Page 46 of A Hero Comes Home

Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was almost one o’clock. He should get going if he wanted to be on time for his lunch appointment with Laura. When he came out of the church, though, he saw that his “stalkers” had caught up with him. The truck which now somehow sprouted a satellite dish and the sedan were blocking the side street. Knowing Bell Cove, Sheriff Henderson would be here soon with his ticket pad in hand.

One guy with a bald head and a salt-and-pepper beard, wearing a golf shirt and dark slacks, motioned to a camera guy behind him and stepped in front of the ramp. “Carl Brandt from CNN. Welcome home, Captain Dawson. Can you tell us how you survived for three years in Balakistan? Did you have help from the Qadir tribal leaders? Do you resent the fact that they didn’t send you home sooner?”

Jake schooled his face not to show any reaction to that incendiary question.

A thirtysomething woman, who looked harried and not too happy to have been sent to the Outer Banks, probably because she’d been sitting around for days, twiddling her thumbs as she tried to get an interview with him, said, “Celeste Novak, Time Magazine. We’d like to do a cover story on you and your family, tentatively titled ‘Hero Comes Home.’ I’m sure you’re familiar with the importance of our magazine and its international circulation.”

She said that as if he should be honored.

He ignored both of them and continued down the ramp, about to go around them, not an easy task when he had to rely on his cane to keep his balance.

“Hey,” the CNN guy inquired, pushing a microphone in front of his face. “What are you hiding?”

“Yeah,” Ms. Important Magazine Reporter added. “Why are you blocking all our calls? We’re not out to do a hatchet job. We just want to know about your experience.”

“Why are you wearing an eye patch? And that leg looks gnarly.” Back to CNN guy. “How did you get those injuries, Captain? And how about the two soldiers who traveled with you to Afghanistan? How did they die?”

Jake gritted his teeth and refused to say a word. He was out on the street now, as a means of getting around the newshounds, and they were beginning to draw a crowd. Luckily, Sheriff Henderson showed up then, as expected, and, yes, he was carrying his yellow ticket tablet when he exited his police car.

“Are these folks bothering you, Jake?” the sheriff asked.

“Nah. I’m all right,” he said.

“But we can’t have people parking willy-nilly on our streets, creating a traffic hazard. Didn’t you people see that sign? Maybe you folks speak a different language up there in New York City.” The expression on his face when he made reference to the Big Apple made it sound like another world, a distasteful one. He glanced at Jake and, with a straight face though he was clearly joking, an inside joke, remarked, “City slickers!”

“We were only here for a few minutes,” CNN guy protested. His cameraman was already packing up his gear.

But Henderson was not to be deterred. He was writing down the license numbers of both vehicles. “Let’s see your licenses and registrations, please. And be quick about it. There are cars behind you that can’t get through. The fools are backing up, probably more city slickers, and those idiots could very well cause an accident, which would be your fault. Then I’d have to arrest you.” The doleful expression on his face at that prospect wasn’t fooling anyone. “Of course, we don’t have a jail here in Bell Cove. So I’d have to lock you in the basement of The Honey Hole, Delbert Brown’s fish shop, until the magistrate hits town on Monday. Hope you like the smell of mackerel.”

The woman muttered something about small-town crooks posing as crime stoppers.

“What did you say?” Henderson asked.

Jake mouthed “Thank you” to Henderson as he passed by and made his way to the Cracked Crab. Hopefully, the word would spread among the news media about how these two were treated by an overzealous local sheriff, and the rest of the horde would be more cautious in crossing the line.

Along the way around the square, Jake was stopped repeatedly by folks he’d known his entire life, but hadn’t seen for more than three years. They all wanted to shake his hand and thank him for his service, but then added a few words. Some offered sympathy on his mother’s death. Others expressed a wish that he would be sticking around for good. Still others gave him news on sons or daughters or nephews or nieces that he knew from high school or earlier—marriages, births, divorces, new jobs.

He would have liked to stop in Sally’s bakery, which was only a few doors down from the restaurant, but he was already ten minutes late because of his stop-and-go walk. When he went inside the Cracked Crab, Laura was already seated at a far table. She stood and waved for him to come in, bypassing the hostess. Once again, along the way, his progress was stopped repeatedly by people greeting him warmly. Not one of them asked an uncomfortable question. Yet.

He shook hands with Laura, who wasn’t satisfied with that. She took his face in hand and gave a quick kiss to one cheek, then the other. Then, leaning back slightly, her hands on his upper arms, she perused. “Hey, big guy! Looks like you been through the wars.”

“You could say that,” he replied and dropped down into the chair, with his back facing the room. Laura sat down, too, opposite him.

She, on the other hand, looked good. A platinum blonde with masses of wavy curls, a petite body shown off in a white sleeveless blouse over tight black calf-length pants, and white sandals. In fact, she looked lots better than she had back in high school when she’d been shy . . . a bit pudgy and plagued with the usual teenage acne. He couldn’t wait to tell Izzie about the transformation. Izzie must have seen beyond the physical appearances back then because he sure as hell had been crazy about her. Somehow, somewhere, post–high school, the love connection had been broken. Maybe just a case of absence not making the heart grow fonder when they’d been separated by the distance of different colleges.

He noticed right off that there was a recording device sitting on the small table.

“Do you mind?”

He thought a moment, then said, “As long as you turn it off, if I ask you to.” Frankly, he didn’t intend to divulge anything that might be newsworthy, or objectionable to the higher-ups at the DOD.

After they placed their orders—the restaurant featured a mix of Italian and seafood cuisine—and exchanged a few pleasantries, Laura clicked on the device.

“Captain Dawson, welcome home and thank you for your service.”

He nodded.

“Where’ve you been the last three years?”