Heroes in Uniform: Soldiers, SEALs, Spies, Rangers and Cops: Sexy Hot Contemporary Alpha Heroes From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors

by Sharon Hamilton

  His gaze dropped from her eyes, seemed to touch on her mouth, then lower, to the moon of skin between the scoop neck of her shell and the silk of the scarf.

  She managed a smile. “How’d you get so wise about children?”

  “I was one, remember?” His lips curled. With his head slightly dipped, shadow prevented her from telling if the smile reached his eyes. “Besides, I had a wise mother.”

  She wasn’t sure he’d ever truly been a child. From the time she’d known him he’d been reliable, steady, serious. Intent on doing the right thing on important matters. Perhaps it had been the effect of his mother’s long battle with cancer.

  “Your mother...” She tried to call up an image, but failed. “I don’t remember her. I know all the Suslands came back every summer when you and Kendra were babies, but by the time I started coming out to the ranch, it was just you and Kendra.”

  “I wish you’d known my mother,” he said in a deep, low voice. “You’d have liked her. She’d have loved you.”

  Ellyn became aware of her heartbeat in a way she hadn’t been even an instant earlier, not only the fact of it, but hearing the sound of it, feeling the warmth of the blood it pulsed through her.

  “I wish I had, too.” The words came out a throaty whisper. She cleared her throat, trying to grab back normalcy. “It must have been hard for you – ”

  “We’re ready! We’re ready!”

  Ben’s announcement preceded him like a trumpet call, ending the adult conversation. She could see Grif’s relief, and understood it.

  Where that moment of something else had come from, she didn’t know – probably her imagination – and clearly Grif didn’t want her imagining such things.

  Hadn’t she learned that lesson when she was eighteen?

  * * *

  Dinner was going better than Grif had feared, mostly because of Ben’s enthusiastic anticipation of his steak. And to a small measure because of Grif’s foresight in having the salads preordered.

  It helped take the edge off their appetites, of course, but it also gave them each something to do during the silences. And with Meg’s apparent vow of silence added to Ellyn’s tendency to drift into unfocused abstractions, on top of his own lack of small talk and Ben’s chatter being interrupted by the higher need to eat, there had been definite gaps in the conversation.

  The waitress had cleared the salad dishes, and the main dishes hadn’t arrived yet. Grif reached for the basket of rolls, intending to pass it around a second time.

  “I heard it was true,” came a female voice from behind him, “but I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Grif was already rising from his seat and turning before the final phrase, a grin spreading across his face.

  “Kendra.” He wrapped the always-elegant figure of his cousin into an easy hug. “How are you?”

  “I’m great, Grif. The question is, how are you? And why didn’t you come see me? My cousin, whom I haven’t seen in several years, drives right past my house and doesn’t even stop to say hello.”

  “I was going to come by in the morning,” he defended himself. “I wish I could have been at the wedding, Kendra.”

  “I do, too.” She smiled and hugged him again. “Well, you’re not getting out of it this time – you are going to meet the newest members of your family.”

  She gestured to a dark-haired man holding the toddler who looked like a miniature version of him with added hints of Kendra. She smiled at the man and boy in a way Grif had never seen his cautious, self-contained cousin smile.

  “Grif, this is my husband, Daniel Delligatti, and our son, Matthew. Daniel and Matthew, this is my cousin – Grif, to one and all, except the United States Army where he’s now Colonel John Griffin Junior.”

  “Congratulations, Colonel,” said Daniel Delligatti, extending a hand with easy grace.

  “I should be the one saying congratulations to you – for marrying Kendra.” Delligatti’s dark eyes warmed. “I’ve heard a lot about Daniel Delligatti from the family and...other sources.”

  Delligatti’s eyebrows quirked up in immediate recognition of the “other sources” available to someone who worked at the Pentagon. “Other sources” could find out about someone who until recently had worked for the government, ostensibly strictly as a pilot. Delligatti’s eyes revealed a shade of amusement.

