Free Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2) by Barbara Bretton

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    Television brought magic into your life. To Nancy it seemed anything was possible when she turned on the set and watched other people’s dreams come true in front of her eyes. Her own dreams of going places and seeing things, of meeting new people and hearing new voices, had disappeared along the way. There were times when she looked at Gerry asleep in his armchair and wondered what their lives would have been like if they’d cast their fates to the wind and hit the road together.
    But there hadn’t been time for spontaneity. They’d married right after the war had ended and, as night follows day, three little girls had appeared on the scene with dreams of their own. Dreams that Nancy and Gerry would move heaven and earth to fulfill.
    Not that she regretted any of their decisions, but she was only human, and the sameness of their days sometimes felt like a hundred-pound weight across her shoulders. She could only imagine how it felt to Gerry, knowing that every weekday morning—stretching far into the unimaginable future—he’d board the train into the city and go to work for his wife’s sister.
    What had happened to their dreams of independence? To their plans to see the world before they grew too old and gray to care if they were in Levittown or London? There was a time when they had looked with horror at her parents and the Weavers and others like them. “Not for us,” they had said fervently, as only the very young dared. “We’ll be different.”
    She sighed and switched off the reading lamp, so that the room was bathed in the gray glow from the television. It was impossible to be different in a world that prized sameness. The camera swept over the faces in the London crowd, pretty Englishwomen with complexions like summer roses, dapper Englishmen with smiles like Cary Grant. Nancy was certain the lives they led were far more exciting than her own perfectly average existence.
    “And there she is now,” said the announcer on channel two. “The new monarch and her family are on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, waving as the crowd below screams ‘Long live the Queen!’”
    Nancy raised her bottle of Coke in salute and settled down to enjoy the spectacle while her family slept.
    * * *
    The ground was soggy, the air was damp and chill, but neither Mac nor Jane noticed. Love, it seemed, provided protection from the elements.
    “Our sixth date,” said Mac, toasting her with champagne he’d managed to procure from a friend at the bureau.
    “Our seventh,” said Jane, laughing softly as they linked arms and sipped from each other’s paper cup.
    “Not that you’re counting.”
    “Of course not,” she said, her tone oh so prim and proper despite the fact she had lost track of time along the way. One thing she hadn’t lost track of was the way each faux date was ended with a kiss. Lingering. Sweet. Passionate. Truth was, she could scarcely remember anything about the coronation or the crowds or the pageantry of the day. Mac’s kisses had erased all else from her memory.
    “We’re going to have a great life, Janie,” he said, wiping a drop of champagne from the corner of her lip with his index finger. “I promise you.”
    His touch sent spirals of sensation rocketing through her body like the golden fireworks exploding in the night sky. “Don’t make promises,” she whispered. Not when you’ll be gone come morning .
    “We can work things out, Janie. You just have to trust me.”
    “It’s impossible,” she said forlornly. “We’ve known each other only twelve hours. How can we pledge our lives on such short acquaintance?”
    He said nothing. What on earth could he say? Any rational being would know the situation was daft, that tossing in your lot with a total stranger, albeit one with beautiful green eyes, was a fool’s errand.
    But then he kissed her and the fireworks in the sky seemed to go off inside her heart.
    They could write letters, keep the transatlantic phone lines humming