He steps back, his hands on the chair frame. ‘I’ve been wanting to kiss you since last night, when you waited for me and Becca in the rain.’
‘Sam, I—’
He kisses her again; long, and slow, taking his time. Taking all the time in the world. He stands back and gives the chair a gentle push.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Sophie clears her throat, her mind full of the feel of Sam’s lips on hers. ‘Anybody would have done that.’
‘Anybody didn’t do that. You did that. The princess with the heart of ice.’
Sophie rubs her lips with her fingers. ‘Sam, I shouldn’t have kissed you at the lighthouse. I’m going tomorrow … Our lives are too different—’
‘Did anyone ever teach you how to play cribbage?’
‘What?’
Sam walks over to a Victorian sidetable and pulls out a drawer. ‘Cribbage. I warn you, I take no prisoners.’
‘You want me to play cribbage with you?’
‘It’s either that or Settlers of Catan, but we’re missing some pieces. I think Rupert ate them.’
‘You’re not serious.’
Sam sets out the cribbage board on the coffee table with a stack of playing cards. ‘There you go. Red or blue?’
‘You want me to play cribbage with you?’ she repeats.
‘Look, Sophie. You’re right. You’re leaving tomorrow. I was … I thought … Well, never mind. Cribbage is much better than sex, anyway.’
I like him. I like him a lot.
Sliding off the hanging chair, Sophie steps over the snoring dog and sits on the sofa. ‘I’ll be red.’
***
Sophie turns to Sam at the porch door. ‘Thanks, Sam. That was fun.’
‘Ah, to think you’ll always think of me as the man who introduced you to cribbage.’
She laughs. ‘It was fun. Really. I never have a chance to just … to just be easy. It was easy tonight, with you.’
‘That’s me. I’m easy.’ The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles. ‘Or, I could be if you’d let me.’
Sophie laughs. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
They stand for a moment, the silence broken only by the thundering waves on the beach below. ‘So, I’ll call a taxi in the morning.’
‘No, I’ll drive you.’
‘On the bike?’
Sam raises his eyebrows in mock offence. ‘Don’t you like Miss Julie? There’s always the old pickup truck, but she could go at any minute.’
‘Miss Julie is fine.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you back to Ellie’s?’
‘No, she’s just up the hill.’
‘Okay. Watch out for those fairies.’
‘I will.’
Sam shuts the door behind her. She turns towards the path. The waves crash on the beach below and the branches of the spruce trees whip around her in the growing wind.
She turns back to the cottage. The door opens before she’s finished knocking.
‘I don’t have a heart of ice.’
‘I never thought you did.’
Chapter 44
Monte Cassino, Italy – 19 March 1944
Thomas presses himself against the jagged limestone of the castle’s remaining wall. The burnt-out shell of the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino – immolated to sacrificial rubble in the Allied bombing of the previous month – lies ahead on the crest of Monte Cassino, now a nest for the German paratroopers who have dug in, allowing them eagle-eyed views of the smaller Hangman’s Hill and Castle Hill below. The strains of a gramophone recording of ‘Besame Mucho’ drift down from the monastery, filtering through the barrage of Allied artillery guns.
He glances to the south towards Naples. The ink-black sky is washed with a glow of yellow and red where Vesuvius is throwing its innards into the sky. Too far away for them to worry about. There were other things to worry about. Like taking Hangman’s Hill without ending up like one of the poor suckers rotting on the rocky hillsides, their bodies blackened by the creosote poured over them to cover the stench.
He fingers the cluster of wilted green weeds pinned to his uniform lapel. ‘Italian shamrocks,’ Father Ryan had said as he’d handed them out for St Patrick’s Day. St Patrick’s Day and his own birthday. Happy Birthday to me. And not even a Catholic.
He closes his eyes and tries to draw Ellie’s face in his mind. Her hair the colour of the sandy beach at Lumsden, her eyes the blue-grey of an August sky over the North Atlantic shore. He breathes deeply, searching for the elusive lavender of her scent. The fingers of his right hand twitch, remembering the warmth of her skin and the hills and valleys of her body.
Machine gun fire blasts through the sharp pre-dawn air from the direction of Hangman’s Hill, setting off a response from the Essex Regiment and the Newfoundlanders edging their way over the craters and rubble to the hill.
‘You ready, Tommy?’ Charlie Murphy adjusts the chinstrap of his helmet and picks up his rifle.
‘It’s madness, Charlie. They’re gonna pick us off like ducks on a pond if we tries to attack the monastery from Hangman’s Hill. They’ll have a clear view of us from up there.’
‘Don’t I knows it, b’y. But you gotta do what they says. We’re just soldiers.’ A thick cloud of white smoke wafts through the rubble of the castle from the smoke bombs being lobbed at the hills from the divisions below. Charlie coughs and waves at the smoke. ‘Holy Joe, how are we meant to see where we’re goin’ through this stuff? We won’t be able to see the white tape the engineers laid out on the path.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that, Charlie, the tape’s blown to hell. We’ll just have to try to figure out where to step. If you blows up, I’ll knows not to step there.’
Thomas reaches into his tunic pocket and pulls out a metal flask. He unscrews the top and takes a long swig. He taps it on Charlie’s rifle. ‘Here you goes, b’y. Have some Dutch courage. You knows what they says, you gotta be a drunk or
