“A lot?”
“Things have been busy for the Marines in the past few years.”
She chilled. “Yes, I know.”
“Anyhow, six months ago he got out. He let the Old Man and Gordon talk him into going to work at the winery.”
“I take it that was not a successful career move.”
“It was what you might call an unmitigated disaster. Like I said, he also got engaged about the same time and that fell apart, too.” Jason swept out a hand. “Now, here he is in Dunsley operating a tumbledow ld fishing lodge.”
“Let me take a wild guess. The family is deeply concerned.”
“There is outright panic in some quarters,” Jason admitted. “Personally, I think Luke is just one of those people who take a while to find their thing in life, you know? But the others are afraid he’s in a bad downward spiral.”
She considered that briefly and shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. Just the opposite, I’d say. Luke may be taking a different route, but I think he knows where he’s going.”
“I’m with you.” Jason hesitated. His face grew somber for the first time. “But you can’t blame the family for worrying. Luke probably hasn’t told you this, but he saw some very rough duty during the last few years.”
She thought about what she had glimpsed once or twice behind the iron-clad self-control in Luke’s eyes. “I had more or less assumed as much.”
“He was very good at what he did. There are some serious medals tucked away somewhere in a drawer. But that kind of thing exacts a price.”
“I know,” she said gently.
The tension in Jason’s face eased. “Had a hunch you’d probably figured it out. Like I said, the two o ou seem to communicate pretty well. Which is a little weird because Luke’s not what anyone woul all a great communicator.” He paused to peer through the window. “Not unless he’s giving orders,
that is. He’s real good at communicating orders.”
The door opened abruptly. Luke walked into the kitchen. He came to a halt, looking first at Jason and then at Irene.
“What?” he asked.
Irene smiled serenely. “I just discovered that I’m about to serve what can only be called an extremely unassuming white wine to a couple of men who grew up in a legendary California wine-making family.”
“I told her not to worry about it,” Jason assured him, “on account of there’s corn bread.”
“Oh, man,” Luke said, looking as if he had just had a religious experience. “Corn bread.”
“Your tongue’s hanging out,” Jason said. “Try not to embarrass the family here.”
“What did you tell the guys in the cabin who were playing the loud rock?” Irene asked, popping the cork out of the bottle.
Luke shrugged. “1 just reminded them of the lodge’s do-not-disturb-your-neighbor policy”
Irene leaned down to check the salmon. “That’s all it took to make them lower the volume?”
“I also reminded them that I happen to be one of their neighbors, and I made it clear that if they didn’t lower the volume immediately and keep it down I would personally drop each one of them off the dock into the lake.”
Jason grinned. “Like I said, Luke communicates orders real well.”
“Far be it from me to offer advice to a budding resort operator,” Irene said, “but if you’re hoping for repeat business, you might want to develop a more diplomatic approach to dealing with your guests.”
“Luke joined the Marines, not the foreign service,” Jason said. “Different culture entirely.”
She took the salmon fillets out from under the broiler. “I’ve heard that.”
Twelve
Luke awoke to darkness. The distant whap-whap-whap of a helicopter faded into the night along wit he other brittle shards of the dream.
He sat up slowly on the edge of the bed. Sweat plastered his tee shirt to his back and chest. He was wired; preternaturally alert. All of his senses were energized, battle ready.
He knew the sensation all too well. He also knew that the only antidote was to move around, work off some of the adrenaline and force himself to focus on something other than the dream.
It had been a bad one this time. He’d been back in the narrow lanes and dark alleys of an urban landscape that had been ancient before the United States had even been a gleam in the Founders’ eyes. There in the shadows he and his men played a deadly game of three-dimensional warfare, one in which the enemy could be anywhere—
above, behind, in front or even in a maze of tunnels underground beneath your feet. There was no safe zone, no place where you could relax even for an hour or two and allow your overworked senses to recover. The only way to survive was to stay constantly alert and aware.
Don’t go there. Focus on something else. You know the drill. Fill your head with [_other thoughts. _]
He punched the little button on the side of his watch to check the time. In the green glow that briefly illuminated the dial he saw that it was ten minutes to one.
He got to his feet but did not turn on the light beside the bed. The last thing he wanted to do was awaken Jason, who was sound asleep on the couch in the front room. He went to the window and twitched the curtain aside.
Cold moonlight gleamed on the lake. The lights were off in the cabin that Maxine had rented to the hard rock aficionados. But every window in Irene’s cabin was still ablaze.
He knew exactly what he wanted to do to release some of the excess energy pounding through him. But he was pretty sure that it was against the rules for innkeepers to jump their female guests.
Hell of a dumb profession with rules like that.
He crossed the small space to the battered wooden desk that stood against one wall and powered up the laptop. Maybe doing some work on The Project would help take his mind off the aftereffects of the dream. That had been the whole point of creating The Project, after all. In simplest terms, the strategy was to replace one obsession with another. It sounded good in theory and many nights it actually worked.
The computer screen winked on and glowed expectantly.
He opened the file and paged through the text until he got to the chapter he had been working on all week.
The soft sound of a small car moving at low speed interrupted his thoughts. He stopped in mid-sentence and listened closely. If the guys in Cabin Number Six were driving into town to look for some excitement, they were going to be sadly disappointed. Harry’s Hang-Out was closed by this time.