These entertaining characters do not belong to me. They belong to the USA network, the genius of Matt Nix, his writers and the talented actors who give us human faces to see them more clearly. With thanks for letting me borrow them for a while.

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Sam Axe sat in his car, appraising the house before him.

It hadn't changed that much. Not really. The mailbox at the end of the driveway said AXE on the side and was held upright by crossed axe handles. Red geraniums flourished underneath.

The house sat on the hill above the small vale, a good place to spot visitors or enemies.

He noticed the tin roof was new, and the shutters were now green instead of blue. Four rocking chairs sat on either side of the central front door. The trees were bigger. That huge tractor tire she'd insisted would be perfect for a kid's sandbox was still there. It had been joined by a swing set that looked new.

He stopped wondering if she'd ever had kids after he'd left. She always wanted them. Funny, Mack didn't mention anything, but he did say she'd left him, too. Briefly, he wondered what he'd missed. Didn't matter, though. Not really.

It was a tad bit strange and vaguely unsettling being here, but he'd be fine.

He just needed a couple of beers. That's how he'd dealt with most anything unpleasant in his personal life. A couple of beers, a little flirting, or a lot of it, some all-night companionship and the unpleasant disappeared. It was an excellent plan and it'd been working well for the past 30 years, more or less, ever since he'd left here.

But as he'd watched his younger friends settle into their lives, the ones they wanted to live, he'd observed they now had something that had always seemed out of his reach. It was that true intimate connection with another person he could see between some married people, never see in others.

He was surrounded by it. Circled. He couldn't turn around without running into someone looking into someone's eyes with love. It was . . . unsettling. Unnerving.

He'd always expected, at some point, Michael and Fiona would make it permanent, and they did. It had surprised the hell out of him when Jesse and Dani married, but then all he had to know that that was going to stick was to watch them together. Now they were expecting a kid, too.

But it wasn't until Maddie came back from her CIA-coerced vacation with a new boyfriend that Sam found himself on the outside looking in. Even Mike's crazy brother Nate and his crazier wife Ruth had stopped arguing for some strange reason. It was almost like they liked each other again. Now that was something unexpected.

Then he paused.

That's when he started asking himself what he wanted.

That question eventually zeroed in on who.

Who he wanted.

He'd never admit it, but his ego was tired of being a boy toy. It had certainly been pleasant, but the fact was Big Mamma had a boy toy no matter where she went.

Fiona had wondered about that once, in passing.

Or maybe, he frowned, it hadn't been in passing. He'd finally figured out Fi asked sneaky stuff like that all the time. Women. He hated being manipulated. It didn't matter, because he'd come up with this on his own. The last time Ilsa came to Miami she had a younger boy toy on her arm and that ended that. He surprised himself when he realized he was damned happy to be a graceful loser.

Which is how he came to find himself in North Carolina with a plan.

He needed to find Ronnie and beg her forgiveness and ask her to take him back. Before he could do that he wanted the divorce he'd never taken time to get, and for that, he needed Amanda Axe's cooperation. It shouldn't be too difficult, he thought.

He should have done this years ago. Surely, after all this time they could both wipe the slate clean. He'd apologize very sincerely and that would be that. He was good at being very sincere, if he did say so himself.

Although, now that he thought about it, the possibility existed that it might take a little longer. If memory served, Amanda could out-difficult the most difficult of women. She could probably give Fiona Westen a real run for her money. And Dani Porter was no slouch in the stubborn department. He'd discovered that recently.

Maybe she'd changed.

Probably, she'd changed.

Time had passed.

He hoped she'd changed.

He'd just be some old memory and she could say good riddance.

He parked where he'd always parked and had to wonder if the key he'd kept all these years still worked. Maybe he'd try it, but it didn't look like he'd need to. The front door was open and the screen door was letting an early summer breeze waft through the house.

She always liked to do that. Open the doors and windows and let the outside in.

There was music coming from some place at the rear of the house. Since the door was open, the screen door on the porch allowed easy admittance so he tugged. It was latched. He looked around. Still no door bell.

Now that he stood here, he realized the house smelled exactly the same as it had the last time he was here. Fresh baked bread. If ever there had been an aphrodisiac, it was her homemade bread. Now that was a pleasant memory he hadn't thought about in years. It was probably best not to think about that now, but it was such a tempting scent.

