of his life giving her the love and loyalty she was more than worthy of.
Except there was still that business with her father.
His feet faltered. Before anything, he had to tell her the whole truth. If the betrayal cost him her love, then . . . He shoved down the heaviness piling on his chest. He’d deal with the fallout later when he had a bottle of whisky at hand.
Pushing open the barn door on its one hinge, Barrett blinked several times to adjust his vision to the dimness inside. Though with the steely clouds covering the sky, the light inside was hardly much different from outside. Eerie quiet greeted him. Pulse leaping in his veins, he reached for the knife on his belt. Dried straw and cold dirt crunched beneath his boots as he stepped farther across the floor.
“It’s you.” Kat and Ellie popped up from behind a trough tucked in the far back corner. “Back so soon.”
Sheathing his knife, he took a deep breath to calm his heartbeat. “The contact was waiting for me when I got there.”
She brushed dry bits of hay from her skirt with a precise flick of her hand. “Are we leaving soon?”
“We’re to meet him after nightfall when a plane will be waiting to take us back to England by midnight.”
Ellie sidled up next to her sister, eyes large in her pale face. “Does this mean we’re going home?” At Barrett’s nod, Ellie squealed and threw her arms around Kat. “We’re finally leaving!”
Kat’s arms circled her sister, but her eyes shone for Barrett alone. A welcome of happiness between them. “Yes, it’s wonderful.” Unlatching Ellie, Kat moved toward him. He could almost feel her kiss brushing over him as she closed the distance. “Thank you.”
The door behind him eased open on its rusty hinge. “Don’t thank him just yet.”
Barrett’s blood froze. Eric had found them.
Chapter 29
Eric’s iron-gray uniform blended in to the gray swath of sky behind him, its severity punctuated by the silver buttons gleaming down his chest. A Luger sat strapped to his side.
Stepping into the barn, he glanced around at the sagging beams and broken farm tools with a frown. “Come down in the world since you left me in Paris, ja, schatz?”
Color drained from Ellie’s face. “Eric. What are you . . . How did you . . .”
Eric smiled at the tremble in her voice. “I think what I’m doing here is fairly obvious. I’ve come to claim what belongs to me. And as to how I got here, let’s just say that you should be more careful where you leave things, schatz.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a woman’s comb. Dirty, with a few of the teeth broken off, and last seen in the hands of a man Barrett had sliced open.
“Tsk, tsk. I gave this to you, Eleanor.” Eric slowly waved the comb back and forth. His teeth gleamed like razor blades in the shafts of lights streaking through the roof as his cold eyes moved to Barrett. “With all the blood you left trailing behind, I didn’t think to find you still alive. Must have had a good nurse to tend you. It was only a matter of searching the nearby towns until by a stroke of pure luck I saw you crossing the field here. By the way, I am surprised at how quickly you traveled with such injuries. And with two women.”
Barrett moved to block the women from Eric’s view. “What’s your plan now, Schlegel?”
“Take back what belongs to me, or weren’t you listening? Perhaps your head is too full of Resistance news to comprehend anything else.”
Smirking, Barrett crossed his arms over his chest to get his breathing even. What he wouldn’t give for a gun to shoot the man dead on the spot. “’Bout time you realized I wasn’t some pub owner slinging drinks for a living.”
“I knew for quite some time. You didn’t actually think I’d allow your kind to our parties, much less the Führer’s home, without reason, did you?”
“More reason than to make Ellie happy?”
Eric’s sinister sneer slipped into a second of vulnerability. “Her happiness is foremost in my thoughts and actions.”
“Something you showed to a T when you locked me in that flat for a week.” Ellie shouldered past Barrett to square off in front of Eric. Red splotched across her pale cheeks. “Or do you define my happiness by how many blond-haired, blue-eyed heirs I’ll push out for your horrid wife? Think that ugly medal is