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Who he was with.
A woman who knew nothing about him except that he was supposed to be some kind of hero.
“Jacob,” she said again, “we’re going awfully fast.”
He looked at the speedometer. Eased his foot off the gas until they were down to a reasonable speed.
Like ninety.
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said quickly. “Everything’s fine.”
He wanted to tell her. He ached for it. The sweet relief that would come of telling her that he didn’t deserve the medals, the adulation, the nonsense the world had heaped on him.
He couldn’t.
What if she looked at him the way he looked at himself each morning? Looked at him with disappointment and, worse still, disgust?
Angie’s was right ahead, the sign—Angie’s Café, Open 24 Hours—blinking on and off as it had always done.
Thank God for small favors, he thought, as he pulled into the parking lot and turned off the engine.
“See?” he said brightly. “What’d I tell you? Angie’s is never closed. Of course, you won’t find tofu on the menu …”
Her silver eyes were filled with question.
He cursed, reached for her, took her in his arms and held her against his heart.
“Stop worrying about me,” he said softly. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t buying it. He could see it in her face.
“Honey.” His voice roughened. “I just need—I need what you’ve given me, okay? This day. This night.” He paused. “Most of all, I need you.”
It was the truth.
He wasn’t sure what that meant or where it was taking him.
The only certainty was that what was going on inside him scared the hell out of him.
CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_c07640d7-431d-5440-bfb2-b1cc43601e90)
ANGIE’S CAFÉ was warm and brightly lit.
It was also as busy as any place in Times Square would have been at this hour.
A plump woman looked up when they came in. Her eyes widened and she rushed out from behind the counter, greeted Jake with a squeal and a hug. He lifted her off her feet, spun her around as if she weighed no more than a feather.
“You come home to make an honest woman outta me, Jake Wilde?”
Jake grinned.
“If I ever settle down, Angie, it’ll surely be with you.”
The woman laughed and Jake made quick introductions. Angie looked at Addison from head to toe, then nodded her approval and led them to one of the red vinyl booths that lined the walls.
Jake waved away the menu.
“Don’t need it, Angie. I’ve been dreaming of one of your breakfasts for months.”
Angie grinned.
“Eggs over easy. Bacon. Home fries. Biscuits. Grits. And buckets and buckets of coffee.”
Jake smiled. “Add some sausage and you’ve got it.”
“How ‘bout you, miss? You want the same?”
Addison looked up from the menu.
“Do you have Egg Beaters?”
Jake snorted. Addison ignored him.
“If not,” she said politely, “then I’d like one poached egg on wheat toast. No butter on the toast.”
“And?”
“And, that’s it. Oh, coffee, please, with a packet of the blue stuff or the pink stuff instead of sugar.”
“One regular breakfast,” Angie said. “One poached egg, wheat toast and grits.”
“No grits, thank you.”
“Grits,” Angie said, tucking her pencil behind her ear and walking away.
“No. Wait. I don’t want—”
“It’s got nothing to do with what you want, Adoré,” Jake said patiently. “You’re south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Grits come with everything.”
“Mason and Dixon were surveyors,” Addison said, with a toss of her head, “not chefs.”
“They were Northerners.”
She raised an eyebrow. He’d said it the way someone else might say, They were barbarians.
“News flash, Jacob. So am I.”
He grinned. “Yeah, and I’ve decided to look beyond that.”
She stuck her tongue out.
“You’re trying to distract me,” he said in a throaty growl.
She gave him a saccharine-sweet smile.
“Is it working?”
“Want to find out?” he said with a deliberate leer as he reached for her hand.
“Behave yourself,” she scolded, but her smile turned warm and real.
“I’ll behave if you try the grits. Who knows? You might like ‘em.”
“Trust me, Captain—”
“Lieutenant,” Jake said quickly, and suddenly his teasing smile was gone.
“But I thought—”
“Promotions and medals go together.”
Was that irony or bitterness in his voice? She couldn’t tell.
“I don’t understand.”
“They give you a medal, they up your rank. Simple as that.”
She knew it couldn’t possibly be as simple as that. And she saw the darkness in his face again. Talk to me, Jacob, she wanted to say …
“I was a lieutenant for a long time. It’s what my men called me. It’s what I still am, inside. Okay?”
There was no disputing that okay. Addison nodded.
“You must be glad to be back.”
His fingers wrapped around hers.
“I am. And I’m not.” He gave a rueful laugh. “Man, I’m really decisive, aren’t I?”
“It can’t be easy, coming home after everything you saw.”
He looked at her. “What I saw is that the world isn’t what I grew up thinking it was.”
“It’s not the place hardly anyone grows up thinking it is.”
He knew she was right, but it went deeper than that for him. When you grew up on tales of heroes and warriors, when men fought and died for reasons that were always clear and always honorable …
“No,” he said, after a minute, “it isn’t.” Jake turned his hand palm-up so that their fingers were intertwined. “Tell me about your father,” he said. “Losing him must have been tough for you and your mom.”
Her silver eyes darkened.
“It was awful. I adored him. He understood me, you know? I wasn’t into dolls or stuff. I loved reading and math and science.”
He smiled. “The future lawyer, hard at work.”
She smiled, too. “He used to tell me to grow up strong and independent enough to be whatever I wanted.”
“Good advice,” Jake said softly. “He sounds like a great guy.”
“He was.” She swallowed hard. “Did I tell you he went back into that burning building because a little boy was trapped?” She nodded, looked down at their joined hands. “The roof collapsed on both of them.”
“Honey. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“The boy’s mother came to see us. She wanted us to know what my father’s heroism had meant to her.”
A muscle bunched in his jaw.
“Even though she’d lost her child.”
“Yes. Like those policemen and firemen who lost their lives on 9/11. They died heroes.”
She was right. Of course they had. Heroes did the right thing. It was the determination to do that right thing that mattered.
But if a man wanted to do the right thing and didn’t do it, nothing else he’d done could possibly make him a hero.
“Everything was different after that. My mother— my mother couldn’t deal with his loss. Things went downhill. We lost our house and she—she changed.” She gave him a small, obviously painful smile. “He was a hero but I wish he’d come home to us, you know?”
He knew.
He knew, absolutely.
Heroism was in the eye of the beholder.
Coming home …
Coming home was everything. He’d known that from the beginning—but what if you couldn’t bring all your men home …?
“Breakfast,” Angie announced, and slapped two huge platters of food on the table in front of them.
Addison looked at hers. Two eggs, over easy. Bacon. Sausages. Biscuits.
Grits.
“Fry cook said he don’t know how to poach eggs,” Angie said cheerfully. “And turns out we’re all out of wheat bread.” She put her hands on her ample hips. “But I left off the home fries. Figured you was one of them health-food nuts, or somethin’.”
“Or something,” Addison said, still staring at the food.
