Jed fought the urge to roll his eyes, to say something flippant and throw the pins into a drawer, never to be seen again. He wasn’t sure he could even remember every place he’d ever been. On some operations, he could be in and out of a country in a matter of hours.
“Come on,” Max needled him gently. “I bet you’ve been all over the world. Wouldn’t you like to see it in black and, er, green?”
Against his better judgment, Jed retrieved a pin from the box. “Do I have to do it in order?”
Max stepped forward and pried the pin from his fingers. He stuck it in the northwest sector of Oregon. “That’s where you came from, and where you are now. You can go forwards or backwards, it’s up to you.”
Considering he’d end up in the same place either way, Jed figured it didn’t much matter, but he humored Max and decided to tempt fate by tracing his journey from where it had begun, from paratrooper-training school in Georgia all the way to the Iraq desert.
It took Jed a while to cover the map with pins, even though there were some places he had to leave out, places no civilian could ever know the American military had been. When he was done, he stood back and stared, a strange sense of wonder creeping over him. He really had been to every corner of the globe. Shame he didn’t have much to show for it but violence, pain, and heartache.
Oh yeah? What about jump school in Guam? Or jungle training in the Philippines? It wasn’t all bad.
It was true. The Army had given Jed the best years of his life, but at the same time, the past two had been among the worst. He’d contracted a chronic, incurable illness, suffered a life-changing injury, and watched a crew of men he considered his family get blown to bits. Did he want to be reminded of that every time he looked at his bedroom wall? He wasn’t entirely sure.
Distracted, he stretched up and stuck a final pin he’d forgotten in the northernmost corner of Alaska. He wavered as he righted his balance, his injured leg finally protesting the rigors of the day.
Max caught him, clamping his arms around him from behind. “Whoa, easy.”
Jed leaned back, drawn into the warmth of Max’s strong chest, and found Max’s face a hairsbreadth away. Max smiled, his eyes gleaming in the dimly lit room. His lips parted and he took a breath, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he took Jed’s chin in his hand and kissed him… kissed him until Jed was so dizzy he could hardly hold himself up.
Chapter Fourteen
MAXHOVEREDwith his hand poised to knock on Jed’s closed bedroom door. It was sunrise, but he knew Jed would be awake. Jed was always awake, especially in that eerie twilight before dusk and dawn. Sometimes, an afternoon nap on the couch seemed to be the only sleep he’d get for days.
Max shifted his weight from one foot to the other, rubbing his bleary eyes with his other hand. He was hungover, but that would teach him for trying to drown out Kim’s nagging with four bottles of Nick’s fancy imported beer. Max didn’t drink often, at least not to excess, and when he did it went straight to his head.
And other parts of his body, it seemed, as he’d woken up with the distinct sense that he owed Jed an apology.
He didn’t know what had possessed him to kiss Jed, but beyond a bellyful of beer he was at a loss to explain himself. He was attracted to Jed, of that there was no doubt, but he’d been drawn to him from the beginning and learned to live with it, so what was so different about yesterday? What had changed?
Perhaps it was Jed. For reasons Max didn’t quite understand, leaving him even for one night had been horrendous. Jed was a grown man, a soldier, and Max knew he was perfectly capable of looking after himself. His worry, he supposed, was that Jed wouldn’t bother.
Max snorted softly. That might explain the full-to-bursting refrigerator and canine babysitter, but it didn’t explain why he’d felt the need to shove his tongue in Jed’s mouth. He tried to not think about the fact that before he’d come to his senses and fled the room, Jed haddefinitelykissed him back.
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door. There was no response. He knocked again and called Jed’s name, but nothing. Eventually, he steeled his nerve and pushed open the door.
The room was empty. Max took in the perfect order and neatly made bed. His gaze fell on the huge atlas, covered with its new array of bright-green pins, and heat flooded his cheeks, overcoming the renewed fascination he had with Jed’s travels. Flustered, Max retreated outside to resume his search.
He came up blank. Jed’s truck was parked in the yard, but he was nowhere to be seen. Max checked the boat shed, the greenhouse, and finally the jetty, but saw no sign of him anywhere. Confused, he drifted back inside and set about making a comforting breakfast to settle his hangover. He made Jed some of the fresh apple oatmeal he seemed to like, but when he didn’t appear by midmorning, Max admitted defeat and threw it on the compost heap.
Nagging worry gnawed at Max for the rest of the morning. Though he’d scheduled a day off, he kept himself busy in the boat shed, doing odd jobs and finishing up a furniture project he’d neglected for a while. At lunchtime he carried the hollowed-out tree lamp into the cabin and left it on the kitchen table while he made lunch. Then he stole a trick from Jed’s repertoire and fell asleep on the couch.
It was late afternoon when the sound of the cabin phone ringing woke him from a restless, maudlin dream he couldn’t quite remember. He answered it absently, knowing it would be Kim, Carla, or Dan.
“Yeah?”
“Max? Where are you? Are you at home?”
Max sat up and rubbed his face. Something in Kim’s tone had him wide-awake. “Of course I’m at home. I answered the phone, didn’t I? What’s the matter?”
“Is Nick there?”
“Nick? Why would he be here?”
“Frank’s dead. He died two days ago, and he didn’t tell me. I’ve only just found out.”
“What?” Max got up and took the cordless phone to the back door, scanning the yard yet again for any sign of Jed. “How? Does Jed know?”