“What’s your favorite color?”
Smiling she said, “Sapphire blue. You?” He’d stolen her backup question.
“OD green.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Olive drab green is no one’s favorite color.”
“It is too. I remember you wore your dad’s old uniform shirt to school one time. It had the Ranger tab and jump wings on it. I was so jealous.”
“I remember that. I was in my grunge phase. Pretty sure I wore that thing for a month straight. Favorite movie?”
“I have to pick one?”
“Okay, favorite genre.”
“Suspense. You?”
“Action.”
“Really?”
“What? Did you think I was going to say rom-com?”
He shook his head and smiled. Her heart fluttered. “I don’t even know what that is. Why action?”
She dropped her gaze and watched his hands on her feet. “When I was around ten, Mom left for a while. Every Friday, dad would take us to the video store to pick out a movie. Doug and I were supposed to take turns picking, but he always talked me into picking an action movie. It grew from that.”
“Where’d your mom go?”
“At the time, I thought she was on a trip with my aunt. Later on, I realized she and Dad had separated for while.”
Jordan’s fingers stopped kneading and he squeezed her foot. “Really? I had no idea, Doug never said anything. What happened?”
“I asked her about it when I went through my divorce. Why they separated and why she stayed.” She looked back at him. “Dad got orders to Fort Bragg. It was the third move in four years and she didn’t know if she could do it again. It didn’t help that Dad was leaving all the moving to her and doing what he always did. She said she needed to figure out if that was the life she wanted to live. If it was the life she wanted me and Doug to live. So she told Dad he needed to figure it out and she went to stay with my aunt.”
“But she came back?” he asked.
“Yeah. She realized that was what she’d signed on for. It helped that Dad apologized for expecting her to take care of everything.” She smiled. “I think having to deal with me and Doug by himself for a month was a big shock to his system.”
“Could you do it?” His voice was low and intense.
She felt breathless. “What?”
His fingers tensed around her foot. “Live that life.”
Her heart stopped. She stared into his eyes, trying to decipher his words. Was this—? Was he asking her if she wanted to live that life with him? “I grew up in that life. It was all I knew. I think that’s a small reason I took the NGO job. I wanted to go somewhere new. But now? Maybe—”
A knock on the door interrupted her before she could finish —maybe for the right guy. He tilted his head back to look. “Did you order anything from down stairs?”
“No,” she said.
Moving her legs to the side of the couch, he stood, and kissed her before walking to the door and looking through the peephole. He opened the door a crack. “Yes?”
“Jordan Grant?” a woman’s voice asked.
Emme sat up on the couch so she could see over the back.
“Yes.”
