Page 133 of A Soldier's Return

“You can. Just pretend you’re a crab and I’m your dinner and you don’t want to let me go.”

Chloe giggled and gripped her arms around Sage’s neck. Sage could feel her shiver even through her jacket.

It was tough going on the way back. She couldn’t see where she was going and she felt as if she were walking through quicksand. For the first time, she was grateful for the last month of morning runs that had built up her muscles. If not for those runs, she wasn’t sure she would have had the endurance to get to shore.

A journey that had only been twenty yards on the way out now seemed like miles. They were almost to the sand when a sneaker wave came out of nowhere and slammed into the backs of her legs.

Tired and off balance with Chloe on her back, Sage swayed from the force of it and stumbled to her knees. She managed to keep her hold on Chloe but then another one washed over them and drove her face into the surf.

Spluttering and coughing, she wrenched her face free of the icy water. She had to get to her feet now, she knew, but she felt as if she were fighting the whole ocean.

At last, with a great surge of adrenaline, she staggered to her feet. Chloe was crying in earnest now.

“We’re okay. We’re okay. Only a little farther,” she managed, then she heard the most welcome sounds she had ever heard—a dearly familiar bark and Eben’s strong voice.

“Chloe! Sage!” he called. “Hang on. I’m coming.”

She sobbed out a breath of relief and made it only another few feet before he reached them and guided them all back to safety.

Chapter Fourteen

By the time he reached them, both Sage and Chloe were soaked and shivering violently. He grabbed Chloe in one arm while he drew Sage against his body with the other. Together, the three of them made their way to the shore. Only when they were above the high tide line did Eben pause to take a breath.

His heart still pounded with rapid force from that terrible moment when he saw them both go down in the water and struggle so hard against the waves to come up.

“Are you both okay?” he asked.

In his arms, Chloe nodded and sniffled. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run away. No wonder you want to send me away to boarding school.”

He closed his eyes, pained that they had come back to this. “We need to get you both warmed up. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

“There’s a trail back to the road from here. That’s probably the easiest way to get to the parking lot and my car.”

After the longest fifteen minutes of his life, they made it to Sage’s car.

“There’s a b-blanket in the b-back for Chloe,” she mumbled. “It’s probably covered in dog hair but it’s the b-best I can do.”

He found it quickly and also a fleece jacket of Sage’s, which he handed to her.

“I’ll drive,” he insisted. “You work on getting warm.”

After Chloe was settled in the back wrapped in the blanket and cuddled next to Conan’s heat, Eben climbed into the driver’s seat and turned her heater on high.

His emotions were thick, jumbled, and his heart still pounded with remembered fear as he drove toward Brambleberry House.

“I should call Anna, tell her to call off the police,” Sage said after a moment. Her trembling had mostly stopped, he saw with vast relief.

“The police were looking for me?” Chloe asked in a small voice from the back seat. “I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?”

“Everybody was worried about you,” Eben said.

Sage called Anna on her cell phone and for the next few moments their one-sided conversation was the only sound in the small vehicle.

“She’s fine. We’re all fine. Cold and wet but everybody’s okay. Yeah, I’ll be home in a minute. I’ll tell her. Thanks, Anna.”

She closed her phone and turned to the back seat. “Anna says to tell you she’s so glad you’re okay.”

“Me, too,” Chloe said sleepily. “I was so scared. The water wasn’t high when I went out to the rock but then it started coming in fast and I didn’t know what to do.”

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