Page 65 of A Hero Comes Home

“What?” she asked sleepily.

He was already up and pulling out clean clothing from the bureau drawers. A pair of briefs, athletic socks, sweat pants, and a T-shirt. “I have a rehab appointment at two o’clock in Hatteras. I need to get going if I’m going to make the Bell Cove ferry at eleven.” Jake had been scheduling his appointments at the same time as Gus, whenever possible, and thus hitching a ride. But Gus didn’t go on the weekends.

“Do you have to go today?” She was careful to pull the sheet up under her armpits as she sat up.

Which amused the hell out of him. Almost nine years of marriage and she thought to hide her intimate parts from him? What was it about a woman that she could engage in wild monkey sex all night long and then turn all virginal modest in the morning?

“I do,” he replied. “The every-other-day routine is important if I want to improve. It’s too easy to skip a session. Then it becomes two. And more. Come with me.”

“Huh?”

“Come with me. It’s a long drive, especially with the two ferry crossings. I could use the company. Plus, you can watch what the massage therapist does to my leg, and if I’m a really good boy, maybe you’ll follow through with me here at home.”

“A really good boy, huh?”

“Or a really bad boy.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. Well, one of them. “And if you’re a really good girl, I’ll take you out to dinner somewhere nice along the way back. I can bring a change of clothes with me.”

“And if I’m a really bad girl?”

“Even better.”

“I really should go into the bakery and help out while you’re gone.”

He refused to beg, but he did give her a look.

“Don’t smolder at me, you . . . you pirate, you!” she said with a laugh.

“Me? Smolder? With one frickin’ eye?”

“I imagine that the other one is smoldering, too. Under the eye patch.”

He shook his head at her silliness.

“Okay, I’ll come with you, but you hit the shower first. I am not hopping the plank again.”

“Blimey!” he said with a grin.

Within an hour they were on their way, taking Sally’s Toyota Avalon, instead of his truck, for comfort. He drove, though. And, actually, the traffic wasn’t too bad going north. On the other side of Beach Road, going south, it was bumper-to-bumper. Hopefully, by the time they returned, the traffic wouldn’t be so thick.

It was a balmy day and with the windows open, the scent of the salty ocean in the air, it was a pleasant drive. Reminiscent of many drives he and Sally had made along this road. So mellow was he that he sang a few lyrics from that old Wilson Pickett song “Mustang Sally.” He wasn’t much of a singer, unlike his wife, but it was a song with lyrics he used to tease her with as they drove along—or at other, more intimate times—urging, “Ride, Sally, ride!”

She rolled her eyes and said, “You should have been singing that earlier.”

“I was more inclined to ‘Lay Down Sally.’”

“You and Eric Clapton. Although . . .” She paused and grinned at him. “I did get laid.”

He was surprised that his usually modest wife could make such a bawdy remark, but he liked it. This was one of many changes he’d noticed in his new, independent partner, not all of them as much to his liking.

They got out of the car on the first of the two ferry rides so that Jake could stretch his legs. He’d brought his cane, but hoped not to need it. The limp was a given either way. She was wearing the peach sundress and had to hold her hands over the lower portion to prevent the ocean wind from billowing under and giving any spectators a Marilyn Monroe–vent-type moment.

To help her out, he positioned himself behind her with his hands on the rail, bracketing her within his arms.

“Thanks,” she said.

He kissed the top of her head and almost said, “I love you.” It would have been a spontaneous declaration, the kind of thing he wouldn’t have thought about uttering in the past.

Now, he hesitated.