Forever Her Hero. Belle Calhoune

thing to have to always think about the way he died and not be able to celebrate the way he lived his life. I still can’t wrap my head around being a widow before I’ve even turned thirty.”

      Sawyer reached out and grazed his knuckles across her cheek, his eyes full of compassion. And understanding. Sawyer knew her so well. He always had. For most of her life he’d been her soft place to fall, the one person she ran to when the bottom fell out of her world. But that had changed when she’d married Billy. Neither one of them had felt comfortable with that type of closeness once she became Mrs. Billy Trask. She’d always been well aware of the fact that Billy was jealous of her relationship with Sawyer. Having such a tight bond with him had made her feel disloyal. In the end she’d pulled away from him, breaking her own heart a little in the process.

      And now, once again, she felt traitorous. To Billy. To their children. Yet it felt so nice to be connecting with Sawyer, to enjoy his warm palm against her cheek. To feel as if there was someone who knew her better than she knew herself. It felt too good. She didn’t deserve comfort or sympathy. She’d failed Billy in the biggest way possible. As a wife, as a friend and as a mother of his children. Not even Sawyer knew the extent of her failures as a wife. He had no idea that she’d been complicit in her husband’s death. She could only imagine his disgust if he knew how she’d nagged at Billy until he’d left their home the night of his accident. If not for that, her husband would still be alive.

      She abruptly pulled away from Sawyer, immediately feeling the loss of his touch. She smoothed her hair back and looked away from his probing gaze, trying to appear calm despite the turbulent emotions she was battling. Ever since that tantalizing kiss with Sawyer she’d had to remind herself that it wasn’t wise to risk their friendship over tender kisses and comforting caresses. She couldn’t run the risk of losing him all over again. It had gutted her when he left for Africa. Although it hurt to pull away from something that nurtured her very soul, she had no choice in the matter. Because the one person who could soothe her restless soul was the very person she was determined not to fall for.

      * * *

      After two slices of delectable apple pie and two rounds of Go Fish, Sawyer stood up and announced his departure. He couldn’t help smiling when Casey and Dolly begged him to stay longer. This was what he’d missed in Africa, he realized. A sense of belonging.

      “Please, just a little bit longer,” they pleaded. With a loud groan, Ava peeled the children off him as they clung tightly to his legs.

      He leaned on the counter to keep his balance. “I’ll be back soon, guys. I promise. I have to run over to my parents’ house tomorrow and then head in to work, but the next day we can meet up, maybe at the coast guard station.”

      Ava looked at him curiously. “So, no one in the family mentioned you were back in town,” she said.

      Sawyer grimaced. “That’s because you guys are the first to know other than my team. I wanted to take care of a few things before I announced my return.”

      Ava grinned, her face lit up like sunshine. “Such as buying a lighthouse?”

      He nodded. “Yep. Like buying a lighthouse.” He moved his hand to his jaw and rubbed it. “It didn’t hit me till now, but my folks just might wonder about my sanity.”

      She stopped grinning. Her eyes wandered over his face. “No, they won’t. They’re going to be so over the moon that you’re back, they won’t care if you’re living in a shack on the beach.”

      He felt a warmth spreading through his veins as Ava’s words settled in. “Well, then, I’m off,” he said as he made his way to the back door. Casey trailed right behind him while Dolly blew him kisses. Once he was outside he heard Ava calling out to him, her voice pulling him right back toward her. He turned back, watching as she practically flew out of the house straight toward him. Once again he noticed how radiant she looked. And much more relaxed than the Ava he’d first encountered on the beach earlier today. He was thankful she’d forgiven him, or at least had decided to give him a second chance to be in her life. He felt himself smiling at the notion that something he’d done—some little word or gesture—had made her happy tonight.

      “I never said welcome back.” She walked toward him, reaching him in a few short strides. She stood on her tiptoes and leaned up toward him, placing a tender kiss on his cheek. Ava smiled at him—the first jubilant smile she’d given him since he’d seen her. With a wave of her hand, she headed back toward the house.

      The smile went straight to his heart, reminding him of all the reasons he’d left Cape Cod and found refuge on the other side of the world. He’d thought he was strong enough to come back home and face the past, but all of a sudden he was doubting himself. Now that he was standing here in her orbit, he wasn’t so sure that he could bury his feelings and man up.

      You don’t have a choice. The words buzzed in his ear. After all, this was about the children, not about him. That’s why he’d come back, wasn’t it?

      As Ava walked back into the house, he watched through the window as the twins rushed toward her to give her a hug. The sight of it caused him to let out a deep shudder. What would it be like to be part of that tight-knit family unit? he wondered. What would it be like to tuck the kids into bed at night and see them off to school in the morning? He shook the thought off, chastising himself for allowing his mind to go down that road. This was Billy’s family, not his. No matter how strongly he felt for them, for Ava, it was disloyal to Billy to even let his mind go there. When he’d kissed Ava that night, he’d been full of remorse and guilt afterward. So much self-recrimination. What kind of man would he be if he took up with his cousin’s widow?

      As if that could ever happen! She wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him if she knew the truth, he realized. Because of him, Ava’s husband and the father of her twins had drowned off Nantucket Sound. And no matter what Sawyer did to assuage the guilt, it still gnawed at him. In his career he’d saved a hundred lives or more, nearly losing his own half a dozen times in the process. A few of his rescues had been recoveries, but none of them had haunted him like Billy’s death. None of them had given him nightmares that had him crying out in the middle of the night.

      The memories of that night washed over him like a tidal wave as he walked along the beach toward his lighthouse.

      He and Billy had owned a boat leasing company. It had been Billy’s idea, and he had gone along with it, knowing that his cousin needed something to focus on since he’d been laid off from his job. Billy was supposed to be doing most of the work during the week, while Sawyer chipped in on weekends during his off time. Much to his dismay, he’d found himself doing the lion’s share of the work, and he’d resented it. They’d formed the business out of their mutual love for boats, but all the joy had vanished. He’d sunk a lot of money into Trask Boating, and it annoyed him that they hadn’t even been able to get it off the ground because of Billy’s lackadaisical attitude.

      As usual, Billy had shown up two hours late and inebriated. The smell of cheap liquor clung to his cousin like a second skin. Sawyer had confronted him, sick and tired of picking up the slack for the business they were trying to get up and running. The company was hanging on by a thread owing to his financial contribution, and he had been starting to feel that Billy was taking advantage of him.

      “You owe Ava and the twins better than this!” he’d said after chastising his cousin for drinking.

      “Don’t tell me about my family! What do you know about keeping a marriage together or raising kids? The last time I checked you’re still single. Footloose and fancy free.”

      “You’re right about that,” he’d acknowledged. “But if the good Lord ever blesses me with a wonderful wife like Ava, I’d treat her a sight better than you’re doing at the moment.”

      Right before his eyes, Billy’s face had hardened into granite. His eyes had narrowed into slits. He’d began clenching his fists. An angry vein had popped on his forehead.

      “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? A wife like Ava. Maybe Ava herself would do, right? Ava and Sawyer.