whip round viciously fast, opening a slash through shirt and skin on the arm holding her off the ground. The man’s bellow scaled upward into a shriek, and he dropped Nina in the gravel. She caught herself, pushing off the ground, and caught the man’s backhand across the face.
Ian sprang on him and put a straight right into the man’s Adam’s apple, hooked a foot around his ankle, and yanked him off his feet, kicking him in the ribs twice for good measure. When he saw Nina was on her feet, he shouted, “To the car!”
She flew at his side, diving into the front seat even as Ian fumbled with keys and wrenched at the various start-up dials and settings. He heard a shout, felt the car shudder as a kick thumped the bumper, and then they were pulling away with a screech of tires, to the sound of Nina’s wild laughter.
“You’re insane,” Ian shouted. “Goddammit, I lost my hat—”
“You can fight!” She was grinning. “You said you could, I didn’t believe—”
“I’ve had that hat since before the Blitz,” Ian complained, but he was smiling too. They were speeding out of this unsavory little hamlet into the darkness; the hand he’d punched with was killing him; he could feel blood trickle down the side of his face—and he couldn’t stop grinning. He glanced at his wife. “Are you hurt?”
“I think maybe he breaks my nose?” She sounded unconcerned.
“Bloody hell.” His smile disappeared. “I’m pulling over.”
“Is not the first time. Papa broke my nose when I was eleven. I spilled a jug of vodka.”
“Yes, you’re hard as rock, you were raised by wolves, just let me look at it.”
The side of the road was dark as pitch, sliced through by the Ford’s headlights and then the light of the torch Ian pulled from the boot. Nina’s feet crunched on pebbles as she slid out and let him examine her battle wounds beside the car. Her small nose was swelling rapidly and trickling blood, but despite her cursing as Ian pinched the nasal bones, nothing moved that shouldn’t have. “Not broken. Next time perhaps don’t taunt the drunks when they’re squaring for a fight.”
“What is fun in that?” She wiped the blood away with the side of her hand. “So, where does proper English stick like you learn gutter fighting?” She mimed the elbow he’d dropped on his second opponent.
“Every public school boy learns how to box. The elbow strikes and kidney shots I picked up from some guerrillas in Spain.” Ian’s blood was still pumping at twice its normal pace, the rush of excitement starting to drain. “I don’t pick fights, but if anybody picks one with me, I’ll be damned if I fight fair.”
“I like this in you, luchik.” Nina approved, blue eyes glinting in the dark. Ian envisioned the flash of her blond hair outside the restaurant as the man backhanded her. He pulled her suddenly into a rough, hard embrace. He wanted to go back and beat the bastard’s head in.
“Nu, ladno—” Nina squirmed free, looking impatient. “Is fine, no one is hurt, we drive.”
That’s it, Ian thought, fighting back all his inner turmoil as he slid into the car. I’m not letting you go. I don’t know what I have to do to persuade you to stay, Nina Markova, but I’m going to find out.
Chapter 44
Nina
September 1944
Outside Poznań
Nina folded her arms. “It’s been two weeks. It healed clean.”
Sebastian winced as he put his weight on his wounded leg. “It hurts to walk.”
“You’re faking,” she stated.
The English boy sighed. He was just five years younger, twenty-one to Nina’s twenty-six, but she couldn’t help but think of him as a boy. There was something open and trusting about him; even his years in captivity hadn’t dimmed it. “Can we sit down? Please.”
Nina sat, glowering. Their camp looked considerably more lived in now that they’d been ensconced for a fortnight waiting for Seb to mend: stream-rinsed laundry hanging to dry, fire pit now lined with stones and rigged with a crude spit. Nina couldn’t wait to leave it. “You know I want to head west.”
“That’s mad, Nina.” He said it with embarrassment, hating to contradict her. “No destination, no plan—”
“I want out of Poland.”
“You think Germany will be better? We have no papers, no clothes.” Gesturing down at his dirty battle dress. “Odds are we’d get nabbed and then you’d be a kriegie right alongside me. Only you’d be the only woman in a camp full of men, and trust