Free Guns and Roses by Sylvia Day, Allison Brennan, Lori G. Armstrong

“Who?”
    “Your great-grandmother,” he urged. “Tell me about her. Why does she want to go to Paris so bad?”
    She grew very still for a moment, all the shivering finished, nothing but surrender in her limp body. He gripped harder, his feet numb, his arms aching, but sheer determination held him in place.
    He would not let this beautiful, dear, one-of-a-kind flower die because of him. He would not.
    “C’mon, Daisy Duke,” he urged, trying for a tease and barely finding it as the cold slowly began to win the war. “Tell me about your great-grandmother.”
    “She’s dead.”
    Oh, not what he expected. “Sorry. I thought you said you wanted to take her to Paris.”
    “I do.” Her voice cracked and he clutched a little tighter, putting his hand on her cheek, hoping it transferred some warmth. “Her ashes.”
    “I see.” But what he could see was a woman losing a fight, eyes shuttering close, pulse slowing to a dangerous rhythm. She had to talk. She had to think. She had to feel .
    “Why Paris?”
    “She… met… him there.”
    “Who?”
    “A man she… loved.”
    “Your great-grandfather?”
    “Well, yes… and no.”
    She was confused, of course. Complex thinking would be hard for her. Hell, it was about to get hard for him, but he was ten minutes behind her and eighty pounds heavier.
     “Tell me,” he insisted. “Who was this man?”
    “That’s just it. I don’t know.”
    “Come on, Callie. You’re giving into the symptoms.” He squeezed her. “Fight it. Talk it out. Think. Feel.” Live .
    “We really don’t know who he was,” she said. “And I was kind of hoping…” Her voice trailed off.
    “Hoping what?”
    “Never mind. His name was… Jeremiah. He was American… spy. During World War II. Occupied France.”
    He tangled his fingers into her hair, holding her head as it bobbed. “Stay with me now, Callie. Stay with me. Tell me more.”
    She fought for strength and air, an admirable dig to her own personal China. Finally, her eyes cleared. “She met him on the Pont au Change.”
    She pronounced the well-known Parisian bridge with a perfect French accent, as if she’d heard the words a million times and wouldn’t ever Anglicize something so reverent.
    “Was your great-grandmother French?”
    “Belle Dumond? So very French.” She tried to smile, but the effort was too much. “Let me sit down, Ben. Please.”
    “No.” If she sat, she’d never get up again. He slid a glance to the lock, willing the water to freeze, willing his desperate plan to work. “Tell me about Belle and Jeremiah. Were they lovers?”
    “Mmm.” She did smile. “For one night, but it was love at first sight, across the bridge.” She closed her eyes. “The Germans… the Nazis… were everywhere. She wanted to die. Wanted to end the misery of war. She stood on the bridge, about to jump, when he found her…”
    He rubbed his cheek against hers, breathing on the flakes of ice in her hair. “He saved her?” he guessed.
    “He did. He walked right up to Granny Belle…” She let out a soft groan, like the memory was hers, not her great-grandmother’s.
    “What did he say, this spy named Jeremiah?”
    “He said she was too beautiful to die and he promised her… absolutely promised her that things would change soon.” She finally opened her eyes. “It was June fourth, 1944.”
    Two days before the invasion of Normandy. “What happened?”
    “They spent the night together and he disappeared the next day, but… he left part of himself behind. My grandfather.”
    “He knew about the invasion,” Ben said. “Because he was a spy.”
    “And he saved her life with hope.”
    “Just like I’m going to do right now.”
    Her eyes grew dead, her next breath labored, her body nearly limp in his arms. “I can’t… go… on…”
    “You can,” he insisted, kissing her face, her frozen lashes, her mouth. “You have to, Callie. For Belle. For Jeremiah.”
    She hardly had the energy to shake her