Unless, of course, she'd offer him a slice or two. He put on his best smile, and rapped on the door.

The sound woke a slumbering beast. A shaggy white rug erupted with flying fur, a roaring bark and snapping teeth, a canine abominable snowman with a huge mouth, dark eyes and enormous feet.

The thing bounded to the door, a thundering, prancing white dog that looked like it could be an albino wolf. Its bark was vicious and deep and made every little hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand straight up. He knew the dog sensed his fear because it started barking and snarling an even more aggressive manner when he took a step backward.

Sam now realized there was only a thin layer of wire mosquito screening between him and dog and took another step back. He reached behind to the small of his back before realized he wasn't armed. Oh, this could be bad. He took another step back.

"Diesel! Quiet!"

The sound of her voice arrived and then so did she. She took hold of the dog's choke collar and yanked. It quieted. She looked up and out to see who was on her porch.

Instant recognition, about 30 years past due.

Thunk.

Sam almost, almost, stopped breathing.

She'd hardly changed at all, except for the very fine lines around those intensely blue eyes. Her body was more voluptuous than he remembered. She looked rounder and softer all over. There might be a couple of strands of silver mixed in with blonde, and he was glad to see she'd left it long instead of chopping it off as so many women did when they got older. It was all tied up at the top of her head in a soft loop while curls scraggled down her cheeks and neck. The freckles across the bridge of her nose hadn't disappeared and neither had that heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. Of course his eyes went there. Why the hell wouldn't they?

She was barefooted, her toes were painted green. Green? Well-worn, frequently bleached jeans with ragged holes in a leg and at the knee hugged her compact body and an equally ragged white tank top exposed sweet female curvature and cleavage. Damn. He was still a sucker for that cleavage. He'd forgotten. How could he have forgotten that? It was, quite literally, like looking at a page out of time a couple of decades later than it'd been the last time he'd stood on this porch.

She smiled at him, shook her head and turned around. She released her hold on the dog's collar and walked back through the door she had just come through. Diesel resumed his aggressive posture, barking and snarling to a louder degree than before. Those were large and unfriendly looking teeth in that dog's mouth, Sam decided.

"Amanda!" he yelled, thinking she could hear him over the barking. "Hey, Mandy! Can we talk? Can you take care of this . . . dog?"

She allowed the dog to continue to provide the barrier between the porch and the house for another minute before she came back.

"Diesel! Dead dog!"

Like magic, the dog sat down peaceably and was silent.

She stood behind the dog and put a fist on each hip. "What do you want?"

Damn. The woman was cute.

"Can I come in? Can we talk?" Sam wondered, glancing between her and the dog.

She laughed. "Weren't you just here . . . twenty . . . ah, twenty-nine years ago?"

"Is that how long it's been? Gee."

Nothing had changed. The woman still had no sense of humor.

"What do you want, Sam?"

He was getting the feeling that he was not going to be allowed inside, so he decided he'd better say what he needed to say and get it over with now. "A divorce?"

She looked at him, laughed, then turned at the sound of a door at the opposite end of the house.

"Ma! You drove the truck! Dammit, I can't fix that tire now. I'm going to have to replace it."

The voice came from behind her. The dog turned around and wagged its enormous body across the room to jump on a man, who, had Sam been looking in a mirror 30 years ago, would have been his double. Six one, maybe two, he was broad shouldered, leanly muscled, and had long legs, brown hair, a square jaw and . . . dimples. Yeah, a mirrored image.

"Deecey, old buddy." The dog jumped up, put its paws on the kid's shoulders, and licked his face while the kid petted him and roughed his fur. But the kid wasn't a kid. He was a full grown man. "Diesel. Down."

"Ma? Did you hear me? Why'd you drive the truck? That tire's flat, and that was the spare." He entered the room then stopped when he realized there was someone at the door.

Amanda spoke to him. "I had to pick up the kids, and the Jeep was out of gas. You're welcome."

Then she opened the door. "Well, the cat's out of the bag now. Come on in, Sam, and meet your son."

It was the most surreal moment of his life. "My son."

