Summoning every ounce of resolve left to her, KT found Pia’s hand, turned, and led her through the crowd toward the rear of the dance floor and the deck beyond.

“You ready to party, babe?” Bri inquired as she and Allie walked hand in hand up the sidewalk to the front door of a multistory, rambling wood-framed home that stood on a tree-studded knoll above the beach and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. She wondered briefly as she spoke the prearranged words to signal that they were about to enter the house if Reese or her father could actually hear her. Then she put the question from her mind. They were out there. They said they would be.

“Can’t wait for the fun to begin,” Allie replied, squeezing Bri’s fingers as much for her own reassurance as Bri’s.

At Bri’s knock, a sandy-haired man in his thirties opened the door and greeted them with a wide smile. He stood with his body blocking the entrance, one arm extended along the door, sweeping his gaze over them with practiced calculation.

“Hey, girls! Glad you could make it. Tom tell you about our little gathering?”

Allie wrapped her arm around Bri’s waist and gave him a disdainful look. “Nuh-uh. Jimmy. And he said that Karl would take care of us.”

“You got that right, honey,” their host responded, apparently satisfied with the information since he pushed the door all the way open. “I’m Karl. Come on in.”

Tory leaned back into the corner of the couch in Jean and Kate’s living room, glancing at the baby monitor by her elbow as she stretched her legs out to the hassock at her feet. She fidgeted, unable to get comfortable and irritated by a nagging headache that just wouldn’t go away. When she heard Jean’s voice coming through the monitor, singing softly to Regina in the other room, her throat suddenly felt tight. She glanced at Kate, who was smiling tenderly. “I don’t know how I’d manage without the two of you looking after Regina. I can’t imagine how women without family to help out survive.”

“Believe me,” Kate said, “we couldn’t be happier doing it.” A hint of sadness tinged her eyes. “Jean and I would’ve loved to have had children together, but it just wasn’t to be.”

“Well, I’m eternally grateful. Dinner tonight was great, too.”

Kate propped her feet on a matching footstool and studied Tory intently. “Reese is out on some kind of operation, isn’t she?”

Tory nodded. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Because you were very quiet during dinner, and Reese left immediately after, and you haven’t been able to settle since then even though you’re clearly exhausted.”

“I can’t rest when she’s out doing something like this.”

“The baby is asleep and is likely to be for a good part of the night. Why don’t you at least close your eyes and rest.”

“I’m not sure if it’s having Regina and all the responsibility that goes along with that or if it’s just that the longer we’re together, the more I realize how much I need Reese, but it seems to be getting harder for me to tolerate her job.” Tory grimaced. “Reese would hate that if she knew it.”

“You know she’s very, very good and very, very careful. She wouldn’t do anything that would hurt you or Regina.”

Not if she could help it. The words hung in the air as Tory nodded, suddenly very tired. “Do you know that her father met her in Boston a few weeks ago?”

Kate gave a startled gasp. “No. She didn’t tell me. Is everything all right?”

“For the time being, I think so.” Tory hesitated, but she’d been keeping the secret too long, and she couldn’t bear to continue to carry it alone. “He hinted that a major military action was coming and that Reese might be activated.”

“Every time I hear about the escalation of violence somewhere in the world, I think about Reese going,” Kate confided. “But then, I was married to a marine and was always prepared for him to be gone. Before Reese was born, he did two tours in Vietnam.”

“Was that hard?” Tory asked quietly.

“Yes,” Kate answered truthfully, holding Tory’s gaze. “It was very hard. But as much as I wanted him to come home, I was proud, too. It was a very tumultuous period in my life.”

“I can’t get used to the idea,” Tory admitted. “I’m used to her going away for her reserve weekends and the two weeks during the summer, but I never really thought about her serving in a war zone. God, I just can’t imagine it.”

“There’s no reason you should be able to,” Kate said kindly.

“I don’t want her to go.” Tory said evenly as she met Kate’s eyes without flinching. “I want her here with me and Regina. Where she belongs.”

“Did you tell her that?” Kate asked calmly.

“Yes.” Tory drew a long breath. “Then I told her that if the time ever comes, I want her to do what she feels she needs to do.”

