Page 90 of Hearts of Resistance
‘I love you,’ Alex whispered into her ear.
Sophia kissed him fiercely. ‘I love you, too.’
When Sophia finally finished her tale, Rose was dabbing her eyes and Hazel had tears flowing down her cheeks. But their smiles told her they were happy tears.
‘I wish you’d brought him with you,’ Rose said. ‘Perhaps next year? And if you want a proper marriage celebration, a ceremony your friends or any family can attend, you’re welcome to have it here.’
Sophia couldn’t help the smile spreading across her lips. ‘You would do that for us?’ she asked.
Rose nodded. ‘You’re like the sister I never had. You both are. And that means you’re welcome here or at my home in Brest anytime, if you can bear to go back there after what we went through.’
‘You haven’t told us about you,’ Sophia said, turning to Hazel. ‘All these hours and you haven’t mentioned John?’ Sophia found it hard to say his name, so close to slipping and saying ‘Harry’. It had been plainly obvious to her that Hazel had fallen for the dashing soldier they’d rescued, but Hazel had been engaged to another man, and she doubted her friend would have turned her back on her duty, even after all they’d been through.
HAZEL
‘I, well...’ Hazel sighed. ‘I might need another drink to get my story off my chest!’
Sophia laughed as Rose leapt up and reached for the bottle of champagne, quickly topping up Hazel’s glass.
‘Don’t leave us in suspense!’ Rose said with a grin, before filling her own glass and Sophia’s as Hazel watched on.
‘John isn’t my husband,’ Hazel said, glancing first at Rose then Sophia.
‘Husband?’ Sophia exclaimed. ‘Husband?You never said you were married!’
Hazel giggled and leaned back, wondering what on earth her friends would think. But then, they’d been there with her through far worse, and she doubted either one of them would judge her for falling in love with another man.
‘When I arrived home, it was months before John returned. And when he did, I found out through a friend that he’d been home almost a week without sending word to me,’ she said, remembering the moment so vividly as she recounted the day to her friends. ‘I walked to his house with a heavy heart, wondering if I’d ever feel for him the way I did before the war, but it turned out he’d already made that decision for me.’
‘What? How?’
She laughed. ‘It’s kind of funny now, but at the time I thought my poor mother was going to die from the shock of it all.’
Hazel shut the front door to her parents’ home and started walking, ready to see the man she was engaged to. She toyed with the ring on her finger, the small diamond now so foreign to her as she rubbed her thumb over it. She’d only recently started to wear it again, and the weight of it, the touch of it against her skin, was unusual, somehow making her feel claustrophobic just having it there. John’s family had been distant when she’d seen them recently, his mother no longer excited about seeing her and chattering about how wonderful it would be to have her son home. Now, it was almost as if she’d managed to upset her somehow, which was ridiculous given what they’d all been through and how long she’d been away for.
She was no longer wistful thinking about John, or maybe she was. But there wasn’t the same sense of warmth within her any more when she thought about him, no longer an ache within her to see the man she’d promised to marry. Now there was a swaying of uncertainty confusing her, like being in a storm at sea. Either the feeling would pass once she saw him and threw her arms around him and it would all come rushing back, or the swaying would intensify and she’d want to throw herself overboard. Or maybe her mind was still on someone else, someone forbidden who she’d been trying to forget about all these months.
She quickened her pace, doubting that it would be a case of the former. Maybe her problem wasn’t with John; maybe it was because she no longer felt like the same young girl who’d fallen for him and lovingly waved him off to war. The woman she’d become during the war ... she was nothing like the woman he’d proposed to. Would he ever believe she could shoot a gun and disarm a man as fast as he could, or even faster? That she’d survived working undercover in France and lived to tell the tale, only she’d kept everything to herself, bottled it up inside so that she was almost ready to explode with it? That she was one of the women that had been whispered about since the war had ended, muttered about by the Gestapo, who’d have loved nothingmore than to have seen her with a bullet through her brain? Who’d tried to kill her and so nearly succeeded?
Harry had seen a version of the real her, the Hazel she’d become, which was why it had been so bittersweet saying goodbye to him. Pretending she hadn’t loved him more in the stolen moments they’d shared than she’d ever loved a man before, including her fiancé.
She’d never be the naive young woman she’d once been, and she was certain that the men who had been away serving would never feel the same, either, but at least their families and friends knew something about what they’d been doing. No one would ever know what they’d seen, how they’d coped or the decisions they’d made, and they all had their own demons to face, but she had to pretend like nothing had changed when it had. She’d seen how a man could treat a woman, how he could show her the same respect in the field as he would another man, and she’d become used to it. When her recruiter had told her that both genders were treated equally and had to be for the success of their work, she hadn’t realised the full extent of his words. But she’d certainly become used to the idea.
And now she was about to go back to the role of doting fiancée, with no idea why her beloved hadn’t bothered to contact her and had instead returned home to his family without calling on her. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d given her word to him that they would be married, so she needed to grit her teeth and get on with it, and perhaps hope that time would heal her wounds and help her transition back into her old life.
She kept walking, slowing when she finally saw his home. She had a few more houses to pass, and she took her time, taking deep breaths and readying herself for what she knew was going to be an awkward encounter.
Hazel knocked firmly on the front door, stepping back to wait. She hadn’t so much as received a letter from John since she’d been home, and she was so anxious she was breathing fast.
The door swung open and she was suddenly face-to-face with her future mother-in-law.
‘Oh, hello, Hazel,’ she said, glancing behind her and giving her a worried look. ‘I suppose word has travelled quickly.’
Hazel nodded. ‘I’ve heard he’s home. How wonderful for you to have him back safely.’
John’s mother gave Hazel a long, considering look. ‘You haven’t heard?’
Hazel shook her head slowly. ‘Heard what? He is all right, isn’t he? Has something terrible happened? Is that why he hasn’t called on me?’
