"I'm away a lot."

"Yes, you are, babe. Just make sure you keep coming home," Robin said, taking him by the tie and tugging him toward the back staircase that led to their bedroom.

But Jules couldn't promise this man that he'd married that he always would come home. Or that it wouldn't be in a body bag.

"I hate the idea that I'm doing to you what Arlene is doing to Maggie," he admitted, even as he followed Robin up the stairs. "She's got no real choice. But I do."

"No," Robin said, turning to face him, right there on the stairs. "You don't. You wouldn't be happy doing anything else. I would never ask you to-"

"I know." Jules kissed him. "But maybe you shouldn't have to ask."

Robin smiled into Jules's eyes. "You must really love me," he said, and the tenderness on his face took Jules's breath away. "Because we have this exact conversation every time you get back from overseas."

"You know I love you," Jules said just as quietly. "And I hate the idea that something I do makes you miserable."

"So make it up to me." The heat in Robin's eyes made Jules smile.

"You sure we don't have anywhere else to go tonight?" Jules asked. "Anyone else to help rescue? Any other crisis to handle?" As if on cue, his cell phone rang.

He took it out of his pocket to silence it and then, without looking at the caller ID, holding Robin's gaze the entire time, he tossed it into a basket of laundry that was sitting near the bottom of the stairs.

And then there they stood, halfway up the stairs, just gazing at each other.

Robin blinked first. "You better get that," he said. "What if it's Arlene. Or, you know, the President?"

Jules nodded. "Yeah." With a sigh, he went down the stairs, and dug his phone out from the clean towels.

Missed Call, it read. But it was neither Arlene nor the U.S. President. "It was Yashi," he told Robin.

Joe Hirabayashi was one of Jules's subordinates and a good friend. If he truly needed to get in touch with Jules, he would call back. But hopefully not for a while. Still on the stairs, Robin smiled and held out his hand.

Jules took it-and raced him to the top.

Chapter Eleven.

Arlene sat on her old sofa in Will's living room, with Maggie's head on her lap.

Her daughter had cried herself dry-they both had-and she now slept, as Arlene ran her fingers through her hair.

They'd discussed quite a few difficult topics-s.e.x being at the top of the list. But as Arlene had hoped, Maggie's threat to get pregnant was just that: a threat. Even with Lizzie's less than spectacular example, Maggie wasn't even close to being ready to become s.e.xually intimate with any of the boys she knew.

Although Arlene did find out that she had a crush on Lizzie's older brother, Mike, who had told Liz that he thought Maggie was pretty. He was a junior in high school, and Arlene absolutely was going to send Will and Jack over to speak to the boy. And okay, yes, not so much speak to him as scare the h.e.l.l out of him. She made a mental note to talk to Dolphina about him as well, to ask her to keep an eye on things and ...

G.o.d, she didn't want to go back. She wanted to be an active part of her daughter's life.

She and Maggie had talked-for a long, long time-about that, too. About duty and honor and keeping promises.

And then they'd talked about Jack.

"How come you never told me about him?" Maggie asked.

Arlene shook her head. "There was nothing to tell. He was Will's best friend. I was Will's kid sister. And then I met your father ... " She shrugged.

"Jack told me he cried," Maggie told her. "When he found out you were marrying Daddy."

"Really?" She winced even as the word came out of her mouth. She sounded like one of Maggie's middle-school friends.

"He told me all these stories about you," Maggie reported. "I talked to him for like two hours at Jules and Robin's wedding. I knew he was totally in love with you even before he said it because he called you music. It was right when I first met him. He goes, You've got to be Arlene Schroeder's daughter, and I go, yeah, and he goes, Your mother, she's music. That was what Will said when he first told me about Dolphina."

"So naturally you e-mail him to see if he'd be interested in being my new baby-daddy."

Maggie avoided eye contact. "I guess ... I thought it was worth a try. I think it would be cool to have a brother or a sister. I could babysit, help take care of him. Or her." She glanced at Arlene out of the corner of her eyes. "I think Jack would make a great father."

"He's got two sons," Arlene told her. "Luke and Joseph. I think Luke's ten and Joey's seven."

"Sweet," Maggie said with enthusiasm. "We could be like the Brady Bunch. With the new baby, there'd be six of us."

Arlene just looked at her.

"I'm just saying," Maggie said-which was one of Will's expressions. Jack's too, come to think of it.

"What am I going to do with you?" Arlene asked as she ruffled her daughter's unruly curls.

