Hearts in Hiding

by Patty Smith Hall

She smiled to herself. Another thing she loved about this man. He didn’t let her ponder on problems too long. “Just enjoying the night, that’s all.”

  “Me, too.” He grasped her hand in his.

  A tiny part of her thrilled at his touch. But as much as she loved him, Edie knew this feeling couldn’t lead to anything more. Beau was a war hero, albeit a silent one who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis, but one all the same. She didn’t doubt he felt something for her, but would it be enough? Or would he, in the years to come, look at her with a special brand of hatred reserved for her people?

  Best to cut and run now, before her heart broke even more. Edie walked up the first two steps. “Thank you for walking me home.”

  “My pleasure.”

  One memory. That’s all she wanted right now, something to hang on to when she remembered Beau in the months and years to come. She turned toward him, stumbling a bit when she realized only a breath parted them. The stairs had erased the distance between them, so close their noses almost touched.

  “Edwina.”

  Her name sounded soft and melodic as each syllable slid from his lips. No silly nickname for this moment, this memory. She leaned toward him slightly, unsure what to do next.

  But Beau knew. Grasping her around her waist, he bent his head toward her cheek, but when she turned, his lips brushed against the corner of her mouth. He leaned back, just far enough for her to see his green eyes deepen to a dark shade of emerald, the silver sparks that had seemed so dull just minutes ago firing back into life. She barely registered his arms wrap around her, tightening as he bent his head again, this time his lips closing firmly on her mouth.

  Edie tilted her head back, her hands reaching up, grasping the soft cotton of his shirt, anchoring herself against him. He knew all her secrets, all the sordid details of her life, and yet he was here, holding her close, making her feel cared for in a way she’d never felt before.

  Beau broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers. “I guess most gentlemen would apologize, but I can’t. Not when I’ve been wanting to kiss you since that very first night you held that poker to my head.”

  A smile curved her lips. “Good, because I have no intentions of apologizing for kissing you back.”

  His laugher rumbled beneath the palms of her hands, his lips brushing a kiss against her forehead. “I like a woman who knows her mind.”

  It was time to let go, before she began believing all the lovely little things he would say. Pressing her hands against the sinewy wall of his chest, she stepped back, staring at him for just a moment, remembering the small details of his face—the tiny scar on his chin, the way his cheeks exploded with color when he was angry, the way his lips felt against hers. She turned then. Halfway upstairs, the screen door opened and Merrilee came rushing out.

  “Oh, thank goodness, you’re home.” Merrilee hurried toward Edie, her face masked in worry. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you didn’t show up soon.”

  “What is it, Aunt Merri?” Beau asked somewhere behind her.

  Merrilee glanced at Beau, then turned all her attention on Edie. “It’s your mother, darling. She’s upstairs in your room.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Edie blinked. Her mother here? But the last time she’d seen her parents, they were within days of leaving for Hamburg. What was her mother doing all the way here from Detroit? Had her father changed his mind about going back to Germany to take his place in Hitler’s army?

  “I took a tray up to her a little while ago, but she said something about lying down for a while.” Glancing back into the house, Merrilee lowered her voice. “She said she’d been living at the train station for the last few nights.”

  Confusion clouded Edie’s mind. What was going on? Had her prayers, at least for her mother, been answered? Or was this some sort of trap laid by the powers in the Bund? “Thank you, Merrilee. I certainly appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  As she moved toward the screen door, Beau’s fingers tightened around her elbow, his voice low, his body warm and protective behind her. “You’re not seriously thinking about going up there to talk with her alone, are you?”

  He’d be disappointed in her, but this was her mother. She had to find out what was going on. “I have to find out why she’s here, Beau.”

  He leaned closer until she could almost feel his lips touching the soft flesh of her ear. “And what if it’s a setup? The Bund could be using her as bait.”

