“I’m not laughing at you,” he reassured her. “I’m laughing because if anything, I’m going to have to worry about you deciding you like them better than me. They’re going to love you; already do, in fact.”
Her brows furrowed. “I haven’t really even met them.”
“Yeah, but I’ve talked about you. A lot.”
“But we just met a few days ago.”
Trigger shook his head. “Wrong. We met a few weeks ago. And the guys saw the kind of person you were then, and after me not being able to talk about anything but you for the last few days, they’ve gotten to know you even better.”
Gillian flushed, and Trigger couldn’t help but grin. He squeezed her hand. “You have nothing to worry about, Di,” he told her softly. “I think I have more to be concerned about. My best friends are all single. They’re horn dogs and will probably annoy you to no end. They’re a little uncouth and brash. You might meet them and hate them, and that wouldn’t bode well for our relationship.”
“I’m not going to hate them,” she assured. “They’re your friends…how could I?”
They were smiling at each other when someone called from across the restaurant.
“Trigger!”
He turned and smiled as he saw who was approaching. Standing, Trigger shook the man’s hand and smiled at the woman at his side. Gillian had also stood, and Trigger introduced everyone.
“Gillian, this is my friend Truck and his wife, Mary. This is Gillian, my girlfriend.”
Mary instantly looked like she had a thousand questions, but she managed to keep them inside as she shook Gillian’s hand.
“It’s good to meet you,” Truck said. “We didn’t even know Trigger had a girlfriend.”
Trigger grinned and put his arm around Gillian’s waist. “I do,” he said firmly. Then he looked down at Gillian. “Truck is with a group of soldiers that we’ve worked with in the past. His team and mine are all friends. Seems like just yesterday that we were at Truck and Mary’s wedding.” Then he turned back to his friend and asked, “Are you guys excited to go get your kids?”
“Definitely,” Truck said with a smile. “Feels like we’ve waited forever for the paperwork to go through to be able to pick up Aarav and Deeba. We’ve sent tapes of our voices and lots of pictures, but who knows how they’ll react when they see us for the first time.”
“They’re adopting two young kids from India,” Trigger explained to Gillian.
“Congratulations,” she said with a huge smile.
“Thanks,” Truck replied. “We’re ready to have them home.”
“Wait, are you Gillian Romano?” Mary asked out of the blue. She’d been smiling and nodding as her husband spoke, but it was obvious Gillian’s name had just clicked in her brain.
Trigger tensed. He knew it was a possibility that Gillian could be recognized. Her name and picture had been in newspapers around the country after the hijacking. She hadn’t given many interviews, but that didn’t matter. She was a weird kind of celebrity.
He felt her tense next to him, but she answered politely enough. “I am.”
“You’re amazing!” Mary said immediately. “I read about what happened on that plane, and it sounds like it was so horrible. I mean, when I was held captive in the bank I worked at, I was terrified, but that was only for like twenty minutes. I can’t imagine being in your situation for over two days!”
Trigger felt Gillian relax against him. “It wasn’t fun,” she told Mary.
“Understatement of the century,” Trigger muttered.
“We can see you’re eating, so we’ll let you go,” Truck told them. “Gillian, it was nice meeting you.”
“Same,” Gillian said.
Trigger shook Truck’s hand again and said, “We still on for that training exercise next week? Your team against mine?”
“Fuck yeah,” Truck said with a grin. “May the best team win.”
“Which’ll be mine,” Trigger said. “No way are we letting a bunch of old men beat us.”
“We’ll see,” Truck said. “We’ll see.”
“Come on, He-Man,” Mary teased. “I’m hungry, and if you two stand here beating your chests anymore, I’ll never get fed.”
Gillian giggled, and Trigger loved the sound. He gave Truck a chin lift and got one in return. Then he waited until Gillian was seated before taking his own once again.
“You guys seem close,” she observed when they were eating.
“We are,” Trigger agreed.
“I like Mary’s hair.”
“Don’t you dare think of putting any streaks of color in yours,” Trigger growled.
Gillian raised surprised eyes to his. “Why?”
“Because it’s perfect the way it is. I love the color it is now. It reminds me of fields of wheat that grow in the Midwest.”
For a second, Trigger thought he’d overstepped. He couldn’t read the look on Gillian’s face. But finally she smiled.
“Thanks. I wasn’t really thinking about coloring my own hair. I just admire others who can get away with it.”
They finished their meal without any further interruptions and Trigger was glad when they left the noisy interior of the restaurant behind and got back into his car. When they were both settled, he turned to her. “Want to see some of the base?”
“Sure,” she said eagerly.
So for the next two hours, Trigger drove her around Fort Hood. He showed her where his office was and even walked her around one of the motor pools. When she said she’d never seen the inside of a tank, he arranged for a mechanic working on one to let her peek inside. He took pictures of her sitting inside, and Trigger knew he’d never forget how happy she looked.
“That was fun,” she told him when they were leaving the base.
“Yeah,” he agreed quietly.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, easily reading his mood.
Trigger glanced over at her. He could only see flashes of her face when they passed under streetlights as it had gotten dark outside. He’d done all he could to prolong their time on the base but eventually he’d run out of things to show her.
“I’m not ready to bring you home yet,” he blurted, then cringed. He was supposed to be moving slow, and keeping her out all night wasn’t exactly doing that.
“I’m not ready to go home yet,” she said, surprising him. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’m sure there’s a late movie we could see,” Trigger told her. “Or we could find a bar and hang out. Or…” He let his words trail off.
“Or what?”
Glancing over at her again, Trigger felt the familiar twinge in his belly. She was so pretty. The hair in her braids had started to escape their confines and she looked somewhat mussed after crawling around the tank in the motor pool. But she looked completely relaxed, leaning against his car door with one knee bent and her foot tucked up under her thigh.
“I was going to suggest that maybe we could go back to my apartment and watch a movie there or something. It would be quieter, and we could talk easier…but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”