The Homecoming (34 page)

Sax took the now empty plate off the table and put it into the dishwasher. His grandmother had always insisted that newfangled appliances just made a person lazy. Deciding that was definitely a generation gap of major proportions, Sax had had one installed shortly after moving into the house.

If you’d asked him just twenty- four hours ago, Sax would’ve said that there wasn’t a man on the planet Faith Blanchard would have considered good enough for her daughter. After yesterday’s phone conversation, he was thinking that maybe Kara’s mother was mellowing toward him. Just a bit.

“Smart lady, your grandmother,” he said. He scooped up the backpack and handed it to Trey. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Trey looked toward the doorway leading to the hallway.

“She was still sleeping when I checked in on her a few minutes ago. But she’ll be fine,” Sax assured him. “I’ll see to it.”

“You promise?”

“On my word as a former Navy SEAL.”

Although it wasn’t a Semper Fi pledge, it seemed to satisfy. “Okay,” Trey said.

They were halfway to town when Trey asked, “Are you going to ask my mom out?”

“That’s the plan.” Sax slid him a sideways glance. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Nah. You’re nothing like that jerk banker.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“Are you going to kiss her? And do all that mushy stuff?”

“Yeah. I intend to. And believe it or not, when you’re older, you’ll get so you like that mushy stuff.”

“Mary Lou Long kissed me on the playground last week.” He rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth, as if he could still taste the girl’s lips. “It was gross.”

“Give it time,” Sax advised. “One of these days you may look up and decide that Mary Lou is suddenly a lot more appealing than you thought.”

“Some of the boys at school get crushes on girls.”

“Do they?” Sax desperately hoped they weren’t going to get into one of those birds-and-bees conversations.

“Yeah. But I don’t, because crushes are like the flu. They make you lovesick. Besides, girls always end up dumping boys anyway. And pretty girls, like Mary Lou, are the worst. Because they just like to collect boys. Like comic books.

“They’re also a lot of work because you have to always keep your hair combed and behave yourself around them. Barry Johnson had a crush on Madison Palmer and he even quit eating sugar so he wouldn’t be too hyper around her.”

“That’s one heck of a sacrifice.”

“Yeah. I’d rather have a chocolate-chip cookie than a stupid girlfriend.” There was a long pause as they came off the bridge and turned onto Harbor Drive leading toward the school. “Johnny Jones says girls like football players.” His voice went up a little at the end of the comment, turning it into a question.

Sax wondered if perhaps, despite the kid’s claims of not liking the opposite sex, the desire to sign up for Pop Warner this fall had anything to do with the supposedly high-maintenance Mary Lou Long.

“I guess some do. Though it’s been my experience that most girls worth having as girlfriends are the ones who like a guy for who he is.”

Trey gave him a look that came just short of rolling his eyes. “I guess when you get old you forget a lot about being in third grade.”

Sax laughed. “You know, pal, I think you may be right.”

“I could get used to this,” Faith said as she lay on her back beside John in bed and stretched with feminine satisfaction. Despite the cool-as-a-cucumber attitude she’d worked all her life to achieve, one place she’d always allowed herself to let loose was in bed.

She and Ben had experienced some spectacular sex during their marriage, but what she’d mostly found herself missing after his death was the intimacy that came in the quiet moments of afterglow. When it felt as if you were the only two people in the world.

“That’s the idea,” John said, sounding as satiated as she felt.

She turned toward him and trailed her fingers down his still-damp chest. The silver hairs sprinkled with the darker ones reminded Faith that however young she might feel while making love with this man, they didn’t have all the time in the world.

Not that they were old. To her mind, they were merely in their prime.

“Do you ever wonder,” she asked, “about roads not taken?”

He covered her hand with his larger one. “Not really.”

“There’s never anything else you wanted to do with your life? Surely, when you were a child, you didn’t imagine yourself being a deputy sheriff?”

“When I was Trey’s age, I wanted to be a cowboy. When I was in high school, I thought maybe I’d play wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. But they still haven’t called.” He shrugged. “So I decided law enforcement wasn’t such a bad backup occupation.”