  Edie tilted her head to the side to look at him. His eyes had darkened to a stormy sea green, churning with anger and something else that she couldn’t put a name to. Vulnerability? Her breath caught in her lungs. Beau wasn’t worried about himself or his family. No, he feared for her.

  Edie turned to him, cupping his face between her hands, his day-old stubble a pleasant roughness against her soft palms. He responded by circling her waist with his hands, drawing her flush to him as if to shield her from the harsh realities that might come.

  What if this was the last time she was in his arms, feeling his heart thundering between her fingertips, safe in the knowledge that whatever she faced, Beau would be there, going to battle just for her?

  A battle that might even now be waiting in her room. Edie cleared her throat. “I can’t just leave her up there in my room, Beau.”

  “Then let me go with you.”

  “Why, so you can talk to her?” Dropping her arms to her side, Edie stepped back. “I’m not even sure she’ll open up to me, let alone someone she doesn’t know.” She shook her head. “I have to do this alone, and pray that maybe Mom has had a change of heart.”

  He released a sharp sigh. “I don’t like the situation she’s put you in one bit.”

  “I don’t, either.” Edie reached for the door handle and pulled it open. “But the only way to deal with this mess is to get all the facts. Then we’ll know how to make a step-by-step plan to handle it.”

  “Just like an architect. Always making blueprints.”

  At least Beau was back to teasing her. Edie gave him a slight smile. “It’s what I do best.”

  “Just be careful, sweetheart,” Merrilee said from behind Beau.

  She’d forgotten all about Merrilee! “Yes, ma’am.”

  The climb up the steps to her room seemed to drag on forever, or maybe it was just Edie’s feet as she slowly made her way up the stairwell. The hall outside her room stood empty, not unusual for this time of evening, but still, Edie couldn’t help but hope someone would walk by. But no one did.

  The metal doorknob felt cool beneath her touch. Lord, whatever happens, please give me the right words to say. Please keep me safe. In Your Son’s name. Turning the handle, Edie pushed open the door.

  Hilda Michaels stood at the window, her thin frame even more fragile now than when Edie had left home three years ago. The dark hair Edie had inherited from her mother was threaded with strands of pearl white now and pulled tight into a severe bun at the nape of her slender neck.

  A tight lump formed in Edie’s throat. “Mom?”

  Her mother turned then, taking a halted step before finally breaking into a quick pace. Edie barely had time to shut the door before her mother’s arms came around her, holding her close. Unable to help herself, Edie buried her face in her mother’s neck. Rosewater, like always. For the briefest of seconds, she felt at peace.

  “I’m so sorry, dearest.”

  The words held a million meanings, none of which Edie could decipher at the moment. Maybe she should have let Beau come upstairs with her, if only as emotional support. No, this was her problem and she needed to handle it.

  Stepping back from her mother, Edie straightened, clasping her hands into a tight ball at the base of her spine. “What are you doing here?”

  “I had to come.” The muscles in her throat twitched as if she had problems forming the words. “The officials came through our old neighborhood. They took possession of the house.”

  “No!” The word exploded
from Edie. Why, she wasn’t sure. What she couldn’t understand was why her mother would care? “Wasn’t it the plan to leave the house and everything in it?”

  “That may have been your father’s plan, but not mine.” Her mom shook her head, her body trembling, the foundations of the life she once knew weakened and crumbling. “Never mine!”

  There was more to this mess than Edie had ever dreamed. Silently, she led her mother to a grouping of two chairs facing the dormant fireplace. Once Hilda was comfortable, Edie sat on the edge of the other chair, facing her mother. “What were you doing living in our house?”

  “I couldn’t leave our home.” Her mother gave her a weak nod. “When we first saw that place, it was a mess, but your father and I, we worked hard fixing it up, making it a home.” She paused for a moment, looking off as if into the faded past. “We started our lives there, a happy life in a new country that we loved. And then we had you.” Tears gathered in Edie’s throat at the look of pure love her mother gave her. “We thought God had given us a great gift.”

