Chapter 1

It had been nearly a month since Con left for Iraq, again, and Maeve was still missing him. The good-bye in the airport in Newark was tearful for the first time since she could remember. Probably the first time he left, for basic training, and Mom wound up draped across his chest crying about her "baby having grown up," Maeve thought with a sad sniff and a stern admonition to herself for thinking about all of this again. Shameera had left the next day for New York and then London to report back to work now that her ankle was more or less fully healed, though she still had to get it back up to strength. The beautiful Afghani woman had wryly told both Maeve and Con that her editors were probably conspiring to keep her out of the line of fire for a while after what had happened almost a year ago on the eve of the Marjah Offensive in Afghanistan. Shameera promised to write Con and call Maeve when she knew what she was doing. Then the two lovebirds had gone about twenty feet away from Maeve and the kids, whispering in each others' ears before Con gave the woman a soul-searing kiss that left her breathless, blushing, and smiling more than a little foolishly while her eyes glowed bright enough to start fires as she gazed lovingly at her warrior going back to battle.

Even now, a month later, Maeve shook her head at the intensity her brother had brought out in the woman in one afternoon's kiss in her backyard. Well, one kiss and a rescue from gang-raping, Taliban scumbags, Maeve amended ruefully with more than a little satisfaction at her brother's response to what he found in that farmhouse. That sort of thing would get the hormones flowing and the heart pounding. It was a chilly October afternoon, a couple of weeks away from Halloween, as she was shutting down her office computer to head home for the weekend, when her secretary poked her head into the office on her own way out the door to tell Maeve she had a call on line two. A Shameera Afghani. Maeve was about to be irritated with the woman, who had only been her secretary for three weeks but Maeve could already tell she would be looking for a new one. But she was also surprised and more than happy to talk to her future sister-in-law.

She picked up her ear piece and leaned back in her chair, clicking the line on. "Shameera, so good to hear from you!"

"Hello, Maeve. I was calling because I am in the air, bound west on a British Airways flight to Newark and I was wondering if you would have lunch with me," came the smooth, soft voice, making Maeve think she had the perfect voice for television ... or phone sex. Maeve shook that uncharitable thought from her head as Shameera continued, "I have a thing or two I wanted to talk to you about and it looks like I am going to be on the East Coast for a while. My cowardly editor in London refuses to send me anywhere near Afghanistan and apparently that includes Iraq. I tried to get assigned to Baghdad or Mosul, since that is the general operating area I think Con would be in right now based on what some of my friends are telling me is going on over there, but the cowardly little weasel got together with my publisher in New York to conspire against me. They have gotten me a post in Washington covering the Pentagon for six months, at the least. So, I figured that since I would be in the neighborhood, I would drop by and see my sister-in-law-to-be before heading down to DC. Are you available?"

Maeve smiled at the exasperation of protective male figures and wondered what she would think of Con in what she liked to call knight-in-shining-armor mode. More than once at Morristown High School she found herself thrust behind the broad back of her brother while he faced down her enemies, three years older than he was. It helped that he was already over six feet tall and close to two hundred pounds by the time he hit freshman year at MHS. She shook that thought off too, wondering why her mind was wandering down so many back alleys to the past lately. "I would love to sit down and talk over a nice lunch. There is a nice place here in Morristown that serves excellent Italian."

"Oh, you know how to get to a girl's heart! I love Italian!" she exclaimed with obvious relish. Then there was a long pause in which Maeve could only her Shameera's breathing and the low hum of the airplane in the background. "I have to warn you, I plan to talk to you about a couple of fairly serious subjects."

That sobered Maeve a bit. While she liked Shameera a lot, she still did not really know her that well. This sounded vaguely ominous. "I see. Well, Pazzo Pazzo has a few out of the way tables and I am sure the hostess will give us one of those. I am a regular there, so they tend to try to accommodate me when I ask for something special."

"Good. Then that is settled. I will get myself situated at the hotel and-"

"Oh, no you won't, Ms. Afghani! You will give me your flight number and arrival time and I will come pick you up. You can stay with us for however long you will be in New Jersey," Maeve shot back with asperity. "We have two guest rooms and they are probably far more comfortable than a hotel room. Besides, you are family. I would no more let my brothers stay in a hotel if they were in the area."

Maeve could hear the smile as Shameera replied. "Are you sure? I have not pre-booked, it is true, but I don't mind. In my line of work you get used to hotels," she said diffidently.