“No. Though it’s dangerous.”

“Life’s dangerous. I could walk out of the house in the morning and get hit by a bolt of lightning. Or drop dead playing tennis.”

“You don’t play tennis.”

“See. There’s one risk averted.”

“I’m serious.”

He tilted his head and studied her. She recognized the look. It was a cop look. One that delved deep. “I can see that.” His still- hard chest rose and fell beneath her hand as he sighed heavily. “Would you do me a favor?”

“What kind of favor?”

“Would you put something on? Because I’m trying to pay attention, and while I may not be a hormone-driven sixteen-year-old anymore, the sight of a sexy woman’s tits are still damned distracting.”

Although his tone was as gruff as a bear just waking from hibernation, she decided to take his statement as a backhanded compliment.

She rose from the bed, glad she’d taken the time for the three-times-a-week Pilates workout that had kept her body pretty damn good for a woman of her age as she felt his gaze on her ass.

She slipped into the hotel robe. Then, not wanting to risk getting distracted, instead of getting back into the bed, she sat down in the striped upholstered wing chair by the window.

“I enjoy my work,” she began slowly, choosing her words with the same care she’d select a scalpel from a steel surgical tray.

“Makes sense. Since you’re damn good at it.” Sighing heavily, as if sensing this wasn’t going to be quick, he hitched himself up in bed, still naked as the day he came into this world.

“Would you do
me
a favor?”

“You know I would.”

“Would you pull the sheet up? Because you’re not the only one who can be distracted.”

He chuckled at that. One thing Ben and John had in common was that neither could keep a decent brood going more than a few minutes.

He did as she’d asked, but unfortunately the white sheet draped over his lower body proved even more distracting, as it outlined his masculine quadriceps.

And was that a . . . yes, it was. She didn’t need a medical degree to know what that tenting of the sheet below his waist meant.

“See something you like?” His voice was still rough, but this time wickedly so.

“You know I do.” She felt a warm, stirring response to his arousal and tried to assure herself it was only physical. Even as she knew it was much, much more than that. Which was why this conversation was necessary.

She’d been questioning her life before Ben had died. Even more afterward. But then Kara and Trey had come to live with her, and she’d settled back into a routine. A pleasant, comfortable routine that nevertheless hadn’t quite stilled the restlessness inside her.

“But this is important.”

“Okay.” He held up a hand. “Just give me a minute.” He closed his eyes. As she watched, the erection deflated. Not entirely. But it was still an admirable display of self-control.

“How did you do that?”

“Easy. I thought about baseball.”

“Baseball?”

“Yeah. I go through the entire lineup of the 1963 Chicago White Sox. Dad grew up a South Sider, so even after we moved here when I was sixteen, I kept up the tradition of being a fan. Usually by the time I get to Sammy Esposito, I’ve pretty much got things under control.”

“Maybe the government should hire you to make a sex-education PSA,” she suggested dryly.

“At least you can still make a joke. That’s maybe a good sign you’re not going to tell me that while you’ve had fun rolling around in the hay with me, it’s not going to happen again, but hey, at least we’ll always have Portland.”

“No.” She was surprised at what sounded like insecurity. “That’s not what I want to discuss at all. And despite the possibly tragic circumstances that got us into that bed,
fun
doesn’t begin to cover it.
Remarkable
might come closer. . . . But, getting back on track, I was always happy married to Ben.”

“Even a blind guy could’ve seen that.”

“I fell in love the moment I saw him.”

“Which must’ve been terrifying. Since it would’ve been totally uncharacteristically out of control for you.”

“True.” She wasn’t as surprised as she might have been just days ago at how well he knew her. “All my plans flew out the window at that moment.”

“You finished your residency,” he remembered.

“Yes. But getting married and having a child certainly weren’t in my plans. Well, maybe they were,” she amended. “But not at that time, because I’d seriously started thinking about using my training to make a difference in the world. I’d even sent in applications to both Doctors Without Borders and the Peace Corps two days before that weekend I met Ben.”

