CHAPTER 2
THE MAST STILL LOOKS INTACT.”
Orion Starr stood on the shore, his knee in a brace, watching as Jake towed the Hobie cat onto the sandy shoreline next to his family’s dock. Orion leaned on a pair of crutches, his face still sunburned in a reverse raccoon look, the white around his eyes evidence of the summer sun on top of Denali. He’d gotten a haircut, leaving his brown hair shorter on the sides and longer on top. Jake had a swift memory of the way Orion had lain shattered at the bottom of a crevasse, his knee at a brutal angle. To see him up and walking . . . maybe Jake had done something good when he’d helped rescue him.
Even if he’d like to forget the rest.
“The Hobie is pretty tough. It’s taken more than one cartwheel across the lake.” Jake climbed aboard the cat to take down the sails. “I’ve had it since I was a kid. When did you get to Minneapolis?”
After their adventure in Alaska, Orion had stayed behind to pack his gear for his big move to Minnesota to join Hamilton Jones’s private global search and rescue team.
It didn’t hurt that his girlfriend, Jenny Calhoun, lived nearby. And according to Ham, she was going to join the team as their team profiler and climbing pro. Which meant Jake would get a constant reminder of the Girl Who Got Away.
Aka Aria Sinclair, Jenny’s roommate.
He clamped his mouth shut, refusing to ask about the pediatric surgeon who lived just across town.
Aria hadn’t so much as texted him.
Then again, the running away from him should have been a dead giveaway that they were o-ver. Before they’d even begun.
Probably for the best. She didn’t need a guy with his demons.
The foamy residue of the storm lapped around his ankles as he unhooked the lines and tied up the jib sail. If he took the kids out on the lake today, he’d take the ski boat.
“We got in last night,” Orion said. “Ham texted this morning and invited us to your shindig.”
Of course he did. Although Ham could have held the party at his place, just down the shoreline, his lawn twice the size of the Silver family home. Jake had a feeling Ham’s presence at the Silvers’ party had more to do with Aggie and his panic over his sudden fatherhood.
Not that Ham panicked easily, or even betrayed his emotions at all. But Jake knew the story behind Signe, Aggie’s mom, and the fact that after all this time Ham found himself with a daughter had hit even Jake in the chest like a fist. No wonder Ham was reeling.
“How’s Aggie?” Jake unhooked the mainsail, drawing it down.
“Rattled, but she’ll be okay. Ham took her into urgent care. She was checked out and released. I think they gave her antibiotics in case she ingested water. She’s inside watching television, eating your mom’s chocolate chip cookies.”
“The sure cure for trauma.”
“Ham grabbed a few for himself too. He’s up at the grill talking with your dad. And North is making moves on one of your sisters, I think. Blonde, pretty—”
“Take your pick, buddy. That’s pretty much all of them.”
“That’s rough. Being the big brother of all that beauty.”
Jake tucked away the mainsail into its cover. “I got into more than my share of fights trying to keep the hungry away.”
He didn’t look at Orion, but he knew this game—keeping the conversation easy, away from the fact that he’d nearly killed Ham’s kid. Jake’s stomach was still woozy and aching from where he’d lost it in the lake.
Jake could have probably used North’s help when his former swim buddy and fellow GoSports employee returned in the family ski boat to help him, but he wanted to reckon with the disaster alone.
His mess. His problem.
It took him the better part of two hours to right the cat, get the lines reattached, and sail her back in.
At least it had stopped raining.
The sun had even emerged, drying the grass. Smoke stirred from the grill on the stone patio, up near the house, and the shouts of his nephews playing catch with a pigskin drifted down to the beach.
And oh, he couldn’t stop himself— “So,” he said, still keeping it casual, “did you see . . . uh . . .”
“Aria?”
For a second, just her name uttered from Orion’s lips swept back the memories Jake had been trying—clearly not hard enough—to burn from his mind.
Aria’s dark, wet hair playing through his fingers as she stepped up to him, those beautiful doe-brown eyes in his, her hands on his shirt, the smell of a shower fresh on her skin. “Mornin’, Hawkeye.”
Of course, those words were spoken more in his fantasy than memory, but she could have said them, given the fact that they’d spent the night camped out on her hotel room floor.
Innocent. At least in action.
Not hardly in his head.
“Uncle Jake! Look out!”
The shouts from his twelve-year-old nephew, Scout, jerked him out of the rest of the memory just in time to throw up his hands to deflect the football arrowing for his head.
In fact, with more instinct than effort, he made a spectacular catch, nabbing the ball and falling back into the water with a splash.
“Cool!” Scout ran down onto the beach, wearing only a pair of swim trunks, barefoot and tan, his blond hair long around his ears. “Great catch!”
