The Girls of Pearl Harbor

by Lane, Soraya M.

  She could see his shoulders rising and falling, could tell how angry he was even though she had no idea what she’d said to make him so mad. Eva slowly moved around the chair.

  ‘Art?’

  ‘You think I want to leave you?’ he asked, shaking his head. ‘You made me want to live again, Eva. Without you, I can’t see the goddamn point of it all.’

  She opened her mouth and shut it again. ‘You don’t want to go because of me?’

  He glared at her. ‘For an intelligent woman you can be as stupid as a donkey sometimes.’

  Eva laughed when she saw a smile spread across Art’s mouth, finding it impossible not to giggle. Soon they were laughing together, and she went back to pushing him, wanting to get farther away from the hospital.

  ‘You know,’ she teased, ‘donkeys can be highly intelligent.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you know anything about donkeys,’ he muttered. ‘But I am sorry I compared you to one.’

  ‘For the record, I’m going to miss you too,’ she said, pleased that he couldn’t see her. She doubted the words would have come so easily if he could have. ‘I don’t have a lot to look forward to when I get home, and being here is, well, it is what it is.’

  ‘I need you to take me down there.’ He pointed. ‘To the village. I want to go into the Arab quarter.’

  She shrugged, not fazed about having to walk so far. Until she realized how much mud they were going to encounter. ‘Ah, I’m not so sure I can get you all the way there. I think we’d end up with the wheelchair stuck and—’

  ‘Fine, just take us somewhere we can stop, then.’

  Eva didn’t bother telling him off for being so short with her; she just started to push, liking the feel of her arms burning as she propelled his chair forward. He could work it himself now, and he did through the ward and inside, but she liked to push him outside. It gave her something to do, and it was easier on him.

  ‘Here’s fine,’ he ordered.

  Eva stopped pushing and walked around the chair, her arms folded. ‘What’s put you in such a grumpy mood today? You’re almost like the Art I met all those months ago. Do you remember him?’

  He grunted. ‘Oh, I remember.’

  ‘Well?’

  He sighed. ‘Tell me what your plan is when you eventually get sent home. Are you going back to your father?’

  She stared at the ground, not wanting to think about it. Everything had changed for her when Charlie had died. Everything. Tears clung to her lashes as she gulped down the ugly truth, hating how scared she was, hating the shell of a person she’d become after losing everything. She wanted to be that girl on the USS Solace, the girl with a future, the girl with a fiancé, the girl who didn’t have to be scared of her monster of a father ever again.

  ‘Eva?’

  She let out her breath and swallowed, blinking away her tears. ‘I honestly don’t know. I’ve written to my mother, but she’ll only say that my father is the head of the household and whatever he says goes.’ She cleared her throat and raised her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t go back to a house with him in it for anything.’

  ‘Just because your father earns the money in your household doesn’t give him the right to lay his hands on you or your mother,’ Art fumed. ‘He doesn’t deserve to ever see you again, and neither does she for allowing it to happen!’

  ‘Please don’t worry—I should never have told you in the first place,’ she said, trying to disguise the wobble in her voice with a small smile. ‘I can stay with the Bellamys in Oregon for a bit; they’ve been so kind to me, and I’m sure I’ll be able to scrape together enough money to—’

  ‘I wanted to go into town for a reason today,’ Art said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Go and pick me some of that grass, would you? A few decent bits.’

  Eva laughed and studied his face. ‘Grass? We go from me opening up to you about my family to grass?’

  ‘Goddammit—just do it for me, would you, Eva?’

  She saluted him and went off to pick the grass, bemused. At least it gave her a moment to collect her thoughts.

  She had no idea what was going on with Art, and she wasn’t about to ask. She tried to remember Charlie then, but she couldn’t see his face clearly, as if a whole lot of memories were blurring together and stopping her from seeing his features.

  Eva bent to pick some grass and returned to Art, holding it out. ‘Here you go,’ she said.

  ‘Turn around, and walk a few steps away,’ he said.

