At the ring of the bells hung from the transom, a burly, bearded, grizzled mix of biker and Paul Bunyan appeared from a stooped doorway that connected a side room or office behind the counter.
“Hey, Ratchet. So, this is Dan.” Karl propped an elbow on the counter and motioned between them. “Dan, this is Ratchet. He’s owns and runs the store, and is postmaster here.”
“Iffen you need anything special, come to me. Can get it cheaper or better than online.” Ratchet winked and nodded and held out a beefy hand. “Welcome to the station. Them boys’ve been telling me a new one arrived.”
Dan didn’t wince when the vise of Ratchet’s handshake enveloped him. “Thanks. It’s good to be here. I’ll keep that in mind.” He snagged a basket from the stack by the door and had a look around. “You have quite a place here.”
“Boy howdy.” Ratchet muttered something that made Karl laugh, and they left Dan to explore.
Dan boggled at the volume and variety of stuff available to buy. For the moment he didn’t need neoprene hip waders or a paper-towel holder or movies on VHS. He wound up with a package of strawberry sugar wafers, a tin of toffee old enough that the design probably hailed from the ’80s, toothpaste because he’d forgotten to bring any and was tired of stealing Karl’s, and some fleece mittens. He browsed the spinning rack of worn and dog-eared paperbacks in the library but didn’t get anything. He wouldn’t be getting cozy with a book anytime soon.
“Umm.” Dan set the basket on the counter and checked his pockets.
“Not planning on getting anything?” Ratchet held up a finger, twisted round to reach into the cubbies lined under the front windows, and turned back with a thick notebook. “Happens every time. Let’s see… SC Station, Coastie Worth, today’s date,” he narrated as he wrote on a fresh sheet of lined paper.
Dan didn’t balk at having an account set up, and he didn’t ask how Ratchet already knew the others called him Worth.
“You up from the Lowers, then?”
“Yes. But I get the impression that’s almost everyone up here.”
“Even me, but don’t tell anyone. I’ve got forty good years in pretending otherwise. You seem like a good kid. If Radin likes you, probably half-decent. Don’t go getting snow crazy or the midnight slumps, yeah?” Ratchet finished totaling everything and packed it into a paper sack. “That’s gonna be thirteen even. Toffee you can just have and a T-shirt of course.”
“Of course a T-shirt,” he said without a clue. “And I’ll do my best.” Dan glanced toward Karl, but Karl had disappeared into the stacks of goods. He eyed the scanner and radio setup on top of the cubbies, and it gave him sudden insight. “Say, maybe you can help me with something.”
“Shoot.” Ratchet lovingly folded a large T-shirt with EiderUp emblazoned across a mountainous landscape and a howling wolf in the bottom corner.
“Well, it’s sticky.” Dan spread his hands. “I want to understand more about the accident—the lost Coastie that basically brought me here. Seems only right, you know? But it’s a tough thing to ask at the station.”
“Hear that.” Ratchet laid the T-shirt into the sack with reverence and then stood hipshot against the counter. “Bad all around, but we all pulled in and through. Radin there took it hard. They all did, but he’s responsible, and always a mother-hen sort, so double whammy. I know from listening that the loss was a surprise. Team searched hours. Even some of our local guys pitched in.”
Aha. Dan made an interested noise.
“Yep, the Fairweather Friend. She’s captained by a buddy of mine, and he said over drinks the next day that everyone had done their best, but it’s like the rescue swimmer just evaporated. No trace.” Deep lines carved Ratchet’s forehead and jowls as he frowned.
“Did they have to come in after witnessing the scene?”
“Nah. You know brass. They’d have questioned over the radio or gone out wet if need be to track leads down. But none to track, and the Friend was already headed into the Northy. She dropped anchor, and the boys were ashore that same night.”
“Northy?”
Ratchet’s eye gleamed with having so much good information to share. “Cove’s got a bit of a heart shape. If the heart’s the ocean, see? Your station’s in the pointy bit—the vee—and we call north from south to tell the sides.”
“Gotcha.” Dan nodded and added some satisfied sounds. “That fills in some things for me. Appreciate it.”
