Take Me Home (9781455552078) (10 page)

Olivia felt like a fool.

Somehow, she had managed to make her situation even worse…

Billy Tate walked quickly down the darkened streets of Miller's Creek; he moved as if he had someplace he needed to be, but the look on his face seemed to say that he had no idea where he was going. Absently, he glanced up at the thousands of pinprick stars and the slyly winking moon. He didn't know what time it was, but wouldn't have cared if he had. He could only think of one thing.

I kissed Olivia!

He could still remember the moment their lips had touched, the taste of her, the feel of her fingers digging into his arm. It was as if he'd been floating above them, watching from the branches. It hadn't lasted long, but the truth was that even if it had gone on for hours, it still wouldn't have been long enough.

After all the long years that he had loved Olivia from a distance, had kept his true feelings hidden, Billy couldn't believe how things had worked out. Proposing to Olivia had been the hardest thing he'd ever done. He'd talked himself out of it more than a dozen times; even that fateful morning, standing in front of the hardware store, he'd been wishy-washy, ready to go in the door one moment, wanting to run back to the bank the next. Somehow, he'd managed to go through with it. Kneeling on the floor of the warehouse, listening as Olivia agreed to become his wife, was undoubtedly the greatest moment of his life. Somehow, it had been even better than the countless times he'd fantasized about it. It was like a fairy tale; now all he had to do was worry about whether they would live happily ever after.

And there had already been problems…

The first had come while Billy had been down on bended knee. He had noticed Olivia wavering, about to either reject his proposal or ask for more time to consider, neither of which were outcomes he wanted. Before she could say anything, he'd tried to backtrack, to apologize and say that he was at fault for surprising her, that he'd been wrong to ask; for Billy, it would have been better to take the offer away, anything to avoid being turned down. But then, shockingly, surprisingly, she'd accepted, proving his worries to be unfounded.

The second problem had come tonight. Ever since he'd heard about the accident, Billy had been half-sick, playing out all sorts of scenarios in his head. Olivia was the love of his life, as well as his best friend. If she'd been hurt…But his relief at finding out that she was safe was soon replaced by a different emotion, something he never would have expected.

Jealousy.

When Olivia told him that she'd been talking with a man, with a
stranger
, and that that same man was responsible for saving her from being run over by Sylvester Eddings, it felt as if he'd been slugged in the gut. He had tried to ignore those jealous feelings, to hide them just as he'd hidden his love for Olivia, but he had failed miserably. His words had surprised even him. Billy supposed that it was because he knew how tenuous, how fragile his engagement to Olivia actually was; he might have been a dreamer, but he wasn't a fool. One good knock from any direction, and the whole house of cards he'd carefully built would come tumbling down. Once again, he would be alone.

But now, after he and Olivia had kissed, Billy no longer felt so worried. He found himself relieved, even excited for what lay ahead of them. They would be married, he would go off to the Navy for as long as the war lasted, and then he'd come home and their life together could begin at last.

Finally, Olivia was all his.

E
VER SO SLOWLY,
Peter began to wake. As his head cleared, he started to wonder when he'd fallen asleep and which of his fellow soldiers had taken first watch. Surprisingly, he didn't feel cold, even though it had been months since they'd had adequate blankets or coats. He hoped that someone had put on some coffee.

But then, as Peter tentatively opened his eyes, the brightness of the morning sun made his head hurt so badly that he saw stars.

“Verdammte Scheiße,”
he mumbled.

“What was that?” a woman's voice answered.

Instantly, Peter shot wide awake. Even though his temples throbbed so badly that he felt sick to his stomach, he opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He was in a bedroom. Beside him, the curtain had been raised a couple of inches to allow for a little sunlight. A clock ticked steadily on the nightstand, keeping time far more slowly than his pounding heart. At the foot of the bed in which he lay was a dresser; a mirror hung above it, facing him. Staring at his reflection, Peter was shocked; he looked exhausted, his hair matted to his scalp with sweat, dark circles beneath his eyes, his pallor as pale as a ghost. And there, sitting in a chair beside the dresser, looking at him with concern, was Olivia.

“I didn't understand what you said,” she told him, setting aside the book she had been reading and rising to stand by his bedside.

It was then that Peter understood he'd made a terrible mistake.

He'd spoken in German.

“It…it was nothing…” he hastily explained, searching for his English like a drowning man searching for a floating log. “I must've been…dreaming…”

Olivia smiled at him. Looking at her, Peter's heart started to pound, just like when he'd first seen her. Coming to stand beside his bed, the sunlight catching her hair, she looked like an angel, even more beautiful to him than before. But as spellbound as he was, he was still panicked. Desperately, he tried to get his bearings, to understand exactly what had happened to him.

“Where…where am I…?” he asked.

“You're in my home,” she explained. “It was the closest place I could think to bring you.”

Peter tried to sit up on his elbows, but moving caused another wave of pain and nausea to wash over him. Wincing, he fell back against the bed, his agony even worse.

