Boston Navy Yard; Boston, Massachusetts Tuesday, March 18, 1941

On a platform by the bow of the USS Ettinger, Mary Stirling prepared supplies no one would notice unless they were missing.

While nautical pennants snapped in the sea breeze and the band played "Anchors Aweigh" for the ship-launching ceremony, Mary set down a box containing rags, a towel, a whisk broom, and a first aid kit. Then she nestled a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket.

Something crinkled. Odd.

Mary picked up the bottle in its decorative tin shield that prevented shattering. Yesterday, she'd tied red, white, and blue ribbon around the neck. Now the ribbon didn't lie flat, the bow was lopsided, and the foil around the cork seemed loose and wrinkled, as if someone had taken it off and replaced it.

Why? Scenarios zipped through her head, each more ludicrous than the one before. "Too much Nancy Drew in junior high," she muttered. And too many spy and saboteur stories in the press lately. With the United States clinging to neutrality in the war in Europe, tensions between isolationists and interventionists had become sharper than the prow of the Ettinger.

Mary stroked the sleek red hull of the new destroyer towering above her. "Into the wild Atlantic you go."

"That is a bad year."

Mary smiled at the French accent and faced her roommate and co-worker at the Boston Navy Yard, Yvette Lafontaine.

"I doubt the Ettinger cares about the champagne's vintage."

"She should." Yvette narrowed her golden-brown eyes at the ship, then lit up and grasped Mary's shoulders. "But you look très magnifique."

Mary knew better than to argue. "Thank you for helping me choose the hat. I love it." The shape flattered her face, and the fawn color blended with her brown hair and the heavy tweed coat she wore. It would also go well with her spring coat — if winter ever ended.

Yvette fingered the puff of netting on the brim. "I still prefer the red one."

"Not red."

"Sometimes a woman needs to ... to accent, not match." The glamorous brunette tapped Mary's nose. "You listen to me. We French know fashion, wine, food, and love. Obviously we do not know war." Her voice lowered to a growl.

Mary puckered one corner of her mouth in sympathy. Poor Yvette had been studying at Harvard when the Nazis trampled her country in May and June of 1940. Almost a year ago. Stranded in the States after graduation, Yvette took a job at the Navy Yard.

"I'll see you at the apartment. I must find Henri and Solange." Yvette trotted down the steps.

"See you later." Mary spotted her boss, Barton Pennington, next to the platform. She leaned over the railing draped with red, white, and blue bunting. "Mr. Pennington!"

He smiled up at her and folded his gloved hands over his broad belly. "Ah, Miss Stirling. All ready?"

"Yes, but ..." She held up the champagne bottle. "The foil is loose and the ribbon is disturbed. It looks like someone tampered with it."

Mr. Pennington gave her the amused fatherly look he wore whenever she fussed over something trivial. "I'm sure it's nothing but rough handling."

"Very rough." She smoothed out the wrinkles and her worries and settled the bottle in its bucket.

"You've done a great job again. And look at all the people." Mr. Pennington gestured to the crowd. At least a hundred naval personnel and shipyard workers milled about.

Nausea seized Mary's belly. But why? None of the people looked at her. None of them had come to see her. She hadn't put herself on display. Yet logic and panic never listened to each other.

"I — I'm all done, Mr. Pennington." Mary gripped the banister and scurried down the stairs, each step quelling the nausea.

"I'll see you after the launching."

Mary waved over her shoulder and headed toward the back of the crowd to watch the ceremony. To one side, a cluster of shipyard workers praised President Roosevelt's newly signed Lend-Lease bill to send billions of dollars of aid to Britain. To the other side, another cluster of workers denounced the legislation as nothing but warmongering.

Although Mary certainly didn't want American boys to die in another European war, the images of bombed-out London wrenched her heart. The United States had to do something or Britain would fall.

A laugh filtered through the noise, a familiar male laugh, tickling at her memory.

Across a parting in the crowd, she saw two naval officers in navy blue overcoats and caps — "covers" in the naval jargon. One man had fair hair and one had dark.

The dark-haired officer had a friendly, open face, very much like Jim Avery from back home in Vermilion, Ohio. Except Jim was tall and scrawny, and this man was tall and ... not scrawny.

Jim had attended the Naval Academy, and Mary hadn't seen him since high school. A lot could happen to a person in five years.

Mary inched closer, and with each step the officer looked more like Jim Avery, except he held himself straighter, with more assurance.

He laughed at something his friend said, and in a flash, Mary was sitting around a table at the soda fountain with her best friend Quintessa Beaumont, Quintessa's boyfriend Hugh Mackey, and Hugh's best friend, Jim. All of them enraptured by Quintessa's effervescence.

Jim's gaze drifted to her, and he gave her the mild smile men gave silver girls like Mary, without the spark reserved for golden girls like Quintessa.

Oh, why had she come over? How silly of her. She returned the mild smile and angled her path away.

But Jim peered at her and took a step in her direction. "Mary? Mary Stirling?"

He actually remembered her? "Jim Avery?"

With a grin, he strode forward and gripped her hand. "Well, I'll be. What are you doing in Boston?"

"I work here. Almost four years now." She gestured to the grand expanses of scaffolding. "I'm a secretary." No need to go into prideful detail.

"Isn't that swell?" In the icy sunshine, his eyes were clearly hazel.

Had Mary ever noticed that before? "I assume the Navy brought you to town?"

Jim beckoned to his companion. "Mary, this is my friend, Archer Vandenberg. Arch, this is Mary Stirling from Ohio. Arch and I went to the Academy together, and we've just been assigned to the Atwood."

"Oh yes." The Gleaves-class destroyer had been launched at the shipyard in December and had almost completed the fitting-out process before commissioning.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mary." Arch spoke with the measured tones of upper-crust New England, but the shine in his blue eyes said he didn't deem a Midwestern secretary beneath his acquaintance. "Four years in Boston, did you say?"

"Yes."

"Say ..." Jim nudged his friend.

Arch crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Mary. "Yes, she'll do quite nicely."

She drew back. "Pardon?"

Jim laughed. "Never mind him. We were just talking about how we're new to town and wish we knew someone to show us around."

The thought of an excursion lifted her smile. "I could do that. I love exploring this city. So much history."

"Swell. I had visions of Jim and Gloria and I walking into the harbor while trying to navigate." Arch held up the launching program as if it were a map and squinted at it.

Jim dipped a partial bow. "And you'll save me from being the third wheel. Again."

What fun. Although Yvette was a dear friend, she socialized...