shook her head. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“When I see something I want, I don’t stop until I get it.”
“And what do you want?” she asked.
Gabe shrugged. “Lots of things. But a summer on the Chesapeake would be a good start.”
Annie pushed to her feet. “I should probably get back to my duties as matron of honor.”
“And I’ve got a long drive back to Pax River. It was nice talking to you again, Annie.” He leaned over and brushed a kiss across her cheek. “I’ll be seeing you.”
He walked away from her without looking back, knowing that he was risking it all by playing it cool. Gabe wandered over to the bride and groom and promised that he’d be back for another visit now that they’d be residing on the same side of the country again.
When he leaned in to kiss Lisa’s cheek, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t give up on her,” she said. “You two would be great together.”
“I’ll be seeing you next month,” Nellie said. “Try to keep yourself out of trouble until then. I’m counting on you to make me look good to my civilian bosses.”
As he walked out to his car, Gabe smiled to himself. He’d looked forward to reconnecting with a few old friends. He’d never expected to run into Annie Jennings. But he’d managed to piece together something that a simple kiss had nearly destroyed over a year ago.
“Mission accomplished,” he murmured.
IT WAS THE end of the first camping session for sixteen-and seventeen-year-old sailors, and Annie was attempting to take a group photo with every one of the sixteen students and the four counselors on the deck of one of their J-22 sailboats.
The warm wind was brisk, blowing across the bay and kicking up whitecaps with each gust. Rigging clanked against the aluminum masts, causing a cacophony of noise.
“All right, settle down,” she shouted. “Just let me get a few more, and then you can all go crazy. Joey, stand next to the mast with Alicia.”
The older teens were fun to teach, and most of them had attended camp the previous summer, and Annie knew them well. They were already accomplished sailors, so they spent their mornings and afternoons talking about sail efficiency and racing tactics and heavy weather, their instruction based on their own personal interests.
“All right, campers, you are officially done. We’ve got a big lunch for you and your parents when they get here to pick you up. The six of you who are staying for the next session are also invited to the picnic. Any of you high school seniors who are interested in being a camp counselor next summer, please see me before you leave. I’ve loved having you all and hope to see you back next—”
She felt herself being propelled forward, and a moment later she was in the water with two of the college-age counselors. How they’d managed to get off the boat and sneak up behind her she didn’t know, but it was part of the tradition at the camp on the last day of a session. Everyone took a dip off the dock.
After a few minutes of good-natured splashing, Annie swam to the ladder at the end of the dock. As she crawled up, a hand reached out to her and she took it, leaping up to put both feet on solid wood.
“Thanks,” she said. But as she looked up, she realized that her knight in shining armor was Gabe Pennington. He was dressed in his everyday uniform, khaki shirt and navy pants, his cover dangling from his fingertips. Dark sunglasses hid his eyes.
“This looks familiar,” he said. “Isn’t this where we began?”
She smiled, pulling her ponytail to the side and wringing it out. “Do you want to go in?”
“No, ma’am.”
Annie started down the dock. “I thought you Marines were good on both land and water.” Annie glanced back at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Can’t I come and visit an old friend?”
She laughed lightly. “Are we friends? I don’t recall coming to a firm decision on that point.”
“I’ve been looking for a place to live on the weekends, and there was a cottage for rent a few miles north of here. I thought I’d swing by and say hello while I was in the neighborhood.”
Annie arched an eyebrow. It was bad enough having Gabe in the same state, but if he was going to be living just a stone’s throw away, she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with that idea. “How did it look?” she asked.
“It wasn’t right for me,” he said. “Too much yard work. And I need a place that’s close to restaurants. I don’t cook for myself, so there has to be some options close by. And a place to do my laundry. And work out. And I’d hoped to get something on the water.”
“Sounds exactly like the base,” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah, it does. But I’m going to live there during the week. I just like a place to get away.”
Annie wasn’t sure where the idea had come from or what compelled her to extend the invitation, but the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “You could always stay here,” she said.
Since her parents had retired to Florida, she’d struggled with living in an empty house. Though the camp was usually filled with student sailors, Annie didn’t socialize with them in the evening, leaving that to the college-age counselors. So instead, she’d been left to her thoughts, which she figured were much more dangerous than Captain Gabe Pennington.
“Here?” he asked.
“There’s a small efficiency apartment above the old boathouse. But it’s a mess and it needs some work. If you do the work, you can live there for free.”
“I’m not really a handyman,” he said.
“You helped Erik with his boat,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but I just did what he told me to do. Why don’t you show me this place and then I’ll decide?”
The sailing school was set on a beautiful piece of property on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Her grandfather had founded the school after he had served in the Navy in World War II. Her father had taken it over a few years after her oldest brother was born. He’d offered the business to both of her brothers, but they’d made lives of their own in Seattle and Chicago and had no interest in an almost-failing business. So she was left to run the place on her own.
The boathouse sat near the water’s edge, the lower story home to the Honeymoon. The shallow, sandy bottom on the western shore made it impossible to launch the sloop without trucking it to a deeper harbor, yet another cost to add to the ever-growing list for her trip. But she was almost ready to get wet and Annie was looking forward to that moment.
The upper story of the boathouse was a single room surrounded by windows that overlooked the water that the counselors sometimes used as a
