Chapter One
Champagne, France
September 1943
Anyone caught out after curfew was either brave or foolish.
Dark was coming on swiftly, and the handbag under her arm was filled with smuggled papers.
If caught with them, Edmée Guillon knew exactly what would happen. She would be taken to the village prefecture where she would be questioned by local authorities then by the Gestapo.
They would send her to Paris for a sham trial presided over by a German judge, then loaded onto a train bound for Germany for forced labor to help fuel the hungry fire that was the German military machine.
That was what happened to rebels.
Edmée was a rebel, a smuggler, a passeur… Her uncle, Julien, who managed her father’s estate, Maison Boutet, their fourth-generation champagne vineyard, was also a rebel. So, too, was her cousin, Jacqueline, and Michel, Jacqueline’s husband.
The farmer down the road, Patrice, helped smuggle people out of the network of limestone caves at Maison Boutet.
It was a minor operation. In the center of Champagne, in the middle of the interminable German occupation—in the midst of a grim conflict that had touched every corner of Europe—Edmée felt isolated.
The important thing was that they got people out of Champagne and, from there, across the Demarcation Line the boches had drawn tight as a belt across France’s waist, to the Swiss border and from there…freedom.
Edmée walked her bicycle through the tangled wood that lay between the village and Boutet, along a path worn thin by her bicycle tires.
She hadn’t seen Patrice in weeks. The Germans had turned a long eye on his small, cobbled house and fallow fields. He had stopped printing cartes d’identité the refugees in the Boutet caves relied on for travel. He’d told her not to ride her bicycle along the path to the farm until it was safe to trek again.
Since when was anything safe? she thought, stopping to tuck the handbag more securely under her arm. She’d had to go north of the village to Maison du Cygnes and the silent Mademoiselle L, who stooped over her cigarette and scowled as Edmée examined the papers that would get their guests at Maison Boutet past checkpoints. Mlle L communicated only once by rubbing her thumb and first two fingers together.
Money.
The longer the occupation went on, the dearer the cost of papers became. Like those operating the Black Market, Mlle L seemed to enjoy profiting from the fear and desperation of others.
Edmée was making too much noise. The crunch of leaves in the undergrowth sounded like the thunder of distant drums.
Wariness skated up her spine. Something in the canopy winged off in a cacophony of branches and feathers. She halted, her heart in her throat.
It’s just a sparrow. The words were stern in her head. Still, they did nothing to stop her adrenaline from surging.
The Germans had no reason to patrol these woods. They knew nothing of her comings and goings. They hadn’t cast their attention on Maison Boutet.
Not yet. Julien’s charm had gone a long way toward ensuring that. Julien welcomed the Germans not because he was their ally. He hated rationing as much as the next person, and he despised the limits placed on the champagne industry and its growers.
Julien’s agreeableness concealed the web of deception that kept the Boutet smuggling ring in operation. Without him, they were all doomed.
Edmée knew the path well. She knew every tree, root, shrub, and divot. She knew the tracts to avoid—the ones mottled by sharp rocks and trenches her father had helped dig to keep the Germans out during the Great War.
A shadow barreled at her in defiance of the other shadows.
Her heart jammed in her throat. She raised her hands, dropping the handlebars.
Not a shadow, she saw as it shifted freely into the form of a man encased in olive drab uniform trousers, a white shirt wet with perspiration, and German boots.
Chapter Two
I’ve done nothing wrong.
It raced through her mind, even as panic set in.
If she didn’t think she was innocent, neither would he. Rule number one, in Julien’s rebel playbook.
“What do you want?” Edmée stammered. She thought about the handbag. It had fallen into the thicket.
The German’s rough breathing sounded harsh. His chest labored to the point he couldn’t speak.
Edmée catalogued other things about his appearance. Not only was he sweating profusely, his hands bled. They looked as if he’d fought brambles and briars, like the ones in the trenches.
How long had he been in the woods?
He didn’t look shaven, or washed, as other Germans tended to. There were tears in his sleeves.
“What do you want?” she asked again, more firmly.
He held up one of his bloodied hands to stop her or gather himself. She was unsure. He looked at her—through her—and Edmée knew he was not well. There was a telltale sheen of sickness about his countenance.
“Edmée?”
She narrowed her eyes. She knew what her name sounded like. She knew what it looked like when it passed from a man’s lips.
