Free Second Chance Sweethearts (Love Inspired) by Kristen Ethridge

the small craft was still there. He boosted Gloria in and ungracefully wiggled himself in, as well. The boat swayed with the movement but thankfully didn’t dump them back out.
    Gloria remained silent, and now that Rigo had seen through that window she’d opened to her heart, he understood why. He didn’t understand from personal experience, as he’d never been a parent. He didn’t really even see it in the cards for him. The only girl he’d ever truly loved was sitting across from him in a beat-up plastic boat, cruising debris-laden waters with him.
    And he was not the only man she’d ever loved. He knew that, and when she’d called him Felipe in the apartment parking lot, he had been reminded of that reality.
    He wished he could tell her where he’d been, where he’d gone after Felipe’s death...but no, this wasn’t the time or place. The truth would not set anyone free in this case. Not now, maybe not ever. And maybe struggling with that and never having the right chance to tell her would just be his cross to bear.
    “Where did the lifeguards stay?” Gloria finally spoke up as they navigated the waters near Pirate’s Point.
    Rigo shook off the apprehension in his thoughts and pointed to a two-story white house in the distance. “Here in Pirate’s Point. That’s Caleb Simpson’s parents’ house. It’s pretty new, so it’s built to the latest construction standards. I think it’s on pilings that are about twenty-one feet tall, so they should have been safe from most of the flooding.”
    As they approached what had once been Blackbeard Boulevard, Rigo caught a whiff of something in the air. Something that wasn’t raw sewage or dead fish—the two most common odors of the morning.
    “Do you smell that?”
    Gloria’s nose wrinkled. “I do. What on earth...?”
    “Vasquez!” A shout came from the tall white house. “Hey, man, up here!”
    Rigo looked up. On the deck were eight of his most seasoned beach patrol lifeguards. And a rounded black kettle-style grill.
    “We’ve got steak! Are you hungry?” Caleb brandished a pair of tongs over his head. “Woo-hooo-woo! We made it, Chief!”
    Well, I’ll be
, Rigo thought. They had made it. And they were throwing a party to celebrate survival. Suddenly, the small box of neon-colored children’s cereal he’d picked up at the hotel wore off and he was starving.
    “Glo? You hungry? Can we stop for a few minutes?”
    She looked up at the teenagers on the porch, then back at Rigo. A smile full of sunshine slowly crossed her face, lighting up her features, from her wind-tossed hair to her tawny eyes. “We’re all survivors.” She took in a deep breath and then let it out. “I don’t think we should miss this moment. I want to see my house, but I know it will still be there in half an hour.”
    They moored to the tall staircase and then angled themselves over the handrail and climbed up. The teenagers greeted them with sports drinks and bags of potato chips and pulled two more steaks out of a high-end cooler packed with ice. Rigo cracked the seal on the orange sports drink and polished off half of it in one gulp. He ate a handful of chips, then finished off the drink and looked around for a trash can.
    “Down there,” Caleb said.
    “Where?” Rigo looked below the house, but all he could see was murky water.
    “Out there, in the street. There goes a Dumpster.”
    A giant green metal trash container bobbed along in front of the house, dislodged from its proper place behind some building around the island. Who knew where it had come from, or where it would ultimately come to a stop when the water receded. Rigo cocked his arm back and threw. The plastic bottle sailed through the air and landed right inside the Dumpster’s open door on top.
    “He shoots, he scores!” Gloria clapped behind him. “Nice work, Chief Vasquez.” He remembered how she’d cheer for him at high school baseball games. What he hadn’t remembered was how good her cheers