Kathryn crossed the stage at The Grotto and leaned over the piano to point to a troubling measure on the sheet music. She made a suggestion, and the band leader agreed, penciling in the changes. She had just straightened for the run through when the swinging front double doors of the club caught her eye.
Jenny emerged with a wave, followed by Smitty. Kathryn raised her chin and smiled to the pair as she prepared to add her vocals to the reworked passage. They’d been at it all afternoon, and Jenny’s smiling face was just what she needed.
She woke up mid-morning to that smiling face, only to learn Jenny had been watching her sleep for hours. When asked what she had been thinking, Jenny simply replied, “How I love you more and more every day.”
Kathryn pulled her into her arms and made love to her until their responsibilities beckoned them to get on with their day.
When rehearsal was over, Kathryn sauntered over to the bar and greeted Smitty with a peck on the cheek. She offered Jenny a warm smile and a brief squeeze of her hand. Just the sight of her sent her body humming with arousal, and she had to fight against the urge to take her in her arms again, to feel her body pressed against hers, to taste her lips and surrender to the sensual return of her touch. Fighting against all that, she merely grinned instead and said, “Hi, you.”
She hoped Jenny had a clear calendar for the afternoon, because in about thirty seconds, she was going to spirit the woman away to her dressing room and show her a proper greeting, where clothes would definitely be optional.
“Hi yourself,” Jenny replied, trying to hide her disappointment. She realized they were in a very public place—Kathryn’s workplace, no less—but after their incredible morning, how could Kathryn be so aloof? Even Smitty rated a peck on the cheek.
“What’s your afternoon look like?” Kathryn asked casually.
“Well, I—” Smitty began before an elbow to his ribs silenced him.
Kathryn addressed Jenny with a smoldering look. “You.”
That was encouraging. “I’m free for the rest of—”
The swinging double doors caught Kathryn’s eye again, and suddenly she was no longer paying attention to Jenny’s answer. She was looking past her shoulder at a broad shouldered man in an Army Air Force uniform, silhouetted against the bright light from outside.
“Oh, my God,” she exhaled in delighted wonder.
The soldier slid his hat from atop his head and put his hands on his hips, surveying the room like Superman, on top of the world.
“Well, I’ll be,” Smitty muttered.
Jenny wished someone would tell her what was going on.
“Luc,” Kathryn whispered as she rushed to the entrance.
Jenny looked closer, and sure enough, it was Dominic’s incredibly handsome son, scooping Kathryn off her feet and into his arms, where she kissed him on the lips and held tightly to his neck, as they spun around until he gently placed her feet on the ground.
“God, it’s so good to see you,” Kathryn beamed, cupping his face in her hands. “Are you okay?” She stepped back and looked him up and down for an injury that might have sent him home. “Does your dad know you’re here?”
He gave a glance toward the empty office. “No, I wanted to surprise him.”
“I think he’s downstairs.”
“Say, is that her?” Luc asked, motioning over Kathryn’s shoulder.
She couldn’t hide her proud grin and took his hand, eager to introduce them. “Come on.”
Jenny straightened as the pair arrived, securing the odd mood Kathryn’s enthusiastic greeting had wrought.
“Luc.” She offered her hand with a sweet smile. “I’ve heard so—”
She was swept off her feet into a gentle bear hug, and it seemed the gregarious man had no intention of letting her go.
“You’ve made her so happy,” he whispered in her ear. “Thank you so much.”
Jenny returned the hug, instantly charmed. “It’s my pleasure, believe me.”
Luc chuckled and set her down. “I can imagine,” he said with a wink.
He turned to the bar and held out his hand. “Smitty.”
“Welcome home, Luc.”
“Thanks. I’ve only a few days, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be.” He smiled at Kathryn, who continued to beam in his presence.
Jenny noticed the greeting between the two men was strained and imagined she and Smitty were silently sharing custody of a strange little creature called jealousy. It was ridiculous, she knew, but she had never seen Kathryn so effervescent. On the one hand, it was a sight to behold—Kathryn’s laughter, her broad smile, the light in her eyes—but on the other hand, it was at the sight of Luc, not her, and as much as it pained her to admit, it took her by surprise and offended her, as if she had exclusive rights to the woman’s happiness.
Kathryn put her hand on Luc’s chest. “Let’s go find your dad.”
Everyone smiled and nodded. Kathryn offered a parting grin at Jenny before gleefully taking the soldier’s arm and heading for the wine cellar.