But this soldier couldn’t possibly know it. She didn’t know him, not by sight. She had never seen him—not at Boutet or the village. “What did you say?”
He leveled a finger at her face. “You are Edmée? Edmée Guillon?”
Absurdly, she felt herself nodding. “Oui. I am Edmée. What do you want?”
He swayed. She fought the urge to reach out and steady him. If he keeled over, it would give her a chance to flee him.
He closed his eyes, planted his legs, arms out for balance. “This… This is not what it looks like.”
“What is it supposed to look like?” Where should she run to? Back to Boutet? The caves? Patrice? “You are trespassing. These woods belong to Maison Boutet.”
“Edmée,” he said again. Her name seemed to be the only thing making sense to him.
He was terribly ill, his skin imbued with the color of wet school glue. “Do you need transport? My uncle can get someone to drive you to the village—”
He held up his hand again, shaking his head. “Non. Non, non. No village. No uncle.”
Another thought crossed her mind. “You’re a deserter.”
He shook his head again. He teetered, dangerously close to falling over. His thick black hair pasted to his brow. She couldn’t make out his eyes in the shadows, their color, their depth…what hid behind them. “I’m not…with them…”
“What do you want?” She bit the words off again.
“Patrice…”
Her feet froze in a backward shuffle of retreat. “What about him?”
“He said…to find you. Edmée. ‘Go to Edmée at Boutet.’”
She gaped at him, his boots. His uniform. “Patrice sent you—to me?”
“Oui,” he asserted. “He said you could get me underground.”
“I don’t understand. If you’re a German and you’re not a deserter, why do you need to go underground? Why would Patrice even talk to you?”
“I’m not.”
“Not what?”
“German.”
Not a German?
Patrice sent him—to me.
“S’il vous plaît,” he begged. “There isn’t much time.”
It occurred to her to look around. No other shadows jumped out at her. Still, the forest felt unsafe for the first time in her life, as if the trees camouflaged more.
Even the birds had stopped twittering. “Were you followed?” she asked.
He screwed up his face. “I don’t think… I can’t think.” He reached for the back of his head, rubbed. As his hand slid away, something dark stained his fingers.
They both stilled. As he tilted his fingers toward the small sliver of light from the canopy, the stain took on a wet sheen.
Blood.
A breath shuddered out of him. “That’s not good. Is it?”
She shook her head faintly. It was a wonder he was still standing. She opened her mouth to ask him how he’d suffered a blow to the head, but he groaned and reached for the nearest tree.
Julien would tell her to leave him. The chai was closer than the house. There may be workers present after hours, if she was lucky.
But…Patrice sent him?
He sensed her indecision, propping his shoulder against the trunk. He pushed off and braved a step toward her.
She took another step in retreat.
He stopped and held up his hands, as if cautioning an ill-tempered animal. “You have no reason to trust me.”
“Non,” Edmée agreed. “I don’t.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he implored. His chest rose and fell over several ragged breaths. She noticed his cracked, dry lips. “I just need…”
His eyes lulled back. Edmée could bear it no longer.
She crossed to him, her movements stiff with hesitation. Despite all the voices in her head telling her she was acting foolish, she braced her shoulder underneath his. “You shouldn’t be standing,” she told him. She looked in both directions—Patrice, the village, Boutet. “I’ll take you to the maison.”
“Non!” He tried to stand on his own again. “Your uncle… You can’t tell your uncle.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Patrice said not to trust him.”
Patrice didn’t think Julien was trustworthy? That was ridiculous. They’d worked together. She’d been their go-between for months. “You must be mistaken—”
The man grew heavier against her side. Edmée jerked him until his head lifted from its slump. “Are you sure it was Patrice who said—”
“The cellar. He hid me in the cellar.”
The cellar under the trapdoor that not a living soul outside of the farmhouse knew about.
Except me.
And now this stranger, whoever he was.
She nodded slowly. “I will help you.”
“Merci,” he said, slackening at the knees. Still, something of a smile touched his sickly features. “He said… He said you were the only one in Champagne I could trust.”
She steered him in the vineyard’s direction. “Slowly,” she cautioned when he tripped over a root. He smelled overwhelmingly of woods and earth. As if he’d been on the run for days.
He spoke French well—fluently, in fact. The few Germans who could speak the native language did so haltingly.
