Headed for Trouble

CHAPTER NINE

Arlene Schroeder had gotten pregnant when she was nineteen, and had married her college boyfriend, Ted, even though she knew it would never—could never—work out.

But he was Maggie’s father, and she’d tried, for years, to make it work.

Tried and failed.

But she’d learned a lot from the experience. First and foremost, she’d learned that one person, working alone, couldn’t possibly make a relationship succeed. It needed, she suspected, to be a joint effort, a combined endeavor.

And she’d learned that there needed to be a whole hell of a lot more than sexual attraction to make a romance last. Respect, honesty, and friendship were key ingredients to a deep, abiding love.

But here she was, standing in the apartment her brother shared with her daughter, gazing into the eyes of a man who claimed he loved her, a man she’d loved for damn near forever, too. Loved, but didn’t really respect or trust.

But as she stood there, with Maggie watching, wide-eyed, Jack got back on his knees.

“Marry me,” he begged her. “Not because I want to get you pregnant—although that’s definitely on my wanna-do list. But marry me because I love you, because I’ve always loved you. Marry me because I just can’t shake the sense that you’ve always loved me, too. If you really, truly feel that you’ve got to go back to Iraq, well, okay. I don’t agree with you. I don’t think we should’ve gone there in the first place, and I think the sooner everyone comes home, the better. But if you think otherwise, for whatever reason? I respect you, and I respect your choices. I’m going to be scared shitless until you come home, and you goddamn better email me every freaking day, but don’t not marry me, Leen, just because you’re doing something hard. If I’m wrong, and you don’t love me, not even a little? That’s why you shouldn’t marry me, but on the other hand, I’ve been here on my knees more than once tonight. Obviously pride’s not a big thing for me, so feel free to marry me out of pity. I’d be good with that.”

As Arlene gazed into Jack Lloyd’s whiskey-colored eyes, she could feel Maggie slipping back, out of the room, into the kitchen.

“Don’t go far,” she called to her daughter. “You and I have a lot more to talk about before this day is behind us.”

“I know,” Maggie called back, resignation in her voice. “I thought maybe it would be a good idea if we all had dinner. I’m starting the rice and setting the table.”

The hope radiating off of Jack was so palpable Arlene could practically smell it. Or maybe that was Maggie’s hope she was getting a whiff of.

“Get up,” Arlene told him.

He shook his head. “I’m fine down here.”

“Hey, Jack,” Maggie called from the kitchen. “Do you like ranch or Italian on your salad?”

“Jack can’t stay,” Arlene called. “He’s got an article he needs to finish writing tonight because we’re going to drive up to the North Shore to have lunch tomorrow.”

Jack’s smile was like sunshine. “So no to a lifetime, but yes to lunch.” He nodded. “Okay. I’m going to call it a victory. A small one, yes, but that’s good enough for me—for now.”

Arlene held out her hand to pull him to his feet, but once he was up, he didn’t let her go. He tugged her close enough to reach out with his other hand and push her hair back from her face, his fingers warm as he tucked her curls behind her ear.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. How about I pick you up at nine?”

Arlene had to laugh. “For lunch?”

“Gotta get there early to get a table on the deck,” Jack told her. “I’ll bring coffee for the ride. Large, but half decaf, skim milk, one sugar, right?”

She blinked at him. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

Jack shrugged. “In love with you for seventeen years.” He laughed. “That’s getting easier to say, which is a little scary, I’ve got to admit.”

And there they stood. Arlene gazed up into his eyes as his familiar smile quirked at the edges of his generous mouth. It was the uncertainty she saw there that made her heart beat harder. As much as he tried to pretend otherwise, he wasn’t as cocksure as he often seemed.

“I guess I’ve kinda gone all in,” he told her.

“Dark roast,” Arlene said, still holding his gaze, “black, three, count ’em three, Sweet’N Lows. That stuff is going to kill you, Jack.”

He laughed, but then narrowed his eyes at her. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “That you’ve been in love with me for seventeen years, too?”

She shook her head no. “Twenty,” she said and he laughed his surprise. She could tell from the sudden heat in his eyes that he was seconds away from grabbing her and kissing her, so she put her hand on his chest to keep him at a safe arm’s length. “But I’m pretty sure I was only in love with the idea of you,” she admitted. “You know, my big brother’s super-hot best friend. I guess I’m willing to take a little time to see how the real you compares.”

