Page 15 of Her Intense Protector

“Samantha, that’s really impressive. So, what are you doing at your new job?”

“I’m supervising a small team right now that is probably going to expand,” she sighed.

“You don’t sound excited,” his green eyes held hers.

“Oh, I’m really psyched about the project. It’s the supervisory stuff that has me stymied. I’m out of my depth, and always playing catch-up. It’s fine with the good team members, but with the problem ones, it’s been a challenge.” Then she grinned. “But I have Eden on my side. She’s great at helping me with leadership issues. I just used one of her techniques and it worked beautifully.”

“You were pretty smart to ask for help. I’ve met a lot of officers who thought they knew what was best and ended up falling on their asses.”

Their dinners came.

“What made you want to become a SEAL?” Samantha asked as she took the first bite of her halibut.

“Since my family emigrated to America in the early nineteen hundreds, at least two or three men out of every generation have served in the armed forces. Nobody was ever drafted, they all volunteered. My great-grandfather was a colonel in the Army, my grandfather was a Major in the Marines during World War II. Dad served in the first Gulf War. After being the oldest of the family I wasn’t interested in a commission.”

“What’s that?”

“That means, I wasn’t interested in rising through the officer ranks. I wanted to play in the dirt.”

Samantha laughed. “You got tired of leading?”

“Not exactly. You can’t take that oldest child characteristic out of a person, but I really wanted to be a member of a team. I joined the Navy, and the more I read and saw about the SEAL brotherhood, the more I realized that was for me.”

“It’s a brotherhood?”

“Oh yeah. You can’t do anything at all without your teammates. You have to know deep in your gut that they have your back one-hundred percent of the time, and you have theirs. I might be the second-in-command of my group, but if I’m out for the count for a little bit, you can be damn sure any of my teammates can rise to the occasion.”

Samantha took another couple of bites of her fish, considering everything Ezio had told her. “How about when you go home? What’s the dynamic like then?”

“Oh, it goes back to my brothers and sisters coming to me with their problems, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She looked at the man across from her and thought about how much responsibility rested on his broad shoulders. She felt like a lightweight in comparison.

“That’s quite a frown you have going on there, Ms. Brooks, what are you thinking?” Ezio teased.

“Just that comparatively speaking, my life is pretty routine and fluffy.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I’d say your life is normal,” Ezio laughed. “I’m the one with the odd life. Most people would run for the hills after what I just described.”

“I think what you described is pretty amazing. But what do you do for downtime? I mean, it seems to me you’ve got a lot of weight on your shoulders.”

6

That stopped him short. He hadn’t been asked that question before. Normally a woman wanted to pry about his missions and what they were like and find out how exciting they were. Basically, they just wanted to be seen with a Navy SEAL, not interested in the man himself. He had really felt like there was a chance that Samantha Brooks was different, and now his instincts were proving to be right.

Hallelujah.

“There’s always Netflix,” he laughed.

“That can never be underestimated, that’s for sure. What else?”

“Actually, I volunteer at an animal shelter. I love it there. I work with the dogs primarily, trying to determine if any of them could turn into therapy dogs. But any displaced animal grabs my heart.”

“We had a standard poodle growing up. To this day I miss her. She died just before I left for college.” He could see the sadness on her face.

“Does your apartment allow for them?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t checked. I sometimes have to travel, so it wouldn’t seem fair to get an animal when I don’t have a back-up to take care of one. I hate the idea of having to put them up at a doggy-daycare.”