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“That’s not true and you know it,” I said.
“There are a lot of things I thought I knew,” he said, and looking down at his plate I watched him pick at the huge slice of cake Mia had set in front of him. “Turns out I didn’t know those things at all, if ever.”
I rolled my eyes slightly to the right to catch Aaron’s worried look. His lips were drawn into a compressed line and when I sucked in a deep breath he mouthed a single word:Later.Clearly he had some opinions to share.
Leaning into Mike’s shoulder, I wrapped one arm around his wide back and sighed. “Call me if you need to talk, my friend. I’ll meet you anywhere. Just don’t go dying of a broken heart without sending up the bat signal, k?”
That got a small smile and a tight nod out of him and one of his big arms reached up behind my shoulders to squeeze me back.
“Grab a coffee, everyone.” Scott was ready to get back to business. “I figure we can wrap this up in the next hour and get some of you on the road back home.”
Home. There was a word I was still learning.
10
Adam
Imanagedtostayaway from Madelyn for three whole, long, terrible weeks. I couldn’t explain to her why I was so irrationally upset by the thought of her leaving again, because I couldn’t even explain it to myself.
In the end, fate intervened when I very nearly rear-ended her at the supermarket, and I mean with my shopping cart. I’d had to break down and replenish my cat food and people food supplies, but I was distracted by a statuesque brunette in the produce section and stood there dumbstruck, like I didn’t have a list in my hand.
“Beckman.” Her voice was warm and welcoming, like she’d forgotten that I’d been a bit of a dick just a few weeks earlier.
“VanBuren.” My voice felt scratchy. “Guess I don’t have to ask the obvious.”
“You’ll be pleased to know that with my downtime I’ve been learning to cook.” She raised one eyebrow. “I’ll never have my own cooking show, but I haven’t managed to poison myself yet so things are looking up.” She peered over into my cart, at the stack of frozen pizzas and pre-made breakfast sandwiches and made a face. “Yuck. That’s not food, Adam.” She would know, wouldn’t she, the finely-tuned machine that she was?
I returned the favor, sweeping a condescending glance over her basket, astonished by the number of vegetables I couldn’t actually name. I was pretty sure Hailey had fed me most of that stuff at one time or another, but I couldn’t have differentiated between a rutabaga and an artichoke to save my soul.
“I still owe you dinner,” she said quietly, shifting her cart so the woman behind her could get around us. She was rewarded with an impatient clucking sound and I fixed the woman’s back with a hairy eyeball she must have felt, because she turned her head and startled when she caught my eye.
“At this point I think I owe you every dinner for the rest of your life.” She started laughing then stopped suddenly, like she’d just realized something really uncomfortable and she looked down again, squirming a little.
“Bailey misses you,” she said softly and I couldn’t help the small smile that slipped out.
“You named the dog?”
“It was close to Boel, and I named him after a character in my favorite Christmas movie.”
I raised an eyebrow. That meant Madelyn had a shred of sentimentality in her after all, a softness, something that surprised me.
“You didn’t get a Christmas this year and it’s your favorite holiday, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “These things we do, that others may live.”
“Your motto?”
“Yeah, the PJs. It’s our job to sacrifice for the good of others. You boys call us guardian angels.”
That made me swallow hard, thinking of her selflessly sacrificing all those years, diving or parachuting into danger, skipping right over holidays, birthdays… I stepped forward suddenly and wrapped my arms around her and she squeaked. “Adam, what the…”
“Thank you for your service,” I said against her hair. It had a different meaning when I said it: it was far more in earnest, because she’d saved men like me. Men who’d been trapped in desperate situations, bleeding out, everything lost, and she’d been a beacon of hope and promise to those who needed it most, even if she was only there with them through their last breath.
“Sweet talker.” She thumped a fist against my chest and I could feel the muscles of her face pulling into a smile. “I could say the same to you.”
“No.” I pulled back a little and brushed a thumb over her cheek. “Not really.”
“Come see Bailey?” she asked suddenly, and I realized it was because she was nervous, so I let her go and stepped back just a little. “I’ll make you dinner.”
