Dorothy Garlock (15 page)

She smiled. “I’d love to have a picnic with you.” “Then let’s go,” he answered. He held open the door, and they were off.

* * *

Cole led Sophie around the side of the
Gazette
building and down a short street toward Watkins Creek, a thin burble that ran along the west side of town. Majestic maple
trees offered cool shade, but Sophie found herself reveling in the feel of the sun on her skin; too many of her recent afternoons
had been spent indoors.

They walked along slowly, Sophie adjusting herself to Cole’s pace. She found that it was a struggle not to look at his disabled
leg. She tried to fix her attention upon her own feet, but she couldn’t help but steal a glance, her eyes drifting to watch
him plant his disfigured foot, his hip lurching awkwardly to heave his weight forward.

“It’s all right if you want to look,” he said suddenly.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t…” Sophie stammered with flustered embarrassment. She felt the urge to say more, to explain to Cole that
she hadn’t been staring at his disfigurement, but she held her tongue; to say more would be to lie, and that was something
she did not want to do… not to him.

“Don’t worry, Sophie,” he offered. “It’s always been that way.”

“Your leg?”

“Well, yes, but what I meant was that people have always stared at my leg,” Cole said with a shrug. “Heck, it’s not as if
I blame them. It’s not every day that you come across someone with a problem like mine.”

“It’s rude.”

“Not really. I think it would be stranger if people didn’t look.”

“How can it not be rude?” Sophie asked, a flare of anger rising in her heart at all of the people who had ever stared a moment
too long at Cole’s leg, herself included. Shame still colored her thoughts at how she had run from him at her family’s farm,
even if he had told her not to worry about it. “Doesn’t it ever make you angry?”

“Once in a while, I suppose,” Cole admitted. “The only time it really bothers me is if I see pity in someone’s eyes. That’s
when it’s the worst. The last thing I want is to think that I’m any less than a normal man. Just because my darn leg isn’t
the same as everyone else’s doesn’t mean that I can’t manage on my own. My father—” he started but suddenly fell silent, his
jaw tight and his eyes locked on the road before them.

In the short time that she had known Cole Ambrose, Sophie had found him to be every bit of a man, in many ways even more so
than any other she had ever met. Just because he had a handicapped leg, he’d had to spend his whole life wondering if he measured
up, when it was others who should have been worrying if they were as strong and decent as he was.

“You’re right.” She nodded. “You aren’t any different.”

“Except that I can’t do the one thing I truly want.”

“What’s that?”

“I wish I could go off and fight.”

Sophie frowned. After the attack on her family, after the horrifying way that the conflict had been brought to her home, any
talk about the war and the men going off to fight it disturbed her. That this man longed to be a part of such carnage made
her uneasy. Even in his presence, even though she didn’t want to offend him, she found that she couldn’t suppress her feelings.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would wish such a thing,” she said with no small measure of disgust.

“Whyever not?” he argued. “We were attacked!”

“Just because we’re fighting in a war that is just, doesn’t make it something that anyone should want to do,” she explained.
She felt his eyes searching for her own but couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “It’s not right that someone should want
to go off to kill other men.”

“Are you saying we shouldn’t fight this war?” he asked incredulously.

“No, not at all,” she explained. “But it shouldn’t be something we want to do but rather something we feel we have to do.”

“All I want is to do my part.”

“And you will,” Sophie reassured him. “You’ll do your part the same as I’ll do mine, but that doesn’t mean that we should
find any joy in our burden. We’ll just scrape and sacrifice, all in the hopes that our lives can go back to what they were
before the fighting started.”

“I just wish I could do the same as other men,” he insisted.

“I’d hate to think that you’re in a hurry to die in some foreign land,” she said, and the harshness of her words startled
her. Cole did not offer more and they walked on in silence.

