“Oh, that was so good,” Zoe mumbled, and kissed Eva’s shoulder.
“Hmm, I enjoyed myself.” Eva got a little slap on the thigh. “Hey, stop hitting me!”
“Oh, my poor baby,” Zoe cooed. She leaned on her elbow. “Did I hurt you?”
Eva made a show of examining her thigh and looked into Zoe’s eyes. “You are a brute.”
Zoe chuckled. “You are such a wallflower, aren't you?”
“That's why I have you to defend me...unless you're the one hitting me!” Eva teased. “I think we may have to explain why there is damage to the wall.”
“Huh?”
“You hit the wall with your bag when we came in. Hard. You were so angry with that silly boy.” Eva grinned as Zoe scrambled up to look for any damage to the wall beside the bed.
“Did not.” Zoe scowled.
Eva chuckled. “Did too. I was scared for the wall.”
Zoe smirked. “You are so bad.” She tickled Eva, who yelped and tried without much success to grab Zoe's hands. Eva fell off the bed with a thud and landed on the carpet laughing. Zoe hung over the bed and grinned down at her.
“Oh Evy, are you alright?”
“Yes, although it’s a little less comfortable.”
“Are you going to explain that to the manager as well?” Zoe smirked and made room for Eva to climb back into bed.
“Oh, let's see. ‘Mr. Danalis, Zoe threw her bag on our wall.’ Yeah, that sounds good. What do you think?” Eva grabbed Zoe's arms before she could be tickled again.
“If I give you a kiss, will you let go of my hands?” Eva nodded and Zoe rewarded her with a quick kiss. “You are so easy.” Zoe snuggled up against Eva and rested her hand on Eva’s bare waist. “So, tomorrow we head for Larissa.”
“Train leaves in the evening and we'll be there the next morning.”
“I don’t remember the train taking that long when my brother Theo made the trip.”
“We have to change trains for some reason. Mrs. Muldoon told me as we were leaving for the Acropolis. We have to get off and wait for a few hours for the other train to arrive. I think we are stopping quite frequently. Why was your brother in Athens?”
“He had a girl down here.” Zoe grinned. “Every so often he would come down from Larissa with flowers and sweets.”
“What happened? Did they get married?”
“They were going to, but she met someone else and married him instead of my brother.”
Eva gave Zoe a tender kiss and they both fell silent. “Are you nervous about going home?” Eva asked.
“I am, a bit. I haven't been back to the farm since Mama died.” Zoe sighed. “I sometimes wonder what I would have done if I hadn’t fallen in love with you and what my life would have been like.”
“There would be one less happy soul in the world,” Eva said quietly.
“Oh, no. We were destined to be together. I think that whatever happened, I would be with you.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely. I think we are born on this earth for a reason, and I think Fate said, 'Zoe, my girl, you see that tall, gorgeous woman coming up that street? She's yours.' So you were mine from the moment you were born.”
“Is that so?” Eva smiled.
“You bet. It just took me eight years to figure out it was time to get myself born, that's all.” Zoe settled back down. “Remember how you surprised me at the beach by taking your shirt off?”
Eva frowned. She didn't know where Zoe was headed with her line of thought. She couldn't make the connection between Zoe going home and her decision to let go of one of her fears by allowing others to see her scarred back. “I'm confused.”
“Well, you made the decision to not let Muller dictate to you and to stop being afraid.”
“Hmm, but what—”
“I'm afraid to go back to the farm,” Zoe admitted quietly.
“Why?”
Zoe didn't answer for a short while and then looked back up into Eva’s eyes. “On the day Mama was killed, I had an argument with her. I said things to my mama that were hurtful,” she whispered.
“What did you say?”
“I said I wanted to leave and see what was beyond Mount Ossa.”
“That's not so bad. At least you didn't lie to your mama,” Eva said, remembering she lied regarding her whereabouts on the night her own mother was killed.
“I hurt her, Evy. I told her I hated the place, which meant I hated to be with her. Then she was dead. I didn't have a chance to apologize for my stupidity.”
Eva sighed. “You told me you went to your mama's grave and spoke to her. Didn't you apologize?”
“I did.”
“The dead can hear our thoughts, love,” Eva said. She kissed the top of Zoe's head and held on to her. “Your mama would be very proud of you.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, I know it. Look at the woman you have become. I think she would be very proud of how beautiful and compassionate you are.”
“You say the nicest things.”
“Just the truth, my love.”
Zoe sighed and snuggled closer to Eva.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The rhythmic beat of the train lulled Eva to sleep. A short while later she suddenly woke with a start. It was not one of her recurring nightmares, but she knew something was wrong. She shifted in her bunk and concentrated on the sounds around her. She then heard the sniffle coming from the bottom bunk. Normally the train from Athens to Larissa wasn’t an overnight train but the original train had broken down and it was replaced with an overnighter which suited Eva just fine. The train was taking an extraordinary amount of time to traverse the 217 miles between Athens and Larissa. It frequently stopped for hours at a time. The normally four hour journey was becoming a long drawn out affair.
Eva rolled, braced her hands on the bunk, and edged out and looked down. She was surprised to find Zoe staring back at her. Without another word, she sat up and jumped the short distance, forgoing the bunk ladder and landing with a gentle thump.
