Page 31 of A Hero Comes Home

But he remembered a time when they wouldn’t have let any damn bell, or buzzer, or an Outer Banks hurricane, for that matter, keep them from rocking the sofa.

Chapter 7

The benefits of a hurricane (Does IKEA know about this?) . . .

(Bell Cove, seven years ago)

The hurricane had been downgraded from a Category 3 to a Category 1, but still Jake’s mother and father decided to take part in the voluntary evacuation of the Outer Banks recommended by the North Carolina governor, and they were taking Jake’s one-year-old son, Matthew, with them. They would ride out the storm at Aunt Tillie’s house in Richmond.

Jake and Sally, on the other hand, had decided to stay put, guarding the cottage they’d bought last year, as well as his parents’ place across the street. Even though they were located a mile in either direction from the Atlantic Ocean and Bell Sound, storm surge flooding was unpredictable and could be devastating. They weren’t about to risk damage to the hundred-year-old cottage in which they’d invested every bit of their savings, including the bonus he’d received for reupping.

“Good thing I was home on leave,” he told Sally as they continued to board up the windows with plywood that was kept in the garage for just such emergencies. It might be an unnecessary precaution, but the old leaded windows, especially the ones with stained glass on them, like the one here fronting the house, were too precious to take a chance on damage. There were also a dozen sandbags sitting in the bed of his pickup in case they were needed.

“What? You think I wouldn’t have been able to handle an emergency by myself?” she asked, sucking on the thumb she’d just hit with a hammer.

Oh, boy! She is in one of her moods. Picking a fight.

When he didn’t react to her question, she said, “That is so sexist.”

Yep, mood central!

Probably still brooding over my reup.

Or maybe it’s good ol’ PMS.

That would mean she’s horny as hell, as well as moody. Her hormones always go haywire before her period.

But, man, I better not say that out loud.

He just grinned, which annoyed her even more.

The humidity was about a hundred and ten percent, and sweat was pouring off both of them as they continued to batten down their home. Sally wore only a little halter top and shorts. With her long brown hair pulled into a high ponytail, she still had strands plastered along the edge of her face. He was no better, in running shorts and nothing else, though his hair, of course, was military short. A blessing in this heat wave, which would soon break when the rain finally hit. Which it was starting to do.

“You would have evacuated if I weren’t here,” he contended, putting in one last nail, then stepping back to observe his work. Good enough, he decided, then glanced at Sally who hadn’t responded to his remark. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.” She had the cutest little ski jump nose, which was raised obstinately at the moment.

He leaned down and kissed the tip of it. “Don’t even think about trying to hunker down on your own during a hurricane. You’re not used to storms on the Outer Banks.”

She shrugged. “You’re the one who plopped me down here after our quickie shotgun wedding and then went off to war or war games or whatever the hell it is that you do in that Special Forces unit. You have no idea what this city girl has learned while you’ve been gone.”

It was a running argument they’d been having since their marriage almost two years ago.

Jake sighed. “A shotgun wedding without the shotgun,” he pointed out, not for the first time. “If our nuptials were quick and without the usual hoopla, it was because your parents were horrified to see you marry a soldier. Our wedding was a sword to their pacifist hearts.”

“Good point, but that doesn’t alter the fact that you dropped this city girl in the boonies, so to speak, then jitterbugged . . . rather shagged your way off to more new and exciting places.”

Shagged? Now there’s a thought. And he wasn’t picturing the dance step. “Sal, you knew I was a soldier when we hooked up.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know it was for life. Or that I wouldn’t be going with you. Other soldiers’ wives go.”

Not Delta Force. Or at least not this one, who hasn’t been stationed in one place for more than three months at a time these past four years. And not to the places I’ve been.

He would have continued the argument, or not, but the rain was beginning to come down now in torrents. Putting his hammer on the windowsill, he stepped down off the porch and let the cool pellets wash over him. He stretched his arms out and looked upward, eyes closed, momentarily. “This is heavenly.”

“You’re crazy,” Sally said, smiling as she watched him.

“C’mon. Join me,” he encouraged, holding his hands out to her, beckoning with his fingertips. “Take a ride on the crazy train.”