Page 35 of Stand By You
“And how did you feel?” Nick asked.
“I thought we were seeing one another a respectable amount of time each month,” she said. “But he wanted to get more serious than I did.”
“Has your opinion changed as you’ve grown older?” Nick asked.
“About getting serious with someone?” she asked. “I never was opposed to it. I just didn’t feel ready with him. I liked him well enough… but I guess he just wasn’t the one.”
Nick nodded.
“What about you? Have you got a significant other right now?”
“No. I’m a lone wolf.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I am happy being by myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hope to meet that perfect someone one day,” he said. “And when I do I’ll no longer find the solitude livable. I’ll have to be with her.”
Jillian felther heart skip a beat when he said that. She’d always longed to find someone who made her feel that way about them too. Did that mean she was a lone wolf as well? Why had he told her this?
She smiled. “If you are a lone wolf, then it sounds like you working for the Lone Wolf Agency is perfect.”
“The principle is the same. We like to work alone in the field, not that we don’t seek assistance from others if we need it, but we go out alone,” Nick said. “There is only one catch, most of the guys end up hooking up for life whether they intend to or not. Same with Hank’s men.”
“How’s that?” she asked.
“It’s a long story,” Nick said. “Almost like cupid’s curse and one that even my boss Kenneally thought he’d never fall prey to until he did a job for Hank in December. Now he’s married and he’s moved his main office from Leesburg, Virginia down to Bayou Dixie, Louisiana.”
Her brow raised. “Cupid’s curse?”
“Well, if you ask the guys I work with about it they’d say it isn’t a curse, they love their wives, girlfriends madly, but they were single until they met on an assignment.”
“And how would you feel about this happening?” she asked before she thought.
“I’d say it could be a good thing. A very good thing.”
She nodded, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the topic of discussion and tried to come up with a way to change the subject without it being obvious, but she couldn’t.
“And you said you are a JAG officer.”
“That’s right.
“What branch of the military?” she asked.
“Army. It paid for my law school,” he explained. “Then when I went into the JAG core, I was on assignment overseas to defend a client when there was an explosion. I was injured to thepoint I couldn’t pass the physical qualifications and had to be medically discharged. That’s when I went to work for the Lone Wolf Agency. Kenneally recruited me while I was recuperating at Walter Reed.”
She laid her hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. “That must have been tough for you to have to change careers.”
“I was lucky. Even though I was discharged, my JAG record was favorable enough that my superiors wanted me to continue on working with them as a consultant. I don’t travel overseas anymore, but I eventually got transferred from Leesburg, Virginia down to Miami to work with the military base here on JAG cases while still assisting Kenneally. His Lone Wolf Agency reaches far and wide like Hank Pattersons Brotherhood Protectors do.”
“Care to walk with me out back?” she asked, standing up.
“Sure.”
“Which do you like doing more. The JAG cases or the assignments Kenneally sends your way?” she asked as they stepped out on the patio.
He sucked in a breath. “That is a good question. I’ve never really thought about it because as I see it I have the best of both worlds being able to continue working in JAG and protecting those presented to me by Lone Wolf.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