  “I’d be willing to bet that those sources found out no more than my brother wanted them to find out.”

  “Robert Delligatti Junior’s not a bad man to have in the family tree,” Grif acknowledged with a small smile.

  “You knew Daniel and Robert are brothers?” Kendra asked, as she reached over to adjust the collar of her son’s jacket. Matthew had watched the entire proceedings in wide-eyed silence. “Wait a minute!” She turned and faced her cousin. “You had Daniel checked out? Grif, how could you do that? That’s – ”

  The rest of what promised to be an indignant tirade evaporated under Daniel’s laughter. “What are you griping about, Kendra? You had me checked out, too.”

  “That’s different. It was my life – and Matthew’s. I had every right.”

  “And if the situations had been reversed, you know darn right that you’d have checked out someone Grif was getting involved with,” contributed Ellyn from her seat.

  Grif immediately picked up that opening. “And would have been at the front of the line promising dire retribution if this someone ever hurt me.”

  “That was subtle, Grif.” Judging from the twitches at the corners of her mouth Kendra was having a hard time keeping a grin under control.

  “Sorry, Grif, but you’d have to get way back in a long line, anyhow,” Daniel said cheerfully. “Behind Ellyn, here, and Marti and Luke Chandler and Fran and – ”

  “Me,” Kendra inserted.

  “And that’s the most frightening of all.”

  The newly married husband and wife smiled at each other in a way that had nothing to do with fright.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Grif offered, “We just ordered. I’ll get more chairs and – ”

  “No, no, we can’t stay,” Kendra said. “Daniel’s on call tonight with Search and Rescue and Matthew’s tired out. He just had a shot, and I think it’s made him particularly sleepy. Believe me, he’s not usually this subdued.”

  “Yeah, Matthew’s a chatterbox,” contributed Ben, clearly repeating something he’d heard.

  “He sure is,” agreed Daniel. “Ben and I could hardly hold a conversation yesterday afternoon at the baby-sitting co-op. Hey, Ben, sorry again that I can’t help you out with that project. Have you come up with another idea?”

  The little boy drooped. “Not yet.”

  Ellyn looked from boy to man and back. “What project’s that?”

  “Nothing, Mom.” He pushed at a butter-smeared cracker on his plate with the tip of his knife.

  “Daniel, I’d heard you were involved in coordinating and training regional search and rescue,” Grif said, diverting attention from Ben. “I’d like to talk to you about that.”

  “Anytime. I might pick your brain about how to get more cooperation from the folks at Fort Piney, too.”

  “Hey, we didn’t come here to talk business,” Kendra said.

  “You mean it’s not lucky coincidence that you stopped by this restaurant?”

  “My dear cousin, you have been away from Far Hills way too long if you have to ask. We were coming into Sheridan for Matthew’s checkup, and I called Marti to see if she wanted me to pick up anything. She said you’d arrived this afternoon, and she said Fran said you were taking Ellyn and the kids here for dinner – so here we are, tracking you down to say hello, since you didn’t bother to come see your poor old cousin.” She looked at the Sinclairs. “You guys must have been more interesting.”

  “Grif’s known me since I was a baby,” explained Ben. “Littler even than Matthew.”

  “He’s known me since I was littler than Matthew, too. That didn’t seem to
weigh very heavily with him.” Kendra looked from Grif to Ellyn, speculation brightening her eyes. “Must have been something else that put your house on the top of his list.”

  * * *

  The departure of Kendra, Daniel and Matthew coincided with the arrival of the main courses, producing a decided lull in the conversation. At least that was the reason for Meg and Ben’s distraction.

  Grif’s face had stiffened into stern lines at Kendra’s comment about the order of his visits. Ellyn felt a double dose of discomfort, on her own behalf and his, at the apparent misreading of the situation. Apparent, yet also awkward to rectify, because explaining would make too big a deal of it.

  So they ate in silence, a mocking parody of the companionable silences that had marked their friendship from the start.

