Page 32 of Jolene's Justice

Derrik’s jaw dropped open in disbelief. “You’ve never ridden a carousel? Dude, you’re like what? Fifty? How have you never been on a carousel before?”

“Dude,” Finch mocked, playfully throwing the term back at the kid. “I’m only thirty-three.”

“Like I said . . . old.” The teasing glint in the kid’s eyes made Jolene laugh.

“You have a warped sense of what old is,” Finch complained.

“You’re over double my age,” Derrik howled. Jolene found the situation so hilarious that she couldn’t stop laughing.

Finch shot her a withering glare. “You’re older than me, remember?”

“Hey,” the older brother said. “She’s hot. I could go for a cougar. How ’bout it, darlin’?” His lecherous gaze drifted over her as he spoke.

Finch stiffened beside her. “Mark,” Derrik called. “Not a good idea to be hitting on this guy’s girl. He looks like he knows a dozen ways to kill you.”

“Try more like a hundred,” Finch mumbled.

Mark’s eyes widened as the color drained from his face. “You some sort of SEAL or something?”

“I was in the Air Force.”

The boys at the table burst out laughing. The one with the shaggy hair said, “Isn’t the Air Force like the joke of the military?”

“Yeah. The Navy has SEALs. The Army has those Delta guys. And the Marines . . . well, they’re marines. What does the Air Force have?”

“Who do you think those guys call when they need a ride?”

They laughed harder. “A glorified Uber,” Mark cawed.

Finch narrowed his eyes at the group, and Jolene felt a tingle run up her spine. “Sure. You can call me an Uber if you want. But imagine you’re one of those SEALs and pinned down by enemy fire. You’re bleeding out from a gunshot wound. Your teammates are in worse shape than you. You only have a few dozen rounds left. And you wonder if you’ll ever see your family again. The only thing going through your head is you hope yourUberarrives soon to save your ass.”

The weight of his words hung heavy in the air as the kids sat in stunned silence. Finally, Derrik spoke. “You flew into war zones like that?”

“That and more.”

“My cousin is in the Army,” the petite girl shared. “He told me a story about the men who flew into enemy fire to pick them up. He said he’d never seen anything like it. They were, like, crazy skilled. Said he owed his life to those pilots.”

“Are you still in the Air Force?” Derrik asked, seeming enthralled by the information.

“No.”

“Why’d you get out?” Mark asked.

Finch shrugged. “It was time.” She sensed there was more to it than that simple answer. They’d never gotten around to discussing his military career back when they were circling around each other. Now she wished they’d talked about it more, but seeing him shut down the kids with such a curt answer, she doubted he would have shared the story with her anyway. There was a momentary flicker of inner turmoil and anguish on his face, but it disappeared so quickly that she wondered if she had imagined it.

“Dude,” shaggy-haired boy said. “What does one do after leaving a career like that?”

Jolene stepped in to answer when Finch seemed hesitant to speak. “He’s now a Nighthawk.”

“What’s a Nighthawk?” Mark asked.

The girls at the table all gasped. “I know what that is,” the petite blonde said. “They’re those rescue guys who saved Marcus Rayne.”

“The Titan?” Mark asked, speaking of Marcus’s most famous movie role. The girls all nodded with dreamy looks on their faces.

“That’s sic,” Derrik stated.

“Jolene here is the best friend of Marcus’s girlfriend,” Finch deflected, putting the attention on her and sending the girls into fits of excitement.

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