She stepped into his arms as if God had designed them for her to perfectly fit there.They wrapped around her, strong, sure, and his lips met hers as if they’d kissed a thousand times already.The days since she last saw him slipped away.He smelled of spicy aftershave, a light musk unique to him, and fresh air.She just wanted to breathe him in.
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.“Worth coming back to.”
“You have been missed.”She cupped his cheek, liking the smooth feel, then stepped back and gestured toward the room.“Come in.”
“Thank you.”He held up the bags.“Where should I put—”
A grin stretched across her face at the secret gift she had snagged for him, even though they had skipped any talk of exchanging gifts.She snatched the bags from his hands and plunked them onto the end table beside the package she had wrapped that morning.“I didn’t do a tree this year because I knew I was working all week.”
“I didn’t do a tree, either.Had other things on my plate.”
She laughed.“Unofficially.”
“Unofficially.”He nodded.“You have such a beautiful home.Thanks for having me again.”
“Have a seat.I just have to check the oven.”Instead of sitting, he followed her into the kitchen.
“Smells great.”
She glanced at him as she grabbed a dish towel off the counter and opened the oven door.Something about the way he casually leaned against the door frame did something funny to her pulse rate.“I love breakfast smells.Especially mixed with coffee.”She turned the biscuit pan, then shut the door.“Would you like some?Coffee?”
“Absolutely.”
She remembered he drank it black from their post-church lunch and Thanksgiving.The slight tremble in her hand as she poured the coffee surprised her.She forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly.Olive handed him the steaming mug, then turned the burner on beneath the skillet she’d staged with beef tallow.While it heated, she cracked two eggs into a ramekin.“How was your mission?”
If she hadn’t looked at him, she wouldn’t have seen the shadow that crossed his eyes.But his face remained calm, relaxed.“Veni Vidi Vici,” he answered unironically, quoting the Latin phrase meaning we came, we saw, we conquered.
“Good.”She waved her palm over the skillet, judging the heat, then slid the eggs out of the ramekin.They immediately started hissing and popping, and the air filled with the bacon smell of the beef tallow.Olive sprinkled the eggs with salt and pepper and cracked two more eggs into the ramekin.“I watched the news to see if I could guess where you were, but nothing clued me in.”
“Like I said, we did our thing.”He took a sip of the coffee.“If you hear about us, something went very wrong.There’s a reason they call us the quiet professionals.”
“No news is good news, then.”
“For our side, anyway.We don’t make movies about our work like the Navy does.Usually, movies about Green Berets are dudes suffering from debilitating PTSD who burn down a town or something.”He set the mug down and slipped his hands into his pockets.“Wow.That’s good coffee.Like really good.”
“Thanks.”It took her a second to take in his previous words.“Does that false perception ever bother you?”She loaded a plate with corned beef hash, topped the mound with the eggs, then slid the other two eggs into the pan.After seasoning them, she pulled the biscuits out of the oven.She had a bread plate ready for them.
Jerry said, “Sure, sometimes.But we can’t talk about what we do—and some movie star or screenwriter in Hollywood has no idea what we actually do, or who we actually are—so, they just recycle the same decades-old fictitious tropes they used when my granddad was in Vietnam.”
Olive detected some annoyance in his answer, not with her, but rather with the culture, so she decided to change the subject.Based on every fact she knew about the handsome, strong man standing in her kitchen, sipping her coffee, she could never imagine him fitting into the “crazy vet” mold falsely perpetuated by mainstream media and entertainment outlets.
“Is your grandfather still with us?”
Jerry shook his head.“He passed just after I turned ten.I remember him, though.”
“He and your father sound like great men.”
Jerry sipped his coffee and slowly said, “Magni viri in adversis gaudent, sicut fortes milites in bello triumphant.”
Olive grinned.“Meaning?”
“Oh.It’s from De Providentia.Great men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.”
After turning the eggs in the pan, Olive picked up the biscuits and retrieved the fruit salad from the refrigerator.She held them out to him.“Could you be a great man and take these to the table?”
“Triumphantly.”
Before he came back, she had loaded a second plate with the corned beef and topped it with the eggs.She turned off the heat under the skillet and picked up both plates.“All set,” she said.