“I’m so happy to see you,” Jenny could hear her saying as she curled her hand around his bulging bicep.
She shook her head and chastised herself for being so childish. She wanted Kathryn to be happy, and obviously Luc held a special place in her heart. She could see why. She’d only just met the man, but already his engaging presence had drawn her in.
Jenny turned on her bar stool toward Smitty, who was pouring a whisky, with a chaser of envy.
He cut his eyes to her. “Amazing together, aren’t they?”
“They’re good friends.”
“Yeah.” Smitty lifted his glass and toasted their backs. “Good friends.”
Jenny watched him down the whisky with disdain.
“What does that mean?”
Smitty must have recognized the turmoil in her eyes and kept his thoughts to himself.
“Nothing, kid. They’re good friends is all.”
He poured another drink, and Jenny looked at him sideways.
“Bit early for that, isn’t it?”
Smitty chuckled, dismissing her holier-than-thou posturing. He pulled a bottle of scotch from under the bar and held it up. “Drink?”
She stared blankly at him and then slowly smiled at her reluctant partner in misery. “Please.”
Kathryn still had a smile on her face as she drove home from the impromptu welcome home party. The look on Dominic’s face when he saw his son for the first time in over a year—
“Luciano!” he gasped, and promptly dropped a bottle of expensive wine at his feet.
“Papa,” Luc said grinning, as he held out his arms and the two men embraced.
Kathryn left them to their reunion and was honored when she and Jenny were included in the family get together after her show. Smitty was invited but made his excuses, which wasn’t surprising. The two men merely tolerated each other out of respect for their mutual love for her.
Jenny and Luc got along well, which pleased Kathryn to no end. She sensed a little apprehension on Jenny’s part at first, but Luc could melt a glacier with his smile alone, and Jenny wasn’t nearly that tough a sell. The two of them were laughing and joking in no time, and Kathryn tendered her appreciation by holding her hand under the table all through dinner.
“So, how did you two meet?” Jenny had asked with genuine curiosity.
The mood turned serious and the table went silent.
Luc wiped his mouth with his napkin and gazed upon Kathryn with adoration. “She swooped down on me like an angel out of the darkness and saved my life.”
“Honestly, Luc,” Kathryn disagreed, as she leaned back in her seat to escape his misinterpretation of the truth. “You practically landed in my lap. What else could I do?”
Luc raised a challenging brow. “Did you save my life?”
Kathryn crossed her arms, unable to deny it.
“Like I said—” He turned to Jenny, the only one at the table who didn’t know the story. “We met in London in ’40. It was—”
“Wait a minute,” Kathryn interrupted. She leaned over and put her arm around his shoulder. “Ask him what he was doing in London.”
“What were you doing in London?” Jenny dutifully inquired.
Luc smirked at Kathryn. “I was getting pissed in a pub.”
She punched him playfully in the arm for downplaying the reason. “This darling boy was so anxious to get into the war that he dropped out of Cambridge and joined the RAF.”
Dominic made a grunting sound at his son’s decision, but he couldn’t hide the pride in his eyes.
Jenny raised her brow, impressed.
“Anyway,” Luc drew out, dismissing his short stint in service to the King. “It was the beginning of the Blitz. The air raid sirens started screaming, so off to the Tube I go—the Underground, you know?”
Jenny nodded.
“I had just exited the lift down to the platform stairway when boom!” He snapped his fingers. “Lights out.”
A German bomb had made a direct hit on the station. The explosion funneled down the elevator shaft like a train unleashed from hell, pulling the walls down in its wake.
“I woke up in the dark, cradled in someone’s arms. I felt like my head had been split in half.” He looked back to Kathryn. “She saved my life.”
Kathryn lowered her eyes. The truth was a little less noble. If she allowed herself, she could still remember the ringing in her ears, the taste of the gritty slurry of airborne debris in her mouth, and the acrid smell of smoke and explosives poisoning her lungs. She wasn’t a hero, and she wasn’t brave. She was trapped in unnerving blackness with a bleeding stranger, and the whole world had evaporated around her. She was terrified and on the verge of hysterics. If she could have escaped from the man thrown on top of her as she hit the bottom of the stairs, she would have, but she was pinned down by his dead weight, and she couldn’t move.