"Yup." Amanda acknowledged. "Your son."

The kid pushed the dog down, walked around his mother and extended his hand. "Sam Axe."

Sam smiled. "You or me? This could get confusing."

"Not at all," the younger Sam said after he shook his father's hand. He turned around as if to leave then spun back and let his fist fly. It was a vicious punch, and it knocked Sam the senior on his butt. For a moment, he was sure he saw stars. The last person who had punched him this hard had been a much younger, and very angry Michael Westen.

He turned back to his mother. "Told you."

"I remember."

They changed topics as if Sam wasn't there, sitting on his butt on the floor by the front door.

"Ma, how can you be out of gas? I replaced that gauge. Dammit."

"Bad gauge or bad planning. Sue me. How'd you get here?"

"I ran."

He turned, stuck his hands on his hips and looked down at the man on the floor. "How'd you get here?"

"I drove. In a car."

"Where are the keys?"

Sam stood somewhat unsteadily, held his jaw and licked at his split lip. "In my pocket."

"Let's have 'em. You ought to be good for something at least once in your miserable life."

Sam handed his keys to his son and watched as he flew down the steps out the front door, climbed into his Cadillac and disappeared down the drive and over a hill.

He turned back to Amanda. To the question on his face, she smirked. "Don't worry, he'll bring your car back. He won't disappear for 29 years. He'll be back as soon as he gets his wife out of the hospital and some gas for my Jeep. He's responsible like that."

Sam ignored the verbal slap. "He's married?"

"Yup. Six years now. They have two boys and are hoping for a girl if she can get through this pregnancy okay."

"Two boys," he said dully.

"Yup. Two." She paused for moment. "Grandpa." It wasn't warm; it wasn't a compliment; it was just a fact.

Sam continued to rub his jaw. "What does he do?"

"Count yourself lucky he didn't kill you. He teaches kuk sool won."

"Ah, okay. Anything else?"

She ignored that. "Before he gets back and you have to leave, what do you want?"

Sam looked down; it would best to get this over with fast. "A divorce."

She looked at him, shook her head, as if she felt sorry for him and laughed. "I heard you the first time you said that. Uhmm. No." She laughed again as if he was the most amusing person on the planet and held the door open so he could leave. "You can wait on the porch until he gets back."

With that she turned, closed the screen door, left the room and gave the dog an instruction. "Diesel. Watch."

"You don't want a divorce?" Sam yelled after her.

"No."

"Why not?"

"What for? I'm fine."

"But I want to . . . "

She turned around and came back to stand behind her growling dog. "You want to do what?"

"Ah . . . ask . . . ah, ask you why you said no."

She pinned him in his place. "Liar."

She looked down to her dog once more. "Watch, Diesel. Good dog."

And the dog did.

Sam stepped away from the front door and sat down on the front porch step nursing the lump on his jaw. He used his tongue to feel around inside his mouth. The kid might have loosened a couple of teeth, too.

The dog took a sentry position at the door and emitted a low, rumbling growl from time to time.

When his phone rang, he pulled it from his pocket. It was Fiona.

"Hey, Fi. So, how you doing? How's the kid?" he asked.

"Fine. How are you doing?" she wondered.

"Okay. I think. Maybe."

"When are you coming back? Tomorrow?"

"Uh, no. Not tomorrow."

"Are you okay, Sam? You sound funny."

"Oh, well, I suppose. Just met my kid. He slugged me."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"How's Amanda?"

"I don't really know . . . yet. Maybe. Hmm, disagreeable, I guess."

"Let us know when you're coming home."

"Yeah. I will."

Fiona closed phone and looked at Dani. "He just met his son."

"He's in shock then," Dani said.

Fiona laughed. "He said he slugged him."

"Can't really blame him."

"No," Fiona agreed. "I can't, either."

"I don't think we can help him now."

"No, we can't."

After Sam announced his plan to locate Veronica and seek a divorce from the woman he'd been married to in name only for the past 30 some years, Jesse did some basic research and located a very married Veronica in Tampa, and then he and Mike dug a little further and located Sam's wife and his son. A son, they guessed, Sam didn't acknowledge or he had no awareness of or, surely, he would have said something.

