He gave her a wry look, then shook his head. “Whatever. I’d better find Caspian.” He reached for his mug and got up. “But I’ll be back, with the game, and you’ll see—your ship is sunk.”
He walked away, limping just a little, shoulders wide, whistling for his dog.
And she couldn’t agree more.
Dawson nearlyshucked off the horror of freezing to death as he sat on a bench across from Keely, analyzing his Battleship board.
Outside, the blizzard still howled, the storm reaching epic proportions, the snowfall nearly two feet on the porch.
Keely’s words earlier by the fire kept nudging him.“If youhadn’t gone out there,I wouldn’t have spottedWren.Rightplace,righttime.”
Maybe.
“4B.” He smiled at her.
“Miss.” She grinned back, all teeth.
He made a face of annoyance and put his white pin into the board. “I know there’s a destroyer out there. I’m going to find it.”
“Not before I sink your aircraft carrier.” She picked up a red pin. “C8.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Hit. Sunk.”
“That’s right, it is. You can run, but you can’t hide.” She drew up one knee. Her blond hair tumbled down from under her blue pom-pom hat, and it only seemed to draw out the blue of her eyes. She wore the same white cable-knit sweater but had changed into a pair of blue velour leisure pants, probably from the same bin of clothing he’d rescued his flannel shirt and jeans.
“Fine. 5B.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Hit.”
“Bam. Now I gotyou.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I’m still three ships up to your one, there, Monk.”
“Monk?”
“Favorite show ever. I watched the entire last season on tou—on a trip across America last year.” She suddenly stared at her board, cleared her throat.
Weird, but ... “Monk is my kind of guy. No games, all facts, all focus.”
“You do know he’s OCD. 7D.”
“Yeah, but it helps him notice things others don’t. And that’s a miss there, Captain Sparrow.”
She laughed, and oh, it poured into him like sunshine, hot and bold, and lit a long-forgotten ember inside him.
She could be dangerous. Because like Caroline, she seemed tough, despite her city-girl demeanor, and that only led to terrible assumptions that could cost lives. She wasn’t an Alaskan.
So, down, boy.
“Besides, his job helps him forget his losses. 6B.”
“Destroyer gone. Good hit. Like the loss of his wife?”
“Yes. And maybe pieces of himself too. His OCD only started when life went out of control. As a cop, he gets to be involved in someone else’s problems instead of being stuck in his own ... stuff.” And of course, that’s when Moose’s words stirred in his head.“God uses circumstances to wake us up,get at things inside.”
No, this wasn’t about him, or his stuff. He was here for her. To rescue her.
But he still didn’t know why she called him Monk.
