Peyton frowned. “Your mom’s right. It could take hours for a plumber to show up. Besides, they’ll charge a fortune. It’s silly for her to pay all that money if you can fix it.” She eyed him. “You can fix it, right?”
“Probably, but—”
“Then it’s settled. Call and tell her we’ll come right over.”
He lifted a brow. “We will?”
Peyton nodded. “You said you go where I go, right? That means I have to go with you.”
“What about your writing?”
She made a face. “I’m stuck anyway. That’s why I was dancing around before, remember? Getting away from the keyboard for a while will help. Call your mom while I go change.”
Noah opened his mouth to stop her, but she’d already left the room. Damn, it seemed Peyton could be a force of nature when she wanted to be. Shaking his head, he took out his phone and called his mom—who was thrilled to hear he was coming—then went downstairs to wait for Peyton.
She came down ten minutes later dressed in a long, flowy, colorful skirt and sleeveless top. Damn, she made Boho look awesome!
“Do you have your hard drive?” he asked as he held the door open.
She patted the huge purse she had slung over one shoulder. “It’s like that credit card commercial. I never leave home without it.”
Crap, between her coming with him to his mother’s house and him making sure she had her book with her, it was like they were a couple.
As they walked to his SUV, Noah automatically checked the area for threats. He didn’t expect anyone to try anything with him there, but years of training and instincts couldn’t be ignored.
He glanced at Peyton as he backed out of the driveway. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Running over to my mom’s with me. I promise I’ll fix the sink as quickly as I can.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Peyton said. “I’ve loved your mom from the moment Laurissa introduced us at our first parents’ weekend in college.”
Noah felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “Sounds about right. Everyone who’s ever met my mom falls in love with her.”
Peyton laughed. “Which is why I’m at her house so much with your sister. Which makes me wonder how it is that I’ve never met you in person before now.”
He winced. He already felt crappy enough about not visiting his mother very often, especially since he certainly lived close enough. “I know I don’t get over there as much as I should, but with my job, it’s tough. I’m either gone on missions, training, or too worn out to even want to leave my apartment.”
“I guess riding sharks while chasing nuclear submarines can be exhausting,” she said.
“Riding sharks?” Noah kept one eye on the road while glancing over at Peyton, sure he must have heard her wrong. “What are you talking about?”
Peyton laughed. “It was just something Laurissa said yesterday about the kind of stuff you do in the SEALs.”
Noah could definitely believe his sister saying something like that, mostly because he never told her anything about what he did for a living. His mom and sister worried about him enough. “I’ve done some crazy things as a SEAL, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never ridden a shark. I think I’d remember that.”
“I think she got you confused with Aquaman.” Peyton laughed again, then regarded him thoughtfully. “What made you join the Navy and become a SEAL?”
Noah opened his mouth, intending to give Peyton the standard line about wanting to serve his country and patriotism. But while both of those things had played a part in him joining the Navy, they weren’t the deciding factors. And for some reason, he wanted her to know the real reason he did.
“Did Laurissa tell you about our dad bailing on us when we were kids?”
She nodded.
“The part Laurissa probably didn’t know is that he took everything he and my mom had in savings when he left.” Noah tightened his hold on the wheel. Just thinking about it pissed him off. “Mom worked double shifts at the hospital where she was a nurse to make ends meet, but with no child support, we weren’t in the best of situations. She did her best not to let any of it affect us, saying it was her responsibility to take care of us. She wouldn’t even let me get a part-time job to help out until I was seventeen. She was too afraid it’d interfere with school.”
“Wow.” Peyton shook her head. “I always knew your mom was awesome, but I think I underestimated her.”
Noah chuckled. “Yeah, she’s all that and a bag of chips. But no matter how great my mom is or how hard she worked, she couldn’t replace all the money my dad took. Something had to be sacrificed and that something was our college fund. There simply wasn’t enough to send two people to school. Hell, there wasn’t enough to send one.”
Peyton looked at him like he was the fuzziest puppy in the litter. “You went in the Navy so Laurissa would have money to go to school? That’s so sweet I want to hug the stuffing out of you.”
He shrugged, thinking he might like getting hugged like that. Especially if she was the one doing the hugging. “I have to admit, the move wasn’t completely altruistic. Truthfully, when I graduated high school, college would have been a waste for me. My head wasn’t in the right place for it. The military seemed like a more logical choice at the time, so I went to a recruiter and, as the saying goes, the rest is history.”
“Why the Navy?”
“My grandfather was in the Navy,” he said. “He’d tell me stories all the time about it when I was a kid, so I didn’t have to think too hard about which branch of service I wanted to join. My grandfather would never have let me live it down if I joined any of the others.”
She smiled. “I bet your grandfather was very proud when he saw
