Lost Among the Living(65)

I sobbed. This was my dream, my nightmare. Jo, look at me. I knew what would happen next. He would say, They were wrong; there was blood in the cockpit after all, and I would turn, and I would see his face, his head—

“Jo, look at me!”

I ran faster, my feet numb on the path now, but I was no match for him. Just as in the dream, he came up behind me, closer and closer. I could only hope that I would wake in my lonely bedroom and—

His hand grabbed my arm. I jumped as if his touch burned me and tried to pull away, but he held me fast. He jerked me backward and turned me to face him.

“It isn’t you,” I said. “It can’t be.”

“For God’s sake, Jo.” He yanked me closer, his hand hard on my arm. He was wearing a wool coat, and the motion unbalanced me toward him, made me put my hands on the lapels. It was unfamiliar beneath my fingertips. I had never seen it before.

“Look at me,” my husband said.

I raised my gaze. It was Alex—his high cheekbones, his mouth, his blue eyes. His dark blond hair, grown slightly long now and tousling in the cold breeze. He stared down into my face, his hand on my arm, his chest beneath my fingers, and finally I knew him. It was Alex.

He was alive.

I took a breath and regained my footing. He felt my body go still, and his grip relaxed on me, but still he looked at me, searching my expression. I took a small step back.

Three years. Alive for three years, and I hadn’t known.

All of the family, sitting in the large parlor, circled around him. We wanted to prepare you.

Colonel Mabry, looking at me with concern in his eyes. Things are about to become more difficult for you.

As always, Alex read my expression, even in the dark, even after three years away. “I can explain,” he said.

“You can’t,” I said to this stranger, and my voice was sad, almost a sigh. “You can’t possibly explain.”

He stepped forward and put his hands on my face. His touch was gentle, familiar. I was suddenly warm and suddenly sharply, painfully aware.

“Sweetheart,” said Alex Manders. “Yes, I can. I promise. Come inside and I’ll tell you everything.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN



It was him.

But it wasn’t.

His face had changed—his features grown harder, perhaps. Yet it was Alex’s unmistakable face, the face I had first seen looking down at me when I sat at my typewriter. It was his body, but the clothes were unfamiliar. His hair was longer. And the expression in his eyes when he looked at me—I could not read it. I could not read my husband’s eyes.

He took me back to the house. I was dazed and cold, and he led me easily over the terrace. In the corridor, he stooped and picked up my high-heeled shoes, holding them out to me.

“Put these on,” he said.

I took them. “I don’t—”

“They’re waiting for us in the parlor,” Alex said. “We have to go. They have questions.”

I slid the shoes on, blindly following orders. “What questions?” I asked. “Everyone knew but me.”

Alex’s blue eyes were bemused for a moment, and then they cleared. “I suppose we looked cozy when you walked in, didn’t we? No one knew, Jo. I just arrived thirty minutes ago. We were debating how to bring you out of the party to tell you when you came through the door.” He paused. “I didn’t know about the party. It looks like I picked a terrible night to come home.”

To come home. The words hit me again and left me speechless, and when Alex took my arm, I followed him unresisting. He still had his hand on me when we walked back into the parlor.

The tableau had changed. Cora was gone; Martin had pulled his chair closer to his parents, and the three of them were speaking in low tones. They went silent when they saw us.

“Alex,” Dottie said.

Alex steered me to a sofa and lowered me to it, then sat next to me. And that was that; after three years of mourning him, I was sitting next to my husband. He was so close that our legs almost touched and the thick wool of his coat scratched my bare shoulder. Warmth radiated from his body, heat that I knew well. I wanted to shift away, but I was suddenly aware of everyone’s attention on me—Dottie’s keen gaze, Martin’s amazed stare, Robert’s hooded eyes. I stayed in place, feeling raw and exposed.

“So,” Robert said. “A romantic reunion.”

“I know I owe some explanations,” Alex said.

“Where have you been?” Martin broke in. And then, as if he couldn’t believe it, “Where have you been?”

“Where is Cora?” I asked.

There was a second of silence as everyone stared at me. “I sent her back to the party,” Dottie said. “She’s to tell the guests there was an emergency in the kitchen. Her parents will help her see everyone out. I think they’ll be forgiving, since this is a family emergency.”

Next to me, Alex shifted, and I clenched my knees together, dropping my gaze.

“It’s all my fault,” Alex said. “I’m sorry again.” He took a breath. “Since the war I’ve been a prisoner of the Germans. They took me almost the minute I parachuted from my airplane.”

“All this time?” Robert asked, his eyebrows rising. “You look well fed for a prisoner.”