But he wouldn’t be staying long.
Something would come to a head over the next few days.
Maybe a détente with her homicidal crime-boss aunt would be reached, and thus Blaze’s protection wouldn’t be needed anymore. He could return to his oversized glass house in Chicago and live his life there, probably rolling around in a whirlpool-sized tub filled with gold cryptocurrency or however rich people killed time.
The other possibility was that Benny, Igor, and the rest of those bratva hit men would show up and kill her, Blaze, and every other living thing on her farm.
6
IN THE GARDEN
BLAZE
The summer sun crawled up the immense blue dome of the cloudless sky above as Blaze strolled into Sarah’s tidy kitchen garden.
The two dozen growing beds in the center of the fenced area were bounded by what Blaze recognized as raw wood recovered from pallets and filled with rich, black soil, which made sense. Sarah had two excellent manure sources on her farm, not to mention the chickens. Toomuchcompost was a more likely problem.
The strawberry bushes along the back fence were indeed fruiting heavily, and Blaze set the basket on the ground and reached into the leaves, picking strawberries with both hands, when his phone rang.
The screen readVets in Crisis.
Because of course, it did.
He answered, “This is Lieutenant Commander Blaze Robinson.”
“Thank Saint Jude that you answered,” a man’s voice said. Blaze recognized the voice of Major Miguel Gutierrez, another retired officer who frequently staffed the crisis hotline. “Jackson said she managed to contact you yesterday when we were slammed. We are swamped again. Wait times are over an hour, and I don’t have to tellyouwhy that’s unacceptable. Why doesn’t the brass take the damn weekend off from the war?”
Blaze crouched and continued picking strawberries while he held his phone to the side of his face. “I can help.”
“Are youalonethis time?”
Blaze sighed and rose to stand for a minute. “Staff Sergeant Jackson has a big mouth.”
“I think it’s fine and dandy. If you’re off the market by the end of the year, I’ll win a thousand dollars from the general pool.”
“There’s a pool?” Blaze’s voice rose so high that it almost cracked.
“The only people who gamble more than military guys are professional card players. Corporal Scott Milhouse, one of your regulars, is on the line. I think he just needs stabilizing until he can get in with his therapist tomorrow.”
With a click, Blaze was talking to Milhouse, and thus, he clicked over to professional counseling mode. “This is Lieutenant Commander Robinson. How are you this morning, Scott?”
Scott Milhouse had been watching the news and reading the postings on Reddit, White, and Blue, so he was distraught and having flashbacks to Afghanistan.
Blaze ran Milhouse through a grounding exercise while he was picking dozens of strawberries off the vines next to the fence. “You’re doing fine, corporal. You’re going to be fine.”
“Where are you, sir? The static on the microphone sounds like wind.”
“I’m not at home.” Which was the truth.
“Yeah, I can tell. Other than the wind, it’s so quiet. It doesn’t sound like your car, and your house sounds altogether different. Sterile, maybe. And you’re working on something. Your voice is strained like you’re bending over.”
Radio operators didn’t just relay messages. Intel from background sounds could save lives. “I’m at a friend’s farm in Iowa. It’s rural, and it’s quiet out here.”
“It sounds quiet.”
Blaze pinched strawberries off the bush and dropped them in the basket with a satisfyingtonk.“Other than the wind rustling the corn, there’s almost nothing. The nearest airport is forty miles away. The few commercial jets that fly out of there are eighteen-seaters, and the flight paths are nowhere near here. The nearest major road is ten miles away. Usually, there’s a horse and cow around here and some chickens, so there’s some animal noise, but that’s about it. It’s even twenty miles away from the nearest town that might do fireworks.”
Which was Iowa City, and even that would be small compared to Chicago or New York.