And with that she took her hand away.

But Jack was wary, clearly afraid to push his luck, so Arlene stood on her toes and brushed the softness of his lips with hers.

“Yesssss.”

Jack smiled down at Arlene, the laughter lines around his eyes crinkling. “Was that Maggie or me? Because it was exactly what I was thinking.”

She pushed him toward the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Nine o’clock,” he verified as he opened the door. Arlene had to laugh. “Sure. Why not?”

He went through the doorway, but stopped in the hall to look back at her. “Huh,” he said. “This is kinda weird. I’m happy, yet I appear to be awake.”

It was, without a doubt, one of the sweetest, most romantic things anyone had ever said to her. “See you tomorrow,” Arlene said past the lump in her throat.

“Don’t be too hard on Maggie,” he told her.

And with that, he was gone.

CHAPTER TEN

Robin carried Jules’s overnight bag into their house.

“We should make a point to spend more time with Maggie,” he told Jules as he followed him into the kitchen. “You know, next month, after Arlene goes back. I’ll invite her to the set. It’s good to keep busy, be distracted. Not that it really helps—although it does help pass the time.”

Jules put the pizza they’d picked up on their way home onto the kitchen counter. “It’s still really hard for you, isn’t it?” he asked. “When I’m gone.”

Robin shrugged. “It is what it is. Although I definitely prefer it when you spend four weeks in California. As opposed to a war zone. That really sucks.” He crossed to Jules’s side of the center island. “Let’s eat. Later.”

His smile was pure sex, but Jules had more to say.

“I’m away a lot.”

“Yes, you are, babe. Just make sure you keep coming home,” Robin said, taking him by the tie and tugging him toward the back staircase that led to their bedroom.

But Jules couldn’t promise this man that he’d married that he always would come home. Or that it wouldn’t be in a body bag.

“I hate the idea that I’m doing to you what Arlene is doing to Maggie,” he admitted, even as he followed Robin up the stairs. “She’s got no real choice. But I do.”

“No,” Robin said, turning to face him, right there on the stairs. “You don’t. You wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. I would never ask you to—”

“I know.” Jules kissed him. “But maybe you shouldn’t have to ask.”

Robin smiled into Jules’s eyes. “You must really love me,” he said, and the tenderness on his face took Jules’s breath away. “Because we have this exact conversation every time you get back from overseas.”

“You know I love you,” Jules said just as quietly. “And I hate the idea that something I do makes you miserable.”

“So make it up to me.” The heat in Robin’s eyes made Jules smile.

“You sure we don’t have anywhere else to go tonight?” Jules asked. “Anyone else to help rescue? Any other crisis to handle?” As if on cue, his cell phone rang.

He took it out of his pocket to silence it and then, without looking at the caller ID, holding Robin’s gaze the entire time, he tossed it into a basket of laundry that was sitting near the bottom of the stairs.

And then there they stood, halfway up the stairs, just gazing at each other.

Robin blinked first. “You better get that,” he said. “What if it’s Arlene. Or, you know, the President?”

Jules nodded. “Yeah.” With a sigh, he went down the stairs, and dug his phone out from the clean towels.

Missed Call, it read. But it was neither Arlene nor the U.S. President. “It was Yashi,” he told Robin.

Joe Hirabayashi was one of Jules’s subordinates and a good friend. If he truly needed to get in touch with Jules, he would call back. But hopefully not for a while. Still on the stairs, Robin smiled and held out his hand.

Jules took it—and raced him to the top.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Arlene sat on her old sofa in Will’s living room, with Maggie’s head on her lap.

Her daughter had cried herself dry—they both had—and she now slept, as Arlene ran her fingers through her hair.

They’d discussed quite a few difficult topics—sex being at the top of the list. But as Arlene had hoped, Maggie’s threat to get pregnant was just that: a threat. Even with Lizzie’s less than spectacular example, Maggie wasn’t even close to being ready to become sexually intimate with any of the boys she knew.

Although Arlene did find out that she had a crush on Lizzie’s older brother, Mike, who had told Liz that he thought Maggie was pretty. He was a junior in high school, and Arlene absolutely was going to send Will and Jack over to speak to the boy. And okay, yes, not so much speak to him as scare the hell out of him. She made a mental note to talk to Dolphina about him as well, to ask her to keep an eye on things and …

God, she didn’t want to go back. She wanted to be an active part of her daughter’s life.

