Kat sighed and settled back in her seat. She’d come so close to finding out the truth about him. Maybe after the drinks Ellie was sure to have in the dining car, she’d be willing to bring it up again.
“Then why are we going on this trip?”
“He’s been trying to make it up to her. Over the past two weeks, he’s sent over six dozen red roses to the flat to say how sorry he is.”
Unbuttoning his light-gray jacket, Barrett slipped his arms out and laid it on the seat next to his hat. Perspiration glistened at the base of his throat where the top button of his shirt was undone. “Think she’ll forgive him?”
“I think she wants to, but she’s torn. As am I in wanting to wrench her away from that monster yet needing to remain in his graces for the sake of gathering intelligence that could save thousands. Bring this war to an end even.” Kat shook her head as the thread of events and decisions tangled together until she could no longer tell one apart from the other. “That night at the Blue Stag . . . It’s not something she can forget. Not something any of us can forget.”
Resting his forearms on his knees, he leaned forward. His fingertips brushed the edge of her skirt. “I’m sorry you had to witness it.”
“You were heroic to try and stop it.”
“Didn’t do much good in the end except maybe underline my name on the Gestapo’s bad list.”
“No one else was brave enough to step forward like you did. I’d say there’s plenty good in that. In the end, you couldn’t have stopped what happened.”
“Couldn’t I?”
She ached to grasp his hands. Of late, the urge to touch him had become more and more overwhelming each time she was near him. As if a part of her had lain dormant until he revived it. She clasped her hands together, squeezing the blood from them. Ridiculous. She was perfectly fine on her own, always had been, and would go right back to it once this whole terrible ordeal was done with.
But the ache didn’t subside.
“You’re too hard on yourself.” Unfurling her fingers, she brushed his.
He started as if she’d burned him. “I don’t think I’m hard enough on myself.” Taking her hands, he held them between his own as if cradling a bird. He turned them over each in turn, tracing a finger along the sensitive skin between her index and thumb. A slow smile curled his mouth. “Then again, why create the extra work for myself?”
“Ah, yes. The lazybones conundrum you often find yourself confronted with.”
He raked his fingers across her palm, fanning tingles across the surface. “Would you rather have me running around trying to please everyone but myself like you do?”
The tingles turned to ice water. She pulled her hand back.
His hands fell open. “I’m sorry. I was only teasing.”
She turned her face to the window. The gray cityscape had given way to thick green trees and golden fields. A blessing to finally shrug off the city’s shackles and breathe the country air again.
A jeep and motorbike with German soldiers trundled by on the dirt road next to the tracks.
Who was she kidding about breathing fresh air again? Even out here, their jailers remained vigilant. “Always a bit of truth to teasing, isn’t there?”
“Or a fellow is just being stupid. Don’t comment on that.”
“As long as you know the truth.”
“About myself, aye, and most of it not very interesting. But you . . .” He sighed and leaned back into his seat. Exasperation laced his tone. “Why are you here and not your father? Or some other emissary?”
The ever-present knot in her chest tightened. After finding Ellie’s runaway note, there had been no other course but for her to go after her. Her father had turned himself purple with rage when she demanded to take his place, while her mother fainted dead on the couch after stating that a proper young lady could not travel without a proper chaperone. It had taken months, but in the end Kat’s reasoning and threat to thumb her way to Paris had won.
Late at night when her thoughts belonged solely to her and the light of day couldn’t penetrate their harshness, she wondered why her father hadn’t put his foot down and kept it there. Was his allowance of her going to Paris merely a preservation for their good name with safety a secondary concern? Father had always been a distant