Page 57 of Code Name: Harbor

“Dad,” I groan, burying my face in my hands.

“I’m bragging, Josie-bug. You’re allowed to be bragged about over breakfast.”

“I’m sure Finn doesn’t need to hear about—”

My dad turns toward Finn, ignoring me. “She tested into the NSA at twenty-four. They put her on the Russian desk because they had no one else who could read the volume she could read at the speed she could read it. She was running her own analysts inside of two years. They moved her up three times in five years because she kept solving problems they didn’t know they had.”

“Dad,” I mutter.

“I’m not saying anything that isn’t true.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’m allowed to be proud of you, kid. He can know that about you too.”

Finn’s looking at me, and my entire body tingles over the pride on his face. “I see her very clearly,” Finn tells my father. “There’s a lot to be proud of.”

My father’s eyes twinkle in satisfaction and he puts the other half of the bacon in his mouth.

We sit at my kitchen island and talk while we eat, the subjects evolving quickly. My father tells Finn a story about a horse he bought in his twenties that he couldn’t ride. A story I’d never heard before. Finn tells my father a story about getting lost while hiking in Yosemite, only to be “rescued” by a Boy Scout troop. My father tells Finn a story about being stationed in Okinawa. Finn tells my father he’s never been to Japan and would like to go. My father tells him to go, and they talk for ten minutes about all the wonderful places to dine.

I sit between them, content to eat my eggs and drink my coffee. I watch these two important men in my world recognize each other across the breakfast table and it’s the strangest, sweetest, most disorienting forty minutes of my adult life.

Finn looks at his watch. “I hate to eat and run, but I have to be at the gallery by ten,” he says apologetically. He pushes back from the stool, carries his plate to the sink and rinses it. He then turns back to my father. “Bill. It was a pleasure.”

“Likewise.”

They shake hands and Finn’s eyes meet mine. “Walk me to the door?”

“Of course,” I say, scrambling from my stool.

In the foyer, the sun is coming through the panel windows in long bright slants across the hardwood.

Finn leans into me and murmurs, “That went well.”

“Minus the part getting caught half naked by my dad,” I quip.

He puts a hand on the side of my face. “Listen… there’s an event at the gallery tonight. A small artist reception. Would you be my date?”

I look up at him and realize there’s nothing I’d love more. There’s no trafficking case, no crazy Russian hunting me. Just a man that I very much want to continue to spend time with. “I’d love to.”

Finn’s smile is bright and he leans in to kiss me. It’s a different kiss from the ones we’ve been doing all morning. It’s quiet and has a gentle weight to it.

He lifts his head. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Seven,” I murmur in agreement.

Then he’s gone and I close the door, leaning against it for a moment, my heart squeezing with the knowledge that Finn Marlowe has tipped my world upside down in the best possible way.

I find my father at the sink, washing dishes. I step beside him and dry the plates he hands me.

“Well,” he says. “You picked a charmer.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I ask, because his tone is so neutral, I can’t fathom his meaning.

“I’m not sure.” He rinses a cup and hands it to me. “I mean, he told me a true version of his life, but he left out some pieces. I noticed and I’m not going to ask. I’m just telling you I noticed.”

“Dad—”