And yet, here he was, taking her to No Man’s Land so she could interview Grandpa Max and David Bennett.
“I got it,” he murmured, reaching for the handle of the large glass door to hold it open for her, peering through to the dining room. It wasn’t crowded at the luncheon bar, but the booths were pretty full with the early crowd.
As they walked in, he dipped to see into the kitchen and spied his father behind the pass, hard at work. No surprise there. He took a lot of nights off, but never Wednesday. He’d worked the WarBird Special every Wednesday since Adam was a kid.
And Grandpa was in his usual booth, eating grilled cheese with bacon, with his best friend across from him, dipping toast in coffee because half his teeth were gone. The two of them were talking politics and old movies, and reminiscing. Loudly.
“They’re over there,” Adam said, gesturing to the corner. None of the tables nearby was taken, but if they had been, Adam would have known those patrons were tourists. The locals knew Max had to holler for David to hear him and David answered in kind.
“Just follow the yelling,” Adam said, nudging her in the right direction.
“That’s the thing, David. You can’t just rebuild the same house! It’s never the same! It’s…” He turned to see Adam coming closer, his whole wrinkly face spreading into a wide smile. “There’s my grandson!”
“Who is handsome?” David asked.
But Max ignored him, his old gaze landing on Jadyn. His blue eyes had dimmed over his many years, but the man could still give a piercing stare when he wanted to. And by the way he was locked on her, he wanted to.
“Oh, no, don’t get up,” Jadyn murmured as they reached the table.
“Can’t stop him,” Adam said. Almost a hundred years of life, ingrained military protocol, and basic manners dictated that Max Tucker stand when a woman came into his presence.
He smoothed the five strands of gray hair he had left and grinned with yellowed teeth in admiration. “And who is this beautiful angel?”
Jadyn laughed and self-consciously brushed some hair off her face. Was it possible she really didn’t think she was beautiful with or without makeup? Adam found that hard to believe, but stepped in to do the introductions.
“Grandpa, this is Jadyn McAllister, a designer I’ve hired to help me finish the boathouse. Jadyn, this is Max Tucker and David Bennett.”
“Jadyn?” Max repeated, frowning, then turning to David. “It’s Adam’s new…” He hesitated and looked at Adam. “He’ll never hear that design business,” he said under his breath. “Adam’s new girlfriend,” he announced loudly. “Jadyn.”
“Jane?” David put his toast down and furrowed bushy gray brows.
“Jadyn,” Adam corrected. “Like the stone with an n.”
“Jadyn,” Grandpa said. “Pretty.” He looked her up and down, nodding. “So pretty.”
“She wants to ask you guys some questions about town history,” Adam explained. “Would you mind?”
“Mind?” The old man almost chortled with glee. “Nobody ever wants to listen to us talk about that.”
“Talk about what?” David insisted, leaning forward and putting a hand behind a giant teacup of an ear that had apparently earned him the handle Dumbo in his military days.
“History,” Jadyn supplied, speaking loud and clear.
“A mystery?” David yelled. “I love a good mystery.”
Adam resisted rolling his eyes, Jadyn just smiled, but Grandpa threw a look at his friend. “Why in the name of all that’s holy don’t you wear that hearing aid?”
David flicked his hand at the suggestion. “My ears are just fine if you’ll speak up.”
Grandpa gestured for Jadyn to take a seat. “Right here, young lady. Next to me.”
“No, next to me, Jane,” David bellowed, patting the leather seat.
Without correcting him, she slipped into the booth, and Grandpa tapped Adam’s arm. “Go get her a Coke. Or talk to your dad. We don’t need you. Leave us with this delightful creature.”
“You okay with that?” Adam asked her, a little relieved not to have to sit and hear David yell for however long this would take. “You want anything to drink?”
“Sure.” She smiled up at him. “Ice water is fine.”
He nodded and gave a slight salute to his grandfather. “Keep an eye on her.”
