LITMIR.BIZ

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T-ball practice. It wouldn’t have been like trying to fill your big shoes when they were practically still smokin’.” He waved the comparison aside. “In any case, from what I saw today, he’s good.” A headache sent preliminary scouts to see about the possibility of setting up camp in his temples. “That’s no thanks to my influence, either.”

      Max gave him a level look. “So why did you walk?”

      Jake stilled, his heartbeat a solid thudthudthud in his chest. “You really interested in knowing?” Who would have thought Max, of all people, would be the one to come right out and ask? No one else had since he’d been back.

      “Not really.” Max started to turn away, but then stopped and gave his shoulders an impatient roll before meeting Jake’s gaze head-on. “No, that’s not true. I am.”

      Girding himself, Jake remained silent for a moment. Then he drew a deep breath and blew it out. “For as long as I can remember, I wanted out of this town.” He looked out at the glassy water. “Kari and I made a lot of big plans to move somewhere cosmopolitan, and I spent our entire junior year plotting ways to make it happen that wouldn’t end up with me flipping burgers for the rest of my life.”

      He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Truth is, I had plans long before I met her. I’d been working toward that scholarship since Junior high. When it came through, I thought we were finally on our way.”

      He looked over at Max. “Then, barely a month into our senior year, the fucking condom broke.”

      “You stepped up and married her, though. And from what I hear, took a job at the inn.”

      “Because I didn’t want to be another Charlie Bradshaw, y’know?”

      “Hell, yes. We’ve got that in common.” Max studied him for a moment. “You must have loved her a lot.”

      An unamused laugh escaped him. “Like that ever lasts,” he said dismissively. “She went almost overnight from the fun head cheerleader I knew to a cranky, complaining shrew who was convinced I’d ruined her life. Not that I was any better. I was miserable working the front desk at The Brothers, and it made me damn moody.”

      “Then she died.”

      “Yeah.” Digging his fingertips into a headache that now thumped full force, he turned his back on the water, feeling vestiges of the horror he’d experienced at the sight of the blood-soaked sheets when she’d started hemorrhaging. “They send people home from the hospitals too damn fast these days. If she’d still been there they probably could’ve stopped the bleeding. But they discharged her, and within the space of a few short hours, she was just...gone. And I found myself with sole responsibility for this wrinkly, leaky little creature I had no idea how to parent. When Emmett and Kathy offered to care for him while I got my degree, I jumped at the chance.”

      And, eaten up with guilt, he’d hated himself for it. He had turned into the very thing he’d sworn he never would: a chip off the old block. Here his wife had died tragically young—yet had he been crushed? Had he stuck around? No, sir. He’d never wished her dead, but his dirty little secret was he’d been beyond relieved not to be stuck in a nowhere position in a nowhere town with a wife he’d fallen out of love with.

      At least Charlie had loved him for a while. Jake hadn’t felt anything but panic when he’d looked at his son.

      Max looked as uncomfortable hearing all this shit as Jake was at telling it. No doubt his brother was on TMI overload, and his gaze slid past Jake’s shoulder. Then he stood straighter. “Hey, what do you know?” he said with a casualness that was a little overplayed. “There’s a couple of cutters. The Trident’s likely not far away.”

      Grateful beyond measure for the change of subject—for anything that would rescue them from this dangerous talking-about-feelings territory—Jake turned to look.

      There was nothing to see except a couple of midsize navy boats cruising a half mile or so from the far shore, but he went over to his car all the same to retrieve his camera from the passenger seat. Back on the beach, he watched with Max as the boats navigated an obviously circumscribed area.

      Nothing happened, and perhaps to fill the long silence between them, Max suddenly said, “I’m sorry about your mom. I heard about it when I was in Camp Lejeune.”

      Jake nodded, his eyes still on the glassy water. “Thanks. Her having a heart attack wasn’t something anyone expected. She was only forty-six.” He turned to look at Max. “I’m surprised anyone here even knew about it—she moved to California the same time I started college.”

      Max made a wry face. “Small-town connections, little Bradshaw. She kept in touch with Maureen Gilmore, who was friends with my mother.”

      “Is your mom still in town?”

      “No. She’s living in England, of all places.”

      “Why of all places?”

      “My mom is filled with a small-town prejudice against any town bigger than Razor Bay—never mind big cities in a foreign country. But she met a guy from London in the dining room of the inn one night, and that was all she wrote.”

      The Ohio-class black nuclear submarine suddenly surfaced from the depths and they turned their attention to it. Nearly as long as two football fields, sleek as a shark and quieter than death, it was an impressive, ominous sight. “That doesn’t make me want to break into a chorus of ‘Yellow Submarine,’” Jake said, raising the Nikon D3 to his eye.

      Max laughed. “No shit. But I never get tired of watching it. It’s like the Darth Vader of submarines. Strategic deterrence at its best.”

      He lowered the camera long enough to shoot the other man a sardonic glance. “Spoken like a true soldier boy.”

      “Wasn’t a soldier, sonny. I told you before, I’m a Marine.”

      “Ex.”

      Max snorted. “No such thing as an ex-Marine. Former, maybe, if you wanna be picky about it.”

      “Whatever.” Jake shot a couple frames of Max, who immediately scowled at him. “So, tell me. I know there’s more than one of these subs stationed at Bangor—so why are they all called the Trident?”

      A bark of laughter exploded out of Max. “For a guy with a bachelor of business from a fancy u—”

      “I never actually got that degree,” he interrupted. “I interned with National Explorer my junior year, got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show my photography skills when their usual photographer was laid low with dysentery, and never went back to school.”

      Max nodded. “Explains why you’re not the brightest bulb, I guess. None of the subs are named that. There’s eight of them out of Bangor, and except for the USS Henry M. Jackson, in honor of our late, great Senator Scoop Jackson, they’re all named after states. Alaska, Alabama, Nebraska—and who cares what all. Tridents are the missiles they’re packing.”

      “Huh. Who knew?”

      “Not you, obviously.”

      A short while later the submarine submerged as quietly as it had come up, and Max abruptly morphed from fairly friendly for a guy who “wasn’t ever going to be your bud” to blank-faced deputy. He stepped back. “I’ve got work to do,” he said and pointed to where Jake’s SUV was blocking half an access that nobody was using. “Get that off the ramp,” he growled. Then without another word, he turned and strode up the slope in question to his rig.

      Leaving Jake with an inexplicable smile on his face.

      * * *

      WORRY OVER HIS NONPROGRESS with Austin had replaced the unexpected moment of good humor by the time he got back to the inn. He headed straight for Jenny’s office.

      He heard her voice before he reached it. “...forecasting staff needs for next week, and I need to set up a meeting with you before you leave for the day to discuss doing

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