Page 91 of A Hero Comes Home

Before they left the room, he asked Sally, “Should I wear the eye patch or sunglasses?”

“Either is okay,” she said, pretending to give him an extra study. “The patch makes you look wicked good and will have the women salivating. You better wear the dark glasses, but put the patch in your pocket in case you’re feeling in the need of an ego boost.”

He pinched her butt on the way out of the room. “Wicked good, huh?”

“I didn’t know it was okay for a boy to touch a girl’s hiney,” Matt remarked as they walked slowly down the stairs, all of them pacing themselves to Jake’s slower gait.

“It’s not!” he and Sally both burst out at the same time.

That’s all they needed . . . a sexual harassment suit against an eight-year-old for pinching Kindergarten Barbie’s butt, and Matt explaining that it’s what his daddy does; so, it must be okay.

Man! The kids saw, and heard, everything. He had to be more careful.

This being a father was harder than Jake had ever imagined. Still, as they all piled into the car, he was smiling.

But not for long.

Of course, once they were all loaded in Sally’s car and buckled in, one of the kids decided he had to pee, which resulted in Sally ordering all of the boys back inside to take care of business. “I swear those boys are going to frazzle my nerves today,” she said.

He just grinned at her. Sexy Momma, that’s how she looked to him at the moment. Soon they were on their way again, with Sally warning Luke that his fly was open.

Along the way, Jake could swear there were twice as many yellow ribbons as before, and miles of bunting, and enough flags to put a flag-making company out of business. The place was beginning to look like either a veterans’ convention, or a cemetery. Then, when they finally got to the center of town after parking behind the bakery, they saw nothing but bedlam. Traffic was a bottleneck of yelling and honking horns as dozens of vehicles vied for limited spaces in the off-street parking lots and were directed back to the ferry lot where hired buses would shuttle them back and forth to the town square. In addition, there were at least ten news vans taking up slots that some locals felt they were entitled to. A bunch of unhappy campers, to say the least. Sheriff Henderson and his temporary deputies had their work cut out for them today.

The media hadn’t given up on Jake, and no doubt they would be approaching him again today. But he had his polite refusal speech down pat. He wasn’t worried . . . at the moment, anyhow.

“Oh, no!” Sally said, noticing the line leading out of the bakery. She hadn’t gone in this morning, and must be feeling that she’d left her staff ill-prepared for the tourist rush.

“Go ahead in and take care of business,” Jake advised. “I’ll take the kids to the scouts’ assembly place over on Cove Street.”

“Thank you,” she said with a sigh of relief and had to reach up only slightly to kiss his cheek. With high heels on today, she was still several inches shorter than him, but at a more level playing field. And, yes, he meant “playing.” He had plans for those high heels, as well as the dress, later. If he was going to be wooing her with his uniform, she was going to . . .

“Daaaad! C’mon. I hear a band tuning up.” Matt was tugging on his hand.

Jake had his cane with him today, but he hoped to use it only if things got too bad. He had to limp, though, and his slower gait had the boys practically dancing in place with impatience. Along the way to the meeting spot for the scouts, Jake ran into Izzie who was also in full dress uniform. He accompanied them because the place where they were scheduled to be, midway through the parade, was along this route, too.

“Hey, kiddos, you look hotter than asphalt,” Izzie remarked.

“Huh?” the boys said, and then they giggled, not knowing what asphalt meant, but homing in on the “ass” part of the word.

“He means that you look really good in your scout uniforms,” Jake interpreted.

The three of them preened and said a communal “Thank you.”

Izzie arched his brows at Jake to show how impressed he was at their politeness. “Way to go, Father of the Year.”

“I can’t take credit for that. Sally’s the etiquette police in our house.”

As they walked along, he and Izzie got more attention than they wanted, or needed . . . well, their uniforms did. Many people stopped them to say, “Thank you for your service.” A few old vets saluted them. And females gave them a second and third look.

Once Jake handed the boys over to the scout leader and promised to pick them up at the end of the parade, he and Izzie headed over to the street where new convertibles were parked awaiting the parade marshal’s signal to begin the festivities. In exchange for free advertising, local car dealers had donated convertibles in red, white, and blue colors. There were at least ten of them, two of which would carry Jake and Izzie. Others were designated for state and local politicians and a few notable folks of the Outer Banks, like a former Miss America, and last year’s winner in the Blue Marlin Tournament.

Right off the bat, he and Izzie recognized Phillip Franklin, the World War II POW and longtime senator before his retirement a decade ago, who would be riding in the car with Jake. He was wearing his old uniform which was neatly pressed and as spiffy as it once had been.

Hurrying up to introduce them was Mayor Doreen Ferguson, who operated a shoe store on the square since her husband’s death. Leonard Ferguson’s shoe store, named simply Shoes, had been a fixture on the town square for as long as Jake could remember.

“Had to get a new pair of dress shoes today,” Izzie told him in an undertone. “Couldn’t find ‘Shoes’ until I realized its name was changed to ‘Happy Feet Emporium.’”

“What’s an emporium?” Jake whispered back.