“What?”
“You didn’t want to date me because you think I’m always going to be gone,” he said quietly. “You can’t help but compare me to your father and your brothers.”
Talia’s shoulders sagged. “Can you blame me? Growing up, I saw what being married to a man who loved his work more than he ever loved his family did to my mother. Why would I want to put myself through that?”
Lennox didn’t say anything. Talia had a good point. Why would any woman want to get involved with a Navy SEAL? Much less one who’d had the life experiences Talia had.
He nodded, slowly taking another bite of his burrito as he tried to figure out how to respond. Because if he didn’t, he might as well pay for their dinner, get Talia an Uber, and call it a night.
“I understand why you have good reason to avoid getting romantically involved with someone in my line of work,” he finally said. “But it makes me wonder why you came to dinner with me if your mind is already made up.”
At his rather blunt assessment of the situation, Talia looked down at her plate, using her fork to push the pico de gallo around on her plate that had come with the taco.
“Because I’m conflicted,” she said softly. “I intended to keep my distance from you but the more time I spent around you, the harder it was to remember why I wanted to stay away in the first place.”
“Okay…wow.” Lennox felt a grin spread across his face. “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance? Even if it’s infinitesimal, I’ll still take it.”
She lifted her gaze to look at him. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I mean, you’re a handsome guy with a job that I have no doubt lots of women find cool. You could have almost anyone you wanted. Why would you want to date a mousy nanny who doesn’t have her own place or even a car, and whose biggest dream is to become an elementary school teacher?”
Lennox stopped eating to stare at her. How could she have such a skewed view of herself?
“First, let me set one thing straight,” he said firmly. “You, Talia Holland, are miles away from being just a mousy nanny. You’re beautiful, caring, brave, intriguing, and captivating. And as far as dreaming of being a schoolteacher, there are far worse dreams to have. So, yeah, I want to date you. And while I have no idea where any of this might go I’m willing to put in the effort to try and find out. But none of that matters if you’re not willing to do the same.”
Taking a deep breath, Lennox went back to eating his burrito. It was delicious. He’d lost his appetite though. Talia was the first woman he’d ever been seriously interested in, but it was clear this wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m scared,” Talia said suddenly.
He glanced up to see her regarding him almost warily.
“You don’t need to be scared,” he said, fighting the urge to reach across the table and take her hand in his. “I’ll still help you find Anna and get to the bottom of whatever Keller is doing with Bogdan and McDaniel. We don’t have to see each other in any kind of romantic sense for me to do that.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” Talia frowned. “I never doubted that you’d help me.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant that I’m scared at the idea of letting you get close enough to hurt me. Or maybe it might be better to say that I’m scared of letting myself get close enough to you that I’ll end upbeinghurt. Unfortunately, no matter how scared I am, I want to be with you.”
Lennox’s head spun from how many times this conversation had changed directions in the last few minutes. “You do?”
She nodded. “That’swhy I came to dinner. To see if there’s any way it could work between us.”
“And is there?” he asked, starting to feel hope where there’d been none only a moment ago.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’m willing to try. If you are.”
With impeccable timing, their server chose that moment to appear, the smile on his face momentarily dropping away when he noticed that neither of them had finished their dinners.
“I hope there was nothing wrong with your food?” he asked. “I can bring out something else if you like. No charge.”
Lennox didn’t answer, instead gazing at Talia, wondering what she wanted to do now that they’d both laid their feelings out on the table.
“The food was wonderful,” she said, giving the man a disarming smile. “We simply wanted to save room for dessert.”
She glanced at Lennox with a questioning look. He nodded in answer, thrilled at any excuse that’d allow him to keep the date going.