“Easy,” Olivia soothed. “The doctor said that it's going to take time for you to get better. There's no need to try to do too much. You need your rest.”

“The…the doctor…” Peter repeated. “What…what happened…?”

“Don't you remember?” she asked. “The truck was heading right for us. You pulled me out of the way and then it hit you.”

Slowly, it all began to come back to Peter: the truck, his fear for Olivia's safety, getting hit, the whole story. He reached up and felt the huge bump on the back of his head. Bandages ran the length of his right arm, all the way down to the wrist, even covering the cuts that had been made by his handcuffs when the train had crashed.

“How…long have I been asleep…?” he asked.

“A little more than a full day. It's late in the afternoon on Wednesday.”

Peter nodded as if he understood; ever since he'd been captured back in the forest in France, he'd had no idea what day of the week it was.

“And you've been watching me sleep?”

Olivia looked away for a moment, as if she might have been a bit embarrassed. “I haven't been in here for long,” she explained. “When I came back from work, I decided to sit and read. I thought that if you woke, it would be better for you to see a familiar face.” She paused before adding, “Besides, you may have saved my life yesterday. It's the least that I could do.”

“You took care of me,” he answered. “That was more than enough.”

Olivia smiled. “Is there anyone you'd like me to call?” she asked.

Peter's first thought was that she was asking him whether he had a wife or a girlfriend, but he quickly put it aside as foolish wishful thinking; that he was smitten with her didn't mean the attraction was mutual, not necessarily. He shook his head. “No, there isn't.”

“What about your family?” she pressed.

Unable to hold her eye, Peter looked away. He thought about his mother. If she was still alive, she was surely suffering, but as hard as it was to accept, neither of them could do anything for each other, not now. “My parents…neither of them…they're not in my life anymore…” he explained.

“I'm sorry,” Olivia replied.

“Don't be. It all happened a long time ago and far from here.”

“Where are you from?”

Peter hesitated, thinking of his father. “Pennsylvania.”

“That's an awfully long way from here,” Olivia said. “What with the war and the restrictions on travel, it's not often that you see a man your age just wandering about.” As she spoke, Peter thought she looked a little sheepish, as if she was uncomfortable prying. “It got me to thinking that you must be a soldier.”

Olivia wasn't asking him a direct question, but Peter understood that it was one all the same. “You're right,” he began, trying to think ahead through his lie, fearful that he would stumble badly enough to give himself away. “But not in the way you might think. I have a deferment, because of my job.” With every word he spoke, his confidence grew, the made-up tale getting easier to tell. “I probably won't ever wear a uniform, but I'm doing my part, like everyone else.”

“It sounds exciting.”

“Some days, I suppose.”

Deep down, Peter knew that lying to Olivia was wrong, but there was another part of him, an insistent voice, that kept telling him that speaking the truth meant being hauled away, never to see her again. He'd come into town to turn himself in to the sheriff, Olivia's father, and to lead the law to where Otto hid. It had all seemed so simple. But meeting Olivia, feeling the way he did when he was around her, made him want to be by her side as long as he could. Her beauty, the sound of her voice, the way that she smiled all drove him to stay by her side. Peter was filled with a sense of hope that somehow, some way, he could have her. He couldn't let it end, not yet, even if it meant that he had to lie through his teeth.

“So this job of yours,” she said. “What is it exactly?”

Peter paused. “I can't tell you that,” he answered. “All I can say is that it's important to the war effort.”

Instead of cutting off Olivia's curiosity, Peter's response seemed to inflame it further. “It's a secret?” she prodded, her eyes sparkling with interest.

“One of national security,” he lied, digging his hole deeper.

“What branch of the service do you work with?”

“Olivia, I told you…”

“Okay, okay,” she replied. “I won't keep trying. As long as what you do is put to use against those terrible Germans, it's all right with me.”

Peter's heart felt like it stopped beating.

“When the war started,” she continued, “I used to go to the movies and watch the newsreels and be so afraid. I couldn't believe all of those people cheering Hitler, waving those horrible flags, shouting for the soldiers as they marched by, bloodthirsty for war. It made me sick.” Olivia frowned, shaking her head a little at the unwelcome memory. “I know I shouldn't say it, but all of those people are getting exactly what's coming to them.”

Though Peter was surprised, he knew that he shouldn't have been. Germany's blitzkrieg through Europe had brought the world to war and taken countless lives. Hitler deserved to swing from the tallest tree that could be found. But to assume that every German believed in their Führer and his murderous cause was a terrible mistake. Peter thought about those he'd known back in Bavaria who, soon after Hitler was declared chancellor, had dared to speak out against him. One after the other, sometimes in the dead of night, all of them had disappeared. In particular, he remembered Holger Robben, the kindly old man who had run the drugstore and who, one fateful afternoon, had made an off-color joke about Hitler within earshot of someone who didn't find any humor in it. That night, the drugstore's windows had been shattered into pieces, and the inside put to the torch. Just like that, the man's life was ruined. Peter's own fortunes had been little different. He hated everything the Nazis stood for, but in order to protect his mother, to ensure that she would be safe and to keep her from receiving some of the same punishment as their neighbors, he'd gone off to fight, an unwilling soldier from the very beginning.

