But through her eyes, he realized that wasn’t the way to look at it. Valuing human life more highly didn’t mean that nothing else had value. Senseless loss was senseless loss. And someone who cared deeply about protecting living things big and small from that should be commended, not dismissed.
She’d been willing to put herself on the line by getting on that ship. He might not have been one hundred percent behind the method, but he could admire the action. Maybe they were more alike than he wanted to think.
“I wasn’t just interested in what happened right after the spill,” she said. “That was easy to see. I wanted to prove that even when the oil is dissipated and ‘cleaned up,’ there arelasting effects. I was looking at the levels of different types of PAHs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” she translated, although he knew what they were, “which are commonly found in crude oil in Gulf fish—particularly tilefish, since they’re bottom feeders, where the oil eventually settles—at various distances from shore and morphological changes in heart structure.”
In other words, changes to the actual form or structure of the organism. “Did you find any?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Enough to put in question the current thinking on how far is ‘safe’ for offshore drilling operations.”
“So what’s next?” he asked. “More lab research?”
“I thought so. I’ve been offered a position at a private research lab.”
“But.”
She smiled, realizing he hadn’t missed her hesitation. “I’ve been gone for eight years. My mom wants me to go back to Florida for a while.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know. I love lab work, but I miss being out in the field. The lab sometimes feels a little detached.”
She stopped talking when the waiter interrupted them to take their plates, refill her wineglass, and ask if they wanted dessert.
She shook her head, and he ordered another ale, not ready for the evening to end.
When the waiter left, she looked at him apologetically. “I’ve been talking all night. What about you? I don’t even know where you went to school.”
He wasn’t surprised by the assumption. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. It was the first time, however, that he cared about the reaction.
He wasn’t embarrassed. College hadn’t been for him, and God knew, he’d learned more as a SEAL than he ever would have in the classroom. But she had a PhD. In his experience, the more educated the person, the more biased about the value of education—whether warranted or not—and the more likelyto equate not educated to not intelligent. More than once after telling a date he hadn’t gone to college, he’d heard, “Wow, but you seem so smart.”
“I went to JC for a few semesters, but it wasn’t for me.”
If she was surprised, she hid it well. Instead she seemed curious, studying him with an intensity that made him want to squirm a little. “College isn’t for everyone. They seem to have a much better grasp of that here,” she said, referring to the UK, where it wasn’t necessarily assumed that after secondary school you went to university (or “uni” as it was called). “With the exorbitant cost of tuition, I think kids should be weighing that decision a lot more. Your parents must have been happy not to have all that debt.”
She’d meant it lightheartedly, and he didn’t want to make her feel bad, but he also wanted her to know the truth. At least as much as he could tell her. “My dad wasn’t around, and my mom didn’t have money.”
Nor would she have given it to him if she had.
She seemed to sense that there was more—a lot more. But didn’t press, probably because she knew he couldn’t tell her. “I’m sorry.”
He dismissed the sentiment with a shake of his head. “Don’t be. I got over it a long time ago.”
“Is that why you went into the navy?”
He nodded. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
He’d spoken without thinking.
“Then why did you leave?”
“I...” The frustration of the situation was eating away at him. He couldn’t tell her anything, but he didn’t want to outright lie to her. “I can’t talk about it, all right?”
She seemed to understand, although he could see she wanted to ask more. “You never thought about going back to school to become an officer?”
“Hell no!” The words were out before he could stop them. He might be a Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator—a petty officer—but he was still a ground pounder. “Paperwork and politics aren’t my thing.”
She laughed. “Understatement of the evening. You don’thave a politic bone in your body, which you need to rise up the ranks. You are all about hard truths and saying what’s on your mind.”
