‘Mother!’ Lucy protested. But her mother wasn’t wrong and she knew it.
Jack let go of Lucy, winking at her before taking her mother’s arm instead. ‘Your Lucy was as brave as a soldier in Normandy. I hope you have all day because I have a lot of stories to tell about her. Did you know how we met?’
Lucy groaned. It was one thing him proposing on her doorstep, and another entirely to have him in her own home, telling her mother all sorts of tales about their time in France.
‘Do we have to go back there?’ She understood why so many soldiers didn’t like to talk about what they’d been through. She stopped, the hot blast rushing back to her, the feeling of her skin crawling with fire.
‘Lucy?’ Jack was at her side, hand on her arm.
‘It’s . . .’ she breathed, pushed the memories away. Her burns were the physical reminder, but her memories were equally as bad – the way they surprised her when she was least expecting them, like a wave crashing through her mind out of the blue.
‘We all have skeletons in our closet, Lucy,’ he said gently, stroking her arm as he looked into her eyes, not afraid of whatever she was going through. Her mother was so kind, tried so hard, but she didn’t know what to do when Lucy was hit with an attack like this. Jack’s soft, smooth words started to soothe her, his fingers a steady rhythm against her. ‘Acknowledge them, remember the pain, then don’t let it back in. Don’t let it take hold.’
She shook as he held her, his arms circling her now, embracing her even though her mother was standing quietly only a few steps away.
‘We don’t ever want to forget the things we did. They make us who we are, each and every one of us,’ he told her. ‘The men I killed will haunt me for ever, just like the day you got your burns will for you. But we survived, Lucy. We survived it and we’re getting our second chance.’
She looked back up, came back to the present, away from the memories and the pain. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes to marrying you, and yes to living again.’
He lifted her hand and kissed her red raw skin, something she was going to have to get used to accepting instead of flinching away from.
‘Good,’ he replied with another wink. ‘Now, let’s stop scaring your mother and go and tell her all about how we met, and how you nursed me back to health.’
Lucy clutched his arm, drawing on his strength, wondering how on earth she’d been fortunate enough to meet a man like Jack. He was right, though; she did need to get on with living. She needed to help returned soldiers and put her nursing skills to good use; she needed to talk to women about what their husbands and sons might have experienced so they could better understand them; and most of all she needed to believe in herself. Jack said he loved her, and instead of doubting him and letting herself be plagued with questions, she needed to believe in him. Instead of running for the hills when he’d seen her, burns and all, he’d returned with open arms, and that wasn’t something she’d ever expected.
‘Jack, you’ll have to ask Lucy’s father’s permission. He won’t have you asking her on the porch like that as a proper proposal.’ Her mother tut-tutted.
‘It can be our little secret,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Can I call you Mother?’ he asked, putting on a hilarious English accent.
They went inside and Lucy dropped into a chair at the table as her mother almost tripped over her own feet reaching for the teacups.
Jack was definitely the breath of fresh air her family needed after putting up with her for the better part of six months, that was for sure.
‘Oh, and sweetheart? I’m not like other men,’ Jack said with a grin. ‘If my fiancée still wants to be a doctor, then she has my blessing.’ He laughed. ‘I haven’t forgotten all the things you told me when I was slipping in and out of consciousness and you were keeping a bedside vigil.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Scarlet
She couldn’t do it. Scarlet’s hand hovered, but she couldn’t bring herself to knock. Why was she here? What had she done?
She lowered her hand and fisted it to stop it from shaking. What if he’d met someone else by now? What if he no longer felt the same way, despite the letter he’d sent her? What if . . . ?
‘Scarlet?’
She dropped the bag she’d been holding in her other hand the moment she heard his voice. Scarlet turned, and when she saw him, everything changed. All the fears disappeared when James ran the distance between them and embraced her, arms around her as he lifted her from the ground and swung her around. She was safe in his embrace; wanted, loved, needed. All the things she’d been craving and desperate for she knew were now within her grasp, yet not from the man she was married to.
‘You have your bags,’ James stated when he finally set her back on her feet, staring down at her, mouth so close to hers as he glanced from her eyes to her lips and back again. ‘Does that mean . . . ?’
Scarlet nodded, braving his gaze, refusing to look away even though the pull to do so was strong. She’d spent so many long months trying not to think about him, refusing to acknowledge that she’d made the wrong decision. Yet here she was, with James instead of Thomas.
‘Did he do this to you?’ James asked, reaching up so carefully to skim his fingers across her cheek, the pain in his expression impossible not to notice.
Scarlet nodded. ‘He doesn’t know I’ve left him,’ she said, voice quavering. ‘I, well, your mother was there and he was yelling at both of us. When he told me to go I left, but I said I was staying with a friend.’
James shook his head. ‘I’m not your friend.’
She blinked twice, staring at him. ‘What? I mean . . .’ She’d said ‘friend’ as a cover when she’d left, but still she thought he’d consider himself her friend.
He moved closer, into her space again, his hands running down her upper arms as he ducked his head, lips closing the distance left between them as he kissed her. Scarlet let him, didn’t consider pulling away as her mouth hungrily met his, kissing him like she hadn’t kissed a man since the night on the boat, when she’d been wide-eyed and innocent about what awaited them in France. Thomas hadn’t kissed her like this even on the day they’d been married. But James . . . James made her feel alive. James made her want to live instead of hide herself away from the world, trapped inside that house. Only she wasn’t trapped any longer.
‘I don’t want to be your friend,’ James said when his lips parted from hers. ‘I have no interest in being friends.’
She saw the glint in his eye, understood his words. ‘I’m married,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing can change that.’
He pressed his forehead to hers. ‘I don’t care. And if you cared, you wouldn’t have turned up here, unaccompanied, with your bags packed.’