‘Your young man is back. Please don’t let me see him waiting all day again to see you.’
Lucy peered out of the window, surprised to see Jack standing there. She’d started to wonder if she really had misheard him – couldn’t understand why he’d want to come back to see her again. Maybe he wanted to thank her for saving his life, to talk about that day. She knew many people preferred to keep everything they’d experienced at war bottled up inside, like she did about that awful day of the blast, but perhaps Jack needed to ask her questions. They’d talked so much at the hospital, before she’d even known who he was, but that was a year ago when he’d been struggling with his memory.
She checked her hair was in place and studied her face for a moment before heading out to greet him. She’d been up early, preparing herself in case he did, in fact, appear, but now that he was here she felt anything but prepared. It was one thing to be brave in the dark, like she had been the night before, and another thing entirely to front up to Jack in broad daylight.
She swung open the door, certain her mother would be eavesdropping from nearby. The last few months had been terribly hard for her mother, and Lucy was still working on her proper apology. She’d put her through a lot simply because she’d been easy to take her frustration out on, and she wished she could take back every curt word.
‘Good morning,’ she said, eyes meeting Jack’s dark gaze.
‘Good morning,’ he replied, taking his hand from behind his back and passing her a large bunch of assorted flowers. They were tied rather crudely with a piece of thin grass.
‘Oh, they’re beautiful.’ Lucy reached for them, using her right hand and forgetting for a split second that she’d meant to keep it hidden. She went to snatch it back before Jack could see her ugly deep pink scars, the marred skin, but he deftly caught her around the wrist.
‘Almost as beautiful as you,’ he said smoothly, his words low and only for her.
‘Jack, please. You don’t have to say things like that to me now,’ she protested.
‘I like telling the truth,’ he said with a grin. ‘You see, I stole these flowers from your neighbours. The truth.’
She laughed. ‘You didn’t!’
‘You are beautiful. Another truth.’
Lucy laughed as he dropped the flowers on to the floor of the porch and caught her other wrist, gently sliding his fingers to her hands.
‘Does that hurt? Touching the skin?’
She blinked up at him, all joking aside. ‘Not like that, no.’
Jack smiled and lifted her left hand first, kissing her wrist, lips so soft as they brushed her skin. Then he lifted her right, pausing when she flinched, before pressing a soft kiss there, too.
‘My memory slowly came back,’ Jack said, voice more serious now. ‘My sister would never have forgiven me if I’d never remembered her. And it was just as well. I needed someone to write to about you, and I told her all about the beautiful nurse who’d cared for me until my unit found me.’
‘You did?’ Lucy asked, wishing she was still that same girl who’d nursed him, the one who was brave and courageous, no matter what.
‘Do you know what she said to me?’
Lucy shook her head, holding Jack’s hands back, looking into his eyes and thinking how easily she could become lost in that welcoming gaze.
‘She told me that once the war was over, I was to find you. No argument. I was to go to the address you’d given me and camp outside your house until . . .’
She smiled. ‘So that’s why you stayed for so long yesterday. Because your sister told you to?’ Lucy sighed. ‘She couldn’t have known about what happened to me, Jack, so I’m sure she’d release you from that promise.’
Jack ignored her words, dropping to one knee in front of her. ‘Until I could convince you to marry me,’ he finished, as if she hadn’t even spoken. ‘So here I am, asking you, Lucy, to be my wife.’
‘Jack, no!’ Lucy tried to pull her hands from his but he didn’t let go. ‘Get up!’
‘Marry me, Lucy. Do me the honour of becoming my wife.’
She cried then, tears falling heavily down her cheeks, her eyes so moist she couldn’t see through the blur. ‘You don’t want to marry me. Not like this,’ she sobbed.
‘Yes, yes I do,’ Jack whispered, carefully stroking her skin and wiping the tears from her face as he stood up. ‘And you’re wrong about my sister. She wouldn’t care less about some burns – scars that are a constant reminder of how brave you were during the war. Don’t you see?’ he said. ‘They show what kind of woman you are, and I will kiss those burns every single day if you’ll say yes to me. If you’ll marry me.’
Lucy finally lifted her head, looked at Jack again. ‘After all this, after . . .’ Her voice broke. ‘You still want to marry me?’
He grinned. ‘Yes. Is it that hard to believe?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever believe it. Why didn’t you walk away after you saw me last night? You never had to see me again. You could have disappeared.’
He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t walk away from you, Lucy. Don’t you see? I fell in love with you before I could see you, when my head was bandaged and all I could hear was your voice because my head was so blurry. And we have so many dates to go on! We’re starting backwards, but we need to go out for lunch and dinner, to the pictures, on walks. I promise you I’ll be romantic.’
‘Truly?’ she asked.
‘You’re not taking her back to America with you. Please tell me you’re not going to America with him?’
Lucy spun in Jack’s arms, her mother’s voice taking her by surprise. So she’d been listening all that time after all.
‘Jack?’ Lucy asked, turning back to him instead of scolding her mother for listening in. Why had she never thought of that? ‘If I married you, would you want us to go back to America?’
He stared at her long and hard. ‘London is your home. Perhaps it can be mine, too.’
She would move for him. When all was said and done he’d come back for her, and she’d never felt love before she’d met him. Lucy had always been the one laughing at other nurses falling head over heels for soldiers or doctors. She’d always been too focused on her work, more concerned about doing her job well and caring for others. But from the day she’d helped to save Jack, something inside her had changed.
‘Mother?’ Lucy said, looking back at her standing there in the open doorway.
‘I think you’d make a lovely couple, but before we go talking about a wedding, it’s high time you invited this man inside.’
Lucy didn’t get time to reply before Jack took her arm. ‘Another piece of that delicious pie would be nice, Mrs Anderson,’ he said with a grin.
Her mother laughed at the same time as she did.
‘You Yanks and your charm,’ she said, cheeks flushing, which amused Lucy. ‘No wonder you like my Lucy. She’s probably the only girl who didn’t fall for your fancy words – made you try a little harder.’