Angel of the Somme: The Great War, Book 1
Page 26
Evie popped up with such enthusiasm that she reminded Sam of a jack-in-the-box. “You’re in charge. You won’t even know I’m there.” She beamed a grin at him.
“You’re not coming with me,” Sam said. “You’ve meddled enough.”
“Whatever you say, Sam.” Evie walked toward the door and Sam followed. He reached for his sunglasses and put them on before opening the door. As he stepped into the bright winter sunlight, he felt a large swell of hope for the first time in a long, long time. For the first time in years. For the first time since before the whole miserable war began.
Sam stood on the corner, directly across the street from Queen Alexandria’s Hospital with its bright red bricks and wide windows. A busy lunchtime crowd milled about the entrance.
Evie straightened his tie, tugging on it so tightly that it felt more like a noose than part of his uniform. “Quite dashing,” she said. “With those tinted lenses and your officer’s tunic, you look straight out of Hollywood.”
“I’m fairly convinced that Lily wouldn’t be overly impressed by Hollywood.” Sam twisted his hands around the bundle of greenery he held in his hands. Evie had been nonplussed when he’d foregone the florist for the greengrocer and was crestfallen that he’d chosen a selection of garden herbs instead of the roses she’d suggested. Now that he was there, standing before the hospital, he had to agree with his sister and curbed the urge to strangle his bizarre bouquet of licorice, dill and peppermint. What an overly sentimental notion.
“I’ll just walk across the street and go to her office, then,” Sam said. “You’ll wait here, won’t you? This is difficult enough.”
She raised her hands in mock surrender. “I’m only here to help. I’ll be quite content on this bench. I’ll be silent as the grave. I’m sure you can manage quite fine on your own.” She gave the bundle of herbs in his hand a disparaging glance.
Sam crossed the street and walked through the crowd toward the front door of the rather intimidating building. Upon reaching the threshold, he paused and slipped a hand into his pocket to retrieve his watch. He flipped it open to check the time. It was going on one in the afternoon. Perhaps Lily was still at lunch. Or perhaps she took lunch at her desk. Back in New Bedlam, she didn’t seem to have a moment’s time for a meal. When he realized he had no idea how she might do something so simple as take a meal, his grip on his confidence slipped a little further.
Sam swallowed hard and cast another glance up at the gleaming, wide windows of the building. Her building. His foolish heart kept climbing up into his throat and he forced it back down with another gulp. He turned from the front door and paced down the sidewalk, along the length of the structure.
Evie’s enthusiasm had been enough to propel him this far, but now that he was about to enter her building, he was disappointed to find that his mind was rather blank. He had no plan whatsoever on what he would say to her once he found her. The whole idea was terribly rash, really. If he could only sit and plan, think out a few key ideas, at least he might not look quite so much like a bloody idiot.
Sam turned back and walked along the shrubberies lining the walk, toward the entrance. He passed the staffers engaged in conversation to reach the double door. He reached out to grasp the handle, only to pause again.
Perhaps this was a bit too impetuous. Perhaps he needed to apply a bit more forethought before seeking out Lily at her place of employment. He turned and looked past the milling crowd to see Evie, sitting on a bench across the street. She shook her head and made a not-so-subtle shooing motion with her hands.
Just as he began to turn around, he saw her just out of the corner of his eye.
Lily.
There was something in her gait that caught his attention. The way she carried herself with that brisk, no-nonsense walk that she used to use to scurry through the ward. She wore a light green skirt and jacket. Her pretty auburn hair was no longer bound by her VAD scarf. It was loose and fell across her shoulders, gleaming in the sunlight.
She took his breath away.
He forgot to breathe for a moment and felt as though he was falling backward. Oddly enough, he was suddenly reminded of the sensation of the earth falling away when he was hit by the Big Bertha, except instead of terror, he was flooded with joy.
Lily hadn’t seen him, yet. Her gaze was focused on finding a path through the milling crowd. When she was only five feet from him, she looked up and their eyes met. She stopped dead in her tracks. Her mouth fell open. Then she shut it.
“Sam?” Her voice shook.
Sam stepped toward her, resisting the urge to gather her in his arms. During all those lonely months on the farm, he’d carefully planned a thousand different things he’d tell her if he should ever see her again. Upon seeing her in the flesh, all his words were blown completely out of his head.
“Are you…all right?” She glanced up at the sun. “Are you supposed to be out like this?”
“I would never take such a risk if it weren’t. You, above all people, know why.”
Her pretty green eyes filled with tears. She took a step toward him. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Sam.”
