She sighed and shook her head. “No need to be sorry. I’m assuming you were trying to help?”

Relief flickered across his face. “Yes, I promise that’s all it was. I’m not trying to be controlling or whatever it is that would make you find similarities between me and your father. I just threw out an idea. A bad one maybe, but that’s all it was. An idea. An opportunity if you wanted it.”

“It’s okay.” She looked at her phone. “Mrs. Howard still hasn’t called me back and now isn’t a good time for you to talk to Kaylynn.”

“What? Why not?”

“Trust me, just don’t. Not yet.”

He frowned. “Okay.”

“Would you be all right with saying our goodbyes to your parents and the others and heading over to my place?”

“I’d be more than all right with that. Let’s go.”

“Thanks for meeting me again,” Marshall said to Lewis, who once again sat opposite him in the café. “I know it’s last minute, so I wasn’t sure you could make it.”

“I didn’t have anything better to do. Sharing two meals in one day is nice. Makes things less lonely.”

“I’m sorry. You’re taking the full six-week leave?”

Lewis sighed. “They offered it and I decided to accept it. For now. I can always go back early, but I’ll be honest. I’m getting older and it takes me a while to bounce back from things.”

His friend raised his brow. “I wouldn’t exactly call your son’s suicide something to bounce back from.”

Lewis waved his hand. “That’s not how I meant it.” He paused, then pushed the pastry away from him. “Caden read me the riot act about Rochelle.”

Marshall laughed. “And you took it?”

“On the chin.”

His friend stopped and stared. “Getting soft in your old age?”

Lewis scoffed. “I’d like to think wiser.” He looked away and out the window. “Initially, I dismissed everything he said, but some of it resonated—especially when Gavin, a friend of Caden’s, basically said the same thing a short time later.”

“What was it all about?”

“You know my father was a military man.”

“I remember.”

“He was hard-nosed, as rigid as they come.”

“Sounds like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—or whatever that analogy is.”

His friend shot him a pointed look and Denning shook his head. “I’m not that rigid.” He paused. “Okay, maybe I am. Now.” He sipped his coffee. “Back then, I had dreams of being a doctor, did I ever tell you that?”

“You might have mentioned it one night while you were raging against your father.”

“I hated him and yet . . . I’ve turned into him, haven’t I?”

“Are you going to get all sappy?”

A laugh slipped from him. “When have you ever known me to be sappy?”

“Good point.”