by Laura Leone
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ISBN: 978-1-61417-049-5
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Author's Note
At the end of this novel you'll find four related
short stories included in this e-book.
Chapter One
Normandy, France
June 3, 1944
He emerged from the black emptiness of unconsciousness like an infant being born. Innocent. Ignorant. Bewildered.
His first sensation was pain. Everywhere.
Not the sudden, piercing pain of a knife or bullet, but a dull, persistent ache which consumed him from head to toe.
He groaned and rolled his head.
Moving was a mistake. It made the general pain in his head agonizingly specific. He felt as if his skull were splitting open. As if his brain had been wounded.
Immersed in darkness and misery, he took several short, shallow breaths, concentrating on controlling the thunderous throbbing of his head.
It didn't work.
He groaned again.
He heard a strange sound, like rushing wind. It confused him, and the confusion combined with the pain made him scared and angry at all at once.
There was a sudden jolt. That was when he realized he'd been in motion. The jerky movement rocked his whole body. Worst of all, it made his head feel like it would fall off.
He moaned. Then he heard the rushing wind again.
Something brushed his forehead... A touch?
Yes, a warm, soft, human touch. Fingers stroking him. Trying to soothe him. Then the sound again.
"Shhh..."
Not rushing wind. Someone shushing... shushing him, he dimly realized. Telling him to be silent.
He didn't know why, but he knew it was important, knew he should obey. He could accept that silence was imperative.
A pause, then more movement.
Yes, he was moving forward. In motion, somehow. Yet not moving.
Being moved.
He heard wheels against the ground. Wooden wheels. Clattering. Now... hooves. A horse. Just one.
He was in a cart or wagon.
He felt the scratchiness all over him. Suffocating him. He was buried in hay, he decided. Or maybe straw. But why?
The wagon jolted again. His body screamed in agony as he ground his teeth together to remain silent. The struggle sent him plunging headlong into the blackness again.
* * * * *
This time, voices roused him.
He listened to their strange chattering, lying silently beneath the straw. The wagon was still. The horse snorted.
Chattering, pattering, drum-drum-drum.
Smothered by straw and darkness and confusion, he tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn't respond.
Chattering, pattering... He vaguely recognized the drum-drum-drum as his own heartbeat, thundering with agonizing intensity in his head.
The chattering gradually started to sort itself out from the pattering. People speaking, chattering... in the falling rain. It was raining? And the voices...
German, he realized vaguely. The voices were speaking in German. That's why they sounded strange. As soon as he realized that, he started picking up traces of the conversation, scattered bits and pieces which meant nothing to him.
A woman's voice. Young and lush, but stiff with formality and speaking awkwardly. "Uncle's farm... work to do..."
And a man. Probably young, too. Speaking fluidly and with aggressive authority. "Papers... Alone, Fräulein?... So early... In such bad weather?"
There was some rustling. Then silence. He heard a car engine. Nearby. It came towards him. Only after it passed did the wagon start moving again.
Clop-clop-clop...
Hooves.
Patter-patter-patter...
Rain... Water.
He wanted to ask for water. Wanted air.
But he must remain silent. He remembered that. And it made sense to him.
He licked dry, cracked lips and let the throbbing in his head carry him into the darkness again.
* * * * *
He felt the wagon tremble as if it sensed danger. He fought for consciousness, sensing a change. What was wrong? The wagon... It had stopped, he realized. No longer in motion. Now it was shaking slightly, trembling... as someone climbed into it. His stomach contracted with animal fear as someone started pawing at the straw which covered him. He'd been found! He tried to fight, resisting the hands which grabbed him, but he was clumsy and ineffectual.
"Paul, no! It's only me."
A woman?
He was panting with panic and pain.
"Paul, stop. It's me."
The same woman he had heard before.
"We're safe now," she said.
He didn't feel safe. His heart pounded like the trotting hooves he no longer heard. He tried to speak. Only a groan came out.
She spoke some more. A jumble of sentences, rich and musical. He got lost in the sound of her voice and drew no meaning from her words. After a few comments which sounded like questions, she switched languages, further confusing him. "Do you understand me?"
No. Yes. I don't know.
"Paul, can you get up? Can you help me?"
What?
"I want to get you up to the loft. You'll be safe there."
Up... Loft... Safe...
This was English. What had she been speaking a moment ago? Not German...
"Fr... fra..." Français?
No, that wasn't the English word for it. Did he want the English word for it?
"French," he whispered, barely able to force a word out of his dry throat.
"Tu veux que je parle français?" she asked, sounding puzzled. You want me to speak French?
"No... Yes..."