"Tomorrow, nothing," Maggie said with a grin, "because you're having lunch with Ja-ack."

It was obvious that Maggie was ecstatic about that, and Arlene found herself thinking of Jack's parting words. This is kinda weird. I'm happy, yet I appear to be awake.

It was definitely kinda weird, because the thought of meeting Jack tomorrow made Arlene feel happy, too. Happy and hopeful, even though, in a month, she was going back.

Her head still on Arlene's lap, Maggie stirred, waking just enough to look up at Arlene and murmur, "I love you, Mommy."

Arlene's heart clenched as she smiled down at her daughter. "I love you, too, monkey-girl."

Part II

Chapter Twelve.

The day was perfect. The sun sparkled in a brilliant blue sky, and the ocean air was fresh and clean as Jack parked in the lot for the Baldwin's Bridge hotel, which had an awesome restaurant overlooking the water.

They'd talked about his kids nearly the entire ride. Jack had focused-hard-on keeping his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road as he filled Arlene in on the latest exploits of Luke and Joey. After the breakup, the boys had moved with their mom to California, to the little town north of San Francisco where she'd grown up. Becca had done it in part in retaliation, to make it harder for Jack to see his sons; and in part to live closer to her parents, which was not a bad thing considering her still less-than-stellar mental health.

The end result, though, was that Jack saw his kids about as often as Arlene saw Maggie.

"Technically, we share custody," Jack said, trying to keep his voice even as Arlene climbed out of the car and stretched. She was totally killing him-and had been from the moment he'd spotted her, waiting for him on the front steps of Will's apartment building, from the moment her eyes had widened as she'd seen him in the Zipcar, even before she'd smiled.

His mouth had gone dry and his heart had pounded. And then she'd gotten into the car and sat there, so close and warm and sweet-smelling, with those long, pale, smooth, gracefully shaped legs.

She was dressed for a warm day at the seaside, in modestly cut shorts and a not-too-snugly-fitting T-shirt, half socks with pom-poms on the back and sneakers on her feet. Despite the soccer-mom look, he couldn't stop thinking about s.e.x. And not just everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill s.e.x, but s.e.x with Arlene, which, the one night he'd had it, had nearly blown off the top of his head.

"Although," he continued in that same even voice, because dropping to his knees, weeping, and begging her to skip lunch and just check into the hotel with him was not going to achieve more than very shortsighted, non-long-term immediate gratification, "because money's so tight, that translates to me finagling an a.s.signment on the West Coast and then working my a.s.s off to get the story written in half the time humanly possible, so I can spend a few days with my kids."

"We all do what we have to do," Arlene said simply as she gazed back at him over the top of the Zipcar-and Jack knew she was well aware that his driving it meant he no longer owned his own transportation. He, who'd always loved his car, had made the choice to give it up because the cost of garaging it in the city was exorbitant.

"I'd be lying," he told her quietly, "if I didn't mention, right about now, that I've been thinking about relocating out there."

"California," she said as something flickered in her eyes.

Jack nodded. "Maggie, um, suggested it. You know? Like as part of the master plan."

Arlene laughed at that, but it wasn't because she thought it was funny. "Oh, my G.o.d." Tears filled her eyes. "She's really willing to give up everything-her friends, her life-"

"Whoa, hold on there, she's not giving up her life," Jack said as he came around the car to pull her roughly into his arms.

She didn't resist. In fact, she clung to him as he closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair.

"What she's got now," he continued, "it's ... It's a half-life, Leenie. You made a deal, I get it, I do, and your honoring it is admirable, but the sacrifice is Maggie's, too."

"You think I don't know that?" Arlene whispered, and when she lifted her head to look up at him, he knew the next words out of her mouth were going to be a request for him to take her home.

"Here's what we're going to do," he told her, talking quickly, and putting one finger against the softness of her lips when she opened her mouth to speak. "We're not going to talk about this anymore, okay? Not today. Today we're going to have lunch, and we're gonna talk about music and movies and books and even non-war-related politics if we dare, plus I'm gonna tell you how great Maggie is. And the heaviest we'll get is maybe a little strategizing for how to deal with her crazy friend Lizzie and Lizzie's brother Mike-who is, right now, too old for Maggie, but I gotta confess that I relate to him with every screaming cell in my body, because I once had a thing for this really amazing girl who was too young for me."

Arlene smiled just a little at that, and he couldn't resist. He leaned down to kiss her. Gently. As sweetly as he could manage. Still, when he pulled back to look again at her, he knew she could see his desire-he couldn't keep it from showing his eyes.

