Only Paulo’s outline was visible in the midday sunlight. He hadn’t wandered from the opening as she’d instructed but stood just beyond the sun’s reach. Not a fool, at least.
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“I didn’t exactly have anywhere to go.” She didn’t need to see his face to hear the grin. “You’ve returned early. I haven’t a time piece on me, but I know it’s not dusk.”
He confused her, with his easy wit and sardonic joking in the face of invasion. Confused, yes, but Adi liked it. His easy manner lessened the burden of living in an occupied home, terrified one wrong word might see them all killed. Her mother-in-law closed up in the conservatory, Mélina tasked with playing for the colonel and Bardot, her mother keeping their small stores of food rationed so everyone ate.
No wonder she screamed into the storm last night. Adi wondered she didn’t do so every night.
“I brought more soup.” She skirted the small outcropping of rocks and held out the pot.
“I’m grateful.” He coughed and shook his head. “I’m afraid I swallowed more water than I intended.”
“How much did you intend to swallow?” She tilted her head as he accepted the pot and wondered if sitting looked too informal. She doubted there was any set etiquette for this sort of situation.
“None.” That smile was again evident in his voice. She wanted to see that smile, if it was as handsome as she imagined. Wide and boyish despite the warm masculinity evident in his tone. No, the man she half-dragged from the beach was no boy. “That plan didn’t exactly work out.”
Adi giggled only to immediately stifle it. A sharp thread of guilt wound through her—she shouldn’t laugh when the entire household lay under the threat of death. However even in the mere day since rescuing Paulo, Adi found herself lighter than she had been in years.
“Do most of your plans work out?”
“Eh.” He made a movement with his hand she couldn’t see between the deepening shadows and the bright sunlight. “Half and half, I’d say.”
“Not exactly a resounding endorsement.”
“I’m working on it.” He paused and she thought he sipped the soup. “Thank you for this, Adelaida. It’s delicious.”
“We have little meat.” She hadn’t meant to repeat herself, nor apologize for something out of her control, but felt she owned Paulo an explanation. “The French colonel, he slaughtered our pigs for his own men.”
“This is perfect, and I mean it. It’s more than I expected.”
He had an interesting way with words, and Adi frowned. “What did you expect?”
“Well, for a bit there, I expected to die on the beach.” He sighed and shook his head, his gait slow and unsteady as he moved beside her. “That didn’t happen, for which I am most grateful. My family would have been extremely displeased with me should that have happened.”
Something in his tone, just beneath the lightness of his words, told her the truth of that. They’d have been devastated if he’d died on her beach. Without saying, he told of his closeness with them. Family? Wife? Children? He hadn’t mentioned a wife. Hadn’t mentioned anyone. Shifting on her rocky seat at that uncomfortable thought, she curled her hands into her skirts for lack of anywhere else to place them.
“Where are they?” Her voice had dropped, and she cleared the strange huskiness from her throat.
He paused and though she couldn’t see his eyes in the uncertain shadows, she felt him weighing the answer. “Safe.”
“I’m glad.” She laughed, bitterness choking her. “Jealous, but I’m glad someone is safe at least.”
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