Somehow the man heard him over the roar of the storm. “Saving lives isn’t crazy.”
Well, no. But risking his own life like this surely was.
They reached the boat, which was larger up close than it had looked from the ship, and the man let go of the rope and reached up, where he was pulled into the boat by the men huddled inside.
Then several sets of arms reached down to haul Thomas up. Pain tore through his shoulder, blinding and lightning hot despite the cold. A cry wrenched from him, only to be swallowed by the roar of the storm and the thud of his body landing on the bottom of the boat.
“Get that ring off, then sit.” The man who’d rescued him gestured to the bench near where he stood. He’d already pulled on a woolen coat and settled a wide-brimmed hat atop his head. “You’ve some blankets there to wrap up in. It shouldn’t take long to get to town.
“Places, men.” The man’s booming voice echoed louder than the wind, then he sat and took up his oar. A moment later the boat surged forward.
It provided Thomas the first chance to look at the man without water splashing into his face.
“You’re one of the Cummings boys.” He attempted to wriggle out of the ring around his chest, then gasped at the fresh painin his shoulder. He could only imagine what Dr. Torrell would say if he’d seen the way his shoulder had been wrenched a few moments ago. “Isaac, is it?”
His rescuer laughed, bitterness edging into his voice. “Not Isaac. Definitely not Isaac.”
What was funny about his question? Surely he wasn’t the first man to mix up two brothers’ names. “Elijah then.”
“That’d be me.” He plunged his oar into the water, grim determination etched onto his jaw. The boat rose on the crest of a wave and then dropped into a trough.
Finally wriggling out of the life ring, Thomas set it in the hull by his feet and scooted closer to Elijah. “You might be able to help me.”
Elijah stopped rowing and looked at Thomas. “Do I know…? Wait, you’re Dowrick. Thomas Dowrick.”
He offered the man who’d been half boy when he’d left town a wry smile. “Five years older and a little worse for wear, but yes, I’m Thomas Dowrick, and I’m here to look for my wife and daughters. They’ve gone missing, and this is the last place I saw them.” He reached out and clutched Elijah’s sleeve with his stiff, cold fingers. “Do you know anything about where they might have gone?”
“Missing? You mean Jessalyn Dowrick?”
Just hearing her name caused a pang to resonate through his heart. “She was supposed to go back to her family when I headed west, but she never arrived in Chicago.”
“And you just now realized she was missing from Chicago?” The harsh look on his rescuer’s face told him exactly what kind of man Elijah thought would abandon his family for half a decade.
Except he hadn’t known they were abandoned. Didn’t that count for something?
Guilt welled in his chest once more. But rather than look away from Elijah’s stormy gray eyes, he held the other man’s gaze. Because he needed help. Because he’d been wrong to leave Jessalyn and his girls in the first place, and if he had any hope of restoring their relationship after he found them—ifhe found them—then he needed to admit his failures. “I just learned she never arrived in Chicago, if that’s what you mean.”
Elijah turned his gaze back to the churning sea and took up rowing, his oar plunging into the water in perfect time with the other rowers. “I don’t know what arrangements you and your wife made when you left, but she’s still in Eagle Harbor.”
Thomas sucked in a breath of sharp, crisp air. She was here? In town? “Will you take me?”
“Have to stop by the doc’s first. It’s my rule for everyone who rides in my lifeboat, but yes, after that I’ll take you.”
Thomas tilted his head up to the gray sky and pelting snow, while a warmth he couldn’t explain spread through him. His Heavenly Father had seen fit to answer his prayer before his feet had even landed on solid ground.
Thank you, God.He was finally going to see his wife…
After five years of hearing nothing from her. The cold crept back in.
He knew why she’d refused to come west with him initially, but why had she been hiding from him for five years? And what would she say when she realized he found her?
Chapter Two
Jessalyn Dowrick bent her head over the sketch of the bridal dress and rubbed her bleary eyes. Should she use four-inch lace around the sleeves, or three? And what about adding lace to the collar? The sketch she’d been sent from Chicago didn’t have any, but unless styles were changing, she?—
“Ma.” A slender hand settled itself atop the pattern. “Can we go to the doctor?”
Jessalyn drew her head up and blinked at her oldest daughter, who was tilting her head to the side and pressing a rag to her right ear.
