let him quit, even though in the early days she had read in his eyes the reality that he wanted to do just that.

  He had come back shot, with his best friend dead. She didn’t need details of what had happened to know Joe felt responsible for Nick’s death and was pretty depressed. It would pass.

  Already she could see the fight coming back in his eyes—another couple weeks and he wouldn’t need her badgering him anymore. She was going to feel the loss when that day came. She needed someone else to focus on, to divert her from her own pain.

  “Ten more reps instead of five.”

  Too much, she thought, but she only nodded. She had watched Nic
k push himself beyond what was possible too: It was the SEAL way of facing an obstacle.

  Joe didn’t need her now. She began to understand that as she spotted him through another set of reps. He was letting her be part of this because it gave her something else to think about, gave him an excuse to see her while he was trapped in this hospital rehab.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She rested her hands on the bar, burying the sadness. “Ready for me to change the weights?”

  He nodded, breathing heavily. “Five pounds lighter.” He cautiously rubbed his injured shoulder as he watched her slide a platter from each end of the bar. When the change was complete, he lifted his hands up to grasp the bar but didn’t lift it free of the stand. He studied her face as she stood over him. “You didn’t sleep again.”

  It was a quiet observation, but still she looked away, shrugged one shoulder.

  Joe drew a deep breath and lifted the bar free from the stand. “How did you handle it back when Nick did six-month deployments aboard the USS Constellation?”

  The question drew an instinctive laugh, for it brought a wealth of memories. “Badly.”

  He smiled. “Seriously. What worked?”

  “Surely you’ve heard all the tricks Navy wives use to mark time.”

  “Like buying a six-pack of soda and drinking one a month?”

  “That and a few more elaborate ones.”

  “Tell me. What did you do?”

  Joe’s injured shoulder weakened momentarily and she steadied the bar as it swayed. “I had a hug bear.”

  He fought for breath. “I haven’t heard of that one.”

  “Before he deployed, Nick would buy me a new stuffed bear and give it a hug. Whenever I missed him, I would hug the bear.”

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “I thought so—” the first glimmer of a smile in weeks came and went—“especially since I collect bears.”

  He chuckled and pushed the bar up again. “What else?”

  Her amusement faded as she thought about how she had handled those long months trying to sleep while Nick was away. It was that way again, only this deployment would never end.

  “What?”

  “The Navy wives have a saying—you either lie in bed and listen to the dog snore or you go sleep on the couch.”

  He looked at her. “Change to the couch, Kelly. Get some sleep.”

  Joe had been there. He had been determined to help her make the adjustment. She had resented it at times, but no matter how hard she tried to push him away, he had never left. They had stumbled their way through the anniversary of Nick’s death the first year.

  He was a stubborn man. A good friend. Kelly could appreciate that now with the perspective of time. Three years had given her something with him that was special. Lord, You’re right. He’s been a good friend. One I didn’t always deserve.

  She had blamed him. She might never have come out and said it, but in the darkest days she’d blamed him. Not because she thought he had been responsible, but because he was around, because he was there. He knew it, but he’d still refused to leave her alone.

  While she had been focused on her own pain, Joe had dealt with his. In the last three years he’d faced it and moved on. And he’d made a choice to stick with her even as she fought that moving on; he’d stayed and made himself a good friend.

  Kelly, it’s more than that.

  She frowned at the thought. Joe was protective of her, around a lot, stepping in when something needed to be done around the house or yard that Nick would have handled in the past. He waved aside her comments that he did too much for her, and she had come to accept it as necessary for now. She did what she could to help him out in return—took care of his dog when he was away, got his mail, and on his last four-month deployment she paid his bills. The friendship was strong enough to handle the lopsided investment of time and energy, and Kelly suspected more than part of his involvement could be attributed to Nick and the guilt of being the one who had come home.

  Was it more than a friendship? Joe had come to dinner last Friday, something he did frequently. It wasn’t anything formal, nothing like a date; they simply enjoyed the time together. Or was that just what she wanted to see?

  Kelly closed her eyes. Joe.

  How could she have been so blind?

  * * *

  Another grid was covered with no sign of them. Joe could feel despair creeping in. He wasn’t sure which grid to check next. The currents showed this was the most likely place to find them, but a helicopter and two boats had both covered the area and found nothing. Maybe farther north. Or should he go west? He turned, scanning the waters, knowing the currents could not answer the most difficult question. Were they still alive? It felt like someone was ripping out his heart.

