June 1942
Ipswich, England
Scarlett wasn’t cold anymore. The chill had gradually faded to blessed numbness as she stared at her lifeless sister.
Was this the price for William’s life? For hers? Had God taken Jameson and Constance as some sort of divine payment?
“Shh,” she whispered in William’s ear over the ringing in her own, trying to soothe him. There was no one left in the world who could soothe her. Everyone she loved besides William was gone.
He raised a sticky hand to her face, and Scarlett blinked at the blood on his palm, her heart stopping. Using the hem of her dress, she swiped at his skin, then sobbed in relief. The blood wasn’t his.
This wasn’t happening. Not really. It couldn’t be. She refused to accept
it.
She gripped Constance’s shoulder and shook furiously, willing her sister
back to life. “Wake up!” she demanded, shrieking like a banshee. “Constance!” she wailed. “You can’t be dead! I won’t allow it!”
To her shock, Constance woke with a heaving cough, gasping for air.
She wasn’t dead; she’d merely been knocked unconscious.
“Constance!” she cried, her chest heaving as she sobbed in relief, leaning over her sister and balancing William carefully. “Can you move?”
Constance looked up at her with glazed, confused eyes. “I think so,” she answered, her voice croaking like a frog.
“Slowly,” Scarlett ordered as she helped her sister upright. Constance’s face was battered, blood seeping from a gash above her left eye, and her nose was clearly broken. “I thought you were dead,” she cried, pulling her sister into the hardest hug of her life.
Constance lifted her hand to Scarlett’s back, reaching around William to
hold them both. “I’m okay,” she assured her sister. “Is William…”
“He seems okay,” Scarlett replied, her gaze sweeping over William and Constance. The cold had returned, and her head swam as though she were underwater.
“Is it over?” Constance asked, glancing at the destruction surrounding them.
“I think so,” Scarlett answered, noting the lack of sirens.
“Thank God.” Constance hugged her sister once more before drawing back, stricken. The look in her eyes raised the hairs on the back of Scarlett’s neck.
“What is it?” she asked as Constance gawked at her blood-soaked hand. Moving William along her hip, Scarlett wiped at the blood with a somewhat clean patch of her dress. Air gushed from her lungs in relief. Lucky. They’d been so lucky today. “It’s all right,” she assured her sister with a shaky smile. “It’s not yours.”
Constance’s eyes flared as her gaze swept down Scarlett’s torso. “It’s yours,” she whispered.
As if Constance’s words triggered Scarlett’s body, shattering the rallying defenses of shock, agony ripped through her back, and searing pain exploded in her ribs. Scarlett gasped as it overtook her, her eyes sweeping down the spreading bloodstain across her blue plaid dress—the same one she’d worn for that first date with Jameson.
It all made sense—the cold, the pain, the lightheadedness. She was losing blood. Her balance gave way, and she collapsed on her side, barely managing to shelter William’s head from hitting the pavement.
“Scarlett!” Constance yelled, but the sound struggled to cut through the fog in her head.
Instead, she focused on her son.
“I love you more than all the stars in the sky,” she whispered to William, who had stopped crying and lay on her arm, staring at her with eyes the same shade as her own. “My William.”
In that moment of chaos and shrieking sirens, it all became so clear, as if
she could see the threads of fate that had woven this tapestry. Leaving home. Serving beside her sister. Meeting Jameson on that dusty road. Falling head over heels in love. It wasn’t their path in jeopardy—that was already set. Only William’s was undecided.
“It was all for you, William,” she whispered, her throat clogging, forcing a gurgle. “You are so loved. Never doubt that.”
Constance hovered above them, her mouth agape as she studied Scarlett’s back. Her lower lip trembled as she kneeled closer. “You have to get up. We have to get you to hospital!”
“I’m all right.” Scarlett smiled as the pain faded once more. “You have to go,” she managed to say through wet, gasping breaths.
“I’m not going anywhere!” The panic on Constance’s face tore at Scarlett’s heart like nothing else could. This was something she couldn’t save Constance from. She couldn’t even save herself.
