CHAPTER 14 #2
“Now that’s the right answer,” my dad says with satisfaction. He reaches for another piece of bacon and waves it at Finn. “She’s the best analyst the feds ever lost.”
“Dad,” I groan, burying my face in my hands.
“I’m bragging, Josie-bug. You’re allowed to be bragged about over breakfast.”
“I’m sure Finn doesn’t need to hear about—”
My dad turns toward Finn, ignoring me. “She tested into the NSA at twenty-four. They put her on the Russian desk because they had no one else who could read the volume she could read at the speed she could read it. She was running her own analysts inside of two years. They moved her up three times in five years because she kept solving problems they didn’t know they had. ”
“Dad,” I mutter.
“I’m not saying anything that isn’t true.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I’m allowed to be proud of you, kid. He can know that about you too.”
Finn’s looking at me, and my entire body tingles over the pride on his face. “I see her very clearly,” Finn tells my father. “There’s a lot to be proud of.”
My father’s eyes twinkle in satisfaction and he puts the other half of the bacon in his mouth.
We sit at my kitchen island and talk while we eat, the subjects evolving quickly.
My father tells Finn a story about a horse he bought in his twenties that he couldn’t ride.
A story I’d never heard before. Finn tells my father a story about getting lost while hiking in Yosemite, only to be “rescued” by a Boy Scout troop.
My father tells Finn a story about being stationed in Okinawa.
Finn tells my father he’s never been to Japan and would like to go.
My father tells him to go, and they talk for ten minutes about all the wonderful places to dine.
I sit between them, content to eat my eggs and drink my coffee. I watch these two important men in my world recognize each other across the breakfast table and it’s the strangest, sweetest, most disorienting forty minutes of my adult life.
Finn looks at his watch. “I hate to eat and run, but I have to be at the gallery by ten,” he says apologetically. He pushes back from the stool, carries his plate to the sink and rinses it. He then turns back to my father. “Bill. It was a pleasure.”
“Likewise.”
They shake hands and Finn’s eyes meet mine. “Walk me to the door?”
“Of course,” I say, scrambling from my stool.
In the foyer, the sun is coming through the panel windows in long bright slants across the hardwood.
Finn leans into me and murmurs, “That went well.”
“Minus the part getting caught half naked by my dad,” I quip.
He puts a hand on the side of my face. “Listen… there’s an event at the gallery tonight. A small artist reception. Would you be my date?”
I look up at him and realize there’s nothing I’d love more. There’s no trafficking case, no crazy Russian hunting me. Just a man that I very much want to continue to spend time with. “I’d love to.”
Finn’s smile is bright and he leans in to kiss me. It’s a different kiss from the ones we’ve been doing all morning. It’s quiet and has a gentle weight to it.
He lifts his head. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Seven,” I murmur in agreement.
Then he’s gone and I close the door, leaning against it for a moment, my heart squeezing with the knowledge that Finn Marlowe has tipped my world upside down in the best possible way.
I find my father at the sink, washing dishes. I step beside him and dry the plates he hands me.
“Well,” he says. “You picked a charmer.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I ask, because his tone is so neutral, I can’t fathom his meaning.
“I’m not sure.” He rinses a cup and hands it to me. “I mean, he told me a true version of his life, but he left out some pieces. I noticed and I’m not going to ask. I’m just telling you I noticed.”
“Dad—”
“Is he good to you?”
“Yes, Dad, he’s good to me. In ways you couldn’t even begin to imagine.”
Like, I’d be dead without him.
“He looks at you like you’re the only person in the room.”
“Really?” I ask with a dopey smile.
“Really, and that’s definitely a point in his favor.”
He turns off the water and snags a paper towel to dry his hands.
“Wear the green dress,” he says.
It takes a moment to register. “The green dress?”
“Yeah… the one your mother sent you for your twenty-eighth birthday. It’s beautiful on you.”
I turn to face him, a wave of pure love hitting me hard, and he sees it.
“I’m just saying, kid.” My father leans in and kisses the top of my head. “Now, you better get ready for work. Are we still on for breakfast Sunday?”
“Of course we are.”
He picks his jacket up off the back of the stool and I follow him to the door. “Feel free to invite Finn to join us,” he says. “I’d like to get to know him better.”
“Oh, well… I’ll invite him, but he might have plans.”
This is all so new, and while Finn handled my dad like a pro, I’m not sure he wants to hang out with him.
“Something tells me he’ll come,” my dad says with that look on his face that’s not parental intuition but from his years working in intelligence.
And it occurs to me, I’m not sure I want my dad digging into this. In part, I’m still protecting Finn from the illegal side of his life, and my dad has his perception honed to such a fine skill that he’ll pick up on something he shouldn’t.
Regardless, it’s a tomorrow problem. Today’s problem is trying to figure out how to close the case against Voronin and then joining Finn at his gallery tonight.