His steps thumped softly over the carpet as he came around the counter. “Grace,” he said softly. “Are you all right?”

Brushing him off with a simple yes would have been easier, but the tenderness in his tone and her aching need for comfort was too great. Even as she shook her head, his arms went around her, like a father’s, pulling her into an embrace of comfort such as she hadn’t known since her mother’s.

Tears fell, and the details from that night spilled from her lips while he held her. Her burden eased as she shared what she’d seen, leaning on his strength, not realizing how much she had needed it.

“I was in the Great War,” he said as she wiped at her eyes with a handkerchief. “You never forget, but it becomes part of you. Like a scar no one can see.”

Grace nodded at the logic of his statement, the roil of her emotions finally calm for the first time since she’d allowed herself to break apart.

Perhaps his comfort and advice were what gave her courage later that afternoon when a particularly bad raid echoed over the tube station. The cacophony of war overhead came nonstop and with such intensity, it was impossible to differentiate one sound from the other. Without her wits about her, she might have surrendered to the flicker of panic racing in her mind with every whistle, every thundering boom that reverberated in her chest. They only made her read all the louder.

Afterward, she learned just a mile away, during the height of rush hour, Charing Cross had been heavily bombed.

That evening, Grace was far more successful in hiding her bruised face from Mrs. Weatherford as they ate a supper of fatty beef and a blend of beans and carrots from their garden. She did not, however, succeed in convincing Mrs. Weatherford to seek shelter.

It was a discussion they had almost daily. At this point, Grace presumed Mrs. Weatherford had stopped listening to her carefully detailed reasons. Except now, Grace knew full well what could happen if a bomb struck Britton Street.

Preparing for her ARP work that night took a considerable amount of fortitude. Even as she attached the pin to her lapel, her hands trembled. After all, she never knew what the night would bring.

Mr. Stokes did not seem to act his usual self either. He didn’t bother to lord his knowledge over her, nor did he make any mention of the bombing of Charing Cross, which no doubt would have had gory details to regurgitate.

For once, he was quiet.

And as much as Grace thought such a thing would be a blessing, she discovered his silence dug at an uncomfortable place inside her until she recognized it as worry.

For Mr. Stokes, of all people.