Page 55 of A Hero Comes Home

The room was warm since the air conditioner hadn’t been turned on, and the quilt was tossed into a pile near the footboard. They all wore white briefs—the kids, the traditional Fruit of the Looms, and Jake, the boxer briefs he’d always favored. Mark was cuddled under one of Jake’s arms. Luke was plastered over Jake’s chest, his little hands around Jake’s neck. Matt was lying beside Jake on the opposite side from Mark, on the other pillow, in an identical pose to his father, but so close their bodies were aligned, arm to arm, thigh to thigh. Matt was also snoring lightly, like his father, in his case due to enlarged adenoids, an issue she would have to address soon.

Tears welled in Sally’s eyes, and she took out her cell phone to memorialize the picture. This was what she’d always wanted when she imagined marriage and a family with Jake.

She thought about waking the boys to get into their own beds and Jake to go downstairs to the sofa, but that seemed unnecessary. Instead, she went into Matt’s room and crawled into his single bed. There was the slight worry that Jake might awaken to one of those nightmares like he’d experienced the first night he’d been home. The kids would be terrified. But then, she was close by, and the nightmare had only occurred that one time. Within minutes, she was asleep.

It was still dark outside when she felt Jake slip into bed with her. She was on her side, and he spooned her from behind, pulling the sheet up over them both. He said nothing but she felt his breath against her neck. With her wearing only her usual bed clothes, a tank top and shorts, and him in only boxer briefs, she was more than aware of skin against skin. His chest, her back. Thigh to thigh, calves to calves. Erection to butt.

But it was a lazy kind of arousal, on both their parts. Nothing urgent. The kind of thing that said: this might happen, but maybe not.

“Are you awake?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“There’s an open-ended question!” He laughed, and she felt the shot of breath in her ear.

The arousal, on her part, amped up a notch.

“I could say I’m sorry for everything,” he explained, running a forefinger down her bare arm, from shoulder to wrist, creating a wave of erotic goose bumps, “but mainly for the way I overreacted today, when I saw you at your shop. For not thinking to contact you after I picked up the kids. For some of the things I said back here at the house.”

She wanted to ask him if he really didn’t care if she had sex with another man, as long as she was discreet, which was what he’d said, but instead she conceded, “I might have overreacted myself, by dumping dinner in the sink.”

“Will you make it again for me sometime?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

He was still spooning her, but he adjusted himself so that one arm was over her head on the pillow, and the hand of the other arm laced fingers with hers, his hand on top of hers, resting on her abdomen. He might have kissed her shoulder, but she wasn’t sure if that was her imagination.

There was nothing sexual about their position, and yet it was utter sensuality. Pure and honest. Husband and wife. A couple long accustomed to each other.

“Jacob, what happened to you?”

He didn’t ask what she meant. He knew. And said nothing.

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

“Will you ever?”

“I don’t know.” Somehow, his honesty made it okay. He said nothing for a long moment. She thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he told her, “Izzie is coming to Bell Cove for Labor Day.”

“Uh-huh.” There was nothing particularly new about that, and what it had to do with him telling her about the past three years, she had no idea. “I haven’t seen him since his parents moved to Seattle.”

“They’re coming, too.”

“Abe and Rachel will have a full house.”

“You have no idea,” he murmured.

“What?”