And that settled the matter. Father Bernardi grasped her elbow and steered her back through the sanctuary, pausing only to shake hands with a few stray departing churchgoers. They continued on through a sort of antechamber between the church and the rectory, but as soon as they were in his modest residence, and the door was closed behind them, he turned to her with a sheepish smile.

“I apologize for whisking you away like that, but it couldn’t be helped.”

Understanding dawned, along with a new appreciation for the priest’s skill as an actor. “You don’t have any problems with your bunions,” she stated.

“I do, but they can wait. It’s something else. Something more serious.”

“Nico?” She couldn’t breathe for her fear.

“He is well, but we need your help. One of his, ah, friends has been injured.”

“How? When?”

“Nico himself will tell you. They’re just upstairs.”

Nina flew up the dark, narrow staircase two steps at a time. “Nico? Where are you?”

“Here.”

He stood at the end of the hall, the room behind him lost in gloom. He opened his arms wide and she ran to him, forgetting all else but the joy and comfort of his embrace.

It had been several weeks since he’d left, his first long absence since that terrible night in December, and there had been moments, over the past few days, when she’d wondered if her memories were playing tricks on her. If it truly had been so blissful to stand in the shelter of his arms.

She ought not to have doubted. Her body had remembered rightly, for her head still fit just so under his chin, and his heartbeat still soothed her when she pressed her ear to his chest. If there was any more comforting sound in the world she could not imagine it.

Far sooner than she’d have liked, she made herself pull away, for now was not the time for self-indulgence. Not when Nico’s friend lay injured and needed her help.

“What happened?”

He caught her hands in his, clasping them tight to his chest, and pressed his lips to her hair. “My darling. How I’ve missed you.”

“And I you. Now tell me.”

“We’d caught a ride down from Costalunga with some of the local partisans. It was stupid of us, but we were tired and they insisted the way was clear. So we climbed onto the flatbed of their truck and let them carry us down the mountain. And then, barely a quarter hour later, we came to a checkpoint. Instead of bluffing his way through, the driver swung around and went back up the road—and that’s when the Germans started firing.”

“Was your friend”—she knew not to ask for the other man’s name—“shot?”