Navy Seal Promise. Amber Leigh Williams

felt the urge to laugh. Bea’s seriousness kept the brevity from breaking the surface. Clearing her throat, she said in the practical tones her intuitive preschooler would appreciate most, “It’s only called a strawberry moon.”

      “Why?” Bea asked, features squelched as she gazed, skeptical, at the impressive nightly specter.

      Harmony pursed her lips. “Well, it’s red. Like a strawberry.”

      “Tomatoes are red.”

      “True.” Harmony nodded.

      “And Mammy’s tulips. And puppy noses.”

      “All valid points.” And Harmony did smile, because the thought of a Puppy-Nosed Moon was too amusing to resist. She loved Bea’s mind. She loved its precociousness and the great kaleidoscope of imagination that kept it from maturing too quickly. “But I think it’s called a strawberry moon because... You remember talking in day school about the first people who lived on this land, the Native Americans?”

      “Uh-huh?”

      “Well, those same Native Americans needed to know when their strawberries were ready for picking. So the moon would paint itself up like a strawberry to tell them.”

      “Oooh.” Bea tilted her head, as if viewing the moon through a new lens. “It looks like blackberry juice.”

      “It does, doesn’t it?” A heady breeze stirred the trees into a whispering frenzy. It brought the smell of salt far inland, an early herald of the storm. Shifting from one knee to another, Harmony drew the folds of her sweater close. Planes would be grounded for the next few days until the damn thing spun itself north to the Plains and petered there.

      June brought pop-up thunderstorms. It was a fact of life in the low south, but that didn’t stop her from feeling restless. She’d been grounded too long before James came to her with the proposal for Bracken-Savitt Aerial Application & Training. Summer was prime running time for crop dusters with fields ripening toward harvest, and yet the seasonal weather was a nuisance and a half.

      Bea shifted from one leg to another then back. Harmony picked up on the telltale impatience, identical to her own. “Have you seen enough of the moon tonight?”

      “Can I have a bath?” Bea asked, swiping her small round palm over her brow. Blond curls clung, damp, to her temple. “I wanna bath.”

      It took some effort not to roll her eyes and remind her daughter that she’d firmly refused bath time not two hours ago. Settling for a sigh, Harmony stood up and helped bring Bea to her feet. “Bath time sounds good.”

      “With Mr. Bubble?” Bea asked, hopeful.

      “With Mr. Bubble,” Harmony confirmed. Dusting the frilly skirt of Bea’s fairy outfit and the petticoat layers underneath, she took the lead to the house.

      Bea’s head turned sharply at the sound of rustling in the high-climbing vegetation. “What’s that?”

      “Probably an animal,” Harmony said, tugging Bea along and eyeing the bushes warily. A big animal. Creature sightings were everyday happenings on The Farm. Aside from the horses and dogs the Brackens raised, there were squirrels, raccoons, reptiles and insects in abundance.

      The crashing in the undergrowth grew louder. Bea’s mouth dropped. “Mama,” she whispered. “What is that?”

      “I don’t know.” She stepped halfway in front of Bea to protect her.

      Bobcat?

      No. Bigger.

      Deer?

      “It’s a bear,” Bea said, eyes as round as the moon.

      “It’s not a bear,” Harmony said doubtfully. Then she frowned. Is it? All of a sudden, she found herself wishing for the hot-pink high-powered stun gun her father, a former police detective, had given her for her sixteenth birthday. In case of a break-in, she kept it in her top dresser drawer under the naughty lingerie she never wore.

      Bea’s hand tightened on hers as branches snapped and tossed. Harmony licked her lips and tensed. Whatever it was would have to go through her...

      A swath of moonlight fell on the T-shirt-clad figure, and she breathed again. Just a SEAL.

      He turned to go up the path, then stopped when he saw them, frozen and watchful.

      A very surly SEAL, Harmony observed.

      “Hi,” he greeted shortly.

      “Hi,” she returned. She nudged Bea. “See? Not a bear.”

      Kyle tilted his head to the side to get a look at the girl hiding behind Harmony’s leg. “Hey there, little wing.”

      Energy zipped from the bottom of Bea’s frame to the top. She gave a short squeal, tearing off from her hiding place. She launched herself at Kyle as he went into a crouch, arms spread wide.

      “‘You’ll fly like a bee!’” he shouted. Then he tossed her, giggling and kicking, into the air. “‘Up to the honey tree, see?’”

      “I see!” she shrieked. “Again! Higher!”

      Kyle grunted, tossing her up toward the stars.

      After the third toss, again Bea cried, “Again, again!” and Kyle eyed Harmony.

      She shrugged. “You brought this on yourself,” she told him.

      “Yeah, but you made it,” he countered. He threw Bea up one last time.

      As she came back down, Bea latched on to him around the neck, much as Harmony had earlier in the day, and didn’t let go. Nuzzling her cheek against his, the smile in her voice was clear. “I missed you!”

      Any trace of the sullenness Harmony had glimpsed when Kyle had trudged out of the thicket vanished quickly. He folded his arms over Bea’s back, letting one hand stray into her vivid curls. “Missed you, too, Gracie Bea.” Turning his lips into her cheek, he closed his eyes and rocked her from side to side.

      Harmony tried not to melt too much over the pair. She failed. Bea’s pink high-top sneakers dangled free, four feet from the ground. Kyle’s hard muscly arms tightened around her, his hands splayed over her slender back, soothing. Those hands were made for fighting, for pumping rounds through an M-60 machine gun. They were calloused and rough. They could put a man down in seconds. Yet they cradled the child of his buddy and his best friend’s sister, and his expression was putty. Soft, soft putty.

      What chance did a mama have?

      Harmony sighed a little, sliding one hand slowly into the back pockets of her capris. She gave the pair another moment, two, before stepping forward. “Bea.” Touching her other hand to her daughter’s back, she let out a laugh. “Bea. Let him breathe, baby.”

      “She’s fine,” Kyle assured Harmony, meeting her gaze through a tuft of downy hair that had blown across his face.

      “She’s choking you.”

      “Not since I joined the navy have I been so happy to be choked out,” he admitted.

      Harmony patted the ringlets just beneath the hand Kyle used to crib Bea’s head to his shoulder. “What are you doing out here?”

      He shuttered, giving a slight shake of his head. “Walking.”

      “Walking?” She eyed the tree line he’d been blazing a trail through. Give the man a machete and he could pave the way to town. “You were fighting kudzu. We thought you were a predator.”

      “Oh, yeah? And what are the two of you doing out?”

      Bea’s head lifted finally. “Me and Mama found the strawberry.”

      “Strawberry?”

      “Strawberry moon,” Harmony said, gesturing toward the sky. “It’s tonight.”

      “It is, huh?”