Page 120 of Smith

I didn’t tell him that.

I waited for him to finish saying what he had to say.

“My girl, she’s like her momma. For the first year after we lost Lori, sometimes it hurt to look at my girl. She walks like Lori, she makes the same facial expressions, same smile, same eyes. Smart like her momma, too. Got her ambition, looks, sense of humor all from Lori. And thank God she did.”

The way Lucas talked about his wife, stated plain he not only loved her while he had her, but he loved her now. It was the kind of love a man didn’t let go of, or more to the point, the kind of love that didn’t let go of the man even in death.

But I didn’t understand why he was telling me about her.

“I planned on spending the next thirty days putting you through your paces, knowing it went against the grain of a man like you, but knowing you’d dance to my tune, because you love my daughter.”

That was irritating as fuck but not unexpected.

“But now, I’m gonna spend the next thirty days watching my girl give you a home while you give her what she needs to heal. And when I leave here I’ll do it knowing my girl’s in good hands, with a good man at her back. That means when I get back and I put in for separation, I’ll be doing it to come home to enjoy the family my daughter’s gonna give me, instead of coming home worried my daughter is busting her ass to give me something to keep me occupied after retirement.”

My chest burned with some unknown emotion that felt so fucking good the burn cauterized the leaching wounds my time with Rie had left behind.

That meant my voice was rough when I said, “You caught that, huh?”

“Hard to miss. My Aria has always been ambitious. Lori used to say all time, Aria had no choice but to own her own business. She’d never make it in the corporate world, she’s too determined, too impatient to work for someone else. But, her working double time to build something that will support both of us, even though I can comfortably live off my retirement and investments, was in your face.”

He only had half of it right.

“She’s working double time to build something so she has something that means she gets to work with you every day. It’snot the money, it’s your time. She doesn’t want you to get bored and she wants to work beside you.”

Lucas’s gaze slid to the window.

“Before you start shuffling shit around in your head, second-guessing decisions, you should know how proud she is of your service. How proud she is to be a Navy Brat. She loves the Navy but she loves you more.”

“By the time that girl was five she could tell the difference between a Sailor and an Airmen by the way they walked.”

“No shit. She had me pegged within minutes of meeting me.”

Lucas’s attention came back to me. His gaze dropped to my wrist, and for the first time since he’d barged in my door, he smiled a genuine smile.

“It’s your G-Shock. Dead giveaway.” He lifted his gaze and locked onto my eyes. “I’ll get my coffee. I know you want to get to your girl so I won’t hold you up.”

Thank fuck.

I was nearing my limit and I didn’t want Aria waking up without me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“Is this gonna piss me off?” I asked from the backseat of Smith’s truck.

My dad was riding shotgun. Which was a five-minute argument I finally ended by climbing into the back and locking the door so they—yes, both of them—would shut up about me sitting in the front. I didn’t need to sit in the front. I also didn’t need help climbing into the cab of the truck, but they both insisted I did.

It had been twenty-five days. The stitches above my eyebrow had been removed. The bruising on my face had all but gone away, with the exception of a little purple under the eye that had been swollen shut, the laceration on my cheek nothing more than a scab. My busted lip was closed. My vision was fine. My hearing back to normal. The road rash was at the annoying itchy stage that made me want to saw off my leg. The soles of my feet were completely fine. The only thing that still gave me a twinge of pain were my ribs but that was to be expected. The doctor had told me it would be six weeks before they were healed.

But you would still think I was twenty-four hours post-beating, the way they both treated me like I was glass.

The first two weeks, I needed them. It hurt to move. Smith had to help me to the bathroom and he’d had to bathe me. I couldn’t stand up long enough to make myself a coffee or pour a bowl of cereal. Smith did everything. He cooked or ordered every meal we ate. My dad cleaned up, he grocery shopped, he stayed with me the three times Smith had begrudgingly gone into work. But in the last eleven days I’d needed them less and less.

Not that either man noticed. Or if they did, they didn’t care and still followed me around in preparedness to catch me in case I suddenly lost consciousness.

It was beginning to annoy me.

Then out of the blue after not leaving the house other than to go to a doctor’s appointment, suddenly they’re taking me on a field trip, whereabouts unknown.

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