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She was weak.

She saw it in her daughter’s eyes. In Broker’s. A mix of pity and shallow empathy. Nina had raised Kit to be strong and compassionate toward the weak-to an extent. But the fact was, as Nina had now discovered, that the strong, even as they vow to protect the weak, do not understand them.

Nina took a deep breath and said aloud, “It’s over.”

She opened her arms and walked forward, and as she embraced the shadows, she felt the last weights sloughing away. Unencumbered, she tilted up her face and felt the fading sunlight sink into her like an invigorating current. Lightly, she walked into the deep snow and the close-packed trees, breathed in the cold dark air. She turned, came out into the deep black hedge of shadows, and twirled; then, arms spread behind her, she ran in circles. Like Kit might do, enjoying the sheer kinetic thrill of motion.

No more medals. Just outside lanes.

Her soldier days were over.

It was time to come home.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Broker sat in his truck in front of the school, showing no expression as Kit moped out to the truck, sagging under her book bag. Then she climbed in the backseat and squealed when she saw her bunny propped up in the corner, its stubby arms arranged around a taboo Snickers bar and a plastic bottle of Gatorade.

“Dad! Where was she!”

“Way under the front seat. I told you, nothing gets lost in the house.”

“She was in the truck, Dad; not in the house,” Kit announced.

“Well, I was close,” Broker said.

Kit sat back, hugging her battered toy as the fleet of yellow school buses receded behind them and they headed out of town on County 12. The afternoon punched up clean and sharp under a blue sky. The welcome sun hung in the west and stamped crisp black shadows on the softening snow cover.

Broker slouched back, one hand draped over the wheel, actually feeling pretty good. For a change. Nearing the lake, they drove past the busy Mexican carpenters who were now putting down the underlayment on the roof of the new house-Keith Nygard’s original meth bust. Until that meth lab blew up in his face. Probably the biggest thing ever happened up here. And he had, what, one full-time deputy…

Thinking how Nygard had mentioned taking Griffin along to help out. Didn’t know if he approved of that. Once Griffin got started, he only had one forward gear…

Broker glanced around. Great scenery, superb fishing, and not a lot of backup. Broker didn’t hold with most city cops who rolled their eyes at their rural counterparts, making cracks about Andy of Mayberry operating mostly solo out in the boonies.

Hell, he’d spent seven years undercover operating without a net-The train of thought switched abruptly. Suddenly he was remembering the old continuing fight with Nina; his angry sarcasm at her uphill gender war with the military. Xena the Warrior Princess syndrome. A Joan of Arc complex. She countering, pointing out that his undercover police role was his flight from reality, called him a frustrated actor…

Got that from his mother.

Christ. That’s what had been missing these last months.

The fights.

They’d be apart for most of the year while she ran around saving the goddamn world, and when they finally did get together for a birthday or Thanksgiving or Christmas, the brawl started. Kit at five, six, seven-standing with her hands over her ears.

The arguments could start about almost any topic, but it always came down to, essentially, who was in charge of their marriage; like it was a fucking unit in the Army, and she, being a fucking major, outranked him.

It had taken unipolar depression to shut her up.

Now she was getting better, which meant they’d inevitably start fighting about something. Preoccupied with years of pyrotechnic flashbacks, driving on automatic, he wheeled around the last turn on the road, coming up on the long stretch about a half mile from the house…

“Dad!” Kit shouted, lurching forward so hard she hit the tension on the seat belt.

Broker instinctively toed the brake, jerked alert, scanned the road, the surrounding trees.

He caught a jerk of movement at the far end of the road, breaking in and out of the deep lattice of shadows.

“Deer?” he said.

“Runs like a deer,” Kit said.

Broker squinted, put up his hand to shield the glare of the sun. He couldn’t compete with his daughter’s 20/10 vision. Then. Well, no shit. It was her, back at it, loping along. But not like a deer-more like a predator chasing a deer, more like a cougar.

“Dad, stop, please.” Kit flung off her seat belt and yanked the door handle. Broker braked the truck, but Kit had already leaped out as the tires stopped rolling and hit the slushy snow in a dead run. She opened up her stride, racing up the road.

Broker followed slowly, idling along the shoulder, and stopped by the mailbox. He could see Nina clearly now, red ponytail bouncing as she ran steadily, a little off her old gait. He could see the gray sweat suit, could read the hard-edged prophetic black type on her chest. Christ. Her lungs must be a trash fire. Three months of nicotine burn. She’d be a mess of cramped sore muscles in the morning.

He turned off the truck, got out, and waited, watching Kit bound, closing the distance, and then jump to hug her mother around the neck. Broker noted how Nina stooped to lift her, using her left arm. The right arm hanging back, guarded.

After the brief hug-fest they continued up the road, running now side by side. Snatches of girlish laughter carried on eddies of breeze, bounced off the trees, ringing in and out of patches of light and shadow.

Broker felt the stranglehold of the last three months release and fall away, like dropping a heavy ruck and gear at the end of a long forced trek. We did it.

Knock on wood.

But there it is. She was moving more like her old self. When he jogged to meet them, his feet were light, almost dancing.

“Wipe off that grin. You’ll cramp your face,” Nina panted as she stopped and leaned forward, bracing her hands on her knees. No mistaking the flush of healthy sweat on her freckled cheeks and forehead, the gaunt energy steady in her eyes. Broker wrapped her in his arms, and as she buried her forehead in his chest, Kit hurled herself between them, joining the huddle. Then she tugged on Nina’s arm.

“C’mon, Mom; race you to the house.”

Nina rolled her eyes and set off after Kit, who was sprinting up the driveway. Broker got back in the truck and drove up to the house, collected Kit’s backpack and the errant bunny, and went inside.

“Take off your boots,” Nina admonished as he came in through the door from the garage. Broker grimaced and kicked off his boots, seeing the spotless maple floor, smelling the lingering scent of Murphy’s Oil Soap. Nina had been busy this afternoon. The kitchen was more than spruced up, it was squared away like a barracks before an inspection. No cigarette smoke. No TV. Even the exhausted snake plant seemed to stand taller.

Nina leaned against the counter, drinking a glass of water. Straight ahead in action, she was forever indirect about intimacy. It always snuck up on them. But the signals were there in the way she stood now, head tilted a little to the side, eyes slightly lowered.

It always surprised him, the way the silent shadow of desire appeared, not unlike seeing a ten-point buck slip through the trees opening morning. Felt the movement quicken in his chest.

He smiled. Going on fifty, and he could still feel the excitement brand-new.

He put his arm around her, and she leaned into his chest. No kiss yet. Or even words. Too many ragged