They soon arrived at the small footbridge that spanned the narrow creek. On the far side, the broad canopy of an old elm tree
spread its cool shade, beckoning to them. They crossed the rickety bridge, the creek’s flowing water little more than a trickle
in the oppressive summer heat, and Cole spread a blanket, set the picnic basket on it, and offered Sophie his hand to help
lower her to the ground. With no small amount of effort, he joined her and began to empty the basket’s contents: egg salad
sandwiches, a handful of grapes, a couple of apples, and an empty milk bottle filled with water.

“I doubt that it’ll hold a candle to what you’d find at Marge’s,” he explained, handing her one of the sandwiches, “but I
did the best I could.”

Sophie took a bite and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was very tasty, better than she would have expected. Still,
she couldn’t help but tease him a bit. “I like it, although I hate to say that Marge doesn’t need to worry about any competition.”

He laughed. “Then I guess there’s no need to quit the teaching job and open a restaurant.”

They ate leisurely, enjoying the meal and each other’s company. For a while, Sophie forgot about all of her problems. They
talked at length about Victory, her family’s farm, and her job at the newspaper. She told him about learning to use the Linotype
machine and, for a brief moment, even came to believe that she knew what she was talking about. He, in turn, told her about
his love for mathematics, his brother’s impending entry into the army, and his nervous excitement about beginning a new job.

Suddenly, a serious look crossed Cole’s face and he pushed his hat back on his head. He lay on his side on the blanket, his
body lazily propped up on one elbow, gazing into her eyes with such intensity that Sophie couldn’t bring herself to look away,
even though she felt certain that she had begun to blush. Taking a bite of his apple, he said, “Tell me about what happened
at the diner.”

Taken aback, she stammered, “It… it was nothing…”

“That was much more than nothing, Sophie,” he insisted. “That sorry cuss had his hands on you. If you’re being bothered, I
want you to tell me.”

Sophie stared hard at Cole’s face, her blue eyes searching his for some sign of what she should do with his request. On the
one hand, she didn’t want to burden him with her problems, nor did she want to go against her father’s wishes that she hold
her secret. Still, though she had known Cole for only a couple of days, she felt in her heart that he was a man of honor,
of integrity, and she had no doubts that he could be trusted.

“All right,” she said softly.

Words fell from Sophie’s mouth as if they were rain. She told Cole about the burning of the barn, about the three hooded men
who had suddenly appeared and threatened her family with violence if they didn’t leave Victory, and about her father being
struck with the rifle butt. She spoke of the horrific slur that had been uttered just before she had been battered with the
same rifle and of how she had heard the slur spoken again in the diner.

“Those were the same men?” Cole asked, his face taut.

Sophie could only nod.

“Why would they think that you and your family are Nazis?”

“I have no idea!” she exclaimed. “My family came to America to escape all that Hitler and the Nazis represented in Germany!
From the very moment my father set foot in the United States, he has done everything that he could to be an honorable citizen,
to stand proud for his adopted country! How could he be mistaken for a Nazi?”

“The fact that you’re German seems to be enough.”

Sophie knew that Cole was right, as much as it disgusted her.

“If they’re the sort of men capable of what they did to you and your family, you shouldn’t have approached them,” he continued.
“Lord only knows what they’d do if given another chance. I don’t believe I would put anything past them.”

“I couldn’t help myself,” she said. “I just had to show them I wasn’t afraid.”

“Even though you are…”

“Yes,” Sophie admitted.

“You need to take this to the police,” Cole argued, his voice firm. “That’s the only thing that men like Ellis Watts are going
to respect. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what he’s done.”

“But I can’t!”

“Yes, you can,” he prodded. “You can’t let them make you live your life in fear!”

“It’s not because I’m afraid of them!” she pleaded, her voice rising. “It’s because I have to honor my father’s wishes. He
told all of us that we should act as if nothing has happened! He wants us to be good Americans!”

“Telling the police what those bastards did to your family won’t make you any less of a good American, Sophie, no matter what
your father believes. You must know that I’m telling the truth.”

