Chapter 8 #2
She wasn’t prepared for this level of emotion the second she landed.
Moving without thought, she leaned into Dash, hiding her face in the space between his neck and shoulder.
She could feel his hand caressing her back gently, but he didn’t speak, simply let her have a moment to get control over her emotions.
“It’s okay, Brin. I know it’s a lot. I realize you’re used to hiding from the spotlight.
Your mother and sister have made you think you’re not worthy of attention, solely because of your looks.
That’s bullshit. You’re one of the most talented and sought-after designers in pageant circles, hard-working and humble.
And now I can add brave and resourceful to that list.”
Taking a deep breath, Brinley stood up straight once more. But Dash didn’t remove his hand from her lower back. She wasn’t plastered against him, but damn if she didn’t want to be. “Thanks,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to thank me for stating the truth. Can we talk about our date now? Our first real date, because I’m not counting going for a flight around Fiji as a true date.”
She smiled, feeling like it was a bit lopsided but appreciating the change of topic anyway. Brinley wasn’t comfortable being the recipient of such high praise. “I don’t know,” she said with a small smile. “Being with you during everything that happened gave me a fast track to getting to know you.”
“Same, which is why I’m anxious to go out with you again. To continue to get to know you. To find out every single little idiosyncrasy you might have and learn all there is to know about Brinley Deaton.”
“I’m not that exciting.”
“You talk down about yourself way too much. I’d love to ask you out for tomorrow night, but unfortunately, my team and I are scheduled to run a field training exercise for a platoon of men and women flying in later today.
We’re doing land-nav. They get a few days of training before we drop them off in the middle of nowhere and see if they can follow their compasses back to the meeting point. ”
“You sound excited about it.”
“It’s fun. The confidence the soldiers gain when they realize that they can actually make it out of the wilderness without a fancy GPS is pretty awesome.”
“I wouldn’t mind learning some of that myself.”
“And I’d be honored to teach you. Anyway, all that is to say I won’t be able to take you out and treat you the way you deserve to be treated for another week.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just—”
Brinley put a hand on his arm and shook her head. “I get it, Dash. You’re a busy man. It’s fine. I have a lot of designing and sewing to catch up on myself.”
“Okay. How about next Friday? You up for a short hike? More of a stroll, really. I thought we could head up to Wander Lake. There’s a nice trail that goes around the water, it’s only about a mile and a half. Then we can go to dinner or something.”
“I’d like that. But only if we can stop and get some coffee beforehand.”
Dash grinned. “You a coffee girl?”
“A hundred percent. I love trying all the different drive-through shops. Not only do the names impress me with their creativity, they tend to make excellent coffee.”
“I completely agree. When my team and I first got here, I was amazed to see so many of them all over the city. And the names are awesome. Mocha Moose, The Brew the girl who’d been made to feel worthless for much of her life had done something crazy, and saved the lives of eight innocent women in the process. It felt good. Really good.
For the first time in Brinley’s life, she felt as if she was absolutely worthy.
That her looks truly didn’t matter. It was liberating and life changing.
And she was more than ready to forget the past and focus on the future.
One that would hopefully include a good-looking, decent, kind, and protective man who seemed to genuinely care about her.