Chapter 4 Holt #2
Holt nodded, trying to absorb some of June’s confidence.
They stood together in the particular silence that had developed between them over the past weeks, the kind that wasn’t empty but full of things neither of them had yet found the right words for.
Holt was aware of her beside him in a way he’d stopped trying to qualify or contain.
He still had, no, that’s not right, Holt had never stopped having feelings for June.
Seeing her again, working beside her day after day, had made him start to face up to that fact.
Holt’s hand was close to hers on the window ledge. He didn’t move it away.
She didn’t move her hand either. Holt was so close to her that he kept getting wafts of her scent that teased his nostrils and made his pulse race.
The entire time they’d been here, and even before they’d arrived, Holt had to rein in the impulse to take her into his arms. Give her comfort while drawing some from her.
His mind skittered to the kiss they’d shared earlier, right before their phones had blown up with the news of the weather.
After that, there was no time to analyze what had happened.
No time to cement the date they’d agreed to go on.
His eyes widened, and he glanced at his wristwatch.
“I guess we’re not going to make those reservations now,” Holt tried to lighten the mood.
“And that will give your mother the leeway she needs to keep meddling in our relationship,” June said with a soft laugh, her eyes meeting his.
They locked, and the room shifted around them without changing at all.
Same noise, same light, same rain against the glass.
But something in the quality of the air between them moved in a way that had nothing to do with the storm outside.
Holt swallowed and again nearly lost control to grab her and crush her soft lips with his.
Instead, his mind flashed back to eighteen years ago to a secret he was holding close to his chest. Something he knew needed to have been said back then.
Something that had caused him endless bouts of torment and guilt.
The thought sat in his chest with the same weight it always carried, heavier tonight than usual, pressed forward by fear and proximity with their children and grandchildren in imminent danger.
Holt ran a hand through his hair, the movement breaking their eye contact.
June turned back toward the window as if staring at the weather outside would somehow change it, while Holt went over the many, many times over the past eighteen years, he’d nearly knocked on her door in Miami.
How many times had he rehearsed versions of what he wanted to say?
So many times more than Holt would admit to anyone.
In the years after the divorce, when the silence between them had hardened into something permanent.
In the years after Mina had told him June had lost her husband, Holt had picked up his phone and then put it back down because of the guilt that flooded him.
But if he was honest, it wasn’t only the guilt that had stopped Holt from making the call.
It was also because he never wanted to be the one to put the look of hurt and devastation on her face as he’d done the night Holt had walked out on their marriage.
What he needed to tell June… Holt swallowed.
He knew he would do just that. He turned and looked at June.
And tonight wasn’t the night for it. Tonight, Rad and Margo were somewhere on that water and Willa and a group of teenagers were all hopefully in a cave on an island two miles offshore.
Holt glanced back at the busy room where the Coast Guard crews were standing by, and the launch window was still thirty minutes away at the earliest. No, tonight was definitely not the night for Holt to be fighting his demons over the guilt he felt where June was concerned.
Tonight, they shared a deep-rooted fear of two parents and grandparents waiting anxiously for word of when their loved ones would be rescued.
Lieutenant Reyes’s voice cut across the room, dragging Holt from his thoughts.
“The interval pattern is holding,” Lieutenant Reyes said, her voice carrying the particular crispness of someone moving from assessment to action.
“We’re moving the launch window forward.
” Her eyes moved across the room to her crews, both of them already on their feet and waiting.
“Both crews prepare to deploy in fifteen minutes. We go by boat as soon as—”
“Lieutenant.” One of the Coast Guard officers appeared in the doorway, his expression tight.
“We’ve got a problem with the harbor approach.
The surge has pushed debris across the southern channel.
There’s a submerged obstacle, possibly two.
We can’t confirm what we’re dealing with until it’s light enough to see properly, and sending boats through an uncharted debris field in these conditions is going to put the crews at serious risk. ”
Lieutenant Reyes turned toward him fully. “How long will it take to clear it?”
“We don’t know yet,” the officer admitted. “Could be twenty minutes, could be longer. We would need to get divers in first to assess, and the current is still too strong for that.”
