“What?”
“Five hundred and thirty-six emails, all downloading from the secure server through the firewall, then onto this completely inadequate WiFi. It will take all night just to get the email.” She blew out her breath with frustration. “So, what exactly did Jack say to warn you away from me?”
“Nothing specific. He showed us unflattering pictures of you, and made you sound like a career woman too smart to date a bunch of losers like us.”
“Who? His teammates?” She smiled. “You’re not losers, but he didn’t need to go to that kind of work. I don’t tend to go gaga for a uniform. I’m in the market for an ordinary guy.”
The second the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could take them back. She was often blunt, but rarely rude. But saying something trite like present company excluded was a lie. They both knew what this was.
He smiled again, lazy and confident. “Don’t look so worried, Jetlag. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. SEALs are anything but ordinary. We make shit boyfriends, much less husbands. We’re gone all the time, and even when we’re home, our minds are somewhere else.”
She appreciated his honesty. “Is there … someone?”
“Not for a long time,” he said.
“Girlfriends?”
“Depends on how far you’re willing to stretch the word,” he said.
“No money changed hands?”
Another laugh. “That’s about right.”
She could learn to like this. She glanced at the progress bar for her email. Six percent done.
“Lancaster sounds nice,” Keenan said finally.
“Really?” she said, disbelieving. “Jack always hated it. He couldn’t wait to enlist. But it’s a nice small city, with good parts and bad parts. Grannie lives in a really nice neighborhood, old brick houses and big yards with gardens. The East Side is a mess. The high school we went to pulled from both neighborhoods.”
“Jack always made it sound idyllic. White picket fences and the Garden Club.”
She snorted. “Sounds like exactly the kind of place an active duty Navy SEAL would avoid.” Keenan’s eyes widened a little, then he snorted while she tapped her nose. “I know my brother. He was in high school when I was in college, and I knew if I went away he’d run completely wild. For a while he had Grannie bamboozled into thinking he was the president of the youth group at church and seriously considering the ministry, which was, as nearly as I could tell, a cover for seducing the pastor’s daughter.”
Keenan’s totally involuntary laugh lingered as a smile on his fine, fine mouth. “I never heard that story.”
“He always did have a thing for the sweet, serious type. Anyway I stayed, got an internship at Field Energy, and went into their management training program after I graduated.”
“Pretty impressive,” he said.
She shrugged, then took a risk of her own. “What about you? You and Jack left the teams around the same time.”
He shrugged. “The plan was for both of us to go to work for Grey Wolfe. He changed his mind. I didn’t.”
“Where’s home?”
“An apartment in Galata,” he said, then clarified, “a neighborhood in Istanbul.”
“I meant, where’s home home?”
This time he didn’t even shrug. “That is home, Jetlag. Dad was an Army Ranger. I grew up on bases, joined up as soon as I could.”
“But … the Navy?”
“The SEAL program is tougher to complete than the Ranger program. I’m not knocking them. I’m just stating fact.”
Her eyes widened ever so slightly. “And you were going to do better than your dad?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s he doing now?’
“Six feet under in a cemetery near Fort Hood. He was KIA just after I graduated from BUD/S. He was getting a little old for active duty missions, but he thought he had one more in him. His dream in life was to die with his buddies.” He shrugged. “Guess he did that.”
“I’m sorry,” Rose said. “What about your mom? Are you close to her?”
“She took off when I was seven.” He looked at her. “It sounds worse than it was. Made my life easy. Gave me focus.”
“Why did you leave the Navy?”
He didn’t answer for the longest time, made a big show out of checking the GPS. She didn’t change the subject, though. Experience with Jack had taught her to wait him out. “You know the last mission we were both on?”
“The one that shook Jack so badly?”
“That’s the one. I saw our friend bleed out in front of our eyes. We both did. It shook Jack pretty badly. Me … all I could think about was that I didn’t want to die like my dad.”
He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. The windows were thrown open to the late spring night, the cool breeze caressing Rose’s cheek a constant reminder of how flushed her skin was. She should be chilled, but her blood seemed to beat at the surface of her skin, wild and demanding. Keenan’s gaze sharpened, then softened into the heated, intent gaze of a jungle cat.