At last the day Patty had dreaded arrived - the day Anton left to return to Germany.

"Please do not look so sad," Anton said as he caressed the side of her face. "I will return to you as quickly as I can, but I must have some time to say goodbye to my family and settle my accounts back home."

"How long will that take?" asked Patty.

"No more than a couple of weeks at the most," said Anton. "I have spoken with Dr. Banion, and he said he's willing to take me on as a partner, even though I have to do my residency over again before I can call myself a full fledged physician in the USA." His voice grew solemn. "It will be a busy and hectic few years, P.B., but I know that together, you and I will make it just fine." He slipped to one knee, took her hand, and gazed into her eyes. "Patricia Ann Bergen, will you marry me?"

"Oh, yes!"

He took a small square box from his pocket. Inside was a simple gold band with a small diamond. He slipped it onto the ring finger of her right hand. Then he stood and embraced and kissed her.

"I love you so much, P.B. I cannot wait to make you my wife. As soon as I come back from Germany, we can start planning the wedding."

"I'm so excited!" Patty cried, but then the smile left her face. "It's just so hard to let you go!"

"I know." Anton had to swallow a lump in his throat. "I don't want to say goodbye either, but this time, I swear to you, P.B., I will come back to you as soon as I can, and then we'll never have to part again."

She held onto him for as long as she dared, then reluctantly let go and watched longingly as he got into the car to drive to the airport.

"Congratulations - that's wonderful!" Elizabeth hugged Patty and kissed her cheek.

"Thanks." Patty twisted the diamond ring around and around on her finger. "It was so hard saying goodbye to him, though. You see..." She looked at Elizabeth, and the older woman saw her eyes were filled with tears. "The last time I said goodbye to him, I thought I'd never see him again."

"Tell me about it, if you don't mind," Elizabeth encouraged.

So Patty related the same story Anton had told Ike when he'd first come to Walton's Mountain. Elizabeth's face registered first surprise, then shock, then extreme interest.

"When he told me goodbye before he left to catch the train, he gave me my first kiss," said Patty. "I watched until he was gone. After that I didn't hear anything for several months, and then one night, some men from the FBI came to my home in the middle of the night and showed me my father's monogrammed shirt with bullet holes and blood stains in it. They told me Anton was d-dead." Her voice choked, and she couldn't finish.

"Oh, no!" Elizabeth breathed.

Patty nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.

"All this time, I thought they were right - until Anton came into my stepfather's store looking for me."

"I can sure understand how you feel," said Elizabeth. "The way you and Anton met each other was very similar to the way Paul and I first met."

Patty's eyes widened. "Paul was a prisoner of war, too?"

Elizabeth nodded. "He escaped from a camp, just like Anton did. He met my cousin Jeffrey first. Jeffrey, his sister Serena, and his grandmother came to stay with us for awhile when Mama was in a sanitarium. Anyway, Paul was on the run when he met up with Jeffrey in the woods. Jeffrey invited him to come to our house on Christmas Day. That was when I met him for the first time. My father and brothers convinced him to go back to the POW camp, and we stayed in touch with each other by writing letters. When the war ended and I graduated high school, we got married."

"Wow, that does sound a lot like mine and Anton's story!" said Patty. "Except yours was much nicer, since you had nice parents, and nobody in your family got in trouble with the law, and Paul never got shot."

Elizabeth gave her friend a reassuring hug. "I think all your bad times are behind you now, Patty, and you and Anton have a glorious and wonderful future to look forward to."

"I just feel so sorry for her," Elizabeth said later, as she and her family were eating dinner. "She feels lonely and afraid, and if you knew her whole story, you'd understand why."

"She's got herself a good man, and I've no doubt he'll do right by her," Paul replied. "I know she'll be lonely for awhile, though. I remember how lonely I was the whole time I was in the POW camp." His face fell at the memory. Elizabeth kissed the top of his head.

"Perhaps we can do something special for her to make her feel better," she suggested.

"I've no idea what," said Paul.

"Perhaps she'd enjoy a camping trip."

Paul nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. Let's plan for it this weekend."