To understand why I find the 1940’s and the World
War II era so romantic, you’d have to hear a little family story. It begins sad, as so many stories do. My grandmother was widowed in 1943 at the age
of twenty-eight with four children, two boys, two girls. Her cousin and some of her friends encouraged
her to begin dating within a reasonable time frame. Since she already wrote to her many cousins
serving in the war, one of her friends suggested she write to one more, the
friend’s uncle, a man just a few years older than they were. So my grandmother did and a relationship grew
as the letters written on the brittle Air Mail paper of the time flew back and
forth between St. Joseph, Missouri and the Philippines.
By
the time the war ended, she and her soldier wanted to meet in person but just
because the war was over didn’t mean everyone got to come home
immediately. They continued to write and
when he was discharged, the man I grew up knowing as Grandpa came back to my
hometown of St. Joseph. He arrived late
at night and when he walked to the address where he’d sent all those letters,
everyone was in bed. So he decided to
just wait until morning. Despite the
autumn chill in the air, he rolled up in his Army overcoat and slept on the
front porch. When my grandmother came
out to get the milk – delivered by the faithful milkman – she discovered the
soldier she’d been writing to in person.
They were married a few months later.
Romantic,
isn’t it? I always thought so. Their story
isn’t the story told in my new historical romance from Rebel Ink Press, In The Shadow of War, but the love story
between Bette Sullivan and Private Ben Levy is just as poignant, as sweet.
Here’s the details, the blurb and a little
taste:
In The Shadow of War
Her great-granddaughter wants to know if Bette remembers World War
II for a school project and her questions revive old memories….
Small town school teacher Bette Sullivan's life was interrupted
when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 but her world changed forever when she met
Private Benny Levy, a soldier from the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York stationed at Camp
Crowder, the local Army base.
Their attraction is immediate and mutual but as their relationship
grows their love and lives are shadowed by World War II. As the future looms
uncertain the couple comes together with almost desperate need and a powerful
love they hope can weather anything, including the war.
Here's an excerpt:
“I missed you, doll,” he said
afterward. “God, I missed you.”
Warmth blossomed within her chest and she
smiled at him. “I missed you too, Benny. Saturday seemed so long and I didn’t
know if you could come this morning. I worried you might not make it.”
“Me, too,” he said. “I almost
missed the bus anyhow because the company sergeant griped us out because the
barracks weren’t neat enough to suit him.
Yesterday turned out lousy, all day.”
“Why?” she asked. “What
happened?”
“What didn’t?” he said. “Jeez,
they made us go on a long hike through the back country, for hours in the
heat. I picked up every tick and chigger
in the world, I think, got mosquito bit, and worn out. Two of the guys fell out with heat exhaustion
and ended up at the post hospital. My
feet and ankles itched me like crazy. Even the darn Army boots didn’t help me
from getting eaten by the insects. I
swear the buggers crawled into my boots.”
“Aw, honey, I’m sorry,” Bette
said, using the endearment for the first time. “Do the bites still itch?”
“Not so bad,” he said. “Back in
barracks, some of the guys said to soak my feet in bleach water so we begged
some from the laundry. It helped. Then after dinner they called me over to the
motor pool to fix a jeep and I got to bed late just before final lights
out. I’m beat and that’s a fact.”
Bette paused and faced him.
“Would you rather go rest or something?”
“Naw, sugar, I’m fine. I need some Joe and I’m hungry, too. I just got a couple of hours so let’s go eat
and spend a little time together, okay?”
“It’s fine with me,” she said.
They ate at a different café and
she introduced him to biscuits and gravy, something he vowed he’d never eaten
before but said he liked. Afterward,
with time passing too fast, he suggested they walk down to Big Spring Park
again but she had another idea.
“You look so tired,” Bette
said. He did with dark smudges beneath
both eyes. “If you want we can go sit in the porch swing at Aunt Virgie’s or in
the front room.”
Benny shook his head. “I’ll
catch a nap later this afternoon, if I’m lucky.
I’d like a few more kisses and I doubt your parents would like us
spooning out on the porch.”
“I forgot they’re there,” she
replied. “So, okay, let’s go to the park.”
Another couple beat them to the
grotto, so they wandered around the park until they found a vacant bench in the
shade. A few kids played on the
teeter-totter and swings, their happy babble setting a bright mood. Benny put his arm around her and Bette
snuggled against him with a contented sigh.
For a few minutes they sat, comfortable with the pose and content with
each other. She’d already come to
associate his scent with security and she inhaled it, saving it up for when
she’d be alone. As they rested in easy
silence she savored the harmony and as they lingered Bette noticed their breath
came in tandem, in and out with the same rhythm as if they were one, not two.
Just as she opened her mouth to
remark on it Benny took her face and turned it toward him. With slow deliberation he kissed her,
unhurried with such sweetness she forgot to breathe for a few seconds. His lips caressed her mouth with a fine light
touch, as soft as hair blown across her face with a gentle breeze. Such tenderness evoked the same within and
yet triggered desire, too. Benny
cherished her mouth with his, his lips sending shivers through her body despite
the hot day, little spirals of chill strong enough to make goose pimples erupt
on her flesh.
Bette responded with her mouth,
a hankering for something deeper and more intimate rising in her with the force
of a rising wind. She sensed how great
it would be to lose her consciousness by drowning in her senses, by molding her
body into his. Bette, virgin as the
mother of God, ached now for the pleasures of the flesh. Every old wives tale ever heard about sex
being dirty or painful or nasty evaporated faster than snow in March and for
the first time in her life, she decided sex could be wonderful.
His kisses stirred Bette’s body
even as they induced emotion, too sweet to be sinful. Her body responded to his mouth the way a
good corn crop ripened beneath the sun’s warmth. As her limbs relaxed she leaned into him, one
hand holding tight to his arm so she wouldn’t lose balance to tumble from the
park bench onto the grass. The kiss
lasted forever, but not quite long enough when Benny paused so they could both
breathe again.
“Oh,” she said with wonder.
“Benny, that’s nice.”
“Nice, she says,” he responded
with mock outrage. “Just nice? I call it splendid, fantastic, superb, supreme…”
Thanks Lee Ann for stopping by! Be sure to get your copy of In The Shadow of War at any of these places:
All Romance Ebooks
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