“I like your family, Daniel.”
“I’m glad. They liked you too. I never heard Solomon say so many words in one conversation before.”
“I’d love it if you could snap a family photo for me before we leave, something I could have on my phone.” She already had numerous photos of their Georgia stay on her phone, but none was a group photo.
“I can do that,” Daniel agreed.
Bishop half listened to the instructions his XO was giving the sailors clustered around the table to his left while he scanned the TRIPER report. Nevada gold would have eight new sailors joining this patrol. Preparing men for what gold crew expected during a deployment began long before the boat pushed away from the pier.
Blue crew would bring the Nevada back into port next week. Gina was due back in town tonight. Bishop forced himself to ignore that second thought and focus on what he was reading. The TRIPER list of equipment scheduled to be pulled out and replaced with refurbished parts ran for pages. This 25-day refit—maintenance and resupply—was going to be unusually aggressive. He hoped Nevada blue reported in with no missile problems to sort out. It wouldn’t take much to push the work schedule into missing their September 1st patrol date. It never looked good—for the crew or captain or onshore maintenance—when a boat had to shift a scheduled departure date back.
Water dripped from the ice pack balanced on his left hand, and he hissed his annoyance as the ice numbed his little finger. Having his two middle fingers taped together with a splint was bad enough. Having his little finger also ache added further insult to his discomfort.
Someone knocked on the door as he was tearing off a paper towel from a roll he’d stuck in a desk drawer.
“I thought you’d be halfway to Seattle by now,” Bishop commented as Jeff took a seat across from him.
“I got their flight time wrong—they came in earlier. Should I give you the good news or bad?”
“Depends on your read of my mood.”
“There wasn’t a ring on Gina’s left hand when she got off the plane.”
Bishop felt an intense layer of relief. “The bad news?”
“I’d say my sister is falling in love. She looks very comfortable with Daniel and is starting to tease him. It’s noticeable, the shift. Sorry, man.”
“Yeah.” Bishop pushed aside the report and tugged out more paper towels.
“You want to come get fussed over by Tiffany? We’re meeting to share a pizza.”
“No. Go away, friend.”
Jeff tapped his fist on the desk. “Still no ring. Remember that.”
It wasn’t much comfort. Bishop carefully flexed his little finger. It just meant he’d get another few weeks of misery, followed by a patrol and news when he got home that Gina was engaged. Or married.
The front doorbell rang. Mark muted the ball game and leveraged himself out of his favorite leather chair. When he opened the door, he wasn’t that surprised at his visitor. He stood for a moment absorbing the fact that part of a week with a lot of sun had brought a few freckles out on her nose and turned her skin a rich tan. He pushed open the screen door. “Hello, Gina.”
“Sorry about your hand.”
It was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. “So am I.”
She was carrying a cardboard box. “I’m supposed to give you these, but rather than hand them to you, I think I’ll just put them in your kitchen.” She headed through the house.
Bishop decided he might as well follow. “What did you bring me?”
“Cupcakes.”
She lifted the lid, and he saw each cupcake iced with a letter. Good Job, Mark.
“Who ate cupcake 12 from my dozen?” he asked, curious.
“Trust you to notice. I sampled the one that didn’t get a letter. They’re good.”
He took an o as it had the most icing. “You can have another one,” he generously offered. He pulled out a chair and took a seat at the kitchen table, carefully peeling back the paper from the cupcake. “Did you stop by to tell me you’re getting married?”
“You’re in an interesting mood.”
“I am.”
She walked past him and ruffled his hair. The move so surprised him, he nearly dropped the cupcake.
She pulled milk out of his refrigerator, got a glass from a cupboard, raised it with a question in her eyes. When he shook his head, she poured milk for herself. “Daniel has a good family. I enjoyed getting to meet them.” She settled into a seat across from him. “I hate to fly. Every time I go up I’m convinced the laws of aerodynamics don’t make sense and we’re going to fall out of the sky and go splat.”
He smiled at her word choice, eyed her cautiously, and began eating his cupcake.
“What were you thinking when you grabbed that pipe?” she asked.
“I was reaching for the guy who was about to get hit by the pipe. The casing was supposed to hit the hull rather than the hull and me.” He looked at his injured left hand. “Broke the bones above the first joint. It’s going to be a long eight weeks wearing the brace, but they’ll heal.”
“I’m glad.”
She reached for a cupcake, choosing the k. “Daniel offered to give me some time to think about things. He wants to propose if I would like him to do so. One of those agreements where he won’t ask unless I want to say yes, so I don’t have to turn him down.”
Bishop nodded. “What are you thinking?”
“That I need to go work on something else. The solar flares. Satellite drift. I need to get away from Bangor for a while.”
“Thomas Keller at the Jet Propulsion Lab is waiting on your call. You want me to escort you to Pasadena, get you settled in with a new research group?”
“I can work remotely with JPL while I get up to speed on the sun research being done. I don’t have the energy left for new people and feeling out the dynamics of another research group right now.”
“Chicago?”
“I think so. It’s home. It’s where I can cocoon for a while.”
“Then let me get you there.”