Between the foul air and the warm mass on her chest, she could hardly breathe. She panicked and struggled to free herself as fear devoured whatever courage she had left. She cried out for help, but there was none to be had. In the black void, tactile reminders of her plight were within reach on all sides: hard, soft, sharp, dead. The sound of bombs and falling debris continued sporadically, and she wondered if the next sound of shifting rubble would mean her demise.
The wounded stranger lay across her like a spent lover, and she could feel the sticky warmth of his life seeping onto her chest from a wound to his head.
She was in a tomb of the dead and the dying, and she had to escape. She was not one of them. She was very much alive, and though battered, relatively unharmed. She pushed with all her might to move her unwelcome load but made no progress. Realizing no one was that heavy, she reached around the stranger’s muscular shoulders and found a large slab of concrete across his back that was trapping them both. She continued to struggle out of sheer stubbornness, but the futility of the situation finally reduced her to tears. Giving up, she closed her eyes and wept.
With her eyes closed, the darkness made sense. She had shut out the incomprehensible void and replaced it with one of her own making. It calmed her immediately. She had wrested a small measure of control from the unknown and restored her equilibrium. Soon, fear and despair turned to anger, and she cried out in frustration, giving the universe fair warning.
“I am not going to die here!”
“Neither am I,” a weak voice mumbled into her chest.
That was her introduction to Luciano Vignelli.
Amid the death and destruction, she had found a purpose. Saving his life became her focus. Maybe it was the guilt of thinking only of herself in the first disorienting minutes of the nightmare, or maybe she didn’t want to die having not made a difference to someone—anyone, or maybe she just didn’t want to die alone. In any case, her reasoning was secondary to her resolve. Her last day would not be spent cowering in a hole in the ground, defeated by the German war machine. She was going to do everything in her power to save this man and herself.
She used Luc’s necktie as a makeshift bandage for his head, and together, they managed to slide out from under the gentle arch of a ten-foot section of stairway ceiling that was intact and supported on one side by the steel handrail.
They dragged themselves along an open path that led them to the far wall, where Kathryn propped herself up and held Luc protectively in her arms, his weight now a comfort.
The wall seemed to be breathing above their heads, as warm wisps of air, filled with the smells of the main tunnel below—the electric rail, the huddled masses—promised to spare them suffocation for the time being. They were the only survivors in their stairway section of the station, and they would spend eighteen hours trapped in the pitch black void of their concrete crypt, relying on each other for company and sanity.
In their sight-deprived isolation, touch became their anchor and words became their lifeline when the oppressive nothingness seemed too much like death itself. They confessed sins, great and small, and found darkness an impartial judge.
Eventually, their occasional rapping on a pipe running up the wall beside them was answered, and they knew it would only be a matter of time before the beleaguered rescuers would reach them.
By the end of their ordeal, the level of comfort and familiarity made it hard to believe they hadn’t known each other their entire lives. Their friendship continued, as they spent the next few weeks convalescing in the English countryside, far away from the war, at the ancestral estate of Luc’s lover.
If there was such a thing as halcyon days during a war, those would have been it. She would recall them fondly as the last true carefree days she’d spend before she resumed the original purpose for her trip to London: a meeting with a British SOE operative set up by Juliette to prepare for her special mission. The betrayal had already been set in motion, and her experience in the Underground would soon seem like a picnic on the Thames compared to what was to come.
Kathryn vaguely heard Luc finishing up their rescue story as she looked over to see Jenny smiling proudly at her. Dominic’s son had a flair for the dramatic, and only he could make a necktie around the head and a game of sit tight and wait sound like a heroic feat. Kathryn chuckled and shook her head at him.
“Let’s just say we saved each other and call it even, shall we?”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but we all know you, so why don’t we let your modesty speak for itself, hm?”
Kathryn waved a dismissive hand at the table of knowingly nodding heads and left them to their illusions.
It was a good evening—the closest thing to a family get together she’d had in ages—and she considered herself lucky to be so loved and in such fine company. It was all the more special because Jenny was included and their relationship was silently, but respectfully, accepted.
As she drove, Kathryn got so lost in her thoughts and memories that she realized they were halfway home and Jenny hadn’t said a word.
“Hey—” Kathryn tugged on her hand. “Everything all right?”
“Mm-hm.” Jenny smiled.
Kathryn eyed her suspiciously. “Sure?”
Jenny nodded. “Nice evening.”
