A SEAL's Courage (Military Match #1)(2)
“Actually…” Mandy looked to her left, flagging down the waitress and signaling for a refill by holding up her empty beer bottle. When the waitress smiled and nodded, Mandy turned back around and leaned her elbows on the table. “There’s a new dating service I just heard of. You remember Jennifer Dillon, from high school?”
Lauren nodded. “Didn’t I see an engagement announcement in the paper last week?”
“Yup. She and her fiancé came into my office the other day for help planning the wedding. In fact, I recommended your bakery for the cake. Ohhh, Laur, you should have seen her fiancé. He’s air force. Tall, broad shouldered, and so polite. Came in dressed in his uniform, all ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am.’”
Lauren sipped at her drink. “No. I’m not letting you set me up again. I don’t care if he’s got a brother or friends or a million bucks.”
Mandy furrowed her brow, glaring in disapproval. “Will you just listen? While we were talking about her wishes for the ceremony, I asked her where she’d met him. She said they used this service. Military Match. Kind of pricey, but the woman who runs it screens her applicants. So when I went home that night, I checked it out online.” Mandy’s blue eyes gleamed with impishness. “All the men are vets.”
“Oh, I’m definitely in.” Steph nudged Lauren with an elbow. “So are you.”
Lauren couldn’t stop the fierce heat that flooded her cheeks. These ladies knew her too well. Okay, she had to admit it. She had a “thing” for military men. There was something about a guy who willingly put his life on the line for people who couldn’t fight for themselves. The uniform alone could melt her panties.
She sipped at her icy drink in a vain attempt to cool down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mandy laughed. “Right. Don’t think I never noticed the way you’d go all tongue-tied whenever Trent came home on leave.”
Steph turned her head, winking at Lauren. “Or the way you drool when he walks away from you.”
Mandy was the youngest of three. Her brothers were ten years older than her and twins. Trent and Will might look identical, but the two couldn’t be more different. Will was clean-cut. The guy in suits and ties rather than jeans and worn T-shirts. Trent had always been rough around the edges, a quiet guy who preferred to work with his hands.
A Navy SEAL, he’d gotten out of the service and returned home eighteen months ago with scars, some visible, some not. He now worked in a custom motorcycle shop doing detail work. Of the two brothers, Trent was the one who had always made her cream her panties. More to the point, Mandy knew she had a crush on him.
Steph looked over at Mandy. “How he’s doing anyway?”
Mandy shook her head and sighed. “He’s…different. He’s always been quiet, but he crawled into himself after he came home and hasn’t come back out yet.”
Trent had post-traumatic stress disorder. Nightmares. Flashbacks. Coming home, he’d had a hell of a time of it. Mandy was right. He was doing better these days, but he still wasn’t the guy he’d been before his last deployment.
Lauren dropped her gaze, pretending to be absorbed in her drink. “You should sign him up for that dating service. Might do him some good.”
Mandy laughed. “Nope. He won’t let me fix him up, either.” Mandy rose to her feet and came around the table, tugging Lauren out of her seat. “Come on, ladies. Let’s go find us some hotties and shake our tail feathers.”
*
The following evening, Lauren pulled open her front door to find Mandy standing on her doorstep. She wore a sheepish grin Lauren had seen too many times over the years. It usually meant trouble.
Lauren folded her arms, narrowing her gaze. “All right. What did you do?”
Mandy’s cheeks blazed bright red, and she took sudden interest in her sneakers. “I signed you up. I signed us all up, actually.”
Lauren’s heart took off on a one-hundred-meter dash. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew what Mandy referenced, but she needed to hear her headstrong best friend own up to it. “Signed us up for what?”
“That dating agency.” Mandy looked up then, flashed a please-don’t-be-mad grin, and clasped her hands together. “Steph’s excited about it…”
Lauren’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, Mandy. How could you do that? You don’t know anything about this woman or this service.”
“Actually, I do.” Mandy stepped over the threshold, grabbed Lauren’s wrist, and after closing the front door, pulled her into the living room. Once there, she took a seat on the sofa and patted the spot beside her. “I know I can be a little…impulsive, but I went to talk to the woman. She won’t let me sign you up officially until you come down to speak to her yourself. Laur, you’d like her. Turns out, Karen’s husband works with Trent at the bike shop. She’s really down to earth and sweet. She’s a great big romantic, but she’s strong minded, like you. She wants her clients to feel comfortable with their experience, whether it lasts or not.”
Lauren dropped onto the sofa beside her. Okay, so she was impressed Mandy hadn’t rushed headlong into this, but she had enough experience with Mandy not to let her off the hook yet. “You should’ve consulted me first.”