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  “Please stop calling him that.”

  “Ex-boyfriend to Plymouth’s house. With Todd gone, they had an empty bedroom.”

  “Your brother left?” Hallie said. “Too bad. I would have liked to say goodbye to him. Maybe Uncle Kit can teach me some special goodbye boxing moves just for your brother.”

  Jamie chuckled. “Just so you know, Todd would never hit a girl back.”

  “Good to hear.” She left the bathroom wearing her robe. “You made me forget everything last night.”

  “Did I?” Jamie opened his arms to her.

  She went to him, snuggling beside him, and they began kissing. Her robe opened and his hands began to explore.

  “Hallie? Are you here?” she heard Braden call from downstairs.

  She pushed away from Jamie. “I have to go.” When he didn’t release her, she pushed harder. “I have to see to Braden.”

  “Tell him you’re busy.”

  She gave such a big push that she would have landed on the floor if Jamie hadn’t caught her as he got out of bed. “He can’t know about us. Not yet. I have to break it to him gently. He’s had too many heartbreaks lately.” She put her hand to her forehead. “I just remembered I promised Leland that this morning I’d walk around Nantucket with him. And some of your family is leaving today and I have to say goodbye. You should too.”

  “I had all the family I can bear yesterday. How long before you can get rid of cousin and boyfriend?”

  “Leland leaves this afternoon, but Braden…I don’t know. He’s a mess right now and he’s my friend.” She went to the stairs to call down to him that she’d be there in a few minutes. “I have to get dressed,” she said to Jamie as she hurried past him. “Do me a favor and go mess up your bed so Braden thinks that’s where you slept.”

  “I don’t like lying,” he said.

  She put her hands on his back and pushed him toward the door. “You love lying when it gets you what you want. Now go! And put some clothes on.”

  “Boyfriend might freak at the scars of a soldier?” He said it as though he were a martyr.

  Hallie stopped and looked at him. “No, because you are so magnificently beautiful that Braden will feel awful.”

  “Yeah?” Jamie asked, smiling.

  “Go!” she said as she went into her closet. For a moment she stood there and breathed deeply. She wanted time to think about all that had happened, to go over everything in her mind: Jamie, Braden, finding a family, Jamie, Todd, and oh, yeah, Jamie.

  “Don’t let this get messed up,” she said aloud and didn’t know if she was praying or talking to the resident ghosts who always seemed to be near. “Let me keep this. Please.”

  She didn’t have time for more thought. People were waiting for her. She grabbed clothes and pulled them on.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Jamie was in the gym and working to concentrate. He was so angry that he had to remind himself not to sling the weights around. Years of training from his dad and uncle were strongly in his mind. “Form is everything,” his uncle Mike always said. “A wrong move and muscles can detach.”

  What was making it so difficult now was that in a few minutes he was to meet Hallie’s “boyfriend” for a “chat.” That’s what he’d said at breakfast.

  Hallie had been in a hurry to meet her newly found cousin and to say goodbye to some of the older members of Jamie’s family. Braden, sitting quietly at the table, had begged off. He said he had too bad a hangover to go anywhere. He just wanted to stay at the house.

  Jamie was at the sink when Braden came up behind him—something that was guaranteed to set Jamie off—and said he wanted to have a private “chat” with him. “About ten? And please don’t say anything to Hallie. This is just between us men.”

  All Jamie had been able to do was nod silently in reply. Throughout breakfast, through cousins arriving to pick Hallie up, Jamie had thought about the coming meeting. Was this guy going to ask for help in getting Hallie? Would he play on Jamie’s sympathy so he felt as sorry for him as Hallie did?

  When the house was empty, Jamie went to the gym to try to work off some of the nervous energy that was building in him. But he kept looking at the clock, dreading what was coming, but also wanting to get it over with. Whatever the guy wanted, Jamie knew he’d do what was best for Hallie.

  At five minutes to ten, Braden showed up at the door. He had on clean, crisp clothes, while Jamie’s loose workout gear was soaked in sweat.

  “Go ahead and finish,” Braden said. “I’ll wait.”

  Jamie put down two sixty-pound dumbbells. “No. We’ll do it now.” He sounded like he was facing a firing squad. He nodded toward the arbor and the two chairs there, and Braden followed him.

  Once they were outside, Braden sat down, and Jamie wished he’d taken the time to shower and change. On impulse, he pulled his sweaty shirt off over his head and sat down, naked from the waist up. It wouldn’t hurt to intimidate the enemy.

  When Braden saw Jamie’s bare upper half with all its scars, his eyes widened. “Oh, man! You look like a survivor of the gladiator ring. I read about your injuries, but that’s not the same as seeing them.” He was studying Jamie’s chest and shoulders, stomach and arms. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for what you soldiers do for our country. But then none of us can thank you enough. Mind if I shake your hand?”

  This wasn’t what he’d been expecting, Jamie thought as he held out his hand and shook Braden’s. His buildup of anger was being replaced with confusion. “What do you mean you read about me?”

  Braden settled back in the chair. A bit of sunshine hit his face and he closed his eyes to enjoy it. “I couldn’t let Hallie stay here with some guy I knew nothing about, now could I? Sergeant Bill Murphy says hello and that if you ever need anything, he’s ready.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?” There was a bit of a threat in Jamie’s voice.

  Braden smiled. “You have a little sister. When she starts dating, will your family do some checking on her boyfriend?”

  “Hallie is not your sister.”

  “Might as well be,” Braden said, unperturbed by Jamie’s temper. He looked across the garden and smiled in memory. “I was six when her parents brought their new baby home from the hospital. When Mom and I walked over to see her, Hallie reached up, grabbed my finger, and smiled at me. Everyone made a big deal of it, saying she was much too young to smile, but it never changed. For all her life, whenever she saw me, she smiled.”

  Jamie couldn’t control his sneer. “So now you want to marry her?”

  “About as much as you want to marry your little sister.” Braden took a breath. “I picked that ring up at the airport. Ugly thing, isn’t it? I knew Hallie would hate it. By the way, years ago she told Mom she’d like to have an oval diamond.”

  “If you don’t want to marry her, then why did you ask her?”

  “To release her,” Braden said. “You see, when Mom called me in hysterics and said that if I didn’t get here fast I was going to lose Hallie to her client, I knew it was time to change things.”

  “Change them how?”

  Braden took a moment to organize his thoughts. “Since her dad was always gone, the only real security Hallie had was Mom and me. And you know how girls are. If they see you as a rescuing hero, they think they’re in love with you.” He looked at Jamie. “Until you. I knew from Mom’s voice that this was different, so I used the resources at my law firm to do some research on you. Dr. James Michael Taggert is spoken of highly. Sergeant Murphy said you saved his leg. He told me how you volunteered to go on some of the most dangerous missions with the men and women. You wanted to be there at the moment they needed your medical expertise.”

  Jamie shrugged. “It’s what needed to be done.”

  “Not quite! You could have gone to work in some plush clinic or had your dad buy you a wing of a hospital. But you chose to go into the army and save our soldiers.”

  “I’m not a hero, if that’s wh