“Right, right.”
“There you go.”
She flashed him a smile as they moved along behind the others. The sun was now low in the sky, turning the wispy clouds orange and gold. The water flowed silvery blue around them.
They listened to the guide point out various landmarks and talk about Mission Bay. Probably many of the people in the group were visitors. That was okay. He and Hayden stayed together, bringing up the rear of the group.
“Doing okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her smile beamed. “This is gorgeous.”
“Just wait.”
The sky turned a fierier orange, silhouetting palm trees in black. Skyscrapers downtown glittered against the darkening sky, and the water reflected the golden glow of other city lights around the edge of the bay.
“That’s amazing.” Hayden gave leisurely strokes with her paddle, her head turning from one side to another to take in the views. “Carrie would love this. She’d want to take pictures.”
“It is amazing.”
The lights on the boards became brighter as the sun disappeared, all different colors, lighting up circles around the boards about forty feet in circumference.
“It feels incredible,” Hayden said, looking around. “Like we’re standing on light. It feels really…intimate.”
“Yeah.”
That was a good description. With darkness just beyond the colored glow of their boards there was a sense of being alone on top of the water, even though they were with others, and the voices carried over the calm water.
“It’s so peaceful,” Hayden added. She looked over at him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
It was peaceful. Intimate. Even romantic.
“It’d be better if I was over there on that board with you.”
She gave a low laugh and another paddle. “Tandem paddleboarding? Not sure if that would work.”
“It can totally work. But I was thinking you’d be lying on the board. On your back. And I’d be inside you.”
Her board wobbled. “And we’d be in the water.”
He gave a low laugh and stroked his paddle harder through the water. He moved ahead of her and turned it so he faced her.
“Show-off.”
He grinned.
“Don’t get too close. Seriously. My balance is a precarious thing. Also I’m not great at steering.”
“I won’t dump you in the bay.”
He continued to paddle lazy circles around her, watching her face in the soft glow, the muscles in her slender arms flexing as she paddled.
“I have a feeling my abs will be sore tomorrow,” she commented.
“Yeah, it’s a good core workout.”
“Do you surf? Like, real surfing on waves?”
“Sure. You?”
“I’ve done it. When I was a kid, my parents tried to expose me to a lot of different things. But I was just a little nerd, not a cool surfer dudette.”
“How about mountain biking?”
“I can ride a bike.”
“Rock climbing?”
“Uh, no.”
“You might be good at that.”
“Sure, if I wasn’t afraid of heights.”
“I’m afraid of heights too.” Jesus. He’d never admitted that to anyone except Marco and Cade.
“You are? But you still rock climb?”
“I had to. It was part of our training.”
“That would be pretty hard if you were afraid.”
“A lot of things in SEAL training are hard. Jesus.” He shook his head at the memories. “There were times I thought I couldn’t go on. Couldn’t take one more step. Swim one more stroke. Somehow I always found it in me to keep going. There was no fucking way I was going to give up.”
“Why?” Her soft question floated in the night air. “Why was it so important to you?”
He wasn’t sure if he could even explain it. “I just had to do it. I had to prove I could.” His parents had never thought he was worth loving, never thought he was good for anything. But succeeding as a SEAL hadn’t been about showing them he was worth something. It had been about showing himself.
“That’s our SEAL motto,” he continued. “The person who will not be defeated cannot be defeated.”
Their eyes met across the water, their boards shifting gently on the waves. Hayden’s eyes were big shadows in her face, her mouth soft. “That’s pretty powerful. And impressive.”
He lifted one shoulder. “It’s really more about mental toughness than physical toughness, although no question we were superbly conditioned. I was terrified. I remember my first parachute jump—”
“Jesus Christ.”
His lips quirked. “Yeah. And the first one was easier than later, when we jumped at thirty-five thousand feet, on oxygen, carrying over a hundred pounds of gear, free-falling nearly all the way down to avoid detection. Anyway, even that first jump, I thought I was going to puke. They had to shove me out of the plane. I hated it at first, but quitting wasn’t an option, and after a while, I got to love it.”