"I did. I had to. He faced certain death there. At least here, he has a chance."

Mitch touched her face and her cheek burned where his fingertips rested. She wanted to kiss his palm. Then she heard Audra harrumph and remembered her earlier words.

"You are beautiful. Exasperating, but beautiful." Mitch touched the small of her back. "We had better get downstairs."

The shriek of bombs falling drove them forward. The Russians were sh.e.l.ling them while the Allies conducted an air raid. In America, they would call this "double trouble."

She got Jorgen settled on the bench that ran along one wall. He hadn't said a word to them since they took off. He wrung his hands together, looking more like a playmate for Annelies than a warrior.

"Any word about Mutti?"

Mitch shook his head. He needed a bath and a shave. "Nein. No one has come."

"Is the message still there?"

He nodded. "I checked this morning. No one has posted anything else."

"Why can't we find her? Why has no one come to us with information? Where is she?"

Mitch rubbed her arm. She backed away. "I don't need comfort. I need Mutti."

A bomb burst nearby, so close that limestone from the ceiling rained on them. "I wish I knew what to say to you."

"Say you have found her."

"What about the boy?"

"He's staying here." She switched to English so Jorgen wouldn't know what she said. "If the SS comes, we will have to hide him. Maybe dress him like a little girl. Keep him safe. He was going to die out there. I can't leave a child to die."

"If they discover Jorgen here, the SS will kill every one of us."

"You pose as much of a threat. You could be hung or shot as a deserter. Every one of us in here stands in peril. We have to make sure neither the SS nor the Soviets find any of us."

That task would be harder than climbing the Alps.

Mitch flicked a glance at Jorgen. The boy sat on the hard wood bench, his shoulders slumped, his eyes closed. "I'm not unsympathetic to his plight, but I've a responsibility to you and the others in the house. I need to protect you. My job just got a lot tougher."

"I couldn't leave him there. I couldn't."

He understood. Gisela collected waifs like other people collected porcelain figurines.

"Are you angry with me?" Hurt and disappointment radiated from her eyes.

"No. I can't blame you. I'm not sure I'd have had your courage. It was risky."

"You won't send him away?"

That would sign the boy's death sentence. "No, I won't. But you had better get working on a disguise for him. And burn the uniform. His, Kurt's, anything that would link us to Hitler, the n.a.z.is, the army." Good thing Herr Cramer's books had all been destroyed along with their flat. The Soviets would have no mercy on any n.a.z.i sympathizers. "And bury anything of value. Get rid of it. The Russians will take whatever they can lay their hands on."

Bettina clucked. "What are we burying, dearies? Hidden treasure? Could we search for it? What a fun game that would be."

Katya bounced Renate on her knee. "Oh my, ja. Is there a treasure map? We have to have clues where to look."

Gisela ignored them. "What if they find us? Then what?"

He refused to think about the possibility. Lord, protect them. I can't do it.

Then the loudest whistle he ever heard headed straight for them.

Audra screamed and clutched his arm.

His breathing ceased, and he couldn't feel his heart beating. He locked his knees and braced for impact. For the explosion and searing heat.

For death.

THIRTY.

Mitch closed his eyes. The whistle of the approaching bomb pierced his eardrums. The others in the shelter screamed.

The ground shook and the upstairs windows rattled.

G.o.d, save us!

Then silence.

He counted to ten and started to breathe, then dared to open his eyes. He wrenched his arm from Audra's embrace. She resisted. The pressure of her touch rea.s.sured him that he wasn't dreaming.

Or dead.

He wilted in relief, his arms and legs going weak.

The others lifted their heads. A little at a time, they began to speak. They laughed and patted each other on the back. "We're alive."

Audra leaned against his chest. "We almost died." Her green eyes filled with tears.

"Almost."

Annelies whimpered in the background.

Audra batted her just-about-white eyelashes. "You protected us."

He sat back from her, steadying her with his hand, which he released as soon as she straightened. "Nein. Only G.o.d did."

"Where did it land?" Gisela, sitting on the bed across from him with the girls, spoke in his direction but didn't look into his eyes.

"Very close. In the garden, perhaps. Stay here. I'm going to check it out."

