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

She’d gathered her strength and went about the process of living; the only thing was, she’d vowed never to let herself grow close to anyone ever again. There was a certain reserve about Jane, an aloofness of which she was no longer aware; so despite her beauty, that very aloofness held men at arm’s length. That is, it had done so until Mac Weaver.
    Mac seemed blissfully oblivious to the shield surrounding her heart. He was determined to sweep her off her feet and into marriage with the same enthusiasm and sense of purpose Americans seemed to bring to every endeavor. How wonderful it must be to live in a country that had never known the terror of enemy bombers overhead, of years of living in darkness, the sorrow of watching the city you loved exploding all around you.
    Mac told her about his score of cousins and second cousins, about his three dowager aunts whose tastes ran toward syrupy rum drinks and radio soap operas, about his mother and father and their valor in the face of Douglas’s death, about how they had never—not once!—made Mac feel guilty because he’d been lucky and his brother had not.
    “They’re great people,” Mac said as they wound their way through the old streets of London. “Solid. Decent. The kind who’d give you the shirts off their backs.” He looked down at her, then laughed at her confusion. “That’s a colloquialism. It means they’re generous.”
    She nodded. “I imagine your mother is a marvelous cook.”
    “The best.”
    “Apple pie?”
     He chucked her under the chin. “Been seeing too many old Andy Hardy movies, Janie. America isn’t all apple pie and baseball, you know.”
    Oh, she definitely knew. America had been Jane’s passion for years. During the blitz she’d cowered with her dad in the underground shelter and imagined herself strolling down Fifth Avenue in her best dress with her most becoming hat tilted jauntily upon her head. While the bombs exploded overhead, destroying centuries of civilization and tradition, Jane conjured up visions of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing cheek to cheek and of the glorious Clark Gable as he swept Vivien Leigh into his arms and up that mythical staircase in Gone with the Wind .
    She could have listened to Mac’s stories for hours. As they walked the narrow streets to her uncle’s mews house, London dropped away and she was there on Hansen Street in a place called Forest Hills, watching the Wilsons as they shoveled snow off their walk and helping Mac’s mother, Edna, with her rosebushes. She’d always thought of Americans as being too busy to care about things like gardens, but it seemed Edna Weaver was as besotted with her flowers as any proper Englishwoman.
    And there were Nancy and Gerry who had met each other through the mail and fallen in love without ever having laid eyes upon each other. “We all laughed at her,” Mac admitted with a rueful shake of his head. “I thought she was a love-struck kid with her head in the clouds.” Seven years and three children later, Nancy and Gerry Sturdevant were still together. Still in love. Still happy.
    It can work , her heart whispered. Don’t let happiness slip away ....
    Mac launched into a story about his days at Columbia University and the indignities associated with joining a fraternity, and Jane was sorry to see they were in front of Uncle Nigel’s home.
    “Nigel’s a trifle eccentric,” she warned as they pressed the front door buzzer.
    “Doesn’t bother me,” said Mac.
    “He can be a bit off-putting.”
    He gripped her shoulders and spun her around to face him. “Don’t apologize for him, Janie.”
    “It’s simply that I’ve never brought anyone here to meet him before.”
    “First and last, Janie. This is the real thing.”
    “You can’t possibly know that.”
    “And you can’t possibly know it isn’t. Take a chance, Janie. What do you have to lose?”
    “You’re reading too much into this, Mac,” she said, struggling to keep her