  He saw them on a wave crest. It was only for an instant, a dark shadow in the sea, and then they disappeared—but he saw them for a second. He held his breath as he waited, forcing himself to be patient. There! Distant, moving away, but definitely two people in the water. He surged forward, closing the distance.

  Closer to them, he was forced to pause and locate them again. Straight west, maybe thirty feet.

  Joe pulled one of the pencil flares he carried from the center pouch of the equipment vest he wore. Pulling the safety cap, he took a firm hold and looked away, firing it into the sky. The flare shot above him, marking the location for Boomer and the others, calling in help.

  He cut through the water toward Kelly and the boy with every ounce of speed he had. There had been no change in their movements to the sound and light of the flare, a fact that made him fear the worst.

  He came in behind Kelly, and the first thing he saw was her hair streaming out in the water behind her, lit by the fading light of the overhead flare. She had the boy in front on her, holding his head above water, treading water for both of them. Joe slid his arm under her shoulders, finding the lack of reaction to his touch alarming. “Kelly.”

  She turned her head slowly toward him and her swollen eyes opened. “Joe.” Her smile was beautiful to see. And a ripple of fear shook him, for it was the smile of someone drifting on a dream. . . .

  “Kelly, I’ve got him. Release your grip. Let me take him.”

  He had to ask her twice before she blinked and removed her arm. The boy looked so pale Joe was afraid he might already be gone. He had to search to find a pulse at the boy’s throat. The only thing that would help now was getting the boy warm. One hand gripping the boy, the other Kelly, Joe used his kick to keep them afloat. “Take a break for a minute. Relax.” He would get vests on them both in a minute; right now he just wanted the reassurance of holding her.

  She limply rested her chin on his shoulder, her forehead striking his cheekbone as a wave hit her back. He tightened his hold on her, doing his best to secure her to his side as he held the boy with his other hand. Joe felt more than heard her sigh of relief. “I did my five-mile night-sea swim. Did I earn a baby Trident?”

  He smiled, glad to hear the humor under her fatigue, relieved she was coming alert. The Trident pin—with its eagle for air, Revolutionary War pistol for land, and Neptune’s trident for sea, all fit across the Navy’s anchor—defined the SEALs and the men who wore it. “Maybe a tadpole pin.” She felt like ice to his touch, and she was no longer shivering. He had to get her out of this water.

  “I thought you would never get here.”

  Not anyone, him. It was an incredible indication of trust. “I’m sorry I was late.”

  “You’re forgiven. I knew you would come.” She reached out a hand toward the boy. “This is my buddy Ryan; he’s a pretty brave kid.”

  She’s pretty brave herself. Joe hugged her, overwhelmed at the sudden emotion. “He owes you his life. Hold on to me while I get him in a vest.” She nodded and her hands closed around his upper arm.

  With the boy unconscious, the maneuver was awkward at best.

  Joe felt Kelly’s hands slide off his arm; he looked o
ver and lunged out to grab her upper arm as she sank. His heart pounding, he pulled her back to his side. She looked dazed, and he wasn’t sure if she realized what had happened.

  Ryan still wasn’t secure in the vest—Joe desperately needed just a couple more moments with a free hand. His options were few. “Kelly, can you put your arms around my neck?” He turned in the water, still holding her, offering her his back. He felt the slick remnants of the sunscreen lotion she had worn that day as her arms brushed his cheek. Her fingers interlaced and then slipped apart, unable to grip.

  “Sorry.”

  Firmly holding her wrist, he swung her around his body, back in front of him. His arm settled like steel around her waist. “I’ve got you.”

  Her head dropped against his shoulder again. “I have to sleep.”

  He shook her until she looked back up at him. “Not yet. I’ll have you home and warm soon. Then you can sleep as long as you want.”

  The fact it took her time to understand what he said was obvious. She nodded and began kicking again wearily.

  Joe worked with one hand to tighten the vest straps around the boy—it wasn’t on fully, but it would have to do. Despite the fact she was trying to kick, Kelly felt limp against his arm. She was dangerously close to a permanent crash. She’d drop unconscious as deep as the boy and he wouldn’t be able to wake her again. Where was Boomer? He cradled Kelly’s head against his shoulder, trying to figure out how to hold on to the boy while he maneuvered her into a vest.

  “I love you.”

  He froze. They slipped down in the water before he recovered their equilibrium. With her head resting on his shoulder he couldn’t see her face. Frustrated at her timing for such a revelation, Joe had to settle for brushing a kiss across her hair. His heart had just leaped in his throat with an emotion so deep it was choking him. He fought it down even as he wondered if she knew what she was saying. “Tell me that again when you’re not frozen.”