He seemed to sense it, but he stayed still and let her come to him, her mouth parting and slowly touching his, her lips moving slowly, hesitantly. It was clumsy at first, he not moving and she not sure, not having kissed anyone but Charlie before, but the moment his arms reached for her, everything changed. One minute she was sitting beside him, the next she was rising and moving closer to him, sitting on his thighs as his hands buried themselves in her hair, as his lips started to dance more knowingly against hers.

“Cate!”

The call was so close she leapt up, bumping her head on the low ceiling above his bed, making them both laugh even as she winced in pain. But before she could move too far away, Jack caught her hand, kissing the inside of her wrist this time and sending fireflies into her belly as his eyes stayed locked on hers.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the first day I saw you,” he whispered. “You walked past my hospital bed, and you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

“You were delirious on morphine,” she murmured back.

“I wasn’t then, and I’m sure as hell not now.”

Cate bent, slowly, bravely, pressing one final kiss to his lips. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Be careful,” he said.

“You know I will be.”

“Take this,” he said, taking a small blade from beneath his pillow, something she hadn’t even known he possessed. “Just flick it like this,” he said, demonstrating a fast flick of his wrist, “and don’t think, just act.”

Cate took it, not asking questions, not wanting to think about what situation she might be in to need to use it. “I will.”

Walking away from Jack was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but once she started moving, she didn’t look back.

“There you are,” Elise said, standing at the top of the stairs. “Everything all right?”

Cate blinked away her tears and cleared her throat. “I’m fine. Or at least I will be. What did you find out?”

“St. Venant has definitely fallen—it must have been where I heard all the fighting the day before you arrived,” Elise said, frowning. “There were hundreds of British soldiers there before the Germans took control, maybe close to a thousand, and only a few got away.”

“The rest were killed?” Gooseflesh punctuated Cate’s skin.

Elise lowered her voice. “Rumor has it that some were executed instead of being taken prisoner of war.”

“You think it was Wolfgang there too, don’t you?”

Elise’s expression said it all. “I think he’s dangerous and I don’t want my sister anywhere near him, but it could easily have been another commander. Perhaps they’re all the same?”

“So where are we heading to? Are we still going?” Cate asked.