felt the terrible tension between fantasy and reality. “I’ve heard that, too. But not from my husband.”
“Well, you could pick a worse place than this to make a permanent home. It’s beautiful and peaceful, just a ferry ride to Seattle, yet far enough from the city to feel safe and quiet.”
“It’s pretty ideal,” Grace admitted.
“I’ll tell you what,” Marcia said. “Since you won’t let me pay you for your help, let me do something I’m good at.”
“You don’t have to—”
“What I’d like to do,” Marcia said, overruling her, “is design a Web site for you. That’s what I do for a living. I’d consider it a privilege.”
“That’s incredibly generous of you,” Grace said. “But I don’t have the first idea of what I would do with a Web site.”
“It can be for anything. Your family, your kids, your husband.”
“My husband already has a site. It’s called navy-dot-mil.”
“Oh, my. Well, I can’t really compete with that. But something for you, personally. We can create a Web site for your hobbies—knitting, gardening, songwriting, what have you.”
“My hobbies?” Grace grinned. “Most days, that would be carpooling and family finance.”
“Give it some thought.” Marcia handed her a business card. “Call me. It’ll be fun, you’ll see. I really do owe you, big-time.”
Grace was quiet as they drove away. On the seat beside her lay the various receipts and flyers she’d collected. She had two things to show for her day. Two impossible dreams. A perfect body and a home of her own.
CHAPTER 6
After the day’s final briefing, which was anything but brief, Steve Bennett knew the exact date and time he’d be leaving his family. Again. Sure, he was a patriot; he’d spent his career serving his country. Yet he felt alternately harried, preoccupied and distracted by his myriad duties. A part of him missed the glory days of flying, the constant brushes with danger and the heady rush of cheating death. But he was a family man now, and he’d reached the stage of his career where he was ready for his own command.
And that didn’t happen without compromise. Even if it meant putting up with rule-book blowhards like Mason Crowther, his immediate superior.
When he walked through the door, he deep-sixed the burdens of the day, shutting his eyes and inhaling the smell of baking chicken. Like magic, the aromas and sounds of home lifted his spirits. Then he took off his cap and tossed it Frisbee-style to a hook on the hall tree—a little stunt that drove Crowther nuts and often prompted him to remind Steve that replacing a damaged cover would set him back two hundred bucks.
Feeling decidedly better, he went in search of his wife.
Grace stood at the counter, tossing a salad. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Smells great,” he said. “Do you need some help?”
“No, thanks. We’ll eat just as soon as you get washed up. The kids want to go out tonight.”
He aimed a wounded look at Emma, who was setting the table. “You’re ditching us?”
“It’s the last Saturday night of the summer. Our last night of freedom.”
He washed his hands at the sink. “Yeah? So what are you up to?”
Emma shrugged in a way that made him grit his teeth. His elder daughter was not uncommunicative, but she definitely had her own set of private signals and gestures.
“Translation, please,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. He knew this was a particularly difficult move, uprooting the kids for their senior year and thrusting them into yet another “hostile environment,” as they liked to call it.
Steve knew it wasn’t his fault. But it sure as hell wasn’t his family’s, either.
“Some of the kids are going down to the beach at Mueller’s Point.”
“Bonfire and fireworks,” Brian added, ambling into the kitchen. Without being asked, he started filling the water glasses from a chilled pitcher.
“Excellent,” called Katie from the living room. “That means I can go, too.”
Both Emma and Brian snapped to attention. “In your dreams, dork,” Brian said. “It’s bad enough I have to drag Emma along—”
“Drag Emma along?” she said with an arch look. “Hey, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have any friends at all.”
“If it weren’t for me,” Grace said, tapping her arm with a spatula, “you wouldn’t have any dinner.”
They all sat down and Steve asked the blessing and then wondered why he bothered to ask. This family was all he needed and more. This was what he lived for, these moments of simplicity when they sat down to share a meal. He wondered if they had any idea how much it meant to him.
“So,” said Grace, passing the bread. “How was—”
“Your day, dear,” Katie finished for her. “You always say that, Mom.”
“Well, I always want to know. Don’t you?”
“I already know. He filled out some forms, answered a zillion e-mails, had a planning meeting with the senior staff and did all the stuff Captain Crowther didn’t want to deal with, because that’s what the DCAG does.” Katie pushed her glasses up her nose. “Right, Dad?”
“Pretty darned close, Miss Smarty-Pants.” He caught Grace’s eye. She looked distracted tonight, maybe a little tired. “Thanks for asking.”
This was his opening to announce the upcoming trip to the Pentagon and then the deployment in November. Not now, he thought. He’d save the news for another time. With school starting Monday, everyone had enough on their minds.
But was there ever a good time to tell the family you were leaving them? He’d done so many times, but it never got easier.
He looked around the table and his heart filled up. Although he could command a squadron or air wing, he was helpless when it came to his family and helpless to know whether or not he was doing a good job at home. His background, which included more foster homes than he’d ever bothered to count, hadn’t prepared him for the powerful tenderness of family life. His instincts told him how to land a plane on a carrier deck at night in a storm, but they couldn’t tell him how to talk to his daughters.
Emma was so pretty she could break your heart with a single blink of those Caribbean-blue eyes. Steve ought to know—she’d broken his often enough. Every time he said goodbye to her, from the time she was old enough to understand what goodbye meant, she had broken his heart. Yet oddly, with all the moving they had done, Emma seemed to adapt the easiest. She actually liked making new friends, and found her place in school with seemingly little fuss or effort.
Brian was his trophy son, and he appeared to like playing that role, bringing home honors in track
