Page 1 of Sheltered By Love

Prologue

Pre-dawn, Summer 2016. Twelve nautical miles off the coast of Blueskin Bay, Maine.

My eyes are on the Pilot Whale poking its shiny nose out of the water when Dad coughs beside me.

“Time?” he asks.

I check the Casio on my wrist. “Thirty-three minutes before sunup,” I say.

“Ayuh. Still darker than the inside of my pocket.”

I smile at the lame joke. Just like I do every morning.

The whale disappears under the inky water, off to join its pod, leaving me with no more distractions.

My watch feels like it’s burning my skin. The digits are a reminder of what little time I have.

I want to talk about bugs, about the dance on Saturday, anything but what I really need to talk about.

The rest of Dad’s crew are inside the cabin, so I have no choice.

“I’m going to try out for the Marines,” I say quietly.

He turns, slowly, as if doing so causes him pain. “That’s why you wanted the day off last week?”

I nod, a tug of guilt making my cheeks heat.

I lied to him. The first and only time I ever have.

“There was a recruitment drive in Carey’s Creek,” I say.

He blinks. Works his jaw. “When do you leave?”

“Recruit training starts in a month,” I mutter.

His forehead furrows. “And this is the first I’m hearing of it?”

I can’t look at him, so I look at the horizon. “I’ll be back,” I say.

He’s silent. But I can feel him thinking. Thinking about all the things I know he’ll never say aloud. Like he’s hurt. And he had plans for me.

“The military’s no place for you.”

My neck snaps up. “You don’t think I’ll get in?”

His eyes narrow, and he looks at me the way he looks at undersized bugs we throw back.

“You’ll get in. It’s what they’ll put in your head that bothers me.”

“This is something I have to do,” I say.

He doesn’t rebuke me the way I expected. In the grey light, he suddenly appears older than his forty-eight years.

His skin looks as weathered as the wood on the deck, and his joints creak just as loudly.

“Suppose Levi could fill in…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence and I don’t correct him.

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