Page 93 of Ford

Oh, when she was nearly taken from him? Um, yeah. He shut the door behind him. “I’m okay.”

She nodded, offered a tiny smile, then her face crumpled.

Huh? He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to her, pulling her into his arms. “What’s going on?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m just…I’m just tired.” She wrapped her arms around his body, and he was okay with not moving ever again. Just standing here, holding her in the darkness of the plane as it hummed around them. She smelled of the fresh cotton shirt that Yanna had given her and the shampoo she’d used in her hair, and he closed his eyes before he did something stupid and kissed her.

Except, maybe it wasn’t stupid. Maybe it was exactly what they both needed. Something to hold onto. A right now, the first step to forever.

He leaned away from her, and she lifted her face to his. Tears glistened on her cheeks.

“Don’t be scared,” he said quietly and reached up to draw a tear away with his thumb.

“I’m not. Mostly.” She drew in a breath. “It’s just…weird. I keep thinking about my mother. And how she made me take this self-defense class when I was thirteen years old, and how I thought it was so stupid but…”

“But today you used some of those skills?”

She lifted a shoulder. “And that she might have been a little proud of me. And how crazy is that, to think about her in the middle of Russia…”

“Not crazy at all. Sometimes I hope that my dad is looking down from heaven, watching…well, most of it. Not everything, but…yeah. He never got to see me get my Budweiser.”

“Your trident pin. I thought you got that after hell week.”

“No. You don’t get it until you pass all the SQTs—it takes about a year after you make it through BUD/S. I called him when I made it through hell week, though. Told him I’d see him in a year, with my pin, on the beach. He never made it.”

She palmed her hands on his chest. “He would have been proud.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Your mom would have too. I know I was.”

She gave him a soft smile. “You know what I said about right now and you not being able to make promises?”

He nodded.

“I’d let you make me a promise, if you wanted.”

He couldn’t stop the smile from nudging up his face. “Oh, I want.” He touched her face, her skin soft under his fingertips. “Yes, I want.”

Then he leaned down and kissed her. Tender, the kind of whisper kiss that made him want to linger, breathing her in like a fragrance. She took a step back and leaned against the wall, curling her fingers into his shirt, pulling him along with her. He braced his hand over her shoulder, taking a step closer.

And then, in his kiss, he promised her his heart.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, sinking into him, softening her lips against his, and he drew his other around her waist, catching her up.

Red.

He always knew it could be like this. She’d been the woman in his ear, her voice the calm he needed against the storm of his adrenaline during an op. His eyes when he couldn’t see behind him. The touch of sanity when he arrived back on base edgy and needing to talk. She’d believed in him, showed up for him, and most importantly, kept up.

Even now, she was kissing him back with the tender ardor that told him that she wanted their tomorrows too.

He drew away, met her eyes. She smiled, her eyes rich, the fear flushed away.

He swallowed a second before he took the leap.I love you—

The plane shuddered again, and a light flickered on in the cabin.

A voice came over the speakers, something about landing soon, he thought, but he just might never land again.

Hoo-yah.