Jack pushed Ben’s hand away and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wore boxer shorts and a T-shirt, revealing bulging arm and thigh muscles. He smiled apologetically. “I was dreaming that she was going to make me eat oatmeal again today,” he said, his brown-eyed, bloodshot glance teasing. “I want bacon and eggs.”
“Funny man.” Sarah took a steadying breath and turned to give Ben a quick kiss. He looked stressed out. “Hi. My hero.” She put her hands on her hips and frowned good-naturedly at Jack. “You know, I’d like you better if you didn’t try to kill me when I come over to make your breakfast.”
She’d promised Jack and Ben’s parents that while they were at their winter place in Arizona, she’d prepare meals and keep an eye on Jack. She worked for Coast Care, a home health-care provider.
Neither brother had kitchen skills and the Palmers had been concerned about Jack’s nightmares. He’d been cleared of mental health issues upon discharge two weeks ago. He insisted he would be fine as soon as he put the past six years away and reclaimed his civilian life.
To ease his parents’ minds, Ben had assured them that he and Sarah would look out for his brother. To that end, he’d temporarily vacated his condo and moved into their childhood home. Sarah had been coming daily as promised. This was the second time Jack had mistaken her for an Iraqi insurgent.
“I’m fine,” Jack insisted. “Sarah doesn’t have to come anymore. I can make our breakfast.”
“Toaster waffles are not breakfast,” Sarah stated.
“Says who? They’re whole grain.”
She sighed. “You should start the day with fruit, protein and whole grain that aren’t processed into pastry.” She made a beckoning gesture. “Come on. I brought vegetarian sausage, cheese and veggies for an omelet, and grainy bread for toast.”
Jack shook his bed-head at Ben, wearing a weary grin. “She’s such a tyrant. I don’t know what you see in her, apart from beauty and brains.”
“She’s already paid off her student loans, so if I marry her, she can start on mine. I’ve got a sunny future sewed up.”
Sarah shook her head and looked from one brother to the other, then gave Ben a quick hug, loving the easy relationship between them. She’d met Ben when he’d stopped her doing fifty through town on her way to work five months ago. She’d been late and he’d been charming, even though he’d still given her a ticket! He had a degree in Business Administration, but loved police work. And she loved him because he cared about his family and his community.
“Come on, Jack,” she encouraged. “If you’re starting work today like you said, you need nutrition. I know you can’t recover overnight from all you’ve seen and been through, but a healthy breakfast would be a good start.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got an hour before Vinny.”
“Vinny?”
“Vinny Caruso, my first client of the day. He’s eighty-four, about five foot six and maybe a hundred and forty pounds. He was an insurance salesman and a musician on the side. He’s about as skilled in the kitchen as you two. But he lives across town, so let’s get moving.”
“All right, all right. I’m right behind you.”
Sarah was now very familiar with the Palmers’ large, comfortable kitchen. Twenty years ago, Gary Palmer, Ben and Jack’s father, had renovated the inside of the spacious Victorian home on the edge of town to suit his family’s purposes. The more recently updated kitchen looked out onto a wide lawn that sloped to the bay on the central Oregon coast. Four fat blue hydrangea bushes now turning green and purple in the September weather crowded a simple wooden gate at the edge of the slope. The gate served no purpose, but Gary had put it there, thinking it provided a pretty sight from the kitchen window.
The room was painted an herbal green and the cupboards and details were rustic with hinges and pulls Gary had salvaged from an old bakery. Sarah loved working in this room; it made her feel connected to past generations. As someone disconnected from her former life, she appreciated that.
Ben placed bread in the toaster while Sarah dropped the sausage into the frying pan. She pulled a bowl of fruit out of the refrigerator and spooned some into three bowls. She topped them with strawberry yogurt, then turned the sausage.
“You all right?” Ben asked, pushing the toaster lever down and moving closer to study her. He frowned at a bruise on her upper arm.
“I’m fine.”
“I warned you not to try to wake him.”
“Ben, he was screaming. I can’t hear someone cry out and not investigate. And, if you recall, when you came to my rescue, I had the upper hand.”
“Upper hand,” he repeated skeptically. “I hate to disillusion you, but the self-defense class you took at the college wouldn’t hold up against military combat training. Had he been a little deeper into that dream, you’d have been in three pieces.”
She rolled her eyes. “Next time he screams, I’ll ask what’s wrong from the doorway.”
She turned the sausage patties again and pointed to the toaster where browned bread had popped up. “I put a jar of strawberry jam in the fridge.”
“Do you have a night job tonight?” he asked, retrieving the jam.
“No. Just Vinny and Margaret. No Jasper today. He’s gone to Portland with a friend. But I do have a meeting with my boss after lunch.” They’d all been her daytime regulars for the past few months. Vinny loved her cooking, Margaret was a lady of the old school and loved Sarah because she was willing to iron her sheets, and Jasper Fletcher, a blind man in his late fifties, counted on Sarah to listen as he told her about what he’d learned from books on tape. Her goal was to make their diets nutritious, as well as to keep them active and social. “I’m done in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Good. I’m off to Eugene in the morning for a weekend cop conference. Want to have dinner tonight?”
“Sure. I’ll fix something for Jack.”
“He’s planning a Blue Bloods marathon.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stay with him? You’d probably love a Blue Bloods marathon. We can have dinner another time.”
He leaned over to kiss her gently. “We haven’t had an evening alone together in two weeks. Prime rib special at the Farmhouse tonight.”
“Okay, I’m in.”
“Seven o’clock.”
“It’s a date.”
“It is,” he said, a different note in his voice. “We have things to talk about. I’ll pick you up.”
“No, I’ll stop by to deliver something for Jack’s dinner. What do we have to talk about?”
He narrowed his gaze on her, as though looking for something in her eyes he wasn’t finding. “A lot,” he finally replied.
His tone put her on alert. So far, theirs had been just an easy, romantic friendship. Today, though, he looked very serious. She hoped he wasn’t thinking what she suspected he was thinking. He’d make a wonderful husband and father, but while she’d like to have the one, she didn’t intend to ever have the other.
* * *
JACK WALKED INTO the kitchen, doing his best to look well-adjusted despite his earlier freak-out. That was just a small indicator of his serious problem. Behaving in a normal way in the kitchen he’d grown up in since age eight, in the small-town life that had been all about fishing and building and girls, when just two weeks ago he’d carried an M4 carbine and jumped out of helicopters, was harder than it sounded. Bullets had whistled by his ear, people around him had died or suffered unspeakable injuries; he’d exchanged gunfire and felt a time or two as though he might die. And somehow he had to dial