“Oh my God,” was all she could say as he pulled her close to him. She felt as though she were dreaming.

“They tell me that you’re going home. I will go home soon too. Come, let us sit. We have a lot to talk about.”

They found a log under a tree and sat on it. He held her hand and kissed her. He wanted to know everything. When she was leaving, where she was going, what she would do now.

“You don’t know me. But I know you. I knew you that night, and everything I needed to know.” It had been ten months since she’d seen him, and it suddenly felt like only days. She had been so sure she would never see him again, that it was only a dream. “The Germans took my home and have been living there for the entire Occupation. I’m going home to reclaim it,” he explained to her. “I’m sure the German pigs who lived there didn’t treat it with respect. I go now to make it livable again. But I wanted to see you first. And then I want you to come and see it, to tell me if you think you could be happy there. It’s in the country, near Provence. My family built it three hundred years ago. And you live where?”

“In North Carolina. Raleigh. My father is a doctor. And my mother runs a school. I’m a nurse,” she said, not knowing where to start, and he laughed.

“I know. I remember. You are very good at what you do. And you wish to continue? Would you live in France with me? Married, of course.” He scarcely knew her, but he had no doubt in his mind. He had known it the night they met, when she got him on his feet to escape the Germans and saved him. “I’ve been asked to work with the new government, with General de Gaulle. Some of my skills and experience of the past six years could be useful to them in the Department of the Interior, as a minister of the government, which means some time in Paris, and some time at home in Provence. I would like to meet your family.” She was frowning, wondering how realistic he was about the problems he would face with a woman like her. It all felt like a dream, and maybe he was dreaming too. He sounded certain about her, even though he barely knew her. He was going purely on instinct and his powerful attraction to her. He had been living by his wits for nearly six years, and trusted what he felt for her.