The Defiant Hero by Suzanne Brockmann Page A

myself. Now, I’ve made that channel crossing many times, but—and I’m awfully glad to say it—I’ve never made a crossing quite like that, before or since then.

    “There were mines in the channel—too deep to do any damage to the Daisy Chain, but that didn’t stop the larger ships from being blown to kingdom come. German U-boats—submarines—were out in force, as well. Again, they didn’t target us small potatoes. But the Luftwaffe—they were a different story. They bombed and strafed—shot at—the men waiting on the beaches, and us, as well, as we approached. But not one of the little ships around me turned back. Not a one.

    “As we approached, we could see the smoke from the battle. Dunkirk was burning, and it looked as if all of France were on fire.”

    He could picture her behind the wheel of a boat, chin held high as she sailed into a smoky storm of bullets and bombs.

    “We worked for days. I ferried men from the beaches to the larger ships, until those ships were filled. And then I took on as many soldiers as I could and headed back toward Ramsgate. I can’t even tell you how many trips I took across the channel. The evacuation went on until the fourth of June—it’s all rather a noisy blur.”

    “How many men were saved?” Bear couldn’t keep himself from asking.

    The little girl spoke up. “Nana helped save at least five hundred of them herself.”

    “Possibly as many as five hundred,” the old lady corrected her gently. “Do you remember the total number of Allied troops evacuated?”

    “Three hundred and thirty-eight thousand,” Amy announced, “two hundred and twenty . . . seven?”

    He snorted his disbelief. “No way.”

    “Two twenty-six,” Eve said. “It’s true.” She sighed. “But what I wouldn’t have given for that number to have been higher.” She glanced at him before she looked down into Amy’s eyes. “True confession time. I didn’t really cross that channel because I wanted to save all those stranded British soldiers. At least not at first. I first crossed the channel because I wanted to save one soldier in particular. I never told you this before, Amy, but even though I was only sixteen, I was married—and I had been for a year. The man I wanted so desperately to save was the man I loved. He was my husband.”

    Amy sat up, her eyes losing some of her fear. “You were married when you were sixteen?”

    “Fifteen, actually,” Eve admitted.

    “But . . . I’ve seen your wedding pictures. You told me you got married right after the war.”

    “Well, I did,” Eve said calmly. “I was married—for the second time—right after the war, when I was twenty-one. My first marriage wasn’t exactly legal because I was so young at the time. And of course it was never consummated.”

    “What’s consummated?”

    He was unfamiliar with that English word, too, but he could guess what it meant from the context. He studied his boot, wondering how the old lady was going to handle the question.

    “Do you know where babies come from?” she asked the girl. Good start.

    “Of course I do,” she scoffed. “Girls can get pregnant if they have unprotected sex with boys. Mommy talks to me about it all the time because some of the sixth grade girls in my school tease the fifth grade girls about still being virgins.”

    “Dear God,” Eve said. She swiftly collected herself. “Well, in that case you know, then, that when two people get married, part of their relationship as man and wife is a sexual one, right?”

    Amy nodded.

    “That’s what consummated means. It’s when two people who love each other enough to get married make love for the first time. In the olden days, it sealed the marriage, made it even more binding. When I was fifteen, I thought I was old enough to marry this man because I loved him so much. But when our wedding night came, well, some people might think I chickened out, but I like to look at it as being brave enough to admit