“Oh, I will,” he assured him. “Both eyes, but no hands.”
Chuckling at the old man, Adam headed behind the bar, nodding to the new night-shift waitress, Mandy, which surprised him, because Brenda, like Dad, always covered Wednesday nights. So now she’d missed Monday morning and Wednesday night. Odd.
But Mandy seemed a little distracted as she looked at her pad and tried to fill a soda at the same time, so he decided not to ask her to get Jadyn’s water now.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, coming around the back to see what was on the grill and stove. “How’s it going?”
He shot a frown up, then glanced at the pass before lowering his voice. “She’s real sweet, that Mandy, but she’s screwed up a few orders tonight.”
“Where’s Brenda?” Adam asked.
“She worked all day.” He flipped a burger with a little more force than necessary. “And tonight the people in that photography class are getting together to preview the materials and share pictures and talk.” He damn near spat the last word.
“Well, she has to have a life,” he said, echoing Bailey and remembered his siblings’ conjecture about Dad and…no. Not possible. Not within the realm of possible. “I’m sure Mandy’ll be fine, and the place isn’t even that crowded.”
“She has a life,” he said, as if Adam hadn’t even spoken. “I mean, this place is full of her friends who come in here, and she has…” His hand froze as he picked up a pan of sizzling onions. “It’s not a bad life,” he muttered. “Even if some people think it is.”
Adam knew exactly who Dad meant. An age-old, familiar, and entirely unwelcome resentment coiled in Adam’s chest. After what? Seventeen years? You’d think he’d have let go of that feeling of wanting to punch a wall when he thought about Mom leaving.
“It’s fine,” Adam said quickly. “It’s a good place to work and…live.”
“Except when it’s not.”
Adam frowned. “Something wrong, Dad?”
“No, no. Nothing. What are you doing here, anyway? Trying to lose that bet with Zane?”
“Yeah, basically.” Adam leaned against the counter, staying out of his father’s way while the older man went through the motions of preparing seven different dinners, all in various stages of readiness. “I brought Jadyn, the designer. She’s talking to Grandpa and David about the town history.”
Dad shot him a look. “Why?”
“She thinks it should be incorporated in the decoration of the boathouse quarters.” Give it a voice, which was too out-there to share with Dad when he was concentrating on finishing a burger platter. He put the plate on the pass, rang the bell, and sighed when nothing happened in twenty seconds.
“Brenda would have that steaming hot and in front of the customer by now.”
“Want me to take it?”
“I’m here, I’m here.” Mandy sailed up to the pass, looking frazzled. She reached for the burger, frowned, and then looked at Dad. “It was a cheeseburger. Did I not write that? Sorry!”
Dad blew out a breath but kept his cool, nodding to her and grabbing a stack of American cheese slices. “Gimme a sec.”
When Mandy disappeared, he put the burger back on the grill and shot a look to Adam. “Brenda would never have made that mistake.”
“And that’s why you’re a little ticked off that she’s not here.”
“I told you she worked a whole day shift.” Dad pressed the meat to help melt the cheese. Pressed hard. “So it’s fine that…” His words trailed off as he replated the burger and glanced at the ticket. “And, yes, would you take this out to table five before they leave and never come back?”
&n
bsp; “Sure.” He grabbed the platter, but felt his father’s eyes on him. “I got this, Dad. I’ve waited tables in this place before.” Didn’t like it, but he did it.
“Lemme ask you something, Adam.”
He nodded, waiting.
“Why are you on some wild-goose history chase when all you wanted was someone to help you buy stuff for that boathouse project and your kids camp?”
He stared at his father, unable to answer that.
“’Cause of her, right?”
“I guess so.”
Dad nodded as if Adam had confirmed something that wasn’t even part of this conversation. “Women. You can’t live with ’em and you can’t…”
“Send ’em down river?” Adam joked.
“Not what I was thinking. Come on, get that food out.”