“That’s why I came by. You said you were flying to Chicago on the seventh to see your brother Bryce and meet his wife, Charlotte. I’d like to travel with you, if you don’t mind my white knuckles.”
“I don’t mind.”
She studied his bandaged hand. “You aren’t going to fuss at me when I carry my own luggage, are you?”
“I might let you carry part of mine,” Bishop replied, considering his hand.
A comfortable silence settled over the kitchen. “Change your mind about some milk?” Gina offered.
“Sure.”
She poured him a glass and refilled hers.
“You had a good time in Georgia?”
She pulled out her phone, opened the photos folder, and handed it to him. Mark slowly tabbed through. He stopped, shot her a surprised look. “He had you up on water skis?”
“For a full 20 seconds I was upright.”
“What did you think?”
“Before or after my heart tried to jump out of my chest? I understand now why people would consider it a thrill. I let his sisters talk me into trying. Daniel tried to veto the idea. I should have listened to him, because I’ll never do it again.”
Mark moved through the rest of the photos. He stopped on one, closed his eyes for a brief moment, then handed the phone back. She’d been sitting with Daniel on a porch swing, the photo probably snapped by one of his sisters. Daniel had a coiled strand of her hair around his finger, was looking at her, and it was a lover’s look. “He’s a good man,” Mark said, his voice sounding heavy in his own ears.
“Yes,” Gina replied softly.
“You could do worse. A lot worse.”
“I know.” She looked over at him.
He wanted to add that she could do better, that she was looking at better, but he was no longer sure.
She pushed back her chair. “I’m leaving before I eat a third cupcake. Jeff said he could give us a lift to the airport.?
??
Mark rose to walk with her to the front door. “It’s a plan.”
“Take care of yourself, Mark.”
“I will,” he promised. He watched her through the screen door as she walked to the car, where security was waiting, and turned away when she was gone. Whatever came, he was going to handle it with some grace. He owed them both that.
16
Gina’s home in Chicago was a large two-story with a long front porch, situated in an older suburb of Chicago. Mark liked it on sight. Built in the 1920s, the house was painted white with blue shutters, had colorful hanging baskets of flowers on the porch, and it all set a welcoming tone as they walked up the sidewalk. A line of tall evergreen shrubbery provided privacy on both sides.
“A neighbor has the touch with the flowers and takes care of the house when I’m away,” Gina said. “I can never get them to bloom as beautifully.”
She unlocked the door and they stepped inside to the fragrance of lemon oil, ginger, and sugar cookies. The mail that hadn’t been forwarded was neatly stacked on a side table in the hall. She set her one travel bag by the staircase, having shipped the rest of her things to arrive in a few days.
The hardwood floors gleamed. The ceilings were tall, the walls mostly white, the area rugs a mix of bold Southern colors. She favored solid wide-plank furniture in a light oak, and wingback chairs. Mark could see three built-in bookcases just from where he stood in the entryway.
She had 8x10 photos of interesting phenomena on various walls, intermixed with photos of her brother and parents. The Earth from space, a photo of the deep ocean currents, plankton blooms in the ocean, a mega-pod of dolphins numbering in the thousands, and photos of the sun—spectacular coiling solar flares, full eclipses. “I like your home,” he decided.
She was standing where they had entered, letting him look around. She smiled at his remark. “Thanks. I’ve lived here since I was 14. My parents bought this place because it was near the university where I was going, but I would have chosen it for myself. Come on back to the kitchen. I don’t know about you, but I’m parched. I was trying to avoid drinking much on the flight.”
He paused in the sunroom off the kitchen, touched a finger to Saturn and it moved away on its trajectory around the sun. The other planets moved with the breeze created by the door opening. A few random gray chunks slid on strings cutting across the planets’ orbits. “Asteroids?”
“And some comets.” She pointed out the large oval loops that set their trajectories. “It helps me understand things if I can see them in motion.”
The model was old, handmade. “When did you create this?”
“I was 10, maybe? When we moved into this house, Jeff helped me hang it in here. It still looks nice on a sunny day.”
She pulled sodas out of the refrigerator. The counters were clear, the tables too. Either she was remarkably neat or she let a housekeeper put away any clutter.
“You let the house stand empty while you were in Boulder?” It didn’t smell like a closed-up house.
She opened a cookie jar and found Oreos to go with the sodas. “I’ve been back here for a few days most months. I’ve got a friend who rents half the double garage and keeps the yard mowed and snow shoveled for me, and another who lives in New York and will stay here in the guest suite rather than rent a hotel room when she’s in Chicago. My neighbor was the housekeeper for us back when my mother and I first lived here, and she still comes over to give me a few hours during a month for things like dusting and the flowers. Security in the house is good. This is home base. Neither Jeff nor I want to sell it. I figure one small-scale work project in Chicago a year is enough to pay for the overhead of keeping this place, and it’s worth that.”
“A good arrangement.” Mark glanced around. “Still, let me walk through the house, confirm everything is secure before I leave.”
“Sure. I’m going to go talk with Connolly about the security and hear what he wants to do now that we’re here.”