As a man who was about to become a father himself, Jesse found he, personally, just hit a wall when it came to Sam Axe. He decided the man had abandoned his son.

Jesse knew something about that, and Mike agreed although his experiences with an abusive father were different. They'd decided, after Sam told them his plans and they'd done their homework, that if Sam needed their help with anything, he'd have to have a pretty good reason for them to help him. Other than that, it was hands off Sam's personal life.

Fi and Dani already agreed they'd keep the lines of communication open but Michael and Jesse had officially removed themselves from all communications during Sam's trip back to North Carolina, where they discovered he owned a house, the house his wife lived in.

Their good friend, the man they could always rely on, the man who had saved their lives countless times, the man they'd give up their own lives for if need be . . . was on his own.

He had a wife. He had a son. He had grandsons. He'd have to figure out what to do with his 30 year old mistake.

Fiona and Dani already shared an opinion, but Michael and Jesse weren't sure they could agree.

"She's still in love with him," Dani said.

Fi agreed wholeheartedly. "You don't go it alone unless you can't love anyone else."

Michael studied Fiona's face and closed his eyes; he'd made amends, but the knowledge of the hurt he'd caused her for so long could still sneak up and surprise him.

But Fiona hadn't noticed his lapse into their past. "And Madeline remembers a lot from when his friend Mack was here because he was staying with her then," she said. "As he was leaving he told Sam that Amanda left him, too. Mack told him she'd never gotten over Sam. So, something happened that made her be with Mack, and then she left him. I don't think it's a mystery at all. I wonder what his son looks like?"

"Probably like Sam," Michael guessed.

"Oh, yeah," Jesse said. "I did find a picture." He went into the home office and brought back a print.

"Change the uniform . . . and it's Sam 30 years ago," Michael said.

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Except for his blue eyes, Sam Axe, who didn't use the junior because there was no reason to use the junior, was a near perfect replica of his father.

That was the elder Axe's unsettling appraisal as his son returned his car around 10 p.m. He'd driven it around back, apparently to unload a gas can, and then brought it back to the front of the house.

Sam was still sitting on the porch, still being guarded from entry by the demon named Diesel. He'd seen that type of dog before so it only took a couple of minutes of battery time to verify that on his phone. A Great Pyrenees mountain dog. Extra set of dew claws so he could climb rocky terrain. Might be a nice dog, Sam thought, if it'd stop growling at him.

The kid pitched the keys toward him. "Here you go, old man."

Sam caught them mid-air as his son walked straight past him, into the house and shut the door behind him. He heard the door latch. He heard voices inside, then a few moments later he heard a Jeep roar to life, and watched it as it left the driveway and turn right by the mailbox. Apparently, the kid didn't live that far away.

Amanda had been inside the entire time he'd waited, about four hours. She'd had a meal, because he'd smelled chicken. She'd done dishes because he heard the sounds of water and clinking glassware. He heard the phone ring. She talked to someone. There was a TV on somewhere inside. By the time his son returned the car, the evening had faded to dark and the mosquitoes were out.

As a Miami resident, he was familiar with the insect, but the Carolina mountain variety were hardier, bigger and more vicious. He'd been slapping and swatting and scratching for the better part of almost four hours.

He had to decide what he'd do next.

So far he hadn't thought of a single thing that wasn't going to get him laughed at, ignored or slugged. He walked down to the car and slid inside, started it and drove back to town. He'd need a hotel room, and he hoped someone in town might be a tad more hospitable than . . . his family.

But it wasn't until he was ready to go up to his room that a heavenly light illuminated a ray of hope on his problem.

A light blinked on and a soft musical chime repeated itself several times. It was right there in the front seat of his Caddy. He reached for it. It was a cell phone with a pink cover and white daisies all over it.

He picked it up and looked at the face on the screen. A photo popped up-of a smiling Sam Axe the younger in desert camo. The image was blinking at him; he was calling his wife . . . and his son's wife's phone was in Sam's Caddy.

That, Sam realized, made her his . . . daughter-in-law. Wow.

Now, the problem of why he needed to return was just resolved. She, whoever she was, would need her phone back. But it was his treasure now.

