“It doesn’t,” he said simply. “Except maybe to you or your parents.” He pegged that squarely too, about her parents.
“It doesn’t matter to me. That stuff is just an excuse for a lot of snobbery, antiquated traditions, and bad behavior, none of which appeals to me.”
“You’re a rebel, then, or a modern woman.”
“Maybe a little of both.” Though she’d never thought of it that way before.
“Is that why you enlisted? To prove to yourself that you’re not like your parents?”
“Maybe some of that too. But I mostly enlisted to serve my country.”
“That’s admirable,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that. You could have stayed home and paid lip service to it, and gone to parties like your mother.”
“I’m not that kind of woman. I stand up for what I believe in. I just don’t believe in my parents’ value system. Other things are more important to me, like winning this war. And I’m doing everything I can to help that.” Then she looked at him strangely. “Why am I telling you all this?”
“Because I asked you, and you’re an honest person. I’m fascinated by you, Alex. I was from the first minute I saw you. And you’re a woman of your word. You came back with that first cigarette, and you came to see me every time you said you would.”
“It must be hard for you, being so far from home, and injured. What happened in Normandy sounds terrifying. You must be a very brave man,” she said gently.
“Not really,” he said, honest again. “You do what you’re called on to do, to the best of your abilities. The rest always takes care of itself.”
“I like to believe that too. There’s a lot of luck involved in having a good life. My parents are very fortunate people. They have a very nice life, and so does my sister. They don’t realize it, they aren’t grateful for anything. I’m grateful every morning when I wake up.”
“I had a feeling like that about you when I first met you.”
“Well, I’m going to have a very bad life, if I don’t do my med rounds, my patients won’t have pain relief, if my supervisor catches me at it.”
“I like it when you stop by to see me,” he said with a shy smile. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I don’t care what you come from, or who you are. I like you. I wanted you to know that. I like teasing you about your fancy accent. But it doesn’t matter to me. I’m a butcher from Pittsburgh. I’m nobody. Just a guy in a hospital, with a broken leg.” She didn’t care where he came from either. There was something wonderfully masculine about him. He was like a big teddy bear. Her parents would have hated him if they’d met him, but she didn’t care about that either. This was another world. And it was real.
She stopped to see him every night on the way in, and she came to chat with him during her break. She dropped by to say good night when she left. It became a comfortable habit, and she liked talking to him.
When they took his cast off, she was startled by how tall he was. He was just a hair under six-five, and he looked more like a teddy bear than ever. He invited her to lunch on her day off, and they had a lively conversation about baseball, which he was passionate about. They talked about her work with the air evac unit, and her going back to nursing after the war. He had an older brother he had no respect for, who never worked and had lived off the family business all his life. She could tell Dan worked hard when he talked about their business.
“When we get to Paris, and we will, and kick those damn Nazis back to Germany where they belong, can I come back here to see you?”
“If I’m still here,” she said cautiously. She liked him more than she had expected to, as a person and a man. He was someone she could respect, without pretension or artifice. She liked how hardworking he was. He had explained to her all about his business. He was thirty-three years old. She was twenty-four, but the war had aged them all.
“Maybe you could come to Paris, before we all ship back to the States. And I could visit you in New York.” She smiled at the thought of it. Her mother would have a heart attack if she saw him. Dan Stanley, a wholesale butcher from Pittsburgh, but she thought he was the most attractive man she’d met in years. He was a man’s man, and there was nothing phony about him. He was real.
“You won’t like my family,” she said.
“And they won’t like me either. Will that matter to you, Alex?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think they like me much either. They’ve disapproved of me all my life. They think I’m weird.”
“Do they have any idea what you do here?” he asked her. “I’ve asked around about what your unit does. They call you the Flying Angels, and it sounds to me like that’s exactly what you are. I’ve never seen you in action. But you were an angel to me while I was here. Omaha Beach was pretty damn rough. I figured I was dying there, and then I woke up here in the hospital, and I met you, and I felt like maybe I was meant to be here, so I could meet you. I’ve never met a woman I was serious about. I was too busy building the family business into something we could all be proud of, and I am. And now you show up. The women I’ve met all wanted something. They had an agenda, a plan. You don’t want a damn thing from me. You’re just who you are, an angel in a flight suit. I don’t want to lose sight of you. I want to see you again when we’re back home. I’ll come to New York and take you to a Yankees game, and then take you out for a decent dinner. Some of our best customers are in New York. The Plaza Hotel, the Pierre. The Twenty-One Club.” She realized then just how major his business was. They were some of the best restaurants in New York. He hadn’t wanted to try to impress her before. He just wanted to meet her as a man and a woman, as a nurse and a butcher, not a debutante and a successful businessman.
She came to see him off when he left to rejoin his unit. They were on the Cotentin Peninsula by then and had captured the port of Cherbourg. Allied bombers had caused extensive damage to the city of Caen, the Germans retreated, and Caen was liberated. They’d made some progress while he was in the hospital, and so had he and Alex.
“Take care of yourself. I’m expecting to see you in Paris one day, or New York. And be good to that leg,” she warned him.
“You too,” he said gently. “Watch out for those Krauts when you’re flying your missions.” She nodded, and he bent down, pulled her into his powerful arms, and kissed her. She smiled up at him afterwards. It felt perfect. “Stay safe, Alex. We have a lot to look forward to when we go home.” She waved as the bus that was taking him back to his unit with four other men who had been released from the hospital pulled away. She walked back to her barracks with a smile on her face. She felt young, and alive, and like a girl for the first time in a long time. She hoped they’d both make it through the war and come out safely at the other end. She had something to look forward to now, instead of dreading going home. No matter what her parents thought of him when they met him, she knew Dan Stanley was just the man for her. She hoped that he would survive and she’d see him again.