“Noemi, you are not as far from my thoughts as you think.” He turned. “We were staying at the same hotel. I was on the balcony, watching the same sunset. I knew Ranger was a SEAL the moment he walked up to you. I thought maybe you two would have a little, I don’t know, vacation romance, maybe, and he’d walk away.”

“He did.”

“No. He wouldn’t have if I hadn’t panicked. I told him to stay away.”

“I know. He told me.”

He nodded then, his jaw tight. “I was wrong.”

“Yeah, you were.” She had just started to come around to forgiving her father for the derailing of her life—after all, she couldn’t hold a grudge against a dead man—when he’d decided to resurrect. She was currently trying to re-find her footing in forgiveness.

“I’m just glad you two found your way back to each other.”

She blew out a breath. “He saved my life, you know. In Nigeria.”

“I know. And you saved his back, according to him. Reminded him that God wasn’t finished with him yet. Gave him purpose.”

“No, I think you did that.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “He’s pretty amped up about this op.”

He nodded. Then, “Honey, you have to remember that he’s a SEAL, even if he’s no longer active duty.”

“I . . . I’m just . . .” She looked away from him. “Scared, I guess. I know what it feels like to lose someone you love, especially on a dangerous op.”

Out in the river, fins cut through the water—dolphins, on their way out to the ocean.

“You know,” her dad said quietly, “it wasn’t easy leaving you.”

No, she didn’t know that. Tears pricked her eyes.

“I already told you my reasons why, but it didn’t make it easier. I told myself that God would watch over you, but when you were taken by the Boko Haram, I panicked. I called Ham. And because of Fraser and Colt, he called Ranger. I had no idea he’d be circled into the op, and I know I should have backed away, trusting God. But I just, I had to know you were okay.” He scuffed a hand over his mouth. “So I came to Alaska. And then I handed Ranger that stupid phone and . . .” He sighed, turned, his blue eyes on her. “I get the struggle. You have to let him go, without strings, so he can focus on the job.”

“I don’t have the first idea how to do that.”

“You do that by realizing the relentless love that God has for Ranger. That he is perfectly and wholly in his hands, regardless of what happens.”

“Dad, that doesn’t mean he’ll survive.”