“Yes, you are.” She shifted her gaze back to William. “He needs to learn to camp,” she said without looking away from his face—Jameson’s face. “And to fish, and to fly.” That was what Jameson had wanted. For their son to grow up safe from the bombs that had brought this exact moment.
“And you can teach him all of that,” Constance cried. “But we have to get you to hospital. Hear the sirens? They’re nearly here.”
“I wanted more time with you,” she said to William, each word harder than the last. “We both did.”
“Scarlett, listen to me!” Constance shrieked.
“No, you listen,” Scarlett said before a cough wracked her body, blood bubbling past her lips. She managed a waterlogged breath and locked her eyes on her sister. “You swore you’d protect him.”
“With my life,” Constance repeated the vow.
“Get him out of here,” Scarlett ordered, mustering all of her strength. “Take him to Vernon.”
Constance’s eyes flared with understanding as tears streaked through the dust on her cheeks. “Not without you.”
“Promise me you’ll care for him.” Scarlett used what was left of her
energy to turn her head toward her beautiful, perfect son.
“I promise,” Constance cried, her voice breaking with tears.
“Thank you,” Scarlett whispered, gazing at William. “We love you.” “Scarlett,” Constance sobbed, cradling the back of her sister’s neck as
Scarlett’s eyes unfocused.
“Jameson,” Scarlett whispered with a faint smile. Then she was gone.
…
“No!” Constance screamed, the sound overtaking the shrill wail of the sirens.
William’s face scrunched as he let loose the cry that echoed her own.
Where was the ambulance? Certainly something could be done. This wasn’t how this ended—it couldn’t be.
Bits of debris dug into her knees as she leaned over Scarlett and lifted William into her arms, cradling his head against her chest, unblinking, unfeeling as the world swirled around them.
“Ma’am?” someone asked, crouching at her side. “Are you and your baby all right?”
Constance’s brow knit as she tried to make sense of the man’s words. “My sister,” she said in way of explanation.
The man looked at her with pity, glancing between Scarlett’s fallen frame and her eyes. “She’s gone,” he said as kindly as he could.
“I know,” she whispered, her lips trembling.
“Can I get some help over here?” the man called back over his shoulder. Two other men appeared, crouching to her eye level. “We’ll take care of her. You need to get to hospital. You’re bleeding.”
“I have a car.” Constance nodded, her eyes wide and unfocused. When the men asked for identification, she handed them her handbag. Her mind had shut down, as though it had reached its limit for trauma, for heartbreak.
Edward.
Jameson.
Scarlett.
It was too much. How could one person feel so much sorrow and not die from it? Why was she kneeling, nearly unscathed amid the rubble that had taken her sister?
Constance staggered to her feet, holding William to her chest as the men loaded Scarlett into an ambulance.
Promise me you’ll protect him. Scarlett’s words whispered through the cacophony of the street, consumed her very being. She tightened her hold on William, tucking his head under her chin.
This was where it ended.
No more grief, no more bombings, no more loss. William would live.
Ignoring the calls of the men around her, Constance grabbed the handbag at her feet and picked her way across the pavement, slipping twice on shrapnel as people appeared on the pavement, emerging from their shelters.
She had to get William to Vernon. She had to get him on that flight.
Dazed but determined, she walked back to the car, William’s cries mixing with the ringing in her ears and the screaming of her own heart.
She slid behind the wheel, noting that she’d left the keys in the ignition. Securing William in the seat next to her, she headed for the airfield, blinking constantly against the blur in her eyes.
She didn’t remember much of the drive, but she arrived at the airfield, showing them the pass she kept on the dashboard. The guard let her through, and she continued toward the hangar, dazed, drunk on shock and grief. She parked the car haphazardly, then bundled William in his blanket and climbed out. His foot caught in the strap of her handbag— No, it was Scarlett’s handbag.
Which meant she had William’s paperwork, but where was hers?
With Scarlett. She’d handle that later. She clutched William and stumbled toward the front of the car, where a tall, uniformed man rushed her way. He looked too much like Jameson to not be his uncle.
“Vernon?” she questioned, clutching William reflexively.
