Page 7 of Her Forever SEAL

Then she was out of the bed, the shoes still on her feet, moving through the suite toward the living room with a purposefulness that made him prop himself up on one elbow and watch. Hell, he’d pay good money all over again to have her walk around their bedroom at home in just those shoes. His wife was a knockout.

She came back with an envelope in her hand. She stood at the foot of the bed and looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between excitement and nerves, which on Sophia was a rare combination and therefore worth paying close attention to.

“There is absolutely no way I can outdo what you did tonight,” she said. “I want you to know I know that.” She held out the envelope. “But I hope you'll like it.”

He frowned, then sat up and took the envelope from her and opened it.

Inside was an itinerary. Four names. Him and Sophia and their daughters. Ten days. Maui.

He read it through once and then read it through again. The flights, the rental, the surfboard rentals for two of them at Launiupoko—for the session at Ho'okipa he would need to be on a board that size. He looked at the dates again, did the math, and looked at Sophia standing at the foot of the bed watching his face. Ten days.

“You've never taken ten days in a row off,” he said.

“No.” She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him steadily. “But with your promotion coming through, you're not going to be called away on missions anymore. Which means we can actually plan. We can make commitments and keep them.” She paused. “Family time, Mason. Real family time, all four of us.” Her voice was quiet and certain and completely Sophia. “And dammit, that’s important.”

He looked at the itinerary in his hands. Him and Lisa on surfboards in Hawaii. Kayla and Sophia on a beach for ten days with nowhere she needed to be. The four of them, together.

His whole chest felt like it was expanding.

He set the itinerary on the nightstand, reached for her, and pulled her in. He held her face in both hands and looked at her.

“You know what just happened?” he asked.

“What?”

“I just fell in love with you all over again.”

Sophia's smile started slowly and grew until it was the smile he had first seen at a diner in San Clemente twenty-two years ago, the one that had undone him completely the first time and had never once stopped.

She leaned in and kissed him.

Outside the window, San Diego went quietly about its night, indifferent to the fact that Mason Gault was, at this particular moment, exactly where he was always meant to be.

2

The ringtone cut through sleep like a blade.

Mason's eyes opened. Not groggy, not disoriented. He woke up immediately, fully present, the way that twenty-six years of being a SEAL had hardwired into him. He knew that ringtone. He’d programmed it specifically to reach him through a dead sleep, through a Do Not Disturb setting, through anything. It had never once rung at a good time.

Sophia was asleep on his chest.

He could feel her breath, slow and even, her hair spread across his skin, her hand curled loosely against his ribs. She hadn't stirred. The phone was on the nightstand to his right, and to reach it he was going to have to move her, and moving her was going to wake her, and waking her at one in the morning was going to start a conversation he always hated but would have anyway because that was what their life looked like and he wouldn't trade it for anything.

Fuck it.

He moved her gently, sliding out from underneath her with the particular care of a man who had done this before, who knew exactly how to shift her weight without jolting her awake. She stirred as he rolled toward the nightstand and snagged the phone.

“Gault here.”

“Mason.” Captain Hale's voice was clipped and awake in the way that meant things were already in motion. “We've got a live one. I need you and your team on base in one hour, ready to move out.”

He felt Sophia's hand on his back. Her hand moved slowly, deliberately, soothingly. Could she be any more perfect?

“We'll be there, Captain.”

He ended the call and turned. He caught her hand in his before it could finish its path down his spine, and he held it as he looked at her in the dark.

“Baby—”