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Back When We Meet Again Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  52. POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
  53. When We Meet Again
  54. A Conversation with Caroline Beecham about When We Meet Again
  55. Discussion Guide
  56. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  57. What’s next onyour reading list?

He didn’t even know if he could get on a flight. There had been many delays or abandoned flights over recent weeks with increased fighting in the mid-Atlantic as the Allies tried to destroy the U-boats.

“If you’re sure, Theo, then I am. You don’t need to stay here on my account. Although they could do with your support up at Yankee Stadium.”

Samuel smiled reassuringly, and Theo smiled back.

“Seriously, don’t tell your mother I said so, but you go if you need to. I know you’re not finished there. . . . But, son?”

“Yes?”

“Only if you’re certain she’s the right one.”

“Yes, Pop.”

Theo’s heart was already racing, an adrenaline rush at the thought of getting back to London, of the fight they had on their hands to turn things around with Walter, and of seeing Alice. But first he had to find a way to talk to his fiancée, to tell her how his affections had changed, and that he now imagined a different future.

Thirty-five

London, May 6, 1943

“So, this is it?” Alice asked, trying to hide her surprise.

She was staring down into a basement that could have easily been a bomb shelter, if it wasn’t for the tremor through her feet or the huge man standing by the door.

Alice and Ursula were on a darkened street in Chelsea, and Alice’s chest was already tightening, but her friend hadn’t taken no for an answer. She had been simultaneously skeptical and worried when Alice had told her about the plan with Joe Stevenson—and concerned that Alice wouldn’t be able to play her part convincingly. That was when Ursula had told her she knew just the place where they could rub shoulders with the sort of streetwise people she was trying to deceive: “Somewhere you’re as likely to find a villain as a vamp,” she’d said in her trademark ironic tone. Alice felt every bit the vamp now in the black crepe trousers and luxurious cream silk blouse that Ursula had saved all her clothing coupons for, just the type of ridiculously extravagant outfit that Ursula’s heroine, Katharine Hepburn, wore.

“This is certainly it,” Ursula replied, smiling with Elizabeth Arden’s de rigueur red-coated lips. Then she fixed Alice with a purposeful stare. “Ready?”

Alice had barely recognized her own reflection in the mirror—but she could certainly imagine that woman on Joe Stevenson’s arm.

She pressed her lips together, then remembered to breathe, and followed Ursula down.