Gerrit sat next to Cornelia at the kitchen table in the early morning light, dark circles ringing his tranquil blue eyes. He was the man she loved, and the idea of being parted from him caused her throat to constrict. “Please don’t go. You imagined being followed. And if you were followed, you said you lost him. Then why would he know where you are hiding?”
He searched her face. “I tried to stay away from the canal, but I kept happening upon it. I have endangered both of you, and you will be safer if I’m gone.”
Johan licked his finger and dabbed the bread crumbs from his plate. “I agree with Corrie. You don’t need to go anywhere. Maybe I can even work with you—help you out with deliveries and such.”
“Nee. You stay here with your sister.”
Cornelia pushed back her chair. “But if you are in danger, isn’t Johan?”
Gerrit’s brow folded into a crease. He scrubbed his stubbly chin. “If they come looking for me here, I suppose he is.”
She could have turned off the lamps because her brother’s eyes would have lit the room. “Then I will have to move with you too. Where will we stay?”
Gerrit’s shoulders drooped. “I didn’t mean to endanger you. Perhaps it would have been better if I had left awhile ago.”
Cornelia squeezed herself. Both of them would be gone.
Gerrit shook his head. “Bear will help us find a place. Perhaps with a farmer away from town some distance since I am a wanted man here. I will be able to work more freely in the country.”
The country. She clapped her hands. “What about Frou de Bruin’s? She has that house and big barn all to herself. You could hide there and every day I could still see you.”
Gerrit smiled, his two dimples deepening in the creases of his cheeks. “That might work.” He stroked her loose hair. “I would have missed you so much.”
Johan groaned. “I have had to go through this mush with my sisters twice already. Don’t tell me I am in for it again.”
Cornelia chuckled but didn’t say anything while Gerrit smiled at her, turning her knees to hutspot.
Gerrit pushed his chair back from the table and stood, smoothing out the creases in his wrinkled black pants. “You might have to, Johan. If I have my say, you will.”
The new yet old quivering all the way to her toes didn’t leave Cornelia until she arrived at Frou de Bruin’s house.
Moving Gerrit somewhere else might be the best thing. Not only did her life stand in peril, but so did her heart.
THE ALWAYS-REGAL FROU de Bruin held court that morning, blue sapphire-like earrings dangling from her lobes, Cornelia her trembling subject waiting for her verdict. The old woman tapped her claw-like fingers on the worn surface of the table.
“Well, Cornelia, I must say, I never thought of you to be one hiding a Resistance worker.”
If only she could decipher if that was good or not.
“You astound me, you really do.”
Cornelia bowed on one knee before her majesty. Actually, she sat in the chair because her legs shook. Had she been wrong to trust her employer? She thought she might be sympathetic because she had fed starving women from the south during the hongerwinter. Maybe she had been wrong.
“I will have to give your request my full consideration and will let you know what I decide before you go home today. The crystal is covered with dust, so I think you had best wash it all. You never know when we will have guests.”
She should have known that Frou de Bruin would make her suffer all day long, wondering what her answer would be. She went to the cabinet in the corner of the kitchen and removed a fluted water glass. The piece shook in her hands and she set it straight back in the cupboard before it crashed to the floor. No one ever visited here, so Cornelia didn’t see why she needed the crystal cleaned. “Maybe I could wash the windows instead. I just . . . It is such nice weather to be outside, you know.”
Frou de Bruin tsked. “Ja, maybe that is best. I don’t want my beppe’s good crystal to be nothing but shards. You are a clumsy girl.” She dismissed Cornelia with a wave of her many-ringed fingers.
All day, as Cornelia cleaned and cooked, she jumped every time she heard a noise. Didn’t her employer have any compassion? The clock’s hands shuffled along slower than the old lady herself. Finally, midafternoon, Frou de Bruin ran out of tasks and prepared to send Cornelia home. “Don’t be late tomorrow morning.”
Cornelia stared at the elderly woman, perched as always in her chair. “Do you have an answer to my question?”
Frou de Bruin scratched her chin. “Question? What did you ask me?”
Cornelia bit the inside of her cheek. “About my brother and another man hiding here for a while.”
“Ach, I answered you already.”
“Nee, I am sorry, you didn’t.”
“You need to listen better, girl. Of course they may come here. I have had people in and out of here all war long, so having them will be nothing. There’s a hiding place in the hayloft all prepared. Whenever they are ready, bring them by. And goodness, shut your mouth. It is most uncouth the way you are standing there with your tongue hanging out.”
But she couldn’t have been more surprised than if Frou de Bruin had announced she had been coroneted queen.
GERRIT SAT ACROSS from Frou de Bruin in the pale lamplight, her rings, necklaces, and bracelets sparkling. Dressed in a black flapper frock from twenty years ago, she didn’t garb herself as if she belonged in this old, rather primitive farmhouse in the middle of a war. If she hadn’t been so kind as to take them in, he would have laughed.
Gerrit ached for Cornelia. He didn’t imagine he would miss her this much. She had invaded his thoughts, his heart, his life. She had been here all day today, since he and Johan had come before first light this morning, but they agreed it would be best for her to continue her usual routine, and she left once supper sat on the table.
While he may have questioned the extent of his feelings before, he knew for sure he loved that woman. More every day.
Frou de Bruin nodded at him, her drop earrings dangling from her lobes. “So, you are Frou de Vries’s new beau. I had been wondering who put the spark back in that girl’s step. Good for you. She has suffered much. Don’t you forget that.”
He wouldn’t dare. Not if he had to answer to this formidable woman. “No, Frou.”
Johan snickered under his breath.
“And you . . .” She turned her attention to Johan. “You had best not give her any grief either.”
Johan sobered and Gerrit chuckled this time. They wouldn’t get away with anything in this house.
JOHAN STARED AT the ceiling of the hayloft, the single cow snorting below them in the barn. Gerrit stirred on the mattress next to him. “I don’t understand why she’s making us sleep out here.”
“Decorum. It wouldn’t be right for two unmarried men to sleep in the same house with an unmarried woman.”
Johan huffed. “She is old enough to be my beppe. She could have been kind enough to offer us a place in the house. It’s not like she is using any of those bedrooms.”
“During the war I have slept in worse places, so don’t complain. The roof doesn’t leak and it’s not the depths of winter.”
When Johan had lived on Umpka Kees’s farm, he had been allowed to sleep in the house unless they feared a raid, but Gerrit didn’t appear ready to give him any sympathy. Johan had something more important to speak to him about, anyway. “Now that I’m out from under Corrie’s eye, do you think I can work with you? I mean, I know you have those ration cards to deliver and that you’re still recovering. I could be a big help.” He wished he could see Gerrit’s face so he could read the other man’s thoughts.
“Cornelia wants me to watch over you.”
“Did she tell you that?”
He heard Gerrit shrug. “Nee, she didn’t have to. She doesn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Or to you either. Do you think you will marry her?”
Another shrug. “Do you think she still loves Hans?”
“Of course she does. She always will. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you or couldn’t love you. Anyway, do you think I can help? Is there something you can find for me?”
“Things are getting more dangerous as the Nazis get desperate. Bear told me they know their defeat is imminent, but they don’t intend to surrender without a fight. Each day they round up more men and shoot them without much cause.”
“Doesn’t that mean the Resistance needs to be more active than before? Don’t they need more men?”
This time Gerrit sighed. “I will have to think about it.”
Why did everyone insist on treating him like a child? At twenty years old, he should be allowed to make his own decisions. He didn’t need permission from Gerrit or Cornelia or anyone.
If Gerrit wouldn’t give him a job to do, Johan would have to find one on his own.