Jake pushed himself to his feet and shook the water out of his eyes. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t all-state for nothin’, kid.” He tossed Scout the ball and saw Orion smirk. “What?”
Orion nodded at Scout, who ran back up the lawn toward his brother, Bear. “I see a little hero worship there.”
Jake was winding up rope and glanced at the two boys. “Their dad, Mark, works a lot—he’s a computer geek. Great guy, but not super athletic.”
“And their uncle is a SEAL.”
“Was. Now I teach swimming lessons to kids.” He tied down the last of the lines. “And occasionally nearly drown them.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
Jake lifted a shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. I was responsible for her. My watch, my mistake.”
Orion said nothing.
Jake joined him on the beach, grabbing a towel to scrub his face. He then pulled off his surf shirt, wringing it out.
“I didn’t see Aria,” Orion said finally. “But I didn’t go by Jenny’s apartment—she dropped me off at the hotel last night. But . . .” Orion made a face.
“What did Jenny say?”
“Enough. I know what happened in Alaska. That’s tough.”
“Seriously.” He hung the towel around his shoulders.
“Dude, I get it. Aria is a grown woman, but apparently Jenny thinks you took advantage of her. She was on pain meds, and still suffering from altitude sickness, and—”
“I did not. She—” And what could he say? That she made him lose his mind with her soft suggestion that he stick around and take a shower in her hotel room and . . .
Okay, so maybe that suggestion didn’t quite fit her persona as a bigwig baby doc, but maybe they’d both been suffering from the aftereffects of nearly dying on a mountain.
Or maybe he’d simply read way, way too much into that suggestion and embarrassed both of them.
“She—what?” Orion asked, frowning.
Jake shook his head. “Nothing. Just . . . I handled it badly. But I . . .” He’d thought they could have something more than just right then. More than a fling that could stay in Alaska.
He’d even started hoping for it, sometime during the days he’d been trapped with her in a tent.
So, yeah, when he kissed her, when he’d reached for the belt securing her bathrobe, he’d been thinking about something more than just a tawdry one-night-stand. Jenny’s sudden appearance in the hotel room had snapped him back to reality. To the fact that he was about to take them both someplace they might—probably, yes—regret.
But that was his MO. Dive in and think about the consequences later.
“Nothing happened. But Jenny is probably right. Aria might not have been in the best place emotionally. She freaked out, and then Jenny practically threw me out of the hotel, and . . . aw, shoot. I just wish I could hit reset. Start over. Show her I’m not that guy.”
Orion raised an eyebrow.
“Not with her. She’s . . .”
“Way out of your league?”
Jake grinned, nodded. “That, yeah. You’re probably right. I should let it go. She isn’t exactly trying to track me down.”
Orion gave him a strange look.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just . . . nothing.”
Jake frowned but climbed up to the dock and onto the freshly mowed grass. He headed up to the house, Orion behind him.
The farmhouse had been overhauled, the exterior updated with new paint, fresh windows, and an expansive stone patio complete with fire pit, built-in grill, portico, and a bright-red picnic table.
His father, Chuck, stood at the grill, the tangy smell of his sweet rib recipe stirring the air and Jake’s appetite. His father always reminded him of an older Jeff Bridges. He wore his hair scandalously long for a preacher, but then again, he’d grown up in the hippie era. Wealthy doctor’s kid turned druggie, saved at a Billy Graham crusade, ministering to the lost in downtown Minneapolis.
He was Jake’s hero.
Jake never deserved the forgiveness his father offered him, and he knew it.
His father wore a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a mitt over his hand, which gripped a barbecue fork. “Ribs will be ready in an hour,” he said to Jake as he approached.
“Hey, Jake.” This from his sister Dinah, who sat in a nearby Adirondack chair paging through a magazine. She wore her long blonde hair back in a sleek ponytail and was dressed in lightweight linen pants, a teal tank top, and fingernail polish matching her toes. “The boys are hoping you’ll take them out on the cat today.”
“We’ll see,” Jake said. “When is Mark getting here?”
“I don’t know. He’s having some internet security breach at the office.” She looked up. “By the way, I’m having the twins’ birthday bash at the Mall of America—next Saturday. Don’t forget.”
Right. Mandatory Silver Family Event. “I’ll be there.”
“Good. And I have a few more listings for you to look at when you’re ready.”
Listings. For the condo she wanted him to buy.
Probably his sister was right. He still occupied the bedroom in his parents’ house six months after returning to Minneapolis. He just . . . well, he wasn’t sure he was down for that kind of long-term commitment. “Yeah, sure. Whenever.”
The picnic table held a bowl of potato salad covered in plastic and a plastic container of pickles. Jake stole one while Orion fished a dripping can of Coke from the nearby cooler.
Jake crunched on the pickle as he watched North help his sister Selah set up the volleyball net. He debated warning off the guy—Selah had given her heart and future to Jesus and had spent the past four years teaching English in foreign lands.
