Page 14 of SEAL's Sunshine
“You’ve had too much beer, kid, because there ain’t no way I’m losing this one.”
Cam laughed. “We’ll see.” Grabbing some shut-eye sounded like a plan now that he’d had a couple of beers and the adrenaline from the missions had subsided. They had their spots in the plane and settled in for a well-deserved rest. Cam stretched out next to Halo. After figuring out the time zones, he didn’t want to wake Miranda with a phone call, so he sent a text before he went to sleep.
* * *
Miranda figuredthat their girl’s night was a success. They’d finished all three bottles of wine, the ice cream, and more than half the pizza. But most of all they’d laughed their butts off. She couldn’t remember having such honest and funny conversations in her life. Chrissy and Meghan were unbelievable and the stories they’d told about their high school antics were amazing. She was shocked that they’d managed to graduate at all.
For Miranda, it had been a private school and all about the grades. Not that her childhood was horrible, her parents loved her, but they expected her to act like the good little senator’s daughter and not get into any trouble. And she hadn’t, until the kidnapping in Afghanistan. Go big or go home. They weren’t going to be happy when they found out she was going back to the Middle East.
“Want to watch another movie?” Meghan asked. She must have nodded off at some point because the final credits for Moonstruck were playing. That was embarrassing, but luckily they didn’t seem to notice.
“Sure,” Chrissy said. “How about Die Hard, it’s getting late and I could use some action and hell Bruce Willis ain’t too shabby.”
“No, kidding. That okay with you, Miranda?”
It was after two a.m. Miranda had been struggling and obviously had failed to stay awake for the last hour. It was time she went to bed or risk falling asleep on the couch. She couldn’t do that. It would be rude since Chrissy and Meghan were still chattering away.
“Another movie? You two must do this a lot? I can’t keep my eyes open and you’re still going strong.”
“We used to. Not so much lately. Now that I’m living with Rafe we make the most of them when we have them.”
“That makes sense. I’ll have to work on my staying power.”
“No worries, Miranda,” Chrissy said with a smile. “Hey, does anyone call you Randy?”
That stopped her as she’d started to get up. “Randy? Nope, definitely not. I can’t even imagine my mother saying it.”
“Ahh okay, I was just wondering.”
“No problem, night.”
“Night.”
Randy? Not sure how she felt about that nickname or any nickname. She’d never had one, never even thought to shorten her name even though Miranda always seemed kind of old-fashioned. As she climbed in between the sheets and settled down, different names ran through her mind as she fell asleep.
It was still dark when she woke up drenched in sweat and crying. The clock said four-thirty, so she hadn’t been asleep for long. After listening to make sure she hadn’t woken the other women, she got up and went to the bathroom.
It was the same nightmare each time. Dark figures would break into their tent and drag her away from the others. Then they’d cover her face with a foul-smelling hood. She pleaded with them to let her go, but they laughed and spoke Pashto so quickly she couldn’t figure out what they were saying. Only one part of the dream had changed over the months since her rescue—now she screamed for Cam to save her. And it was his face she focused on to survive the torture.
A cold shower helped clear her mind. Sliding into one of Cam’s old Navy t-shirts, she sat in the chair by the window in her room. Peeking out through the blinds at the star-filled night, she wondered if he was thinking of her. His three-month deployment had seemed like an eternity but now that she’d see him soon, she was worried.
They hadn’t been together in months, and before that, it was just a few days at a time. The connection had been so intense when he’d found her in the cave, and they’d saved her and the other missionaries. Her father insisted she was just grateful, and that Cam was using her to get help up in his career. But he didn’t know Cam as she did, and that was the thing. Did she know him?
She used to love the stillness of the night, the quiet, but now she was restless, even when she didn’t have the nightmares. It was time for some major soul-searching to decide what she wanted. She had already agreed to go on the next trip to help with the school, but then she’d see about moving to Virginia if things worked out with Cam. Surely, she could find another way to help without traveling back to the land of her nightmares.
Chapter 5
The sun peekedthrough the open blinds when Miranda opened her eyes for the second time. Relief that she’d managed to sleep for a few hours without another nightmare, brought a smile to her face. Double nightmares didn’t happen often but when they did it was horrible, and most of the time it was after she’d been stressed. The wine and worrying about Cam being stuck in Afghanistan had most likely triggered this one.
Tip-toeing to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the day, she heard the women in the kitchen. Wondering if they’d slept at all, she jumped into the shower. As far as she knew, they didn’t have any plans for today and dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved silk shirt. Maybe she could convince Meghan to take her shopping. It was time to buy clothes she liked instead of what her mother expected her to wear.
“Good morning.”
Meghan turned and greeted her with a big smile. “Good morning, Sunshine. How are you?”
The question told Miranda that her nightmare hadn’t gone unnoticed and she hoped she hadn’t disturbed them. “I’m fine. Did you sleep at all?”
Chrissy laughed. It was the infectious type. You couldn’t listen to her and not at least smile. “Sure. Maybe an hour. Tomorrow is going to be totally suckful. Thank God it’s the weekend.”