  Edie nodded. Growing up, she’d never doubted her parents’ love for her. But now, her father’s betrayal had left her uncertain. Could she trust their love?

  “But then your father lost his job.” Sable lashes fell quickly over her eyes, but not before Edie saw the pain, the disappointment there. “He went out every morning trying to find a position, and most days didn’t come home until late into the evening, but there was nothing. Just so many people needing a job and not finding one.”

  “He lost hope,” Edie whispered.

  Her mother nodded, her hair shimmering like white gold in the lantern light. “I tried to tell him it wasn’t just us, that the whole country was having a hard time, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He remembered how it was in Germany after the Great War and felt those people in Washington had let everyone down. It wasn’t long after that he met Fritz Kuhn.”

  “I don’t remember a Mr. Kuhn from the old neighborhood.”

  “He fought with your uncle Fredrick at Lorraine during the Great War. Mr. Kuhn came by the house to pay his respects.”

  For a man who had died some twenty years before? “What did they talk about?”

  “The war mainly.” Her mother paused. “I don’t know. But before Kuhn left, he offered to send your father for training at a camp in Wisconsin, and told him if he did well, there would be a position waiting for him in the Gau.”

  Edie fell back into the chair and closed her eyes. How had she missed this? Had she been so absorbed in her new life at college that she hadn’t bothered to see the trouble brewing until it was bearing down on her, and the only way out was to run away? Was it possible that her father had only good intentions of taking care of his family when he was led astray? “Oh, Mother, I’m so sorry.”

  She covered Edie’s hand with her own. “It’s not your fault, dearest. It’s your father’s,” she admitted, the slight accent reminding Edie of the German neighborhood she’d grown up in. “And mine. I knew what your father was doing, and yet I never stopped him. He used their money to put food on our table, and I never once said a word.”

  Lifting her eyelids, Edie stared at her mother, squeezing her fingers gently. “Where’s Dad now?”

  Hilda drew in a sharp breath, her mouth a taunt line. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in almost three months.”

  Three months? “But he told me three years ago you were leaving for Hamburg within days. He said there was a position for him waiting there.”

  “Well, all I know is he wasn’t with me when they came and took our home.”

  Edie studied the woman beside her with new eyes. In all her twenty-three years, she’d never heard her mother speak as she had in these last few moments, of the pain of the last ten years. Mother had always left the politics to Daddy, like most women of her day. But had this war given her a voice, one that spoke against the Bund and the evil they propagated?

  The silence finally got to be too much for Edie. “I always loved that old neighborhood. Do you remember how Mrs. Schmitt would hand out chocolate chip cookies to the kids after we’d been playing stickball all day long?”

  “Yes, I remember.” Her mom chuckled softly. “I gave her the recipe.”

  Mom always was the best cook. Well, right up there with Merrilee. “I can’t imagine the Schmitts not living there anymore.”

  “They’re still there.”

  A throbbing started behind Edie’s eyes. “But, Mom, you said the officials came into the neighborhood and cleared everyone out.”

  “You must have misunderstood, Edwina. No one else on our street was removed from their homes.”

  The pounding in her head intensified. “Are you saying we were the only ones evicted from our house?”

  Her slight nod troubled Edie. This whole situation didn’t make sense. She’d been honest with the folks at Bell, telling them right from the start about her father’s activities. The government would have never given her security clearance if she hadn’t. Major Evans had even offered a security detail if she ever felt in danger from the Bund.

  So if the government already knew the truth, who had thrown her mother out of their home?

  The answer punched her in the gut with the force of a baseball bat swinging for the outfield. Her father might not know where Edie was, but what better way to find out the truth than to take her mother’s home and hope she’d lead them to Edie. But how?

  “Mom, how did you know where to look for me?”

  “A couple of months ago, I got a letter from an old friend now living here in Atlanta. She mentioned she saw you leaving the USO one night.”

