Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-One

Emmy died at the home of a doctor in Montebourg without ever regaining consciousness. The partisans who’d carried her there had apparently known to get word to Max. He found Genevieve alone, in the examining room where Emmy had been taken.

She’d stopped crying some time before, for the simple reason that she had no more tears left to shed. She sat in an upright wooden chair beside her sister’s dead body, tightly holding her cold and lifeless hand.

“Come on, we’ve got to get you out of here.” Appearing in the doorway of the examining room, looking briefly unfamiliar in a scuffed leather flight jacket and loose trousers instead of his usual suit, Max took in the situation at a glance, then came over to put an arm around her shoulders, drop a kiss on her hair. Other than the cut on her forehead, which was bandaged now, she was unharmed.

She could barely stand the fact that she was unharmed.

“I can’t leave,” she told him as he pulled her to her feet. She gestured at her sister, gray in death and dirty from their exertions of the previous night and looking like a waxen image of herself as she lay lifeless on the doctor’s table. “Emmy—”

“I’ll come back and see that she’s taken care of,” he said. His voice was soothing. “You trust me to do that, don’t you?”

She did. She would trust Max with anything.

Nodding, she rested her head on his chest and felt his arms come around her. He held her close, rocked her against him.

“It happened so fast,” she said. “We were together and then—” Her voice choked. She took a deep breath.

“I know,” he said. “I heard what happened. I know you’re sad. But we’ve got to go now.”

With a quiet word to the doctor, who’d entered to check on the identity of the new arrival, he hustled her out of the surgery, which was in a separate wing of the doctor’s house.

“Where are we going?” she asked when they were outside.

They were on the outskirts of the village, she saw with a glance around, something that hadn’t registered with her earlier. It was late afternoon now, and the sounds and signs of a raging battle were everywhere.

“I pulled every string I have and got you a spot on a plane going to RAF Tempsford. We don’t have any time to spare.” There was a motorbike parked in the street. Stopping beside it, Max swung a leg over it, started it up and yelled “Get on!” to her over the roar.

Genevieve did, wrapping her arms around his waist. The motorbike took off with a jolt, bouncing over streets that looked in places like they’d been chewed and spit out by a giant animal. More houses had been reduced to rubble than still stood. Gardens had been replaced by craters. Tall splinters were all that remained of trees. Tanks were stuck in hedgerows as their crews worked to get them out. Soldiers—Allies, Germans, a chaotic mix of the two—were everywhere, engaging in small, deadly skirmishes. On the road out of town, they skirted around dead bodies lying next to abandoned bombed-out vehicles. Bombers overhead, explosions, gunfire, smoke—the sights and sounds of war filled her senses.

A convoy of military trucks bristling with guns came over a rise, heading toward them.

Max turned off the road, bounced through a ditch and took the motorbike into a wood. Genevieve held on tight as they dodged trees, splashed through a creek, went up a hill, roared down the other side.

When he stopped abruptly, Genevieve was surprised to see a small gray airplane sitting in the field in front of them. Its propeller was turning, its cockpit lid was open and it was obviously waiting.

The pilot, spotting them, waved.

Genevieve got off as Max shut down the engine.

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand.

They ran to the plane. When they reached it, Max pulled her close, kissed her quick and hard, then let her go and pointed to a spot on the wing.

“Step there.” He had to yell to be heard over the thrum of the engine.

“Wait.” She was yelling, too. The cockpit looked like it would accommodate only one other person besides the pilot. “You’re not coming?”

He shook his head. “I told you before. I’m a soldier. I stay.”

“But—”

“Look, the Germans have ten thousand pounds on your head. For that price, even if they don’t stumble across you themselves, lots of people will hand you over. Nobody knows how this fight’s going to turn out. You’re leaving while you can.”

“Max, old sod, got to go,” the pilot leaned out of the cockpit to shout. His leather helmet and the goggles pushed up to the top of his head made him look like some unknown species of giant bug.