They were supposed to speak French, weren't they? At all times?
Oh, Christ, his head hurt! He couldn't be sure. Didn't know. Was so confused.
Who was she? Where were they? What the hell was going on?
He felt her hands on his face, then his neck. She put one hand under his head—God, it hurts!—then another under his shoulder.
"Sit up," she said in English.
He tried. He couldn't. She guided his hand to something. Some part of the wagon. He used it to pull. Together, somehow, they made a huge effort, and then he was sitting upright.
He wanted to vomit.
"Good," she said. "Good, chéri. Rest a minute." Then he heard a strangled sound, and she said, "Oh, what have they done to you?" She sounded so broken-hearted, it made him want to cry.
"Oh, my love," she mourned, "look what they have done."
He wondered whom she was talking to.
"I was afraid, so afraid," she murmured brokenly.
Her English sounded wrong. Lovely. Seductive. But somehow wrong... He suddenly
realized it was because of her accent.
"Are.. Are y..." Are you French?
Yes, of course she was. That made sense to him, too, though he had no idea why.
"Can you stand?" she asked.
Stand.
Nothing happened. He couldn't even move.
"Can you open your eyes?"
He hadn't realized they were closed.
He opened them. Well, one of them, anyhow. The other wouldn't respond.
Gentle fingers touched the one which wouldn't open. He made a noise in his throat and pulled away from the pain.
"They've beaten you so badly," she whispered. "But you're safe now. And you'll feel better soon. You will."
Good, because feeling like this for the rest of his life didn't hold much appeal.
Saying so, however, was far too much effort at the moment.
The wagon quivered a bit as she climbed out of it. Then she was urging him to come forward. She pulled at his legs while he pulled with his arms. It was an absolutely awful process, and as soon as he put his feet on the ground, he gave in and finally threw up. Dry heaves, really. There was nothing in his stomach.
Still, the pain made him black out again.
When he regained consciousness, he was semi-upright and leaning against her. She was crying.
He wished she would stop. It made him feel guilty somehow.
"Walk," he mumbled, recalling that she wanted to take him somewhere. "Loft?"
She sniffed, wiped her face, and agreed, "Oui."
He had a general impression of lots of sun-gold hair and a lovely face. She was tall and slim, and strong enough to keep him upright. The breasts pressed against his chest were full and ripe, and the hips under his hands were firm and gently curved.
"Sorry," he muttered, removing his hands. He collapsed almost immediately.
She held him in her arms, staggering a little under his falling weight. Then she turned, slipped her body under his shoulder, and urged him to lean on her. He could no longer keep track of whether she was speaking in French or English. For some reason, he seemed able to understand her in either tongue.
His vision started reeling wildly with pain and exhaustion as they staggered across the barn together—Oh, we're in a barn—and then climbed a ladder up to a loft. That was nightmarish. She kept his body pressed firmly between herself and the ladder, guiding his hands and his feet with her firm grasp every time he faltered. He was so miserable after the first few rungs that he almost wanted to die; but he had to keep going because he knew he'd hurt her badly if he fell, since he'd certainly take her with him and probably even land on top of her.
He found himself lying face down in a pile of straw.
He heard rain pattering on the roof, then became aware of someone shuffling around. He rolled his throbbing head, then realized his eyes were closed again. He opened the one that worked and saw her bustling around the loft, looking hurried and purposeful. Pale light streamed through a high window.
Oh. We're in the loft.
He supposed that meant he had managed to climb the rest of the ladder, but he didn't remember doing so, and certainly didn't remember collapsing here on the floor.
The next thing he knew, she was pushing him, rolling him over. He let her. Then his various injuries, particularly his head, howled in protest when she started dragging him across an uneven surface. He realized she had rolled him onto a blanket and was using it to haul him across the floor. He didn't know why, and he wished she would stop.
Fortunately, he didn't remain conscious for long.
* * * * *
He came and went often after that, journeying between the blank darkness of oblivion and the raging daylight pain of reality like a bewildered commuter who couldn't remember where he was supposed to be. Several times, the woman wasn't there, and he panicked, not knowing where he was or what would happen next. But she was always there the next time he awoke, and her tender care soothed him—even when it hurt like hell.
She was cleaning and binding parts of him that he thought would really rather be left alone. She applied a cool compress to the eye that was swollen shut. She examined his head at length, even after he told her not to, and asked him questions about how many fingers she was holding up and what colors he saw.
She gave him water and then, later, something hot and sweet to drink. Tea, he supposed, but he was too exhausted to ask. And certainly too exhausted to ask who she was, why she was doing this for him, or what had happened to him...
* * * * *
Dark.
