“Have you seen a doctor?”

“More or less,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve been getting my shots. For travel, you know.”

Luke looked at Aiden. “And you knew about this?”

“I think it’s a good idea,” he said without answering the question. “Colin wants to see if there’s something left from before that accident—something he can still recover. Flying for one thing. Not just flying, but exciting flying. I feel better about Africa than Afghanistan when you get down to it.”

“And everyone knew but me?” Luke asked.

Colin smiled at his brother. “Only you and Aiden know. I should call Mom, Paddy and Sean. But there’s plenty of time—I leave September first.”

“Aw, Colin, you can’t really be leaving Jillian,” Luke said. “Listen, that might be your biggest mistake right there. You’re a whole new man since you found her.”

“We’ll be in touch,” he said. “In fact, she even got me the newest iPhone just in case I have trouble with email in some places. She wants to see whatever pictures I get. And I haven’t figured it out yet, but I think there’s a live video feed between cell phones. And the travel agent I used said they have disposable international cell phones—like we used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Who knows—maybe she’ll visit me, I’ll visit her. But I agree with you—she’s good people.” He turned to look at Aiden. “When do you want to bring Erin over to see the house and gardens?”

“In a couple of days. After we have dinner at the cabin?”

“Great. I’ll see what I can do to pilfer some of her homegrown stuff to add to the dinner. She’s starting to pull salad out of the ground most nights. I’ll go tell her.”

When Colin walked over to where the women sat on a blanket and talked, Luke turned to Aiden and said. “Big mistake. Big.”

Aiden just smiled. “Me knowing that and you knowing that doesn’t mean a thing. The person who’s going to have to find that out is Colin. And trust me, there’s no telling him.”

“I’m going to have a talk with him,” Luke said.

“Ah, listen, Luke. Let it be. It’s not going to matter. Especially coming from you.”

“The hell!”

Aiden lifted one dark, expressive brow. “You’re the guy who almost let Shelby get away. Don’t act like you know what you’re doing now. If she hadn’t come back from Hawaii and wrestled you to the ground, you’d probably still be one sick, messed-up, half-suicidal son of a bitch. I’m saying let him do what he’s going to do. If you’re going to be there for anyone, consider being there for Jillian. If she cares about him half as much as it appears she does, his leaving isn’t going to feel too good.”

Sixteen

It was very rare for Jack to have any kind of issue and not seek the counsel of Melinda, but on this occasion he was going to forge ahead on his own. He made plans to go fishing with Denny on Saturday. “Not so much biting out there yet,” he told the young man, “but the weather’s been perfect and you never know, one of the big ones might be lurking, waiting for some die-hard like me.”

Between the Fourth of July picnic and the following Saturday Jack did a lot of thinking, a lot of remembering. He thought he might’ve been a little preoccupied, a little on the quiet side, but no one seemed to notice. He thought he’d make good use of the week trying to mentally put all the pieces together, but in point of fact the pieces fell into place immediately when Phil Prentiss had said, Give the kid a foundation he can be proud of….

Susan Cutler had said almost the same thing. She’d said, I wish it had been you, Jack, because you’re a man a little girl or little boy could be proud of….

There were some major reasons he hadn’t been able to place her. First of all she’d been about thirty in the picture Denny gave him, the one of them together when Denny was a little tyke about six or eight years old, and she’d been brunette. The Susan he’d known had been blond. Another reason—he’d been concentrating so hard on a woman he’d been sexually involved with and he really, arrogantly, thought he remembered them all. At least any that had become serious on the woman’s part. It wouldn’t have completely shocked him to learn there was one he was so briefly involved with that she’d slipped his mind, but he thought that any woman who felt that strongly toward him would have left an imprint on his mind. And yet another reason—he hadn’t really known Susan’s last name. He might’ve heard it once, twice at the most. And did he like her? Oh, he thought she was great! But he had never dated her. She had a guy in her life. A guy who was making her life miserable.

Jack and Denny staked out a little piece of river on Saturday and began casting. Fly-fishing was a quiet sport for the most part and Jack waited a long time to begin talking.

“This place has a reputation for father-son talks,” he said. “Rick wasn’t really my son, but I thought of him like you would a son. He counted on me like a kid would a father, that’s for sure. This was the place I brought him when he was sixteen to tell him not to mess with his fourteen-year-old girlfriend. He promised me he wouldn’t, but I gave him some condoms anyway.”

“How’d that work out for him?” Denny asked.

“He got her pregnant.” Denny just whistled. “Then I brought him here to counsel him about not giving in to panic. I told him to come to me with his issues, that I could probably help him somehow, but that he shouldn’t be crazy enough to try to marry some young girl just because she was pregnant, only making one problem into several problems. By that time they were fifteen and seventeen, so…” Jack paused. “So, they ran away to get married.”

“I know Rick’s married, but I guess I didn’t realize he’d been married as a teenager.”

