“Hem—Hem—you—”
“I’m alive.” He sank to his knees before her.
The journal and figurine fell into her lap, and she lifted one shaking hand and touched his cheek. Warm, scarred, bruised, his upper lip a bit misshapen, with a dark mark slashing across. But alive. Alive. Her Hemming.
“How? How?” Her arms crept around his neck, and she pulled him close. He felt real. He felt alive, and her hands roamed over his back to verify it. “But you were in prison. How? How did you get out? How did you get here?”
“My shipyard friends broke me out of the prison van with my father’s help, then I rowed to Sweden. The physicians put me in the hospital for a few days, but I broke out so I could find you.”
Later, Else would need more details. Right now, she needed to process the truth that he lived, the impossible truth.
“Svend took me to your apartment. Laila brought me here and pointed you out from the bridge. There you were, sitting on a rock like the Little Mermaid. I wanted to see you from the water, so I grabbed a boat. But that’s enough storytelling. I just want to look at you, hold you.” Hemming pressed his forehead to hers, and his eyes swam. “Are you—are you still mine?”
How could he ask such a thing? She set the journal and figurine on her briefcase, and she slid off the rock to kneel in front of him, and she took his face between her hands, and she kissed him as gently as her overflowing heart allowed.
His sigh brushed past her lips. He embraced her, practically lifting her from her knees. And his kiss—oh, surely his lip would split again.
He didn’t seem to care. And how could she turn down such an offering?
She caressed his face, the roughness of his cheek, the line of his unfamiliar jaw, the curve of his ear, the pillar of his neck.
All too soon, he pulled back with a wince. “That was worth it.”
A spot of red pricked his lip, and she yanked out her handkerchief and dabbed at it, as her gaze roved his changed image. “Your hair. Your beard.”
“The brown will grow out. The beard—it might not grow back.”
Her eyes filled. “Your leg? What did they do to you?”
His gaze darkened to midnight blue. “They can no longer hurt me.”
The memory of their last encounter slammed into her. “But I can. I can hurt you. Oh, darling. I was so wrong. You had to stay in Denmark. Of course, you did. It’s who you are. I—I read your journal, and it’s clear to me. I hope you don’t mind that I read it.”
Hemming’s lips parted. “You did take it. The journal.”
She pointed her gaze at the leather book. “That Monday when I came home, Fru Riber sent a signal to the Gestapo. I ran up for my suitcase and remembered what you said about your trunk. Sure enough, she’d gone through your things. I took the journal, your Bible, and this.” She plucked up the Havmand figurine.
Hemming sat back on his heels, and his eyes stretched wider and wider. “I—I forgot about that.”
“I ran out the back door, but they followed me. I hid overnight in the library and missed our rendezvous. Then you went back, and you—” Her voice broke.
He captured her hand in both of his, her hand holding the merman, and his gaze grew stark and wide. “If they’d found this ... Else, the Gestapo ransacked my room that night. If they’d found my Bible with Mor’s name. If they’d found this figurine. They—they could have linked the Havmand to Lyd-af-Lys that very night. They could have raided the villa while all of us were there. They wouldn’t have arrested just me.” Now his voice cracked.
Laila. The Thorups. The four refugees. As well as Hemming. “Oh my goodness.”
“You saved them all, my brave, brilliant, beautiful...” His cheeks puckered, and he pulled her hard into his arms. “I love you so much.”
“Oh, Hemming. I love you too.”
He fingered a lock of her hair. “You can call me Henrik now. Or Henning. Or Hemming.”
“You do look more like a Henrik now.” She stroked his maroon necktie.
He sighed, pulled back, and tipped his head toward the boat.“I’ll end up back in prison if I don’t return this rowboat soon. Come with me?”
“You stole it?”
“Borrowed, and for a good purpose.”