Or maybe he should simply stop trying to babysit everyone.
Ham stood beside his father at the grill. He’d changed out of his wet clothes—had probably stopped by his house after the urgent-care trip—into a pair of jeans and another T-shirt with the red GoSports logo on his chest.
“Hey, Jake,” Ham said. “Can I get a sec?”
Jake nodded, finishing off the pickle. “Let me change and I’ll be down.”
He went into the house, through the back porch, and up the stairs from the basement and found his mother in the recently remodeled kitchen on the main floor. It opened to an expansive view of Lake Minnetonka, with wide windows that captured the blues of the lake and sky, the towering elms that shaded the yard, the green grass that had beckoned him home after the chaos of war.
The kitchen merged into a sunroom—wicker chairs, blue pillows, and, with the exception of his father’s old recliner, a nautical feel to a room that had once been the home of a farmer. The smell of chocolate chip cookies caused Jake to swing by the island and snag one off the white quartz countertop.
Vegetables before dessert.
“You okay?” His mother, her white-blonde hair cut short, wearing a jean shirt over her tank top and leggings, slid a couple warm cookies off the hot sheet. “I heard about the accident.” She met his gaze.
Out of everyone, his mother had the ability to pull him to the ground, root him there, and find the truth.
Now he nodded. Swallowed.
“She’s okay. She’s watching some Barbie horse patrol with the twins in the den. But Jake, accidents happen. This wasn’t on you.”
He gave her a thin-lipped nod, his jaw tightening. Took another cookie.
He passed the den and saw the girls cuddled up on the sofa, Aggie sitting between Dinah’s six-year-old twin girls.
He was heading upstairs at the front of the house when his sister Phoebe came into the house holding a paper bag on her hip. Her button shirt was open over her baby bump. She wore her blonde hair long and sported a pair of short shorts, her legs long and tanned. She was probably still modeling, even six months pregnant.
“Hey, let me help you.” He grabbed for the bag as she came in. “Where’s Stephan?”
“He’s got a meeting this morning—he’ll be over later. Partner stuff.” She handed him the bag. “Were you out training for your next Ironman?”
“Funny. No. Sailing.”
“You mean flying.” She winked at him. “Glad you’re back. Dad said you were mountain climbing? In Alaska?”
“Something like that.” He put the bag in the kitchen, then headed up the stairs to his room overlooking the garage, his window the exact height for surreptitious escapes in his high school years. After grabbing dry clothes, he jumped into the shower and was out and dressed by the time his other sister, Chloe, had arrived.
She sat on one of the stools in the kitchen, her hair shorn short, wearing what looked like an African scarf on her head. Tanned, she wore no makeup and peeled an orange onto the counter. Her satchel sat on a nearby sofa.
“When did you get back?” she asked as Jake came through the room, his feet bare on the wooden floor.
“A week ago. You?”
“Same.”
“Where did the paper send you this time? Or don’t I want to know? You’re looking pretty tan—I’m guessing it was to a continent south of the equator?”
“Sudan.”
“See, no, don’t tell me those things.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Please don’t make me have to come after you someday.”
She patted his chest. “Calm down, big brother. You take your job too seriously.”
She left her hand there, maybe because she knew her words stung, even inadvertently. He patted it but didn’t say anything.
Because, even after twenty years, the wounds could still be as raw as the day Hannah had gone missing.
Ham came into the house. “Ready?”
Jake nodded and gestured into the living room, off the kitchen.
“Hey, Ham,” Chloe said, and Jake noticed her gaze follow the tall SEAL as he walked through the kitchen.
“Chloe,” he said, clearly oblivious. Or maybe just preoccupied.
Jake followed him into the room, shutting the swinging door behind him. “Ham—”
“She’s fine.” He turned to Jake, plowing a hand through his hair. “Because of you, she’s fine.”
Oh. He hadn’t expected that. “I’m so sorry—”
“I saw the entire thing—it wasn’t your fault.”
“I strapped her into the trapeze line.”
“And if you hadn’t, she might have been thrown off earlier or . . . anyway . . .” Ham took a breath. “Thanks.”
Oh. Jake’s chest eased.
“But, are you okay?”
The question clipped him, drew him up, and he stared at Ham. Swallowed.
“You know I’m not talking about today.”
Jake nodded.
“It’s just . . . if you need to talk to someone—”
“I’m sick of talking, Ham. I just . . . I just need to keep moving.”
Ham leaned against the fireplace mantel, folded his arms.
And why not, really, voice the question churning in his chest, the one that lingered in the light of day. “I’m thinking about reactivating.”
