Page 59 of A Hero Comes Home

“What do you see yourself doing?”

He winced. That was blunt.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Anyhow, all I’m asking at this point is whether you can investigate all this for me. Maybe hire an architect like Gabe Conti to draw up some plans. Look over my accounts and project how much additional income there might be. Whether the whole idea is economically feasible. You don’t have to be an expert to do that.”

He sensed a trap. Either way loomed a misstep. If he said, no, he wasn’t interested, she would take it personally. The repercussions would be more than “no sex.” On the other hand, if he said yes, would he be making a commitment he was unready for?

“I’ll try, Sally,” he said finally.

She actually got tears in her eyes and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you. You are a godsend.”

He wasn’t sure about that. But he took her hugs wherever he could get them.

The two of them went to gather the boys, who were looking suspiciously innocent as they sat waiting for them in the shop. Jake’s father called just then from his cell phone out on the boat to say that he and Old Mike were heading in early, having had a particularly good day fishing, including a huge yellowfin tuna, which he thought the boys might like to see them unload. Yellowfin tuna weren’t nearly as valuable as bluefin tuna, which were highly regulated and made famous by that TV show Wicked Tuna, but they were still good eating. And impressive-looking.

Sally agreed to come with them.

As they drove toward the marina in his truck—he and Sally up front and their sons in the back on a bench seat—the boys chattered on, as usual, mostly about the upcoming weekend excursion planned by PopPop and Old Mike. (Vana Gustafson had supposedly bowed out, thank God! Something about a blind date to go shagging. The dance, not that other.) Somehow this grandfather/grandsons bonding experience on the water had become a fact without either Jake or Sally having given permission.

But then Matt asked the question that had been niggling at the back of Jake’s mind for days (Can anyone say testosterone quicksand?), “Daddy, what are you and Mommy going to do when we’re gone all weekend?”

Chapter 12

The gamble: knowing when to fold them, when to walk away, or, what the hell, when to stay . . .

PopPop and Old Mike picked up the three boys at four p.m. on Friday afternoon. They’d been packed and ready to go since nine, checking and rechecking to make sure they had all the magnetic board games handed down through the generations of Dawsons that could be played in the wind and motion of a boat out on the open seas—such as, checkers, backgammon, cards—and enough live bait to feed a small nation of hapless fish. They looked adorable with the red OBX baseball caps and the mini fishing vests, which also served as flotation preservers in an emergency, that Jake had purchased for them at the town mercantile. Joe’s mutt Goofus sat on the front seat between him and Old Mike, eager to be out on the boat, too.

By the time her father-in-law’s packed pickup truck left the driveway with the kids yelling goodbyes out the back seat windows, Sally was exhausted. But not so exhausted that she didn’t notice the smoldering expression in her husband’s eye. He’d been looking at her like that a lot lately.

And, boyohboy, did he look good himself these days! With the little extra weight he’d gained, the tan he was perfecting being in the sun so much with the boys, and his genetic hotness, the man was pure temptation. Instead of detracting from the eye candy package, the patch added an extra element of edginess to his attraction.

“Do you want to go out to eat tonight?” she asked.

He shook his head and continued to stare at her as they walked toward the back porch.

“You’re not hungry?”

“Oh, I’m hungry.”

Okaaay. Feeling suddenly awkward, she found herself rambling. “Two whole days without my boys! I don’t think I’ve ever been away from them for that long. Well, there was that time I went to a bakers’ convention in Myrtle Beach, but that was just overnight. Without them to care for, even with the bakery, there will be all that extra time.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” he remarked enigmatically.

“Actually, there’s enough food in the fridge to feed an army.” Friends and neighbors throughout Bell Cove had been dropping off quick-fix meals and sides for days now. Ham and other meats, potato and macaroni salads, including Vana Gustafson’s infamous Norse potato salad with salted herring. Fresh garden tomatoes. Pies, cakes, breads. Did they forget she owned a bakery? Even a bottle of wine from Father Brad at Our Lady by the Sea Church. “You’d think it was a funeral or something. Do they think you and I are going to starve if we don’t have the kids and your dad and Old Mike to cook for?”

He shrugged, though a grin twitched at his lips.

“In fact, without the boys here, I have no idea what I’ll do with all that extra time.”

Jake chuckled. He apparently had ideas.

They were on the porch now, and Jake leaned against one of the thick tapered square columns that supported the roof.

She leaned against the column on the other side of the steps, folding her arms over her chest, just in case a certain part of her anatomy revealed something embarrassing.

He folded his arms over his chest, too, but in his case, it was more a lazy attitude of cat versus mouse.