But to hear Olivia's hatred for Germans nearly broke his spirit. Without revealing his true identity, that he was one of the very people she felt such disgust for, how could he hope to convince her that she was wrong?

Misinterpreting the cloud that passed over his face, Olivia said, “You look like you might be hungry. Would you like something to eat?”

Managing a weak smile, Peter nodded. He
was
hungry. His stomach hadn't stopped growling since he'd woken; other than the meager scraps he and Otto had wolfed down at the cabin, it had been several days since he'd eaten anything.

“Let me go see what I can find.”

Olivia headed toward the door but, just as she was about to leave the room, she stopped, turning back to him.

“I just…there's one thing that keeps nagging at me,” she said.

“What is it?” he asked, feeling a bit nervous.

“When we met, you said that the reason you'd come to town was to talk to my father, the sheriff,” Olivia explained. “But before you could say any more, Sylvester's truck turned the corner. Does it have something to do with this secretive job of yours?”

Peter froze. He remembered every word of their conversation. Desperately, he tried to come up with some plausible answer, something that was believable. Stumbling, he raised his hand, wanting to run his fingers through his hair, a tic that often showed when he was nervous, but the moment he touched his scalp, he set off another terrible tremor of pain. Gnashing his teeth and pinching shut his eyes, inspiration struck him and he grabbed for the only straw available to him.

“Maybe…maybe the doctor was right…” he began. “That crack on my head must've been a doozy…I just can't remember…”

Olivia nodded, frowning at the same time. “Don't worry about it now,” she said. “Just get your rest. I'm sure it'll all come back with time.”

With that she went, leaving Peter to his worries. He was in serious trouble. If he really wanted to spend more time with this woman who'd enthralled him so completely, whom he, as unbelievable as it seemed, was falling in love with, he was going to have to come up with a better excuse.

And quick.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Over and over, Otto brought down his still-cuffed hands as hard as he could onto the dulled blade of the broken axe. Sweat stood out on his forehead. Moments of dizziness weakened him. Dark blood wet his restraints, dripped onto the worn workbench, and splattered onto the ground at his feet. Regardless, he kept going, hard but steady, desperate to be free.

CRACK. CRACK.

Watching Becker make his way toward town, Otto had tried to resign himself to the fact that there was nothing more he could do. The only option that remained was to wait. He'd impatiently paced around the cabin, tried to lie down and get some sleep, anything to take his mind off the situation he found himself in. When his hunger got the better of him, he once again ransacked the cabin, reopening every cabinet and drawer, growing so frustrated at not finding anything that he smashed a nightstand into kindling. In the end, he'd only managed to make his hunger worse.

CRACK. CRACK.

Somehow, he'd made it through the night. At every creak of the cabin or whisper of the wind through the trees, he'd startled awake, sure that Becker had returned. But every time, Otto had still been alone. When the sun had begun to shine in the east, he'd begun to have his first doubts. Maybe the damn Amerikaners had gotten on their trail faster than he'd expected. Maybe his fellow soldier was a useless fool and had gotten captured thanks to his own stupidity. Either way, he had to assume he was now on his own. That meant he had to get free.

CRACK. CRACK.

Rooting around on his hands and knees in the faint dawn light, Otto had finally found the axe head that had broken off after only a few whacks. On the workbench, there was a gap between two of the boards; whether because of rot or shoddy craftsmanship, Otto couldn't have cared less, but he was thankful all the same. Wedging the piece of steel into the space, pushing until he was sure it was secure, he'd begun slamming the chain down onto the blade.

CRACK. CRACK.

He didn't know how many times he'd struck the axe head. Fifty? A hundred? More? Occasionally, sparks flew from the steel, but the cuffs' chain held. It didn't take long for the metal that still bound his wrists to pierce his flesh, drawing blood. But Otto didn't slow, didn't even consider a different plan to gain his freedom. Until his last ounce of strength ebbed, he'd keep trying. For himself. For Hitler. For Germany. For the revenge he would take on these people the moment he was no longer their prisoner.

CRACK. CRACK.
CLINK…

Otto looked down at his trembling, bloody fingers. The chain that had bound his hands was finally broken, a snapped link lying on the workbench. Taking a deep breath, he stretched his muscles, sticking out both of his sore arms, a movement he'd been unable to make for far too long. It hadn't been easy, but finally, he was free.

The only question left was what to do next.

The first thing was to get something to eat; just thinking about food made his stomach grumble loudly. Otto knew that if he wanted to eat, he would need to steal his food. Right then, he would've killed for it. Once it grew dark, he'd pick his way along the edge of town in search of someplace like this cabin, unoccupied and isolated, break in, and take what he needed. If he was lucky, he'd find some clothes to replace his prison uniform; ideally, a long-sleeve shirt to hide the cuffs that still circled his wrists.