Something was amiss, Kathryn could tell, and to her mind, it could only be one thing. “I’m sorry about tonight. I know we had plans, and I didn’t really even ask—”
“Oh, Kat, no.” Jenny halted the apology with a raised hand. “I’m thrilled to finally meet Luc. He’s a swell fella. I like him a lot.”
Kathryn had three favorite people in her life, and two of them were going to get along famously. She was delighted. “I’m glad.”
Jenny smiled but still stared blindly ahead.
“You sure you’re all right?”
Jenny nodded, but Kathryn saw her clasping her hands tightly in her lap, as if she was willing herself not to say what was on her mind. She knew the silence wouldn’t last much longer.
“Does he know everything?” Jenny asked tentatively. “About you? Who you work for? What happened over there?”
As Kathryn suspected, all was not fine. Jenny’s insecurity surprised her. After all they had shared, how could Jenny be jealous? How could she not know the depth of her love for her and how everything and everyone else paled in comparison?
She was the one staring at the road ahead instead of answering, and she used the brief pause to come to grips with her failure to communicate to the one person she thought she had given her all.
The situation could have been amusing if it weren’t so confounding. Luc knew nothing of her life, really. He knew what she wanted him to know, and her lies of omission began the day they met. As they waited in the dark for any sign that they might be rescued, he tried to stay conscious by reminiscing about his childhood. When it was her turn, Kathryn painted her young life as a happy one, for that is how she wished it in the end. The truth at that moment was unimportant. She had long ago learned to create a life she never had, to live in a world of her own design, and to become someone other than who she was. It was liberating, and she embraced it fully.
Once they were convalescing, she admitted her less than honest recollection of her youth and apologized without going into detail about the tragic truth.
He simply shrugged and said, “Sometimes we just have to make life what we need it to be at any given moment.”
He didn’t question her need to be less than straightforward, and it was never mentioned again. That was Luc and the nature of their relationship: deep and shallow, all at the same time. For all she knew, his secrets were as dark as hers. They were what they needed to be for each other, and that was more than enough.
Her relationship with Jenny was so much more than that. She had to know that. She had to.
“No. Luc doesn’t know. He knows something traumatic happened, but he doesn’t press it. He knows I’m not just a singer at a club, but he doesn’t press that either.”
“Unlike me, who makes you relive every horrific detail.”
Kathryn pulled off to the side of the road. Things were worse than she thought.
“Hey,” she said, reaching over to cup Jenny’s face. “What gives?”
Jenny tried to look away.
“Hey,” Kathryn said again sternly. “Say what’s on your mind.” She waited on the nonexistent reply and then realized her anxiety might be misconstrued as anger. “Please.”
Jenny chewed on her words, and Kathryn imagined only their bitter taste forced her to spit them out. “It’s just that I—we had to work so hard for us. It’s like this man just—exists, and he’s got your heart.”
Kathryn dropped her hand. Jenny didn’t understand her at all. The one person she cherished more than anyone hadn’t a clue. She vacillated between anger and disappointment, mostly at herself for actually thinking she’d done pretty well at this relationship business.
“It’s not Luc,” Jenny went on. “I adore him. I understand the attraction completely. I just—” She shook her head, unable to justify her emotions, even to herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I—” She gave up trying to explain and buried her face in her hands, thoroughly ashamed.
Kathryn slid across the front seat of the car and took Jenny’s hands in hers. “Oh, Jenny. Luc lets me be who I want to be … just an average girl who grew up to sing in a fancy nightclub. It’s such a relief—”
“As opposed to being with me, which is—”
Kathryn squeezed the hands in hers. “Stop.” She found repentant green eyes and made sure they held her gaze. “You let me be who I am. That gives me such peace.”
That someone could know her truth—all of it—and still find her worthy of love seemed so inconceivable, yet before her was the living proof of her good fortune. Her heart swelled with admiration and gratitude, and the unexpected rush of appreciation made her place her hand on her chest to contain it. She was overwhelmed by the intensity of feelings so foreign that she felt suddenly possessed by another person. Tears filled her eyes as she gave in to the avalanche of emotions, and she wished she were a poet, armed with grace and insight and the skills required to speak eloquently from the soul. But Jenny didn’t fall in love with a poet, and Kathryn could only hope Jenny could see the depth of her adoration in her eyes.
“I don’t have the words to express what that means to me.”
Jenny squeezed her hand back, as her tears bravely fell where Kathryn’s feared to tread.
