Sons of Thunder (22 page)

She looked away, her face flushed. “I don’t mean it meant
nothing
. But I understand that you don’t love me. You’re grieving.”

Oh, Sofia. Now he wanted to throw
himself
at something. Or put his fist into her brick wall. Yeah, a real gentleman he turned out to be.

He touched her face. “I did love Lizzy. But she’s gone, and I do care for you, Sofia. I asked you to marry me.”

She leaned away from his touch. “Because you felt sorry for me.”

Was that why? He wanted to pull her to himself, to smell her hair in his face, to wrap his arms around her and be lost in her touch. “No, I don’t feel sorry for you.”

She looked at him then, met his eyes. “Good. Don’t. Because I don’t feel sorry for me.” She put her hand on his chest. Sighed. “Get dressed, Dino. And yes, you can make me breakfast if that will make you feel better.”

It might. But, “No, you marrying me would feel a lot better.”

She gave the smallest of smiles, her beautiful lips tipping up. “You don’t always have to do the right thing, you know.”

“Oh, I wish I did anything right, Sofia. Just one thing.”

She reached up, cupped his face, and he leaned against it. “So like your brother.”

She closed the bathroom door behind her as he retrieved his shirt. He pulled it on as the sun rose above the tops of the buildings and poured into the room.

Yes, so like his brother. And not just impulsive, angry Markos, but Theo too. The brother who’d stolen another man’s woman.

Oh, yes, little brother Dino certainly embodied the Stavros legacy. Was really leaving his mark on the world.

But he would make it right.
Had
to make it right. He lifted his face to the rose gold of the morning and longed to believe in himself.

CHAPTER 16

After the past decade of slogging through crusty snow, thawing out his wool socks over the radiator in his room, and ducking his head against the cruel wind slithering down the frozen Mississippi, living in Minneapolis had taught Dino to appreciate spring. With pink buds on the maples and white flowers dotting the mountain ash around the university campus, the hint of life stirred the air.

And with it, Dino’s spirit. Something had blossomed inside him since that night with Sofia—although he’d resisted the lure of her arms. He couldn’t bear to face himself in the mirror until he convinced Sofia to marry him.

She would—he knew it. It would just take more time.

He shoved his hands into his coat pockets as he walked home from the trolley, the sun lazy as it fell into the horizon. Maybe this buoyant feeling came from freedom—Reg had taken his tyranny on leave for the past month. And with Sofia now living at his boardinghouse, Dino didn’t have to pry himself from the grip of the hospital every night to know she was safe. With his first-year intern test behind him, two more years of residency in front of him, he could taste his future, like the breath of summer, just out of his reach.

He’d be very proud of you.
Maybe. The thought swept him back to languid days on their fishing boat.

He’d spent more time in memory these days, his toe trailing in the tepid waters, watching Markos throw out the nets. Markos always looked seventeen, bronzed, strong, confidence in his dark blue eyes.

The Markos Dino saw in Sofia’s eyes, probably. Dino tried not to read into her smile, believe himself a replacement.

Besides, Markos didn’t teach her to dance or propose to her on a nightly basis over the past month.

One of these times, she might not laugh, might not wrinkle her nose at him, might not disentangle herself from his arms and bid him good night.

Maybe even tonight.

He climbed the stairs to the boardinghouse, the front porch cleared of snow after the last storm—March, in like a lion. The fragrance of Sofia’s bread—he could nearly taste the cinnamon—beckoned him inside as he hung his coat on the tree by the door, toed off his goulashes.

One of the boarders sat at the piano, clunking out “Clare du Lune.” Elsie plowed out between the swinging doors to the kitchen, holding a milk glass dish piled high with creamed corn. “Just in time, Danny. The
kuchen
is nearly out of the oven.” She glanced back over her shoulder, said something in German. Over the last month, Sofia had received a crash course in “Elsie.”

Sofia glanced up at him from where she stood at the sink, draining a pot of potatoes. Steam billowed up as she turned her face away. Still, it slicked sweat across her brow where she’d pulled her hair back into a black scarf.

For a second, he was back in Zante, in his mother’s kitchen. Only this time, the boulder that normally lodged in his throat spread out in a warmth through his chest, seeping into his bones. “Hello.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Hello—Danny.”

He’d taken a risk asking her to quit her job, convincing Elsie to hire her on as a domestic. Any day, Sofia could slip, refer to him as Dino. But it got her away from the theater, from late nights walking home, allowed him to focus on his studies.

And, frankly, maybe it was time for Dino Stavros to resurface.

He felt more like himself every day he spent with Sofia Frangos. Perhaps life had finally caught up with him.

He wound his arms around Sofia’s waist, perching his chin on her shoulder, then pressed a kiss there, not allowing his lips to linger.

Not when temptation could so easily devour him.

She set the potato pot in the sink, turned in his arms. Her eyes, so blue he could lose himself in their warm waters, drew him in. “How was your day?”

“Good. But I switch shifts again tomorrow. I’ll be under Reg’s watch again. Expect me to come home smelling like a bedpan.”

She wrinkled her nose at his joke, but he couldn’t help but notice a shadow of something cool, even dark in her eyes. Something he might even name fear. “What is it?”

She shook it away. Smoothed her hands on his cotton shirt. “Nothing.”

Oh. Perhaps the mention of the bedpans reminded her too much of the night. He kissed her on the forehead. “I’m going to change clothes. Dinner smells wonderful.”

