little girl and Ivy. "Nothing wrong with staying out late on a Friday night."
"Late?" Lori's brow puckered as she tapped a manicured nail to her lips. "I thought you two left the party early."
Kathleen reached into the infant seat on the picnic table and adjusted the lightweight blanket around her daughter. "Rumor has it, Julia didn't even finish her chocolate cherry cheesecake."
"Criminal." Lori pressed a hand to her lightly rounded stomach, pregnancy hormones obviously protesting the blasphemy of neglected chocolate. "Well, it's more than a rumor from where I was standing. Since you were home with little Tara, you missed the decided spring in the commander's step as he hustled Julia out of the Valentine's Dining-Out."
Kathleen hugged her sweat-suit-clad knees to her chest. "Tanner's a dead man for leaving that part out."
Every word of the good-natured teasing dinged Julia like a staple gun attacking her tattered emotions. She reminded herself they meant well. It wasn't their fault she was so damned confused. If only she had someone to confide in, but her best friend was the problem, so she couldn't exactly turn to him for help on this one.
Lori fingered her braid with a dreamy sigh. "So? Where did you go? A late-night romantic make-out at Patriot's Point? Or a lovers' stroll along the Battery Park with water crashing against the harbor wall?'
All those beautiful images didn't come close to the perfection of their windswept motorcycle ride. Except love hadn't played any part in Zach's plans. Hadn't he flat-out said as much?
She'd seen well how shaky a marriage could be without love. Lance hadn't loved her either, not like he'd loved the other woman. He'd stayed in his marriage out of duty. Sure, Zach had shown her all the logical reasons why they should stay together. But for once, she wanted to be more than someone's duty. She wanted to fill a man's life and every thought, totally.
A ridiculously romantic dream for a practical woman who preferred power tools for presents over perfumed roses.
Kathleen canted forward like Mata Hari. "Did I forget to mention they came home on the motorcycle?"
"Motorcycle?" Lori pivoted to Julia, braid swishing with the quick turn. "Ohhh, girlfriend, you have to talk now."
No doubt the Air Force had a first-class interrogator in Major Kathleen Bennett, and she wasn't walking away without her information. Of course she had an inside scoop since she'd scrawled out the prescription for Julia's birth-control pills.
Julia offered a token nugget. "Zach took me for a ride on his Harley after the party."
Kathleen tapped her watch. "You didn't get home until after two. Where did you go?
California?"
"Geez, Kathleen." Julia laughed rather than cry. "Do you and Tanner never sleep?'
"I was feeding the endlessly ravenous Tara."
Lori gave snoozing Patrick a final push before advancing toward Julia with a determined gleam. "Spill it. We want details."
Julia surrendered. Why not enjoy the memories and the sisterhood of sharing new romantic confidences without going into the deeper details of her marriage to Zach? Her months with him had taught her to look past the military regimen of pruned lawns and identical houses to see a communal spirit of support she hadn't experienced since childhood.
She might need that support soon.
Hugging her sweater tighter around herself, Julia dodged a tree root and plopped down beside Kathleen on the redwood bench. She waited until Lori's daughter Magda and Ivy scampered into the playhouse before continuing, "We took advantage of the time away from the children and stopped by his office."
"His office?" Lori frowned, then gasped, sitting across from Kathleen. "He'd just flown.
You know how they can be after a flight."
"Ahhh, of course." Kathleen's sage nod said it all. "And the poor guy had to wait through that party? No wonder he checked out early."
Lori rested her chin on her hands, a faraway look in her eyes as she gazed up at the sky.
"This one time, Gray landed early and rather than going home to wait for me to finish at work, he abducted me right out of a Feed-the-World strategy session I was conducting with two interns." A satisfied smile slid across her face. "I would have felt guilty, but those college kids brainstormed their hearts out to impress me while I was gone, uh, taking inventory...in the supply closet."
Kathleen leaned back, her elbows on the picnic table. "If Tanner so much as looks at an airplane, forget waiting to make it home."
"Ohmigod," Julia said. "You two didn't...">"Go get her, big guy." Shelby hefted Patrick off the ball, placing him on the mat while she continued talking to Nathan. "Help me set up the snacks?"
"Only if you show me," exhale, "that belly-button ring of yours."