Page 14 of Her Honorable Hero

“Fire away.”

“What made you decide to become a SEAL? After I met you, I looked it up. That BUD/S training is intense. What makes a person decide to put themselves through something like that?”

Griff hesitated. He didn’t normally open up about that. But then again, no woman had ever thought to ask him such a direct question.

“My great-grandfather and two of his brothers were on the beach at Normandy. Papa John died when I was seventeen. I grew up hearing about World War Two. When I was sixteen, he and his brother Alfred were reminiscing and they talked to me about that day. It was horrific. But they were proud. Their brother, Harold, died on Omaha Beach.”

Miranda reached out and put her hand on his. He turned his hand so their palms met and their fingers tangled. She was small and delicate compared to him. Light to his dark.

“All three of them enlisted right after Pearl Harbor.” Griff hesitated. “They were something else. I wanted to be just like them.”

“I imagine you did.” Miranda smiled up at him. The loudspeaker called for the next stop as the train slowed down.

* * *

Griff jerked in his sleep,waking both himself and Miranda.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Griff gave her a sleepy smile that made her sigh with pleasure. His warmth enveloped her and she felt protected. “Hope’s story made me dream about that morning on the train.”

“Did it?” Miranda smiled and stroked Griff’s face.

“Yeah. Right up to the stop at San Juan Capistrano Station.”

The San Juan Capistrano Mission.

Oh God. Mom.

Miranda did her best to hide her emotions. “Yeah, I remember that part,” she kept her voice light-hearted. “Nothing’s changed, I still like flirting with you.”

“Me too.” Griff yawned and drifted back off to sleep. His low breathing soothed her as she nestled closer to his chest. His arm tightened a little around her waist. Even in sleep, he seemed to know when she needed comforting. Miranda waited long moments, listening for the sound of his breath to deepen before she shifted the comforter.

“Babe?” he whispered softly.

A thousand out of a thousand times, and she’d never gotten past him.

“Just need a glass of water.” She pressed her palm against his heart. She knew he smiled. He always did when she touched him that way.

“Come back soon,” he slurred. Griff dug his fist under his pillow and settled back to sleep. She stood still beside the bed, ensuring his breathing evened out before she grabbed the baby monitor off the dresser and left the bedroom. Even with the monitor in her hand, she couldn’t help veering off and checking in on Livvie. Her baby looked just like Griff. People said that their daughter was an amalgamation of the two of them, but she was all Porter. She didn’t see any Slade in the little girl. Her big brown eyes, silky black hair and beautiful honey skin, they were all her daddy’s. One day they’d take her to Hawaii and she and Griff would look like natives.

Now that she was assured that both of the people she loved were safely asleep, she padded to her little corner of the living room. It was a corner that had a shelf of books, pictures, and a tall window that showed a view of one of the many valleys in the inland area surrounding San Diego. Miranda’s chair looked over both the shelf and the window so she could see pictures of Griff, Livvie, his family, and finally, her mom, all juxtaposed by the vastness of nature.

She settled in her oversized chair and put the baby monitor on the shelf, then snuggled against one of the soft plush arms. She plucked up the small picture of Olivia Rose Slade off the bookcase. Her mother hadn’t been a big smiler, but by God, Miranda had coaxed one out of her that day, and she’d caught it on film. She loved this picture. It was taken on one of those days they’d visited an old Spanish mission in Southern California.

“I miss you, Mom,” she said as she brushed her thumb over her Mom’s gentle features.

She loved that her eyes were sparkling, when many times they’d been shadowed. Miranda had known it was because of the utter bastard who had haunted their lives. Her mother always glossed over who and where her father was, trying to get Miranda to believe that he had died before she was born or some such nonsense, but Miranda saw through that like a clear mountain stream. Miranda figured that even if she hadn’t had that one memory from when she was around the age of four, she still would have known that her father had done Olivia Slade wrong. But because she’d eavesdropped, she would never forget just how cold, how mean and how evil her father had really been.

Miranda bit her lip and locked the memory back in the depths of her mind, where it belonged. He was nothing to her. Less than nothing.

She moved her focus back to her Mom’s smile, that’s what was important. This woman who had sacrificed so much for her to have a good life.

“Griff would have knocked your socks off, Mom.” She brushed back a tear. “No matter what, I can count on him. And so will Livvie, she’ll never doubt for a second that she’s loved and protected, Mom. Not one damned second.”

Yep, she’d chosen well.

She sat back into her chair and pulled the afghan around her, remembering back to all those days when her man, Griffin Porter, had pursued her. That man had gotten her into his sights, and lasered in. How many times had he told her that story? How he had planned to ask her out that day when everything had started out so perfectly.