  As an only child of a widowed mother who had made a career of finding the right man to provide for her, Ellyn had been equally uncomfortable with people and words when she started spending summers at Far Hills Ranch. Fran Sinclair, the Neals’ new neighbor in town, had suggested Ellyn should go along with Dale to join the Susland descendants and the son of the foreman for the summers of ranch chores and ranch delights.

  Dale had ignored her when he wasn’t poking fun at her and the other girls. Kendra and Amy had been nice, but they had a special friendship that had made her feel left out. Luke Chandler had tended to go his own way. So Grif had taken her under his protective wing. She had cherished their long, wordless rides.

  Perhaps it had been inevitable that a girl like her would form a severe case of hero worship as they grew older. After her blunder at eighteen, it had been the companionable silences of their childhood rides that had let them bridge that barrier and form the adult friendship they’d created.

  And now that was gone, too...

  Dismay washed over her – so much had changed. Too much. Why did this have to change, too?

  Grif hasn’t changed. He smells just the same. Like man and strength and integrity.

  That popped out of a corner of her mind Ellyn didn’t even recognize, and arrived so suddenly that her fork clattered to her plate dispersing its load of green beans.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, fine.” Aware of Grif studying her, she kept her head down as she scooped most of the beans off the tablecloth and deposited them at the edge of her plate.

  “Don’t you have to eat those in order to have dessert?” Ben asked, and Ellyn could practically hear the vegetable-hating gears in his brain whirring.

  “No. I’ve already eaten most of my vegetables.”

  “But they didn’t fall on the floor or anything,” pointed out Meg.

  “Yeah, so – ”

  Ellyn cut off this rare accord between siblings. “You have to eat your vegetables, or you get no dessert. And if you have a staged accident with your vegetables, you still won’t get dessert.”

  There were no further accidents, staged or otherwise.

  Over dessert – Ellyn ordered white chocolate mousse, and shook her head when Grif asked why she was smiling – Meg dropped the next rock into the calm waters of the evening.

  “I have to go to Buffalo to sign up for the select soccer league – you promised I could play this summer after we missed sign-ups last year.”

  “I know I did. When are sign-ups? I didn’t see it on the calendar.”

  “I haven’t put it up yet,” Meg admitted. “It’s Saturday. At nine.”

  “Oh, Meg, I can’t. I have to work that day. It’s on the calendar. Did you check?”

  “But it’s a Saturday!” That protest made it unnecessary to answer the question – Meg hadn’t checked the family calendar because she’d assumed her mother would be free. As she used to be at all times before she’d had to go to work at the Banner.

  “I know, but that’s the day the special section Marti and Kendra and I have been working on since the fall comes out. There’s a festival to celebrate Far Hills’ history at the library and we all have to be there to help promote the special section.”

  “Mom! You have to do this. You have to.”

  “Meg, I’m sorry, honey, but I can’t. Perhaps if you call, they can make other arrangements – ”

  “The notice said no special arrangements. This is the only time – ever.”

  Her daughter’s drama threatened to overflow into tears, but Ellyn knew she couldn’t buckle. Household rules had been looser in Washington, but sticking to the rules, whether they had to do with organization, economy or consideration of other members of the family, had become a necessity for keeping their lives in order.

  “It’s unfortunate, Meg, but – ”

  “I’ll ask Luke. He’ll – ”

  “You will not ask Luke. He’s in the middle of calving season, and the poor man is getting very little sleep. I forbid you to ask him, do you understand?”

  “But Moooom...”

  “I’ll take you, Meg.”

  Grif’s voice brought Meg’s head around, tears suspended on her eyelashes. “You?”

  “Me. I’m free Saturday morning.”

  Ellyn opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. True, Meg would be getting around household rules, but it was also true that if their family were still whole there would be a second adult available to fill in the inevitable gaps – as Grif was offering to do. Just like a father. She slanted him a look without turning her head. Did he realize the role he’d be filling?

  No, of course not. He was just being a nice guy. Slipping into his role of family friend he’d held before. His life had been a clear path of opting for career over home and family. The idea that he’d been acting like a father would probably appall him.

