Stephen took her in his arms and began kissing her.
"If we're caught down there," he said between kisses, "at least we'll have these moments together."
Barbara didn't even want to think they might be separated again. She returned his kisses as she held the sides of his face in her hands.
Too soon, but reluctantly, Stephen took her by the hand. Leading her out of the safety of the forest, he took her down the path to the farm.
Allied bombers had not spared the small farm. The roof of the stone house was caved in and only one wall remained standing.
Inside was a mess of rubble. One of the two barns on the property had been totally destroyed, the other partially. Since it was the only building where a foal might possibly be kept, they went to it.
"She's not here," Barbara said after she and Stephen looked into the barn. "Just a little hay, where she had fed. Otherwise, there's no sign that a horse had ever been stalled here."
"The Ruskies we saw coming from here might have taken her with them in that covered truck."
"What'll we do?"
More rumbling sounds came from outside the barn. Stephen told Barbara to hide while he looked out. A moment later, he returned to her.
"No trucks. Just a storm coming. We might as well stay here until it passes. At least there's a roof over our heads."
But not much else, Barbara could see. It didn't matter. She was more tired than hungry.
"No food that I can see," Stephen said. "But that bucket can catch some rain water we can drink."
He set the bucket outside, then closed the door with a latch. When he returned, Barbara was climbing up a wooden ladder to a hay loft.
"Arise, my love, and come away with me," she said, reaching out a hand to him.
"Claudette Colbert and Ray Milland in Arise, My Love," he said, taking her hand and following her up the ladder.
The moments for which Barbara had been waiting a lifetime finally came, in the loft of a barn on a deserted farm high in the Carpathian mountains of Czechoslovakia. As storm clouds gathered overhead and a roar of wind heralded a downpour of spring rain, she lay with her love.
She had not had much love in her life. She had had sex, from Chet Armstrong and Ken Knowland. Ken had been more gentle than Chet, but he had also come on to her too fast, too aggressive. It had become quickly obvious to her that the sex she had gotten from the earlier men in her life had disappointed her. In the case of Chet, it had been devastating.