The Military Wife (A Heart of a Hero, #1)(8)

“Among other things. What branch?”

“Navy SEALs. Or at least, that’s the plan. I leave next week for training in California.”

Her heart pinched, reminding her not to get attached. “I’ve heard they only take the best and the most badass.”

“It’s rigorous. Didn’t think I had a shot, but I nailed all the evaluations.”

Silence fell between them. She should say a polite good-bye and ride off. The crazy bolt of happiness that had flared on seeing him standing in the shaft of sunlight at the mouth of the alley was because she either had read too many books or was looking for a way to assuage her own nervousness. Come autumn and she’d be flying from her own nest.

Yet, like in the ice-cream shop, she didn’t leave. Something primal and ancient rattled her bones like an earthquake, and she kept strolling along, herding him down a quieter, shaded side street and away from the chaos of the beach. “Are you scared about training?”

He blew out a slow breath. “Don’t tell my buddies, but I’m terrified. A huge percentage of recruits wash out.”

“What happens if you don’t make it?”

“I become a regular Navyman. Which would be fine, but…” His lips pressed tight.

“You’d feel like you failed?”

“No ‘feel’ about it. It would be a fact. I’d be a failure.”

She didn’t know how to respond or alleviate fears of the future she battled on a daily basis as well. What if she flunked out of UNC? What if she had to move home and battle the flaky credit card machine at the ice-cream shop for the rest of her life?

“Do you miss your family?” she asked.

“As insane as they make me and as much as I wanted to leave … Yes. So much I’ve thought about quitting and heading home. Dad wants me to take over the farm.” He made a scoffing sound and ran a hand over his head as if it was an old habit to ruffle his now-phantom hair. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this considering we just met, but I can’t talk about it to them.” He thumbed over his shoulder toward the beach. “Okay guys, and we might even be friends, but we’re also competing for SEAL spots. Sometimes, the testosterone is too much even for me.”

“I don’t mind if you tell me stuff.” Again, she answered not from politeness’ sake but with the truth. His searing blue eyes demanded that of her.

“What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen. I’m heading to UNC in the fall.”

“Wow, that’s cool. What are you going to major in?”

“Business, I think. Maybe minor in marketing.” She gripped the handlebars of her bike a little tighter. “I’m scared about going off, too. Scared about flunking out. I can’t imagine coming back here and living with my mom.”

“You two don’t get along?”

“No, we get along fine. Better than fine, actually, but she’s very protective. And a little controlling.”

“Where does she work?’

“Mom is Kitty Hawk’s librarian.” She rolled her eyes as she added, “My full name is Harper Lee Frazier.”

Noah’s laugh burst from his chest, startling a squirrel up the nearest tree. She found herself laughing with him even though living with the name for eighteen years had thinned her skin against teasing. She had dropped the “Lee” on all her UNC forms.

“That’s awesome. I love it.” He cast still-smiling eyes in her direction. “It suits you, by the way.”

“I’m afraid to ask how considering she wrote an American classic and then turned into a recluse with like fifty cats.”

“Harper Lee had fifty cats? Geez.”

She giggled at his exaggerated grimace. “I totally made that up. But doesn’t she strike you as the cat lady poster child?”

“Maybe, but she claimed a slice of glory. She’ll never be forgotten.”

Harper tilted her head to study him. Was Noah Wilcox after a different type of glory? She didn’t ask, only pointed and said simply, “My house.”

“Hard to get used to seeing all these places on stilts. You ride out storms here or move inland?”

“Unless an evacuation order is issued, we stay.” She didn’t add that her mom took on storms the way she took on life. Balls-to-the-wall defiant, but with more than her fair share of humor. Her mom was a Character with a capital C. The kind Harper Lee would have written about.

“You didn’t mention your dad. Does he live here, too?”

“Messy divorce when I was two. He sends child support, but that’s about it.” Her daddy issues weren’t on the table for discussion. “I have a feeling you left a big family behind. Younger sisters?”

“Four of them. How’d you know?”

She wouldn’t tell him it was in the polite, protective way he treated her from positioning himself on the street side of the sidewalk to the way he glanced at her under his lashes as if she was special.

“Lucky guess,” she said lightly.

She trailed to a stop across the street from her house under the shade of an oak. The air was oppressive, too far inland to benefit from the water-cooled breezes.