It was all she could do, mustering a swell of moral fortitude, to shift her seditious body out of his grasp and struggle to her feet. “No, JJ. It can’t be.”

She should have known better, she saw that now. It was like Mrs. Fryt had said: You could see disaster coming. Oh, in hindsight, yes! But, like a fool, Dolly had disregarded her strange fascination for JJ, the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her—or at least she had told herself that she could keep at bay what both portended. But now this! Her own fault, too, there was no denying it: bad enough she’d spent all that time with him at the house, but to come out here with him! Was this the consequence of wanting adventure, wanting a spectacular life, wanting more? Glamour and fascination stripped down to nothing more than a sordid back-alley drunken tryst?

She staggered toward where the water lapped the sand. The stars had begun to emerge, pulsing pinpoints of light. Everything seemed to be spinning; she covered her eyes with her hands.

“Dolly,” he called after her. After a moment, he called again. “Christ, Dolly, I’m sorry,” he said. “Please.”

She turned toward him. She had never seen a man so close to dying.

Chapter 77

Superior, Wisconsin
Thursday, December 20, 1945

Anne’s legs trembled as she walked up the granite stairs in the Gazette building, her gloved hands clutched in front of her holding her handbag. She hoped that she looked more certain of herself than she felt. She had taken special care with her hair, her hat, her plum suit and navy coat.

She had spent the past several days reviewing her options, running them over and over in her mind. Despite Harry’s repeated attempts to contact her—admittedly dwindling in the last couple of weeks—she had not spoken with him since that terrible Thanksgiving Day in Pine Rapids four weeks ago. She just had not known what she would say to him. Finally, with a mix of shame and desperate happiness, she had decided. No one—not even Linda—knew what had happened with JJ. If her conscience could swallow its shame, her secret would be safe. And she loved Harry. She was more certain of it now than ever; her pain at his absence had not lessened a whit in the past weeks. She hoped that if she loved him with her whole being in the years to come—as she planned to, if he would still have her—that it would, at least in part, atone for what she had done.

The newsroom was quiet when Anne opened the door and stepped in. It was after noon; the paper had gone to press, and most of the reporters were likely out for lunch or gone for the day. Harry’s secretary looked up from her typewriter, and her face registered surprise as she recognized Anne.