He’s French. So why was he wearing a German uniform And why did he need to be hidden?
The arm hooked over her shoulders went limp. His knees caved.
“No,” she cried as he slumped toward the forest floor.
He fell in a dead faint.
Edmée’s flight reflex kicked in. Stepping over him, she bolted through what remained of the trees into the rows of the vineyard.
The sun was behind the hills, taking one last gasp before going under. She ducked under vines tied delicately to keep their heavy clusters of fruit from drooping.
The chai loomed out of the near dusk. The doors were closed.
She banged on them with her fists, calling out for Vincent.
No one answered her.
They had all gone home to wives, to table. Panting, she looked toward the maison.
Julien was dining tonight with another grower and wouldn’t be back until late. Lucette, the cook, would have noticed she hadn’t returned in time to feed their guests. She’ll have gone to the caves.
All that remained was Jacqueline, but she’d be tending to her husband, Michel, whose leg wound from the front was acting up again.
Edmée moved restlessly from one side of the chai to the other.
She couldn’t leave the man where he was. He was hurt, sick…in desperate need of care.
The handbag… She’d stupidly left it in the woods, along with her bicycle. If a real soldier found the man before she did, they’d find her bicycle. Not to mention the papers sewn into the lining of the handbag.
If they investigated it closely, they’d find the seam.
And she was alone. She had to think. Rounding the wall of the chai, she stopped.
An overturned wheelbarrow lay near a broken-down lorry that hadn’t run since before the invasion. If it had, the Germans would have requisitioned it for their own ends, just as they had taken the horses and other vehicles.
Grabbing the wheelbarrow by the handles, she ran behind it through the rows, trying to stitch together a plan.
She found the man in the woods where she had left him.
Getting him into the wheelbarrow was an ordeal. She folded him in an upward position an inch at a time. By the time he flopped into the rusty metal tub, sweat—his and her own—covered her. Blood smeared her sleeve as she took care to support his head. His legs hung well off the edge of the wheelbarrow.
Under different circumstances, he would’ve looked comical sprawled half out of the metal tub.
Edmée swiped the moisture from her face. He must have weighed eighty kilos. The forest’s uneven terrain gave her fits as she pushed him. Then, the rows with their spongy turf grabbed the wheel. The wooden handles bit into her palms as she put her weight behind it.
The maison still felt far away. The caves, too. She dropped the handles. The light had faded, enveloping the house in darkness with the blackout curtains in place.
She tried to recover her breath. There was a catch under her ribs. She bent over double, pressing her forearm into the catch. The air was thick with the fragrance of lovingly tended soil.
She drank it in as she stared at the man’s boots. She couldn’t take him to the caves. The sight of his olive drab uniform would frighten the refugees to death. She also wasn’t one hundred percent sure who he was or where his allegiances lay She couldn’t trust him with her family secrets, whether Patrice had hid him, trusted him or not.
She couldn’t take him to the house. Julien had forbidden her from bringing refugees there.
Where am I to take him?
The wind picked up, pushing through the rows. It adhered to the dampness of her neck and cheeks, bringing a cool kiss to her flushed skin. She stood upright and turned her face to it, closing her eyes.
She opened them. A cleft of limestone stood like an unforgiving fist from the surrounding rows. To anyone else, it was a rock coated in wily greenery. But she knew what lay underneath.
Another entrance to the Boutet caves, one whose tunnel had collapsed years ago.
When Julien began the smuggling operation, he’d inspected each cave, tunnel, and entrance. The one in the garden was the most viable, well-supported and large enough to accommodate multiple people. It stayed cool in the summers and warm in the winters.
The limestone rock was the entrance Julien had dismissed outright. After harvest, it would be too easy to see Edmée coming and going through the fields.
The chamber didn’t support comfort as nothing insulated it from winter’s cold.
It was late summer, however. The vines towered, making it easy to pass through them without detection.
And while the chamber underneath the rock wasn’t large enough to support many people, it could adequately support one.
Edmée took the handles of the wheelbarrow again and lifted. It took some skill to turn the wheelbarrow toward the rock without tipping the man out of the tub.
A half hour stretched by before she’d closed the distance. Abandoning the man, she tried to find the door behind a scattering of ivy. She pushed her shoulder against the vertical wall several times before it gave way. Stumbling down the first rough-hewn step, she caught herself on the wall before she could tumble down a steep flight of stairs.
