He was nodding. “And then you tell yourself to pay attention and go do your job.”

“Yes.”

“It’s no different from what I do. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s doing what you must do, despite the fear. Flo, you’re one of the bravest people I know.”

“I’ve never felt brave.”

“Just because you didn’t want your dad to go to war doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you a child who loved her dad.”

Her eyes burned. “I did love him.” She looked at Colt’s hand in hers. “He was gone all the time, even then, and the fact that he dropped everything to take me to Disney— It felt magical. Safe. As if I mattered.”

“You matter, Tae.”

She lifted a shoulder, looked away. He reached up and nudged her gaze back to him. “You matter. It’s why your dad went to war—to make the world safer for you.”

“Was it worth it?” She hadn’t meant to ask it aloud, and it came out as a murmur, almost a breath, but Colt stiffened as if it had hit him.

“Worth what?”

“Going to war. Giving up his life. Sacrificing . . .” She swallowed.

“Sacrificing you.”

She nodded. “It doesn’t feel like it.” Her throat tightened. She’d thought she was over this grief, but sometimes it just appeared, like a rogue wave, washing over her, taking out her feet, slamming her to the ocean floor, bruising.

She couldn’t breathe.

Colt met her eyes. In his gaze a thousand words roamed, and he searched her face as if trying to find the right ones.

Wow, he had beautiful eyes. So brown, with flecks of gold at the center, as if there might be a treasure buried deep inside.

A treasure she very much wanted to uncover. In fact, the more time she spent with Colt, the more she found herself wanting more. Yes, more of his arms around her, more of his laughter, more of his bossy charm. Because being with Colt was simply . . . addicting.

In fact, he was everything she hadn’t realized was missing from her life.

“Yes,” he said finally, softly. “It was worth it. Because my guess was that it wasn’t as easy to leave you as you think it was. The man who brought you to Disney World, the man who enlisted after 9/11 to make the world a safer place, had one reason in mind . . . his daughter.”

His gaze met hers again, and she saw in his eyes his words “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

And for a moment, she was back at Jethro’s, watching Colt fight for his life. No, her life.

She slipped her hand over his arm. “You’re a good man, Colt.”