Page 18 of Her Noble Protector

“Huh?”

“If you want to start reading science fiction, you need to read Robert Heinlein, he’ll blow your mind,” she whispered. She looked across her living room at the wall that was one large built-in bookcase. The bookcase was jammed to the gills, and her bedroom was even worse. Then there were the boxes of books in her bedroom closet, that and camping gear.

Huh, I haven’t read a book since Mexico. Strange.

“I’m sorry, Lisa, I didn’t hear you.”

What were we talking about?

She shook her head, trying to clear it, then smiled.

“I said that if you ever want to read a book that will blow your mind, read Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.”

“Thanks, I’ll have to do that. Are you a big reader?”

“Not anymore,” she whispered. Her lip trembled.

When did I lose myself?

“That doesn’t sound right, whenever I meet someone who can give me book recommendations off the cuff like you just did, it sounds to me like they’re a big reader. Me, I’m a little more into movies. Now my teammate, Leo, he’s always hauling around a book.”

“Is he another super soldier?” She almost corrected herself, but before she could, Raiden jumped in.

“Navy SEAL, honey,” Raiden chuckled.

“Is there a difference?” She asked innocently. She knew there was; after all, there were forty million books in her house, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t read some books about the different branches of the military.

This time he let out a big laugh. “Yep, there’s a difference.”

“What?” She decided to draw this out. She might be tired, but it was kind of nice to have somebody to talk to. It’d been forever since she’d talked to someone. She was even feeling less foggy, but that might be from the tapioca she’d eaten.

“Well, a soldier is in the Army. I’m in the Navy, so I would be considered a Sailor. But I’ve had the training to become a SEAL.”

She yawned. He was going to need to do all the talking. “What do you have to do to become a SEAL?”

“Lots of stuff. It takes a year and a half of training.”

“That’s huge. Did you always want to be a SEAL?” she asked.

“Not really. I went to college, I planned to be an engineer. Got a degree. Then realized that a lot of that job is being an individual contributor. Coming from a large extended family like I do, that’s not really for me. I like being around others, working together on things, having each other’s back. One of my classmates joined the Navy, and he was on leave. The way he explained how things operated, I realized that was just the place I needed to be. It wasn’t long before I found out about the SEALs. That was one step further into the kind of team I wanted to belong to. It was an easy step to decide to take.”

“But I heard the training is brutal.”

“Well it isn’t exactly a walk in the park, that’s for sure. But if you have a goal, it’s worth it. Anyway, what about you? I know that you worked for Wilderness Trekkers up in Alaska—talk about a job that isn’t a walk in the park. What was it that Paula said, you were on the Juneau Alaska Mountain rescue crew? I’m not thinking that was for the faint of heart, how’d that come about?”

Lisa looked at the picture of the glacier on her wall and felt a deep sense of longing. Would she ever see Alaska again?

“Lisa?”

“I got recruited,” she whispered.

“Recruited? How do you get recruited to be a guide? Did you live up in Alaska?”

Lisa smiled against her knees. “Hardly. I grew up here in Tempe. But I got my first job at a dude ranch not far from here. I was the lowest of the low; I got to muck out stables. Do you know what that means?”

“I’m pretty sure that means shoveling shit.”

“You got it in one.”