He almost bumped into Mandy on the way out, and she sheepishly took the burger to deliver it. Adam grabbed an ice water from behind the luncheon counter and headed back to the corner booth, where the three of them were in deep, and loud, conversation.
“And you have to hear this,” Grandpa added.
Jadyn was tapping notes into her phone.
“Listen to me, Jane,” Grandpa insisted.
She looked up. “I am, I promise. It’s just that I don’t want to forget anything. This is amazing!”
Adam slowed his step, taking in the exchange. Had she decided it wasn’t worth correcting them about her name or…or…was he imagining that instant, natural response to the wrong name?
“There are helmets!” Grandpa announced. “You have the helmets, right, David?”
“I gave ’em to Hildie Fontana. Leather for the fighters and a fifty-mission crush garrison cap. Course I kept that one.”
“What is a fifty-mission crush?” Jadyn asked, a little breathless.
David grinned, clearly having no hearing problems when he was talking about the old days with a willing and beautiful audience. He cleared his throat and leaned forward.
“Bombers wear garrison caps, Janie. They’re shaped different and kind of stick out here.” He patted the sides of his head. “But the bomber puts his headset over the hat, and every time he wears it, the puffy sides get a little more crushed. You want to know how tough a man was? Take a look at his crush. Fifty-mission crush.” His wrinkled mouth turned down as he nodded at how impressive that was. “The best.”
“You have a hat like this? Were you a bomber?” She asked the question loud and clear, and David shook his head.
“I was a mechanic. Crew chief, if you must know. The bomber was Rusty McCoy, and he loved my work. Died about twenty years ago, and his wife sent his cap to me. Said Rusty told her it was my work that got him home after every mission.” He beamed with pride. “You bet I have that cap. I even have—”
“Jane,” Grandpa interrupted.
She whipped around to face him. “What?”
“I have another idea for you.”
Adam just stared, processing, wondering.
“You do need to go talk to Hildie Fontana,” Grandpa said.
“Oh yeah,” David agreed. “She’s got a garage full of stuff she hauls out every year for Founder’s Day.”
“Founders’ weekend,” Grandpa corrected with a sniff. “The ‘day’ is just for that egomaniac Westbrook. The weekend is for all four of us, so that makes it the real holiday.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Adam interjected, sliding in next to David. “This is really getting far afield,” he said to Jadyn. “We still need a sink in that place. Not helmets hanging on the wall.”
She ignored him, tapping on her phone. “Hildie Fontana, you said? Adam, do you know how I can find her?”
“Stand in the middle of town and sniff for gossip,” he said.
“No gossip, just history.” She flashed her smile at him, which was even brighter than when they’d started this madness. “And wait till you hear this story they told me.”
“I’ve heard all the stories,” he assured her.
“Well, I didn’t hear half of it,” David joked, sipping his coffee. “Did I, Janie?”
“Janie?” Adam asked, lifting a brow.
Her cheeks paled slightly, which he might never have noticed if she’d been wearing rouge or blush, or whatever they called it. But he could see it now.
“What’s important is that I have been inspired beyond belief,” she said, glancing at the notes on her phone. “Do you know about Sleepy Time Gal, Adam?”
“The B-26 Marauder?” Did he know about the plane Captain Max Tucker flew in the war? “Uh, yeah. I’ve heard of it. Seen the yawning pinup girl that was painted on the side.”
Grandpa hooted. “What a woman.”
“She sounds wonderful!” Jadyn was undeterred in her enthusiasm. “We have to do something with mugs.”
“Mugs?” Adam asked. Maybe she meant rugs. Maybe his hearing was as bad as David’s because—
“Squadron mugs!” David supplied, hearing every damn word. “Janie had a great idea for those.”
“Janie did?” Adam didn’t know whether to laugh, pull his hair out, or ask her the question that had started burning in his brain.
“It’s just easier,” she whispered, “than, you know, correcting them.”
Was it? Or was it—
“Would you guys consider joining the other two founders for a special presentation when we finish?” she asked. “A dedication, of sorts?”