A showering of rocks reminded her of the cave-in the instability…
It’s lasted this long. That had to count for something. By morning, Julien would know about their latest guest. He would know what to do. Someone would likely move the man somewhere else.
She trudged back to the wheelbarrow. There was no way she could maneuver them both down the stairs of the cave without taking a blind tumble. She muttered an apology before she drew her hand back.
Her slap cracked across his face.
He woke with a start, limbs twitching.
“Wake up,” she said. “You have to walk.”
He blinked at her, then at their surroundings. “Where are we?”
“You must get below,” she said. “Do you understand?”
His eyes rolled. She grabbed him by the lapel and shook him until they focused again. “Do you understand?”
He gave an infinitesimal nod. Bracing his arms against the walls of the tub, he tried to push himself up.
She gripped his wrist, then hooked her arm underneath his shoulders to support him. She grunted as she lifted with her legs.
He came to his feet unsteadily. Edmée held him in place so he could catch his balance. Together, they lurched toward the chamber.
“It’s dark,” he noted when she guided him through the opening.
“Careful on the steps. They’re steep.”
“Is there a lantern?” he asked.
“I have to check,” she realized.
“Pocket,” he said. “Matches. In my right pocket.”
She made sure he was stable against the rock wall before she let him go, navigating his waistline. He was wide of shoulder but slender around the waist. The uniform shirt and trousers were too large for him. The belt with its severe silver buckle was all that was holding up the latter.
She found his right pocket and the book of matches inside. “Wait here,” she instructed. “If you feel faint, sit quickly.”
He leaned his head back against the limestone wall in response.
Rocks littered the steps. Old cobwebs crossed in front of her. She tore through them, trying not to slide on the rock debris.
When the chamber at the bottom of the steps opened up, she took a match from the book and struck it against the wall. It flared to life. Edmée raised the match for light.
The chamber was dusty. The ceiling crouched. There was a center table, several barrels and casks and some of the estate’s forgotten stores.
A lantern was on the table. She went to it before the match died between her fingertips. The flame whispered hot against her skin. She opened the glass and touched the match to the wick.
It caught. She closed the glass door, lifted the lantern by its iron handle and carried it up the stairs.
He hadn’t collapsed. She took him around the waist and guided him beneath the makeshift lintel. “Watch your head.”
He knocked his brow into the low entrance.
She sighed. “Plant your feet,” she instructed. She swiped the sole of her shoe across the next step, scattering rocks.
He was getting heavier, losing strength again. She couldn’t go more quickly with gravity pulling them down the flight, so she kept murmuring. The lantern light turned the chalk walls gold.
She murmured even as his head lolled and his cheek came to rest against the crown of her head. “A little farther.”
Somehow, they made it into the cool chamber without incident.
“Keep your head low,” she cautioned, as he’d likely knock his head again. Her muscles strained. Breathing through her teeth, she didn’t sink to the dirty floor. “Table,” she directed. “It’s big enough for you.”
“Sleep on a table?” he asked, mildly incredulous.
“Is it the worst place you’ve slept?” she wondered out loud.
His laugh blew across her face. “Non.”
He’s laughing—now? “Here.” She guided his hips to the table’s edge, then let go to set the lantern on a nearby cask.
“Will it hold me?” he asked vaguely.
“Slowly,” she said as he lowered lengthwise across the tabletop. She took off her sweater. She folded it underneath his head to cradle it.
Agony wove across his features. “Is there a bucket?”
“Why?”
“I might be sick.”
She used the lantern to look around. Racks with no bottles. An old chair. Ancient, battered workers’ tools.
Near the cave-in, she saw an empty pail.
“Merci,” he said when she retrieved it for him. He squinted through discomfort. “You didn’t have to help me.”
She placed her hand to his head, trying to find the injury. His hair was thick. It needed a wash. Her fingertips touched his scalp. It burned. Pressing her palm to his forehead, then the back of her hand, she hissed. He was feverish. “I need to go for help.”
He shook his head, then grimaced, moaned. “No one else.”
“You need a doctor.”
“Just some rest, please.”
She frowned at his stubbornness. It was typical of those on the run to be hesitant to trust.
An idea struck her. “Patrice. He has some army training from the Spanish Civil War. I can bring him.”