Sophie was certain that Cole
was
right; she had known all along that turning Ellis Watts and the others in to the police was the only thing she could do to
make certain that her family was truly safe. Still, she couldn’t get the image of Riley Mason standing outside the newspaper
office out of her head. With such dangerous men, there was one truth that she simply could not ignore.

Anyone near me is in danger!

Before Sophie had told Cole what had happened to her family, it had never occurred to her that he could be hurt. Now the image
of him lying broken and bleeding at the three men’s hands intruded into her thoughts, horrifying her. If anything were to
happen to him because of her, she doubted that she would ever be able to forgive herself.

“You can’t tell anyone what I’ve told you, Cole,” she fretted.

“I cannot stand by and let those men threaten you.”

“Please, Cole,” Sophie begged. “You have to give me your word.”

Cole did not answer, his eyes remaining flat and hard.

“I trusted you enough to tell you the truth,” she pressed him. “After the way you defended me in the diner, it was the least
I could do. But I can’t betray the trust my father placed in me not to tell the police. I know that you’re right, that it’s
probably not the right thing to do, but it’s my family I would be placing in danger. For that reason, you mustn’t tell!”

Cole’s mouth opened as if he wanted to argue the point further, but instead he remained silent, swallowing his unspoken words.
Gravely, he nodded his head. “I don’t like what you’re asking me to do, but I give you my word that I won’t tell the police.”

“Thank you.” Sophie exhaled with obvious relief.

“But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stand by and let them walk all over you and your family,” Cole explained as he reached
over and took her by the hand. The tenderness of his touch set Sophie’s heart to hurrying. “They won’t hurt you further. That’s
something I won’t allow.”

“I believe you.”

Warmth raced over Sophie’s body at the thought of being watched over. She had been brave enough to face Ellis, Riley, and
Graham in the diner, but she had needed Cole’s help even then. Now, as he offered his protection to her, she felt far safer
than she had in a long time.

At the thought of Graham, Sophie couldn’t help but think of how she had always wondered if it would be the two of them, sitting
under a tree, having a picnic, laughing and talking about each other’s lives. But now, sharing just such a moment with Cole
Ambrose, she was surprised to find how natural it seemed, how completely at ease she felt at his side.

E
LLIS
W
ATTS SAT
in the near dark at the back of Victory’s lone tavern, far out of reach of the blazing midafternoon sun and any unwanted
attention. He had wandered in irritable and more than a fair amount thirsty. Two fingers of amber whiskey sat in a tumbler
in front of him, the third glass that he could account for since he’d arrived. He knew there would be others to follow.

Such an early hour ensured that the joint would be mostly empty; there were only two other patrons who had needed a drink
as badly as he had. One man sat listlessly on his stool, with one leg flopped over the other, his head down on the barrail
and a lit cigarette dangling between two tobacco-stained fingers, smoke curling toward the ceiling. The other was engrossed
in playing cards with the bartender at the far end of the long bar, the occasional snippet of their talk or belt of raucous
laughter the only sound in the place.

Ellis paid them no mind, his attention given over completely to the crisp piece of paper spread out on the table before him;
his draft notice. It had come in the morning mail and had been weighing heavily on him ever since. He had been waiting for
it, in some ways hoping for months that it would appear, and had known exactly what it was the moment the postman had handed
it to him. But now that it had arrived, he was utterly shocked and horrified by the emotion that swirled in the pit of his
stomach.

He was afraid.

Ellis reckoned that it was normal to be frightened of such a thing; an order to pick up a weapon and traipse halfway around
the world to fight and kill men he had never met. After all, he had no more wish to die than the next man. But his fear shamed
him. Snatching up his glass, he drained his drink in a quick gulp and struggled to settle himself; no matter what, he’d never
let anyone else see what he felt inside.

The worst part about receiving his draft notice was that he hadn’t managed to deal with those damn Nazis living in Victory’s
midst, the Hellers. His stomach tightened at the thought of leaving town, his work undone. It wouldn’t be long before Riley
and even Graham got their notices, and then what?