realize that I'm going to look sixty when I'm forty if we keep this up?” But he didn't look as though he minded, and Serena looked at him archly.
“Are you complaining, then?” But there was a strange gleam in her eye today, as though there were something she wasn't telling. He had thought that he noticed it when he first met her for lunch, but he had forgotten about it as they talked. Later he would press her about it. But first he had something to tell her. “Are you complaining, Colonel?”
“Not really. But I think you ought to know that I won't be able to do quite as much of this when we go back to the States.” His eyes were twinkling strangely and Serena cocked her head to one side.
“Is that true?”
He nodded but looked indecisive. “Well, Americans just don't behave like this, after all.”
“Don't they make love?” Serena looked mock-horrified, still with that wicked gleam in her eye.
“Never.”
“You're lying.”
“I am not.” He was grinning at her. “Hell, we can't go on making love like this when we go back. My lunch hours won't be as long.”
“Brad.” She suddenly looked at him strangely. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Yes.” He nodded with a grin.
“What?” But she already thought she knew.
“We're going home, princess.”
“To the States?” She looked stunned. She had known that it would come eventually, but she hadn't thought it would be so soon. “To New York?”
“Only for a three-week leave. After that, my love, we go to the Presidio in San Francisco, and I become a full colonel. How do you like that, Mrs. Fullerton?” At thirty-four, Brad knew it was quite an accolade, and she knew it too.
“Brad!” She looked elated for him. “How wonderful! And San Francisco?”
“You'll love it. Not only that, but Teddy will be near us, since he's going to Stanford Med in the fall. And we'll even get home for Greg's wedding. That wraps it all up pretty nicely, wouldn't you say, my love?”
“More or less.” She lay back against their pillows again, with that same mysterious grin.
“More or less? I get promoted, we get sent home, we get one of the best posts in the country, and you say ‘more or less’? Serena, I ought to spank you.” He mockingly pulled her toward him to turn her over his knee, but she held out a hand.
“I wouldn't do that.” Her voice was oddly gentle and her eyes very bright, and something in her face made him stop pulling her toward him, as though he knew, as though he sensed it, even before she spoke.
“Why not?”
“Because I'm having a baby, Brad.” She said it so gently that it brought tears to his eyes, as he moved toward her and held her.
“Oh, darling.”
“I hope it's a boy.” She clung happily to him, and he shook his head firmly.
“A girl. One who looks just like you.”
“Don't you want a son?” She looked startled, but he was looking down at her as though she had just performed a miracle, not really concentrating on her words, just stunned by the total fulfillment he felt.
16
The car arrived to take them to Le Havre at eight o'clock in the morning. Their bags were packed and waiting in the front hall, and Marie-Rose and Pierre stood beside them, looking very starched and stiff and pale. Marie-Rose had been dabbing at her eyes ever since she had served Serena her breakfast tray that morning, and Pierre had the mournful look of a father losing his only son as he shook BJ.'s hand for a last time. It was the first time since before the war that they had cared so passionately for the people they had worked for, and the young couple who had inspired their love stood before them now, with regrets of their own. For B.J. it was the end of an era, the beginning of a whole other lifetime, as he knew only too well. During the war he had got lost, he had become someone new, found out who he was, in the anonymity of a uniform, with an ordinary name. Fullerton. It had meant nothing to anyone in the army. Fullerton? So what? But now he was going back to the States. Bradford Jarvis Fullerton III, and all that that entailed. He would see his mother, his father, his brothers, their friends, go to Greg's wedding, and attempt to explain to everyone why he was staying in the army, why it suited him,