He opened his good eye.
Still dark... No, not entirely. Moonlight shone through the window high overhead.
Moonlight? He listened... it had stopped raining.
He took a cautious breath, exhaled, then tried the whole process again.
He was relieved to discover he felt better. He wasn't about to go play baseball, but he felt better. His head still hurt, but it had stopped throbbing with wild savagery. His back hurt as if someone had been whipping it—a lot—but he recalled the woman putting some soothing balm on it; and now it, too, felt somewhat better. The rest of him was still one big ache, but not as bad as before. Jesus, she was right, they really had beaten him badly.
He froze.
Who had beaten him? And why?
He didn't know.
Who beat me? Who did this to me?
How could he not know that?
Where was he? What was he doing here? What was happening to him? Who... Why...
Jesus Christ.
The central question to his dilemma suddenly formed in his mind, crystal clear, razor sharp, and horrifying in its stark simplicity.
Who am I?
How was it possible that he had no idea?
No idea whatsoever.
Jesus, who the hell am I?
Panic tore through him. He didn't know! He couldn't remember anything. Nothing! Fear and confusion flooded him.
He heard harsh, scared sounds. They were coming from him.
The woman, he realized suddenly. Maybe she knew.
Since he didn't know her name, he called out, "Hello?"
No reply. She wasn't there.
Worse panic.
Where is she?
It was as if the only other person in the whole world had suddenly dropped off the planet, leaving him all alone. Empty. Void. No memory. No one else. Nothing.
"Wh... Where are you?"
Still nothing. Using all of his strength, he sat up. His chest was heaving. He felt sweat break out on his skin. His head started pounding unbearably.
"Come here!" he shouted.
He heard noises below. Things hitting the floor as someone dropped something. Then rapid footsteps.
A different kind of fear flooded him. Someone had beaten him. He was still in danger. She had wanted him to be quiet in the cart.
He went still and silent in the dark, listening as someone crossed the barn and ascended the ladder.
"Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?"
He sagged with relief when he recognized her voice asking him what was wrong. Her dark shape, only hinted at by the moonlight, appeared at the top of the ladder a moment later. Then she crossed the loft, passing into the moon's rays, all pale and silvery in the night. God, she was lovely. He hadn't realized before, hadn't really seen.
She rushed to him and knelt at his side, her alarm at his wild, panting, shouting condition evident even in the dimly glowing darkness. He tried to tell her what was wrong, but the words were coming out in an incoherent, tangled rush. He sounded crazy. He knew he did, he could hear it; but he couldn't seem to control it.
And then his head—oh, God, my head!—was pounding hideously again, his brain and his skull clashing like violent enemies. It felt like the Battle of Britain was going on behind his eyes.
Her hands stroked his face, his cheeks, his forehead, trying to soothe him. She was shushing him, murmuring nonsense to calm him down. There were so many things he needed to know, needed to ask her,
but he couldn't think, couldn't even form words now. He was just groaning and clutching his head in agony, and he knew she must think him completely insane.
He felt her easing him back down onto the blanket she had laid over the straw for his comfort. Her lips were soft and warm on his brow as she kept whispering to him. Then he felt her mouth against his cheek. Damp and gentle. Her breath was in his ear—shhh, shhh—and she was the rushing wind that had saved him and sheltered him.
He surrendered. Because he wanted to. Because he knew no other way to live through the pain and the moment and the bewildered terror. He surrendered because hers was a touch that inspired it. Her fingers slipped under his neck and massaged him with the same gentle firmness he already knew from the way she had tended his injuries. She seduced him into relinquishing his panic. Eased him into welcoming her warmth and tenderness in place of his urgent confusion.
He sighed when he felt her try to soften the hard tension in his shoulders. Her fingers were strong and knowledgeable, delving into the hidden hollows between corded muscles to ease him into submission with a hypnotic, soothing rhythm while she kept murmuring to him. He felt her unlocking him, unraveling him, turning him from something hard with fear into something fluid with her comforting warmth and seductive handling.
He shifted, then sucked in air through his teeth when his tormented back protested. She murmured something in concern, and he felt her hand moving across his back... yet didn't feel it.
Bandages, he realized. She had bandaged his back.
Part of it, anyhow. As her hand slid further, he felt skin against skin again. That was when he realized he was shirtless.
Not just shirtless...
Good God, I'm naked..
She had taken off all his clothes?
"Wh... Who... Wh..."
Who are you?
"Shhh... Shhh..."
She stretched out beside him and rolled him slightly towards her, easing his weight off his back.
"It'll feel better soon," she promised softly, stroking down his back with such a light touch that it made him shiver.