  Drat! Edie’s one night out in months had blown her cover. “Did you ever show the letter to Daddy?”

  Hilda shook her head. “Your father lost interest in anything important to me soon after he found his new buddies.”

  Thank goodness—at least her father didn’t know where she was hiding. Walking over to the closet, Edie pulled open the doors and tugged at the suitcase hidden there. “Mom, I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “But why?” Hilda’s eyebrows furrowed into a single perfect line. “Your landlady said it was okay for me to stay here with you.”

  Edie pondered the deal for a moment. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for her mother to stay at Merrilee’s. “Then stay, Mom. But I can’t. It’s too dangerous for everyone.”

  “And how are you going to explain this to your friends?”

  Good question. But she already knew the answer. She’d have to slip out without saying goodbye. That way if the Bund came looking for her, Merrilee could be honest and say she didn’t know where Edie was.

  And Beau? What would he say when he learned that she had put Merrilee and Claire in danger? Would all the tenderness he’d shown her earlier tonight fall to the wayside? She had to warn him, had to share the enormity of the situation with him. Because even if nothing ever came of the love she felt for him, she had too much respect for him to just sneak out of his life like most everyone else did. Not when she’d seen the echoes of those heartaches branded on his soul like scars of war.

  The leather handle of the suitcase cracked against her palm as she tossed it on the bed. Broken, just like her heart. Edie snapped the metal fasteners open. “Mom, no matter what you do, I have to get out of here tonight.”

  * * *

  Sitting at the kitchen table, Beau topped off his glass, shoving the Bible he’d been reading to the side. He’d come out here to the kitchen looking for something harder than milk to chase the worry from his mind, but found Merrilee’s Bible instead. Beau smiled to himself. Much better than a hangover.

  Where was Edie? He glanced at the clock on the sill over the sink. It’d been a whole hour now—an hour! He’d come close to marching up the stairs and pounding on her door, demanding to know she was all right, but Merrilee had talked him out of it. But his aunt didn’t know the danger Edie faced from her parents.

  So what had brought Hilda Michael
s to Marietta now?

  The door swung open, and Beau looked up to find Edie standing in the brick archway. “I thought you’d be in the parlor.”

  It was the way she hung at the door, as if she were looking for a quick escape, that bothered him. “I was, but when you didn’t come down after a few minutes, Merrilee sent me out here to get a glass of milk.” He didn’t tell her his aunt had thought it would calm him down. Nodding to the empty place at the table beside him, he pulled out the chair. “Care to join me?”

  “Maybe for a minute.”

  Beau lifted his glass to his lips and took a sip. A minute wasn’t nearly long enough, not with this woman. “How’s your mother doing?”

  Edie padded across the room, collecting a cup before sitting down next to him. “I don’t think she knows what’s hit her.”

  Not exactly the answer he’d expected. “What do you mean?”

  She reached for the blue-stenciled pitcher in the center of the table. “She’s homeless, Beau. Someone came a few days ago with papers and told her to get out. They took everything. The house, the furniture. All Mom’s got are the clothes she managed to pack before they threw her out.”

  “Was she behind on her payments?” But if it was the bank, wouldn’t they let her keep her furniture? Suddenly, he remembered a newspaper article from months ago about plans to confiscate German-American properties near the coastal cities, much like what was done to the Japanese in the days following Pearl Harbor. But he’d heard nothing about that since. And why Edie’s house? “You think it’s the government taking the house because of what your dad’s been up to.”

  “I think that’s what these people want Mom to believe.” Edie slumped back in her chair.

  Beau scowled. No more of this beating around the bush. Turning toward her, he captured her chin between his fingers and tilted her head up until he could look her square in the eyes. “Talk to me.”

  Sable eyelashes fluttered down against her pale cheek, but not before he glimpsed a flash of pain. “It was my father, Beau. And his cronies with the Bund. They threw Mother out of her house.”