The SEAL's Miracle Baby. Laura Marie Altom

cries “—Ben, maybe the last things we need are grandkids.”

      “Maybe so,” his dad said, while, on the TV, John Wayne drew his gun.

      With both older men engrossed in the movie, Grady took his beer and meandered out to the shadowy pool deck.

      More power had been restored to the outlying areas affected by the storm, but the swath of greatest destruction was still dark.

      The screen door creaked open and then banged shut.

      Grady looked over to witness Jessie dart from the house.

      In the low light, she couldn’t see him watching her as she retreated to a bench-seat covered swing. When she then started crying, Grady found himself in the unfamiliar territory of being unsure what to do. Since the day he’d earned his SEAL Trident, it had been drilled into him to make swift, fact-based decisions, but nowhere in any drill or manual had a situation like this been covered. Since Jessie had broken things off with him, his experience with women had resided solely in the realm of the temporary. Things were fun while they lasted, but the moment he was called out on his next mission, he cut things off with clinical precision. There were no hurt feelings, because he’d been clear from the start that whatever was shared was purely physical.

      He might be brave in gunfire, but when it came to surrendering his heart? Forget it. Jessie had assured he would never love again.

      Lord, he wanted to go to her, drawing her into his arms—not just to stop her tears, but figure out the reason behind them. But what good would that do? They were no longer friends any more than they were lovers. They were nothing. Strangers who’d happened to meet under difficult circumstances.

      In stealth mode, using the shadows to his advantage, he crept from her line of sight.

      But before retreating around the backside of the house, he made the mistake of taking one last look at her defeated form.

      She sat sideways on the swing and hugged her knees to her chest. Moonlight shone in her teary eyes. The effort it took to stop from running to her damn near killed him. But for his own self-preservation—hell, self-respect—he had to avoid her like poison. Because to him, to his ego, to his carefully walled-off emotions, that was exactly what she was.