“I’m glad to help. Always been a friend to the Coasties—ain’t that right, Radin?”
Karl straightened from half sitting on an endcap stack of beer cartons. “Yup, sure enough.”
Dan wondered how much Karl might have heard. Maybe not much. Maybe it didn’t matter. What he’d asked wasn’t exactly sinister.
“You got bunny boots?” Ratchet asked out of nowhere.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Ratchet shook his head sadly. “Bunny boots. You’ll need ’em for winter. What’s your size?”
“Eleven.”
“I’ll get twelves. Room for layering socks.” Ratchet made a note in the book for Dan’s account.
Karl tucked Dan’s bag under an arm. “Get everything you need?”
“Including bunny boots.” Dan nodded. “Nice to meet you, Ratchet.”
“Take care out there, Worth. And Radin, I’m getting some new Grisham e-books added to the library next month.” Ratchet elongated the e so it was nasal and sharp. “Since you’ve read through the others twice, thought it was time I put in for more.”
“Sweet. I look forward to reading them through twice. Put my usual down.” Karl waggled a hand holding a few candy bars, and then opened the door for Dan to go out. “Be good, Ratchet.”
Ratchet’s rumbling laugh chased them into the parking lot.
Out of town and into heavy rain, Dan said, “He’s… quite a character.”
“That he is. And town mayor. He’s a decent sort. But he also claims he can kill a man with a fucking paper clip, so play nice.”
“Mayor—of course he is.” Dan broke the tiny plastic hanger off the mittens and put them on. “Think he can?”
“Wanna risk it? You first.”
“Point.” Dan rested into the seat and faced Karl. “And please just tell me, what are bunny boots? I’m picturing like, bunny slippers with the cute ears and googly eyes, but on galoshes.”
Karl snickered, and there was that grin again. Happy warmth burst in Dan’s chest.
“Super cold weather boots. No cute faces. Sorry. But they are made out of rubber.” Karl’s grin lazed into a low-slung smile. “If Ratchet orders you white ones, I’ll Sharpie a bunny on them. Promise.”
The smile sizzled through Dan, and he focused on Karl’s lower lip, which was soft and full and plush-looking. Inviting. He swallowed hard and faced front again.
Rain sluiced the windows, and the Jeep’s wipers barely kept pace. Dan assumed Karl kept them on the road by rote and feel, because he couldn’t see a thing.
“Just so you know, you can ask me about the incident.” Karl’s smile was gone, and he grimaced at the blinded windshield. “The accident. Losing Neal.”
“Oh, I… I—” Dan shifted and shut his trap from stuttering. “I don’t have anything to ask, but thanks.” It sounded weird to hear his brother referred to as Neal, a last name he hadn’t thought about in decades.
Karl spared a side-eyed look, and his jaw worked, but he nodded. Dan was spared blurting out he was sorry and that he had tons of questions—everything about Axe—when the Jeep heaved through a rut that jostled them into concentrating silence as Karl fought the wheel.
The rain lessened, and the road appeared. The station was just around the bend, and they drove under a shaft of sunlight.
“Fast-moving.” Dan watched the back wall of the storm curl in and trundle to the south.
Karl didn’t answer, but he drew up to the door, leaned across Dan, and popped the door. He reached into the back seat and grabbed Dan’s bag.
&nbs
p; Dan caught it at his middle in self-defense.
“Be right in,” Karl clipped, and he pulled the door closed past Dan.
Dan rubbed the bridge of his nose and decided he shouldn’t stay out there and wait. It was almost time to get ready for duty anyway, and he headed for their room. After the rough handling, his sugar wafers were toast, and the mittens made him too hot. He shoved them under his mattress with unnecessary violence.
Karl didn’t get back before he’d changed, and they didn’t meet in the hall as he walked to the mess for lunch and several gallons of coffee.
“Radin!”
Dan perked up when he heard Yaz’s voice. He had a bad angle into the lobby but could just make out Yaz by the door and Karl coming from the hall that led to Curtis’s office.
“What’s up?” Karl paused on the way to his quarters.