She and Maggie had talked—for a long, long time—about that, too. About duty and honor and keeping promises.

And then they’d talked about Jack.

“How come you never told me about him?” Maggie asked.

Arlene shook her head. “There was nothing to tell. He was Will’s best friend. I was Will’s kid sister. And then I met your father …” She shrugged.

“Jack told me he cried,” Maggie told her. “When he found out you were marrying Daddy.”

“Really?” She winced even as the word came out of her mouth. She sounded like one of Maggie’s middle-school friends.

“He told me all these stories about you,” Maggie reported. “I talked to him for like two hours at Jules and Robin’s wedding. I knew he was totally in love with you even before he said it because he called you music. It was right when I first met him. He goes, You’ve got to be Arlene Schroeder’s daughter, and I go, yeah, and he goes, Your mother, she’s music. That was what Will said when he first told me about Dolphina.”

“So naturally you email him to see if he’d be interested in being my new baby-daddy.”

Maggie avoided eye contact. “I guess … I thought it was worth a try. I think it would be cool to have a brother or a sister. I could babysit, help take care of him. Or her.” She glanced at Arlene out of the corner of her eyes. “I think Jack would make a great father.”

“He’s got two sons,” Arlene told her. “Luke and Joseph. I think Luke’s ten and Joey’s seven.”

“Sweet,” Maggie said with enthusiasm. “We could be like the Brady Bunch. With the new baby, there’d be six of us.”

Arlene just looked at her.

“I’m just saying,” Maggie said—which was one of Will’s expressions. Jack’s too, come to think of it.

“What am I going to do with you?” Arlene asked as she ruffled her daughter’s unruly curls.

“Tomorrow, nothing,” Maggie said with a grin, “because you’re having lunch with Ja-ack.”

It was obvious that Maggie was ecstatic about that, and Arlene found herself thinking of Jack’s parting words. This is kinda weird. I’m happy, yet I appear to be awake.

It was definitely kinda weird, because the thought of meeting Jack tomorrow made Arlene feel happy, too.

Happy and hopeful, even though, in a month, she was going back.

Her head still on Arlene’s lap, Maggie stirred, waking just enough to look up at Arlene and murmur, “I love you, Mommy.”

Arlene’s heart clenched as she smiled down at her daughter. “I love you, too, monkey-girl.”

PART II

CHAPTER TWELVE

The day was perfect. The sun sparkled in a brilliant blue sky, and the ocean air was fresh and clean as Jack parked in the lot for the Baldwin’s Bridge hotel, which had an awesome restaurant overlooking the water.

They’d talked about his kids nearly the entire ride. Jack had focused—hard—on keeping his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road as he filled Arlene in on the latest exploits of Luke and Joey. After the breakup, the boys had moved with their mom to California, to the little town north of San Francisco where she’d grown up. Becca had done it in part in retaliation, to make it harder for Jack to see his sons; and in part to live closer to her parents, which was not a bad thing considering her still less-than-stellar mental health.

The end result, though, was that Jack saw his kids about as often as Arlene saw Maggie.

“Technically, we share custody,” Jack said, trying to keep his voice even as Arlene climbed out of the car and stretched. She was totally killing him—and had been from the moment he’d spotted her, waiting for him on the front steps of Will’s apartment building, from the moment her eyes had widened as she’d seen him in the Zipcar, even before she’d smiled.

His mouth had gone dry and his heart had pounded. And then she’d gotten into the car and sat there, so close and warm and sweet-smelling, with those long, pale, smooth, gracefully shaped legs.

She was dressed for a warm day at the seaside, in modestly cut shorts and a not-too-snugly-fitting T-shirt, half socks with pom-poms on the back and sneakers on her feet. Despite the soccer-mom look, he couldn’t stop thinking about sex. And not just everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill sex, but sex with Arlene, which, the one night he’d had it, had nearly blown off the top of his head.

“Although,” he continued in that same even voice, because dropping to his knees, weeping, and begging her to skip lunch and just check into the hotel with him was not going to achieve more than very shortsighted, non-long-term immediate gratification, “because money’s so tight, that translates to me finagling an assignment on the West Coast and then working my ass off to get the story written in half the time humanly possible, so I can spend a few days with my kids.”

