Page 50 of Lion’s Den

“I think you can bake cookies. Let’s find out which one of us is right.”

Dario sighed heavily. “If you insist, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Three hours later, the members of Thunderhawk wolfed down the piping hot chocolate cookies as fast as they could.

Amused at their childlikeness, she set down her tray and distributed a glass of cold milk to each man. When they stared wide-eyed at the milk without moving, Sedona couldn’t help but laugh. How could men as dangerous as this team be so innocent? “It’s just milk. Honest.”

“What are we supposed to do with it?” Spencer asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

He was joking, right? She studied his face and realized, nope, he wasn’t joking. “You dunk the cookie into the milk before you eat it.”

The medic looked skeptical.

“Try it,” she urged.

He squared his shoulder as though he was a soldier heading into battle, picked up a cookie, and dunked it in the white liquid. He popped it into his mouth. A second later, his eyes closed, and he groaned. “Oh, man, this is amazing,” Spencer said around a mouthful of cookie and milk. “Try it, you guys. You’ll see what I mean.”

Isaac shook his head while staring at his friend. “I can’t believe he likes it. He hates anything new.”

“He just wants to make a good impression on the lady,” Rhys said.

Cam stiffened.

Spencer held up his hand to hold off on a response from Cam. “No. It just tastes amazing. Come on. You can’t tell me Delta Force soldiers are too chicken to eat a chocolate chip cookie. We have reputations to protect. So do it, soldiers. Dunk and eat.”

With obvious reluctance, the other four members of The Thunderhawks grabbed a cookie and dunked the treat into their milk. With a last glance at each other, they shoved the dripping cookie into their mouths with the enthusiasm of someone taking medicine.

One by one, their eyes widened. Dario groaned. “He’s right.”

“Yeah,” Isaac said. “Who knew cookies and milk were a thing?”

Sedona smiled and did a happy dance inside. Yes! She brought some fun into the lives of soldiers who had seen almost nothing but blood and death for over a decade. She mentally checked off the fun activity for today. Her goal was to do something fun with these men every day that they were together.

Although she hoped The Collector was caught and would turn on his employer soon, Sedona planned to take advantage of each hour she had with The Thunderhawks. Still, she needed to get back to her classroom and her students. No substitute teacher could do for them what she could. Love them.

Fifteen minutes later, six dozen cookies were in The Thunderhawks’ stomachs along with a gallon of milk. Incredible. She had to admit, about halfway through the process of making cookies, Sedona was afraid her first fun project would be a bust. Dario wasn’t kidding when he said he couldn’t bake. They worked around it and now had empty serving platters with only a few crumbs left to prove the experiment succeeded.

Now she could set her mind on figuring out the next fun thing for this challenging group of men. Never mind telling them to go play a round of golf. Sedona had a feeling they didn’t know what to do with golf balls and clubs.

“Now that we’re stuffed with cookies and milk, we need to talk about our principal,” Cam said.

Sedona frowned. Their principal? “Who is that?”

“You.”

She blinked and said the first thing that popped into her mind. “I don’t want to be your principal.”

Cam’s face lost all color.

Spencer held up his hand to prevent The Thunderhawks from commenting. “Why don’t you want to be Cam’s principal? Is there a problem you haven’t told him about?”

“I’ve told him as much of the problem as I remember. I can’t help what I don’t have in my memory.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

“I don’t want to be Cam’s principal. I just want to be his.”

Slowly, the members of The Thunderhawks grinned and turned to stare at their leader. Cam couldn’t take his eyes off Sedona. That was good, right? She realized that she’d hurt him with her statement and hadn’t been fast enough to fix the damage immediately. Thank goodness Spencer was quick on the uptake.