tightly in on the side edge of the card full of bursts of words that read like Hope’s chatter, realizing it was Hope’s handwriting, had made the bottom drop out of her world.
Thanks to Hope’s parents Gabe had known this was coming, had known what she was handing him, but his shock seemed no less great; she understood that seeing it was different than simply knowing it existed. It was the difference between knowing something in your head and in your heart.
“Two miracles in one week,” he muttered, and Cara knew exactly what he was reading, the last lines of scribbling that wrapped around the rest in typical Hope fashion; planning her writing space ahead had never been her style. The excess of exclamation points had.
Two miracles in one week, Cara!! I can’t wait to tell you! I will as soon as I can, I promise. I would now, if Gabe were only here instead of out on that damned boat.
She remembered those words as clearly as if she were reading them again now.
He lifted his gaze to her face then. Those gold-flecked hazel eyes focused on her and she fought down the instinctive leap of her pulse.
“Do you have any idea what she was talking about?”
Cara shook her head. “All I know is how excited she sounded in that phone message, the day before she…disappeared.”
He looked at the card again. Read the words again, and then again. Cara tried to imagine what it must feel like for him, to see this message from the woman he’d loved, to hold something she’d touched, after all this time.
“I’m sorry about the jab,” she said. “About you being gone, I mean.”
Gabe looked up at her, gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It doesn’t matter. I know how she felt. I got used to it.”
“I never understood that,” Cara said softly. “She knew what your career was, and yet….”
Gabe’s mouth quirked. “She wouldn’t be the first woman to fall for a uniform, and then find the reality of military life too much to handle.”
“But she loved you, not the uniform,” Cara exclaimed.
“Maybe,” Gabe said.
There hadn’t been a trace of self-pity or bitterness in his voice, only the lingering uncertainty of a man who had pondered the question for a very long time.
Cara couldn’t imagine what that was like, either, to have to wonder if the person you loved really loved you back, or just an idea you represented. She wanted to hug him, but knew quite well he wouldn’t welcome the gesture.
And knew even better that it would be the worst thing she could possibly do for her own equilibrium. Just standing here with him was taking a toll on her stability.
He looked back at the postcard once more. Turned it over, stared at the picture for a moment, then flipped back to the side with the address and message.
And then his expression changed again. Cara saw his eyes narrow. He moved the card slightly. And muttered something under his breath.
He’d seen it.
This time his gaze shot to her face. “The postmark,” he said.
“I know,” she answered. “That’s the main reason I wanted you to see it.”
“The date.”
“Yes.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. His reaction, that sudden, tense alertness, told her that her own response hadn’t been out of line.
Hope had mailed this postcard from a small mountain village that, as far as she knew, Hope had never been to or even mentioned.
And she’d mailed it on the day she disappeared.
Chapter 3
“So you don’t think I’m crazy?”
Gabe looked at the woman seated across from him. She looked like she belonged here, he thought. The little mouse was definitely gone, and this woman exuded a quiet sort of class that befitted the subtle elegance and style of the Redstone flagship.
He gave himself a mental shake; he knew he was rattled when he spent so much time dwelling on the presence of a woman he’d known for years instead of the stunning bit of the past he held in his hand.
“Crazy?” he asked.
“For thinking this—” she gestured at the postcard “—means something. More than just the post office needs a little work.”
He smiled at the quip, grateful to her for lightening the mood a bit. But the truth of what she said was undeniable, as was the weight of it. They now knew what they’d never been able to determine before, where Hope had gone that day. Or at least, the direction she’d gone.
“We never even got close to looking here,” he said, tapping the card against his palm.
“There was no reason to,” Cara said reasonably. “Hope wasn’t a mountain wilderness, back-to-nature kind of person. She never even mentioned this place, at least not to me.”
“Or me,” Gabe said.
“I…” She stopped, and he shifted his gaze to her face. For the first time he saw a trace of the old, hesitant girl he’d remembered.
“What?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d even want to know, after all this time.”
“Want to know? Whether my wife was abducted, killed or just plain walked out on me?”
The words burst from him so fervently it startled him. It had always been there for the last eight years, this gnawing question, but he thought he’d managed to successfully blunt the edges of it by keeping it buried deep.
Apparently not, he thought wryly.
“Why on earth would she have walked out on you?”
“For someone else?” he suggested.
“Oh, please.”
Cara seemed sincerely astonished at the idea, which mollified his fervor and soothed the tangled emotions he didn’t like admitting to.
“You don’t think so?” He hadn’t really been convinced himself, if for no other reason than Hope had never contacted her parents. Even knowing they wouldn’t have approved of an affair, he couldn’t picture her leaving them worrying endlessly.
“Hardly. She was foolish sometimes, but not a fool.”
That surprised him; he’d thought Cara considered Hope the feminine ideal, in the way somewhat plain girls sometimes idolized their more glamorous sisters. Not that Cara was plain, at least, certainly not anymore.
“We’d had our…moments,” he said, somewhat hastily.
“I know that. But I also know she was happy, in those last days. Very.”
“When I told her I was leaving the navy, she…seemed that way. She called it…a miracle,” he said, only now realizing she’d used the word on that postcard as well. But what was the second miracle she’d written about?
Cara gave him a look then that he couldn’t quite interpret. It seemed almost sad, although about what he couldn’t guess.
“She was happy,” she said. “I know that card seems like her same old griping about you being gone, but she really had lightened up about it, after you said you were leaving. I couldn’t believe it.”
His brow furrowed as he looked at her. “You couldn’t believe what?”
“I was…shocked. I never thought you’d really do it. I thought you loved the navy.”
Those