Ham’s brow creased.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here, Ham. Sleeping in my old bedroom, teaching kids how to swim—I need to be out there, doing something.” He walked to the window, shook his head. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“You’re the same guy who separated from the navy six months ago—”
“I hope not,” Jake said, turning. “Because that guy was a mess, and we both know it.”
Ham nodded. “Okay, agreed. But you’ve done the hard work. And you’ve found your way back. North was right about you—you’re a good man, with integrity.”
“He’s supposed to say that—he was my swim buddy.”
“But I worked with you too, before I took over my own platoon. You were young, but eager and dedicated, and, truth is, I wouldn’t have invited you to join Jones, Inc., if I didn’t think you were right for this team.”
Jake steeled himself. Swallowed.
“Oh,” Ham said. “This is about the shooting in Alaska.”
“If the press finds out it’s me—”
“They can’t connect you. They won’t. It was classified.”
“They found out anyway. And called me the devil.” He looked away. “Maybe I am.”
“Jake—stop.” Ham walked over. “You were doing your job. End of story.”
Jake nodded. “I know. And I miss it—being a part of something bigger than myself. I had a mission. A purpose. I felt like . . .”
“A hero?”
Jake lifted a shoulder. “A SEAL.”
“Jake. You don’t have to wear your dog tags to be a SEAL. That’s in here.” He put a fist to his chest.
Jake sighed.
“Listen, I need you, Jake. More than you realize. I need to go out of town.”
“Now?” Jake said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. “What about Aggie?”
“I won’t be gone long—just a few days, maybe a week.”
Jake frowned. “Does this have something to do with Signe and her death?”
Ham shook his head, emotion flickering across his face. “No. It’s something else.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you’re not going to even look into—”
“What am I going to do? The Italian officials said the yacht she was on blew up. Aggie is lucky to be alive.” Ham looked out the window, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe that Signe didn’t tell me.”
“Ham. You didn’t even know she was alive. Maybe Signe couldn’t tell you.”
And that was clearly not the right thing to say because Ham’s mouth tightened around the edges. Yeah, Jake was imagining some dire scenarios too.
“I should have kept looking,” Ham said quietly. “I shouldn’t have let myself believe—”
“You can’t hang on forever,” Jake said softly. Something the family counselor had said, so long ago. He still wasn’t sure she was right, but it sounded good, so, “You had to move on.”
A muscle twitched in Ham’s jaw. “I need a favor.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “What do you want me to do?”
Ham ran a thumb under his eye. “Watch Aggie for me.”
“What—me?”
“Yeah. I already cleared it with your mom for her to stay here. But Aggie . . . she trusts you. And I need her to feel safe right now. She does, with you. With your family. I . . . I need you, Jake.”
Wow, and that felt like a lot for Ham to admit.
“I . . .”
Ham just looked at him, those dark blue eyes pinning him down. He knew that look.
“Listen. Ham. I’m not . . . I don’t . . .” His gaze went to the pictures on the wall. The ones that hadn’t moved for twenty years. Family pictures when their family was still intact. Of course, Ellie wasn’t in them.
But Hannah was. Forever young, missing her two front teeth, grinning in the center of the family picture, taken at the beach the summer she went missing.
He was in the picture too, buck teeth, gangly in his thirteen-year-old awkwardness, looking too smug for his own good, a football under his arm.
What an idiot.
Ham followed his gaze and went quiet.
Jake ran a hand behind his neck.
“I trust you, Jake. With my life. With her life.”
Jake couldn’t look at him. “I don’t know anything about taking care of a ten-year-old girl.”
“Neither do I! But you have all these sisters—”
“They’re my sisters. My job was to annoy them and protect them.”
“So . . . protect my daughter. Ellie will be here, right? Maybe she can . . . I don’t know, make cookies with her.”
“Ellie barely lifts her head away from her cell phone,” Jake said, but he sighed, nodding. “But I’ll figure it out.”
“Would it help if I told you I was following up on a lead about Royal Benjamin?”
Royal Benjamin, a former SEAL teammate under Ham’s command who’d gone missing after an op-gone-south in Afghanistan three years ago.
“My friend Senator Isaac White has a contact in Europe who he thinks might be him. Says he’s working for the CIA. I made a promise to Orion that we’d try and find him, bring him home.”
Orion, who’d tried to rescue Royal during that same op, and failed. The Taliban had captured Royal and another SEAL, Logan Thorne, and although they’d eventually been rescued, Royal had vanished.
Orion was still plagued by the nightmares of leaving a man behind.
“I don’t get a chance at redemption often, Jake. I gotta do this.”
Jake glanced out the window to where movement caught his attention. A car had pulled up. He watched as Dr. Lucas Maguire stepped out of the driver’s seat. From the other side, Sasha emerged, and—
His breath stopped.
Aria Sinclair.