“You were right about Neal having a boat. It’s still tied up and locked down.”
Locked down. Dan blinked. He flashed to that not-cabin-padlock key and the nautical markings he’d ignored as a logo and unimportant.
“Know where?”
“Duh.” Yaz crossed to join Karl, pushed them toward the hall, and left his hand on Karl’s back.
Dan bristled. He strained to hear the rest, but nothing more was said. At least it gave him another lead, something else to go on. And talking with Ridge had done more than get him tech help. It loosened a building awareness that he no longer suspected or disliked Karl for anything. His feelings were moving somewhere much different.
KARL angled his desk chair to watch Dan from the corner of his eye, and Dan glanced his way as he settled back in. He didn’t react to Dan’s scrutiny and didn’t pause his typing and clicking around efficiently as though he were doing actual work instead of browsing camping-gear websites. Dan had eavesdropped on his and Yaz’s conversation, and not too long after, he showed up at their room trying to appear nonchalant. Yaz had already left by then, and Karl caught Dan’s quickly hidden annoyance.
Since then they’d kept quiet company, and Karl couldn’t miss how compatible they were already. They were a good match. They tacitly agreed about good music or preferring silence and respected each other’s space without being precious. It was similar to how well they worked together. Performing rescues and daily tasks and, apparently, breathing the same air as Dan was a natural fit.
What’s more was Karl outright liked Dan, despite his misgivings and curiosity and inconvenient attraction. They appreciated each other’s sense of humor, and Dan easily navigated his grumpy spikes of temper. He was appeasing and tolerant but was never a doormat, and Karl pushed Dan back into line and focus as needed.
He could tell that Dan liked him back, but he stupidly hoped for more and cursed himself for it. He could also tell that Dan harbored suspicions and questions. Karl wanted to help, but he didn’t know where to begin, and Dan wouldn’t open up to ask, so he watched, waited, and prayed that whatever was happening didn’t ruin the fragile, good thing they seemed to have.
Dan had a map spread on his desk and a notebook at his elbow. He relaxed as Karl stayed quiet and went back to what he was working on.
Karl watched Dan rewrite in careful block print a list from a torn-out page, complete with dark bullet points. He knew what the map was without having to get close. The coastline of the cove was unmistakable. Dan had marked a place up in the mountains past Eider and a set of arrows led from the station into the water.
He was tempted to make a joke about needing a bulletin board and red string when Dan turned and held up the map.
“I read that, back when the station was first built, our little peninsula of land here was almost double its current width. And then really hard winters, storms, and ice erosion whacked half of it into the sea.” Dan indicated a spot on the map and drew a small curving line to the north of the station.
“Yeah, that’s right.” That wasn’t what Karl expected to hear.
Dan stood and stretched his arms overhead. Karl tried not to stare at the span of sleek skin and muscle exposed where Dan’s shirt lifted and his shorts sagged, but he cataloged every detail—pale skin flushed warm, light-brown hair a tantalizing trail from his belly button to disappear under his shorts to make silent, eloquent emphasis, and strong abs that flexed as he moved.
Karl imagined holding his hands flat against those abs, and he could almost feel the coarse trail of hair under his fingers. He flushed and read the specs on a two-person all-weather tent as though he’d be quizzed on it.
“Should I be worried?” Dan peered out the high-set rectangular window between their bunks.
“Not for another year, at least.” Karl grinned at Dan’s concerned grimace. “There’s a split in the rock, and the weather finally got to it enough to pry it all the way open. It’s not quite as dramatic as winter clawing away half the ground—more like monster frost heaves forced it away. If you run along the coast or fly overhead, you can easily see the split. And see that it’s stable past that point.”
“That point being the side we’re on?”
“Yes, exactly. So you have nothing to worry about. We’re good for at least another century.”
“Well, okay, I guess. If you say so.”
“I say so.”
“You’re kinda bossy, you know that?”
Karl grinned. “Yeah, but you like bossy.” He hadn’t meant for his voice to get rough or to let his gaze drift down to the hint of skin that still showed at Dan’s waist, but he did.
