“That’s very generous of you, Marty. I’d be happy to help, but—”
“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t think things weren’t going south faster than I like. There’s safety in numbers, y’hear?”
Cami nodded. “I surely do.”
He placed a palsied hand on the quail cage and watched it tremble. “Them coyotes been sniffin’ around here for weeks. Finally got bold enough to chase ol’ Kirk off and I figured, welp, that’s the last straw. Some things just need killing.” He sighed. “Took me a lot more shots to get the job done. Just winged the first one.” He shook his head. “I meant to kill ‘em, not make ‘em suffer…”
Cami reached out a hand and placed it over Marty’s, calming the trembling. “It’s okay to ask for help. We’ll be here when you need us.”
He smiled then, like a grimace, and nodded. “I do believe you’re telling the truth.” He removed his hand from the cage and sniffed, standing a little straighter. “Now where’s that husband of yours? Been gone for almost a week now, I reckon.”
Cami looked down. “He was on a business trip. He won a contest at work—a deep sea fishing trip. How did you—”
Marty shook his head. “That’s some bad timing. Where to?”
Cami took a breath to calm her nerves long enough to speak. “Boston.”
Marty cursed softly and looked away. “Was he on land?”
“Just leaving the dock, last time I talked to him,” Cami said, the corners of her vision starting to blur. She started to speak and then words came tumbling out, faster and faster. “Since then, I’ve only gotten one text message. I just don’t know what’s going on…I don’t…” she took a shuddering breath and exhaled. It was time to release her fears—she couldn’t do it in front of Amber and Mitch, but with Marty, she felt safe to let it out. “I don’t know if he’s alive or…or not.”
Marty was quiet for a moment, looking up at the trees, watching the sunlight filter in through the pine boughs and oak leaves. Birds returned after the shooting and chirped at each other, hopping between the trees. Finally, Marty turned to look at Cami. “Does he love you?”
“Excuse me?” Cami asked, sniffing.
“Does he love you?”
Cami nodded. “He does.” She smiled. “With all his heart.”
“And you love him?”
“Of course,” she replied, a little testy. “I don’t see—”
“Then he’ll be back,” Marty said simply.
Cami shook her head. “I don’t—how…how could you know?”
Marty looked at her, leaning on his cane, his AR draped over one bone-thin shoulder. “I was young once, did you know that?”
Cami snorted. “I think we all were. Then we grow up.”
“Some of us,” Marty said wistfully. His eyes focused on her again, as if he’d just noticed she was there. “When I was little, my pops was in the Army. World War II, you know.”
“I didn’t know,” Cami said quietly, afraid of what was coming next. Losing a father at a young age might explain why Marty had turned out so…crotchety as an old man.
“Pops was caught in a surprise German offensive. Put in a POW camp. He escaped, though,” he said quickly. “Fought behind enemy lines for two months and made it back home to my momma. The military gave us papers and witness reports and all kinds of proof of what he went through—starvation, sickness, beatings, witnessed horrible things, just horrible. But he made it. He bulled his way through all of it, Nazis, and a world war…to get home. To her.”
Cami felt the tears coming. At the moment, she knew exactly what being a mother with her husband overseas in a war—with no instant communication, no TV, no information at all—felt like. She wiped at her face and nodded, hoping he’d continue.
“Point is, love is the most powerful motivator known to man. People will do the stupidest things, the most heroic things, the most noble things…all in the name of love.” He cleared his throat. “If your man loves you like that, well…all this,” he said, gesturing at the world around them, turned upside down by the mega-tsunami. “This don’t stand a snowball’s chance of stopping him.” He winked at her. “And you can take that to the bank, missy.”
Cami stepped forward and hugged him, sobbing on his shoulder. He stiffened in surprise at her embrace and didn’t return it, but she didn’t care. She cried for Reese, she cried for Amber, she even cried for Mitchell. She just let it all out.
After a few minutes of pouring her soul into his shoulder, she wiped at her face and stepped back. “I’m sorry…” she muttered. “But thank you.”
Marty cleared his throat, then spat. “Well, that’s fine, that’s fine…just don’t think you’re making it a habit, y’hear? Last thing I need is an angry husband come walking through my door thinking I stole his wife while he was out of town!”
Cami hadn’t laughed so hard in a long, long time.
“Mom! Seriously—what is going on out here?” Amber called from their yard, sounding like an irate mother calling for a mischievous three-year-old. “You’ve been out here for like, ten minutes! Mitch and I were getting worried.”
“Not worried,” Mitch hollered. “Just for the record—ow!”
“Stop hitting him, Amber, and you two come here,” Cami said, unable to keep from smiling. When they picked their way through the tree line, Cami turned to Marty.
“You know Amber, my daughter, and this is Mitchell, her friend. A friend of the
