excerpt from Chapter one
“In her magical thinking, the brief visit to her childhood home with her energetic father and nurturing mother should have helped to get her back to her normal vital and fit self.
Her strong father lived his life as a by-the-book military man. Chief Master Sergeant Robert Cabot retired in May of 2006 after thirty-two years of Air Force service. The past two years had been a hard adjustment for him.
Zeke knew without question that he loved her. She just couldn’t remember anyone ever describing him as a warm and fuzzy kind of guy. The inner critic frequently reminded her how she represented the personification of his disappointment. He’d never said that, of course. Zeke made-up the story about how she had disappointed him by not choosing a career in the military. Her chest tightened a little thinking how much she loved and admired him, and she could almost feel his uncharacteristically tender touch around her shoulders. If only she’d been able to tell him, tell him, she loved him…just once. Maybe then, she could break the ice between them.
Her mother was the other side of the coin. She loved her daughter unconditionally, and showed it often. In a perverse way, Zeke translated that kind of unconditional love into low expectations, and she sometimes found herself skewered between the two of them.
Her mom bombarded her with a million questions whenever Zeke visited them and she didn’t want to answer questions. She had nothing to say about her cases or her co-workers. Her poor mother never missed an opportunity to ask why she didn’t want to settle down with someone. Even though Zeke edged closer to age forty, her dear mother still considered the notion of being gay, a phase. It may have been her longing for grandchildren because once Zeke’s brother and his wife gave birth to a little girl—things eased up a little. More than once, she reassured her mom that her constant reassignments made settling down too hard.”
This is only the beginning for Special Agent Zeke Cabot.
Life will become infinitely more complicated in this first book of a series. Stay tuned for the next piece of puzzle and meet Anne Reynolds, RN.
Words of Barrett 