OS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

JUNE 29, 2005

As the plane touched down at LAX, Molly held Jones’s hand.

“You okay?” she asked.

He’d been glued to the window, watching Los Angeles grow larger and larger as they’d approached the runway, but now he looked up. “I think I’m still waiting for the squads of MPs to surround me, locked and loaded, and order me face down onto the ground.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she told him.

Jones nodded. He even managed to smile at her.

But he didn’t believe it.

And sure enough, as the announcement came to stay seated until the plane reached the gate, one of the flight attendants approached.

“Sir, we just received a message from airport security, asking you to remain on board until the rest of the passengers have deplaned,” she said.

Jones glanced at Molly. Here we go. “Thanks,” he told the woman.

But Molly leaned forward. “Excuse me,” she said. “Is there a problem?”

The attendant’s smile was sunny. “Not at all. Apparently the gentleman who’s meeting you wants to make sure he doesn’t lose you in the crowd.”

“See,” Molly told him. “It’s nothing.”

But he didn’t believe it.

“Whatever happens,” Jones told his wife, “you get on that flight to Iowa tomorrow, okay?” He’d wanted her to visit her mother first thing—as well as her mother’s doctor.

“Okay,” she said, clearly humoring him.

“I’m serious.”

“I know.” She kissed him. “Hey, Byron’s awake.”

Byron?

“No?” she asked, obviously teasing him.

Jones shook his head. But he clung to the last shreds of his patience while the plane slowly emptied out by pressing his hand against Molly’s stomach, trying to feel their baby dancing.

“Excuse me—Mr. and Mrs. Jones?” The man coming down the aisle was an FBI agent. Had to be. Dark suit, conservative tie—he wore the clothes and walked the walk. “My name’s George Faulkner. I work with Max Bhagat. He’s sorry he couldn’t be here himself. He wanted to make sure everything was going smoothly, and that you have everything that you needed.”

“Thank you,” Molly said for him, because even though Jones shook the man’s hand, he still didn’t believe it. “We do.”

There was no way that he was going to walk off of this plane unchallenged.

But Faulkner was carrying a briefcase and he opened it now, taking out what looked like all kinds of documents. “These are for the two of you.” He handed them over.

Passports. Drivers licenses. Birth certificates. Social Security cards. Military documentation giving an honorable discharge dated today, for a Sergeant...

His new name, which was on all of the other documents as well, was William Davis Jones.

Faulkner was saying something that Jones didn’t hear, but Molly was nodding, apparently paying attention.

“Back pay,” she told him, as he looked questioningly at the envelope Faulkner was handing him.

Jones opened it and... Shit. He wasn’t expecting this.

He was expecting his cheek ground into the pavement. Hands cuffed behind him as he was wrestled into a waiting cop car.

He looked at the rather large number on that check again and...

He still didn’t believe it.

Molly had gathered up her bags and books, and Faulkner took their luggage down from the overhead rack. Jones followed them out of the airplane as the flight attendants smiled and said good-bye.

The walkway to the gate was like something out of a science fiction movie—it had been a long time since he’d been at LAX. The gate itself was blocked off from the rest of the terminal, with temporary walls leading down to the luggage area—like something that might be set up to lead cattle to slaughter.

Faulkner was talking about a car that was waiting for them, chatting with Molly about her due date and recommending restaurants near their hotel.

Molly took Jones’s hand. “You okay?” she asked again.

He nodded, but he was lying and she knew it. She didn’t let go of him.

“We don’t have any checked luggage,” she told Faulkner.

“I know,” he said, “but I need you both to come over here and...”

And here it came. Jones took the envelope with the check for that so-called back pay out of his pocket and handed it to Molly. “You better take this,” he said as he went around a corner and braced himself for...

A military band?

Playing “Stars and Stripes Forever...?”

With a huge banner, that said, WELCOME HOME, SGT. JONES.

“Sorry for the subterfuge,” Faulkner shouted over the trumpets and tubas. “Max wanted to make sure you got the message.” He shook Jones’s hand, Molly’s too. “Car’s right outside—whenever you’re ready. If you need anything else, just give me a call.”

And he was gone.

Leaving Jones and Molly standing in the Los Angeles airport. They were surrounded, not by military police with weapons drawn, but by other travelers who were giving him a round of applause.