Dan harrumphed, but something hot and hungry flashed in his eyes before he looked outside again.
“Oh hey—a rainbow.” Dan waved him over.
Karl merely raised an eyebrow.
“Dude, really, come look. I’m not messing with you.” Dan reached for Karl’s arm and tugged him to his feet. Then he walked him to the window, crowded up behind Karl, and pointed. “It’s about two o’clock and out a bit.”
Karl thought there’d be the scrap of one in the sky, but instead it dropped from the clouds to meet the water in a bright and brilliant half arch.
“See?” Dan turned to make sure Karl did, and Karl turned to say that he saw it.
His nose dragged across Dan’s cheek, and Dan licked his lips.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful. Thanks for showing me.” Karl meant it. He let out a long breath. “I’m gonna grab some coffee. Want some?”
He didn’t actually want any, but he needed to get out of there, and coffee provided a good reason for him to bolt.
“Sounds good.” Dan lifted his hand from Karl’s back and sat down again. He watched from under his lashes as Karl got his bearings.
Karl shivered—the spot on his back ached with chill, and he hadn’t even realized Dan was touching him—and grunted acknowledgment. He left Dan busy with the map and bullet list and went outside to walk around the station several times. He needed fresh air and some distance before he got coffee or got anywhere near Dan again.
But part of him knew it was too late. Damn kid.
Chapter Five
“HOW many times a year did you say you do this?” Dan paused from scrubbing the bubbled-up paint and rust on the long railing that connected the station house to the dock.
“As many times as it needs.” Karl didn’t pause his wire brush, and he didn’t look over.
“Right, of course.” Dan rolled his eyes at Marcum and went back to scrubbing. He actually liked fix-it work and keeping busy with his hands, but Karl’s almost wary sharpness got under his skin.
They and others from the shop were the leading edge of the day’s maintenance crew. Behind them, Trask spot-welded weak points, and Scobey and Lang followed to repaint it with thick black sludge that probably lasted twenty years in other environments.
He hadn’t had time to follow up on Axe’s boat—still whereabouts unknown—and he wasn’t comfortable with asking around. But he had spent several hours in the early morning going over charts to compare the wreckage site and the
Fairweather’s logged trip back into the cove. Dan did his best to pick up chatter about the area, learn from fish tales of past rescue ops, and fit in at the station. Otherwise he ignored the hell out of Karl, because he was thinking too much about Karl in all the wrong ways.
Dan worked to the end of the rail where it connected to the floating dock. Then he dropped his brush and groaned as he straightened.
One of their response boats on maneuvers approached the cove from open waters. Dan estimated the distance and conditions. He figured it was about the same distance from them as the Fairweather had been when it passed the wreck. The weather was nothing like it was when Axe went down, but if it had been, he wouldn’t get away with the sudden impulse he had in mind.
He slipped out of his boots and stripped down to his boxer briefs and tank top. “Watch these, will ya?” he asked Marcum, who looked at him as though he were crazy.
He was, and it could get him in a lot of trouble, but he was still gonna do it.
“Uh, Worth, what are you thinking here?”
“You know street surfing? Where skateboarders grab bumpers and go for a ride? My brother and I used to do that growing up. With boats.”
Axe might have been an even stronger swimmer than Dan, and Dan was among the best. He knew that without any ego. It was simply true and proven again and again in basic and in service. So, if he could do it, well. It could mean a lot, but he had to see if he could first.
Lang frowned at him. “How is it you’re not dead yet?”
The question hit hard, and something awful and sad snaked through him. He’d grieved Axe, but in the abstract. The years they spent apart created emotional distance, the accident and its irreconcilable loose ends distracted him, and not having a body to put to rest made it seem final. Being at Staggered Cove made it more real, and he felt closer to Axe than he had in a long time, even though he had followed his big brother’s footsteps when he decided to be a Coastie too. But the crew here disarmed his anger, so his loss rose to the surface and itched just beneath the skin. The clues he uncovered pointed to a mystery on Axe’s end, not any fubar cover-up, and it confused his loyalties.
Staggered Cove Station Page 6