She looked good too. Brown hair down, wearing a sundress and flip-flops, her ankle in a walking brace. She flipped her hair back, and for a second, he could nearly feel it, silky between his fingers.
Redemption. Walking down his front walk.
Except, beside her emerged someone else. Another man, dark hair, his gaze on Aria.
Oh goody, she’d brought a date.
This day was just getting better and better.
He turned back to Ham. “You can count on me, bro. I won’t let anything happen to Aggie.”
If Aria just made it through the next four hours, she’d never have to see the man again.
But Jake Silver was hard, oh-so-very-hard to ignore.
Especially with his Top Gun beach volleyball impression.
First, his parents had a rockin’ backyard facing the lake, although if she’d known Lucas was dragging her to Jake’s house—
Except, Jenny was there, and Sasha, and a slew of Jake’s sisters, and family, as well as a few other guys from GoSports, Ham and North, and maybe . . . okay, maybe Aria was having a good time.
Especially watching Jake and Devon wage some kind of testosterone war with their two-on-two volleyball game.
Two, as in North and Devon against Ham and Jake. They’d set up a volleyball net in the yard, and the rest of the family had pulled up chairs around the perimeter, acting as line judges to the contest.
She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d gone from wanting to flee the moment Jake opened his front door to diving into the trash talking and fun.
Maybe it was because when Jake’s blue-eyed gaze slid over her, the man acted as if . . . well, as if he barely knew her.
And frankly, she didn’t know whether she might be hurt, or just ticked that he’d so easily written off their near tryst. She shouldn’t have let herself get so twisted up about this guy. Charming Jake Silver.
See, she knew, just knew she was one of his many flings.
What happened in Alaska really did stay in Alaska.
As if to prove it, Jake had given her another cursory glance, then one at Devon, then flashed them both a smile, completely, infuriatingly unaffected by her appearance.
Whereas she just stood there like an idiot, staring at him, no, completely bowled over by the change in him.
First, he smelled good—freshly showered, his Alaskan beard shaved, his blond hair cut. As if the moment he left Alaska he’d shed the persona of mountain man for this preppy boy from the suburbs. He stood barefoot, his legs tanned, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts.
Well, it wasn’t like she looked the same, either. Last time he saw her she’d been wearing a bathrobe.
Now, she was Dr. Aria Sinclair, and two could play at this game of charades, thank you.
“I’m Jake,” he said, extending his hand to Devon, who took it.
And she didn’t know why, but she put her hand on Devon’s arm. “He’s my resident.”
Devon glanced at her, frowned, then, “Dr. Devon McMillan. I work with Dr. Sinclair.”
A spark had lit in Jake’s eyes then, one she probably should have predicted, but, well, someone—hello, Lucas—should have told her that they were going to Jake’s house.
Jake’s jaw had tightened at Devon’s introduction. Or maybe she simply imagined—hoped—it, but he just nodded. “Super. Welcome to our little Fourth of July party.”
She might have given Devon too much encouragement because he touched her back as they entered Jake’s lair.
And what a lair. The house wasn’t exactly sprawling, but compared to the tiny bungalow where she was raised in Iowa, the place felt massive. A grand kitchen with wooden flooring, a vaulted ceiling, and a towering white fireplace filled the great room, and a sunroom led out to a deck with a stone patio underneath.
Jake had led the others down the stairs to the patio below.
She’d stood on the deck for a long moment, breathing in the scent of the lake, the oak trees, the English roses climbing up the lattice along the wall of the house.
“Hi.” His mother had followed her out onto the deck. “I’m Georgia Silver. And you must be Aria?” Slim and pretty, Georgia wore her blonde hair short, a jean shirt open over a tank top, a pair of leggings. “Ham said you were in Alaska, with Jake.”
“No. I was on the team of women Jake and Ham rescued.” She might as well get it out into the open, admit the bald truth. “We were blown off the mountain and Jake saved my life.”
His mother just stared at her. “Oh. I didn’t . . . I didn’t know that.” She found a smile, however, quickly, and glanced at her ankle splint. “Are you okay?”
She looked down at the gathering on the patio. Jenny stood with Orion, who leaned on his crutches. Sasha was laughing, her arms around Lucas’s waist.
They’d survived. She should be celebrating.
Hard to do when a woman was making funeral arrangements for her four-day-old child.
“Yeah,” Aria said. “Just a rough night at work.”
Georgia nodded. “I understand rough nights. But God’s mercies are new every morning.” She patted Aria on the arm. “I think the ribs are about ready. Or, you could just stay up here and enjoy the view.”
Probably she meant the view of the lake, with the jet skiers and the speedboats, but of course Aria’s gaze went to . . . well, Jake.
He’d gone over to Devon and was talking to the resident, and just the comparison of the two . . . well, it really wasn’t fair to compare Devon with a former navy SEAL.
