Page 14 of Guarded By the SEAL
“I left a note and fifty bucks to cover the blankets.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m thinking we head east, back toward HERO Force in Atlanta. At least there we’ll have help if things go backwards. Once we find out which congressman we’re dealing with, we can make a plan from there.”
“Sounds good to me.” She figured she would change the subject, take this time to get to know him as she’d decided she should. “You know all about me. Why don’t you tell me about you?”
He shrugged. “Not a lot to tell. Born and bred on a cattle ranch in Wyoming.”
She turned her body toward him and grinned. “Are you telling me you’re a bona fide cowboy?”
“I worked on the ranch until I was twenty-one. That’s when I enlisted in the Navy to become a SEAL.”
She could picture it, his wide shoulders and slender hips straddling a horse, a cowboy hat dipped low over his brow. He had the strong, quiet disposition she imagined a cowboy would have, and it amused her to no end. “Do you know how to lasso animals?”
“Of course I do.”
“And ride a bull?”
“That wasn’t my thing. More of a specialized cowboy skill.”
“Did you wear plaid shirts and call peoplepardner?” She giggled at the John Wayne image she had in her mind, and exactly how he fit—and didn’t fit—that mold. God, she was overtired, and getting goofy.
“I’m glad you find my upbringing amusing.”
“Oh, come on. I’m just teasing.”
“It was a good life. A real good life.”
She cocked her head. “Then why’d you leave?”
He sucked in his cheeks, and she had the feeling he was deciding whether or not to tell her the whole truth. “My dad and I were a lot alike. Stubborn. Thick-headed as mules, both of us.” He changed lanes and checked the speedometer, easing off the gas. “My mom constantly ran interference.” He grew quiet.
“So what happened?”
“She died when I was a sophomore in high school.”
Teslyn suddenly felt she’d wandered into Too Personal Territory, but it was a little late to backtrack and make smalltalk.“I’m sorry.”
“Dad and I butted heads constantly after that. No matter what I said, he said the opposite. The world was changing, the market no longer sustaining a ranch like his. I tried to help, but he would have listened to a bum on the street before listening to me.”
The pain in his voice was palpable. “Do you talk to him?”
“I call on his birthday. He sends me a Christmas card every year from sunny St. Augustine. He’s retired now, got a place on the water that I’ve never even seen.”
“Now that you’re older, maybe the two of you could have a better relationship—”
He turned his head to look at her. “Let’s talk about something else.”
She jerked her head back. “I was just going to say—”
“This topic is off-limits.”
“You still have time to make a different choice—”
“Change the subject, Teslyn. Or hell, look out your window. I don’t care. But when somebody says a conversation is off-limits, you need to respect that and back the hell off. Besides, I hardly think you’re one to lecture me on having healthy relationships with parents.”
His words stung. Just when she’d seen a piece of his past that made him who he was today, just when she was starting to care about him as a human being, he’d pulled back and slammed the door on her fingers. “Fine.”