The energy in the room shifted immediately, the momentum that had been building for the past hour pressing up against a new wall, and Holt felt it in his chest like something physical. Beside him, he heard June draw a slow, controlled breath.
“There has to be another way,” Carmen said from across the room. She was already on her feet, her eyes moving between Lieutenant Reyes and the door. “What about the rescue helicopter? You have one on the pad outside. I saw it when we came in.”
“Our pilot is unavailable,” Lieutenant Reyes replied, and the flatness in her voice told Holt there was more to that than a scheduling conflict. “He was called out an hour ago to assist with a downed power line situation on the northern road. There was an accident. He’s been taken to the clinic.”
“He’s injured?” June asked sharply.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Reyes confirmed. “Nothing life-threatening, but he won’t be flying tonight or any time soon. My co-pilot can assist in the air but isn’t certified to fly the rescue helicopter alone. Without a qualified pilot, the helicopter stays on the pad.”
The silence that followed was the particular kind that came when a room full of capable people ran out of immediate solutions and hadn’t yet found the next one.
Then Dean spoke.
Holt had almost forgotten Dean was still in the room. He’d been standing near the far wall for the past twenty minutes, quiet and still assessing weather patterns. His eyes moved between the operations board and the window, then to the people around him in slow, methodical sweeps.
“What helicopter is it?” Dean asked, looking at Lieutenant Reyes.
Lieutenant Reyes told him.
Dean nodded once, slowly, the way a man nods when he has just been given information that confirms something he’d already half decided.
“I can fly it,” Dean said. The room turned toward him.
“I’m certified on that model,” Dean continued, his voice entirely level, as if he were discussing something considerably less significant than flying a rescue helicopter into the tail end of a coastal storm in the dark.
“I’ve logged hours on it and two similar variants.
I’m current on my medical and my license.
” He looked directly at Lieutenant Reyes.
“If your co-pilot can assist and your crew can brief me on your specific protocols, I can get that helicopter off the pad.”
Lieutenant Reyes looked at him for a long moment with the assessing expression of someone running a rapid calculation between risk and necessity. “You understand the conditions we’re talking about,” she said. It was not a question.
“I’ve been watching them all night,” Dean said.
“I know exactly what we’re talking about.
” He paused. “My daughter-in-law is on that island. My grandchildren are on that island.” His voice didn’t waver, but there was something underneath it that Holt recognized, the compressed, quiet force of a man who had already lost his son and was not prepared to negotiate with this situation.
“I’m not asking for permission here. I’m telling you I’m qualified and I’m available and I’d like to go and get them. ”
Lieutenant Reyes held his gaze for another second.
“Get him a briefing,” she said to her co-pilot. “Do a full systems rundown. You have fifteen minutes.”
Dean was already moving toward the door.
He stopped when he reached Holt and June, and he looked at both of them with the straightforward, unadorned honesty of a man who had learned the hard way that there was no point in softening the things that needed to be said directly.
“I’m going to get them,” Dean told them. “All of them. I’m going to bring Ace, Rad, Margo, Willa, and those kids home.”
June’s hand found Holt’s.
He wasn’t sure which of them moved first. It didn’t matter.
Her fingers came between his, and his hand closed around hers, warm and firm and entirely certain, as they stood side by side watching Dean cross the operations room toward the briefing area with the steady, unhurried stride of a man who’d already made his decision and was simply moving toward it.
“Dean is an incredible pilot,” June said quietly. She wasn’t looking at Holt. She was still watching Dean. “He’ll bring them home.”
“I know he will,” Holt replied.
Holt tightened his hand around hers.
Outside the Coast Guard station windows, the storm was still moving across the harbor, the rain still driving against the glass, the lights of the marina still swinging in the wind.
But the arcs were smaller than they had been an hour ago.
Measurably, undeniably smaller. The break in the southern approach that Dean had identified from the anemometer readings was still holding.
And somewhere out across two miles of dark, churning water, a limestone cave was keeping a group of teenagers and four adults warm, alive, and waiting to be rescued.
Holt looked down at June’s hand in his.
He looked at the window.
Holt kept hold of June’s hand and didn’t let go while outside, slowly, degree by degree, the storm began to move.