Page 15 of Her Honorable Hero

Miranda stared long minutes into the moonlit night, thinking about her mom, thinking about the train. Finally sleep found her.

Three YearsEarlier

“I love the San Juan Capistrano station,” Miranda said as she pointed to the historic area. “Before my mom died, we visited the mission together,” she told him.

“When did your mom pass?” he asked. Passengers began boarding the train.

“Four years ago. It was always just the two of us. She died in a car accident on the Four-Oh-Five freeway.”

“I’m so sorry, Miranda.” He squeezed her hand. She gave him a small smile. “She was amazing.”

“If she was anything like you, I imagine she was.”

“We started out in Ohio. I don’t remember a lot about it except for making snow men in the winters. She came out here for a better job.”

“Where was your dad?”

“He was dead.”

This time he took her hand in both of his, “That must have been really tough.”

“He left before I was born. He was nothing to us. It was always just me and Mom.”

Miranda loved the warm smile that he gave her. “So she came out here for a job? What kind?”

“She worked as a copywriter. It didn’t pay a real lot, but it was enough for an apartment in a good neighborhood. She was the best, even when she was laid off when I was thirteen, she just went to night school to learn website design so she could start again. Nothing kept her down.” Miranda sighed.

She remembered her Mom working days checking groceries and going to school at night and then coming home and doing her homework until one or two o’clock in the morning. It was up to her to make sure that the house was taken care of. Miranda didn’t mind, considering everything her mom was doing. God, she missed her. She might have been twenty-four when her mother died, but she felt like a little girl when she got the news.

It was still so fresh, that moment when she received the call from Officer Gloria Vasquez of the California Highway Patrol. The woman’s softly-accented voice would be forever burned into her memory. Miranda’s first question had been if her mother had suffered, and the fact that Gloria couldn’t immediately reassure her, had been heartbreaking.

Images of her mother, racked with pain, as she was pinned inside her crushed car still haunted Miranda.

Had her mom cried out for her?

She was so confused.

“Babe?”

Was that Griff’s voice? Where was she?

“Mom?”

“No, Baby, wake up.”

She felt Griff pull her close, right from the chair until his warm body surrounded her. She melted against him. She hiccupped a sob.

“That’s it, let it out. I’m here for you.”

That woke her up all the way. She burrowed her cheek into the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent, taking comfort, but doing everything in her power to gain control. One of his big hands sifted through her hair, another stroked down her back. She tried to jerk out of his arms, not wanting to need comfort.

“It’s okay to cry you know.”

“I know.” Her breath echoed moist air back against her lips, and she tasted his skin.

“Miranda, Honey, talk to me,” he coaxed.

She sighed. He probably wasn’t going to let it go. Maybe that was a good thing.