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did this so I
can protect you and them.” Jake gestured back over his shoulder to
the dining room.
    Laurel looked around the huge study with its
wall-to-wall bookshelves, large bar, and extensive collection of
expensive artwork. The leather chairs made her think of home.
    “What about the farm? The horses, the
cattle?”
    Jake attempted to reassure her. “We have a
trained team of people that are taking care of everything. Adrianne
and her family are guarded. Believe me, everyone you are even
remotely connected to has protection.”
    “So how is it that I am suddenly a matter of
‘national security’, hmmm?”
    He shook his head knowing he couldn’t explain
everything to her yet.
    “Sweetheart, I’m going to do everything I can
to take care of you. Just think of this as a grand vacation,
please.”
    Jake did want to protect her and see
her happy. He loved her, why couldn’t she see that? The twist in
his stomach made him feel like he’d taken a nine-inch blade to his
gut. She’d said it. She hated him. He couldn’t stand the ache. He
looked at her once more, turned, and walked out the door toward the
beach. He had to distance himself from her so he could think.
    __________________________
     
    If only he hadn’t bowed to his father’s
demands. If only he’d had the balls at eighteen that he had now, no
one would have been able to sway him. For the first time in a long
time, Jake LeGrande gave in to emotion. Big ole’ tough Navy
SEAL, yeah right. Yeah, tough, except when it came to her, only
her.
    Why he let things go so far as to walk away
from Laurel, he would never know. The only good thing about that
was his son, Jess. Jake sat in the sand and buried his head in his
hands, elbows propped on his knees. How could he have let his
father convince him that Laurel wasn’t for him, that he should
marry a “good girl” like the preacher’s daughter, Sue?
    Seven years of his life, he had wasted trying
to make that woman happy, just to come home from a mission and find
her gone, his son left with his parents. She didn’t say a word when
she ran off with the Pentecostal revivalist that she later wrote,
“moved her”. The note on the kitchen table had said, “I don’t love
you,” and that was all. Their divorce had been quick and
uncontested. She got nothing. He’d given up everything.
    Jake walked down the beach to get some air
and lit a stogie. Not a habit he partook of much, but when things
twisted him up, it helped him feel in control again. Thoughts of
Laurel crashed into each other. All those years he had watched over
Laurel and Adam to make sure they were taken care of. She’d said
she hated him, and it stung hard.
    He’d been mesmerized by her from the first
time he’d sat behind her in high school Algebra class. Her long,
golden brown tresses falling on his desk when she leaned her head
back, made it difficult to leave class on more than one
occasion.
    Here she was, together with him, more
beautiful than the last time he’d kissed her. But she hated him. He
wondered if he would be able to make her see, what he had done,
he’d done for them.
    __________________________
     
    Laurel sat alone in the study. She’d never
had an explanation from Jake and she didn’t think it was going to
make a difference now. Jake had never shown up that afternoon at
the ice cream shop on Fifth Street. The red and white 1950’s décor
style restaurant, with its chrome-trimmed tables, would come to
hold some of the best and worst of her memories.
    The whole town knew before she did that Jake
was going to marry Sue. The pain had outweighed the humiliation by
a mile. She smiled to herself. That was, of course, how she got
together with Jahn.
    She’d driven her sister, Addy, to work at
Summer Dairy and then picked up feed and supplies for her dad.
Addy’s shift was short so Laurel waited for her. Addy was on break
when she had told her what she had heard about Jake getting
married. No wonder she hadn’t heard from