The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,84

upper quadrant of the chest, and the man flew backward.

Clay sagged to his knees. He didn’t want to kill the German, but he had no choice.

Before him, Frank Lyons moaned and squirmed.

Clay tossed Lyons’s knife over the side of the trench, then yanked open the pouch for his first aid kit. “Let me see.”

“What?” Lyons grimaced. Blood pulsed between his fingers. An artery had been hit. He’d bleed out in minutes.

Clay tore open a field dressing, applied it to the wound, and clamped Lyons’s hand over it. “Press on this hard. It’ll buy you a minute to pray. Pray God will forgive you, ’cause you’re going to meet him mighty soon.”

Lyons’s lip curled. “You’re not going to try to save my life?”

“Not even Doc Block could do that. And I’ve got a road to block.” Clay unbuckled Lyons’s cartridge belt. The Rangers could use the extra BAR ammo, and he didn’t want to leave grenades with Lyons.

A bloody hand clamped around Clay’s forearm. “That dame in the library—her kid’s mine.”

Clay found himself smiling. “Nope. She’s all mine. Your name dies with you today.”

He broke free, slung Lyons’s BAR over his shoulder, and held his rifle in position. He gave the dying Ranger one last look. “By the way, she forgave you. And so do I.”

Clay edged around the corner and stepped around the dead German. He prayed for forgiveness and thanked God for saving him to finish the job he’d been given.

A strange lightness filled his chest. Frank Lyons would never hurt another woman again.

CHICAGO

Leah stepped off the bus, her arms empty without Helen. When she’d told Mama her good news, Mama had insisted she watch the baby so Leah could visit more orphanages. If only Leah had thought to ask Mrs. Demetrios which orphanage the girls had been taken to.

This was the third home. The brick building didn’t look familiar, but that meant nothing.

Leah opened the door. No one sat at the desk. To the left an office door stood ajar, and a radio announcer’s voice floated out, solemn and strident.

Perhaps she should be glued to the radio too, but Clay would want her busy and searching for her sisters.

“Hello?” she called.

The radio turned off.

“Yes?” A woman in her fifties peeked out with a face strangely plump for her trim figure and far too stern to be working with children.

Leah put on her warmest smile, held out a sheet of paper with her information, and gave her standard speech about her search.

“Very well.” The woman puffed out a sigh. “Come into my office.”

“Thank you, Mrs.—”

“Miss Stratford.” Her heels clunked on the hardwood. “Hmm. Kay-ray-hay-lee-us. One of those foreign names.”

“It’s Karahalios, ma’am, and it’s Greek. But I’m an American citizen.” Leah took a seat in front of the desk. “Besides, the Greeks are on our side.”

Miss Stratford raised a thick eyebrow and opened a file cabinet. “Kay . . . ray . . . Here we are.”

Leah blinked over and over, but yes, Miss Stratford was carrying a manila folder. “We—we were here?”

The woman sat behind her desk and opened the folder. “November 10, 1929. A George—oh, I can’t pronounce these foreign names—husband and wife killed, struck by a car. Three daughters, a four-year-old and eight-month-old twins. Oh, these crazy names.”

“I’m Thalia, the oldest.” Leah strained to read the faded handwriting upside down.

Miss Stratford lifted the folder. “You were adopted on November 20.”

“I was separated from my sisters.”

“Often necessary. Says here the Jones family wanted a girl to help in their store someday. They didn’t want babies. Something—hard to read—didn’t want crying and diapers. And look at that date—a month after the stock market crashed. We couldn’t take any chances.”

“My sisters? They were adopted? Did they stay together?”

“Yes, they were adopted together.”

Leah leaned forward, her heart beating wildly. “Where are they? Who adopted them?”

Miss Stratford drew back. “I can’t tell you. All adoptions are closed.”

Leah gasped. “But they’re my sisters.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Paxton. It isn’t possible.”

She collapsed back in the chair. She’d come so far . . . so close . . . and now nothing?

Miss Stratford’s face softened. “However, I can show you the information pertaining to you. Would you like to see it?”

What did it matter if she couldn’t find her sisters? Yet how could she not? “Yes, please. I know so little about my past.”

She pulled out a paper. “This is fine. So’s this. Some have carbon copies. You may have the copies.”

“Thank you.” A photograph was attached to one of the papers with a paper clip.