“So,” Mia announced, clasping her hands on the tablecloth. “You did it.”

“Did what?”

“You lured me out of the house for the first date I’ve had in years.” She raised her eyebrows in challenge. “Time to show me what you’ve got, sugar.”

He flashed her a grin. “Hmmm…I can take my shirt off if you want. That usually gets the ladies goin’.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t doubt it. But I was thinking more along the lines of you wowing me with your conversational prowess.”

“All righty. Well. Name a topic and I promise to rock the shit out of it.”

Her answering laugh made his pulse race. He liked her laugh. It had a sweet lilt to it, like a pretty melody.

“Tell me where you grew up,” she ordered. “’Cause I know that’s not a California accent.”

“I’m from Texas. Grew up in a little town called Abbott Creek, about fifty miles west of Dallas.”

“Let me guess, you hail from a family of cowboys.”

“Yup. My folks own a cattle ranch, so I spent my entire childhood waking up at the crack of dawn to do a shitload of chores.”

“Did you like the ranch work?”

“I loved it,” he confessed. “Growing up I wanted nothin’ more than to stay on the ranch. Maybe buy a spread of my own someday.”

Her green eyes went thoughtful. “But you joined the navy instead. Why?”

He shrugged. “I needed a change.”

“Well, that’s vague.” She laughed again. “Care to elaborate?”

Discomfort welled inside him, but he forced himself to offer a few more details. “Small-town life is…oppressive, for lack of a better word. Everybody’s always stickin’ their noses into everybody else’s business. I got sick of it. I wanted to experience life beyond Abbott Creek, know what I mean?”

Mia nodded. “Yeah, I get that.”

The waiter returned with their drinks, then waited patiently while they scanned the menus and ordered their entrees. Once he was gone, Jackson turned the tables on his date.

“Have you always lived in California?” he asked.

“Naah, we moved around a lot when I was a kid. I was born in Colorado, but my mom moved us to New Jersey when I was five. Then we moved to Philly, Chicago, Atlanta, Missouri, um—I think I’m forgetting a few places—and then after high school I came to San Diego for college, and ended up loving it here. So I stayed.”

He wrinkled his forehead. “Why’d you move so much?”

The edge that crept into her voice told him he’d struck a nerve. “My mom kept getting married.”

Jackson blinked. “Huh?”

“She gets married a lot.” Mia absently dragged her index finger over the trail of condensation clinging to her water glass. “I think she’s on marriage number nine now.”

“Nine?” He was utterly dumbfounded.

“Actually, I could be wrong. I haven’t seen her in two years, so she could have tied the knot a couple more times, for all I know.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. “I think she’s trying to double Liz Taylor’s record.”

“So each time she got married she packed y’all up and moved you to a new city?”

“Well, it was more like each time she got divorced we packed up and moved to a new city. Trust me, her divorces were as epic as her marriages—no city was big enough to accommodate both Mom and her latest ex-husband.”

Jackson didn’t need to be a genius to figure out there were definitely some unresolved issues when it came to Mia’s relationship with her mother. But Lord, he couldn’t even imagine growing up with a parent like that. His folks were happily married and had been for nearly thirty years now, and they’d raised their family in the same little town where generations of their ancestors had put up roots.

“Moving so much must have been tough,” he remarked.

She gave a noncommittal shrug. “It was harder on Danny, I think.”

“Your brother?”

“Yeah. He never really got to be a normal kid, and with the ten-year age difference between us, I was already out of the house when he was just eight.”

“Sure, but you still had to deal with it for eighteen years of your life,” he pointed out.

Another shrug. “I managed. I’m a lot tougher than Danny, truth be told. He’s too softhearted for his own good. He always made excuses for our mom—still does. He refuses to admit how selfish she truly is.”

“Where is she now?”

“Who knows.” Mia took a long sip of water, unmistakable sadness washing over her expression. “She showed up at my door two years ago with Danny in tow and asked if he could crash with me while she went on a one-month honeymoon with her latest husband. I said sure—I mean, I love that kid to death—but once the month was over, she never came back.”

Shock spiraled through him. “Seriously?”

“Yep. She took off and never looked back. That’s why Danny’s living with me now. I filed for guardianship of him and the court approved my request on the grounds of abandonment.”

“Shit, Mia, that’s…”

“My life,” she finished. “But enough about that. No need for both of us to leave here bummed out and jonesing for antidepressants. Tell me about this SEAL thing.”

He grinned. “SEAL thing?”