It was then that she surprised him.

"Who are we kidding, Jack?" she whispered. "Let's just check into the hotel."

Oh, yes please ... Jack clenched his teeth over the reply, and instead said, in a voice that needed clearing a few times, "That's not why I brought you here."

She didn't believe him, and the look she gave him made him laugh.

"It's not," he said as he made himself step back from her. He reached for the red-and-white-striped bag on her shoulder. It held her sweatshirt, a Red Sox baseball cap, and a bottle of sunblock-and probably, at the bottom, since it was so heavy, a book or some kind of weapon. A handgun. A Taser. A bottle of mace.

Jack had spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and he knew that most military personnel carried deadly weapons while out and about. It was a hard habit to shake-the sense of insecurity that came from not being armed.

And, sure enough, she wouldn't surrender the bag. "I got it," she said.

"Okay," he agreed and took her hand instead. "Let's go have lunch."

Chapter Thirteen.

"I was thinking," Robin said as he sat on the edge of the bed to tie his running shoes. His military-short haircut emphasized the angles of his handsome face and somehow made his already impossibly blue eyes even more strikingly neon when he looked up.

Jules was already dressed for their morning run-a ritual he missed sorely whenever he was gone, even for just an overnight. A ritual he missed among many other "rituals." So to speak. Although, right now he was wishing he hadn't been in such a hurry to get out of bed. It wouldn't have taken much effort on his part to convince Robin to make their morning run an afternoon run.

"What?" Robin said as he smiled up at Jules-who realized he was standing there, just grinning at his husband like the village idiot.

"I'm just really glad to be home," Jules simplified.

"You get any vacation time," Robin asked, holding out his hand, "to make up for the extended trip? I mean, besides today?"

Jules laughed as, instead of his helping to pull Robin to his feet the way he'd expected, Robin pulled him down so that they were both sitting together on the bed, fingers tightly clasped. "I'm sure I'll be able to arrange something," he said. "You thinking western Ma.s.s? A little romantic getaway ...?"

"Actually," Robin said, "I'm thinking ... family vacation. California."

"California," Jules repeated with a laugh.

Robin's movie-producer sister Jane was married to Cosmo, a chief in Navy SEAL Team Sixteen, and they had a place in Coronado, as well as a house in LA. Vacations spent with them were undeniably action-packed and fun, but far from relaxing. They had a toddler, Billy, who was ridiculously adorable, but who fully embraced the concept of the Terrible Twos.

Cosmo's mom adored Robin and always made a point to visit simultaneously. She was great, but she brought her own level of pandemonium to the noisy chaos with her need to play show tunes at astonishingly high decibel levels at least several times each day.

Family vacations were undeniably enjoyable, but they were never restful-or even remotely romantic.

"I was thinking," Robin said again, "that we could bring Dolphina and Maggie with us. Will, too, if he can get the time off. I'm talking, of course, after Arlene goes. Back."

It was not lost on Jules-the way he said back, with that hesitation in front of it and the expression on his face that telegraphed the fact that the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

This past month, particularly the week-plus that Jules had been in Afghanistan, had been very hard on Robin.

And Maggie, who loved her mom, would be facing similar fears and worries-for far longer than a month.

Taking the girl to California with them wouldn't merely be a diversion. It also was, on Robin's part, a conscious effort to grow Maggie's support group. It would help her, immensely, to let her spend some significant time with Jane, whose Navy SEAL husband constantly went into dangerous hotspots. It would be priceless for the girl to meet the entire group of SEALs' wives, who would share their methods for coping. Plus, Maggie would return to Boston with a whole long list of new friends to e-mail and call-friends who knew exactly what she was going through while her mother finished up her current tour of duty.

In his head, Jules ran quickly down the list of SEAL wives who, along with Jane, lived out in California: Kelly, Meg, Teri, Savannah. Joan came and went, and would probably make a point to show if a gathering was planned. They were all intelligent, funny, compa.s.sionate, strong, determined women-great role models for a teenaged girl. Better yet, they would see a bit of themselves in Maggie and be proactive in maintaining contact by reaching out to her and making sure she knew that she wasn't alone.

It was a brilliant idea-thoughtful and generous and kind.

And Robin was sitting there with trepidation in his eyes, at the idea of asking Jules to sacrifice his hard-earned vacation days. Forget about the fact that Robin was willing to donate some of his own rare days off, as well.

"I love you," Jules told Robin. "Madly. Let's plan this thing."