He walked back out to the living room—the piano player had left, and Billie Holiday played on the radio, her delicate, haunting voice following him up the stairs. He was surprised to find his room open.

Maybe Sofia had brought him fresh sheets. Sometimes she even made his bed—

A woman stood at his window, her back to him, a black trench coat cinched tight around her penny waist. Blond hair knotted at the nape of her neck. The wide ribbon from her black hat trailed down her back like a tail. “Hello? How did you get in here?”

“I wasn’t sure when you’d get home.” She turned, and in the movement, the breath left his body. He stood there, a shrill whooshing in his ears as his eyes focused on her face, hidden partially under the half netting of her hat. A face he could trace from memory. And her green eyes, solemn, even hurt, as she pinned them on him.

His gaze arrested on the scars that rumpled her smooth right cheek, as if someone had taken the skin and pinched, their finger marks still embedded.

“Lizzy.”

She inhaled a breath. Glanced down at the bag clutched in her hands. “I’m sorry to surprise you like this, but I know you were worried, and I wanted to—”

“What happened? Are you okay?” In a moment, he returned to that day at the telegraph station, feeling as if someone had poured benzene through him, lit him afire. “I was—I thought you had—”

“Died? I wanted to.” She held her gloved hand to her mouth, then covered her cheek with it, looked away. “We were on the dock when the Japs attacked. We tried to get away, but they were too fast. Daddy was onboard the
Arizona
. Mother and I…well…” She closed her eyes. “I don’t remember anything after the explosions. They say they found me a day later, during the rescue efforts. I just remember waking up in the hospital.”

The picture of it charred his mind, the screaming as the bombs fell, the boiling air as the battleship exploded, the noise and chaos. “Didn’t they know it was you? I cabled the hospital, the naval base—I looked for you every day.”

“I know. At first they couldn’t identify me. But—after a couple weeks…” She sighed. “My face wasn’t the only place burned…” She cupped her left hand over her right as she spoke.

He wanted to pull her into his arms, to kiss her face, to tell her that it didn’t matter. But the way she bowed her shoulders, turned back to the window—he just stood there…

Burned.

The word lay on his chest like a boulder.

“Lizzy—it doesn’t matter. I still…” Love you. He still
loved
her? Wait—

Her shoulders shook.

Oh no. He reached out then turned her. “Lizzy, please don’t cry.”

She looked up at him then and offered a smile, her lips as beautiful as he remembered. He leaned close, ready to brush them with his, then caught himself. Blew out a breath.

“Lizzy—I’m so grateful you’re alive. I was so worried.”

“I know…I’m sorry, Danny. I should have written to you. But I couldn’t…I didn’t want you to know until I was ready.”

He held her chin, ran his thumb down her uninjured cheek. “You’re still beautiful to me.”

She looked away, a blush on her face.

“Uh—I don’t mean to interrupt, uh, Danny. But dinner is on the table.”

He froze, his throat hollow. Closed his eyes as Sofia’s step padded down the hallway. He heard the stairs squeak.

Lizzy took his hand. “I’m starved.”

Yeah, well, he might never eat again.

“Of
course
you should marry her.”

Sofia stood in the hall right outside the trauma ward, her arms tight around her body. A petite knot of frustration. From the nurse’s desk, Margie raised her head.

Dino cupped Sofia’s elbow, moved her outside, into the shelter of darkness. “Listen, I asked
you
to marry me. I’m not going back on that.”

A remnant lick of winter wind cut through his lab coat. A fresh rain had scoured up the hope of spring, something that twenty-four hours ago revived in him a similar hope that, yes, he could be a man of honor.

Now he just wanted to run back inside, focus on cleaning and patching up the wounds of a couple of bar-brawlers.

Maybe even dive into the stack of reports he had to update.

Anything to drive from his brain Sofia’s broken expression as he descended the living room stairs with Lizzy, his mouth turned to glue.

Thankfully, Lizzy didn’t stay, her driver waiting for her outside the boardinghouse. Oddly, she didn’t even try to lift herself into his arms as he bid her good bye.

Dino couldn’t bear to look at Sofia, his eyes fixed on the stew, her handcrafted bread.

He hadn’t even bid her good-bye this morning when he’d left for his shift. No wonder she’d tracked him down at the hospital, garbed in Markos’s—no—his
father’s
coat, the rain glistening in her olive-black hair. “I saw the way you looked at her. The way she looked at you. I understand, Dino.”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It
does
matter. You love her—your feelings for me were just a reaction—”

He clutched her shoulders, twigs beneath his grip. “My feelings for you were—
are
real.”

“I never said yes, you know.”

“Sofia, you can be so frustrating! I know you didn’t say yes. But—we belong together. I know it.”

He should get down on one knee, perhaps even here, under the glare of the streetlamps. Except, Lizzy’s eyes the way she looked up at him as if lifting to him her shattered hopes for him to mend, held him fast.

So shoot him, he hadn’t become a physician without the desire to fix the broken.

Only, somehow he couldn’t fix this. Couldn’t seem to repair the betrayal on Sofia’s face. Couldn’t heal the scars on Lizzy’s.

She must have seen his snarled thoughts, because her expression gentled, her hands catching his. “Listen, Dino. I know you loved her. You had a life planned with her—until I stumbled back into it and tangled it up.”

“That’s not the way I remember it.”

“It’s exactly what happened. We were never supposed to be together.”