Page 18 of Summer of Fire
‘Excellent. I’ll walk you there now. I have some things to do before you leave.’
‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’
‘I sleep when I can. Don’t worry about me. It’s you who needs to sleep now.’
‘Alright,’ Lizzie agreed somewhat grudgingly.
They walked to the door of her assigned hotel room and lingered outside. The hallway was narrow, and they stood close to each other.
Jack found it hard to resist the magnetic pull and to put distance between them. The thought that tomorrow might be the last time he saw her flashed through his head. He chased it away. This was no place or time for sentimentality.
‘Will I see you before I go?’ she said.
Even as he rejected sentimentality, he decided to fly with her into Reims the following night. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’ll be with you when you go in. And I’ll see you tomorrow for more training before we set off.’
She gave him a grateful smile.
‘Now, get some sleep,’ he said, clenching his hand at his side to resist the urge to touch the shiny chestnut lock of hair that had fallen over her face.
‘Okay, okay,’ she said, brushing her hair aside with an impatient movement. ‘Just one more thing before I do.’
‘Yes?’ he said, wishing his life wasn’t so complicated and he could kiss her right then and there.
‘Tell me how old you really are.’
He sighed. ‘You are enough to wear anyone down, Lizzie Beaumont.’
‘So I’ve been told,’ she said, tilting her head coquettishly to one side. ‘But don’t avoid the question again, please.’
‘If you must know, I’m thirty-three. Notthatancient, but not that young either.’
The air between them sizzled, and he knew she felt it, too.
‘Go on in,’ he said, touching her elbow and steering her gently to face the door. ‘Get some sleep, and I’ll be here whenyou wake up. Someone will knock on your door when it’s time.’
Then she did something for which he was wholly unprepared. She swivelled back around to face him, until she was close enough to stand in the circle of his arms. Her delicate scent surrounded him, and his body responded instinctively, but he stopped himself from drawing her closer. Lizzie reached up and pressed her warm lips to his cheek.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she whispered.
He felt her unexpected kiss in every cell of his body. Before he could reply, she slipped through the door without looking back. He stood there reeling like a drowning man whose life raft had been snatched away.
CHAPTER 9
Lizzie was nervous and tussled with her thoughts as she tried to fall asleep in the unfamiliar hotel room. She drifted off eventually and woke to the distant hum of an aircraft. Her heart thumped as the realisation she would be jumping out of one tonight hit her sleepy brain. Fear slithered through her like a poisonous snake.
Too keyed up to fall asleep again, she swung her bare feet out of the warm bed and placed them on the carpet. She stretched sleepily and tiptoed across the room to move the blackout blind and peer outside. A watery first light shimmered in the pale dawn sky, illuminating the outline of Westminster Abbey, but there was no sign of an aircraft. Perhaps she’d dreamt it because she’d fallen asleep with the parachute jump on her mind.
There was a knock at the door from one of the SOE staff, and she dressed and hurried downstairs for a rare breakfast of poached eggs, toast, and a cup of real coffee. At precisely 6 a.m. she exited the lobby as she had been instructed. Her heart performed a little jig when she saw Jack waiting for her in the black car.
The dapper old driver jumped out as soon as she appeared and opened the car door for her with a flourish. ‘Good morning, miss. It looks like we have another beautiful day ahead of us.’
She slid into the back seat of the car next to Jack. He was freshly shaven and smelled as luscious as a pine forest and looked good enough to eat. She clutched her hands in her lap and wished she didn’t find him so attractive.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Sleep well?’
