Thank you all for reading! Looking forward to another year of sharing this story with you!

April 1920

Bates cursed his leg with every halting step. He wanted to run to her on two swift feet. Would she look different? Would she have browned in the sun? Had she enjoyed herself as her letters had suggested or had she merely pretended for his sake?

In the back of his mind, unworthily of her, lay the idea of the smooth-talking, good-looking, whole-legged young Frenchman he couldn't quite seem to erase from his imagination, and next to it, the question that had chilled his heart night after night when he couldn't run from it any longer: Had she finally come to her senses? It was a question he lived with day and night, locked away from the world in here, unable to make something of himself that would be worthy of her, but it had become larger in his mind with Anna gone, without being able to see her regularly and have the assurance of her stout heart and faithful love.

And then the last door opened and she stood there, his Anna, beautiful and demure as always, and her face lit from within at the sight of him, her eyes shining in a way he couldn't possibly mistake for anything else.

How desperately he wanted to take her in his arms, just once, or to hold her hand, that simple touch that always set his stream of questions at rest.

Instead, he was constrained to stand here and look at her—and since he hadn't even been able to do that much in far too long, he wouldn't complain any further. "Hello," he said softly.

Anna smiled, lighting the whole room. "Hello, yourself."

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes. Let me look at you. Did you get any sun?"

"Not much, I'm afraid. I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"Never that," he said softly. They sat, eyes still hungrily taking each other in.

"I have to admit I spent a lot of my free time in my room, writing letters to people."

Bates winced. He had been afraid she would do that. "On my behalf?"

"Yes."

"I don't like to think of you having wasted your time in the south of France that way," he said.

"It's not wasted time!" Anna protested. "It's the best use of my time I can think of, and I don't care to have that argument again, not … not when I haven't seen you in so long."

Bates felt badly that he had upset her today of all days. He caught himself in the act of instinctively reaching for her hand across the table. "I'm sorry. You're right. As you so often are." He smiled, and was relieved to see her smile in return, her generous forgiveness washing over him. "How did you get on with Vera's book?"

"I had a few answers waiting for me when I got back. And two returned 'Address Unknown'."

"Who from?"

"Let me see." She looked down at her hands, trying to recall. "One was … a Mr. Harlipp, I think, and … the other was … Mrs. Bartlett."

"Well, Harlipp doesn't matter. He was a cousin in the north; she never saw him. But Mrs. Bartlett's a shame. She lived 'round the corner, she was very friendly with Vera." They had been cronies, the two of them. Mrs. Bartlett was unlikely to have too many good words about him.

"I'll find her, don't worry," Anna said with her customary assurance.

They looked at each other for a long moment. God, she was beautiful. "Tell me about France," he said, wanting to see her smile again. "Did you eat frog's legs and dance the can-can?" How he would love to see her laughing and dancing a lively dance.

"No." She leaned toward him conspiratorially, a little blush on her face. "But I bought a garter."

Bates could feel himself blushing, as well, which was odd, because it felt as though all the blood in his body had rushed straight to somewhere far south of his face. He didn't know what was more arousing—the idea of seeing her with a lacy, frilly garter on that shapely thigh he remembered so well; imagining himself slowly taking it off her, trailing kisses down her leg in its wake; or the idea that she was so certain they would be together like that again that she was making plans for it. "I can't wait to see it on you," he said huskily.

The flush on Anna's cheeks said her thoughts had gone to the same place his had. "May it be soon," she said.

"God, yes."