Into the Storm
Page 34
“You stupid, meddling bitch!” he hissed in her ear. “You’re no more an American operative than I’m Papa Noel.” He swore fiercely in German. “You should have kept your nose out of my affairs.”
The pistol was biting into her flesh. He held her so tightly, she couldn’t breathe.
“If you’d just kept a blind eye to things a little longer, this wouldn’t have happened. An invasion is inevitable.”
RueAnn sobbed, squeezing her eyes shut just as a shot rang out, deafening her.
For several long moments, she waited for the pain, the blackness of death. Then, as a weight dragged against her, she realized that it was Peabody who was falling into her, his body dragging hers to the ground. Screaming, she stared up into a pair of unseeing eyes sunk into a head that had been torn asunder.
Scrambling free from his body, she struggled to push herself to her feet. She leaned against a portion of crumbling brick wall. Wildly searching for the source of the shot, she looked up in time to see a figure limned against the inferno beyond. He stood tall and lean, his arms bent at his side, feet braced apart.
RueAnn sagged against the bricks, wondering if she, too, had been hurt. If this were heaven or perhaps hell. Because she had to be imagining the familiar outline of the man striding toward her.
But as longing swept through her body on the heels of an unfamiliar exhilaration, she began running forward—knowing that if heaven or hell awaited her, it no longer mattered. This was what she had been searching for—not just days, but years.
She launched herself into his arms, and Charlie caught her, staggering, gripping her so tightly that she couldn’t escape even if she’d wanted. His heart thumped in tandem with her own, his breath warm and real against her ear as he whispered her name. Then he was lowering her feet to the ground.
He drew back, looking down at her, and for a moment, his gaze caught and he swallowed hard. Following his line of sight, she saw that the Cracker Jack ring she’d worn around her neck since coming to England hung in plain sight, glinting dully in the fire’s glow.
Shoving his pistol into his waistband, Charlie plunged his fingers into the soft waves of her hair, dislodging the pins so that loose curls framed her face.
In his eyes, she found such a mixture of joy and wonderment that she could scarcely believe he was looking at her. Her.
“Dear God, how I’ve missed you,” he rasped.
And it was the sound of his voice, that beautiful, husky voice, that caused the tears to well up and fall over the dams of her lashes.
Then he was pulling her tightly toward him, his lips crashing over her own—and it was as if they’d never been apart. Passion swelled between them, filling RueAnn with a heady sense of belonging and more. So much more.
When he drew back, his own eyes glimmered with a betraying sheen.
“I’m so sorry. So sorry,” he whispered, but she stopped him with a finger.
It no longer mattered that he’d taken her letters. Nor did she care if he’d read them. In his eyes, she could see that there was no secret, no horrible deed she might have done that could ever frighten him away.
He loved her.
Charlie Tolliver…loved…her.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she knew that there would be a time when she would want him to tell her everything—what he’d been doing in Washington, where he’d been all these months, how he’d managed to find his way back to England. But for now, all she wanted was this moment. This man.
“Welcome back, Charlie,” she whispered against his ear. “Welcome back.”
She felt him sob against her, felt the wetness of his cheek as he pressed his lips to her ear. Closing her eyes, she fingered the softness of his hair and reveled in the strength of his arms.
Then, drawing away, she wound her arm around his waist and pointed them both toward fires of London saying, “Let’s go home.”
Epilogue
Sweet Briar, Maryland, U.S.A.
September, 1943
RueAnn moved among the rose bushes, pruning them for next year’s spring. The yard had taken some work to return to its former glory. The house had too—although the exterior would probably have to wait for the end of the war before it could receive a proper coat of paint.
But RueAnn found she didn’t worry about such things. After surviving the worst of the Blitz, she didn’t bother herself with such inconsequential matters as peeling paint. She had a home here. A true home. Everything else, as Glory Bee O’Halloran would say, was just gravy.
The sound of a car crunching up the drive caused her to turn and she waved at the tall figure who emerged.
Charlie still limped, even after all this time. But secretly, RueAnn was glad. His injuries had kept him away from active duty. He’d been returned to Washington D.C. Not as an undercover agent, but as a special liaison with America’s emerging OSS. But then, she wasn’t supposed to know about that. Just as she wasn’t supposed to know that Charlie had spent the year before the war trying to organize a series of British spies inserted into American society.
“Come along, sweat pea,” RueAnn said, calling to the toddler who’d been playing in the grass. As the wind blew, loose petals showered down on her like a colorful snowstorm and the baby giggled, running through the bushes, her arms upstretched. She had blue-gray eyes like her father. Her grandmother.
Not for the first time, RueAnn felt a pang of love that rivaled only that of the emotions RueAnn felt for the child’s father. When she’d discovered she was pregnant, RueAnn had worried that her own upbringing had been so hard, so joyless, that she wouldn’t be able to love a child the way she should. But when the tiny bundle had been laid in her arms and had looked up at her with Charlie’s eyes, Charlie’s coloring, she’d realized that she needn’t have worried. She’d been taught how to love by all of the people who’d gathered around her when she’d needed them most. And in doing so, she’d discovered the joy in being needed.
Smiling, RueAnn held out her hand.
“Come along, Edna Louise. Your Daddy is home.”
Then she swung the little girl into her arms and made her way to the house and to Charlie.
Acknowledgements
This novel has been a labor of love for several years. The first germ of an idea appeared when I saw the now-famous photographs of Londoners taking shelter in the Tube. For fifty-seven consecutive days, the Nazis tried to bomb London into submission or surrender. As I looked at these photos—as well as the resulting destruction—I was amazed at the way the British refused to be cowed. Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that a great many war stories have been told of men marching off to the front, but what about the women who were left behind?
What followed was a fascinating journey of research—not just of the women of the Blitz, but of the emerging independence of all females and the shift of their roles in society. Many of the details that I have used in my novel (the naked mannequins, the rationing, and the Anderson shelters) are based on historical fact. However, in some instances, I beg your forgiveness for “dramatic license.” The men of the UXB unit would not have been privately billeted, but their role during the Blitz was so important that I felt the story would be incomplete without their presence. For this and any other faults, please forgive me.
I would also like to thank several people who have been instrumental in bringing Into the Storm to life. To the gang at Browne & Miller, thanks for all of the encouragement, advice, endless readings, and diplomatic interventions. It has been such a joy to know that my “baby” has been taken care of with such love and diligence. To those at Diversion Books, thanks for bringing Into the Storm to my readers. To Nancy and Danice, the first to cheer me on when I was embroiled in writing and rewriting—and the first to celebrate when Into the Storm found a home. To my children, who were patient while their mother lost her mind a little bit, and my husband who was willing to wait “just a few more minutes…”
And to my father, who would never share his
stories past the boat ride to Honolulu where he served with the Army Air Corp. I was only a teenager when he made the statement, “War isn’t all bands and glory.” He was so serious and reflective, that the statement made me curious about what “really happened.”
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