“We all do what we have to do,” Arlene said simply as she gazed back at him over the top of the Zipcar—and Jack knew she was well aware that his driving it meant he no longer owned his own transportation. He, who’d always loved his car, had made the choice to give it up because the cost of garaging it in the city was exorbitant.

“I’d be lying,” he told her quietly, “if I didn’t mention, right about now, that I’ve been thinking about relocating out there.”

“California,” she said as something flickered in her eyes.

Jack nodded. “Maggie, um, suggested it. You know? Like as part of the master plan.”

Arlene laughed at that, but it wasn’t because she thought it was funny. “Oh, my God.” Tears filled her eyes. “She’s really willing to give up everything—her friends, her life—”

“Whoa, hold on there, she’s not giving up her life,” Jack said as he came around the car to pull her roughly into his arms.

She didn’t resist. In fact, she clung to him as he closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair.

“What she’s got now,” he continued, “it’s … It’s a half-life, Leenie. You made a deal, I get it, I do, and your honoring it is admirable, but the sacrifice is Maggie’s, too.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Arlene whispered, and when she lifted her head to look up at him, he knew the next words out of her mouth were going to be a request for him to take her home.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he told her, talking quickly, and putting one finger against the softness of her lips when she opened her mouth to speak. “We’re not going to talk about this anymore, okay? Not today. Today we’re going to have lunch, and we’re gonna talk about music and movies and books and even non-war-related politics if we dare, plus I’m gonna tell you how great Maggie is. And the heaviest we’ll get is maybe a little strategizing for how to deal with her crazy friend Lizzie and Lizzie’s brother Mike—who is, right now, too old for Maggie, but I gotta confess that I relate to him with every screaming cell in my body, because I once had a thing for this really amazing girl who was too young for me.”

Arlene smiled just a little at that, and he couldn’t resist. He leaned down to kiss her. Gently. As sweetly as he could manage. Still, when he pulled back to look again at her, he knew she could see his desire—he couldn’t keep it from showing in his eyes.

It was then that she surprised him.

“Who are we kidding, Jack?” she whispered. “Let’s just check into the hotel.”

Oh, yes please … Jack clenched his teeth over the reply, and instead said, in a voice that needed clearing a few times, “That’s not why I brought you here.”

She didn’t believe him, and the look she gave him made him laugh.

“It’s not,” he said as he made himself step back from her. He reached for the red-and-white-striped bag on her shoulder. It held her sweatshirt, a Red Sox baseball cap, and a bottle of sunblock—and probably, at the bottom, since it was so heavy, a book or some kind of weapon. A handgun. A Taser. A bottle of mace.

Jack had spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and he knew that most military personnel carried deadly weapons while out and about. It was a hard habit to shake—the sense of insecurity that came from not being armed.

And, sure enough, she wouldn’t surrender the bag. “I got it,” she said.

“Okay,” he agreed and took her hand instead. “Let’s go have lunch.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I was thinking,” Robin said as he sat on the edge of the bed to tie his running shoes. His military-short haircut emphasized the angles of his handsome face and somehow made his already impossibly blue eyes even more strikingly neon when he looked up.

Jules was already dressed for their morning run—a ritual he missed sorely whenever he was gone, even for just an overnight. A ritual he missed among many other “rituals.” So to speak. Although, right now he was wishing he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out of bed. It wouldn’t have taken much effort on his part to convince Robin to make their morning run an afternoon run.

“What?” Robin said as he smiled up at Jules—who realized he was standing there, just grinning at his husband like the village idiot.

“I’m just really glad to be home,” Jules simplified.

“You get any vacation time,” Robin asked, holding out his hand, “to make up for the extended trip? I mean, besides today?”

Jules laughed as, instead of his helping to pull Robin to his feet the way he’d expected, Robin pulled him down so that they were both sitting together on the bed, fingers tightly clasped. “I’m sure I’ll be able to arrange something,” he said. “You thinking western Mass? A little romantic getaway …?”

“Actually,” Robin said, “I’m thinking … family vacation. California.”

“California,” Jules repeated with a laugh.

