“You think I should discourage him?”
Aunt Kathleen doesn’t answer me at first. There’s a long, strained silence before she sighs.
“I really don’t know, darling. But the timing of this is awfully strange, isn’t it? Your mother dies and Noah starts dredging up the past like this? What good could possibly come of that?”
Despite her abrupt tone and how certain she sounds, it seems to me that something good already has come of Dad looking back.
“He’s struggled so much since Mum died. We all have. But now, he seems relieved to have something else to focus on. Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Your father was a completely different man during the war years,” Kathleen says. “It’s a blessing that you never knew that version of him, Charlotte. That’s all I’m saying.”
The coolness in Aunt Kathleen’s tone sends a chill down my spine. She’s never been fond of Dad, but she’s never been openly hostile toward him—at least not within my earshot. It’s clear there’s still more history here that I’ve never been privy to. Once upon a time I’d have laughed at the idea that my father might have some darkness hidden in his past. Not my dad, who cries in sad movies and who catches spiders and releases them outside rather than squishing them.
He’s a soft man. A kind man.
But is he an honest man? Dad’s involvement with the SOE is no small thing to hide, and even he has questions about those days.
“Have you ever talked to Dad about the war years, Aunt Kathleen?” I ask uneasily.
“You know he and I have never been close,” she says heavily. “But I do care about Noah. I want what’s best for him. And trust me when I say that looking back at those years now is not what’s best for him.”
That strange, unfamiliar chill runs down my spine once more at the gravity in Aunt Kathleen’s tone. Whatever’s buried in Dad’s past has been hidden for a very long time and he is so vulnerable right now. Maybe I need to put aside my own curiosity and encourage him to think twice before he embarks upon this project.
“Dad,” I begin carefully, as I sit down to breakfast the next morning. He’s up early again and there’s a steaming plate of scrambled eggs waiting for each of us. Dad pours himself a cup of tea and sits opposite me.
“Yes, love?”
“This project…your SOE project.”
“Yes?”
It’s the softness in his gaze that gets me. Dad doesn’t look happy—not exactly—but he does seem at ease, and just like that, I’m second-guessing myself again.
God, I wish my mother were here. She’d have sat me down with a pot of tea and some scones. She’d have folded her hands on the table and sat up straight and tall as she looked me in the eye and said, “Listen, Lottie, here’s what you need to do…”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I blurt uncertainly now. Dad picks up the table salt and shakes some over his eggs, then stirs sugar into his tea, considering my question.
“Not at all, Charlotte,” he sighs. “But it’s time. In fact, it’s probably past time. This is something I need to do.”
How can I argue with that? Dad is an adult, and he knows his own mind. If he’s sure he needs to do this, I have to let him try.
C H A P T E R 2
JOSIE
Montbeliard, France
October, 1943
“Are you alright back there?”
I’d been sitting in the cramped rear cockpit of the Lysander for several hours when the kindly pilot’s voice crackled over my headset. I couldn’t remember his name and I felt bad for that, but in my defense, my mind was completely full of details I could not afford to forget.
“As well as can be expected,” I replied, but he did not respond. I’d only been shown quickly how to use the headset and I’d forgotten most of those instructions too, so it was possible he didn’t even hear me.
It was the polite response, but it wasn’t the truth. My whole body was humming with nervous tension and the past twenty-four hours had been so surreal, I’d wondered more than once if I were dreaming. Now in the plane, every time I looked down and saw just how close the ground was, my body would spin back into a panic. Flying was nerve-wracking at the best of times but we had to fly low to avoid radar detection and that meant flying as slowly as the plane would allow, right over enemy-occupied territory. It was sheer madness and I’d been sitting in that violent anxiety for hours.
What was I even doing there? I was just an ordinary woman—someone sheltered and slight and sometimes even frail. I wasn’t ready to die and I was not nearly courageous enough to face capture. I hadn’t even landed yet and already I felt paralyzed by terror—painfully aware that I was completely out of my depth. I couldn’t even pray for help or salvation. I didn’t really know how to, given I’d been raised by a woman who abhorred religion. And just like that, my thoughts were back to my mother and that awful, awkward farewell.
I was startled out of my regret when the plane’s wheels collided with the ground, pitched forward without warning as the vehicle slowed, then thrown back when it came to an abrupt stop. As I scrambled to find my bearings, the pilot shouted,
“Out! Run into the bushes!”
It wasn’t uncommon at all for an SOE agent to have their mission cut short by a bullet or handcuffs at the moment of landing. I did not need to be told twice to take cover.
I pushed the latch to open the roof above me then checked the ground. Two men were scurrying toward the plane, carrying a woman on a makeshift stretcher. The field right below me was clear, so I tossed my suitcases out and then scrambled down the ladder against the fuselage. Case in each hand, I sprinted as fast as I could to hide in a nearby thatch of trees and shrubs. From there, I watched the men struggle to lift the moaning, wailing woman from the stretcher into the plane. They shut the hatch and within seconds, the Lysander did a sharp U-turn and began to accelerate. The men crouched low and ran back toward me as the tiny plane bounced back across the short field to lift sharply into the air.
The Lysander had been on the ground for only a minute or two. Now, it leveled off above us and quickly disappeared from sight.
I was finally back in France—finally home. This was far from the homecoming I’d dreamed of, but it was something. I breathed in deeply and blinked away tears of relief that filled my eyes. Even under such trying conditions, it was good to be back where I belonged.
“You must be—” a familiar voice started to say as the men approached me, but he broke off in shock when I offered him a shy wave.
“Yes, I am Chloe,” I whispered pointedly. “And you must be Marcel.” These were our operational names—the names by which other agents, and our local contacts, would refer to us.
Noah Ainsworth held up a hand in stunned acknowledgment, but then ran the last few steps toward me and lifted me, spinning me around in an embrace. The moonlit countryside around me blended into a whirlpool of cool blues and grays and silvery white, and I laughed as he spun me, almost carefree for a moment, despite the absurd danger we were in for our reunion.
“My God! I had no idea it was you coming to join us. What a marvelous surprise!” he exclaimed, squeezing me tight. I slapped him gently to put me back down, and once my feet were on the ground, he said cautiously, “But…why did they…you and I do know one another—”