If I Were You Read online

  Praise for If I Were You

  “Lynn Austin is a master at exploring the depths of human relationships. Set against the backdrop of war and its aftermath, If I Were You is a beautifully woven page-turner.”

  SUSAN MEISSNER, bestselling author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and The Last Year of the War

  “I have long enjoyed Lynn Austin’s novels, but If I Were You resonates above all others. Austin weaves the plot and characters together with sheer perfection, and the ending—oh, pure delight to a reader’s heart!”

  TAMERA ALEXANDER, bestselling author of With This Pledge and A Note Yet Unsung

  “If I Were You is a page-turning, nail-biting, heart-stopping gem of a story. Once again, Lynn Austin has done her homework. Each detail rings true, pulling us into Audrey and Eve’s differing worlds of privilege and poverty, while we watch their friendship and their faith in God struggle to survive. I loved traveling along on their journey, with all its unexpected twists and turns, and sighed with satisfaction when I reached the final page. So good.”

  LIZ CURTIS HIGGS, New York Times bestselling author of Mine Is the Night

  “Lynn Austin has long been one of my favorite authors. With an intriguing premise and excellent writing, If I Were You is sure to garner accolades and appeal to fans of novels like The Alice Network and The Nightingale.”

  JULIE KLASSEN, author of The Bridge to Belle Island

  “If I Were You is an immersive experience, not only into the dangers and deprivations of wartime England, but into the psychological complexities of characters desperate to survive. . . . With her signature attention to detail and unvarnished portrayal of the human heart, Lynn Austin weaves a tale of redemption that bears witness to Christ’s power to make all things new.”

  SHARON GARLOUGH BROWN, author of the Sensible Shoes series and Shades of Light

  “Lynn Austin’s If I Were You is a powerful story of heart-wrenching loss, our desperate need to be understood, to forgive and be forgiven, and the loving sacrifice found in true friendship. A compelling read, beautifully written, celebrating the strength of faith and the power of sisterhood.”

  CATHY GOHLKE, Christy Award–winning author of The Medallion

  “A master at inviting readers onto a journey and sweeping them away with her elegant prose, Lynn Austin once again transports readers back in time to England. If I Were You is a beautiful story about courage, relentless love, and the transforming power of forgiveness.”

  MELANIE DOBSON, award-winning author of Memories of Glass

  “Lynn Austin’s tradition of masterful historical fiction continues in If I Were You, an impeccably researched look into the lives of two remarkable women. Her unparalleled skill at evoking the past . . . will appeal to fans of Ariel Lawhon and Lisa Wingate. While longtime fans will appreciate this introspective tale from a writer who deeply feels the nuances of human nature, those uninitiated will immediately recognize why her talented pen has led her to near-legendary status in the realm of inspirational fiction. An unforgettable read.”

  RACHEL MCMILLAN, author of The London Restoration

  “Lynn Austin knows how to create conflict with her characters. Par excellence. Her latest novel is no exception. If I Were You tells the story of a Downton Abbey–like friendship between Audrey, from the nobility, and Eve, a servant at Audrey’s manor house. . . . Bold and brilliant and clever, If I Were You will delight Lynn’s multitude of fans and garner many new ones.”

  ELIZABETH MUSSER, author of When I Close My Eyes

  Also by Lynn Austin

  Sightings: Discovering God’s Presence in Our Everyday Moments

  Legacy of Mercy

  Where We Belong

  Waves of Mercy

  On This Foundation

  Keepers of the Covenant

  Return to Me

  Pilgrimage: My Journey to a Deeper Faith in the Land Where Jesus Walked

  All Things New

  Wonderland Creek

  While We’re Far Apart

  Though Waters Roar

  Until We Reach Home

  A Proper Pursuit

  A Woman’s Place

  All She Ever Wanted

  Among the Gods

  Faith of My Fathers

  The Strength of His Hand

  Song of Redemption

  Gods and Kings

  Candle in the Darkness

  A Light to My Path

  Fire by Night

  Hidden Places

  Wings of Refuge

  Eve’s Daughters

  Fly Away

  Visit Tyndale online at tyndale.com.

  Visit Lynn Austin’s website at lynnaustin.org.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers.

  If I Were You

  Copyright © 2020 by Lynn Austin. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of women walking copyright © Lee Avison/Arcangel. All rights reserved. All other cover illustrations and photographs are from Shutterstock and are the property of their respective copyright holders, and all rights are reserved. Frame © Digiselector; war planes © Debbie Firkins; countryside © Kevin Eaves; clouds © Matt Gibson; old paper © Lotus Studio; flourish © Roberto Castillo.

  Designed by Faceout Studio, Jeff Miller

  Edited by Kathryn S. Olson

  Published in association with the literary agency of Natasha Kern Literary Agency, Inc., P.O. Box 1069, White Salmon, WA 98672.

  Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

  Ephesians 2:10 in the author note is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  If I Were You is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at [email protected], or call 1-800-323-9400.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Austin, Lynn N., author.

  Title: If I were you / Lynn Austin.

  Description: Carol Stream, Illinois : Tyndale House Publishers, [2020]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019052041 (print) | LCCN 2019052042 (ebook) | ISBN

  9781496437297 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781496437303 (trade paperback) | ISBN

  9781496437310 (kindle edition) | ISBN 9781496437327 (epub) | ISBN

  9781496437334 (epub)

  Classification: LCC PS3551.U839 I3 2020 (print) | LCC PS3551.U839 (ebook)

  | DDC 813/.54--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052041

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019052042

  Build: 2020-05-26 13:00:33 EPUB 3.0

  For Ken, always

  And for our family:

  Joshua, Benjamin, Maya, and Snir

  And our two newest blessings:

  Lyla Rose and Ayla Rain

  With love and gratitude

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21
/>   Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Preview of the next Lynn Austin novel

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Prologue

  LONDON, NOVEMBER 1945

  Eve Dawson bolted upright in bed. Someone was pounding on her door. Sirens wailed outside, growing louder. Approaching. She leaped up, her instincts screaming for her to run to the air-raid shelter. But no. The war was over.

  The pounding grew frantic. She shoved her arms into her dressing gown, her limbs clumsy after being jolted awake. Her flatmate, Audrey, sat up in the narrow bed beside hers. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” Eve wove through the jumble of mismatched furniture in their tiny flat and opened the door.

  A police constable. Breathless, as if he’d just run a race. “You need to get out. Straightaway! They found an unexploded bomb in the rubble across the street. Come on, come on!” He waved his hand in frenzied circles, gesturing for them to follow him into the hallway and down the stairs.

  “I’m not dressed,” Audrey said from behind Eve. She would say that. Always the proper lady.

  “There isn’t time!” the constable said. “If that thing explodes, it will take out the entire block. You girls need to get out! Now!” He left them standing in the doorway in their pajamas and pounded on their neighbors’ door with the same urgent message.

  Eve grabbed her coat, shoved her feet into the first pair of shoes she could find. Audrey moved in her slow, deliberate way, picking through the pile of shoes by the door as if deciding which pair matched her pajamas. “Come on!” Eve said. She pushed Audrey’s coat into her arms. “I don’t want to die today, do you?” She towed her down the hall toward the stairs.

  They were almost to the bottom floor when Audrey halted. “Wait! My purse! It has my ID badge and ration coupons.” She turned back.

  Eve yanked her forward. “Forget it. Not worth dying for. I, for one, would like to live!” She remembered the tiny baby, growing in secret inside her, and for the first time she wanted her child to live, too.

  A blast of cold air struck Eve when she opened the front door, blowing through her unbuttoned coat and thin pajama pants, making her shiver. The dawning sun peeked below the clouds, offering no warmth. Across the street, a team of soldiers moved through the rubble of stones and bricks as if walking on eggshells. Workers had been clearing it for the past week, starting early every morning. Eve shivered again. The UXB could have exploded anytime.

  “This way . . . this way,” the constables urged. “Quickly, now. Keep moving.” They herded everyone down the street, away from the bomb site. Bewildered people poured from neighboring buildings to flee alongside them. Eve recalled those terrible months of the Blitz. The panicked sprints to air-raid shelters while sirens wailed. Stumbling along in the dark of the blackout. But the war had ended three months ago.

  “I thought we’d never have to run from bombs again,” Audrey said. “I thought we didn’t have to fear for our lives anymore.” She was winded, slowing down.

  Eve slowed her pace to match, even though she longed to sprint. She had always run faster than Audrey. “Well, it seems we were wrong.”

  “The Nazis destroyed this block a year ago. I can’t believe that bomb has been lying there all this time, just waiting to explode.”

  “Shows how fragile life can be.” It was one of the many lessons Eve had learned during the war. Loved ones could be alive one moment and gone the next. And didn’t this fragile child inside her deserve a chance to live, too? As soon as they allowed her to go home, she would throw away the address for the back-lane doctor willing to do the procedure. Or maybe the UXB would incinerate his name along with everything else. Maybe this was a sign from God—or whoever directed things—that this was what she should do.

  They reached the end of their block. Another constable pointed across the street to a church that had served as a shelter during the Blitz. They scrambled down the stone stairs, huddling inside the crypt with hundreds of other people in pajamas and dressing gowns, waiting for experts to defuse the bomb. Eve had plenty of time to think of all the things she wished she’d rescued. Audrey was right about needing her purse. It was going to be a huge bother replacing all her ID cards and ration books.

