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“Shhhh. Jeez, if my brothers hear this, I’ll never ever live it down.”
The wooziness finally subsided, and she pulled her hand from his to reach for her water glass. Chugging the cool liquid was the best excuse to break contact and give her a minute to assess what to do next. She never should have agreed to attend dinner with his family. At the same time, she’d never experienced such a warm get-together. And she was interested in speaking to his mom about several cases and her career path to a judgeship.
Finn sat next to her and ran his now-empty hand back and forth over the tablecloth.
“It was on my second mission on the team. We’d swam several miles and discovered our landing point was covered by the fast-moving tide, but the gear we needed to retrieve was in a cavern underwater. We took turns diving and trying to find the opening.”
“You must be a very strong swimmer.”
“Finally, I found the opening and retrieved the gear, but I’d left my night vision on dry land and dropped the one light I’d had along the slippery rocks. Rookie mistake in every sense.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I debated whether to find my way back out, but I knew it was a good chance I’d get lost in the tides and run out of oxygen. But if I was the only one who could find the cavern, I might also die before the tide went out again.”
His casual smile was gone, and he stared off, as if seeing the dark of the cave all over again.
“But here you are.”
He grimaced. “My teammate found me about ten minutes before the cavern filled up, and we swam back to shore.”
“Holy crap, you owe him your life.”
“We always owe each other our lives on the teams, and any praise we get belongs to our fallen teammates.”
“Is that why you don’t like talking about it at work? I’ve heard you deflect every time another lawyer asks you about how hard it was to be a SEAL.”
“They don’t want to hear a real story,” he scoffed. “They want to hear the Hollywood glamorized version.”
“I think most people think of our military as heroes.”
“I can’t speak for every branch in the military, but as for the SEALs, the men that didn’t make it out of a mission alive are the only heroes.”
“Said like a humble hero. So you’re afraid of the dark because you had to sit in a cave and almost died? That’s your weakness?”
He nodded looking around, but everyone had moved outside to chat by a fire pit.
“Do you sleep with a flashlight now, or do you keep every light on in your room?”
The left side of his mouth pulled up. “I do have a night-light and a ton of flashlights in my place. In case the power goes out.”
“That’s not really something I can use against you.”
“I would never use your diabetes against you, Hailey. I’m not going to play dirty to beat you.”
She nodded. “May the best lawyer win.”
“Agreed,” he said, and his hand settled on top of hers, warm and comforting. “You feel up to a cup of tea, or would you rather head home?”
“Tea sounds good. Can we still ask your mom a few questions about that case?”
“Absolutely.”
He moved his hand as he stood, and she felt the loss down to her toes. While she took a few deep breaths, he walked into the kitchen to pull down some mugs and turned on the electric teakettle on the counter. She couldn’t help but admire the muscular shape of his body visible beneath the dark jeans and a collared dark polo. The muscles of his back showed without any effort on his part, and she would bet the junior partnership that he was ripped along every inch of his tall, confident form. Light auburn hair he kept trimmed into a fashionable business-style cut gave him a boyish look, but it was obvious he was a warrior. It wasn’t just that he was older than all the other junior lawyers. Something in his face made it clear he had seen things in life. Just like her but in a totally different way.
He turned abruptly to hold up two kinds of tea and caught her watching him.
“Earl Grey, or cozy night chamomile?”