“Ignore me. I’m being utterly ridiculous.”
Kathryn brushed a tear from her cheek. “I know it’s been hard, and for that I’m sorry. I can’t even promise it will get easier—”
Jenny put a finger to Kathryn’s lips, silencing her, and then followed it with a gentle kiss. “I told you I’ll never doubt your love for me.”
Kathryn chuckled, more out of relief than humor. “Can I have that in writing?”
Jenny drew a heart on Kathryn’s chest and sandwiched it between their initials.
Luc’s leather bag sat packed and waiting beside the front door of his apartment. Kathryn carefully draped his short uniform jacket atop it and rejoined him on the couch, settling back into the crook of his outstretched arm to await their inevitable separation.
“It’s almost cruel that you come back to us for such a short time.”
He smiled. “That’s what Dad said.”
She put her head on his chest and relished the steady beat of his heart—constant, like his friendship, no matter the distance or time spent apart. Dominic would arrive shortly to accompany him to his train, so she closed her eyes and savored their last few minutes together.
“Please be careful, Luc.”
He lifted her chin and smiled into her concerned eyes. “We’re going to grow old together, you and I. When we met, it was fate. No silly little war dare interfere with that.”
She smiled as best she could. Fate hadn’t been particularly kind to her. She laid her head back on his chest and closed her eyes again, knowing every heartbeat measured the dwindling moments until his departure.
“I’m not going to see you off.”
He tightened his hold around her shoulders. “I know.”
There was nothing more to say about parting. War was a merciless mistress who took without warning or design, and they were too schooled in her wanton ways to pretend she had no interest in them.
Luc refused to succumb to silent melancholy. “I’m so happy you found Jenny.”
Kathryn smiled. She imagined he was relieved to see her happy. When he last saw her, she was departing London on her way back to America to rebuild her life, and she was a shell of the vibrant woman he had met months earlier.
“She’s something, isn’t she?”
“She’s definitely done something to you. I’ll love her forever for that.”
Kathryn smiled wistfully. “Me too.”
“She seems to have gotten past her jealousy.”
Kathryn lifted her head.
Luc laughed at the expression on her face and eased her head back onto his shoulder. “Yes, it was that obvious.”
“She’s a passionate woman,” Kathryn offered by way of an excuse, but then she shook her head. “You’re a gay man. You’re no threat to her. She knows that.” And while she was on the subject of jealous friends— “You’re no threat to Smitty either, for that matter.”
“Ugh, Smitty,” Luc groaned. “He hasn’t changed.”
“Now, now.” She patted Luc’s chest in Smitty’s defense. “He’s a good man.”
Luc must have sensed something in the restraint of her reply. “But?”
Kathryn sat up slowly and shook her head. “Smitty’s in love with me. He always has been.”
“I’m in love with you,” Luc countered softly, taking her hand.
His adoring eyes mirrored his words, and Kathryn cupped his handsome face in silent reciprocation.
“But I’m not your life. Smitty—” She exhaled, mildly exasperated. “You know I love him dearly—more than he’ll ever know—but to let him in would be to encourage him, and that would be cruel. I can’t give him what he longs for. He’s invested so much of his life in me, and I can’t be responsible for his happiness. I’ll only make him miserable. He needs to let go and move on.”
“And what are you doing about that?”
“I’m working on it.”
Luc raised his brow, and Kathryn knew he couldn’t fathom how she would sort that out. She couldn’t either. She only knew it was something she had to do.
Just like reassuring Jenny that she means everything to her was something she needed to do. She admitted to Luc that she was confounded by her jealousy, and he laughed.
“Everyone wants to feel special. You’re a pretty low-key gal. I’m sure she was just surprised to see you so—” He paused, evidently unsure how to describe her exuberance.
“Happy?”
“Okay, happy.”
It was the second time in as many days that the depth of her devotion had been called into question.
“See, that’s not right. She makes me happy … happier than I’ve ever been. When I’m with her, all this madness melts away. She means so much to me. And try as I might, I don’t seem to be able to impart that to her. I’m not sure what to do.”
Luc’s crooked smile told her he loved her in love, happy at last.
Kathryn playfully slapped him on the arm. “Stop grinning at me like an idiot and help me.”
His reply was simple. “Do what you do best.”
She looked at him as if the meaning to life had just fallen out of his mouth. Wheels in her head turned, and she knew exactly what to do.
“Thank you. I will.”