Excerpt from Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Look at you," Jack said to her. "Look at you." She worried he would start crying again, but instead he turned to the refrigerator and pulled out several deli bags: ham and turkey and cheese, then mustard and vegetables. He set them on the table, then went to the sink to peel carrots, fill the tea kettle. Lauren was surprised to see how relaxed he looked, how the refrigerator was stocked. For a moment she was afraid she was dreaming.

Danny shut the basement door, handed her an old plaid shirt and a pair of his Levi's, and she held them, watching their father. She glanced at Danny incredulously, and he gave a quick nod in their father's direction, smiled. "Dad's been making a mean turkey pita lately," he said.

His phone buzzed and he pulled it from the front pocket of his jeans, read the text and clicked back a quick reply with his thumbs.

Something seemed wrong, a little too well organized, too normal. Why had her father been up and in the living room when she arrived? "Did you guys know I was coming home?" she asked, hungrily watching her father make sandwiches, marveling once more at the amount of food in the house.

"We knew you were coming home this month," Jack said, his eyes filling with tears again. "Because you said December but I was beginning to think it wasn't going to happen. There was bad news yesterday and I knew you weren't in Fedaliya, but I never really believed we knew where you were or what you were doing." He said this last part bitterly, glanced up at her for just a second.

"I was in the same place for the last nine months, Dad."

"Clown College," Danny said, finishing the sentence in her same earnest tone.

Lauren burst out laughing and their father shot him a disapproving look. Danny smiled to himself and she could see him as he was at eight, back when the comfort of their secret world unfurled around him.

From Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman. Copyright © 2014 by Cara Hoffman. Reprinted with permission from Simon & Schuster, Inc.