“Hey.” Eva brushed her fingers against Zoe's tear stained cheek. “Are you having a bad dream?”
Zoe shook her head. “No. You have to be asleep to have one of those.”
Eva couldn't help but smile at Zoe's response. “Scoot,” she said. She easily maneuvered herself onto the bunk and lay next to Zoe, who made room for her. As soon as Eva got comfortable she found Zoe's arms around her waist and her head nestled against her shoulder.
“I've got you; you can go to sleep...”
“No.”
“No?” Eva looked down at Zoe with a slight frown. “Zoe, you know you will be grumpy if you don't sleep.”
“I can't. I've got too many things going on in my head.”
“I know, but you need to rest.”
“I know,” Zoe replied, and nestled closer to Eva's body.
Eva kissed Zoe on top of her head and waited. She knew Zoe would start to talk. Maybe this time she would open up completely instead of brushing it aside. They were both guilty of that, but Eva always worried about Zoe's response to it. Eva was the quiet one, while Zoe could talk under wet concrete, as their friend Earl was fond of saying.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Eva gently prodded.
Eva felt Zoe's body shudder for a moment. She remained silent, letting Zoe take her time.
“My mind keeps going to when Reinhardt took you to the cabin.”
“Ah.”
“I've never been so terrified in all my life. Even when Mama died, I didn't have time to be scared. It happened so quickly, but I felt like my heart was going to explode.” Zoe fell silent for a long moment. “I heard you, you know.”
“You heard me?”
“In the cabin with Reinhardt. You were goading him.”
Eva wanted to let out a frustrated sigh but held back. Of all the memories from the war that Zoe was reluctant to talk about, it was the cabin. Other than saying she killed Reinhardt to save Eva, Zo
e had remained quiet about her thoughts. Eva always suspected one of Zoe's nightmares centered on that event.
“I was goading him,” Eva whispered. “I wanted him to kill me.”
“Why?” Zoe shifted and looked up at Eva. “Why did you want to die when we had just found each other?”
“Because we had found each other.” Eva sighed deeply. “He was going to kill you.”
“I know...”
“Do you remember what they did to that poor girl with the bad leg? I forgot her name...”
“Androniki?”
“Was that her name? With the long hair that reached her bottom, and the lisp?”
“No, that was her sister, Stavroula. She died in a gun fight.”
Eva sighed. “It was just after we came to Larissa. She didn't die in a gun fight.”
“What happened to her?”
Eva swallowed the lump in her throat. “She was tortured to death.”
“Why?”
“I don't know, love, but I do remember overhearing orders to kill her.”
Zoe swore and crossed herself before she settled down against Eva. “I wonder if that was when Father Haralambos told me not to go outside.”
“Might have been...Reinhardt was the one who did that and he promised he was going to do the same to you.”
“Oh.”
“I couldn't let him do that...so I goaded him.”
“I could hear you from outside,” Zoe mumbled. “You would say something and then there would silence for a minute before...I hated the sound. I couldn't do anything because I was waiting for Henry to get rid of your guard.”
Eva nodded. It wasn't one of her pleasant memories, but she did it for the right reason. Getting Reinhardt angry enough to kill her was the only option.
“Every time I said something, I could see the anger building until he exploded.”
“It didn't take him long.”
Eva scowled. “No, he had a very short fuse. I remember the first blow made me woozy...good thing I was sitting down.” She could feel Zoe's body shift.
Zoe looked up at her with a scowl. “That's not funny.”
“It wasn't funny, but I wanted him to be mad. He didn't disappoint me. I could hardly breathe after he punched me...It wasn't pleasant. He realized what I was up to and stopped. That's when he was told that the Americans were coming.”
“Was he really going to do those awful things?”
“Yes. He told me what he had planned when he took me from the house. He told me in great detail.”
“Oh.”
“When I saw his gun I thought I had won.” Eva smiled. “You hadn't arrived yet, so I said a prayer and thanked God I had met you.”
“I remember that like it was yesterday.” Zoe shuddered and her voice broke. She slipped her hand under Eva's pajama top. “You looked so broken. Every time I think about that, I can still see you on the floor bleeding.”
“Do you know what I remember from that? I saw your legs and heard your voice and that was it. I couldn't keep my eyes open, but I could hear you say something to Reinhardt and then nothing.”
“He looked so startled to see me that he didn't have a chance to shoot. I was so enraged by what he had done to you, by what the pigs had done to me and everyone else, that all I could think about was killing the bastard.”
“You did the right thing. You didn't kill out of revenge—you killed to save me.”
“I killed out of hatred. I killed him in a blinding rage.”
Eva finally understood what Zoe had just revealed. It had taken Zoe six years to voice her thoughts on a moment in her life that had changed who she was. “What were you going to do when you stormed that cabin?” Eva reasoned. “Try and talk him into letting us go?”
“No. I wanted to stop him and I fully intended to kill him.”
“This was more personal.”
“Something like that.”
“I know you told me that you shot the bastard, but what happened afterwards?” Eva took Zoe's hand and brought it up to her lips and kissed it. “I love you so much.”
