Kaleidoscope by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

with exhaustion and he wore a week's beard on his thin cheeks. He seemed to have aged ten years since he left Paris, perhaps because he had so much at stake now.
    Their sergeant had been killed crossing the Ardennes, and suddenly Sam found himself missing him … Solange … even his sister in Boston, from whom he had still heard nothing.
    “I wonder what she's doing in Paris.” Sam said the words almost to himself, thinking of Solange, and if Arthur hadn't been so bitter cold to the bone, he would have smiled at him.
    “Thinking about you probably. Lucky bastard.” He still remembered how beautiful she was, and wished he had been as persistent as Sam in speaking to her. He spoke French after all, but … that was silly. She was Sam's girl now.
    “Care for some chocolate cake?” Sam held out a piece of rock-hard biscuit he'd been carrying around in his jacket for a week and Arthur declined with a wry face. “Waiting for the soufflé? I don't blame you.”
    “Cut it out, you're making me hungry.” But in truth, they were too cold to eat, too cold, and too tired, and too frightened.
    The Germans didn't begin to fall back until two days afterward, and the Battle of the Bulge was finally over. In March, they took the bridge at Remagen near Bonn, and in April they met the Ninth Army at Lippstadt and then went on to take 325,000 German prisoners near the Ruhr, and it finally looked as though the end was approaching. And on April 25, at Torgau, they joined forces with the Russians. Roosevelt had died two weeks before, and the news had saddened everyone, but the men on the front were intent onwinning and getting home. The Battle of Berlin had begun, and on May 2, Berlin was silent at last. On May 7, Germany surrendered, and Arthur and Sam stood looking at each other, with tears running down their faces. Was it over? Could it be? From North Africa to Italy to France, and now Germany, it felt as though they had crossed half the world, and they had. They had freed it.
    “My God, Sam …” Arthur whispered to him as they heard the news … “It's over … I don't believe it.” They embraced like the brothers they had become, and Sam had an odd feeling of nostalgia that that moment would never come again, and then a moment later he was grateful that it wouldn't. He threw his helmet in the air, and gave a tremendous whoop, but it wasn't Arthur he was thinking of now. It was Solange … he was going Home! And just as he had promised her eight months before, he was going to take her with him.

Chapter 3
    The army had given him three days leave before shipping him back to the States in May of 1945, and Sam had headed straight for Paris, and he had found Solange there just as he had left her. There was such relief on her face when she saw him that it was easy to read what her feelings were, and the three days flew by faster than either of them could have dreamed.
    And she cried copiously this time when he left her at the station to return to Berlin, and from there back to the States for his discharge. He had thought of marrying her before he left Paris, but there was too much red tape, and it would be easier to marry her in the States. He had promised to send for her by the end of the summer. But he had to make some money first. He had already decided not to go back to Harvard, and he wanted to try his luck as an actor. But he was willing to do anything to make the money he needed to pay Solange's passage. He was going to have her come to the States on a tourist visa, and marry her the minute she arrived. He could hardly stand the thought of the months ahead without her.
    In New York, Arthur had talked him into moving inwith him until Sam found an apartment, and all Sam could think of was getting settled.
    “Don't cry, sweetheart. I promise … no later than September.” That gave him four months to get everything organized and have enough money to support her. He was twenty-three years old, he had survived the war, and he had