Devon wasn’t exactly a slouch. He probably worked out, lean and trim in his jeans and his black T-shirt. Handsome, really, and about her age.
Frankly, she’d heard the hospital rumors that Devon liked her.
Jake had picked up a volleyball and was twirling it in his hands. He stood, legs apart, confident as he bumped the ball with his fist, caught it. Laughed at something Devon said.
He had such a nice laugh—
Shoot. Wake up! Dr. Aria Sinclair had no room for a guy like Jake in her life. Jake was charming and fun, the kind of guy meant for a vacation fling.
Not for real life.
Her sister Kia would have been a perfect match for Jake. But Kia wasn’t here, and even if Aria did have Kia’s heart beating in her chest, it didn’t mean she had to follow it into the arms of trouble.
Even if trouble did know how to kiss. And turn her into a warm puddle with one glance of his blue eyes . . .
Stop. Because Jake was also impulsive and dangerous. Aria had no room for either in her world.
She should be focusing on a guy like Devon. Steady. Tucked in.
Except, an hour later, she wasn’t sure who was the steady, tucked-in one. Devon had stripped off his shirt, revealing exactly the toned physique she’d guessed. And then there was Jake, also stripped down to just his shorts, his shoulders thick with muscle as he dove to bump the ball up to Ham.
Who jumped and spiked it onto the grass on Devon’s side of the court.
“In!” shouted one of Jake’s sisters—Dinah, she thought, the oldest one, a real estate agent who reminded her a little of Gwyneth Paltrow. Pretty, smart, long blonde hair.
“No way, that was out.” This from Ellie, the youngest, who’d come home halfway through lunch. Also blonde, she held one of her nieces on her lap, bouncing the six-year-old.
Ham’s daughter sat on the picnic table behind them, watching.
Aria’s heart went out to her. She knew too well what it felt like to sit on the sidelines.
Aria sat next to Selah, who wore her blonde hair in a long, singular braid. Chloe, her twin, had excused herself to take a phone call.
“Out,” said Chuck, Jake’s dad. “Next point wins.”
“Bring it, Yankee,” Ham said, taunting North as he sent the ball over the net. Ham bumped it up, and Jake sent it over. Devon dove, scooped it up, and set it for North, who tipped it over.
Jake slapped it back.
North blocked it and Ham dove for it, scooping it up. Jake sent it over with a backward bump. It flew high over the net.
Devon let it go, and it hit the grass behind him.
“What was that?” North said.
“Out!” Devon said. “It was out.”
“It was in,” Jake said. “Ask Aria. She’s sitting right there.”
Oh, uh.
She looked at Devon, then Jake. “I didn’t see it.”
Jake ran his arm across his forehead, breathing hard. Looked over at her. “C’mon, Aria. Is the game over, or not?”
She didn’t know why, but his words tunneled inside, stirred her.
And she didn’t know why, but suddenly, “Not.”
He smiled at her then, and she hated how the clouds parted.
She should not like this man.
Ham got the serve.
He aced it, the ball landing in a wide spot between North and Devon.
“And that’s the game!” Jake slapped Ham’s hand, and then flexed, wearing a stupid grin that she knew she shouldn’t like so much.
What was her problem that around Jake she lost her brains?
She got up and headed toward the picnic table, scooping up a handful of potato chips and grabbing a rib. She sat down on the bench, her back to the table.
Jake came over and sat beside her. He was still breathing hard, and now smelled a little ripe. But even in his sweaty persona, his eyes shone. “Thanks for the second chance.”
“It was probably out.”
One side of his mouth slid up. “Really?”
She lifted a shoulder. “You were trying so hard.”
“I wasn’t trying. I’m just that awesome.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Okay, Captain Awesome.”
He stole a potato chip off her plate. “So, you okay?”
Crazily, her eyes started to fill.
“Oh no. What did I do now?”
She looked away. “Nothing. Just . . . I’m tired. I had a long night with a patient. Lucas wants to send me to the Keys for a conference. Says I’m still wiped from Alaska.”
Jake nodded. “You should go diving while you’re down there. There’s a great state park in Key Largo with a reef.”
“I don’t scuba dive. It freaks me out.”
“It’s amazing, I promise.”
“Said the navy SEAL.”
“I started diving before I was a SEAL,” he said. “But if you don’t do that, at least go snorkeling. You’ll love it. It’s like flying, only on water.”
She looked at him, touched by his attempts at friendship. “Jake, I, uh . . . you know, about what happened . . .” Oh, shoot, what was she doing?
His mouth tightened, his voice dropping. “I’m sorry, Aria, for . . . well, I’m just sorry. It was a mistake.”
Oh. Yes. Right.
A mistake.
Dr. Aria Sinclair knew that.
Really.
