skilled, but she doubted that any man was a match for Mother Nature when she decided to stir the elements into a frenzy of wind and rain.
Loretta gave her a sympathetic look. “I’ve canceled the teachers’ meeting, if you’d like to go down to the docks and check on him. Perhaps by the time you get there, someone will have more news.”
Alice gave her a grateful look, went inside to grab her purse, then took off running, oblivious to the rain that soaked her dress and washed away the little makeup she wore. When she reached the dock with its useless No Trespassing sign, she skidded to a halt and stared out at the churning gray waters as far as she could see through the thick haze. If Patrick was heading for port, she couldn’t spot him.
She shivered as the temperature dropped, then wrapped her arms around herself in a useless attempt to keep warm. With the afternoon heat bumping straight into the cold air from the northwest, there would be fog soon. Getting back to port then would be an even trickier task, notwithstanding all the latest navigational equipment.
Getting colder by the minute, Alice found a blue tarp weighted down with an old anchor and dragged it free, then huddled beneath its scant protection.
That was how Molly found her hours later as darkness fell and more and more people gathered along the shore to watch for the handful of still-missing boats.
“I can’t believe you’re out here with no coat or hat,” Molly scolded. “When someone told me they’d seen you, I was sure they’d been wrong. I thought you had more sense.”
“Patrick’s not back yet,” Alice explained. “I couldn’t leave.”
Molly gave her a commiserating look. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
Alice sighed. “I suppose I do, for all the good it’s going to do me.” She shook her head. “I can’t think about that now.” She gazed at Molly worriedly. “Do you think Patrick’s okay?”
“I think he’s probably out there leading the rescue attempts for any of the other boats that are in trouble, that’s what I think,” Molly said with conviction.
“Really?” Alice asked, searching her friend’s face.
“Absolutely.”
There wasn’t so much as a hint of doubt in Molly’s voice, but Alice still wasn’t entirely comforted. “I hope you’re right,” she whispered, trying to see through the gathering darkness for any sign of an approaching boat. He had to come back, if only so she could tell him that she would be his friend and ask nothing more, if that’s the way it had to be. All that mattered was that Patrick be safe.
Patrick was cursing himself every which way as his boat rocked and rolled on the huge swells and lightning split the sky again and again. Normally he had a nose for bad weather and he could smell an oncoming storm in the air.
Today, though, his mind had been on Alice, on their dads and baseball and on the uneasy truce they’d reached the night before. He’d missed all the signs that the weather was about to change dramatically.
By the time he’d noticed the first dark clouds on the horizon, it had been too late. The storm was on top of him in minutes, with its fierce winds and pelting rain. The deck turned slippery and treacherous, and waves washed over the sides of the trawler.
“Blast it all to hell and back,” he muttered as he tried to keep his hands steady on the wheel. He’d never gotten caught like this before. In fact, he was usually among the first to get back to shore and the first to head back out when a storm died down to look for others who hadn’t been as lucky.
Today it was going to require every ounce of his concentration to keep from making a mistake that could mean certain death, either from the boat capsizing or him being washed overboard because of some misstep on the slippery deck. He thought of Alice and concluded he’d have to make damn sure nothing like that happened. He had fences to mend with the woman. He had to tell her that she was right and he was wrong. They needed to grab every second they could to be together, because life was filled with uncertainties.
Maybe their relationship would last, maybe it was doomed, but the only way to find out was to take a chance. He intended to say all that and to eat all the crow she wanted to dish up. Then he