Robin’s movie-producer sister Jane was married to Cosmo, a chief in Navy SEAL Team Sixteen, and they had a place in Coronado, as well as a house in LA. Vacations spent with them were undeniably action-packed and fun, but far from relaxing. They had a toddler, Billy, who was ridiculously adorable, but who fully embraced the concept of the Terrible Twos.

Cosmo’s mom adored Robin and always made a point to visit simultaneously. She was great, but she brought her own level of pandemonium to the noisy chaos with her need to play show tunes at astonishingly high decibel levels at least several times each day.

Family vacations were undeniably enjoyable, but they were never restful—or even remotely romantic.

“I was thinking,” Robin said again, “that we could bring Dolphina and Maggie with us. Will, too, if he can get the time off. I’m talking, of course, after Arlene goes. Back.”

It was not lost on Jules—the way he said back, with that hesitation in front of it and the expression on his face that telegraphed the fact that the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

This past month, particularly the week-plus that Jules had been in Afghanistan, had been very hard on Robin.

And Maggie, who loved her mom, would be facing similar fears and worries—for far longer than a month.

Taking the girl to California with them wouldn’t merely be a diversion. It also was, on Robin’s part, a conscious effort to grow Maggie’s support group. It would help her, immensely, to let her spend some significant time with Jane, whose Navy SEAL husband constantly went into dangerous hotspots. It would be priceless for the girl to meet the entire group of SEALs’ wives, who would share their methods for coping. Plus, Maggie would return to Boston with a whole long list of new friends to email and call—friends who knew exactly what she was going through while her mother finished up her current tour of duty.

In his head, Jules ran quickly down the list of SEAL wives who, along with Jane, lived out in California: Kelly, Meg, Teri, Savannah. Joan came and went, and would probably make a point to show if a gathering was planned. They were all intelligent, funny, compassionate, strong, determined women—great role models for a teenaged girl. Better yet, they would see a bit of themselves in Maggie and be proactive in maintaining contact by reaching out to her and making sure she knew that she wasn’t alone.

It was a brilliant idea—thoughtful and generous and kind.

And Robin was sitting there with trepidation in his eyes, at the idea of asking Jules to sacrifice his hard-earned vacation days. Forget about the fact that Robin was willing to donate some of his own rare days off, as well.

“I love you,” Jules told Robin. “Madly. Let’s plan this thing.”

Robin smiled his delight back at Jules, but then asked, “Are you sure, babe? Somehow we always seem to spend our vacations doing what I want to do.” He corrected himself. “I mean, sure, we do little things that you want, like right now, like go for a run, but—”

“Wait a minute,” Jules interrupted. “You don’t want to go for a run? I thought you wanted to go for a run.”

“No, we’re definitely going for a run because you want to go for a …” Robin’s voice trailed off. His eyebrows went up as he realized … “Whoa, really?” He laughed then added, “What part of Hey, babe, let’s stay in bed a little longer so I can rock your world did you think I wouldn’t want to hear?”

Jules laughed, too. “I don’t know. You got up. I thought—”

“I had to pee. I come back, you’re already getting dressed. I figured, okay, I’d have to wait until after lunch, at which point, by the way, I was very definitely planning to talk you into taking a nap.” As Robin spoke he kicked off his sneakers and pulled off his T-shirt and … Yup, his shorts went, too.

“Let’s run later,” Robin added as he grabbed Jules and pulled him back with him into their bed.

“You’re full of good ideas today,” Jules pointed out after Robin kissed him quite thoroughly.

And then they both stopped talking as Jules got to do exactly what he wanted to do on this, his vacation day.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lunch was lovely.

The Baldwin’s Bridge hotel had outdoor dining on their patio, and Arlene’s view of the ocean was spectacular. Especially since it included Jack Lloyd sitting across the table from her. She’d always found him to be extremely easy on the eyes.

He looked up, smiling his thanks as the waiter delivered their check, and she used the opportunity to study him as he read the bill.

His pretty brown hair moved in the warm breeze, and his eyes were more green than golden brown today, matching the faded sage color of his nicely fitted T-shirt.