The man came awake suddenly. “Non!”
“Why not?” she asked, alarmed. “He’s the one who sent you here.”
“You can’t go there,” he said. His eyes were alive in the lantern light. There was urgency in them. Fear.
“Why not?” When he didn’t answer fast enough, she took him by the shoulders. “Why not?”
“It’s too late.”
The words settled in. They filtered cold into every part of her.
She straightened. “I must go.”
His hand locked on her arm. “Don’t go,” he said.
She twisted out of his hold and hit the stairs running.
Chapter Three
It was full dark. The tree canopy choked out moonlight. Edmée stumbled through the undergrowth. She wrenched her ankle, tripped and skinned her knee. Still, she stumbled on at a breakneck pace, dread biting at her heels.
The undergrowth thinned. She slowed, finally, but not fast enough to stop herself from tumbling into a fallow field. She plodded into the dry dirt, scratching the heels of her hands.
She peered at the silhouette of the house. There was no light in the windows. Patrice kept the blackout curtains in place at all times.
A shaft of light flickered, bounced. It wheeled. Edmée scrambled backward into the undergrowth as the source of the beam came into view.
A flashlight. She looked away, shielding her eyes from the glare.
There were vehicles parked in front of the house. The Germans had confiscated Patrice’s already. She tried to pick shapes out of the dark.
Several flashlights bobbed into view.
Three soldiers, she counted, as they roved the perimeter of the house. Were there more inside?
Someone shouted. Two silhouettes emerged, struggling. It took her several seconds to realize that they bracketed a reluctant captive.
Edmée couldn’t find her breath. The men, the lights…they moved toward the lorries. They merged, became one. Doors slammed. Engines roared. Headlights flared.
Edmée jumped to her feet. She took several steps out of the woods. She couldn’t let them take him.
The lorries eased down the mottled drive, headlights bouncing.
She broke into a sprint. She was halfway through the field when she realized she had no weapon. She’d left Boutet with nothing. Her legs stopped moving. They felt rubbery. Her lungs heaved with shallow breaths. She could feel sobs close behind them.
The lorries’ taillights turned, accelerated, and cruised out of sight.
In the fallow field, she stood alone. There was a knot in her throat. Her stomach turned and her hands covered her mouth.
Patrice was gone.
* * *
Edmée wasn’t sure how she made it home. Her legs felt like wet pasta, her shoes lead lined.
Near the vineyard, she hit her shin on something hard. Looking around, she spotted the metallic glint of her bicycle handlebars tipped sideways on the path.
She searched the brush for the handbag, muttering pleas until she found it. Then she steered the bicycle to the chai where she leaned it against the wall.
She cursed. She had forgotten to bring back the wheelbarrow. She couldn’t leave it at the rock.
Placing the handbag carefully under a fallen tree, she made her way back to the cave.
The stranger had passed out again on the table. She didn’t have a blanket for him or water to clean his wounds. Instead, she took off his boots and emptied his pockets.
She carried the curious results back to the maison. More matches. Some German money, a few francs. Good cigarettes.
Lucette wasn’t in bed, as Edmée had hoped. Her soft, round shoulders had fallen forward over the kitchen table where she’d sat up waiting.
Edmée laid her hand over Lucette’s veined one, rubbing until the cook stirred.
“Edmée. Bébé.” Lucette glanced at the windows. “You were out after curfew?”
“I’m all right,” Edmée assured her. “I’m home now.”
“Where have you been?”
“I’ll tell you about it in the morning,” Edmée promised, gathering Lucette close. She urged her to stand. “You can’t stay here all night. Come on.”
As Edmée veered toward the room behind the kitchen where Lucette had slept since Edmée was a young girl and her father was still alive, she frowned over how small Lucette’s frame felt. The woman who’d raised her in the wake of her mother’s and, later, her father’s death, seemed to be shrinking in stature.
Lucette had been distraught when the Germans took France again, her memories of the Great War still fully formed.
Caring for the people in the caves had given her renewed vigor. However, Edmée could see the unspoken weariness. Lucette bore the weight of everything—caring for Edmée, Julien, Jacqueline, Michel and those in the caves.
Edmée didn’t go to bed after seeing Lucette to hers. She gathered food, found a skein for water, a pail, medical supplies and medicine. She felt a lick of guilt for taking from the stores without asking. The food, the supplies, the comforts… They were all carefully divvied between those in the caves.
