her tight, pressing her head against his chest.
She gripped him as if he might disappear if she let go.
“I can’t believe it,” Dad stated as he finally shook out of it and joined his wife next to Ajax.
The moment Nancy leaned back, Frank pulled Ajax into a similar bear hug. When he released Ajax, he was grinning. “Someone better start talking because I’m at a total loss.”
Mom leaned into Ajax’s side and patted his chest. “Give the boy a chance to breathe, Frank. He just got here. And all that matters is he’s alive. Let’s sit down and have some lunch.” The woman’s life’s goal was feeding people. And she was damn good at it.
Ryker had grabbed a broom and dustpan from the mudroom and was sweeping up the broken glass. “Sorry about your bowl, Mom,” he said. “I hope it wasn’t one of your favorites, but mostly I’m just glad the pasta wasn’t in it yet because I’m starving and it smells so good,” he joked.
Nancy waved a hand through the air. “Don’t care about any stupid bowl.” She hugged Ajax again and then wiped her eyes. “You boys sure do know how to make a woman cry with all this dying and coming back to life. For the love of all that is holy, please don’t do it again. My heart can’t take it. I’m getting too old for this sort of thing.”
Ajax wiped her cheek. “You’re sixty-five. That’s not old. Don’t talk like that.”
She shook her head at him and then dragged him to the kitchen table. “Sit. You want a pop?”
“No. I’m good. Water is fine.” He patted his stomach. “I need to shed a few pounds and fast.”
“You and me both,” Ryker added. “But I’m going to start after we eat this pasta.” He leaned over the pan and inhaled long and slow. “I love your red sauce more than life itself, Mom.”
“Don’t even talk like that,” she said as she released Ajax finally and bustled across the room to find another bowl and serve the pasta. There had never been any doubt she would have enough food for two unexpected lunch guests. The woman didn’t know how to cook for less than a dozen.
Nancy and Frank had never had kids of their own, but they’d fostered eleven over the years. Managed to get every one of them to adulthood. The long butcher-block table where Ajax took a seat could hold fourteen, and it often had, especially if any of them had a friend over.
“Give me the CliffsNotes for now,” Dad said as he sat across from Ajax. “You boys can fill me in on the details later. I’m sure you’ve got things to say that would make your mom have nightmares.”
He wasn’t wrong, and the man had always doted on his wife and done everything he could to protect her. She was the strongest woman Ajax had ever met in his life. She could rub four backs all night long when several of them had the flu. She could wipe away tears, bandage skinned knees, run through math tables, and recite Shakespeare when it was needed for school. But there was no way Ajax would ever subject her to the kind of atrocities he’d witnessed in the Navy.
Dad on the other hand had been in the Navy himself. He’d served in the Gulf War where he’d taken shrapnel to the calf. He’d been medically discharged and still walked with a limp after all these years, but he never complained, and Ajax suspected Nancy had been so damn glad he hadn’t been killed in that war that she’d dedicated her entire life to ensuring the house ran like a tight ship.
“Rest of your squad alive too?” Dad asked to start the conversation.
Ryker dropped into a chair next to Ajax. “Maybe.”
“They here in the States?”
“No. We’re pretty sure they are stuck overseas.”
Dad nodded, understanding. The man was perceptive. Always had been. Ajax suspected he would have climbed the ranks in the military if he hadn’t gotten injured. He was sharp.
“We’re going to find them,” Ajax stated, glancing from Dad to Mom. He hesitated to say that in front of her, but there was no helping it. Eventually, she would have to know.
She kept her lips pursed as she set the steaming bowl of pasta on the table and then added a giant salad with all the fixings and a loaf of homemade bread.
Ajax had eaten mostly shit for the last few months, and his stomach growled