Page 12 of Spotted at Lighthouse Bay (Spotted Cottage #4)

The place was nearly empty, so the hostess told them to pick a table. Addy chose one near the window. A single, yellow LED lamp shaped like a candle glowed in the center, casting its warm glow with a calming, artificial flicker.

They sat and Addy picked up a menu. The appetizers looked good. So did the salads, and the gnocchi.

If she had to be humiliated, she at least deserved gnocchi.

“I joined the army right after high school,” Rick said, setting his menu down.

Addy looked up at him. He was getting right to business. “When was that?”

“2002.”

The math flipped through her mind. He was forty. Only eight years younger than her.

Ha. Only .

“Wait. 2002?” Her hand darted to her mouth.

He nodded. “Yup. A few months after enlisting, I deployed to Iraq.”

“You were a kid.” She shook her head. “That must have been hard.”

He sucked in a breath, scrubbing the stubble on his chin with his hand. “I went in as a bright eyed, eighteen-year-old boy and after thirteen months there…” He shook his head. “I wasn’t that boy anymore.”

“My dad served in Vietnam,” Addy said. “He didn’t like to talk about it. He told me it was very boring, except when it wasn’t.”

Rick smiled, creasing at the corner of his eyes. “That’s accurate. It’s waiting around until all hell breaks loose.” He paused. “Excuse my language. War is the worst thing on earth.”

“You’re excused.” She’d heard far worse from her dad’s friends. “I am not one to judge a person who served our country.”

He leaned in, resting his elbows on the table and his head on his hands. “You know, I got lucky. After I was discharged, my uncle made me talk to someone. He was a shrink for the VA and he refused to let me hide away.”

“Like a therapist?” Something that hadn’t been available to her dad. He’d only had his friends and the sea. He did okay, but Addy always worried about him.

“Yeah. A therapist. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I needed to sort out what happened. Set my head straight.

Not that I’ll ever fully understand. War can’t be understood, because it doesn't make sense. That’s that hard thing to understand.

” He sighed. “Anyway, I’m not saying I’m perfect, but it helped.

I had too many friends who came back from deployment but couldn’t put themselves together again.

There were too many broken pieces. Too much… ” His voice trailed off.

Her mouth was gaping. Rick didn’t seem like someone who could be broken into pieces. He was solid as stone.

Still, the world managed to crack him. It made it hard to not stand up and hug him.

He cleared his throat. “Too much destruction. I’ve always wanted to start a post-bootcamp or something. For the guys coming home. Like a debrief of everything they’d witnessed. Everything they’d done.”

The light illuminated a golden hue in his caramel eyes. Addy’s chest froze, a breath caught in her throat.

“After that, I was a paramedic,” he continued, “but I burned out after a few years.”

“That’s a stressful job.”

He nodded. “The stress was what I liked about it. High stakes. I wanted to see if I could still react when it mattered.” He laughed. “Turns out I could, though most of it was boring, too. But when I needed to, I could keep my cool, and that was important to prove to myself.”

“You are very good at keeping your cool,” Addy said. “Unlike me before a blind date.”

Rick grinned. “That was very…”

“Unhinged? Yes, I know.” Addy nodded, straightening a cloth napkin in her lap. “I am the queen of losing my cool.”

He tilted his head down, peering at her. “I was going to say endearing.”

“Ha, right.” She pulled her menu in front of her face. Hopefully she’d moved quickly enough to block the blush blooming on her cheeks.

The waitress stopped by. Addy ordered the gnocchi. Rick ordered the grilled chicken margherita.

Once their orders were in, Rick spoke again. “I used the GI Bill to go to school.”

She leaned in. “What did you study?”

“Philosophy and history. Double major.”

Addy dropped her hand to the table. “Get out! Philosophy?”

“I guess I was still trying to understand the world.” He shook his head. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

Addy shrugged. “At least you’re trying.”

He kept talking, picking up momentum. “When I was in college, I did some work as a bouncer and got a few jobs with private security companies. I did a master’s in security studies and got pulled into the corporate security world.”

He hadn’t said this many words to her perhaps the entire time they’d known each other. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to talk to. Big, tough Rick was finally feeling comfortable enough to talk to old, unthreatening Adelaide.

Being herself had its perks. Whenever she used to have to puff herself up to confront one of Riley’s teachers at school, Shane used to laugh and say she was as threatening as a church mouse.

Yet even a church mouse had its place in the world, and right now it was at this table, listening to the past of a fascinating man who didn’t often find people worth talking to.

The joke was on Shane.

Addy couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “Let me guess. You hated it.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I sort of did. It was too stable.” He raised his arm, his muscles outlined in shadows, and scratched the back of his neck. “Kidding, but I was bored to tears.”

“And you made too much money.”

He leaned in. “How did you know that? Did you have me checked out?”

“Yes. Full background check. I know everything.” She grinned. “Just kidding. It was a guess.”

Rick sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I made a lot. More than I needed. I didn’t want it.”

“So you decided to come to San Juan Island for a vacation?”

Rick looked down, quiet for a moment.

Oh no. She’d crossed a line.

He looked up, waving a hand. “Nah, I wouldn’t put it that way. A friend of mine asked for a favor. I was looking for a change, and here I am.”

If she’d touched on something she wasn’t supposed to, he didn’t give any hints about it for the rest of the meal.

Their food arrived and they feasted, laughing and talking over one another. By the end, she was stuffed, the sting of her blind date rejection long gone.

Addy sat back, pushing her plate away. “I have to say, getting into your circle of trust was worth the wait.”

He smiled a half smile, that dimple lighting up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What about you? I’ve talked your ear off.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know about me. Divorced. One daughter, Riley, the light of my life. Crazy mother. Angry older sister…”

He laughed. “You’re a professor?”

“I was. English as a second language. I studied German and Italian in college and was close to mastering Spanish as well. While you were trying to understand the world, I was a foolish young girl with dreams of living in Italy.”

“I love Italy. I’m sure there’s a lot about life the Italians could teach me. Did you ever get to live there?”

“Just one year, studying abroad in college. It was lovely. Then I met my husband and we settled in Canada. He didn’t like to travel, so –”

“What a chump. Is that why you divorced him?”

A laugh burst out of her. “We were married for nineteen years and no. We’d just grown apart. After the divorce, I was laid off from the university. I was…pretty lost, to be honest. Sheila convinced me to come to the island.”

“Lost.” He bowed his head. “Essentially, we’re in the same spot in life.”

She scrunched her forehead. “What do you mean?”

“Lost. Drifting at sea.”

He didn’t seem lost to her, but Addy wasn’t going to invalidate his reality. Not when he’d opened up like that. “I guess you could look at it that way. Except you’re much younger than I am.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Nah. What’s a couple of years between friends?”

“Friends.” She grinned. “I like that for us.”

He smiled. “Me too.”