Lauren whimpered under her.
Nola sat up and hugged her close. “It’s okay, sweetie, your daddy’s an expert at this. He’s trained for these kinds of waters. This is exactly where he wanted the fight to be.”
“He’s a hero.”
“Absolutely.”
A hero. But also a man who had entrusted his child to her. Keeping a hand firmly locked around Lauren’s wrist, Nola jerked her up to run to the porch and retrieve Rick’s gun, because as much as she prayed that he would come out of those waters alive, she knew that life wasn’t fair and predictable. She’d made him a promise to keep his daughter safe.
Nola pulled her cell phone from her pocket and passed it to Lauren. “Call the police again and update them.”
Then she wrapped an arm around the teen’s shoulder and gripped the gun in her other hand. Waiting for the man she loved. The power of it didn’t come over her in some gentle breeze or pretty flowering. It smashed her over the head then squeezed tight, a strong emotion as big and powerful as the man who’d brought it.
In a gush upward, Rick exploded from the water, alive. Thank God, alive.
Vital.
Hers.
Emotions swirled inside her, bubbling higher and higher until tears flowed down her face and the gun shook in her hand. His angular features wet, his hair streaming and jet-black. In his fist, he held the limp body of her captor.
“Unconscious, not dead,” Rick gasped, then grinned. “God, you look hot holding that gun, all fired up and protecting my kid. Wanna get hitched?”
Choking back the tears of relief, Nola launched forward with Lauren while Rick tossed the unconscious Chavez onto the bank. Rick took the gun from her shaking hand and trained it on the bastard sprawled on the sandy shore, gathering up Nola and Lauren with his other arm.
Nola let the tears of relief flow and hugged Rick back, Lauren, too, this unexpected child who had come into her life. A stepdaughter. Wow. Mind-blowing. Exciting.
Sirens whined in the distance, but Nola barely noticed with her cheek pressed to Rick’s wet chest, his heart thudding in her ear. A heart she would listen to for the rest of her life.
Leaning against a tree by the marsh, Rick wondered at the hitch in his throat that lingered long after the cops had cleared out with Chavez in handcuffs. Lauren and Nola were inside cleaning up.
He’d already called Lindsay and told her he would send Lauren home tomorrow. His ex-wife had gone a little hysterical after hearing what happened, but her husband-to-be had taken the phone and offered an awkward thank-you. Something that meant a lot coming from the guy who would be spending so much time with Lauren over the next few years.
Rick figured he would use the time-out near the water to gather his thoughts. The water had served him well in the end, always his friend. Always home.
Except that wasn’t quite true anymore. He’d found a new home.
With Nola.
“Dad?”
He pivoted to find Lauren waiting at the bottom porch step, her long hair wet from her shower. She wore her standard sleep pants and a raggedy T-shirt… Wait. Wasn’t that…? It was. An old T-shirt of his from an air show they’d attended together.
And she still wore it.
He had two choices right now. He could stand here and feel guilty. Or he could move forward on his battered legs and fix things with his daughter.
Rick took a step, not bothering to grab for a tree to hide the limp. He just let it show, the reality of his injuries, and walked to his daughter. He also looked into her eyes with the new way of seeing that he’d learned from Nola and saw…
The same hero worship he’d found when he’d swept her up at five years old. It had been there all along.
He held open his arms.
Lauren ran into them without hesitation and sobbed against his chest. “I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m so sorry.”
“I know, kiddo, I know.”
“I didn’t mean to make things worse here, I just wanted to see you, I just…” She babbled on and on and he let her, stroking her hair the way he had when she was little and scraped her knee.