Except, sitting here, so close to him, she didn’t feel like Dr. Aria Sinclair. For a moment, she was the girl he’d held in his arms as he’d helped her escape a mountaintop.
And Jake was the hero who’d stayed with her when she’d been terrified her best friend would die.
No, it hadn’t been a mistake. Not then.
Now, however . . .
“You’re right. No big deal, just a mistake.”
Jake drew in a breath. “Friends?”
She found her voice. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Hey, listen. Text me when you get to Florida. I’ll tell you where to go.”
“I don’t have your number.”
“Give me your phone.”
She handed it over and watched him put in his digits.
He handed it back, winked at her. “It’ll be dark soon. I hope you’re sticking around for the fireworks. We have a perfect view from here.”
He stood up and ran back to the volleyball court, where his nephews were starting a game, his skin tanned under the setting sun.
Yes, really this was the perfect view.
Oh brother.
Because clearly Jake was over her and whatever had happened between them in Alaska.
Friends?
Yeah, perfect. Swell.
But she was an idiot because she wasn’t in the least over Jake Silver. Or his stupid, intoxicating charm.
But clearly, she didn’t need to run. Because there was nothing to run from.
Just like she thought, she meant nothing to Jake Silver.
He wouldn’t win any awards for father of the year.
Ham sat on a blanket, leaning back on his hands, staring at the sky as fireworks exploded over Excelsior Beach. The spray of red and white dripped down the velvet sky into the dark waters below, lighting them on fire.
What had started dire had turned into a glorious day. The temperature had fallen to the high seventies, the sun turned the lake to a rich blue, and everyone managed to get a tan. Jenny and Orion were back—and by the looks of them snuggled together on a stadium blanket, his instinct to hire Orion as his medic for Jones, Inc., was right on. And he’d hired psychologist Jenny Calhoun as his team profiler and climbing pro. He’d talked to North—apparently Jenny had broken some GoSports speed ice-climbing record a few months ago.
Aria was sitting with Lucas and Sasha, next to Devon somebody. Jake’s occasional glances their direction weren’t lost on Ham. Poor guy. Something had gone down between those two on the mountain, and Ham still hadn’t figured it out.
Jake’s nieces and nephews lay on the grass, and Dinah’s husband, Mark, had finally showed up, still dressed for the office in his khaki pants. Apparently internet security analysts didn’t get days off.
Phoebe’s husband hadn’t arrived, but no one said anything. She sat with Chloe, her hand on her swollen belly.
Yeah, a perfect day. Except for the fact that Aggie still hadn’t spoken. To him. To anyone. And honestly, he wasn’t really watching the sky. Ham’s gaze was on his daughter.
His amazing, beautiful, broken daughter who seemed afraid of him, more comfortable in Jake’s lap than with her own father.
Because Unca Jake had saved her life.
Or maybe because Jake was fun. Jake made her laugh. Jake gave her ice cream.
Never mind that Ham had flown halfway across the world at the suggestion that he was her father.
He would be less than honest if he didn’t wonder whether she was really his.
Signe hadn’t told him she was pregnant.
Frankly, the odds were slim. Except for . . .
Well, there was at least one possibility.
He’d spent ten years trying to forget the way Signe felt in his arms. His wife, the one he should have never let go.
The woman he’d failed.
Looking at Aggie, who clutched her soiled stuffed unicorn to herself, her blonde braids fraying out of their bonds as she sat tucked into the center of Jake’s folded legs, leaning against him as she watched the sky, Ham couldn’t help but see Signe in her profile.
Yes, definitely Signe’s daughter, at least. And that was enough. The nearness of Signe’s presence, even in death, pressed into his chest. I’ll take care of her, I promise.
North sat down beside him. His name wasn’t actually North—deep in Ham’s memory was lodged his real name—Neil Gunderson. But the guy hailed from some small town in North Dakota, and the location had stuck around as a moniker. When North joined the team as their point man and navigator, something about him worked as their due North.
His faith, maybe.
North had spent the day hanging around Selah Silver, listening to her talk about her adventures in Africa working in a refugee camp. Frankly, she reminded Ham way too much of Signe. Idealistic, the kind of enthusiasm that could only get her in way over her head.
Trap her in a country that would turn on her.
“How you doing, boss?” North was solid, the kind of guy who listened first, spoke later. Ham knew his question was more than casual.
So, “I keep running it through my head. How did I miss the fact she was pregnant?”
North was reading his mind, as usual. “You couldn’t know she was still alive, boss. That was a direct hit on the Chechen base.”
Ham’s jaw tightened. “If I had known she was in that bunker—”
“Stop. You didn’t know. And clearly, she wasn’t there, was she?”
“She didn’t tell me she was pregnant,” he said quietly. “I should have made her leave.”
North let out a laugh, more of a grunt than humor. “Right. Even I know Signe better than that. There’s not a hope you could have made her leave.”