David and Grandpa looked at each other. “Possibly,” Grandpa said.
Adam slowly pushed up from the booth, trying not to explode in frustration. “Well, I guess if you’re planning a dedication, you’re planning to be finished in a little more than a week. Right…Janie?”
She shot him a narrow-eyed glare. “Absolutely.”
“Then you better get to work, young lady,” Grandpa said. “This is the first thing I’ve been excited about since…” He looked up at Adam. “Since before that damn flood.”
Jadyn gave a smile to Grandpa, reaching over the table to squeeze his gnarled old hand. “You’ve been a huge help, Max. And you, too, David.” She put her other hand on David’s skinny shoulder and patted it. “I’m so happy for this.”
“What? You want a kiss?” he yelled back, making her laugh.
David joined her and looked up at Adam. “She’s a keeper, this Jane. Good thing she likes you and not your brother.”
“Why’s that?” Not that he was sure he wanted to hear.
“’Cause then they’d be Zane and Jane!” David hooted, and Grandpa joined in with a guffaw that turned into a cough. But Jadyn just smiled, her expression giving nothing away, and made no attempt to correct them.
“Thank you for everything,” she finally said, pushing out of the booth. “I’ll be in touch, I promise!”
She waved her goodbye and let Adam lead her to the door, a bounce in her step that he hadn’t seen before.
He pulled open the heavy door and held it for her again, letting her get a few steps ahead. Then he took a breath and called out, “Jane, I have an idea.”
She turned around. “What is it?”
For a long moment, neither one said a word. He just watched her shoulders sink as she realized her mistake. “Why don’t you tell me your real name?”
“I think you already know it.”
Chapter Ten
“Jane.”
From the sofa in his apartment, Jane looked over the wineglass that Adam had just handed her and met his gaze. “That’s what they call me.”
He sat next to her, picking up a green beer bottle and twisting the top off, holding it up to her for a toast. “Here’s to progress. I finally know your name.” He took a drink, then lowered the bottle. “Jane.” It had to be the tenth time he’d said it since they came back from the restaurant. “I like it.”
She gave a shaky smile and sipped, the deep tones of the Cabernet warming in her mouth. “It’s better than Jadyn,” she agreed. “But that’s what the FBI agent told me to use and I’m scared
not to, in case some other agent has to come and find me and that’s all he or she has to go on.”
“Not sure it works that way, but I think Jane is a great name. Solid. Sexy. Smart.” He eyed her with just enough heat to make her nerve endings singe. “It suits you.”
“It suits this.” She gestured toward her unadorned face. “Plain Jane.”
He sighed, took one more sip, then leaned back and put his arm along the back of the sofa, his fingertips just grazing her shoulder. “I find it impossible to believe you don’t know how beautiful you are.”
She fought the urge to look skyward, not wanting to seem like she was begging for compliments. And certainly not wanting to hand him a shovel and say, Here, dig deep and find out all that’s wrong with me.
Once she walked out of her last home the day she turned eighteen, she never told a soul about her childhood. It wasn’t relevant. It was ancient, dark history that never needed to be brought out into the light and examined. Her new world was better, the best she could make it.
Yes, that meant she didn’t get close to people, but so be it.
“It shouldn’t take you quite so long to say thank you,” Adam said. When she blinked at him, pulling herself back to the moment, he added, “When someone calls you beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, angling the glass to slide the wine from side to side. “Let’s talk about the boathouse. I got a zillion ideas from those men.”
He scanned her face, not answering.
“Maybe you could give the kids a souvenir—like a mug or a cap—if they complete a number of ‘adventure’ missions. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Actually, yes. But we’re not done talking about you.”
“Oh yes, we are. You know all you need to know, and don’t even think about asking my last name.”
“But what should I call you?”
She dug for humor. “Anything but late for dinner?”
“Jane or Jadyn?”
“Stick with Jadyn. It’s safer now that people know me as that.”
“Not David Bennett.”