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whole thing when I expected someone a little different as a nanny.”
    “Not a problem. The section on the best places for manicures and the discount coupon for the bikini shop should be helpful.”
    She laughed and took a bite of eggs. “Speaking of bikinis, I was going to take the boys to the beach today. You’re welcome to come along, get the lay of the land a bit.”
    His brain got so hung up on the words “bikini” and “lay,” he almost didn’t register the rest of what she said. “The beach?”
    “Probably Poipu. I have a little tent I set up to keep the sun off their skin, and it’s a nice day to get outside and relax a little. My schedule’s going to be nutty after I start the new job, so I figure it’s my last chance to lie in the sand and read a book and splash around a little with the boys. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just thought—”
    “I’ll go,” he said, a little too quickly. “I wanted to check out the area. I’ve never spent time on Kauai.”
    “It’s a lot different from Oahu. That’s where my ex-husband was stationed the last couple years. Kauai is much smaller, more lush and green and scenic, without as many people.”
    “Think you’ll ever return to the mainland?”
    She shrugged and shoveled up the last forkful of eggs. “I was planning to move to Oregon or maybe California after Jonathan left. I have a lot of friends there. But then I got this job with the Pacific Missile Range Facility, and it’s pretty much my dream job. I couldn’t leave. Besides, my father’s a general stationed in Honolulu, so this way they get to see their grandkids on occasion.”
    “That’s nice.”
    “Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I was thinking.”
    She didn’t specify what she was referring to, and Sam was so fixated on watching her lick egg yolk off the back of her fork that he didn’t think to ask.
    She used her toast to scrape up the last of her eggs before standing and clearing her plate.
    “I’ll finish up the dishes and then take a quick shower before I throw a few things in a beach bag,” she said. “Think you’ll be ready in thirty minutes?”
    “Absolutely,” he said, tearing his eyes off her mouth.
    Thirty minutes turned out to be more like an hour and thirty minutes, not that Sam was complaining. He liked watching her bustling around the house, hunting for the boys’ sun hats and smearing their little bodies with sunscreen that made them glow like mutant pink slugs. He tried to help, but she nudged him aside.
    “This is what normal mothers do,” she’d said, so he gave up and went outside.
    He picked up the newspaper in the driveway, glancing at the headlines before setting it on the rickety little table just inside the front door. Figuring he had time to kill, he walked back out into the sunshine, studying Sheri’s car.
    It was a late-model sedan, nothing fancy, nothing to attract attention. The bases of the twins’ car seats were buckled into the backseat, looking secure and tidy in spite of the kid gunk streaked on one of them below where the carrier would latch into place. He studied the apparatus carefully, assessing how to operate it.
    He peered through each window, taking inventory. Sheri’s sunglasses were tucked into the cup holder, and a small white shopping bag sat on the floorboard of the passenger side. He shielded his eyes, scoping out the safety features, making sure everything looked okay.
    Satisfied with the car’s interior, he dropped to the ground beside it and peered underneath. Everything looked pretty good. A little corrosion on the undercarriage, but no ticking bombs or loose wires or anything.
    For crying out loud, he chided himself. You’re performing a bomb sweep in a Hawaiian suburb? Get off the ground and start acting like a manny instead of a Marine.
    “What are you doing?” Sheri called, and he sat up so fast he smacked his head on the undercarriage. He crawled out from under the car, trying to look