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And she knew that this was better than her girlhood dreams of being part of a royal family. In that moment she knew there was no king that would make a better grandfather than Don and no knight that would make a better suitor than Dax. Her reality was better than her fantasies.
***
“Arf!” Capone barked up at him as they waited in the SUV.
“She’ll be here in a minute.”
Dax wanted to give Ginny time to say goodbye to her grandfather in private. They were on the porch and he couldn’t hear what they were saying but he could see the emotion on their faces. Tears were falling down their cheeks.
The entire visit had been more emotional than he had expected. He could only speak for himself, and Capone, but from the moment Ginny threw herself into Don’s arms, he knew he knew he was in trouble. Don had started sobbing as he held the granddaughter he never knew he had from the son that was long gone. After witnessing that reunion they were both goners. He started tearing up and Capone sat whine-crying in the seat next to him before they’d even gotten out of the car.
It hadn’t got much better from there. All day he’d been fighting back emotion as he witnessed Ginny and her grandfather try to fit twenty-two lost years into one day. Their instant connection and love for each other was obvious.
He’d known that Ginny had been worried about what her grandfather would think of her, if he would love and accept her, but there’d never been a single doubt in Dax’s mind. Who wouldn’t love Ginny? She was everything that was good in this world wrapped up in a petite package of sassy intelligence and a heart bigger than the sky.
What had surprised him though, was how similar the two were. How many times they said the same thing at the same time. How many mannerisms they had in common. Before today if someone would have told him that a burly, seventy-something mountain man and a petite, soft spoken country singer would gesture the same, he’d have thought they were crazy. But they did.
They also ate the same way with the same rhythm and even laughed the same. He’d noticed that every time either one of them laughed their heads either went forward or backwards, it never stayed upright. He’d already noted it from the time he’d spent with Ginny because he’d thought it was so cute. Actually a lot of the things he’d thought were cute on Ginny he’d seen Don doing today and when he did them there wasn’t an ounce of cute in it.
Dax had met a lot of tough guys in his days in the Corps. His Major had been one of the most badass men he’d ever met in his life. He was like John Wayne, Chuck Norris and MacGyver all rolled into one. Dax had been sure that he’d never meet another man that came close to his level of badassery, until he met Don. He could see why The Colonel and Don had been friends and he had a feeling that in their day they got into some trouble.
Don was the kind of man that even a guy in Dax’s shape, at Dax’s age and with Dax’s training, knew his place in the pecking order the second he shook hands with him. If it came down to it, he would get his ass kicked by the older man. Don was just that guy. The man had just gotten back from spending two weeks in the woods, in the middle of winter in Illinois and he looked more rested and healthier than Dax did.
His real life was something to behold as well. He rescued dogs and trained them for veterans with PTSD, he was funny, smart and could cook a mean steak. He could totally understand why Ginny was taking so long to say goodbye, he hadn’t wanted to leave Don either.
“Arf!” Capone barked again, this time in excitement because Ginny was walking towards the car.
She was still brushing away tears as they waved and drove away. When she leaned back in her seat, Cap curled up on her lap and went right to sleep. He’d actually been surprised he’d made it the whole day without a nap. Usually, he slept for eighteen of the twenty-four hours in the day.
As they turned onto the main road, she asked, “Did that really just happen?”
“Yes, it did.” He reached over and squeezed her knee, then left it there.
It was the first time he’d touched her since they’d left the house this morning and it had been killing him to be so close to her and not be able to reach out and hug her, to kiss her, to pull her onto his lap. It had taken a lot more self-control than it should have considering Don had been watching him closer than his own mom had when she’d visited. He’d been going crazy just needing to touch her. For his sanity he needed to keep his hand where it was.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Ginny stared blankly out the front window and her expression reminded Dax of people when they were in shock. “Was it just me or is my grandpa not the coolest, toughest, most…”
“Badass,” Dax offered.
“Yes! Badass person ever?”
“No it’s not just you. He is.”
“I already miss him, is that weird?” she asked as she leaned over and snuggled against his shoulder.
“No, it’s not weird,” he assured her again. “At least for you it’s not, it is a little weird that I already miss him.”
Her head fell back and she laughed.
“You think I’m joking, but I’m not,” he said flatly.
She just laughed harder.
A loud ringing came through the speakers and his navigation screen lit up with a call coming from Nate. He wasn’t sure how great the reception was up here, but he’d been anxious to hear back from him so he answered.
“Hey man, you’re on speaker. I’m here with Ginny. We’re coming out of the back woods so I’m not sure how great the reception is going to be.”
“Got it. I’ve got some information on the leak. What’s your ETA?”