Eva felt Zoe's tears as they hit her bare shoulder and she held her in her arms. “You have held that inside you for so long, love. You didn't have to.”
“I know.” Zoe sniffed back her tears. “I realized that day how much I cared about you...I shot Reinhardt, and then Thanasi came racing in thinking that Reinhardt had shot me. Henry had been shot and was down, so everything was going crazy.”
“Thanasi to the rescue.” Eva’s joke got a tearful chuckle from Zoe.
“I remember dropping the gun and running to where you were...You were barely conscious, bleeding so badly, and I was trying to see where he had shot you, so I tore your shirt to stop the blood.”
“I don't remember that.”
“Klimis came into the cabin and couldn't believe what he was seeing.”
“Which one was Klimis?”
“He was a medic...or he would have been if the war hadn't started. He was a medical student before the war. He told me that you were going to die.”
“Nice bedside manner.” Eva gently joked.
“He wasn't a bad fellow but...”
“I was the enemy.”
“He didn't know. He wasn't very gentle with you until Thanasi told him that you were part of the Resistance. All hell was breaking loose with the Germans retreating...”
“Then what?”
Zoe closed her eyes and remained silent for a long time. Eva thought she had fallen asleep.
“He was the only medic so he had to leave. Thanasi took you to my house, and called Despina to look after us. We waited for the Americans.”
“I don't remember that either.”
“I do. I didn't know what to do other than to hold you. I tried to stay awake but I drifted off to sleep. Next thing I know, this big black American was shaking me awake.”
“The Americans had arrived.”
“Yes...Not sure how long it was. I was so tired.”
“Do you know the first thing I remember when I woke up? I could barely see out of my swollen eyes, but I saw you...You looked so beautiful, even with a muddy face. I tried to speak but nothing came out.”
“I remember that.” Zoe nodded. “You drifted off again. Those were difficult days.”
“We got through them, love.” Eva kissed the top of Zoe's head and they both fell silent. “I have a name for our studio.”
“Really?”
“Hmm.” Eva smiled. “Lambros Designs.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I do.”
“It doesn’t have your name in it.”
“It does.”
“The last time I checked your name wasn’t Eva Theresa Designs.”
Eva smiled. “I’ve been thinking.”
“You need to think some more. That is not a good name for our studio.”
“It will be when my last name is Lambros.” Eva looked down to see Zoe’s very startled face looking up at her.
“What?”
“I want to change my name.”
“You already have, to Haralambos.”
“I know but this is final.”
“Evy, how many times are you going to change your name?”
“Until I get it right,” Eva responded making Zoe groan. “Seriously, love. I want to permanently change it to Lambros.”
“Why? What’s wrong with Haralambos?”
“You don’t want me to be a Lambros?”
“It’s not that. It’s just that you chose Haralambos to reflect your love for Father Haralambos and that he is your father.”
“Hmm,” Eva said, and attempted to get comfortable in the tiny bunk. “I have a better reason.”
“Oh?”
“I want our babies to have the same last name as both their mothers.”
“Oh!” Zoe smiled. “I like that reason.”
“Thought you might. It’s not just that.” Eva took Zoe’s hand and held it against her chest. “Names
mean something, love. I chose Haralambos because it made sense to me, but there isn’t a connection there other than Father Haralambos.”
“Did you choose it because it wasn’t Muller?”
“I don’t know, maybe. It seemed like a good idea. When I changed it, I didn’t know where our relationship was going to go.”
“You didn’t?”
“Honestly, no, I didn’t. I hoped that I had found someone to spend the rest of my life with, but I wasn’t sure.”
“You really didn’t believe that you deserved this, did you?”
“No,” Eva admitted, her voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t. I thought you would get tired of me and that would be that.”
“I would have to be totally insane to walk away from you,” Zoe replied. “Especially since I went to so much trouble to save you.” She looked up into Eva’s face. “So you want to be Eva Lambros?”
“Yes. When our babies come, I want us to be a family.”
“We are a family. The name doesn’t change that.”
“It means a great deal to me.”
“There isn’t anything to really discuss. It’s what you want and I want to give you everything you want.”
Eva kissed Zoe gently on the lips. “Thank you.”
“Always. Now babies? How many do you want?”
“A dozen.” Eva laughed quietly. “I’m an only child, Zoe, so more than one.”
“Having three brothers was sometimes fun, sometimes exasperating, and always loving.” Zoe smiled. “I want that for our babies.”
“I want that too.”
“When do you want to do it?”
“Right after we get home. So what do you say, Miss Lambros, do you want to share your last name with me?” Eva asked.
“I think I love that idea.” Zoe nodded. “Eva Lambros. That really does sound nice.”
“Good. Now can you go to sleep? Larissa is going to make us both crazy for a few days.”
Eva's hand gently rubbed Zoe's back until she heard her gentle snoring. Eva smiled but then realized she was stuck in the bunk. She didn't want to wake Zoe now that she had finally fallen asleep. Whilst trying to figure out how she was going to get comfortable in that tight space, she felt Zoe shift.
Hidden Truths (Intertwined Souls Series Book 3) Page 18
