Page 46 of Nixon’s Promise

“Because someone was on their phone?”

“Yep. That easy. The phone had no protection, so once they accessed the network, I could piggyback and get it. I made myself a Super Admin account and bam, I had everything I needed.”

“Fuck, that’s impressive.”

“Eh. It wasn’t that hard.”

McKenna was spectacular. Smart, beautiful, capable, and humble.

Total package.

Nixon knew he was staring and it may’ve borderlined on creepy but he couldn’t look away. He needed to make a decision before he was in any deeper.

There was a lot he needed to sort out. His house, the job offer, if he was staying in Kent County. But all of those decisions revolved around one thing—or person, as it were.

McKenna.

19

Nixon was staring at me like I’d shown a little too much of my geeky side. God, why did I have to get so carried away when I was talking about hacking a system? I sounded like a complete dork.

“Alec works for Homeland,” he said.

“As in, Homeland Security?”

“Yeah. They have some work they need to contract out.”

I remained quiet even though I had a thousand questions.

“And you accepted his offer?”

Okay, that seemed like a safe inquiry. I really wanted to ask what kind of work Homeland would contract out and why. But I kept my trap shut, shocked as hell he was sharing anything at all.

“Told him I’d call him tomorrow. He wants me to put together a team.”

Holy hell, he was seriously talking about his job offer with me. It was stupid, but I was ridiculously pleased he trusted me enough to tell me even the most mundane of details.

“You have people in mind?”

“Yeah.” He was silent for a moment. “Jameson, Holden, Weston, and Chasin. They all got out the same time I did. Our last deployment we’d talked about starting something up after we separated from the Navy. There’s a shit ton of government contracts out there. But I think we all needed a break, at least I know I did.”

For a former SEAL, Nixon couldn’t hide his emotions worth a shit. Or maybe he could, but with me he wasn’t trying. That thought made me over-the-top happy.

“How long have you been out of the Navy?”

His lips twitched before he answered, “Six months.”

“Nixon, six months isn’t a break.”

The twitch turned into a smile. I was happy whatever had clouded over his features was gone.

“Babe, a break to us is having two solid days of R&R and no one paging us, nothing exploding, no roll outs. Six months is more than enough time. I would’ve come home sooner, but I had a condo in Virginia Beach to sell.”

Explosions? EEK!

“Well, then, I guess you’re all rested up and ready to get back to work.”

He shook his head before he chuckled.