He’d delivered exactly what he’d promised—conversation that was carefully minefield-free. They’d bounced from a variety of lighthearted topics—including the plan she and Maggie had made over breakfast, to throw a Friday night party at the local laser tag amusement center. The idea being for Arlene to meet Maggie’s friends in a low-stress, high-fun social situation. And since Will’s apartment was too small for a party of any size …

Jack agreed that it was a good idea and a good location, and then suggested that the party was the perfect time and place for him and Will to have a few private words with Mike-the-high-school-junior.

The conversation had moved, then, to other subjects, skimming across them with lightning speed before landing, with both feet, on her job and her life in Iraq. Arlene had backed away from that, rather emphatically, and to her surprise, Jack hadn’t pushed—not even a little.

All he said was, “I’ve been over there, on assignment. And I know it’s not the same thing, not even close, but … I’ve seen it. I know what it smells like and … If you ever want to talk, you don’t have to worry about, you know, shocking me.”

She’d nodded and pretended to study the dessert menu, but in truth she couldn’t read a word past the blur of tears that had rushed to her eyes. Tears that Jack, in turn, gallantly pretended not to see.

As Arlene now watched him, he dug into the back pocket of his pants for his wallet, from which he extracted a credit card that he slipped into the leather folder with their bill. He held it up for the young waiter to grab on his way past, again smiling his thanks at the intercept, before reaching for his mug to finish off his coffee—milk free, but with three Sweet’N Lows.

He met Arlene’s gaze then and gave her a smile that was even warmer than the ones he’d shared with the waiter. “This was great. This was … a dream come true.”

She had to laugh at that, even as she reached across the table to take his hand. He drew his breath in, as if he were surprised by the sudden contact, and he looked down at their interlaced fingers. When he glanced back up and into her eyes, she could see it again. His desire. It was warm and solid and impossible for him to hide. At least from her.

“I think the dream-come-true part happens next,” she told him, and his gaze dropped to her mouth, but only for a second. “Seriously, Jack. I just want to … I don’t know. Feel good for a little while. And then get back to Newton so I’m there when Maggie gets home from school.”

“Getting a hotel room in the afternoon on day two, after not seeing each other for more than two years is not what I’d call taking it slowly,” he pointed out.

“I’m not going to be home for very long,” she countered, holding his gaze.

Jack nodded. “I’d … rather spend the time talking. About things that matter.”

Laughing, she pulled her hand free. “God, you’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m not lying,” he said, laughing, too, but then immediately amended his declaration. “Well, okay, I’m lying because yes, yes, I want to say yes. I want to … Yes.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “But I don’t want to screw this up. I am not going to screw this up. So yes, I would rather talk to you. So how about this? We drive back to Newton, pick up Maggie from school, and then go to the airport where we catch the next flight to Vegas. We can talk all the way there—the flight’s about six hours, nonstop. We arrive, you marry me, we have a little celebration dinner, check into a hotel, getting Mags a separate room, and kiss her good night. At which point, I promise, I will make you feel very, very good.”

“That’s insane,” Arlene whispered, but she couldn’t look away. She just sat there, staring into his eyes, and she could see—she knew—that he wasn’t teasing or flirting or pretending. He was dead serious.

“I want you in my life,” he said quietly. “So, no. I disagree. It’s not insane. It’s quite possibly the most sane suggestion I’ve ever made. Ever.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know where to start.”

But she didn’t have to start, because he knew exactly what she was thinking. “You know me,” he persisted in that voice that had always flowed over her like velvet. “You’ve always known me. And I should’ve asked you to marry me, right on the very first day that I met you, because I knew, right then, right at that moment, that with you by my side, my life would be complete.”

“Except I was too young,” she pointed out tartly, “so saying that, doing that, would’ve meant, what? Three years of celibacy? Instead you opted to spend at least three of those months with Kim Bickford.”

“Holy shit.” Jack sat back in his seat. “You remember Kim? Jesus, I barely remember her last name.”

“She slept with me in my room,” Arlene told him, “when you and Will came to visit. It was pretty obvious, pretty quickly, that you weren’t dating her for her massive vocabulary. So don’t play the our-love-transcends-time-and-space card, okay? It doesn’t fly.”

“I’m only human,” Jack admitted. “I made a lot of mistakes. I won’t deny that. Hell, I still make mistakes.”

“And it doesn’t occur to you that this could be one of them?” she asked. It was her turn to lean forward. “You don’t need to marry me to sleep with me, Jack. I’m sitting right here. You don’t need to ply me with any bullshit, or even another glass of wine. I’m good to go. A sure thing.”