  Eva obliged, turning her back and wandering, staring up at the sky, which looked gray and swirling, like it was about to unleash another torrent of rain on them.

  ‘Can I look now?’ she asked.

  There was no reply, so she kept waiting.

  ‘Art?’

  ‘Turn around,’ he said in a low voice, and she slowly did as he said.

  ‘What’s going on? What are you up to?’ she asked. ‘You’re not about to play a trick on me, are you?’

  Art laughed, but it sounded like more of a grunt. ‘No tricks. Just come closer, and sit on my knee.’

  Eva’s face was on fire as she slowly moved closer, carefully lowering herself to his knee, nervous all of a sudden. ‘Are you sure about this? I don’t want to hurt you . . . I . . .’ Her words disappeared as she saw the look in his eyes, the change in him. ‘Art?’

  ‘I’m scared,’ he said, and she could see the tears in his eyes, the hint that he wasn’t as strong as he looked sometimes. ‘I’m so scared about my life and what it’ll be like going home, the look on everyone’s faces when they see me like this. Half a man instead of the great pilot that left home.’ He sucked in a sharp breath and cleared his throat. ‘I’m scared of what kind of life I can even have.’

  ‘The people who care about you, they won’t see you as anything other than yourself,’ she told him. ‘They will only care that you’ve come home alive.’

  ‘Eva, you saved my life, and somewhere in between being a complete idiot to you and now, I fell in love with you.’

  Eva froze. He’s in love with me?

  ‘You don’t have to worry about what to do after the war, Eva, because I want to look after you.’ He chuckled and gestured at where his leg should be. ‘I’m not a whole man—I know that—but I can still look after you. I can make sure you never have to see your father again. It’s time for me to look after you, for you to come home to Oregon with me.’

  She blinked back her tears, but it was no use, and they fell anyway as Art raised a hand to her cheek, his palm warm against her skin.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Art. You don’t need to say that,’ she whispered, trying to be brave.

  ‘I’ve never wanted to look after someone so badly in my entire life, Eva,’ he whispered. ‘You’ve made me realize that I’m not completely useless. I might not be able to walk or fly again, but protecting you, caring for you, that’s one thing I can still do.’

  She laughed softly. ‘You have no idea how much it means to hear you say that, to see you finally understand how capable you are still.’

  Art smiled back at her, his voice low when he finally spoke. ‘Eva, I want you to be my wife.’

  She exhaled. ‘Your wife?’

  ‘Eva, will you marry me?’ he asked, taking her hand and holding out a crude ring made from grass tied together, which made her burst out laughing.

  ‘Art! You can’t. I mean—’

  ‘I can,’ he said firmly. ‘Eva, don’t leave me hanging—will you marry me?’

  ‘It’s not because you feel sorry for me? Or because you think you owe me?’ she asked, needing to know as she studied his face, searching for answers.

  ‘No,’ Art murmured. He lifted his face and tucked his fingers beneath her chin now, slowly bringing her mouth closer to his. She breathed in just as his lips touched hers, whispering against her as he kissed her again, then again, her skin tingling as his hand slid across and stroked her hair, so gentle that she could only just feel it.

  ‘I think I fell in
love with you the day you saved me, Eva.’

  ‘You sure had a funny way of showing it,’ she muttered, laughing as she kissed him again, lost in the feeling of his lips against hers.

  ‘I’m only going to ask you one last time, Eva. Will you marry me?’

  She smiled against his mouth as he slipped the ring on her finger. ‘Yes, Arthur. I will marry you.’

  They both laughed, and the wheelchair tipped as she leaned too heavily into him. Eva leaped to her feet and corrected it before it fell, smiling down at the pretend ring on her finger and then at Art.

  ‘I want to make you happy, Eva. You deserve so much.’ He smiled. ‘You never, ever have to be frightened about seeing your father, ever again. I promise I’ll always look after you.’

  She dropped carefully to his lap again, tucking her arms around his neck.

  ‘Thank you, Art,’ she whispered.

  He chuckled as he claimed her mouth again. ‘You’re welcome.’