Some of them even shook his hand, thanking him for his service.

As the band kicked into “America the Beautiful,” Molly tugged on his arm. They went out through the automatic doors and over to the waiting cars, where, yes, one of the drivers held a sign saying JONES.

The California sun was warm on his face as he gave their bags to the man.

“Where you folks traveling from?” the driver asked.

“Kenya,” Jones told him. “Via Jakarta and Hong Kong.”

“Mmm,” the man said. “Sounds like a nice trip. Still, nothing beats coming home.”

“Yeah.” Jones climbed in beside Molly. “Nothing beats coming home.”

“You okay?” she asked him again.

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

And this time she believed him.

EAST MEADOW, LONG ISLAND

JULY 16, 2005

So far so good.

Max was standing over by the bar, looking as if he were holding his own with Gina’s two oldest brothers. It was hard to say, though, whether they were grilling him, or protecting him from the rest of the family.

It took a brave man to come into Anthony’s Italian Restaurant’s function room and meet the entire extended Vitagliano family all at once.

Max looked calm and cool, as usual. God only knew what he was thinking—especially after meeting the Great Aunts, Lucia and Tilly—who wanted to know what part of Italy the Bhagats came from. And then there was Uncle Arturo, who kept asking him how much an FBI agent earned each year.

Gina caught Max’s eye, and he smiled, thank goodness. But then she had to turn away because the waiter was finally beside her. Thank God.

But he was holding a tray of champagne in elegant flutes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “About a half hour ago, I asked for a ginger ale. Will you get that for me, as soon as possible?”

He murmured something unintelligible as he headed... not to the bar, but into the crowd.

Shoot.

She had to get something into her stomach soon or this engagement party would turn into a total disaster.

But if she went toward the bar, she’d have to stop and chat with Father Timothy, and her cousins Mario and Angela, and Mrs. Fetterson who’d lived next door to Gina’s grandparents for forty-five years...

“Gina!” Her mother waved to her from the corner, where she was arguing with Rob and Leo’s wives—the wicked sisters-in-law—over the best place on Long Island to hold a wedding. “Debbie says La Maison has openings in December 2007...”

“Just a sec, Mom...” Gina took a wide berth around them. Escape, escape... God, where was the ladies’ room?

She felt a hand at her waist and looked up to find Max beside her.

“Are you all right?” he leaned close to ask her quietly.

She shook her head, completely unable even to speak.

But he steered her toward the kitchen, and—yes!—there it was.

She ran for it, praying that unlike most ladies’ rooms on the planet, there wasn’t a line.

There wasn’t.

But she nearly knocked over a pretty African American woman as she lunged for the only open stall.

“Gina?”

Oh, shit—the woman she’d hip-checked into the sinks was none other than Alyssa Locke.

Max had told her that both Alyssa and her husband Sam were in New York City this week, and Gina had invited them to this party her parents were throwing to celebrate their engagement. Jules wasn’t able to attend, nor were Molly and Jones. She’d thought it was only fair to have someone that Max knew there in the restaurant.

“Hi,” Gina said, as she locked the door behind her. “Alyssa, right?”

“Yes, how are you?” Alyssa said. “Congratulations.”

“Oh,” Gina said. “Thanks... Excuse me—”

There was just no way to barf quietly.

Still, she probably could have gotten away with a cheerful comment about shellfish allergies, and a warning to be careful of the gourmet ravioli that was apparently stuffed with shrimp.

It might’ve worked, if she hadn’t had one of those head-rushes of dizziness, the kind that happened sometimes when she stood up too fast, except this time it happened when she was trying to sit down.

The end result was that she connected with the floor much too quickly and much too hard, and with way more than just her rear end.

Max leaned against the wall by the ladies’ room door, trying to be invisible so that Gina’s Uncle Arturo wouldn’t ask him for a job.

He looked at his watch. How long had she been in there? Gina’s brother Leo had been telling him about this really awful stomach virus that was making the rounds at work.

The door opened, and he straightened up, but it wasn’t Gina.

“Max! Get in here!”

It was Alyssa. She pulled him into the ladies room where...

Gina was on the floor in one of the stalls. The door was locked, so he went underneath.

She was pushing herself up. “Oh, gross, my face was touching the floor.”