“Timing, they say, is everything.”

“Isn’t it? And I’ll never regret our years together, not just because I loved my husband to distraction, but also because I was blessed with, first, a wonderful daughter. Then my grandson.”

“Kara’s always been in a class by herself,” John said. “Just like her mother. And Trey’s one dynamite kid.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

Faith often regretted her initial reaction to Kara’s pregnancy, which had been less than enthusiastic. In fact, afraid her teenage daughter had been about to ruin her life, Faith had even gone so far as to suggest an abortion. Not only had Kara flatly refused to even consider the idea, but it had caused a serious rift between them that had begun to heal only during these past six months.

“So. Even though Ben’s death was a tragedy that left me reeling—”

“You didn’t show it.” He rubbed a stubbled chin that had felt like the finest grade of sandpaper as his clever mouth had sampled every bit of her body. “Which, I guess, was the point.”

“I’m a doctor. If I crumble, patients will lose confidence in me. Plus, after Kara and Trey came to stay, I worried that if I allowed myself to mourn outwardly, I’d have them reliving their own tragedy.”

“You should have told me. I was a wreck when I lost Glory. I would’ve understood, Faith. And given you a shoulder to cry on.”

“And haven’t you already done that?” she murmured.

“When are you leaving?” he asked, seemingly out of the blue.

She glanced around the room. “Leaving here?”

“No. Your work at the hospital. And Shelter Bay.” He waved a hand in the direction of the coast. “To head off and save the world.”

“I’m not sure the world can be saved,” she admitted. “But it’ll probably always need more help assuaging hunger and disease.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot.”

“I told you, since my twenties.”

“Well.” He rubbed the back of his neck. Looked up at the ceiling for what seemed like a lifetime but, if she’d set a stopwatch, was probably less than twenty seconds. “So, when and where are we going?”

When he’d come by the house to pack clothes for both Kara and her son yesterday, in a hurry to pick up Trey and get back to the coast house, Sax hadn’t taken time to check out her bedroom.

Today, telling himself that a few extra moments wouldn’t make any difference, he allowed himself to linger. In direct contrast to the professional law enforcement image Kara showed to the world, her room was pretty and feminine and smelled of flowers. It was the kind of room a man would feel comfortable in only if invited.

Which, Sax reminded himself, Jared had been.

Then he wondered what kind of guy he’d become that he could feel any jealousy toward a dead friend.

A pair of fat white candles and a dish of dried rose petals shared the top of the dresser with framed photos of friends and family.

There were the inevitable photos of Jared, looking like a recruiting poster in his snazzy blue Marine uniform. Another, obviously an inexpensive studio shot, like the kind you got at Walmart—of a beaming Kara holding a toddler Trey, while the proud father stood behind them in front of an obviously fake backdrop of autumn-colored trees.

Going back in time even farther was a faded Polaroid of all of them—Cole and Kelli, Jared and Kara, himself with some pretty blonde whose name he couldn’t even remember, and J.T., who, being the youngest brother, had always insisted on tagging along—laughing around a campfire on the beach.

Sax couldn’t remember who’d taken the photo. Nor could he remember the day. Because there’d been so many of them. All of which had always seemed absolutely perfect, back when they’d been impossibly young, foolishly optimistic, and the big, wide, wonderful world had been theirs for the taking. When unexpected pregnancy, heartaches, wars, even the early death of one of them would have been impossible to imagine.

“Glory days,” he murmured, trailing a finger down the front of the photo.

Then, reminding himself that he hadn’t come here to reminisce about the past, he went into her closet and found the box right where she said she’d left it: on an upper shelf next to a stack of shoe boxes.

As he carried it out to the car, something Kara had mentioned that Cait told her hovered in mind. Close enough to almost grasp. But not quite.

As he drove back toward the coast, Sax concentrated on remembering. Because over the years as a sniper spotter, then a sniper himself, he’d learned to trust his instincts. And every instinct he possessed was telling him that whatever it was he couldn’t quite grab hold of, it just might help provide the answer to Ben Blanchard’s death.