“It’s not bullshit,” he argued. “I was young. And stupid. God, Leenie, remember that weekend that we played that epic Monopoly game?”

Arlene did remember. It was post–Kim Bickford, and Jack and Will alone had come to visit for the weekend.

After the infamous full-family Monopoly match, she’d been unable to sleep, and she’d gone into the kitchen for a snack and found Jack sitting at the island counter, reading a battered economics textbook for a required course that was, as he’d said, “kicking the crap” out of him. They’d started talking. And talking. And were both still awake as the dawn lit the sky.

It was the first of about a dozen similar Saturday nights, before he’d started dating a girl named Shannon West. At which point he completely dropped off the map.

“I was terrified of you,” Jack confessed now. “Scared shitless by the way you made me feel. I was afraid of losing, I don’t know, my freedom, my youth, which is … God, I say it and it sounds so stupid now. But it’s true. If I could go back in time, I would’ve just kept coming over, every single weekend until … Ding! You turned eighteen.”

Arlene laughed at that. “Just because I’m a sure thing now doesn’t mean I was one back then.”

“You were in love with me, too,” he said quietly, and she was unable to deny it. “All I had to do was wait. But I got scared. And impatient—I’m not going to deny that, either. But I blew it. I know it. And I have regretted it every single day of my life. A day doesn’t pass, Arlene, that I don’t think about you.”

And there they sat. Just looking at each other.

“If we hadn’t messed it up, I wouldn’t have Maggie,” she finally whispered.

“And I wouldn’t have Luke and Joe,” Jack agreed. “So maybe everything happens for a reason—including my meeting Maggie when I did, at Robin Chadwick’s wedding.” He smiled then, just a little. “Who would’ve thought I’d be invited to a gay movie star’s wedding? But I was, because of Will, and … Here we are. Older. Wiser. But … I’m still that kid, Leen—the boy who shared secrets with you in your parents’ kitchen. And that girl who stayed up all night to talk to me is still inside of you, I know she is. Only this time around, I’m brave enough to tell you how I feel, that I want you in my life, that I love you. It’s always been you. Always.”

Oh, God. “But then what?” she asked. “If we go to Las Vegas—God, I can’t believe I actually said those words. You know, in the Army, you’re supposed to ask permission to get married. There are forms to fill out—”

“I am very good at filling out forms.”

“Jack—”

“I’m not asking you to break any rules,” he said. “Do you seriously think, with your record, that if you ask to get married, you’d be denied—”

She interrupted him. “Regardless of that, regardless of … anything. Jack, I need to go back. I have to go back.”

“I get it,” he said. “You’ll go back. I’m not asking you to not go back. I know what it means and … I’m asking you to … be with me. Be faithful and, I don’t know, email me. And I’ll email you, every day. Every hour if you want. Until eventually the Army’s done with you—it’s going to happen, and then you’ll come home.”

“And we’ll move to California,” Arlene pointed out.

Jack shook his head. “Only if you want to.”

“How am I going to say no to that, knowing if I do, you won’t see your kids?”

“I’ll see my kids. I’ll find another job,” he said, “with better pay.”

“You’ll give up writing?” she asked, aghast. “That’s not—”

“I’m not going to give up writing,” he spoke over her. “I’m a writer. I’ll always write. But if I have to—” he shrugged “—I’ll get a second job to supplement what I earn as a journalist, and I’ll be able to fly Luke and Joey out to see me—us—more often.” He reached across the table and took both of her hands. “We can make this work, I know we can.”

And as she sat there, looking into the warmth of his eyes, she could almost believe him.

“Come on,” he said, but his next words weren’t Let’s go get that hotel room. “There’s a really great ice cream shop down the street. I’ll buy you a cone. We have time for a stroll through town before Maggie gets home from school.”

“You want to get ice cream,” Arlene felt the need to clarify, as Jack held out his hand and tugged her up from the table. She grabbed her bag and slipped it over her shoulder.

“I want to go to Las Vegas and then have sex for a solid month, straight,” Jack said, “but buying you ice cream and window shopping with my arm around you sounds really good, too.”

Bemused, she let him lead her away from the entrance to the hotel lobby and out into the brilliant sunlight of the early afternoon.