Page 26 of Her Forever SEAL

“I’m not laughing,” Sophia laughed.

“A junior?”

“Mason Gault. Listen to me.” She used the voice. The one that had been talking him off ledges for twenty-two years. “She’s fourteen years old and she is handling it exactly right, and there is nothing to handle. You’ll come home and you will be a normal, reasonable human being about this.”

“I'm always reasonable.”

“You told a stranger's child to tuck in his shirt.”

“That shirt needed tucking.”

“Mason.”

A long exhale. “Fine.” Another pause. “Team captain. Bet he thinks he’s hot shit.”

“Unlike Navy SEALs.”

“Really, Soph?”

She was laughing again, quietly, her face turned into the pillow so she wouldn't wake anyone. “It’s nothing. I promise.” But it had provided something new for him to think about, in the middle of wherever he was. Just what she wanted.

He grumbled something she didn't quite catch, and then he let it go, because he always let it go when she asked him to. That was one of the specific, particular ways Mason loved her. He trusted her read on things even when every instinct he had was pulling the other direction.

“Our anniversary,” she said, after a moment. “I keep thinking about it.”

His voice changed. Went quieter. “Yeah?”

“The orchids. The dress.” She paused. “The shoes I am absolutely wearing again.”

“I was counting on it.”

“It meant everything, Mason.” She meant it simply and completely, the way she meant everything she said to him. “I just wanted you to know that.”

“I know, honey.” A beat. “I know.”

They were quiet for a moment, comfortable in it, the way you got comfortable in silence with someone after twenty-two years together.

“I keep thinking,” she said, “about what it's going to be like. When you're just here. Every night.” She paused. “I know it sounds small.”

“It doesn't sound small at all.”

“I just want to wake up next to you. Every morning. Without worrying about a call coming during the middle of the night.”

He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke his voice was rough around the edges. “You're going to get so sick of me.”

“I’m not.”

“I'm going to be underfoot constantly. I'm going to reorganize the garage.”

“You're welcome to the garage.”

“I'm going to eat everything in that bakery of yours.” She could hear the grin coming through now. “I'm going to get fat, Sophia. Genuinely fat. All those cardamom rolls. You're going to have to roll me to the promotion ceremony.”

She was laughing again, helpless with it, her face in the pillow. “Stop.”

“I'm serious. I have no self-control when it comes to your baking and you know it. This is a real concern.”

“Mason—”