“My God, are you all right?” The man’s eyes were as green as Jameson’s, and they flared in surprise and shock as he reached her.
“You’re Vernon, right?” Nothing else mattered. “Jameson’s uncle?” The man nodded, inspecting her face carefully. “Scarlett?”
Her heart cracked open, blinding pain slicing through the fog. “My sister died,” she whispered. “She was right there in my arms, and she just died.”
“You were caught in the bombing?” His brow furrowed.
She nodded. “My sister died,” she repeated. “I brought William.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s a pretty nasty gash on your forehead.” He steadied her shoulder with a hand and pressed a handkerchief to her forehead.
“Sir, we don’t have much time. We can’t delay takeoff again,” someone called out.
Vernon muttered a curse. “Do you have everything you need?” he asked her.
“The bags are in the back. One trunk and two cases, just like Jameson said—” Her voice broke. “I packed them myself.”
Vernon’s face fell. “They’ll find him,” he swore. “They have to. Until then, this is what he wanted.” The sadness in his eyes reflected her own.
She nodded. They won’t find him, not alive anyway. The feeling settled deep. Her heart told her Jameson was with Scarlett. William was alone. What would happen to him?
“Get the bags,” Vernon ordered the men standing behind him, then brushed his thumb across William’s cheek, then the blanket she’d wrapped around him. “I’d know my sister’s handiwork anywhere,” he muttered with a small smile as the bags were unloaded and carried toward the runway. He studied her again, his face softening. “Your eyes are just as blue as he described,” he said quietly, shifting his gaze to William. “I see you have them, too.”
“They run in the family,” Constance mumbled. Family. Was she really about to hand over her nephew, Scarlett’s son, to a complete and total stranger just because he was a blood relation?
Protect him. Scarlett’s voice rang through her ears. She could do this— for her.
“The cut on your head looks to be more bluster than wound,” Vernon noted, examining her face as he removed the pressure and the handkerchief. “But I’m pretty sure your nose is broken.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said simply. Nothing mattered.
His brow puckered. “Let’s get to the plane. The docs can check you out before we head to the States. I’m so sorry about your sister,” he said softly, moving his hand to her back and leading her toward the runway. “Jameson told me how close you two were.”
Everything in her recoiled at his use of the past tense, but she kept moving, kept walking, and soon they reached the runway, where the props spun on a converted liberty bomber she knew the ATC used to ferry the pilots back to America.
A few uniformed officers waited outside the door, no doubt completing the manifest.
“Holy shit,” one of the officers muttered, staring at her face.
“What’s wrong, O’Connor?” Vernon snapped. “Never seen a woman caught in an air raid before?”
“Sorry,” the man mumbled, averting his gaze.
“Don’t tell me that baby is going to cry the whole way to Maine,” one of the Yanks joked in an obvious attempt to divert the awkwardness.
“That baby,” Vernon said, motioning toward William, “is William Vernon Stanton, my great-nephew, and he can cry the whole damn time if he likes.”
“Yes, sir.” The man tipped his hat at Constance and climbed aboard. “You have all your papers?” Vernon glanced at her handbag—no—
Scarlett’s handbag.
“Yes,” she whispered as her stomach pitched and gravity shifted. Your eyes are just as blue as he described. Vernon thought she was Scarlett. They all did. She opened her mouth to correct him, but nothing came out.
“Excellent.”
The last remaining officer lifted his clipboard and glanced between Constance and Vernon. “Lieut. Col. Stanton,” he said with a nod, checking the name off his list. “I wasn’t expecting William Stanton to be quite so young, but I’ve got him here.” He checked again. “That leaves us with…”
Protect him.
With my life. She’d promised Scarlett, and that was exactly what she would give—her life for William’s. Only Scarlett could go with him, protect him.
She lifted her chin, adjusted William on her hip, and opened the handbag with trembling fingers to find the visa she’d packed this morning. The damage to her face was, in its own way, now a blessing. She handed the papers to the officer, showing him the scar on her palm that matched the description. Then she pressed a kiss to William’s forehead and silently begged his forgiveness.
“I’m Scarlett Stanton.”
