She could see the wrinkle in Oliver’s brow as he gave her words serious consideration, and she appreciated that he wasn’t the sort to just placate her.

When he finally spoke, it was the exact wisdom she needed to hear. “What about your parents? That may be your father’s name on the cobbler shop, but from what Gladys has told me, your mum has played a big role in it. Did you feel slighted as a daughter by the hours she spent there?”

“No. She would bring me down to the shop. And John. She’d read books to us and play games and let us watch what they were doing. That’s how we began to learn to work with our hands.”

“Exactly. Don’t get swept up in the logistics of the thing. When you find the right man, when you know you’re in love, build something together. Like your parents. Play more of a role than even your mother did. But draw on that example. It may be a new world, but love is like elastic. It can stretch to embrace it.”

Margaret giggled. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. I’m just realizing what a lucky girl Gladys is to find a man who speaks prose like it’s poetry. I think your writing is wasted on the newspapers.”

“I saw him first, you know.” The music had stopped and Gladys came over, a glass of gin in hand.

Margaret squeezed Oliver’s hand and placed it over Gladys’s. “Of course you did. And don’t let him get away.”

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

July 1944

The waves outside Tom’s window lapped gently, impervious to the devastation that had occurred on the shores mere weeks ago. The military hospital had moved from battlefield tents into vacated hotels in Cherbourg, and Tom was lucky enough to have been assigned a room that looked out onto the Channel.

His hand hesitated over the paper and he struggled to grip the pen. The cast had been off for a few days, but his muscles had atrophied and the exercises the nurse showed him were strenuous and painful. But he kept at them. He had to get back to his men.

And he had to write to Margaret.

The hand was the least of his injuries.

Seven weeks had passed since that day in Normandy. And even though all he wanted to do was forget, it was the only thing he could think about.

The weather. The jump. The bodies.

When he and William realized that they’d been dropped miles off course, they knew that each step was precarious. They crouched below the tall grasses, inching along and stopping whenever they heard the crunch of footprints.

Click. Click.