“And you.” He took a step toward her. “Oh, Lily, why didn’t you tell me you were here?”
“I tried to write. I just didn’t wish to hold you to a wartime promise. You’re always so good about your obligations and I shouldn’t wish to—”
“An obligation?” Sam interrupted. “The very last thing you are is an obligation. In the middle of all that chaos and death, you were the one true thing, Lily. The only thing.”
She lowered her gaze. When she spotted his herb bouquet, tears began to fall from her eyes. “Oh, Sam.”
She stepped toward him, but he held his hand up. “Not yet, Lily. Not quite yet, anyway. I want to do this correctly.”
Lily paused, a puzzled expression on her face.
“With no coaching from anyone, and with a total lack of propriety…” Sam knelt on one knee and looked up at her, heart in his hands. “Lily, I love you with all that I am. Please, marry me, darling.”
The noisy crowd gathered by the front door suddenly fell silent. Sam felt all eyes turn to them. And he knew damned well that from just across the street his little sister would likely be standing on the bench, on tiptoes. Should he glance skyward, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see Baden’s balloon bobbing in the breeze, perhaps with Gordy along for the ride, waving a battered bottle of cheap French wine.
“Yes. Oh, yes, Sam.” Lily’s smile was so bright that for a moment Sam was grateful for his tinted lenses.
He stood and gathered her into his arms at long last. He delivered a very thorough and most improper kiss. Her mouth was warm and willing and she tasted of licorice. Before he was quite finished, someone nearby broke out in applause. As they pulled apart, the rest of the crowd joined in. From a short distance away, he heard the very distinctive sound of his sister whistling loudly, as if she was calling Molly in from the South pasture.
Lily’s face had turned a bright red and she turned to look across the street. Sure enough, Evie was standing on the bench, waving toward them.
“Lily, meet Evie.” He was smiling so wide that his cheeks hurt. “I know I should apologize for this spectacle, but I can’t seem to find words at the moment.”
Lily waved toward Evie as Sam put his arm about her waist and pulled her close.
“That’s fine, darling,” Lily said, beaming up at him. “Who needs speeches, anyway? You and I have a bond that goes quite beyond words and wars and all of that nonsense.”
She leaned up and kissed his cheek. He sighed, feeling completely and utterly complete. Together, they turned to watch Evie spring off the bench and race across the street toward them, bouncing all the way.
About the Author
Terri Meeker is supposed to write her author blurb in the third person. It’s just how
things are done. She shouldn’t question it, but then she’s always been difficult. Even in high school, her best friend’s mother described her as ‘eccentric’ before urging her daughter to make friends with a nice, normal girl.
She was born in Wyoming but has made her home on Fidalgo Island in Washington State. She’s loved history since childhood and has been fortunate to live in lots of places with fascinating pasts, including: Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Virginia Beach, Albuquerque, Missouri and Mons, Belgium. She’s an ex-history teacher, a mom, a Whedonite, a gamer and a ginormous nerd. She also loves to write.
Terri is really getting into this third person thing and thinks it will give her a lot of gravitas during future dinner conversations. She thinks you should probably start doing it as well.
Her website is at www.terrimeeker.com. Check it out and you’ll be able to find her on twitter, fb and all that social stuff. She’d love to hear from you. Trust me.
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How to woo a gentleman—and weaponize dessert.
Romance novel junkie Eliza Pepper always thought she was born too late, but now she really is stuck in the wrong time. Tasked with mending a tear in the timeline, she’s trying desperately to fit into 1873 London. But dang it, mucking out a fireplace while looking like the lunch lady from hell is hard.
If she can just keep from setting the floor on fire and somehow resist her growing attraction to the master of the house, she’ll be fine. All she has to do is repeat her mantra: “He’s nothing like Darcy. He’s nothing like Darcy.”
William Brown has always taken pride in his mastery of English decorum, but his new maid is a complete disaster, has thrown his household into chaos…and he finds her utterly captivating.
Though he’s willing to endure extreme physical discomfort to keep their relationship in proper perspective, her arrival has brought out a side of him he never knew existed. And Eliza has an innocently erotic knack for coaxing that decidedly ungentlemanly facet of himself out to play…
Warning: A modern girl who knows bupkis about nursing and maiding in the 19th century, a gentleman poet with a repressed wild side, and inappropriate use of a pair of pantaloons.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Angel of the Somme
Copyright © 2015 by Terri Meeker
ISBN: 978-1-61922-677-7
Edited by Holly Atkinson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2015
www.samhainpublishing.com