Nora fumbled for her wind-up alarm clock. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Good. Then we haven’t missed our kiss.” She drew Nora toward her.

“This is serious. You have to get cleaned up and dressed.” Nora pulled away and sprang off the bed. She ran around the room and collected Mary’s clothes. When she glanced back at the bed, Mary was half-reclining there, a bemused expression on her face.

“I mean it. We can’t take a chance on you being late. How could we explain it? Curfew is half an hour after midnight on New Year’s Eve.”

“All right. I’m going. I was just enjoying the view.”

Nora growled. Why can’t you recognize how dangerous this is? She set the clothes on the bed as Mary sauntered into the bathroom and paced as she waited for her to come out.

“Is it midnight yet?” Mary called through the bathroom door.

She picked up the clock. “Two minutes ’til.”

Mary flung open the bathroom door and leaned against the frame. She wore nothing more than a come-hither smirk, and in spite of the circumstances, Nora’s pulse quickened.

“Is it midnight now?” She walked slowly toward her, and it was all Nora could do to find her voice.

“The second hand says thirty seconds.”

“Perfect.” She leaned up and wound her arms around Nora’s neck. “Happy New Year. I love you.”

Nora closed her eyes and gazed into her heart. “I-I love you too. Happy New Year.”

They sealed it with a kiss, ringing in 1944 in a way Nora was sure neither of them had envisioned.

January – June, 1944

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mary hummed to herself and tweaked the knob to make a correction as the needle veered too far into the red zone. Last night, Nora had said she loved her. She’d said it—out loud—at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Nothing could be more romantic than that, could it?

She hadn’t seen her yet today, although she’d craned her neck around every time she heard a supervisor coming to see if she could catch a glimpse of her striding down the middle of the cubicle room floor.

An alarm went off and Mary jerked back to attention. “Oh, no.” She yanked the knob to the left. The needle remained flat all the way to the right. “No. No, no, no.” Even as she picked up the phone to connect to the control room, the floor supervisor came running in her direction.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You must’ve done something, or it wouldn’t have spiked like that.” He moved her out of the way and went to work trying to correct her mistake. “This will cost us. We’re going to have to shut it down and reboot it.”

Mary’s heart beat hard. What if she got fired for this? What if Nora found out she’d messed up?