“Maybe. But I was her husband—I should have kept her safe. Made sure the baby was safe.”
North looked at Aggie, her head drooping back into Jake’s arms. “Looks like she is.”
Ham’s throat filled. “And I intend to keep her that way.” He glanced at North. “I have to go out of town. I got a call from Senator White. He has a friend who got into a pickle in Russia, and I need to do a quick in-and-out.”
“In Russia?”
“Apparently she needs an escort out of the country. It’s an easy op, but here’s the kicker—the senator has a lead on Royal. Says he’s the one who contacted him about his friend in trouble.”
“Royal Benjamin? I know he vanished after you liberated him from the Taliban. Along with Logan Thorne.”
“Yeah. Except Thorne showed up in Alaska last summer, hiding out. Told Orion a story about him being set up by the CIA to do wet work. I think Royal got pulled in too, somehow. Orion has always blamed himself for the events that caused Royal’s capture. I made him a promise we’d find Royal and bring him home.”
“Then let Orion go,” North said.
“He’s still healing from his knee injury. Besides . . .”
“This isn’t just about Royal, is it? You want to look into Signe’s accident, in Italy.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Ten years ago I think I’ve accidentally killed her in an air attack in Chechnya, and suddenly I get a call that she was in a boating accident in the Mediterranean? Except, they can’t find her body, and the only witness is a ten-year-old girl who claims I’m her father, but won’t talk to me when I show up in Italy to get her.”
“Claims?”
Ham lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“She looks like you, Ham. She has your blue eyes.”
Ham glanced at him, frowning.
“You’re not the only one trying to figure it out. But I see her in you, dude. And, um . . . well, it’s possible isn’t it? I mean, I remember you two—”
“Yeah, I know.” He didn’t want to remember that weekend.
He could hardly believe he’d found her again, only to lose her three weeks later.
“It’s possible she didn’t even know she was pregnant when Tsarnaev and his rebels overran the hospital,” North said.
“I need to find out whose yacht she was on, and how she got there. What happened in Chechnya, and . . .”
“You think she’s still alive.”
Ham stared overhead as the finale approached, the explosions of a number of popcorn blasts that reminded him too much of gunfire in the thick of the night. He didn’t much like fireworks, really. He didn’t want to nod.
But, yeah.
“I just need some answers. And some closure.”
Silence.
Ham shook his head.
“And you tried speaking Russian?”
He nodded. Silence, then, “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m not a dad. I never . . . thought about being a dad, I guess.”
“Not even when you married Signe?”
“We got married on a crazy weekend of shore leave, in Vegas. I had no thoughts other than being her husband, if you know what I mean.”
“Right.”
“It was impulsive. And stupid. And I didn’t think about what was best for Signe—”
“She was your high school sweetheart, right?”
More than that. “I’ve known her since first grade. She was there when . . . well, my mom died when I was nine. Cancer. She was my best friend. When I had no one else, I had Signe.”
And wow, that sounded sappy. “We used to slap around the puck on the pond behind my house, build tree forts, even compete in track. She was tough, and I liked that about her.”
“Looks like her daughter inherited her toughness. She was a fighter today.”
Today. He’d nearly lost it when he’d seen the cat cartwheel. And when he realized she was trapped under it—
Okay, that still sent a shudder through him.
But she’d lived. Because she was tough. Like her mother . . .
“Signe grew up with her grandparents—her mother was sort of in and out of the picture. A little wacky.” See? He had memories he could talk about without curling into the fetal position.
“She went to Berkeley, wanted to be a lawyer and fight for human rights or something. I lost touch with her after my first deployment.”
Ham took a breath. “Yeah. Well, there’s a story behind that, but the important part is, I didn’t see her again until we ran into each other at the hospital in Chechnya five years later. But she was always feisty, always the defender of the weak. And smart. Valedictorian of our class. She could do anything she put her mind to, so I wasn’t surprised to see her working as a translator. I was worried about her—it was a hotbed for insurgents fighting Russia, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She could be emotional and bullheaded.” He cast another glance at Aggie. “Not unlike her daughter. I wish she’d talk to me.”
“She seems to like Jake,” North said.
“Everybody likes Jake.” Ham glanced at North. “I asked him to watch her while I’m gone. But . . .”
“I’ve got his six.”
“Thanks, Yankee.”
Ham lay back, one arm curled under his head. And for a second, Signe was there, lying in his arms, her head on his bicep. “Hey sailor, miss me?”
He stared at the sky, seeing the stars. Yes. More than you know.
She rolled over, and he could nearly feel her lips on his neck. “Ever think about the what-ifs?”
Constantly.
He shook her image away before it sank in, grew talons. If you’re alive, Sig, I will find you. And I’ll bring you home.