Page 9 of Her Faithful Protector

“Okay, if it’s nothing I need to concern myself with, then I won’t.” She pulled back her melted ice cream and sipped a bit from her spoon. “Let’s turn the tables for a second. How about you? I don’t see your life being all put together. Care to have a sharing circle?”

“What are you talking about? I’m fine. I have my friends, I have an active social life. Work is great. I’m getting my kid-fix with Mimi.”

“Which you don’t tell anyone about, instead you let your friends,” she said friends in air quotes, “think that you’re out gallivanting around the nights you’re babysitting for me. What’s the deal, Nic? Why are you trying to sound like more of a horndog than you actually are?”

He took his bowl back to the counter and scooped up more cobbler then grabbed more ice cream out of the freezer. “Want some?” he asked Alice.

“Nope, I want answers.”

“You and me both,” he muttered.

“Nope. That’s not going to cut it. You’re smarter than that. You make me do a deep-dive on my psychosis, so you can return the favor. What the hell is going on?”

He looked into green eyes, so like his own, and sighed. “Can I say that the whole man-whore thing has gotten old and leave it at that?”

She shot him a steady stare and he knew that she wasn’t going to let him get away with that answer either. “I still have to do better?” he chuckled. “You’re tough.”

“It’s in our DNA. I have my suspicions, I just want to see if you can get past all that SEAL training and figure out what’s going on in your heart.”

Nic held up his hands. “Hey, hey, hey. Who said anything about my heart being involved? I’m just growing up. I’m sick of transitory relationships.”

“That’s a big ole load of crap. Those were the only kind of relationships you looked for after high school. If a woman with potential showed up in your world, you ran away faster than an Olympic athlete. But if there was a woman who was only interested in your reputation as a SEAL, or your muscles, then you showed some interest.”

“That isn’t true; some of those women were really nice.”

Alice snorted into her ice cream. “They had more notches on their bedposts than you did. You didn’t do nice.” Once again she used air quotes around the word do.

Nic winced. It was true.

“Well, that was then, this is now. Now I’m not much interested in anything.”

“Oh, you’re celibate?” She arched an eyebrow.

“What, only women are allowed to try that on for size? You’ve told me yourself that you haven’t been into relationships or anything else since Don left. Why is it so hard to believe that I’ve hit a dry spell?”

Alice sighed and put her hand on his forearm.

“Do you think you’re finally over her? It’s been six years. Can you move on?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He stood up and put his bowl in the sink. “Are you done with yours?”

Alice nodded and he put hers in the sink too. Then he reached for the blackberry cobbler pan.

“What are you doing with that?” she asked quickly.

“I figured the trash.”

“Well, stop figuring. That was pretty tasty with ice cream. I’m going to put some Saran Wrap on it and put it in the fridge. So why the need to bake?”

“I owe one of the guys Mom’s cobbler at the next cookout, thought I’d try baking my own.”

Alice laughed, then opened the fridge. She pulled out the remaining baskets of berries that he had left. “I tell you what. I’ve got you covered. That way you don’t have to ask Aunt Scarlett.”

He perked up. “That’d be great! I’ll owe you.”

“Like hell you will,” she said as she batted him on the back of the head.

His laugh bellowed across the kitchen.