“Patch me up then,” Harry said, clearing his throat, “but drink your coffee first. You need it.”

Cate smiled at him, relieved to hear him accepting her help. She was starting to realize that she was much better when she had busy hands and no time to wallow in what was already done. “Deal. And while I patch you up, we can talk about how unlikely it is that we both sought refuge in the same house.”

Elise looked relieved when she glanced at her, and Cate checked Jack before going back to her coffee and finishing her bread, licking the last of the sticky jam from her fingers. And it was then, like a ton of bricks hitting her, she realized what a useful commodity she was.

Her fate wasn’t sealed; wherever she ended up, whether it was inside a friendly home like this or in the belly of a German prisoner camp, she was useful. She could stitch men up and tend to wounds; she could help anyone with an injury or medical need. She didn’t want to think beyond the warm house she was already stationed in, but for the first time since she’d fled the hospital, she felt oddly calm.

So long as nurses were needed, she could stay alive. Maybe she’d be stuck in France for months, maybe years, but if she kept tending to the sick and injured, she could stay alive long enough to go home one day. Or at least that was what she was going to keep telling herself. But it did help with the tremble of fear she’d been feeling at being discovered.

“Do you really need to stitch it?” Harry asked after she’d washed her hands in the kitchen and boiled up more thread along with the needle. “Can’t it just heal on its own?”

“I really do need to stitch it,” she replied. “The last thing I want is to see an infection there in a week’s time because I was lazy and left it open.”

“Anything I can do?” Adelaide asked.

“Bring a stick or something else hard for him to bite down on,” Cate said, whispering “Sorry” to Harry as his eyes widened in alarm. She patted his good shoulder as she peered at the open wound winking back at her. “Unfortunately, this is going to hurt.”

CHAPTER TWELVE ELISE

CHAPTER TWELVE

ELISE

“What are we going to do with all these people in our house?”