“Is it hard for you to look out at the water and not be on it?” Chloe asked.
Nick smiled. “Yes and no. It was really difficult when this all began. But having you around for company is making me much more of a land lover,” he said.
Nick was a smooth talker, but his words were genuine. The way he looked at her sent her heart to fluttering. Maybe she was as foolish as she feared.
“You don’t speak a lot about your Coast Guard work,” she pointed out.
“I’m an open book. What do you want to know?” he asked. His eyes showed her he had nothing to hide. She did, though, and that was standing between them. She wished she was brave enough to tell him the whole truth. She was too happy to risk that.
“Tell me about some of your adventures,” she said.
Their food had come and gone, but neither of them were in a hurry as they sat back and sipped on coffee, picking at their decadent desserts of powdered donuts with dipping sauces.
“I served up in Sitka for a year. It was always pretty exciting there,” he said.
“Yes, you mentioned that it’s extreme in Alaska,” she said.
“The Coast Guard established an air station in Sitka in 1977. Since then they have saved over two thousand lives in the area. It’s pretty awesome.”
“I’d say so,” she said. “Tell me about a typical day there.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say there were typical days, but I remember one night pretty clearly,” he told her. “I was just getting to work for a twenty-four-hour shift. It was about three in the afternoon. First thing we always do is get into our flight suits and check out the weather. Most pilots for the Coast Guard really want to fly in Sitka or Kodiak, but we have to gain experience first. I had a lot of flight time, but I was still a copilot for my flights there.”
“I can’t imagine you taking commands from anyone,” she said with a laugh.
“We’re a team and we work together. It’s not about who’s giving the orders,” he told her.
“Team player. I like it,” she said.
“The team and I got suited up, then went to the Operations Center for our upcoming duty brief. Everyone was in good humor.”
“I bet you all had tight bonds since you were in danger together so often,” she said.
“Yeah, you have to rely on each other for survival. It makes you form a tight-knit group,” he told her.
Chloe didn’t have that same loyalty in her job. She worked more on her own. She did get along with a lot of the medical staff, but there were some who didn’t think she was a real medical member as well. She’d bet there was some of that in the Coast Guard between the different ranks. She didn’t point that out. It was a pleasant day, and she wanted to keep the conversation upbeat.
“Go on,” she told Nick.
“Our OWS briefed us on airfield weather, the status of our choppers, and location of our command cadre.”
“OWS?”
“Sorry. Operations Watch Stander,” he said with a grin.
“I’ll try to keep up,” she told him.
“Weather wasn’t the worst I’d ever seen that night, but on the east side it was pretty volatile. We had to really keep an eye on the cloud ceiling to know if it was safe to fly.”
“Were there a lot of times you couldn’t go out?”
“Unfortunately yes, but if there was a chance of us performing a rescue, we did it without hesitation. It was tough on us when we couldn’t get out there.”
“Did you have to wear a ton of gear the entire time on duty?” She’d seen it when going to the station with him, and it didn’t look like it would be comfortable to wear all the time.
“No. We just have it at the ready. Our vests―the vest that saved my life―is equipped with a harness, so we can be pulled from the water if need be. We also have survival gear such as emergency flares and a mini scuba setup with about five minutes of air, depending on how quickly you’re breathing, in our survival gear, too. These things can make the difference between life and death if you are stuck in the water.”
“If you forget even one step, it could be death,” she said in awe.
“That’s true for any job, really. If you think about it, you could miss a step at the mall and go tumbling down and break your neck. There’s always danger around us, we just have to be aware and prepared,” he pointed out.
“True,” she said, though that hadn’t ever been anything she’d thought about before.
“After more briefings and getting our equipment ready to go, we waited around to see if we got a call.”
“That sounds boring,” she said.
“Nah. My philosophy is that only boring people get bored,” he told her with a wink. She scowled at him. “I’m just saying that we have to make the best of any situation we’re in.”
“I guess I can agree with that,” she said.
“About six that night we got a call from Juneau. There was a medevac launch requesting our services.”
“Medevac?” she questioned.
“Yeah, we did a lot of transports like that in Alaska. We didn’t always work out on the sea. Our choppers can fly in weather the hospitals can’t,” he told her.
“I guess it’s safer than flying over rolling waves,” she said.
“Not necessarily. This time it was an elderly woman who had appendicitis, and she needed to get to surgery. We agreed to pick her up.”