Adrenaline. The good kind. And after nine years in the military, also a taste of the real world.

Town was…the same. It was small, geared to the tourists who came through to ski. The streets were filled with expensive clothing boutiques, art galleries, jewelry shops, a few cafés, bars, B and Bs, and the like. At age eighteen, Jacob had been climbing the walls here, bored, slowly suffocating.

Now, after having been overseas and seeing more shitholes than he cared to remember, he could see in Cedar Ridge what others did, a unique quaintness and charm.

He didn’t want to take the risk of running into anyone he knew before he told his family he was home. They deserved to be told he was here, from his own mouth. But the need for caffeine overruled self-preservation. Striding into a coffee shop like he was on a mission, he bought coffee and a bagel to go and headed to the cabin.

Unscathed.

Red’s boat was still gone, and relief filled him. And if there was also a twinge of something that felt suspiciously like disappointment, he didn’t examine it too closely.

Instead, he found several paddleboards leaning against the side of the cabin and decided what the hell. He took one out onto the water, paddling himself into oblivion so that maybe he’d sleep that night instead of trying to figure out how to reach out to his family after all this time, now that he was on leave, or thinking about the reason he’d been given bereavement leave in the first place.

The next morning Jacob woke up to find his arms pleasantly sore from all the paddleboarding he’d been doing to clear his head. The morning’s chilly June air sliced through the window he’d left open and right through him as well, sharp and pine scented. From flat on his back he could see a sliver of the lake, the surface littered with whitecaps, much rougher and choppier than the past few days.

He lay there a minute, unable to get his mind to shut off. It kept flashing images. Images of his closest friend, Brett, dying in his arms in the desolate wasteland that was Afghanistan. Images of the look on his twin’s face when they’d fought that long-ago day. Jacob hadn’t seen Hud since. Images of his mom, who with her dementia couldn’t keep time or place or people straight but never forgot who he was.

Even Red had somehow wormed her way in; she was tough and snarky, and yet she’d shown him a fleeting glimpse of vulnerability too. The combination had caught his interest.

And attracted him.

Not that he had time to go there. Nope, he was concentrating all his energy on figuring out how to approach his family. Day two and he was still drawing a big zero on that front. He’d given no advance warning of his arrival because, hell, what did one say after nearly a decade of radio silence?

But today was the day. He’d stalled enough. And at the thought of what lay ahead for him, his gut tightened.

Nerves. Crazy. It’d been a damn long time since he’d been nervous about anything.

Rolling out of bed, he showered, dressed, and headed out, once again on the hunt for food he didn’t have to make himself. Halfway to his truck, he glanced through the clumps of trees lining his property to the lake.

The Lucas was moored at his dock again.

Changing directions, he headed down there and eyed the boat. No sign of Red, but he heard something from belowdecks. A…moan?

Walk away, soldier.

But hell. He couldn’t do it. “Hello?” he called out. “Red?”

The ensuing silence was so thick that he could tell she’d stopped breathing. “I’m boarding,” he said, and when she didn’t respond, he went for it, hoping she wasn’t aiming a gun his way. As he did, she struggled on deck.

She wore a short, flowery skirt that flirted with her thighs and a white tank top, a forest-green sweater in one hand and a pair of high-heeled sandals dangling from the other.

With one look, she perfectly conveyed her annoyance as she sagged to the captain’s chair and dropped her head to her knees. “Why you?” she moaned. “I mean, seriously, what the hell is up with my karma? It’s like the bitch went on vacay. On another planet.”

“Nice to see you again too,” he said dryly. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” she said to her knees, more than a little hint of the South in her tone. “I always talk to my knees while a stranger asks me twenty questions. Nope, I’m great. My glass is totally half full.”

This made him smile. Call him sick, but he loved snark in a woman. “Are you okay?”

“Fan-fricking-tastic. Only way today could get better is if I were scheduled for an appendectomy. Without drugs. In a third-world country.”