Her lips softened into a smile. “How can I hate you when I’m so completely in love with you?” Her mouth twisted playfully. “But I think you had better kiss me quite thoroughly now that I know I’m not the only woman you’ve kissed. I’m feeling rather jealous.”
He took her hand and kissed her palm. “I can spend all night, if you wish, proving that I love you and no other.” She had reason to be angry, but he couldn’t see that emotion, not in the soft cast of her eyes or the tantalizing curve of her lips. He gently pulled her into him and began his penance with a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nadia was half asleep when Filip dressed for his patrol the next morning. Days were short in the winter, with the scarce sun garnering its strength until summer came again. Like the sun, she’d needed more sleep lately. She suspected it was because her body was growing a new little human. Filip pulled on his boots. Should she tell him? No—she’d wait until she was sure. No reason for them to both be disappointed if she was wrong.
When Filip saw she was awake, he sat beside her and bent to kiss her goodbye.
“Be careful.” She said it every time he went out on patrol. It might have been repetitive, but it was sincere.
“I will, but I doubt we’ll run into anything.”
“You’re only saying that so I won’t worry. It won’t work. I’ve seen the casualties coming through.” Sometimes she felt sick inside for Veronika. Anton was in the worst of it, and they were advancing but only at a high cost.
Filip sighed. “I just want to take you home to Czechoslovakia.” He smiled whenever he spoke the name of his new country. He was in love with Czechoslovakia, and he was in love with her. “We weren’t supposed to get caught in the middle of a civil war. But I better go.” He kissed her again and left.
Nadia fell back asleep until sunrise. Then she pulled on most of her clothes and a few of Filip’s and headed to the stream. She needed to do laundry, but she wasn’t sure she’d find water in its liquid form. Spring was still months away, so she might have to melt snow. It covered the ground in abundance, but she wanted clean snow, not the piles in the village.
If she was in the family way, the baby would come in . . . October. She calculated in her head. Then she grinned, a smile she could share only with the snowdrifts. She would tell Filip as soon as he came home. She’d thought she was a week late, but she’d miscalculated. She was two weeks late.
Filip would be thrilled. He’d feel the same anticipation she did, the same hope and awe. Maybe they’d be in Czechoslovakia when the baby came, away from the war and all the bad memories it had created. A new baby born in a new country.
Up in heaven, her parents would be pleased. That had been their wish, the one reason strong enough to make them leave Russia—they had wanted their family, their blood to continue, to grow.
Filip would be a good father, she was sure of it. Would the baby have brown eyes like him? Or gray eyes like her? Curly hair like his? Or straight like hers? She imagined holding the tiny fingers and smelling the newborn-scented hair.
The stream was frozen when she arrived, with a layer of ice too thick to break with her bucket. She’d have to use snow, so she’d need more firewood. She walked along the stream to the woods and gathered as many branches as she could. She would go back and try to borrow a sled, but first, she’d gather what she could carry on this trip. When the temperature dropped, Filip brought home entire logs to keep them warm all night, squaring the sides and pinning them together to make a slow-burning naida, like the prospectors used. She needed a different type of fire for cooking and laundry.
Nadia gathered a few more branches, then paused as smoke met her nostrils. There shouldn’t be anyone south of the village. The peasants lived closer to the train depot, as did the garrison.
Maybe she didn’t need firewood so badly after all.
She turned back for the village. She’d gone farther than she’d realized, and irrational fear sent her rushing away. The smell of smoke probably meant nothing, but why did her instincts tell her to run?
A large man stepped from behind a tree a few paces ahead of her and stood directly in her path. He wore no uniform, no clue as to who he was. Dark ungroomed hair spilled from beneath a mangy fur Astrakhan cap.
Nadia took a step back. Then another as the man stepped toward her. Then she stepped into something and spun around. Another man, not quite as tall but bulkier, and two others behind him.
She turned back to the first man. “Excuse me.” She didn’t know if the man understood Russian, but she tried to move around him. He moved into her way again. “Let me pass.”
One of the men behind her started to laugh.
Nadia bolted. She dropped her firewood, and terror drove her around the tall man. He reached at her, but she turned, avoiding him.