  She pushed gently at his chest, stopping him. ‘Art, I need to tell you something.’

  He frowned. ‘Don’t say you can’t marry me.’ Art laughed, but his face turned solemn again when she didn’t laugh back. ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘I just . . . well, I’ve told you how hard it was for me losing Charlie, how much I loved him, and even though he’s not here anymore, I’ve never stopped loving him, and I don’t think I ever will. I need you to know that.’

  Art’s hand was warm against her cheek as he smiled up at her. ‘You don’t have to forget your Charlie to marry me, Eva.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, her voice breaking as she stared into his eyes. ‘Thank you a hundred times over for understanding.’

  ‘I’m the one who needs to be saying thank you,’ he whispered back. ‘You saved me, Eva. You managed to make me feel like a man again, and I’ll be thanking you for that for the rest of my life.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  APRIL

  ‘Grace?’ April whispered, gently shaking her sister’s shoulder. ‘Grace, wake up.’

  She watched as Grace stirred, eventually moving and opening her eyes, her slow blink making it obvious just how tired she was.

  ‘Is it Teddy?’ Grace mumbled. ‘What’s happened?’

  April placed her hand on Grace’s shoulder again. ‘Nothing’s happened to Teddy, Grace. Everything’s fine.’

  Well, as fine as it could be in the middle of a war zone. April couldn’t imagine everything being actually fine ever again after everything they’d been through.

  ‘I’m worried about you, Grace. You’ve hardly left Teddy’s side, and I know you feel as if it’s your duty to—’

  ‘It is my duty,’ Grace said, shrugging April’s hand away and moving closer to Teddy’s bed.

  ‘Grace, you’ve barely left his bedside since we were brought back, and there’s only so long you’re going to be allowed to keep behaving like this.’ April lowered her voice. ‘He’s not your husband, and some of the nurses have already been asking questions.’

  Grace looked up, and her glare was fierce. ‘Let them ask questions. I don’t care.’

  ‘Look,’ April said, finding a stool and dragging it closer to sit beside her sister. ‘We all love Teddy, we went through so much with him when he lost Poppy, and he’s always been so good to us, but there’s nothing more you can do for him.’

  ‘He can’t see, April,’ Grace said. ‘I want to be here for him, to help him.’

  ‘Like he helped you?’ she asked, pausing before adding, ‘I keep remembering your words, you telling me that he saved you not once but twice.’

  Grace was quiet, her gaze still fixed on Teddy’s sleeping form.

  ‘Grace?’

  When Grace turned this time, there were tears sparkling in her eyes. ‘Eva told you, didn’t she?’

  April shook her head. ‘Eva hasn’t told me anything. But I know something happened.’

  Grace’s shoulders heaved up and then fell. ‘That night, when I went out with the British soldier, Teddy was there.’

  ‘I know. I remember how funny you were after seeing him.’

  ‘Eva found him in the tent with me; she walked in on us together.’

  ‘Oh, Grace, oh no, I—’

  ‘No! It wasn’t like that. He’d carried me home and put me to bed. He was so kind, so gentle with me, but the soldier, Peter, he, he . . .’ Grace’s breath shuddered from her. ‘He tried to rape me, April, and all I could think was that you were right. If I’d only listened to you, if I’d only been more sensible like you, I would never have ended up in that situation.’

  April’s heart was thudding as she listened and tried not to overreact. How dare he! How dare any man treat her sister that way, or any woman for that matter!

  ‘Grace, I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known,’ she said softly. ‘I wish there was something I could have done.’ How could Grace not have told her?

  ‘I didn’t want your help. I didn’t even want you to know. It was bad enough that Teddy had been witness to it.’

  ‘You’ve always loved him, haven’t you?’ April asked. ‘I mean, I always knew you had a crush on him, but it’s something more, isn’t it?’

  Grace had shuffled even closer to Teddy, her fingers closing over his hand as he slept. ‘I tried so hard, after Poppy died, not to think about him like that. And when he told me that he thought of me like a little sister, I knew it was never going to happen, but that night he saved me, the way he treated me . . .’

