Page 25 of Her Noble Protector

“So, Lisa, you never told me how you got from Arizona to Alaska.”

“It was one of the clients here in Arizona who did a tour up in Alaska. Apparently, they had good things to say about me to Paula. She checked me out and recruited me for Wilderness Trekkers.”

“That’s it, huh?” Raiden was positive there was a hell of a lot more to the story than that.

“Yep, that’s it.” She took another bite of her sandwich. He watched as she took a long pull of her milk, then placed the carton back down on the tile floor and reached into one of the bags and pulled out another carton, and opened it.

“So how did you jump from guiding people in the deserts of Arizona to the wilds of Alaska? That sounds like a pretty big shift.”

“It really was. To begin with, Paula just had me go out on the tours, do some cooking, and hand-holding with the clients. I did that for a year, at the same time I started to learn how to mountain climb. That shit was hard. It took me about four years before I got my first low-level American Mountain Guide Association certificate. In the meantime, I could take people on hikes, horseback riding, and whitewater rafting.”

Raiden grinned; seemed like food was perking her up and getting her to be more talkative. Great, now he knew.

“What made you decide to work at a dude ranch when you were eighteen? Why not college?”

He watched as Lisa put down her sandwich on her lap and looked him straight in the eye. “I really didn’t have much of a choice. I was in foster care from sixteen to eighteen. As soon as my eighteenth birthday arrived, I didn’t have anywhere to live. Luckily, I knew it was coming, so I’d been looking for a job that provided room and board. Reever’s Ranch provided it.”

Raiden knew that was how the foster system worked. Once the foster kids hit eighteen the checks from the government dried up, so the foster parents closed their doors to the foster kids. There was no cushion for these kids, no nothing. Not like a birth child.

“Sounds like you did this smart.”

Lisa tilted her head in a half nod. “Tried to. Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Reever were good to me. I was damned lucky that they allowed me to learn on their ranch, and try different things and grow into different positions. Not a lot of people would be like them.”

She stopped talking and picked up her sandwich. “Now you do some talking.” She took a bite and nodded her head.

“What do you want me to talk about?”

Even as she chewed he saw a smile form. She picked up her milk, then washed down her bite of food. “Anything, Raiden. Talk about anything at all.”

“I’m an only child, but with all of my cousins, it feels like I have a crowd of brothers and sisters. Mom’s sisters and kids were always over at our house. She was the oldest sister, so our house was the gathering point. I’m the oldest cousin, so I got stuck babysitting a lot.”

“Did you change diapers?”

“More than I want to remember. I have twelve younger cousins on my mother’s side and three on my father’s side. The three on my father’s side live in Minneapolis, but Mom’s all live in Virginia Beach.”

“Wait a minute, I thought you lived in Miami.”

“No, I’m stationed at Little Creek near Virginia Beach, another reason I wanted to be a SEAL. I knew that you get stationed out of Virginia Beach or San Diego. I wanted to stay near family.” He took a bite of his second sandwich.

“How old are you?”

“I’m thirty-three, and before you ask, never been married despite my mother’s best matchmaking efforts. Actually not just my mom, my aunties have all tried too. I guess I must just have the bachelor gene. How about you, have you ever been married?”

Her body jerked and some of the milk spilled out of the carton. She shook her head. “No,” she finally whispered. “Never been married.”

“Close?” he asked.

“Not even close,” she whispered again.

“How about—”

“I thought we were talking about you.” she interrupted.

“Oh yeah. So, I come from a large family that is in everybody’s business.”

“Sounds nice.” Her head was down as she looked at the half-eaten sandwich in her lap. Raiden kicked himself for having brought up his family, considering she had been in foster care.

“Mostly it is,” he agreed. “Right now there is one cousin who is a pain in my ass.”