  “You’ll forget.”

  Meg’s harsh words snapped Ellyn’s attention back to the moment. “Meg, you apologize. Grif’s offered to do you a favor and you’re being rude.”

  Meg stared at her, clearly startled at her vehemence.

  “It’s okay, Ellyn – ”

  “No, it’s not okay. Margaret Ellyn, I’m waiting.”

  Meg’s eyes had gone from one adult to the other, now her gaze dropped to her lap. “Sorry.”

  When Grif would have responded, Ellyn stilled him with a gesture. Finally Meg glanced up, then down again. “I’m sorry for being rude, Grif. Thank you for offering to give me a ride.” The words were stiff, and she made no eye contact, but they did fit the requirements.

  Grif waited until Ellyn gave a slight nod before saying, “You’re welcome, Meg. I’ll be at your house at eight-fifteen. And here – ” he added as he jotted something on a napkin “ – is the number you can call Saturday to make sure I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Grif, that’s not necessary,” Ellyn protested.

  He handed the slip to Meg.

  “I can understand Meg wanting to make sure. Just remember, Meg, you need to be ready so we can leave.”

  Meg mumbled an agreement, but Ellyn noticed she also folded the napkin and placed it in her sweater pocket.

  * * *

  The drive home was silent. A sated silence from Ben. A torn silence from Meg, who still didn’t want to believe, but didn’t want to refuse, either. A customary silence from Grif. And from her?

  A busy silence. Busy sorting out what had happened since Grif emerged from his rental car this afternoon.

  Busy sorting out how she felt about it.

  She’d been thrilled to see him. John Griffin Junior was one of her oldest friends. Friend being the key word.

  Okay, so she’d had a few stray thoughts of another kind about him this afternoon. Surprise knocked her off balance, distorting her reactions. Plus maybe a little of what Kendra and Marti and Fran kept saying about her spending too much time alone, isolated on the ranch. She was lonely.

  Although that hadn’t prompted her at any point in the past year to look at Luke Chandler’s rear end with anything but the technical recognition that it was a fine bit of anatomy. Not the way she’d looked at Grif’s when he’d been bending – />
  Ellyn turned to stare out the side window. Reflected in the glass, she saw faint, wavering images of her daughter and son in the back seat. All her scattered, contradicting, unfocused reactions dissipated, as if she’d been in a fog and the sun had come out.

  Meg and Ben.

  If her reactions to Grif were this jumbled, what would theirs be? They might hear that he was staying a short time, but would they understand it and believe it? Especially since he was already slipping back into the role he’d once played in their lives.

  So it was time to ask hard questions. For her kids, and for herself.

  * * *

  Grif braked to a smooth stop in the driveway behind a parked pickup. “Were you expecting someone?” he asked.

  “Must be Luke. He said he might stop by to fix – but I didn’t think he’d have a chance.”

  “Fix what?”

  “Things,” she said as they got out of the car. “Kids, say thank you, then go in and get ready for bed. It’s late.”

  Ben said a sleepy thanks and good night. Meg’s was mumbled, but passable.

  “You’re welcome. I’ll see you both soon.”

  Ellyn slowed her steps even more, and Grif matched her, so the kids were inside before the adults reached the bottom of the corner steps that opened to the porch both along this side of the house and across the back.

  “Grif, I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Okay.”

  Words she’d carefully gathered during the drive scattered like dust motes in the Wyoming wind. “Grif, why did you come?” she asked in a rush.

  “You don’t think I should have? Everyone else seems glad I’m visiting Far Hills.”

  “Of course you should come back anytime you want. This is your home. I didn’t mean – But you haven’t come back before. Not for a long time.”

  He looked away. “It was time.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly, absorbing his sidestepping. She didn’t need to know his reason to make her point. “I can understand that – because an adult knows friendships can be transitory, or relationships can crumble, but kids think such things are forever. Maybe you’ve forgotten how Ben and Meg – ”