Operation Soldier Next Door

Hayley, with more benevolence than she herself would have shown at that—although perhaps living farther away she had less reason to be concerned about this man’s attitude—answered with a smile.

“Only to apologize for this one trespassing.” She gestured at the dog, who was watching him steadily.

“Ought to keep him under control,” Tate said to Hayley, still sounding stiff and cold.

“Many people should keep many things under control,” Quinn said. His voice was steady, inflectionless and nearly as cold as Tate’s, but somehow Lacy heard warning and threat and heat in it. She had the feeling that Tate would be unwise to ever talk to Hayley Foxworth like that again.

He seemed to realize it. She saw his gaze flick to Quinn, then back to Hayley. After a second, he nodded. “Yes. They should. Especially me. I’m sorry.”

It came out clipped, and rather flat, but it was an apology and Hayley moved quickly to accept.

“It’s all right. You’ve had a rough twenty-four hours, just when you should have had peace.”

At her gentle words he seemed utterly at a loss. For an instant he closed his eyes and looked chagrined enough that even Quinn appeared satisfied.

“And we’ll leave you to that peace,” he said, and slipped an arm around Hayley as they turned to go. Cutter seemed less than willing, but eventually, at a sharp whistle from Quinn, the dog followed, looking back at Tate the whole time.

“They’re nice people,” Lacy said. “Good people.”

“Mmm.”

Nice non-answer. Prodded by his gruffness, she added, “So am I.”

He looked at her then. She couldn’t read anything in his shuttered expression.

“Have it your own way, then,” she said, exasperated. Then, unable to stop herself in the face of his coldness toward people—and a dog—she found so likable, she added, “But Martin would be ashamed of your manners.

“Nice way to keep your vow,” she muttered to herself as she turned on her heel and went back to her house.

It was just as well the rest of her day would be taken up with work.

Chapter 6 (#uc2168f76-7182-5e51-bd47-473b1730e57c)

Okay, so she had a point, Tate thought as he rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw the next morning, debating whether to bother shaving. There was a difference between being aloof and being downright rude, and he’d crossed the line.

Martin would be ashamed of your manners.

That had stung like few things could. The thought of his grandfather being ashamed of him for any reason had the power to truly unsettle him. Much more than his parents, who had never agreed with most of his life choices, anyway. Of course, his father agreed with his mother if she said grass was purple. He was quite capable of standing up to anyone else—especially his son—but Michelle McLaughlin’s word was law.

If they’d had their way, he’d have gone to that Ivy League school, taken that knack he had for numbers and built a career around it. Wall Street, maybe. Never mind that the thought of being shut up in an office for hours a day made him twitchy, or worse. He shook his head at himself.

Shave, he thought. Then get started. It was already late, after a restless night trying to catch up on sleep. His makeshift bed on the big air mattress in the shop had been okay—he’d slept in much, much worse—but he didn’t want it to be long-term. He’d had to dig a blanket out of Gram’s linen closet, since everything that had been on the bed had been destroyed.

And the smell. The too-familiar smell, the lingering odor of destruction, that crept into the nostrils and stayed, haunting his dreams.

Maybe fresh paint would help that, though. At least it would smell like something had been done. But he was a long list of repairs away from painting.

He finished shaving, ran a hand over his still-damp hair, which was all it needed. He was going to keep that, he decided. Worrying about what his hair looked like was way down on his list of civilian habits to reacquire.

He pulled the list he’d made out of his pocket and read it again, looking for anything he’d forgotten. And trying to figure out how he was going to get it here when his only wheels were a motorcycle. He thought of Gramps’s pride and joy, that classic red Chevy El Camino, but it was sealed up on blocks in the back of the shop, and it would take more time to get it ready to drive than he wanted to spend before getting started on repairs. Although the makeshift fix with the Plexiglas had worked better than he’d expected, and it was nearly summer, dry and warming up already, so maybe he wasn’t in quite the rush he’d first thought he was.

Thanks to one Lacy Steele.

What a name. But he’d liked the way she’d kidded about it. She’d probably heard so many jokes she just blew them off.

In the end it went well enough. He found that the local lumber store he’d feared would be too small to have what he needed actually had a decent selection, thanks to a storage yard a short distance away. And there he found a guy who seemed to have a good knowledge of what he’d need and some tips on how to proceed, and the name of a good drywall guy for the texture coat, which Tate wrote down, thankfully. Best of all, they had a small pickup he could borrow to get the stuff home, then come back and get his bike.

No, he thought as he made the trip back, the best thing was that everyone he’d encountered on this supply trip had known, and obviously liked, his grandfather. The steady condolences were a little rough when he was still grieving rather fiercely—being in Gramps’s house, amid his things, was turning out to be both blessing and curse—but it was good to know he hadn’t been forgotten.

There was a lot to be said for this small-town stuff, he thought.

And Mom would cringe at the very idea. Reason enough to stick it out.

He was honest enough to admit tweaking her prejudices might be the tiniest bit of his motivation for not just accepting this inheritance, but actually coming here with the intention of staying. His ultra-cosmopolitan mother had shuddered at the very idea of living in a town of less than five thousand.

By late afternoon he had the last scraps of the destroyed shed cleared away, tackling that first to give the area more time to dry out from the fire department’s efforts to keep the damage to a minimum. He might need to give the guts of the damaged wall time to dry completely, as well, so he limited himself to cutting away the ruined drywall with his newly acquired drywall saw and clearing out the section of damaged roof and ceiling.

He assessed the situation and his condition. There was still plenty of light, but he could feel the slight hum in his head that told him he was tired. And that was when mistakes happened. So he decided further work should wait until tomorrow, when he would hopefully have had a decent night’s sleep. This wasn’t his area of expertise—he wasn’t sure what, if anything, was anymore—and he wanted to go slowly and carefully. So he would—

The doorbell, with Gramps’s selection of the chimes of Big Ben in tribute to his time in England before and after the war, interrupted his thoughts. Since Tate knew no one else here, it wasn’t a surprise to find Lacy on his front porch. His first thought was that she was even prettier than he remembered, although he thought he preferred the sleep-tousled look for rather primal, male reasons.

His second thought was that whatever she had in that pot she was carrying smelled so good it woke his stomach up with a vengeance.

“I rang this time,” she pointed out.

He nodded. Made an effort. “I thought maybe you were that dog again.” He realized suddenly how that sounded. “I only meant—”

She waved it off with a laugh. “He does seem clever enough to figure out how to ring a doorbell, doesn’t he?”

He was relieved she hadn’t taken offense; he’d already ticked her off quite enough.

“I was making beef stew for dinner, so I made extra.” She held out the pot, which she was holding with a towel between it and her hands, so apparently it was hot.

“Extra?”

“For you,” she said patiently, lifting the pot slightly. “I figured you’d be too busy to fix anything. You could have borrowed my car, you know.”

He blinked. “What?”

“My car. To go get your stuff.”

“Oh.”

If he had ever done worse at casual conversation, he couldn’t remember when. And she clearly noticed, because after a moment of silence she gave him an amazed look and a slight shake of her head.

“I would have invited you over for dinner, but since you don’t seem inclined to socialize, I brought it here.”

A sudden image shot through his mind of sitting across a table from her, like a normal person, chatting easily rather than stumbling along like this, uncertain of why he found it so difficult.