I shower quickly once she’s dressed. When I get out, I discover she’s made us sandwiches for dinner. The fanciest looking sandwiches I’ve ever had, with thin layers of toppings and spreads, and the bread cut on an angle, displayed just so.
We eat outside, our chairs next to each other. She turns hers on a bit of an angle so she can tuck her toes under my thigh.
“What other adventures do you want to go on?” I ask when her plate is nothing but crumbs.
“This really will be hard to top…” She gazes out at the lake. Dusk is about to fall, and soon we won’t be able to see anything beyond the deck. “Any suggestions?”
I think of all the things I could teach her. Scuba diving, surfing, skydiving. “Just how adventurous do you want to get?”
She glances toward the cabin. “Can I try a beer?”
I blink at her. “Of course. You’ve never hadbeer?”
An unreadable expression flitters across her face. Then she exhales gracefully. “Where were you in 2015?”
“Afghanistan,” I say quietly. “Why?”
“My full name is Abigail Forrest. I am the only daughter of Elana Golden Forrest and her husband.” Her fingers twist together, and I realize she’s shaking.
I reach for her, but she holds out one quivering hand to stop me.
She needs to get this out.
“My mother was the sole heir to Golden Industries, which she had no interest in running. Her father knew that, so he put her shares in a trust. That trust passed to me when my parents died—along with her seat on the board. You probably haven’t heard of Golden Industries, because we don’t have a lot of public facing brands, but we’re one of the largest companies in America.”
“You inherited the company when you were fifteen?” My words come out hoarsely.
This woman is so far out of my league, it’s not funny.
She nods. “I’ve never had beer or potato chips because I’ve never been grocery shopping. Not as an adult. When I was a girl, we lived a relatively normal life.” She slides a tight smile my way. “Still privileged, but in a different way.”
I frown, something almost fitting together in my mind, but not quite. “Why did you ask where I was in 2015?”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Because my father was Admiral David Forrest.”
The memory slams into me. Even in Afghanistan, our flags were lowered to half mast when the admiral and his wife were killed in a car accident in Washington, D.C.
I was a grown man in a war zone, and Abby had been a little girl, orphaned on the other side of the world.
And seven years later, a building is being named in her father’s honor where I work. I’m not clear on the timeline overlap, exactly, but he would have been a commander around the same time I went through Hell Week.
And she would have been a little girl.
“Abby…”
“I’ve met some SEALs before.” She swipes a tear off her cheek. “They’re always lovely, but when they know who my father was, things get…weird. Nice. Really…”
“Lovely?” It’s not a word often used to describe me and my teammates, but with family members of those who are gone, I can see it.
She nods, and her lower lip trembles.
“Will you let me hold you?”
“I might cry.”
“Fucking hell, Abby,Imight cry. That’s fine. Get your ass in my lap.”
She scrambles onto my chair, winding her arms tight around my neck. “I…”