Scent of Triumph by Jan Moran

Author:Jan Moran [Moran, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, War & Military
ISBN: 9780963906533
Google: UYEBuwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0963906534
Publisher: Briarcliffe Press
Published: 2012-05-01T21:00:00+00:00

20

Shivering against the dampness, Danielle turned up her thin collar. As the bus lumbered through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, she watched rivulets of rain sputtering across the window.

The first winter storm of the season had arrived, pummeling the California coastline and battering the piers that jutted out to the ocean like fingers beckoning to ships at sea. Danielle had witnessed the coastal destruction that morning during her visit to a Venice Beach boutique, another new account for her expanding perfume line.

At four o’clock in the afternoon twilight was already encroaching, the sky a somber grey, ashen clouds dense with the threat of a second, rapidly moving storm front. Her throat was raw and her forehead burned with fever. I’ve no time to be ill, she thought, not with so much to do.

These last months, she’d found that the busier she was, the less she thought of Jon. Under the circumstances, it was better that way. When she’d received his letter inviting her and her family to London, she’d been elated, but reality quickly set in. Marie had not improved, the girls had been displaced once already, and worse, England was under constant threat from the Nazis with no end in sight.

She shook her head sadly, her heart aching with sorrow. What a burden we would have been on Jon and his family. No, my duty is here now. She had made the commitment to move to America, had uprooted her family. Not by choice, of course, but by necessity. They had barely escaped France. And England was at war. Anything could happen there.

She blinked back hot tears of regret. No, she could not endanger her family, no matter how much she loved Jon. She would stay in Los Angeles. Still, they continued to write. Maybe, when the war was over, they would have their chance. She smiled through her tears as she remembered how it felt to be in his arms. I hope it’s soon, she thought, longing to be with him, to have a partner, a lover, a husband again.

When the bus reached her Boyle Heights neighborhood, she gathered her belongings, two large black canvas bags in which she carried her product samples and paperwork, and stepped gingerly from the bus, balancing a broken umbrella on her shoulder. She glanced down in dismay at the water sloshing over her shoes, vaguely hoping they would dry before her morning appointment. With Christmas little more than a month away, she had no time to lose in placing her perfume line with retailers.

Her family’s Christmas would be sparse this year. She had bought a little menorah for her mother to celebrate Hanukkah; it would be the first time since Marie had married and had to forgo her religious observance for Danielle’s father. She hoped it might give her mother a touchstone, even aid in her recovery. Growing up, they had always celebrated Christmas, but Danielle often sensed her mother missed the faith she had been born into. And now, because Judaism was part of her heritage, Danielle wanted to learn more about its traditions.

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