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Finley knew that Levi hesitated to leave her even in another section of the house, but she was perfectly safe. She saw he wasstanding close. “I’ good Levi. Go ahead and start your work. When Storm naps, I’ll come find you.”
“I’ll just be in the next room.”
She nodded and put her head down. It surprised her when Levi walked up and lifted her chin. “We are going to find whoever did this.” He dropped a kiss on her lips and backed up, finally breaking eye contact and walking away.
Finley didn’t like to share about herself, but she had begun to open up to Levi. Cash was a little easier to talk to about feelings, but Levi was much easier to talk to about most other things. Cash wanted to fix things. Levi let her just dump and process. She usually saved the deeper, emotional conversations with Cash. It didn’t deepen her and Levi’s connection, so she worked harder to change that. She’d thought her lack of desire for the things that Ryker and most of these men wanted, a home, a family, two point three kids, would make it unlikely that she would ever find Mr. Right. Levi had agreed that kids weren’t anything that he had thought about. But Cash embraced the idea of family.
Neither Levi nor Cash had backed up when she expressed kids weren’t in her future. She loved being the nanny, but having her own didn’t appeal. She knew there would come a time that this group would be done with having children and she’d have to find a new job or create one but for the foreseeable future, the next ten or fifteen years, she would have a place with the team’s families.
Levi had not only embraced her thinking, but he had also actually sighed in a little bit of relief. He liked that she wanted to travel wherever the urge took her. That she wanted to work out with him and the team. She was competitive and Levi challenged that part of her. Her short time dating both Ryker and Levi had been fun and eye opening. Ryker had seen it as she had. They weren’t compatible.
Cash, however, was a different story. He wanted what most men wanted—the whole package and Levi just wanted her as the whole package. Neither were wrong, just had different future ideas. It was difficult to understand that she had actually found a kindred spirit in Levi, but when Cash came along, it challenged her thinking and forced her to decide if she could at least consider the possibility of family someday.
She loved the women, and they were so open and inclusive. Giving her that girlfriend element that she hadn’t had most of her life. She wasn’t blind to the fact that not everyone connected with her. And yet, these women did, and now Cash had her wondering about a different life.
“Talk to me,” said Sharlee as they both watched Storm nap. “I want to check in with you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Finlay, you know I don’t believe that, not completely. I’m not fine.”
Finley stared ahead, but not seeing the furniture in front of her. “I had to survive the Marine Corps. To do that well, I had to put a hard shell around me. I had to hide my personality to show myself worthy of being a service member next to the stoic and staunchly macho men I served with. It changed me. When I left that life, finding Jacquard Reynaud was something I hadn’t counted on.”
Sharlee chuckled. “I know that feeling. I don’t think many meet Jac for the first time and think it’s no big deal. The man has always exuded strength and presence.”
“Yes, but that was the best day of my adult life to that point. He was strong and gentle with you and his newborn, but with Jessie as well. That hasn’t changed as more women join the group. He’s opinionated but compassionate. He was passionate about his family and the family he had created through the agency and I wanted that.”
“We women knew that you had to join us at your own pace and in your own time.”
“I was content, but now that cohesiveness and bond we’ve forged seems to be threatened. The kidnapping makes me so angry.” Her voice shook with emotion. “No one takes me or what I’m protecting. I hate someone got the drop on me, held me against my will and touched Storm.”
Then, to have knocked out Levi was another level of pissing her off. That anger got her through when she eventually woke up, but it was still eating at her now it was all over. Darcy had helped her escape, and she hoped that Colonel Darrington was taking care of her.
“You know, if this hadn’t happened, Darcy might be dead by now,” said Sharlee.
“True, but even though it helped Darcy, I can’t stop my anger.”
“Could it be that your safety felt violated, and that bothered you? Scared you? Maybe left you with a little bit of fear?”
Finley watched Storm sleep. He’d fallen asleep in the play yard with his stuffed animals on the big fluffy blanket in there for that purpose. “And it made me doubt my suitability to a nanny.”
“Baloney. You are the best we could have ever gotten, and I thank my lucky stars that I found you, or rather, Jac found you. That hasn’t changed. We have confidence in you, but you have to find your own faith in your abilities again.”
Sharlee patted Finley’s thigh and stood up to stretch. Kaden did the same and left for more coffee.
“Anyone else want coffee?” asked Kaden.
“Oh, I’ll have some,” said Mallory.
“No, she won’t. Thanks.”
“Monroe, I’ve only had one cup today.”
“And look at the size of that cup. That’s enough, baby.”
“Okay, then I’ll get some hot chocolate.”
“Herbal tea.”
