Page 104 of Across Eternity

“Not that. The time traveler,” she says. “It’s exactly as my mother described. If someone wants to stop you, she can just keep going backward. What if she sees the next set of forged passports? She won’t even need to try to find you here. She’ll just need to find out where Henri once lived. She could kill him back before the two of you ever met and none of your time with him would exist.”

“Enough, Marie,” barks Henri. “She’s worried enough as it is. And if the time traveler wanted Amelie dead, she’d have done it already.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want Amelie at all,” she argues. “Maybe she’s just waiting for the child to be born. And if she fails to steal her the first time, then she’ll just keep following us, or going back to do things differently.”

Henri leans forward, nostrils flaring, jaw set hard. “You think I don’t see through this? You’re trying to scare her into going forward with the baby. It won’t work.”

Tears spring to her eyes. “I’m not trying to scare her,” she says. “Or maybe I am, because I’m scared. Don’t you understand how much danger we’re all in? Not just us and our children, not just time travelers. Anyone alive is at risk.”

“Easy for you to say when you lose absolutely nothing by having her leave,” Henri says, sliding his hand through mine as he rises from the table.

“I’d be willing to lose everything in order to make it happen,” she whispers. “Just like our mother did.”

“Another easy thing to say,” he replies, turning for the other side of the room with his arm wrapped around me tight, “since you’ll never be asked to do it.”

That night, with the windows open, there’s just enough airflow to make the room bearable. I lie next to Henri, listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath my head. Memorizing it. Marie’s words from earlier today are still with me. As much as I want to resist them, I can’t deny what she’s saying. It isn’t about this single time traveler who’s potentially a threat—it’s about the threat inherent in our gift, how any of us could wreak havoc. I sense this evil in myself, but it’s kept in check by my love for Henri and the children. What if it wasn’t? How far would my desire to harm carry me? An innocent man has already died because of it. I’m certain there would be others.

Henri’s lips press to the top of my head. “It’s going to be fine,” he says. “Marie is being paranoid. There’s no way this time traveler can trace us.”

“She found me in 1941, when you’re the only person alive who knows my name here,” I whisper. “She may have resources we know nothing about.”

“We’ve been through too much, survived too much,” he says. “I won’t give you up simply because my sister is panicking.”

I think of all our time together—that blissful summer and fall before I was held captive, and all the time since. Marie is right...any time traveler could wipe it from existence if she wanted. I don’t want to die, but more than that, I don’t want what exists in the past to be stolen too. I don’t want it to happen to anyone.

He tips my chin up to kiss me, his mouth firm, demanding. I respond, my need matching his and I can feel the vibration of his groan under my palm, now pressed to his chest. His hand slides from the curve of my waist, down to my hip, and as our kisses grow reckless and desperate, his inhales sharpen. He crushes the fabric of my nightgown in his fist, struggling to restrain himself.

My thighs squeeze tight, as if it will dull the pain of wanting him like this. I allow my hand to graze over the front of his pants, relishing the hard outline of him there.

“You’re soaked right now, aren’t you?” he whispers with a quiet groan. “Open your legs. I need to feel it.”

I shouldn’t—it will only make the need worse—but my legs part and when his fingers slip between them, air hisses through my teeth.

He rolls me to my back, pushing the nightgown around my waist. “I can’t wait anymore, Sarah.”

I glance over at the children and Marie. “They could wake—we can’t.”

“We can,” he says, climbing from the bed, “and we will.”

He moves through the darkness, stacking chairs along the side of our bed, and then draping a blanket over them—creating a partition from the rest of the room, though one that could easily topple and wake the entire household.

“If that falls, we’ll have an entire platoon of drunk Germans up here investigating,” I whisper.

“Then,” he says, lying on the bed and pulling me above him, “let’s make sure it’s worthwhile.”

* * *

Genevieve appears in our rooms early the next day. I blush, grateful that Henri deconstructed the chair and blanket wall before anyone woke this morning. “I’m told the rest of the papers will be ready soon,” she says. “Two more days and you will all be free to go to Limoges.”

Marie and I hug, as best we can with our burgeoning stomachs, and Henri presses his lips to my forehead. “Thank God,” he says. “It’s almost behind us.”

I sit with a still-drowsy Cece in my lap while Henri plays jeu de barbichette—the slapping game—with Charlotte and Lucien.

“You’re terrible,” I sigh. “They’ll get expelled if they try to play that in school.”

Henri’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Not in France they won’t. You’re too soft.”

I laugh. “I think we both know that’s not true.”