Page 20 of Her Honorable Hero

“Yep, we’ve been commuting together every Monday for the last nine weeks. I finally asked her to go out with me this morning.”

“You’re moving kind of slow, aren’t you?” Josiah said as he set down the container of creamer. Then Josiah’s gaze pierced him. “Damn, Griff, I’m the one who’s slow today. You’re commuting in from your parents’, aren’t you?”

Griff nodded.

“Nick mentioned something last year about your dad being ill, but he didn’t say anything again, so I thought he was fine. What’s going on?”

“Dad’s going through chemo. But things are really looking up now. It’s been tough on my mom, and Darla is pregnant with her first baby, so there’s a lot going on. I’ve been trying to give Dad and Mom as much of my time as possible.”

Josiah clapped him on his shoulder. “You’re doing good, Son.”

“What about you? Why are you and Scarlett on the train?”

“We did the bed and breakfast thing in San Juan Capistrano.”

Looking out the window over the ocean, Griff suddenly had a vision of Miranda lying in a four poster bed. She’d look beautiful with her black hair fanned out over a pillow.

“Are you with me, Porter?” Josiah asked with a shit-eating grin.

“Sorry, my brain just got side-tracked for a—”

A thunderous roar.

The train lurched.

As if in slow motion, Griff saw the coffee begin to rise as his body was propelled up off the floor. He was thrown up and backwards, like he was in a tidal wave.

The lights went out, but the sun still shone through cracked and broken windows.

He heard the metal shriek.

His head and back slammed into steel.

Everything went dark.

* * *

Griff pausedfor a long time in his telling of the story, then he kissed Miranda softly on her forehead. “I’ve never been more scared in my life, than when I woke up. All I thought about was getting back to you. I couldn’t believe that the crash could have happened while Josiah and I were away from our two women.”

“So, you had already considered me ‘your woman’?” Miranda questioned with a hint of laughter.

“Oh, Baby, you might not have known it, but you’d been mine for weeks.” Again he looked deep into her eyes. “And for you? What was it like when you woke up?”