Her green-tea latte, neglected on the table, was still full. She took a sip and discovered it had cooled to room temperature.

Then a buzzing sound came from her purse-the cell phone set to vibrate so as not to interrupt her coffee date-and she let out a sigh of relief, thinking it must be Frank calling to cancel.

Which would be great, since she now understood from her terrible case of nerves that she wasn’t cut out for this Internet-dating stuff after all.

But the name on the cell phone’s little screen was West, her middle son.

She answered with a tense-sounding hello.

“Hey, Mom,” he said.

Was it her imagination, or did he sound a little distressed, too?

“Oh, West, honey, how are you?”

“I just got into town, actually.”

“What?” Julia blinked in surprise. “Today? I thought you weren’t arriving for two more weeks.”

A pause, during which she wondered if he’d somehow discovered her Internet dallying.

“It’s Dad,” he finally said, his voice tight.

Julia had been divorced from the General long enough that mention of his name didn’t evoke any particular emotion, but she certainly didn’t wish him any harm, and her stomach flip-flopped at West’s tone.

“What is it? Is he okay?”

“He’s having some problems I need to deal with in person,” he answered vaguely. Julia knew for sure something was wrong, but she decided it was better not to push.

West would tell her the whole story when he was ready. But her mother radar was picking up signals. Something was definitely wrong, with the General, or West, or both.

“Will you be staying with me? Can you come for dinner tonight?”

Her gaze fell on a tall, well-built man with close-cropped gray hair and kind brown eyes, headed toward her, and she barely heard what her son said next.

“I need to stay with Dad for now, but I may want to move to your guest room once I’ve got him squared away. And I’d love to have dinner with you, but I’ll have to let you know later, if that’s okay.”