“I can’t go. I can’t leave you.” Her heart, still in shock over Emmy, trembled and shook at the idea of parting from Max. As she’d already learned to her cost, there were no guarantees in life, no guarantees that the person you loved would be there from one day to the next, no guarantees about anything at all. And this was war. Death waited around every corner. It came rocketing out of the sky, zipping through the air, blasting up from the ground. It came with no notice, no warning, no chance to say goodbye. “I’d rather take my chances and stay.”

“You have to go,” he said. She reached for him, and he caught her arms just above her elbows, holding her away from him, frowning down at her. His eyes were dark with strain. His mouth was tight with it. “Do you hear me? You have to go. I have a job to do, and I can’t do it if I’m worried about you. And I’ll worry about you every minute unless you get on this plane and go to England and I know you’re safe.”

“Max, I—” She broke off to look up at him, knowing that her heart was in her eyes and not caring. What he said made sense, she knew it did, she knew the only thing to do was get on that plane and fly away, but knowing that made no difference. To leave him now felt as impossible as flying to the moon. Her chest ached and her throat grew tight and tears stung her eyes. There was a catch in her voice as she said, “I’ll go.”

“Genevieve. You’re breaking my heart here.” His voice was rough, raw. His face tightened as his eyes moved over her face. She realized she was crying, realized that the hot tears had spilled over to slide down her cheeks, but there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. His hands tightened on her arms, his mouth twisted, and he pulled her against him and kissed her, a hot, hungry kiss that crushed her mouth, that invaded it, that had her pulling her arms free and going up on tiptoe to wrap them around his neck and kiss him back. He kissed her like he was never going to let her go, like he could never get enough of the taste of her mouth, like he was promising her forever, and she kissed him back the same way.

“Max, buddy, don’t got all day.” The voice of his pilot friend broke them apart.

“Go on.” Max caught her arms again, pulled them down from around his neck, nodded toward the plane. “Get out of here.”

Her smile was shaky, but it was a smile. “Don’t get killed.”

“I won’t.” It was a promise, but they both knew he couldn’t promise that. She was still nestled against him, with her hands on his chest and her head thrown back so that she could look up into the hard, handsome face that was now dearer to her than anything in the world. She wasn’t crying any longer, at least the tears had stopped, but she felt her poor broken heart throbbing in a way that let her know that, despite the losses, despite all the grief, despite all the pain, it was still fully functional, still fully alive. For him.

“I love you,” she said.

His eyes blazed at her. “I love you, too.”

Then he kissed her again, fierce and yet achingly tender. Knowing it was the last time for a long while at least and maybe forever, desperate at the thought of parting, she kissed him back with all the passion he’d awakened in her and all the love for him that burned inside her combined.

“Max.” The pilot yelled in what was a clear warning as the plane started to move a little.

Max raised his head, put her away from him, pointed at that same spot on the wing. “Go. Step there.”

She did, even though her eyes were stinging again and her throat was tight from the sobs she was holding back.

“I was going to say I’ll write, but I don’t even have an address. And you don’t have one for me. How will we ever find each other?” Balanced on the wing, one hand hanging on to the edge of the open cockpit now as the wing jiggled and bounced beneath her, she turned to look back at Max.

“I’ll find you,” he said, and there was the ring of absolute certainty in his voice. “Count on it.”

“Goodbye,” she said, and turned away. Choking on the tears she could no longer hold back, feeling them spill down her face, she climbed into the cockpit and sank down in the tiny seat. The pilot handed her a helmet.

“Genevieve,” Max yelled. He was standing where she’d left him, and she guessed he could see her tears. “Remember, angel, no regrets.”

Her heart broke, even as she pulled the memory close.

“No regrets,” she called back, and even managed a smile.

Then the pilot closed the cockpit and the plane started bumping forward in earnest.

Her last sight of Max as the plane rattled across the field and took off was of his tall figure lifting a hand in farewell.

Chapter Fifty-Two

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