The lines at the butcher and baker were shorter than usual, and Ruby returned to the apartment more than an hour earlier than she had expected. Charlotte was out for the day, and Thomas looked surprised to see Ruby when she knocked on the hidden closet door. “Did you not make it to the shops?” he asked as he climbed out and followed her into the kitchen.

“No, I did.” She gestured to the small amount of food she’d placed on the dining table. “I thought perhaps I’d try to prepare something special for us tonight. It’s a special holiday back in the United States.” She told him about how her family would get together for roast turkey, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes. “I miss my family terribly. Of course I also miss roast turkey. Wouldn’t that taste amazing right now?”

Thomas drew her into his arms. “We could use our imaginations. We’ll have a feast!”

“I do have a few bottles of wine left. Perhaps we can open one tonight.”

“That sounds wonderful.” He kissed her, long and hard. “We’ll have potatoes for turkey. And this bread for the cranberry sauce.”

“Someday, when this war is over, you can come to my parents’ house for a real Thanksgiving meal.”

“I would love that.” Thomas was watching her closely and she could feel her cheeks turning warm.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I shouldn’t have said that. I know we don’t talk about the future.”

“I’m very glad you did,” Thomas said after a moment. He pulled her closer. “I hope you know, Ruby, that it has always been my plan to come back for you after the war ends. It has been since we first met. I will come for you.” He paused and waited for her to meet his gaze. “If you want me to.”

“Of course I do,” she whispered. “But I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

He looked surprised. “Obligated? Ruby, I love you.”

“You do?”

“Can’t you see that?”

And then, at once, she could. She’d known it all along, she supposed, but it was easier not to acknowledge it, not to open her eyes. “I love you too,” she whispered.

“Good.”

This time, when his lips touched hers, his kiss felt different than it had before. It was tentative but urgent, and she could taste the question on his tongue. Her answer was to burrow against him, making sure that she wasn’t holding back.

In a moment, his hands were under her dress, coarse and warm against her skin. “Ruby?” he murmured, and she understood that he was asking for her permission to go further.

“Yes,” she breathed, and then her dress was in a pool on the kitchen floor, followed by his shirt. His hands were all over her body, and her hands on his, and it was like nothing she had ever experienced before. It had certainly never felt like this with Marcel, who relied on the same rapid series of caresses each time, a dance that had clearly been choreographed long before she arrived.

With Thomas, though, everything felt new; there was nothing rushed or planned about it. When he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, she’d never felt more alive.

They made love twice, the first time urgently, the second time slowly and tenderly, gazing into each other’s eyes. And for the first time in more than three years, the war slipped away. It didn’t matter that Europe was being torn apart, that Paris was bleeding. The only thing that meant anything was this.

Afterward, as she lay in his arms listening to his heartbeat, reality began to crash back in. Charlotte would be home soon, bringing the outside world with her. Thomas would leave one day—maybe even one day soon—and they were all in danger all the time. How she wished she could take his hand and stroll out into the open with him, walk across the bridges of Paris, stroll through the gardens and museums, kiss him for everyone to see. But it was impossible, and soon, she would have to leave the cocoon of his arms and resume living in the real world.

For now, though, she nestled closer, breathing in the scent of him, allowing herself to dream, just for a moment, of a future in which this could be their reality.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

December 1943

Hanukkah began on December 22 that year, and although it was too risky to have a menorah, Ruby, Thomas, and Lucien joined Charlotte in lighting a single white candle on the first night of the Festival of Lights.

“Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah light,” Charlotte recited solemnly, her eyes closed, while the four of them held hands. “Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who performed miracles for our forefathers in those days, at this time. Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.” She opened her eyes and looked up with a half smile. “I might have gotten some of the words wrong. It was my papa who used to say the blessings.”

“It sounded beautiful, Charlotte,” Lucien assured her. “Should we say a prayer for your parents too?”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she nodded. Ruby waited for her to speak, but instead, the girl closed her eyes and remained silent. When she opened them again, she looked somber. “My prayers for them were in my heart. God knows what I was asking.”

“Amen,” Thomas murmured, and Ruby and Lucien followed suit.

They gathered each night to light the same candle again, and on the twenty-fifth, they celebrated Christmas together too. There were no presents, no tree, no feast, but the four of them were together, and that felt, to Ruby, like the greatest gift she could ask for. They had become a family, somehow, and though she’d never been a very religious person, she couldn’t help but feel that God was with them. God is present wherever love can be found, her mother used to say.

She didn’t have a doubt that Thomas loved her, and she him, but what had surprised her over the past few months was that she could see the same feelings reflected strongly in Lucien and Charlotte. Before the war, she would have said that they were too young to know what love was. But they’d both lost so much and had managed to find each other. It gave Ruby a feeling of hope, because she knew that if anything happened to her, Lucien would protect Charlotte with his life. He was a survivor, and he would make sure Charlotte lived too.

THE YEAR 1944 ARRIVED UNDER a dark shadow, although there was the sense throughout Paris that the tide was turning. The Americans were involved heavily in the war now, and Lucien often brought news of illicit BBC broadcasts that spoke of Allied victories against the Germans and Italians. Berlin was being bombed regularly, he informed them, and the Germans were surely growing weary. “It’s just a matter of time now,” he said again and again, grinning at Charlotte, and Ruby and Thomas would exchange concerned looks. Believing that the end of the war was on the horizon was certainly tantalizing, but it didn’t feel realistic. Not yet. And Ruby hated to think of Charlotte harboring the false hope that within a few months, her parents could be home.

Thomas continued to spend his days hidden in the closet and his nights in Ruby’s bed, but it was clear he was growing restless. He hadn’t been outside the apartment in more than two months for fear of drawing attention, but Ruby had caught him staring longingly out the window more than once. As much as he loved her, part of him must have yearned to return to the skies.

A few days after the new year, Lucien arrived at their door just past dawn, wearing a grim expression. “I’m not just here for Charlotte,” he said right away when Ruby opened the door, pulling a bathrobe around herself.

A shiver ran down Ruby’s spine as she stepped aside to let him in, closing the door behind him. “What is it?”

Lucien cleared his throat again, as if the words he needed to say were lodged there. “There’s word of a new escape line, Ruby. This one goes west, to the coast. It’s put together by MI9, British intelligence. It’s—it’s a way to get Thomas out. If you want.”

Ruby didn’t respond right away. Of course she wanted to get Thomas out. Didn’t she? After all, the sooner he left, the safer they all were. Yes, there would be risks involved in his escape, but she had to believe that a line established by MI9 would be as secure as possible. He wouldn’t have to sleep in a hidden closet or stay confined to a small apartment while the world went on without him. And he could once again try to make a difference in the war effort. She knew those things would make him happy.

But he would also be gone from her life, a thought that made her feel as if her heart were splitting in two. Though she’d known that the euphoria she’d felt over the past weeks couldn’t last, she still wasn’t prepared for it to end so abruptly. He’d promised to come back for her at the war’s end, but what if he didn’t survive the escape? What if he was killed in air combat a few months from now? What if someone came for Charlotte, and Ruby died protecting her? What if the arrests of last January finally led back to her door? If they parted now, there was no guarantee that she’d ever see him again. But she had no choice, and neither did he.