Mark did the walk-through, checking window locks and exterior doors, scanning for water leaks or moisture problems, quickly realizing the house was much larger than it appeared from the curb. Four levels, if he counted the finished attic, along with an unfinished basement, two formal offices, three bedrooms upstairs, a master suite with a bath on the main level.
She had space here, room for ideas to flourish. He passed framed schematics of airplane designs and a framed periodic table, paused at a round table to pick up one of several model rockets on display. The anatomy models and a cutaway motorcycle engine she had once mentioned sat neatly on shelves in the attic next to an array of papier-mâché models on different subjects. Books were tucked everywhere and seemed to span every subject, from practical ones on cooking to complex tomes on mathematics and biochemistry. Her collection of fiction swung toward sci-fi from the forties onward, and she favored fantasy in her movie collection. In a place of honor in the living room was a wall with submarine photos and her own submarine fleet on display.
Mark heard Gina rejoin him. “You’re a collector.”
“Of a sort.”
“I saw a second electrical fuse box in the basement. Was that for the computer equipment? Your offices look configured for high-speed connections and graphics.”
“The majority of the house was rewired about eight years ago. I can’t replicate an audio lab or the multiple display configurations likely at JPL, but I can do just about any modeling I want to from here. I turned a closet into a server rack, so I’ve got good data storage options. The bottleneck used to be the link between this house and the university, but that was upgraded back when I was doing the original cross-sonar work for the Navy. I could work strictly from here if necessary, but I find the walls closing in on me after a few weeks. So I prefer a university or research group, even if I’m working primarily on my own task.”
“JPL is lucky to have you next.”
“I’m looking forward to thinking about the sun for a few months.”
Security was with her at the house, so she’d be fine here. Mark noted the time and accepted reality. “It was a very early morning, and a long flight. I’ll head out, Gina, let you get settled. I’ll be in touch before my flight leaves tomorrow.”
“Please say hi to your brother for me.”
“I will.” She walked with him to the front door, but he found he didn’t want to say goodbye—it seemed too permanent a word. “I hope you find the next few weeks a restful break.”
She hugged him, surprising him. “Thanks for bringing me home,” she whispered.
He hugged her back. “Think of this as a vacation, but don’t forget Bangor,” he replied softly.
She stepped back, offered a full smile. “Impossible. Enjoy a day seeing your family. I’m going to call Jeff, tell him I’ve arrived safely.”
The smile caught at his heart, and he gently ran a finger along the side of her face, seriously considering kissing her goodbye. Instead he forced himself to step out with a comfortable smile. “See you later, Gina.”
“You’re a man with a lot on your mind.”
Mark accepted the glass of iced tea his brother held out to him. “Thinking about a woman.”
His brother smiled. “That would explain it,” Bryce said as he sat down in a deck chair with his own glass.
Mark considered his brother—it had been a while since they were last together, but they had picked up where they’d left off with ease. His brother looked a lot more relaxed than Mark remembered. “You and Charlotte make an interesting couple. She’s an extraordinary sketch artist.”
“She is. You should see the art at the gallery. What’s here at the house is just a hint of what she’s created recently.”
Charlotte had left the brothers to talk for a while around the outdoor table and catch up. It had been a nice lunch, and she had left a good impression. “I like her,” Mark offered, knowing the words were unnecessary but wanting to offer them anyway.
His brother had waited a
long time to marry, and Charlotte was different from the person Mark had expected—not the social butterfly he thought his brother would attract, but a woman who was quiet, careful, a bit reserved. Her affection for his brother was obvious. They were newlyweds, and it was on display in the ways they would share a thought with a glance, a touch, a private smile. Their relationship had all the hallmarks of a good, solid marriage, and Mark was relieved to see it.
“I knew you’d like Charlotte,” Bryce replied easily. “What’s her name, your lady?”
Mark smiled. “Gina Gray. Not my lady . . . yet. She’s considerably younger than me. Eleven-plus years younger.”
“Didn’t expect that from you,” Bryce said, interested.
“I didn’t either. Jeff Gray, the commander of the Seawolf, has been a friend for years. Gina’s his sister.” Mark flexed his left hand, the broken fingers and splint making his other knuckles ache. “How did you know Charlotte was the one?” he asked.
“We didn’t have that moment. I married her first, fell in love with her second,” Bryce said. He waved the glass he held, dismissing the questions the remark created. “Circumstances made it necessary. Neither one of us regrets it.”
“Pregnant?” Mark asked. He knew there wasn’t a child around, but miscarriages happen.
“Nothing like that. Her grandfather’s will was . . . interesting. It’s how I met her, helping her settle the estate. I asked her to marry me, she thought about it for several months, said yes.” Bryce leaned back in his chair, glanced with obvious affection toward the studio, where Charlotte was visible through the glass as she straightened up items around her drafting board. “For more reasons than I’ll be able to tell you, it was a good decision, Mark, the right one for both of us. I hate to think what life would have been like had we not made the commitment to each other that we did. I love her because she’s Charlotte. Because she trusts me. Needs me. And loves me back.”
Mark felt his emotions settle at the brief facts and description of their relationship. Bryce was deeply in love with his wife, however they had gotten to this point. “I noticed the security around the place. It came with her?”