Page 24 of Steinbeck
“A smokejumper, back in the day when Mom was obsessed with firefighters.She lived for a while in a town in Montana called Ember.Hence...the name.”
“Emberly.”He said it softly, and hearing it from him that way unlatched something forbidden inside her.
No.She did not want to be known?—
“Don’t panic.I can call you Phoenix if you want.”
“I wasn’t panicking?—”
“You were.You have a tell.Your eyes sort of widen, just for a second, and the tiny gold flecks in your eyes flash.It’s totally panic.”He took a sip of his coffee.“Why don’t you like the name Emberly?”
“I...Emberly is a dreamer and the person I can be when I don’t have to look over my shoulder.”She drew in a breath.“It’s been a very long time since I saw myself as Emberly.”
“Your handler does.”
“That’s because she knew me back when I started.She likes to remind me of who I was, I think.”
“Who were you?”
“Eager.Hopeful.I saw a chance at a new life, and I grabbed it.”
“Why did you need a new life?”
“You’re very nosy.”
“It’s a nine-hour flight.”
“You already slept through half of it there, Sleeping Beauty.”
One side of his mouth lifted.“Listen, I get it.”He leaned back.“Fair is fair—ask me anything.”
Outside, the clouds tufted around them, jockeying for space, the sunlight falling onto the ocean below, an endless blue.She looked back at him.“If you could do anything, restart your life, what would you do?”
He shrugged.“Nothing.”
“Not even shoot me and not look back?”
His mouth opened.Closed.“What?”
“I cost you everything, Stein.Your SEAL career.It’s because you trusted me.And yet here you are...” She shook her head.
He stared at his coffee, back at her, his shoulders rising and falling.“Okay, yes, I hated you.I hated that you betrayed me, and maybe...somewhere deep inside I don’t trust you.”
“Wow.That’s...Maybe let’s go back to talking about food.”
His mouth made a grim smile.“Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.”
“SEAL talk?”
“Grover Kingston.My dad loved to quote John Maxwell.”
“And this is you failing forward?”
“Maybe I don’t want everything we’ve been through to be for nothing.”He took another sip of coffee.“Besides.I think youaretrustworthy, Emberly Hart.More than you want to admit.”
She made a face.“So you’d change nothing?”
He met her eyes, held them.“I’d change the moment in Cuba when I let you go.”