“He wasn’t. I caught up with them, stopped them. He married Liz, the same girl, last fall. That baby from their teenage years, that baby was stillborn. It was horrible for them. They stayed together—all through his Marine career, all through his war injuries and disabilities. They’ve had a rough road, but they love each other a lot. Needless to say, I don’t have a real good track record with the advice I give out on this river….”

“You oughta give yourself an A for effort, Jack. Sounds like you tried to do all the right things.”

“You know, probably the only reason I really thought of Rick like a son was because of his young age when I found him. Just a kid, not even close to grown-up. With you, it’s different—you’re a man. Even without that letter your mom left, even if that hadn’t become a consideration, we were bound to be friends. We think a lot alike. And it goes without saying—I’m proud of you, Denny. Proud of your actions, your behavior. Proud of your ethics. We were gonna be friends who just keep getting to be better friends. You’ve been there for me and my family in an outstanding way. Not only am I attached to you by now, Mel and the kids are, too.”

Denny performed a beautiful cast and said, “I told you, Jack—if you can’t think of me as your son, I get that. I mean, you don’t remember my mom, which isn’t your fault. And even without that, I like you and the family.”

“Denny, I remember your mother. It came to me all of a sudden at the picnic this week and I remember her very, very well. And… Denny, I’m not your biological father.”

When Denny turned to look at Jack, Jack met his eyes. Clearly Denny was shocked speechless.

“Here’s how it was, son. Your mom cut my hair every single week—she worked in the barbershop at the PX. I was a dedicated young Marine and I never let much hair cover my head. It wasn’t a quick friendship, but I liked her right away—she was awesome. She looked a little different back when I knew her—different than the picture you showed me. Her hair wasn’t brunette like in the picture. But now I know exactly why you turned out so great— Susan was the best. She was positive, friendly, happy all the time. I never let anyone touch my head but her. Not only did she do a real good job, I liked talking to her. We talked about our families, our ambitions. I was determined to make a name for myself in the Corps. She wanted to settle down, have a family. Then one day she wasn’t so happy and I took her out for some coffee, let her talk and found out she was in a bad relationship.

“We got to be real good friends, Denny. I was willing to do just about anything to help her get out of that bad situation—anything but marry her. I knew you were on the way and she was definitely worthy of a good solution, but I had my family—my parents and sisters—to consider. I couldn’t marry her just to help her out. My family would have higher expectations of me. They’d expect me to be a dedicated husband and father and I wasn’t ready. I didn’t love her that way. I would have ended up disappointing her, you and my whole family. But I laid it all on the line—I offered to help her financially, to help her get that guy out of her life for her, anything that would work. And then I got my orders. She slapped on a cheerful face, told me everything was going to be fine, her parents were on her side and she had all the help she needed. She also said she wished she’d have met me first—that I was the kind of man her child would be proud to have as a father.” Jack took a breath. “I had no idea what that might mean in the end. And now I understand why she did what she did. And I understand why you turned out to be a fine young man.”

Denny was quiet for a long time. Finally he let out a breath with the word, “God.”

Jack gave him some time to absorb all that. He fished awhile, grateful nothing bit; he didn’t want to be distracted. When Denny didn’t speak, Jack said, “I don’t see that it changes anything.”

“It changes everything,” Denny said at once.

“No, Denny, it just alters a few biological facts, but the important things are the same.”

“My mother lied to me,” he said. “My mother never lied. And she implicated you when you had nothing to do with me.”

“She reinvented your past. I know she had a reason. Probably a good one. And from what you told me, she didn’t expect you to hunt me down. She just wanted to give you some comfort. I’m good with that.”

“Because you don’t know the guy, Jack. If he’s my true father, I have issues to worry about.”

“Why? Because he wasn’t a good guy? What’s that have to do with you? You’re a good guy. And I have witnesses.”

“She made you a part of her drama and—”

“Stop right there. The Susan I knew didn’t have drama, she had survival instincts.”

“For all the good that did her,” Denny said with a bitter tone.

“I don’t think there’s a lot we can do about serious illness, son.”

“You don’t have to call me that,” he said, anger at the edges of his voice.

“Okay, listen up, kid. Last year Mel had it in her head we had to adopt a child. She just wasn’t done having children, but she’d had a hysterectomy so her body was done. When you came along she reminded me that we were ready to take on a child with different biological parents and she never doubted for a second that we’d accept that child as our own. She thought we—you and me—should do the blood work, if for no other reason than to know who was a potential candidate if anyone in the family ever needed help, like a bone marrow transplant. But she reminded me that the outcome of the blood work didn’t really matter in relationships. Relationships are connections you make. What that means, Denny, is you don’t have a connection with the man you always knew as your father because he was indifferent and cruel. You don’t owe him anything, either—let him go. You’re free to create your own family. Think about that.”