"How did you ever work it?"
"It was a piece of cake," he replied, generating a smile from her for having picked up one of her favorite expressions. "I was still in Special Services attached to General Patton's Third Army when the Lipizzaner caretaker asked for his help to rescue a filly in Czechoslovakia."
Barbara loved just hearing him talk, much less what he was saying.
"When I learned the Air Force wouldn't release a pilot or plane for the mission, I said I knew a civilian who could do it. She was an American volunteer ferrying bombers in England for the ATA and knew all about horses."
Barbara knew who that was.
"Maybe the RAF could spare an old bomber for her to fly here. Then it would be a dangerous mission to sneak the foal away from the Nazis while they and some Soviet troops are still fighting it out in Czechoslovakia. But I said I was sure she'd do it."
"It sounds like a bigger piece of cake now, but you got it right and still do. Do you want a long engagement?"
"The shortest possible. You?
"Ditto."
Someone put a nickel in the diner's juke box. Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra began playing Jerome Kern's sweet and soft "All the Things You Are." Stephen looked at Barbara adoringly until a puzzled look came across her radiantly beautiful face, which puzzled him.
She looked at him from over the rim of her coffee cup. "Now there's only one thing I'm wondering about..."
He put down his cup and leaned forward, the better to hear her.
"Shoot."
"When do we get to dance to that?"
Stephen got up and reached out for her hand. He led her out of the booth and into the middle of the diner, now filled with Air Force pilots and mechanics ordering breakfast. Taking her in his arms, they started dancing as Frank Sinatra began singing the words,
You are the promised kiss of springtime
That makes the lonely winter seem long.
You are the breathless hush of evening
That trembles on the brink of a lovely song.
You are the angel glow that lights a star,
The dearest things I know are what you are.
Some day my happy arms will hold you,
And some day I'll know that moment divine,
When All the Things You Are, are mine.
"It will be our song," she whispered, and they danced on while locked in each other's embrace and kisses as they got more cheers and applause from the airmen.