“That was a gift. She would have needed to hear that from you.”

Tory laughed without humor. “I wish I’d screamed and hollered and told her absolutely no way was she going. That she was to march right down to the Marine Reserve office and resign immediately.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because of who she is, Because I love her so much.” Tory’s voice broke, and she looked away. When she looked back at Kate, her eyes glistened with tears. “If it happens, do you think she’ll go?”

Kate’s expression softened. “Yes.”

“So do I,” Tory whispered.

“How’s the reception?” Nelson whispered, puffing only slightly from their rapid traverse over the hilly ground to a point where they could see the front door.

“Should be excellent.” Reese surveyed their surroundings. “Depending on the terrain, we’re good for up to two thousand feet with the SR-697.”

The SR-697 was a portable, multichannel audio body-wire receiver designed for the field. With it, Reese could monitor several audio bands and listen to both Bri’s and Allie’s conversations. Depending on ambient noise levels in the house, she could also pick up a fair amount of background chatter as well. The device had recording capabilities, and the tape was time and date stamped. Nelson had gotten a special warrant allowing them to employ wireless surveillance, so anything recorded would be admissible in court. “This location looks good. We have a sightline to the door and no major obstacle interference.” She toggled the frequency indicator, an expression of intense concentration on her face. “Got them both.”

“I’ll radio Wellfleet and key them to our location.” Nelson had organized the joint operation with the Wellfleet sheriff’s department, insisting that he and Reese take the lead and Wellfleet back up with cruisers around the perimeter, waiting to move in if a bust went down. Because it was Nelson’s people undercover, Wellfleet had readily agreed.

“They’re not going to be able to set up on this road,” Reese observed, listening to Bri and Allie introduce themselves to what sounded like a group of college students who had come over to the Cape from Boston for the weekend. “Maybe a parallel road where they can access the rear of the house to cover that exit. Failing that, at the junction with the main road. The last thing we want is for someone on the way to the party to see them.”

Nelson merely grunted. They both knew that the more people involved in an undercover surveillance operation, the more likely the chance of exposure. Although they regarded the risk of violence to be relatively low, that was far from certain. And Allie and Bri were unarmed.

“How long do you figure to get to them from here?”

“Thirty seconds.”

He clenched his jaw and said nothing. Thirty seconds was a lifetime.

Pia leaned back against KT and lifted her face into the breeze. The rear deck of the Pied stood directly on the beach overlooking Provincetown Harbor. At high tide, the water rose under the deck. The tide was out now, and reflections from the running lights of the many sailboats moored in the shelter of the breakwater shimmered and danced off the dark surface of the water, blending with the paler glow of the moonlight bathing the sea. Thousands of times she’d witnessed the eerie beauty of the ocean as it slumbered beneath the stars, but she had never tired of it. Tonight, with the warmth of KT’s body surrounding her, she felt the rhythm of the tide flowing in her blood and the steady cadence of the waves pulsing in her depths. That wonder was echoed by the sweet harmony of passion and peace that settled in the very heart of her.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Pia said simply.

“Pia,” KT moaned, her mouth against Pia’s temple.

Pia intertwined her fingers with KT’s and guided KT’s palm to the undersurface of her own breast, where she pressed it gently over her rapidly beating heart. “You are not required to answer. I just wanted to…say it.”

“You know I’m a decade older than you are?” KT murmured.

“Is there some significance to that?” Pia asked quietly, folding her arms over KT’s, holding KT even as KT held her.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the last ten… no make it twenty years.”

“I don’t want to minimize your past,” Pia replied, leaning her head back against KT’s shoulder, “but your past is not about me. This moment, test weekend with my parents, tomorrow those are about me. About us.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I’m a lousy risk, Pia. And you’re God, you’re”

“What?” Pia turned around and put both hands on KT’s shoulders, looking intently into her eyes. “I’m what, KT? Incapable of making a mistake? Incapable of being selfish or stubborn or foolish? Do you think because no one ever made me want to give everything, to feel everything…” She pressed close to KT, her lips skimming KT’s mouth, and when she spoke again her voice was low, husky with desire. “Just because no one has ever made me want their hands all over me the way I want yours, that I’m special?”