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“I know you can.” Captain DeWitt paused on the path between the new house and the kitchen tent, which they were still using, despite Mrs. Barrett’s determination to move the one working stove to the new house. “Don’t you recognize a stratagem when you see one?”

“A stratagem? To abscond with the coffee?”

“It is very good coffee. But no.” Captain DeWitt looked at her over the coffeepot, the sunlight winking off the badge on his cap. “I mean to abscond with you—at least as far as the kitchen.”

Emmie didn’t seem to be breathing properly. “That isn’t much of an—is abscomption a word?”

“I don’t believe so,” said Captain DeWitt gravely.

They stared at each other over the coffeepot, like strangers but not. It had been two months since they had seen each other in person, two months since that bench by the moat. It was one thing to sit with someone at a party, flown on music and good food, and quite another to see them by day, in one’s official capacity. And wonder if he still saw whatever it was he had seen then, if he thought whatever it was of her he had thought then. Or if it had just been Christmas and loneliness and the front and a sympathetic ear. Well, lips, really.

The silence stretched between them, if it could truly be called silence with artillery pounding in the distance and one of Emmie’s roosters screeching.

It was so strange to be shy of each other when they’d been living inside each other’s heads since Christmas. But there was a world of difference between being invited into the private world of someone’s mind—all the odd thoughts and memories—and then presented, once again, with the living, breathing person in whom those thoughts resided, someone at once familiar and alien. And very, very much made of flesh. Emmie was strangely aware of the physicality of him, the way his uniform belted in at the waist, the breadth of his shoulders beneath the drab khaki, the ungloved hands holding the coffeepot.

“Or I can go away again,” Captain DeWitt said, watching her very closely, “and write you a letter.”

Emmie flushed. “That’s an idea, isn’t it? We could set up a postbox somewhere between here and the house and leave each other letters in it. You know, things like, ‘hello,’ and ‘fine day, isn’t it?’”

“It is a fine day,” agreed Captain DeWitt.

Emmie wished her uniform were cleaner. And that she’d washed her hair more recently. “Thank you for letting us stay.”

“It wasn’t my decision.” The captain shifted the coffeepot from one hand to the other. “The colonel really was driven half-mad by Frenchmen petitioning him on your behalf.”

Emmie couldn’t help but feel flattered. “On the Unit’s behalf, you mean.”

Captain DeWitt shook his head. “Not just the Unit. You. Your work in Courcelles is a shining model of what determination, hard work, and a warm heart can accomplish—I translate from the French, of course,” he added drily.

There was something in his tone that made a little of the light fade from the sky. “You sound as though you don’t agree.”

“I wish I didn’t. If you were a dilettante or a hobbyist, it would be much easier to urge you to get out. The trouble is that what you’re doing is making a difference.” He looked at her, his eyes shadowed by the brim of his cap. “You know the children have a game they play. They call it Les Dames Américaines. The heroine of the game is called Mademoiselle Aimée. That is what they call you, isn’t it? Aimée?”

She who is beloved. Emmie gave an awkward sort of shrug. “It’s only because they can’t pronounce Emmie. Please don’t tell me the game is something awful.”

“It’s not if you’re six. Someone lies down and pretends to be sick and the others dance around and sing a song and the Mademoiselle Aimée character helps the first child up. It’s a bit more than that, but that’s the gist of it. I asked the little beasts what it was about. They said you were saving them.”

Emmie blinked rapidly, trying not to show how close she was to tears. “All I did was get them milk and a village pump.”

“And blankets and beds and shoes and clothes. They appreciate it, you know. We just march through, but you stopped for them. Half those children would have died this winter without you. Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating. I’m not. You’ve done the hardest part—you’ve kept them going through winter. But winter is over. And the sooner you get out, the better.”

“But there’s still so much left to do—it’s not just winter.” Emmie looked at him appealingly, trying to make him understand. “There’s still the rest of the planting. We’ve done a first round of distributions for basic needs, but that’s only the beginning. We need to canvass everyone again and find out what else they need, and that takes time. It all takes time.”

“Time is what you don’t have.” Captain DeWitt lowered his voice, looking over his shoulder. “There’s going to be fighting—you must have heard talk. Haven’t you?”

“There’s always talk.” He was standing so close that she could see the insignia on his buttons. “We’ve thought we were going to be shelled out at least a dozen times since we arrived. And we’re still here.”

“It’s not like that this time. There have been rumblings across the line. There are trucks coming in from the east, trucks and men. We’ve caught the Germans studying our lines. They’re planning something, and whatever it is, it’s going to happen soon. We have plans in place to try to stave them off, but . . . I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Emmie looked quizzically at him. “Your colonel did say the Unit could stay.”

Captain DeWitt made a noise of frustration. “It’s not the Unit I’m concerned about. It’s you. I was half hoping you’d all be out—that I could know you were safely in Paris, on your way back to the States, anywhere but here.”

“Because I can’t be trusted to take care of myself?”

“Because the Germans can’t be trusted not to shoot everyone on sight,” Captain DeWitt said roughly. “Do you think they’ll care that you’re only here to help? Or that you’re American rather than French? You’re at war now too. I can’t tell you to go—I haven’t the right to tell you to go—but there are nights when I wake up in a cold sweat, dreaming the Germans have come and you’re here in their path. There’s no protection for you here, nothing.”

“Only you,” said Emmie, looking up at Captain DeWitt, at his weathered, worried face. “You stand between us and them.”