Prologue
1944
Her body shaking and her nose so cold she could barely feel the brutal wind, Leah tugged the metal straps from her back pocket to attach the Composition C explosives to the bridge’s central supports, her knees tight against the frozen metal as freezing flakes drifted down to cover her shoulders. Gulping, she edged her way down the abutment, careful to avoid looking at the frozen ground below. While she lacked a fear of heights, she had a very healthy terror of death. If she fell from this distance, she’d be lucky if she broke her neck and the end arrived quickly.
Her high-waisted, wool trousers kept her legs warm, and she’d tucked the silly, flared bottoms into men’s combat boots. An old military friend had loaned them to her, and if she wore three pairs of socks, they almost fit.
Finally, her body barely functioning, she reached the bottom of the support beam and dropped to the ground, ducking her head against the storm as she ran toward a forested area below the bridge.
John and Peter were still installing their explosives and would follow soon.
A rumble echoed, and she paused. “What in the world?” Fear grabbed her around the throat, and she turned just as the universe silenced. The explosion was thundering, and she screamed, but the blast picked her up and threw her yards into the forest, where she hit a tree.
Heat flared along her entire left side, and she screamed in agony, landing on the snowy ground and rolling in an effort to extinguish the flames. Unbelievable pain flashed through herbrain, and her ears felt as if they’d melted. She tried to cling to consciousness, but more snowy flakes fell into her eyes, and then she saw darkness.
Slowly, she came to, the pain ebbing, and warmth—the comforting kind—surrounding her. Was she dead? She didn’t know. At the moment, she didn’t care. Pain still echoed in her flesh, sinking deep into her organs, and she marveled that she was still alive.
But she wouldn’t survive out in the wilderness like this. Even now, she felt a pang at the loss of John and Peter. There was no way they’d made it off that bridge before it exploded.
“Wake up, lass. You need to awaken.” Like smooth velvet over roughened steel, the voice caressed her wounded body.
She tried to blink, but her entire face felt paralyzed. “No,” she whispered and then let unconsciousness take her again.
The next time she woke, she forced her eyelids to open but remained still. Where was she? For a moment, she couldn’t remember who she might be. She whimpered, realizing she lay on something soft, and the wind had quit whistling. Groaning, she forced feeling into her face, trying to see. The crackle of a fire made her stiffen, but then she realized it was a campfire keeping her warm. She forced herself to sit, finding herself almost immediately leaning against a pine tree devoid of snow.
A form sat close to her, facing her. She blinked several times as a man—a large one—came into focus. Glancing up, she noted a makeshift roof of branches, the boughs and needles protecting them in an awning-type roof. The design allowed smoke to rise through the canopy. Quite clever, actually.
She stretched out her fingers, noting the remaining pain in her flesh. How in the world was she still alive? She cleared her vision, hoping to see Peter or John but knowing she would never laugh, joke, or plot with them again.
“Who are you?” she croaked, her voice barely audible.
“You don’t know me,” the mysterious man answered, also leaning against a tree. His legs were almost long enough to reach hers as they stretched out and crossed at the ankles.
Her vision finally cleared, and the ultimate in migraines ripped through her skull. Perhaps she’d sustained eye damage, because there was no way she was seeing a man like him. His jet-black hair was swept back from his face while odd blue-and-green eyes studied her.
She’d known many people in her young life, and eyes were not made of those colors. Not electric. Not wild. Not animalistic. His shoulders were broad, his chest wide, and those legs were incredibly long, leading to feet captured in gigantic boots. His bone structure was sharp and edged, unrealistically perfect.
“Are you an angel?” she asked quietly.
His quick smile transformed his beauty even more. There was no way he existed on this dangerous planet. Perhaps she was in a dreamland, still unconscious, hopefully on her way to heaven—although that was certainly in doubt.
“I’m no angel, lass.” Scottish? His brogue was full-on Scotsman, and it fit him—his wildness. But those eyes…
“You’re not real.” She longed for a weapon. Without being obvious, she reached down to her pants leg to look for her Welrod pistol.
“I have your gun,” he said quietly. “You may have it back.” Reaching to the side, he claimed her weapon and tossed it to her. The metal landed hard near her knee.
“You’re not afraid of me,” she said.
“Not in the slightest,” he agreed.
Should she reach for the gun? “I asked you before, am I dead?”
“You didn’t ask me that. You asked me if I was an angel, which I’m not.” Amusement danced in his unreal eyes. “You aren’t dead.”
“I should be,” she whispered, noting that while the clothing on her left arm had burned away, her skin was merely red and blistered. Her flesh should’ve melted. “I don’t understand.”
One of his dark eyebrows rose. “Why did you blow up a bridge?”
