Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [162]
‘Won’t be long now, love,’ the rescue worker closest to them said comfortingly.
He was as good as his word. The second body was being lifted away. Quickly Grace checked to make sure that Mary hadn’t broken anything before she too was lifted to safety.
‘Your turn now, love,’ a burly auxiliary fireman told her.
At last it was over and they were both safe.
As he took Grace in his arms in the cold smoke-tasting night air, Seb knew that no matter what happened in his life from now on, no moment could possibly be sweeter than this one.
He was still hugging her tight when Sam walked up, his face, as Grace told her mother later, a real picture when he realised that the stubborn young woman who had risked her life for a little girl and the chap who loved her too much to leave her, were Grace and Seb.
It was mid-afternoon the following day before Jean finally stopped fussing over her eldest daughter and allowed her to get dressed and come downstairs. Everyone knew now about the terrible tragedy of the previous night: how a landmine had drifted inland and hit the Technical College, sending all three floors of it smashing down into the basement on top of those who were sheltering there from the air raid.
In Jean’s eyes Grace was a heroine and Seb was a man in the same mould as her own Sam for insisting on staying with her. She welcomed him with very real affection when he arrived to see how Grace was when he had come off duty.
‘I kept her in bed all day, she looked that washed out, and we’ve heard that the little girl is all right, and that her mother was rescued as well, so that’s a mercy,’ said Jean.
As a mark of her feelings, Jean allowed the young couple the privacy of the front room and with a closed door.
The first thing Seb did when he saw Grace was take her in his arms and then kiss her with all the passion she’d been longing for but which they’d denied themselves, saying that it wouldn’t be ‘sensible’.
‘I know we said we wouldn’t rush into anything, and I know there are a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t be saying what I’m going to say to you, Grace,’ said Seb huskily when he was finally able to bring himself to stop kissing her, ‘but so far as I’m concerned there’s only one thing that matters to me right now and that is telling you how much I love you. Whatever lies ahead of us, whatever this damn war bring us, I want you to know that.’
‘We said we wouldn’t do this,’ Grace reminded him shakily.
‘I know,’ Seb agreed, ‘but I love you so much.’
‘I love you too,’ Grace told him.
He was kissing her again and Grace was kissing him back, holding him as tightly as she could and kissing him with all the love and passion she felt for him. She just couldn’t stop thinking about how close they had come to death. All she wanted right now was to hold him and be held by him, and to feel his heart beating against hers, telling her that they were both safe and alive.
‘If I’d lost you, I couldn’t have gone on,’ Seb told her gruffly when he had stopped kissing her.
‘I wouldn’t want to live without you, Seb.’
They kissed again, unable to stop themselves from holding one another; both of them needing the sweetness of knowing they were alive and in love.
There were so many words they could have used to share the fear they had known and the joy they now knew but their kisses said it so much better.
‘When this is finally over, if we both live to see it through, will you marry me, Grace?’ asked Seb. His voice was unsteady, his gaze full of love.
‘Yes. Yes, I will,’ Grace answered him, exhaling on a deliriously happy breath of anticipation when Seb took her in his arms again.
The twins couldn’t wait any longer. Despite their mother’s stern warning that they were not to interrupt, Sasha pushed open the door and looked expectantly at them.
‘Are you and Grace going to be married?’ Lou demanded excitedly.
Seb looked at Grace.
‘Yes,’ he told them softly. ‘Yes, we are.’
* * *
The country had already lived through well over