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happened to be Cole’s birth mom—but even Amelia could only do so much.
    Tanner had been a juvenile delinquent in the making, and little had reined him in either, until at age seventeen he’d gotten a girl pregnant—which had so completely turned his ass around that he’d made Cole dizzy with how fast he’d both grown up and manned up. Or maybe the navy had done that.
    Cole was the only one who hadn’t needed reining in. He’d always been the calm one, the peacemaker. Not to say that he was completely easygoing, because he wasn’t. He knew that. He had expectations of the people he loved, and one of them was that they stay alive.
    Which had made it all the harder when tragedy had struck and they’d lost Gil. None of them had been the same since. Cole knew it. And Sam and Tanner knew it, too.
    It was the only reason he shook his head and came clean with the truth. “It wasn’t quite light yet, and I was balanced on the railing, reworking the wiring. That asshole yesterday shredded it but good. And then something sparked…” He closed his eyes, remembering. “And I blanked out a moment, and that was all she wrote. In my head, I saw flames; I jerked and lost my balance.” He opened his eyes and met Sam’s and Tanner’s gazes. “Right into the fucking water, making me a bigger idiot than yesterday’s frat boy.”
    Sam didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His grim expression said it all. “A flashback.”
    “It was only for a second. I came out of it, and I was in the water.”
    Sam blew out a sigh and shoved his hands through his hair.
    Tanner hadn’t moved.
    Cole turned away, frustrated. He had no business still being so fucked up.
    Two years. It’d been two years, and he was still mad as hell on the inside.
    Furious.
    And so effing tired of hiding it. “It wasn’t a big deal,” he said. “But after I went in, Olivia saw me and thought I was hurt, so she came in after me.”
    “Clue in,” Tanner said, finally speaking. “You are hurt.” He pushed Cole to the bench and retrieved their first-aid kit from its storage spot.
    Cole lifted his arm to touch his head, but stilled when a bolt of pain sliced through his shoulder at the movement.
    Tanner moved close. He was limping this morning. It was the cold. That always bothered his leg. They’d made enough money in the past two years chartering that they could close on the cold days, but Tanner wouldn’t allow it. Neither Cole nor Sam could say a damn word to him about it without getting his head bitten off.
    Cole was at least smart enough to say nothing when Tanner dropped to his knees in front of him with a wince of his own and prodded at the cut over Cole’s eyebrow.
    “It’s not bad,” Tanner finally said.
    “Told you—” Cole’s eyes flew open when he realized Tanner was cutting off his shirt. “What the hell—”
    “Hold still,” Sam said, and crouched in front of him as well, the two of them looking at his shoulder with twin frowns as Tanner peeled the shreds of the shirt away.
    “Can you lift your arm?” Sam asked.
    “Yeah,” Cole said. “Of course I can—”
    The words caught in his throat as he tried to do just that and got halfway before the stab of pain nailed him again. “Oh, shit,” he said, starting to sweat.
    “But you’re not hurt, right?” Tanner asked.
    “Fuck. You.”
    Tanner snorted. “No thanks. I’ve seen you naked and cold, too.” He rose and went to the freezer. A minute later he was back with an ice pack, which he tossed to Cole, smacking him in the face.
    “Hey.”
    “Oh, sorry,” Tanner said. “Was that a stupid thing to do? As stupid as, say, hoisting a woman out of the water and onto the deck platform when you’ve been told by your doctor to knock that shit off if you want to avoid surgery for the rotator cuff tear? Jesus. You and your damn hero complex.”
    This pissed Cole off because Tanner had a hero complex the size of his own big, fat head. The guy was currently playing hero to