  “What time is it?” Audrey asked. “We’ll be late for work. Do you think the church will let us use the telephone so we can call and explain?”

  Eve looked at her watch, a present from Alfie. “It’s too early to call. Not even seven yet. Honestly, Audrey, you worry about the dumbest things.” Eve wore the watch all the time, even to bed at night. If the UXB did go off, at least she had one thing to remember him by.

  Audrey inched closer, leaning in, lowering her voice. “Eve, listen. I need to tell you a secret.”

  Eve hid a smile. It was so like Audrey to be so serious, so dramatic.

  “Should I cross my heart and swear on my life not to tell?” Eve asked.

  Audrey didn’t smile. “I think I’m pregnant.”

  Eve barely stopped herself from saying, I’m pregnant, too. They had done everything else together these past six years, so of course, why not have babies together? Except that Audrey had a husband and Eve didn’t. “Congratulations,” she managed to say, hugging her.

  “I haven’t written to tell Robert yet. I’m afraid to. It was an accident. We took precautions . . .”

  “He’ll be happy, just the same,” she said, squeezing Audrey’s hands. “Especially if it’s a boy. Doesn’t every man want a son?” She remembered, too late, how Audrey’s father doted on his son, ignoring his daughter all these years. She wished she had bitten her tongue.

  Audrey didn’t seem to hear her as she continued on. “This morning, with this bomb—I realized how badly I want to stay safe from now on. We risked our lives so many times during the war, and it didn’t seem to matter because nobody knew what tomorrow would bring, whether we would live or die, or if the Nazis would pour across the channel and murder us. But the war is over and Robert is safe, and I want to stay safe, too, until it’s time to move to America to be with him. I want our baby to be safe.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m leaving London. I’m going home to Wellingford Hall.”

  Eve took a moment to respond. “What about your job? And our flat?”

  “I’ll give them my notice. Today, even. You won’t have any problem finding a new flatmate.”

  It would happen, eventually. Eve knew that once the mountains of paperwork were sorted, Audrey would leave England and follow her GI husband to his home in America. This bomb that had dropped into their lives was an omen of change. For both of them.

  “I’m going to miss you, Eve,” Audrey said.

  “Me, too.” Eve would be alone again. Alone to cope with all the decisions and changes that a fatherless baby would bring. Why had she dared to believe that Audrey would always be by her side? That Audrey would always need her?

  Three long hours later, they climbed the stairs from the crypt, the UXB safely defused, the area searched for more hidden dangers. “I feel like a fool wearing only pajamas,” Audrey said as they emerged onto the street.

  “We aren’t the only ones.” Eve gestured to the other shivering people scurrying home beneath gray November skies.

  Audrey hurried inside their building as soon as they reached the front door, but Eve paused for a moment to stare across the street at the familiar pile of rubble. The police and soldiers were leaving, and workmen climbed among the bricks again with their shovels and barrows. It chilled her to think that something so deadly lay hidden while she went about her everyday life. The UXB might have exploded any second, obliterating her
and everything she owned. How many more hidden dangers lay ahead in her path?

  Audrey would go home to Wellingford Hall and then make a new home in America with her husband and child. But where was home for Eve? If she kept her child, where would they live? How would they survive? Eve knew what it was like to grow up without a father.

  One day at a time, she told herself. She had survived the war that way. One day at a time.

  1

  USA, 1950

  She lay in a lounge chair beside her mother-in-law’s swimming pool, reveling in the warmth of the summer sun. The clear water reflected blue sky and cottony clouds—until four-year-old Robbie leaped into it with a shout, shattering the tranquil surface and splashing her with icy droplets. “Come in, Mommy. The water is warm!”

  “Not right now, love. Maybe later.” She wiped her sunglasses and opened her Life magazine, content to lounge in the sun’s drowsy heat.

  Someone called her name. “Miss Audrey?” She swiveled to see her mother-in-law’s maid hurrying from the house. “Miss Audrey? Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but you better come on inside.”

  “What’s wrong, Nell?”

  Robbie leaped into the pool again with another resounding splash, showering them both. The maid didn’t seem to feel the cold spray.

  “There’s a woman at the door, says she’s you. Even talks like you. Has a little boy and a whole pile of suitcases with her.”

  “What?” She scrambled up from the lounge chair, wrapping a towel around herself as if it could shield her.

  “Yes, ma’am. She says she’s Audrey Barrett and the little boy is the missus’s grandson. Says we’re expecting her.”

  Oh no! No, no, no! Fear tingled down her spine and raised the hair on her arms. The same stunned feeling that came seconds after a bomb detonated. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

  “Didn’t know what to do,” Nell said, “so I say for her and the boy to come inside and wait.”

  Her heart hammered against her ribs. She swallowed and finally found her voice. “I’ll talk to her, Nell. Will you get Robbie out of the pool and bring him inside?”