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“It’s complicated.”

She shook her head. “If I learned anything from six years of war, four of them separated from the man I love . . . it’s simpler than you think.”

She walked away and left me alone and bewildered. I respected and trusted Adia. She and Bret had endured a lot under the German occupation of Poland. But she didn’t know me, my heart, or my loyalties.

We said our farewells, and the next morning, we took a taxi to the airfield and loaded onto the Douglas. We greeted Tarron and settled into our seats. Eva and I sat near the front again, next to each other, and Annie and Peter bounced around the back of the rows. The night before had been quiet, all of us filled with the disappointment of defeat. A simple meal, an early retirement to the hotel.

The jostle of the plane as we settled into cruising altitude pushed Eva and me closer together, her shoulder brushing mine. Adia’s words burned into my mind, along with Eva’s accusations after we’d delivered the foal.

I was quick to help men like Mason, Bennett, Lucky, and EP and call out her medals being hidden in a rusted box. I wanted to pretend that I also wasn’t afraid of going to sleep. That my nights weren’t restless and plagued by shadows.

“We’d been pushing into Germany for a few weeks by late 1944,” I said somberly. “We’d take two steps forward and one giant step back. Lost two or three guys almost every day.”

She turned in her seat, her blue eyes tender under her thick black lashes.

“I tried to get permission to pull back and wait for more reinforcements.” My throat constricted. “I didn’t want to go into a situation I knew we couldn’t win.”

“They told you to press on,” she whispered.

I nodded. The words froze in my chest, the shame and guilt I’d wrestled with rising in me and threatening to take me under.

She put her hand on my arm reassuringly. It soothed away the tide of emotion.

“I wanted to defy the orders, but I knew it would mean I’d be dishonorably discharged. That my men would be sent in under someone else. So I took a few of my most trusted men to get me to the edge of the SS camp, and then I went in alone and set timed C-4 explosives throughout most of the camp while they slept.” I rubbed my neck, the pain still echoing through every limb. “I got shot in the shoulder and was caught in the blast of the last explosion, but my guys—Eddie and Lucky—they all pulled me out and got me back to the unit.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, Warren.”

I shrugged. “Eddie had warned me not to do it, and I should have listened. I nearly got sent home, but I begged the medics to clear me for combat. I sent us into a hot zone too quickly, and we lost more men. After that, I didn’t play around. Going into Hostau was the only time I deviated from the methods that we’d honed to perfection. By 1945, we were catching the Germans by surprise.”

She squeezed my arm.

“I still regret those early days and how many men never made it home.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder as if she knew that words wouldn’t undo the pain or lives lost. Her touch was more soothing than any word. I leaned my cheek on top of her head, breathing in the lavender scent of her shampoo that always took me back to Kötzting.

“My hospital was overrun by enemy forces in August 1945, just a few days before the ceasefire,” she whispered.

My heart lurched. That had been only two months after I’d met her in Kötzting.

“We were unprepared.” Her breath caught. “So many men died.”

My stomach tightened, and I fought the urge to sweep her into my arms as if I could protect her from what had happened almost a year ago.

“I tried to hide as many patients as I could, and a few of the nurses. Some of the doctors took up arms and tried to fight them off.” She trembled. “One of them fell beside me, so I picked up the M1 and fired back.” She hesitated.

I searched her face. Her eyes and cheeks were dry, but she stared at a distant point. Anger, revulsion, horror all passed over her expression. A nurse, sworn to preserve life, called upon to face a violent enemy—to take their lives to save hers and those around her.

“The injured soldiers, a few doctors, nurses, and orderlies—we fought them off for almost twelve hours before reinforcements arrived.”

I could only imagine how terrible that had been—no proper cover, no means to retreat without abandoning the injured to capture and torture.

Eva had certainly known the horrors of what capture would mean for her and her fellow nurses. No one was spared even in those last days of the war.

“I just want to forget it all,” she said.

“Me too,” I admitted.

Silence mixed with sorrow, and yet a thread of healing spanned the air between us as the plane began to descend into Oregon and real life wrapped in around us.