Gisela leaned toward him. "Nein. Don't you go out there. If it was a bomb, it could explode at any time."

He switched to English, not knowing the German for what he needed to say. "If it made it from the plane to the ground without going off, it's not likely to do so anytime soon. Just as a precaution, let me see what landed next to us."

She shot nervous glances at the girls and at him. Hurt and uncertainty colored her face.

"Stay here. I will be fine, I promise."

Kurt commandeered the spot next to her. "Ja, stay here with me and you will be safe."

Mitch's shoulders tensed. He turned and took the stairs two at a time and was soon blinking in the sunlight. The day was warm and calm.

He climbed over piles of rubble. He crept around the corner of the building, staying low, ready to hit the ground at any instant if the bomb should explode. Not that he would have a chance to react. And there, in the garden, a giant crater gaped where potatoes and cabbages had grown. Stepping lightly, going a few paces closer, he saw the tail fins of the bomb. The body of it was as large as a man's torso.

The real deal.

Thank You, Lord.

If this sh.e.l.l had detonated as intended, there would be ten dead people in the building's shelter.

His knees wavered and he sank to the ground, trembling.

Images of the carnage this bomb could have delivered slashed through his mind like a picture show. The blood in his veins turned to ice.

He hadn't stopped it like Audra gave him credit for. Nothing he did prevented the tragedy. He sat helpless in the bas.e.m.e.nt, awaiting the end.

But it hadn't come.

"Why?" The word echoed in the soft breeze.

No sooner had the thought escaped his lips than he knew the answer.

G.o.d.

Only G.o.d.

Only Him.

He spared their lives. He watched over them all the way from the POW camp in East Prussia, through Danzig, and their days in Berlin. In fact, G.o.d had allowed the Germans to capture Mitch so he would spend the bulk of the war far from harm.

The warmth of G.o.d's presence flooded him and he shrugged off his jacket, looking to the heavens. "You are here, Lord, aren't You?"

A breeze tickled the back of his neck and a ray of sun warmed his face.

On his own, he was as useless as a puff of air against a brick building. It didn't matter what he did or where he went. G.o.d had his life under His control.

Even if this bomb in front of him had discharged, G.o.d would have kept him safe and delivered Mitch to his heavenly home.

In the recesses of his mind, he heard his father's voice reading the Bible the night before he left home. Hear my cry, O G.o.d; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.

He could hear the pop of the fire on the hearth and smell his father's cigar. I learned these verses from Psalm 61 when I fought in the Great War." His large hand caressed the Bible page. "You would do well to remember them, no matter what happens in your life."

These words from his father were wise. Whether or not they agreed about the course Mitch's life should take, his father had Mitch's best interest at heart. He didn't want his son to experience the hardships of war. He knew them well enough. All too well.

Mitch sat on the ground, head in his hands, for a long while, enjoying the feeling of peace and contentment. He had done the best he could under the worst of conditions in Belgium and France. No one knew where to go. No one saw the panzers coming.

And in the heat of battle, G.o.d had kept most of his chums alive. Captured, facing hardship, but breathing. If they had been able to return to England and then back to the battlefield, how many of them would be alive today? Perhaps not any of them.

An object blocked out the sun, cooling Mitch's back. He turned and Gisela stood behind him. He hadn't heard her coming.

"What are you doing?"

He stood, his legs cramped. He stretched his muscles. "That is a bomb, no doubt, but it never exploded."

"A dud."

"Yes, a dud. G.o.d sent us a dud."

Gisela stared at the rusty-looking metal bomb. "Wow." That was the only word her tumultuous brain could conjure.

"That's a good word for it."

"We came so close to dying." Dying. She should be dead now. A tremor pa.s.sed through her body.

"Very close. But G.o.d took care of us. He is the one who delivered us."

"A poor bomb maker in the Soviet Union delivered us."

"No, G.o.d did. What could you and I have done to prevent this sh.e.l.l from detonating?"

She studied the small crater. Mitch had a point. "Nothing. We were helpless."

"Don't you see? G.o.d is the one who, as the hymn says, brought us safely thus far." In the midst of the battle, the heartbreak and sorrow, he lifted his beautiful tenor voice.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me!