Max helped her so that she was leaning against the wall. “What happened?” He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

“Sorry, this ladies’ room is temporarily closed,” he heard Alyssa stop people from coming in. “There’s another upstairs. Sorry for the inconvenience and excuse me, would you mind standing out here for just a minute and...? Thank you so much.”

“I’m okay. I just... I shouldn’t have skipped lunch,” Gina said.

Alyssa appeared with a handful of wet paper towels and a handful of dry ones, too. “I’m going to go in search of some saltines or oyster crackers,” she told them. “And ginger ale. That usually helps.” She vanished.

“Are you really okay?” Max asked.

Gina nodded, wiping her mouth with one of the wet towels. “You know how you’ve been trying to talk me into going to law school?”

He nodded. He was no longer talking up NYU—that would be too far away. But there were plenty of good schools in D.C.

“Do you really need me to get a graduate degree?” she asked. “I mean, is there some FBI Wives Handbook that requires a Masters or better?”

“Of course not,” Max said. “It’s just... I work long hours and I’m out of town a lot. I just...” He made himself just say it. “I don’t want you to get tired of me. You’ve always seemed so... restless. Going to Kenya and... Do you want me to get the car and take you home?”

Gina shook her head. “I’ll be okay when Alyssa gets back with the... God, I’m pretty sure she’s figured it out. Thank goodness she was in here and not my sister-in-law Debbie, the biggest gossip in the universe.”

He was having trouble following her. “Figured what out? Gina, if you’re not feeling well, we should really just go.”

She seemed to want to stand, so he helped her to her feet. “I didn’t find what I was looking for in Kenya.”

“What are you looking for?” Max held onto her as she went to the sink. She still seemed so shaky.

She looked at him in the mirror as she washed her hands. As she rinsed out her mouth.

“This,” Gina said. “Look at you. Ready to catch me if I fall. Standing beside me.” She dried her hands, tossed the towel into the garbage. “I know you want to protect me from all the bad things that can happen in life, and I know it drives you crazy to think about all the awful things that could happen, but most of them are things we can’t control. But what you can do is stand beside me when the bad things happen. That’s what I want to do for you, too.”

Max nodded. What was this leading to? He just waited for it. Whatever it was, it was coming.

She dug in her purse, coming up with a pack of mints. She put one in her mouth, held the pack out for him. He shook his head.

“You know, for a really long time I’ve felt this... responsibility to live a life of meaning,” Gina told him. “Like, I must’ve survived that hijacking for a reason. But lately I’ve been thinking I’ve been looking too hard. Meaning doesn’t mean I have to go to Kenya or become Mata Hari or Mother Teresa. Or even Ally McBeal. All I have to do is live well. Be happy.

“And that’s what I’m doing,” Gina said, turning to look at him, “when I’m with you.”

“If we’re still talking about you not wanting to go to law school,” Max said, “you don’t have to convince me. If you don’t want to—”

“I was thinking,” Gina said, “that I might want to be a stay-at-home mom.”

And suddenly it all made sense.

Gina didn’t have her brother Leo’s stomach virus.

She was pregnant.

Holy God in heaven. Max went into freefall. Chaos. Terror.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“No,” she said, but she shook her head yes. “I haven’t taken a home test yet, but... I know.”

“Wow,” he said. “Wow.” He was going to be a father. “I don’t know how to be a father. Not a good one. I mean, I know how to be a great bad father...”

“Are you kidding? You were amazing with Ajay.”

Ajay had died. And Max still hadn’t gotten over it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Gina said, pulling him close. “Another person to love, another person to lose, right? Remember what I was just saying, about the lack of control thing? Here’s the deal: As parents, you do everything you can possibly do to keep your children safe, with the knowledge that there are things we can’t control. If something happens to our kid, Max, it won’t be because we failed to protect her. It’ll be because, well, life happens.”

Life happens.

“Are you completely freaked out?” she asked him.

“No,” Max said, but quickly recanted. “Yes, but it’s a good kind of freaked out.”

Gina laughed. “Good answer,” she said, and kissed him.

Life happens.

Chaos swirled around him—it always would. But Max held on tightly to this incredible woman who had brought light and laughter into his life.

“You want to go break the news to my mother that December 2007 isn’t going to do it for us in terms of a wedding date? I mean, unless we want to work the baby in as flower girl...”

Life had indeed happened to Max, and her name was Gina.