Page 132 of A Soldier's Return

She grabbed his hand, heartsore for him. “Eben, we’ll find her.”

He looked slightly buoyed by her faith and squeezed her fingers, then took off through the backyard to the beach access gate.

“Maybe I ought to call the police chief and give him a heads-up, just in case your hunch is wrong,” Anna said.

“Do it,” Sage said on her way up the stairs two at a time.

For all her reassurances to Eben, she knew exactly what dangers awaited a little girl on the beach in the dark at high tide and she couldn’t bear to think of any of them.

Though it only took a few moments to reach Hug Point by car, it felt like a lifetime. The whole way, Sage gripped the steering wheel of her aging Toyota and tried to battle back her terror and her guilt.

She was as much to blame for this as Eben. If she hadn’t overreacted so strongly at his mention of boarding school for Chloe, they wouldn’t have been arguing about it and Chloe wouldn’t have overheard.

It was none of her business what school Eben sent his daughter to. She had been presumptuous to think otherwise. In her usual misguided attempt to save the world, she had ended up hurting the situation far more than she helped.

She pulled into the parking lot as a light drizzle started again. Heedless of the rain or the wind that whipped the hood of her Gore-Tex jacket, she cupped her hands and called Chloe’s name.

She strained hard to hear anything over the wind and the murmur of the sea. In the distance, somewhere beyond the headland, she thought she heard a small cry.

Though she knew well how deceiving sounds could be out here—for all she knew, it could have been a nocturnal shorebird—she decided she had to head in the direction of the sound.

In the dark, the shore was far different than it was in the daylight, though it had a harsh beauty here as well, like some wild moonscape, twisted and shaped by the elements.

She rounded the cluster of rocks, straining to see anything in the darkness.

She heard the same cry again and aimed her flashlight along the beach but it was a pitiful weapon to fight back the vast, unrelenting dark.

Suddenly on the wind, she could swear she heard Chloe’s voice. “Help. Please!”

She turned the flashlight toward the water and her heart stopped when she saw several yards away a small figure in a pink jacket on one of the rocks they had played on the other day. She was surrounded by water now and the tide was rising quickly.

Far down the beach from the direction of Brambleberry House, she saw a tiny spark of light on the beach and knew it was Eben. There wasn’t time to wait for him but she whistled hard, hoping Conan would hear and come running. Perhaps Eben would pick up on the dog’s urgency.

“I’m coming, baby,” she called as she hurried down the sand. “Stay there. Just hang on.”

When she was parallel on the shore with Chloe on her watery perch, she headed through the surf. She was prepared for the cold but it still clutched at her with icy fingers and she couldn’t contain a gasp. No matter how cold she knew the ocean could be along the Pacific Northwest coast, even in June, it still took her by surprise.

She knew hypothermia could hit out here in a matter of minutes.

Chloe’s rock was probably only twenty yards from shore but that seemed far enough as she waded through the icy water, now up to her knees. She was laboring for breath by the time she reached her. “Hi, sweetie.”

The sobbing girl threw her arms around Sage. She was wet and shivering and Sage knew she had to get her out of the water immediately.

“You came for me!” she sobbed. “I was so scared. I want my daddy.”

Sage held her close and buried her face in the girl’s hair, her heart full. She could barely breathe around the emotions racing through her.

“I know you want your daddy, honey. I know. He and Conan are coming down the beach from my house looking for you, but they’ll be here in a minute. He’ll be so happy to see you.”

“Am I in big trouble?”

“What do you think?” she asked, trying to sound stern through her vast relief.

“I snuck out again, even though I promised I wouldn’t. I went on the beach at night, even though you told me I shouldn’t. I broke a lot of rules. I bet my dad’s really mad.”

Sage kept one eye on the rising tide. A wave hit her, soaking her to her waist and she knew they had to move. “Let’s worry about that when we get out of here, okay? How about a piggyback ride?”

“Okay. My hands are really cold, though. I don’t know if I can hang on.”

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