Edmée trudged back to the rock for a third time. The man was trapped in fitful repose. His eyelids twitched. He muttered when she unbuttoned the remnants of the shirt and carefully pried it from the slope of his wide shoulders.
Her hands fumbled over the shiny belt buckle. In the lantern light, she read the engraving: Gott mit uns. German for God with us.
As if anything the Germans did had anything to do with God, she mused bitterly. She unclipped it and removed the olive drab pants too large for him.
She piled the uniform on the floor over the boots, leaving his skivvies in place.
She filled the pail with half the water from the skein, wet a rag she’d found near the sink in the kitchen and wrung it out.
Using it to make clean tracks in the grime of his cheeks and brow, she wiped until his well-hewn features were unmarred, then set her attention on his throat, his collarbone and arms.
She watched the chills take him as she started on his legs. She finished quickly, then wiped him with a dry cloth and wrapped him in the blanket.
She laid out the medical supplies. Digging through the nest of hair on the back of his head, she located the wound.
She pressed her lips together at the smell. It no longer wept blood, but she worried about infection, nonetheless.
What could have done this? she wondered as she swabbed.
She had only rudimentary nurse’s training. She didn’t like the sight or smell of blood.
There was no pus, she saw once she’d used a large amount of gauze, and his scalp was no longer sticky with blood and dirt. The wound itself…
She examined it closely. Something heavy had struck him. The acrid tinge of gunpowder tickled her nostrils as she combed through his hair.
Or…someone had shot him?
There was no bullet. Edmée doubted he would have been wandering the woods if he’d had a bullet lodged in his skull. There was also no exit wound.
If he had been shot, it was a graze.
She shivered because the shot must have happened at close range to do this kind of damage. Reaching for her bandages, she covered the wound, giving it a secure dressing by wrapping the gauze around the circumference of his head.
Then she went to work on the cuts on his hands. Under the cuts, the pads of his fingers and palms were textured and rough. Far from the smoothness of Julien’s. Or Étienne’s.
She shook her head as the latter’s face came clearly to her mind. A reflex, she consoled herself. One that would fade with time. She disinfected the cuts and covered the gouges that still bled, thankful they looked minor.
Overwhelmed, she washed her hands with the little bit of clean water she’d saved. Then she set aside the rest so that it would be close at hand if he woke while she was away.
Weary, she pressed her hands into the small of her back then gave into fatigue and lowered to the flat top of a barrel. She let her back and shoulders slump against the wall behind her.
Laying her head back, she watched the man sleep. If he didn’t break his fever, she would have no choice but to send for a doctor. There was one who lived several miles away who came to the caves in secret whenever there was an emergency.
She’d found no papers among the stranger’s things. If he was right and he wasn’t one of the boches, he had stolen a uniform, most likely to travel without papers.
The subterfuge had lasted long enough for him to be beaten for it—or shot.
Edmée watched the man sleep, wondering who he was, where he came from and whether he was going to spell doom for her entire family.
* * *
He dreamed in fits and starts. He wrestled cold hands and hard fists, tasted terror and blood.
He’d been betrayed, traded away. As if he was nothing more than a sow to be butchered like so much meat.
They would catch him again. He just hoped they wouldn’t let it be long before they put the last nail in his coffin.
Did men like him get coffins? Or were they thrown into unmarked pits and covered in earth so the world could pretend they never existed in the first place?
Pain crashed through his skull, and he curled in on himself, screaming.
Rebel. Smuggler. Spy.
Champagne, France 1943
Meet Madame Rebelle. Edmee Guillon is a smuggler. She hides people from the German troops surrounding her ancestral home. When a dying man in a German uniform seeks refuge at Maison Boutet, Edmee struggles to believe his claims that he is French. Her life, the maison and the people she loves are already at stake. Can she take the chance that this mysterious spy is who he says he is? And which side of this war is he really on?
Christian Vovk has been betrayed by someone inside his resistance organization. He knows asking the striking young war widow to hide him will put her in certain danger. However, Christian can help Edmee save as many refugees as she can. Falling in love with her will hinder his duty to the operation that brought him to her doorstep in the first place. When love and duty become inevitably tangled, will Christian sacrifice one for the other?
