Navy Blue - A Second Chance Romance (Complete)

Navy Blue: Chapter 11

"Lance, what are you doing here?"

Having finished a pick-up game of basketball, Finn, Max and Campbell were hanging out in the common room when the blond lawyer knocked on the open door.

"Trying to find you." Lance glanced at the other two men.

Finn introduced Campbell. After a round-robin of handshakes, Campbell asked what they were all curious about. "How did you get on the base?"

Lance puffed out his chest a little. "Interviewing clients. We have a special pass. Saves all the paperwork. The military loves its paperwork." The four men chuckled in agreement.

"Is Emily with you?" The question spilled out of Finn's mouth. He scrambled to cover up his fumble, but Lance was already talking as if it was a perfectly normal question.

"Yes and no. She's finishing up with Lieutenant Casey. I slipped out when she wasn't looking." Lance smirked like a little boy who was contemplating something naughty. "Emily is much better at these things than me. It's one of the reasons my father hired her. She knows military procedure inside and out."

Campbell and Max side eyed each other in curiosity. Finn asked the obvious question. "Why?"

"Don't ask me. Always been a bit obsessed with the military. Was way before I met her. I always joke that she must love a man in uniform." Campbell shifted beside Finn as Lance continued. "But she gets a little too involved if you ask me. Remember last year there was that dust-up in Conbadar? Well, you'd think Emily had family there. She was upset for weeks."

The three sailors shared a look. They remembered it alright. Finn's shoulder was still recovering from the bullet wound. And Campbell, well his scars were not physical and would take longer to heal. Their unit had been stranded behind enemy lines for three days and out of commission for more than a month in the aftermath.

"I didn't know it made the news over here." Campbell had a worried look on his face. Finn wondered if he was concerned of how much Lily knew. Being a military wife didn't give her clearance to all his missions and Campbell had tried to downplay this particular horror show.

"Barely." Lance waved off the comment like it was a mosquito. "Most of us had no clue what she was talking about. But Emily was obsessed. She gets that way."

"What am I obsessed about?"

The four men turned in unison to regard Emily. Shoulder leaning against the doorframe, her crossed arms straining against the jacket of her navy-blue suit. A cord inside Finn went taught at the sight of her, here and he dug his fingernails into his palms.

"Emily," Lance bounced. "You found us."

"Yes Lance," she pushed off the door and entered the room, a twinkle in her eye. "I followed the trail of bread crumbs."

The taunt, so like the Em he once knew, bounced against his strained stance like a quarter on a properly made military bunk and Finn's fingers relaxed. From the first day they met, she had this uncanny ability to cut through his unease with her breezy attitude and charm.

Lance looked down at his chest and dusted off some non-existent specks before looking up at her and laughing. "Oh right. Did I mention I wanted to find Wainwright?"

"Mission accomplished I'd say." Emily turned her pleasant face to Finn and the muscles in his stomach seized, not in an anxious way this time. It was the day they met and a thousand other times she'd lit up his world all over again. How had he lived without her?

Oh right, he hadn't. Merely existed.

He couldn't believe Emily was here. On the base. Many times, he'd fantasized about her showing up to his barracks, having tracked him down, promising the letter was all a misunderstanding, telling him she had been searching for him all this time. Her standing before him was surreal. He blinked, fully expecting Emily to disappear.