Sons of Thunder (42 page)

Authors: Susan May Warren

Breathe, Dino, breathe!

The voice propelled Sofia as she dove into the water, long strokes taking her out into the blue of the sea.

Breaking the surface, she gulped in a hot, watery breath. Markos surfaced behind her.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t—wait—there.” Markos grabbed her shoulder, turned her.

Out beyond the reef of the shore, a cutter coughed black smoke. A
German
cutter. And men in uniform pulling Ava aboard from a dingy tethered to the boat.

No!

She kicked out ahead of him, but he grabbed her leg. “Wait—what are you doing?”

“My son is on that boat!”

“Yes, I know, I just…” He stared back at the ship. “I can’t believe Lucien betrayed us.”

“I can.” She turned in the water, took a breath. Met his eyes. “God will deliver us, right?”

Water clung to his eyelashes as he stared at her, as if drinking in her words. “Right.”

Right.

Then she swam for the ship in quick strokes, eating the waves, coughing out the foamy water that burned her throat, her eyes.

Markos swept past her.

She waited to see the colonel appear at the stern, robed in his grey uniform, and knew that she’d never let him hurt her again. No matter what it took.

Yet, as she swam closer, she saw the men reaching over the side of the boat to haul Ruth Ann Mizrahi aboard wore sweaters, fisherman caps…

Partisans?

They’d already swept Markos aboard when she reached the boat. Indeed, partisans whom she recognized rescued her, and she shook the water from her face, her gaze skimming over the sodden Mizrahi family, across a shivering Ava and Zoë, to Dino.

His tiny body lay on the deck, grey, sodden. She had a scream in her somewhere, but it webbed in her chest as she dropped to her knees, crawling toward him.
Breathe!

Markos—probably Markos—grabbed her from behind. “Wait!”

Alexio knelt at Dino’s head, and now lifted the boy, bending him forward at the waist. Pounded his back. “Dino, breathe.”

He raised Dino’s arms. Pounded him again. Zoë began to moan. Ava turned her, pulled her into her breast.

Alexio hit Dino’s back again.

Water spat from Dino’s mouth. He hiccoughed, then his body wracked with coughs.

Sofia lurched toward him, again, but Markos gripped her arm. “Let him breathe.”

Let him breathe. Let them
all
breathe. She watched her little boy writhe with the intake of air, her own body curling in with his pain.

Then he began to cry. Sweet sounds that rent the air, made them all, suddenly, shake to life.

Markos let her go, and she swallowed Dino into her arms, inhaling his sodden body.

Breathe, just breathe.

Beside her, Ava broke into weeping.

Zoë knelt beside them, her arms around Sofia and Dino. Ava too, her hands on Dino’s head. “Dino. My sweet Dino. Of course, I knew it.”

Sofia met her gaze, let herself feel the forgiveness.

“My son has come back to me, Sofia.” Ava reached out, touched her hand. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Ava nodded, her hand going to Sofia’s face, then to Markos’s. “It’s enough that you delivered my boys home.”

Behind them, smoke blackened the harbor, the German transport ship in flames. The skyline turned bright orange. A flock of spitfires buzzed over them.

“Let’s get out of here.” Markos unhanded her, and she lifted her head to watch him find his feet. Backlit by the sunlight, his body filled out to manhood, his black hair glistening and wild in his face, freshly baptized by the sea—yes, this was the Markos she’d imagined.

Longed for.

Loved.

Alexio reached out his hand. “Galen would be proud of his fisherman son.”

Sofia didn’t have to see Markos’s face to see his smile.

“Let’s pull up anchor before the Germans find out we stole their boat.”

The voice jerked her attention to the wheelhouse. Lucien, his black sweater pushed up at the elbows, came down the stairs onto the belly of the boat.

“You stole their boat? You came out to rescue us?” Sofia couldn’t help the surprise in her voice.

He glanced at her then, wearing the inklings of the scoundrel smile she’d missed too long. Lifted his shoulder in a shrug.

Markos reached out to Lucien. “Friends?”

Sofia watched them, the two men, ruddy, zealous.

“No, Markos,” Lucien said quietly, reaching out with a groan to grasp it. “Brothers. Always.”

Markos smiled, and she could have sung a song to it.

She buried her face in Dino’s hair, relishing his tiny body in her arms, now heaving. “Shh.”

As the boat lurched, Markos slipped into the shadow beside her, his body warm against hers. He looped his arm around her, around Dino.

Dino looked up at him, his tears dying to hiccoughs.

Markos ran a hand down his cheek. “You’re a brave kid, Dino. I’m proud of you. I think you get that from your papa.”

Dino stared at him, his eyes as blue as Markos’s, almost drinking him in. Suddenly he disentangled himself from Sofia and climbed onto Markos’s lap.

Markos opened his arms, a tenderness on his face that shook her through. He kissed the boy’s head as little Dino nestled into his strong arms.

Then, like two fisherman they stared out into the horizon.

She should have known her son would fit so well into Markos’s embrace. But she didn’t expect the mercy of it, the way it reached inside and filled her. Made her whole.

“Any room for me in there?” she asked softly, nudging herself into the knot of his arms.

“It’s where you belong,” Markos said, and he drew her in, wrapping his arm around her waist, the tang of the sea in his skin.

Beside her, Ava sat, her hands upturned, her face to the sun.

“Do you think you could find a song for me, Sofia?” Markos said in her ear. “Something of home?”

Sofia closed her eyes and let the sunshine bathe her as the boat parted the Ionian Sea. “For you, Markos, I could even find the words.”

And then, to the sound of the motor spilling thunder out in its wake, Sofia loosed the song too long tangled in her heart and delivered it up to the hazy golden morning.

Heart-stopping suspense...
entwined with soul-searching romance...
set against a historical backdrop readers will love!

Summerside Press™ is pleased to announce the launch of our fresh line of romantic-suspense fiction—set amid the action-packed eras of the twentieth century. Watch for a total of six new Summerside Press™ historical romantic-suspense titles to release in 2010.

N
OW
A
VAILABLE IN
S
TORES

Songbird under a German Moon
BY
T
RICIA
G
OYER

ISBN 978-1-935416-68-5

Dateline: 1945. The war is over.
And USO singer Betty Lake travels to post-Hitler Germany to entertain occupying U.S. troops. Her first performance is a hit, and she’s enthralled by the applause…by her quarters in a former Nazi-held mansion…and by the attention of Frank Witt, a dashing U.S. Army Air Corps combat photographer. Yet this songbird gets her feathers ruffled when her roommate, Kat, goes missing under suspicion of foul play. Is Betty a target too? Betty and Frank team up against post-war grudges, and together, the lovebirds seek answers. But will they have a chance for their romance to sing? The truth is revealed
under a German moon.

C
OMING
S
OON

Exciting New Romantic-Suspense Stories by These Great Authors—Cara Putman
…Susan Page Davis…Melanie Dobson…and MORE!

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