“This is made en maison, you know? From a fermentation and a medium of . . .” She searched her brain for the word. “Corn flour.” After she had read him Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Dying Detective,” Toselli had explained how infections and antidotes worked.

“And that makes penicillin?” asked Hank.

“It is the best way to treat the infection,” she said.

“I reckon it can’t leave me any worse off than I already am.”

“Don’t move.” She carefully cleaned his thigh where she’d cut away the fabric, plunged the needle into the muscle, and injected the solution.

He made a hissing sound, but held perfectly still. “I’ve never been hurt so much by a girl before,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s dangerous for you to help me.”

“I’m not afraid of danger,” she said. Then she checked his ankle. She couldn’t tell if it was broken. She propped it on a bed of soft linens and placed a compress over it.

“You should eat,” she stated. “You need your strength.”

“Thank you,” he said, unwrapping the bread and taking a bite, washing it down with a sip of water.

She felt a wave of tenderness for this man. He was so far from his home in America, where there was no fighting at all, yet he’d come across the ocean to fight for France. “I have never heard of Vermont,” she said. “Tell me about it.”

A smile flickered across his face. “It’s in the northeast, near Canada. Real different from here. We have long, cold winters and short, beautiful summers. I’m not homesick for it, though. I wanted to see the world. But I didn’t plan on this.” He gestured at his ruined leg. “So far, you’re the best thing I’ve seen in the world.”

It was the fever talking, Lisette thought. Yet his words touched a hidden place in her heart. “Hank—”

“It’s the truth. You saved my life. You’re my angel, Lisette.”

She tried to move on from the romantic words he’d spoken. She was a married woman. “Tell me more about Vermont.”

“We’re stonecutters—a family business. You know what that is?”

She shook her head.

He picked up a chunk of stone from the floor. “There’s a quarry where we take the stone—Vermont marble, finest in the world.”

“Ah. Marbre. That was my father’s trade as well.”

“We make pillars and monuments. Markers for cemeteries. Right before I signed up for the army, I worked on a monolith statue for a town that lost half its menfolk in the Great War.”

“And you still wanted to join the military.”

“I did. Lots of us fellows did. I wish I could say it was for honor and patriotism.”

“But it was not?” She frowned.

“Nah. I was looking for adventure. When I heard about paratrooper training, I thought that was for me.”

“And here you are.”

“Just a dumb guy looking for adventure. You make me wish I was noble. You make me wish I was a hero.”

She smiled at him, and it was the kind of smile that started in her heart and wouldn’t stop. “You are.”

In the midst of her terrible situation at Sauveterre, Hank was the one thing that gave Lisette a purpose each day when she woke up. She had a powerful need to help him, and she embraced her mission with a passion she had not felt in a very long time. Tirelessly and in secret, she tended to his wounds, brought him food and water, kept him as clean as she was able, and gave him a book to read—a collection of her favorite Sherlock Holmes stories. She took a risk and stole one of Didier’s old razors so Hank could shave if he wanted to. In the toolshed, she found a small rock hammer and stonecutting chisel, and she brought those as well so he would have something to do to pass the long hours alone.

Soon after the first dose of Toselli’s penicillin, Hank’s fever spiked, and she feared she might lose him. She gave him a second dose, refusing to give up on him. She sat by his side for as long as she dared. Even when he was delirious, she spoke to him in French, just so he could hear the sound of her voice. She reminisced about her life in Bellerive. It was good to remember the carefree days of her childhood, when Papa was well and her brothers were home safe, and she could run free in the town and outlying fields with her friends, and her greatest fear was having Sister Ignatius find a tear in her school uniform.

Then she talked about the recent times—the wrenching loss of both brothers. Her father’s accident, the poverty and shortages, the threat of eviction, listening to her parents’ tormented whispers in the night as they wondered what would become of them. She spoke of the night Jean-Luc had been taken away, and her desperation to help him.

“Didier came to the rescue,” she said. “That is what I thought. He convinced the authorities to spare Jean-Luc.” She was surprised to feel the tears on her own cheeks. She had worked so hard to numb herself to emotion that she’d nearly forgotten what true sentiment felt like.

He grew restless, thrashing so hard that he overturned the carbine that was always by his side. She couldn’t understand his vague mutterings, but she stayed beside him, trying to hold him still. After what felt like an eternity, his thrashing stopped.

Now his stillness disturbed her. She lowered her cheek to his nose and mouth to make sure he was breathing. As she did, she noticed something—his skin was cool, and damp with sweat.

“Oh, thank God,” she whispered. “Your fever’s broken.”

He shivered, and she covered him up, gently patting his shoulder. He groaned and opened his eyes to slits, looking around the cave-like interior of the borie. She shifted her position so he could see her.

“Lisette,” he said, his voice rough and quiet.

She smiled, liking the sound of her name on his lips. “Welcome back.”

“That shot of penicillin did the trick, then.”

“It was no trick.”

He smiled briefly. “It’s a turn of phrase. I mean, the medicine worked.”

“Oh. Yes.” She gave him water and something to eat. His gaze darted around the hut. “What is this place?”

“We’re a kilometer away from the farm, and even farther from the village. There’s a stream nearby and a forest. The vineyard has been abandoned, and no one comes here. Since the fighting started, there hasn’t been anyone to work the vines, so they’ve gone wild.”

“I need to get out of here,” he said. “Find my stick—my team.”

“It must be frightening to be here all alone.”

He gazed at her steadily. “When you’re here, I don’t feel alone at all.” His eyes were the richest color of brown. And despite the dirt and beard stubble, it was the best face she’d ever seen.

In the midst of war and mayhem, Lisette discovered something beautiful. She could tell no one, and could scarcely describe it to herself, but it was a feeling she had yearned for all her life. She was utterly seduced by Hank Watkins—his engaging smile, his ink-black hair, and dark brown eyes.

He was everything Didier was not. He was warm sincerity where Didier was cold, gentle where Didier was cruel, sweet where Didier was bitter. There was nothing she couldn’t tell Hank. Nothing she couldn’t trust him with. And that was extraordinary, because although he was a complete stranger, a foreigner, someone whose life had unfolded a million miles from hers, he knew her. And she knew him.

He knew everything about her, everything that was important. And it all seemed to happen overnight. It felt like a small miracle that she could feel anything at all, given the state of her marriage.

Didier no longer pretended to be kind. He strutted about, ordering searches and arrests of people suspected of aiding the resistance, taking a strange pride in his status with the Germans. When his boyhood best friend was shot in the street for possessing contraband explosives, Didier didn’t even bat an eye. At home, he was a bully, and in the bedroom, cruel. He claimed it was Lisette’s fault that they had not conceived a baby, and he taunted her for being barren. For the sake of her parents, she hid her pain and tried to stay out of his way.