The Defiant Hero

The Defiant Hero by Suzanne Brockmann

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Authors: Suzanne Brockmann
Tags: romantic suspense
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safety across that channel of water. And it didn’t take long for the Luftwaffe to completely bomb all of the piers in Dunkirk’s harbor. The water was shallow there, and the few large naval ships that were available couldn’t get close enough to fetch the men. So the navy began appropriating all sorts of small boats. Ferries and fishing vessels. Navy officials came knocking on doors all up and down the coast of England, informing people that their boats were now a part of the British navy.

    “Once the word got out, all across England anyone who owned a small boat—pleasure yachts, dinghies, rowboats, truly anything that could float—gathered in Ramsgate Harbor to help save our boys in the BEF from certain death. That harbor was right down the lane from where I lived. So I went, too. I was only sixteen, and I was a girl to boot, but I took my stepmother’s yacht—she was called the Daisy Chain and she could fit twenty-five people comfortably, fifty squeezed in tight and low in the water. I took the Daisy Chain into Ramsgate with all the others.

    “It was remarkable, Amy. I’d never seen so many boats—the little ships, they called us—in one place before. We were an amazing motley armada. But we were determined to bring our boys home.

    “I’d really only meant to bring the Daisy Chain into Ramsgate and turn her over to the navy, but there were no extra men to take her across to France, so . . .”

    “You tucked your hair up under your hat.” Amy gazed up into her great-grandmother’s eyes.

    Maram must have lost the fight to lazy Umar because she stomped up the stairs. He could hear her slam a door shut.

    Amy and her Nana would live at least until tomorrow.

    Amy’s Nana heard the door slam, too, but she only glanced briefly at him before returning her attention to the little girl. “Good thing I didn’t have hair like yours.” She tugged gently on one of Amy’s curls.

    “Your hair was blond and so beautiful. Mommy says you used to look like a movie star.”

    The old lady batted her eyelashes. “Don’t I still?”

    “Yes.” He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but there it was. Now she knew for sure he was listening.

    She didn’t seem to mind. Instead she gave him another one of those dignified smiles. “Thank you, sir.”

    Sir. He could count the number of times anyone had ever called him sir on the fingers of one hand.

    “I’m Eve,” she told him, as if they were meeting at a party. “And this is Amy, my great-granddaughter.”

    He glanced over, but Umar, Khatib, and Gulzar had gone into the kitchen and turned on the TV.

    It was starting to drive him mad, the incessant yapping of the commercials and talk shows. “Turn it down,” he bellowed.

    Umar shouted back, telling him to attempt the anatomically impossible. But the volume went down a little—no doubt thanks to Khatib.

    “What’s your name?” the old lady, Eve, asked him.

    He looked toward the kitchen, but he was definitely alone in the room. He knew he shouldn’t be talking to them. He should keep them silent. But with the TV on, Umar, Khatib, and Gulzar would never hear.

    He’d always loved the stories his grandfather had told—of fighting the Nazis with Tito in the mountains of Yugoslavia, and he wanted to hear how this story ended. It wasn’t possible that a quarter of a million men had been taken across the English Channel by an armada of small boats. They might’ve saved a few thousand, sure, but . . .

    “I’m called the Bear,” he told them, hoping he wouldn’t get onto Maram’s blacklist for admitting that.

    “I’m afraid I can’t say pleased to meet you, Mr. Bear—for obvious reasons,” Eve told him. She looked down at Amy. “Where were we?”

    “You tucked your hair up under your hat.”

    “That’s right.” She gave the Bear another smile. “This is her very favorite part. I’d learned to navigate the Daisy Chain the summer before, so I gave her full throttle and made the crossing

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