Iwas pretty sure breakfast at the Bradford Inn had never seen this many boots.
Maude’s kitchen—my kitchen, technically, but it would always feel like hers—was full of men built on the same blueprint and then customized by whatever war and weather had sculpted them.
Gideon anchored himself behind my chair, one palm resting on the back like he was prepared to grab it and me at the same time if the world tilted. Ethan took the far side of the table and somehow made the old chair look child-sized. Lucas sprawled like he’d been born at farmhouse tables, long legs kicked out, grin sharp and easy. Elias sat straight-backed, hands loose but ready, blue eyes taking everything in.
The table groaned under Maude’s interpretation of “a little something”: scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, sliced fruit, grits swimming in butter, cinnamon rolls that made the whole room smell like sugar and nostalgia.
“You boys eat like you mean it,” she said, setting down another plate. “I didn’t haul out the good skillet for you to nibble.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they chorused automatically, like she’d been commanding them since childhood instead of meeting most of them for the first time.
I sat between Gideon and Ethan and tried to remember how to act like a functioning human in front of people who hadn’t watched me faint on the dining room floor the night before. My body was doing that weird post-shock thing where it wanted to be both ravenous and nauseous. I compromised by focusing on the biscuit in front of me. It looked harmless.
Gideon leaned down, his breath warm against the shell of my ear. “Eat a little,” he murmured. “You’ll feel better.”
I tore the biscuit in half and took a bite, mostly because he’d asked. It tasted like butter and heaven and the way Maude loved people. My stomach made an interested noise.
“There it is,” Maude said from the stove without turning. “Knew I’d get that appetite back.”
Lucas watched me for a second, eyes crinkling. “So, this is the famous Hazel.”
I choked on crumb. Gideon’s hand slid from the back of my chair to the small of my back, steadying.
“I didn’t know I was famous,” I managed.
“You are now,” Ethan said simply. “You’re important to him.” He nodded toward Gideon like that explained everything. And somehow, it did.
Heat climbed my neck. “He didn’t exactly give me a dossier on all of you either,” I said, trying to sound light. “I just found out ten minutes ago that you exist.”
Lucas’s grin turned downright wicked. “Bet he left out all the good parts.”
“Lucas,” Gideon warned.
“What? I’m just saying—man goes dark for years, next thing we know he’s holed up on an island with a redhead in his hoodie. I have questions.”
“You have a death wish,” Gideon shot back.
Ethan chuckled into his coffee, the sound low and warm. Elias’s mouth curved just enough to count as a smile. Maude beamed like she’d been waiting her whole life for this level of chaos at her table.
“Ask your questions after you’ve had seconds,” she said. “Nobody interrogates my girl on an empty stomach.”
My girl. The words landed in my chest next to Gideon’smy girlfrom earlier and started building a little nest.
We ate. Or, more accurately, the Danes ate and I did my best to keep up. Watching them work through Maude’s spread was like watching a well-trained unit clear a room—efficient, focused, strangely graceful for men built like that. Plates emptied and refilled. Coffee disappeared and reappeared. Biscuits vanished in a blur of big hands and casual thanks.
For a few minutes, it almost felt normal. Like this was just a big family breakfast after some long-ago holiday instead of a war council.
Then Ethan set his fork down and looked at me, the kindness in his eyes sharpening. “Hazel, we need to talk about your old man,” he said. “But you start. You tell us what you want us to know. We’ll fill in the rest.”
The biscuit in my hand suddenly weighed a hundred pounds.
Gideon’s thumb traced a slow line along my spine. “Only if you’re up for it,” he said.
I took a breath and felt it all the way down. “If I wait until I’m ‘up for it,’ we’ll be dead and buried and he’ll still be out there.” My voice shook, but the words felt right. “So, okay. Sam Jarrow. My father.”
Silence rippled outward from the table like a dropped stone. Maude turned off a burner and came to lean against the counter, arms folded, ready to bear witness.
“He wasn’t in my life, not really,” I said. “Not the way fathers are supposed to be. He was in and out when I was little. Loud. Charming when he wanted to be. Mean when he didn’t.” I stared at the coffee swirling in my mug. “Then one night he wasn’t mean, he was lethal. And my mother didn’t wake up.”
