Page 66 of One Sweet Day I Found You

Seventeen

“Hold it open!” Tom called from the bottom of the staircase with a good-natured grin as Nick unlocked the door to the apartment.

Inside, Nick took the phone out of his duffel bag and set his things on the counter.

Tom rubbed his forehead. “Long day, man.” He went to his room to change and Nick made his way into the kitchen.

Rooting through the refrigerator, Nick finally produced a box of leftover stir-fry. He checked the contents and grabbed a fork.

“I’m starving.” Tom announced, reappearing from the bedroom in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. He went to the fridge and pulled out the other half of the footlong sandwich he’d had for lunch.

“I know. Me too.” Nick downed his water bottle and polished off the rest of the chicken and rice.

All in all, it had been a long eight-hour mission, but it had been far from dull.

Interestingly, Victoria’s housekeeper’s husband, Captain John Schlagel, had led the operation. A competent and agreeable man in his mid-forties, he was a long-time member of the local coast guard unit. Nick had been impressed with John’s leadership, and John had thanked Nick and Tom for a job well done.

Nick finished his late-night meal, relocated to the couch, and put his feet up on the footrest. He checked the time on his phone and yawned. Twenty-five minutes after midnight.

Despite being long, the day had gone remarkably well. A few members of the coast guard had zipped out in a motorized dinghy from the big boat to reach the group and plucked them all to safety one by one.

The coast guard team had rescued all six of the kayakers without incident, although two told of a near miss by a speedboat only fifteen minutes earlier. Those two were considerably more shaken up than the others.

Five had been suffering from mild dehydration, exhaustion, and overexposure to the sun. They’d all been treated on the boat and released when the big boat had reached the shore. Fortunately, none had been injured. In this case, surprisingly, alcohol had not been deemed to play a role.

But one of the kayakers had been more serious. The young woman, only a few years older than Nick, had apparently fainted for a few minutes, regaining consciousness when the coast guard arrived. Tom had treated her for dehydration, dizziness, nausea, disorientation, and the start of a severe sunburn. She’d also complained of a bad headache.

It turned out she’d been on medication that had resulted in an oversensitivity to the sun—what some medical circles referred to as a sun allergy. The dehydration had exacerbated her symptoms and put her system into a state of shock, resulting in the loss of consciousness.

Nick leaned against the soft backing of the couch. How in the world did people let things get that far? How did they not head back sooner? Blame the currents. Blame overconfidence. Blame the group mentality where no one wanted to speak up and tell the others to turn back? Who even knew.

He felt bad for her, but they should’ve gone out with a guide if they were planning on being so adventurous. It was unnerving to think what might’ve happened if the speedboat had made contact with those two kayaks. Thankfully, no other incidents had occurred with the other vessels.

Regardless of all the disconcerting possibilities, Nick and Tom had been impressed by the guy who’d turned out to be engaged to the sick woman.

“How about that dude today?” Tom balled up the paper sandwich wrapper and tossed it in the trash.

“The fiancé?”

“Yeah. The dude was rock solid. Gotta hand it to him. He sure saved his lady.”

“True, that,” Nick said.

Nick guessed the guy may have been the only one in the group to have any experience with kayaking. He’d probably been doing damage control for his fiancée and the rest of his dimwitted friends who’d gotten themselves into trouble. He’d been the one to call for help.

When the coast guard arrived, he’d had been holding onto her rig using only his paddle. He said he’d been that way for over an hour, from the time she’d started to become disoriented and weak, unable to paddle.

Nick knew how difficult it was to pull off something like that in choppy waters, let alone amid the wakes of larger boats. The guy had handled the situation as best he could, especially considering the ailing state of the woman he loved.

He’d stayed by her side as they’d wheeled her into the ambulance, and he’d insisted on accompanying her to the hospital. Nick had watched him hold steady from the time they pulled them both from the water until the moment she was wheeled into the ambulance.

Whatever the reason things had gotten so bad out there, Nick still admired that devotion.

Maybe it got to him because it made him think of Courtney all day and all night. Because the more he came to know Courtney, the more he wanted that kind of a relationship with her. He wanted to be there for her. She had begun to fill a place in his heart that he hadn’t even known was empty. He already knew he’d do anything for her.

And he realized that he needed to stop holding back with her. He had to beall infor this to work, just like that dude had been today. It surprised him how quickly things had progressed with Courtney, but he wanted to be there. It felt right.

Furthermore, she had given him every sign that his heart was safe in her hands. He was ready to take things to the next level with her, and she seemed to feel the same.

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