Sam retrieved his bag, went into his room and turned on a light, used the bathroom, washed his hands and retuned to the phone. He scrolled to photos and there . . . was a family history.

His family.

Photo after photo after photo after photo. After photo.

He didn't use a phone in the way this young woman did because it was dangerous. Neither did Mike, Fi, Jesse, Dani . . . no one in their circle of friends. But this woman's phone was personal, private. There were no passwords protecting her email. It seemed her name was Zoe, if the email address accurately reflected her name.

Thanks to the phone that had been left in his car, either accidentally or on purpose, his son's life just became an open book. And so did Amanda's life.

If he'd been thinking, he might have gone out to get something to eat, or certainly something to drink . . . a beer at least. But he couldn't.

This phone had a magnetizing power and he couldn't look away.

The photos started with a wedding . . . theirs. Apparently, Amanda had been her son's best man. There was a cake. Lots of photos of a very pretty cake. The wedding was held in someone's back yard, between rose bushes . . . and what was that bush called? He stretched and searched his memory. Viburnum. It was beautiful.

Then there were the husband pictures . . . young love. And true love, it looked like. Honeymoon pictures on a beach, the Outer Banks maybe.

Later, pictures of a baby belly, of his son kissing his wife's belly, more pictures with the two of them sitting together on a hospital bed, a baby between them. Then a video of Amanda holding a swaddled baby, a tear running down her cheek. Another video of a child learning to crawl, then climbing stairs and trying to throw a ball. Splashing in a kiddy pool. Eating birthday cake while in the background mom is obviously pregnant again, holding her baby belly. A picture of Sam with two babies sleeping on his chest, one newborn, one a year old. Another with him in uniform. Another by a plane.

His kid was a captain in the North Carolina National Guard. Damn. Then there were the downloaded photos on the phone. Yeah, he'd seen action in Iraq . . . and . . .

He realized he couldn't lose any of this and he had his laptop with him so he could download everything to it, but he'd need an adaptor. And, he'd need to charge the phone which is how he found himself in the electronics section of a 24-hour Wal-Mart at 2 a.m.

It'd taken a few minutes to round up a sleepy looking clerk who couldn't help him because they didn't have the adaptor he needed. When he spotted a similar phone in a locked display unit he finally negotiated buying the phone and the charger and adaptor, but the only place he could check out was near the entrance/exit, and the clerk had to carry the phone up to the cashier.

The clerk checking him out probably doubled as security, Sam realized. He was a mountain-sized man with stark white hair pulled back and tied at the nape of his neck. He was fit, trim and his Wal-Mart vest barely fit a cross his broad chest.

Two hundred and ten dollars later, Sam had what he wanted, but the clerk held onto the receipt when he handed it to him. Sam glanced up when he couldn't tug it away from the clerk.

"You look real familiar," the man said.

"Thanks," Sam said, giving the receipt another tug.

"You Sam Axe's daddy?"

Sam looked at the credit card receipt in his hand, saw his scrawled signature and really couldn't deny it, but he had a feeling admitting the obvious would open a can of worms. What the hell. He wasn't doing anything else except opening worm can after worm can.

"Yeah," he answered warily.

The clerk released the receipt and stuck out his hand. "Then I'm pleased to meet you. I'm Sheldon Dunham. You probably don't know this, but we're related. By marriage."

"Related?" Sam said.

"Yeah. Your boy married my girl. We got a couple of grandsons. Say a prayer we get a granddaughter next. I get off in a couple of hours. Want to join me for breakfast? I'm guessing by that bruise, you've already met Sam."

Sam rubbed his jaw. "Yeah. His mother introduced us."

"That Amanda, she's a pistol."

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

"Well?"

"Okay," Sam said. "I could use some breakfast."

They agreed on a time and where to meet, and before Sam left with his purchase, he stopped him.

"Why are you here?"

Sam didn't pretend to misunderstand. "I wanted a divorce."

"She already told you no, didn't she?"

Sam just looked at him.

"See you at the restaurant."

The man smiled. Sam senior was in shock, and he had a pretty good idea why he was buying that phone. He'd talked to Zoe before he came to work tonight. He wondered if Sam realized what he'd said. He'd wanted a divorce. Past tense.

Now, what did he want?