  Grace never finished her sentence, and April bent to hug her, circling her arms around her from behind. ‘We’re in a war, Grace. Nothing is for certain anymore, but it’s been long enough. If you and Teddy love each other, then you have my blessing.’

  April kissed the top of her sister’s head as Grace held her hands, holding her back.

  ‘But Grace, I need you to know they’re moving us. We don’t have much longer here, so you have to be prepared. If your arm’s healed enough, you might have to move with us and leave him behind.’

  She backed away then and went to do her rounds, anxious to finish her work for the day so she could go and find Harry. He was on the mend and wanting to get back to work, but he still had to be cleared for duty again, and she suspected he’d be asked to rest at least a few more days before returning to any doctor duties.

  Three hours later she was completely perplexed when she went to Harry’s bed and found it made up with no one in it. And none of his belongings or any other evidence of him ever being there seemed to exist either.

  ‘Are you looking for me?’

  She turned and found the man in question standing in the doorway.

  ‘Well, yes, I was, but it seems you’ve discharged yourself.’

  He shrugged. ‘They’re far too conservative here. It’s only my leg that’s damaged.’

  She looked down at the leg in question, pleased to see that he was at least using a stick to help him walk.

  ‘When are you cleared to work again?’ she asked.

  ‘Officially, not for another week. But I decided to go into the village and see if any of the locals needed treatment.’

  He smiled, and it made her laugh, the look on his face almost comical.

  ‘And how did that go?’

  ‘I’ve been run off my feet all day! I’m exhausted.’ They both laughed together, and Harry surprised her by offering her his arm. ‘Would you join me for dinner?’

  ‘Tonight?’

  He nodded. ‘Tonight. I’ve been asked to join a local family for dinner so they can thank me, and they asked if there was anyone I’d like to bring.’

  ‘I’d love to join you.’

  She took his arm, happy to spend time in his company. ‘You’re sure they won’t mind you bringing me? They might have preferred another doctor.’

  He laughed as they walked side by side. ‘I told them about a fearless nurse who saved soldiers on the beach,’ Harry said, leaning in as he spoke, as if his words were just for her. ‘They wa
nted to meet this incredible woman, especially when I told them she was going to be a doctor one day.’

  Now it was April laughing. ‘You’re just saying that.’

  He shook his head, and his laughter died away. ‘I’m not, April. What you did that day, the way you worked under conditions that would have tested the most competent of doctors, was incredible.’ He pushed the door to the hospital open, and they both walked out, the cool blast sending goose bumps rippling across her skin almost instantly. ‘I promise I’ll do everything I can to teach you, April. Because one day, if it’s what you want, you’ll be an amazing doctor.’

  They walked in silence the rest of the way, but April’s head was far from silent. What had happened with Dr. Grey had made her feel silly for ever believing she could be a doctor, but hearing Harry tell her she could do it was making her believe all over again.

  ‘Welcome! Welcome!’

  The family was waiting to greet them outside their hut when they arrived, and April smiled and waved back, wishing she’d brought gifts with her. But they flocked around Harry as if he were the gift, the children eager to walk beside him, grabbing hold of him and escorting him until the man of the house shooed them away and they scattered in different directions.

  ‘They seem to love you,’ April whispered.

  ‘I was kind to them; that’s all,’ he replied with a wink. ‘Things that have bothered them for so long can be so simple for someone like me to treat, but they’re so grateful that I can ease their suffering. You saw it firsthand the day you helped me, just what a difference we can make.’

  ‘Come!’ the woman said, opening her arms and showing off a smile that was missing two teeth at the side, clearly a result of Harry pulling them out to relieve an abscess, judging by how raw and red her gums looked. She pointed to the table, and they obliged as children peeked out from the tiny kitchen area to watch them.

  April smiled as Harry waved them over, blowing a kiss to a young girl and giving two of the boys pretend punches as they dodged around him and laughed.

  ‘Do you have nieces or nephews at home?’ April asked, realizing how little she knew about Harry.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘All three of my sisters are older than me, and they have six children between them.’