He kissed her. “Mypleasure.”
And if ithelped her de-stress, all thebetter.
He wanted to ask her if it had, but it was only Sunday. They had all week together. They’d getthere.
“Ready for the nextbrownie?”
She laughed. “I think we’veearnedit.”
He grabbed the bag while she wiggled back into her shorts, then he sat with his legs spread wide and she cuddled up in front of him. They looked out over thevalley and she asked him about camping there asakid.
“How did you find out that Camp Firefly Falls had re-opened?” she asked as she twisted to give him a mini-bite ofbrownie.
“Mmm. So good.” He swallowed. “Heather posted about it on Facebook. She started a group. And someone tagged me. I knew I’d want to come if I could get the time off, and then Wyatt and Danny had the same leave,so I talked them intocomingwith.”
“And how’s Danny?” Priya had gotten on better with their friend than she had him, and last summer, that had made him secretlyjealous.
Now, with Priya in his arms and her taste still on his lips, he couldn’t care about that. “He’s good. Posted to Washington right now, actually, but he’ll be back out west in the fall. Just in time to avoid winter,which he’ll be happyabout.”
“Like a diplomaticthing?”
“Yeah. Wyatt did it last year. I’ll probably be up next year. It’s a standard rotation if you’re looking at goingcareer.”
“If?”
He shrugged. “Not everyone in the teams wants to do this forever. It’s hard on family. Wives, kids. That’s all easier if yougetout.”
“Is that…something you want?” She asked itcarefully, and he didn’t know how toreadthat.
Honesty. He’d told her that was what he was trying here, and he’d stick to that. “Eventually, yeah. I’m not eager to get out,though.”
“You’re stillyoung.”
He didn’t feel it most days. “Howaboutyou?”
She chuckled and leaned her head back against his chest. “I always feel like I’m impossibly immature and unprepared foranything permanent, and also dangerously close to being too old and having missed some window of opportunity. That’s probably my mother’s voice in the back ofmyhead.”
“Do you get a lot of pressure fromfamily?”
“Pressure? No. Unwanted but gentle opinions? Yes. Especially now. My parents are both hard workers, but their jobs are secure. And they don’t understand the cutthroat natureof media. So they think I should just get another job, like that’s so easy. And there are things I love about my job, and those things they don’t value as much as I do. But I know their concern comes from a place of love, and their guidance has always meant a lot to me. We’re close. So it’s tricky. And then add their weird urges for grandchildren to the mix, and…” She laughed. “Yeah. Tricky.Howaboutyou?”
He’d walked right into that one. “Yeah. Uh… No. My mother doesn’t pressure me for kids. She’s fully embraced my career, which I’m grateful for. My uh…” He swallowed hard. “My father died when I was a teenager. He was a stockbroker. We lived in New York City, and he worked at the World TradeCenter.”
She twisted around again, her eyes full of raw concern. “Oh,Grady.”
He grimaced, his eyes rough in a familiar way. It never got easier to say. “That’s why I’m a Navy SEAL instead of an investment banker,probably.”
She took his hand and brought his fingers to her lips, kissing them gently before she slid her arms around his neck. He breathed in the scent of her. Warm, alive,perfect.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Three words he’d heardbefore many times, but from her, they were a new balm. And she followed that sweet sincerity with an unexpected question that made him smile. “Do you like to talkabouthim?”
Henodded. “Yeah.”
“Tell meabouthim.”
So he told her about his dad’s suit collection, his funny socks, the weekend hobby farm he’d bought for them to summer at after Camp Firefly Falls closed down.“He always said he couldn’t wait to retire there. He never got the chance. And I think about that all the time, you know? That we can’t put off for tomorrow what we want today. He wouldn’t have made any money as a hobby farmer, but if they’d sold their brownstone in Manhattan, they’d have been set for life in Connecticut. He could have grown heirloom carrots or whatever hewanted.”
“Doyou still havethefarm?”
