Her Best Friend’s Husband
Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

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

Epilogue

Copyright

Justine Davis lives on Puget Sound in Washington. Her interests outside of writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

Justine says that years ago, during her career in law enforcement, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was, at the time, occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job, and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard from again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington State, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?”

Chapter 1

“It’s time, Gabe.”

Gabriel Taggert looked at his father-in-law and wanted to punch him out. Which was odd, because he admired, respected, and yes, loved the man. And he would never do it, since at his own six-foot-one he towered over the slighter man.

“He’s right, dear,” Gwen Waldron said quietly, agreeing with her husband. She usually did. Not that she wasn’t more than capable of standing up for herself if she truly disagreed; it was just that the forty-years’-married couple rarely differed in opinion.

“Just like that?”

Gabe’s voice came out low and harsh, which startled him. Shouldn’t he be over it by now? They all—meaning every well-intentioned person who knew what had happened—told him it was a process that was individual, that everyone had to do it at their own pace and in their own way. But despite the platitude, he was fairly certain most of them would expect his world to have gone on by now.

“Do you think we like this any more than you do?”

For the first time the undertone of emotion broke through in Earl Waldron’s voice. Somehow that made the tightness in Gabe’s gut ease a little.

“But it’s been eight years.” Gwen put her hand on his arm then, a touch he treasured because of who she was and hated because of who she wasn’t. “You know she’d have been in touch, no matter what happened, if she could.”

He supposed the worst part of what he was feeling was the knowledge, somewhere buried deep, that they were right. He fought to keep it buried, but with both of them digging at it now, he wasn’t sure he could. The simple fact was, his wife was gone, vanished so completely that not having found a body didn’t make it any less likely she was dead.

“We’re not asking for a decision here and now. Just promise you’ll consider it,” Earl said. “Really consider it, son. We need to move on. And so do you.”

“All right.” He owed them that much, and he couldn’t help it if the words came out a little sharp.

He stood there on the deck of the hundred-and-forty-nine foot boat that was his world these days and watched them walk down the gangplank. They’d been a huge part of his life for so long—accepting him as the son they’d never had and still treating him that way, even though the link between them was gone—that he couldn’t imagine going on without them.

But then, he’d gone on with an even bigger piece missing. Not well, or with any particular grace, but he had gone on.

“Everything all right?”

The soft inquiry came from behind him, and Gabe turned to look at his friend and boss, Joshua Redstone, who was also the designer and builder of this dream ship. Gabe had been in the depths of the darkest hole when Josh had offered him the job of heading up his boat-building enterprise. And when the desk-oriented job had begun to pall a couple of years ago, Josh had seemed to sense it. He’d given Gabe the chance to be at sea again, with the captaincy of this lovely vessel, the latest and biggest to bear the Redstone name.

It was to be, Josh had told him, the literal flagship of Redstone, not to be sold as others had been, but to be kept for the use of the Redstone family. From division managers to file clerks, anybody who worked for Redstone, Incorporated and had the need would have access to the boat.

And Gabe had been among the first to learn exactly what Josh meant; the first weeklong cruise he’d captained had been for the concierge of one of the Redstone Resorts, whose husband had died in a traffic accident. She was but one of thousands of employees, and at a relatively low level on the Redstone chain, but Josh, as he always did, had heard about the death and had offered the boat to the entire family.

“Gabe?”

He snapped out of the memory as Josh gently prodded. “I…I’m not sure.”

“Were they your in-laws?” Josh’s drawl was barely discernable, telling Gabe how carefully he was picking his words. “Hope’s parents?”

“Yes.”

“Tough,” Josh said.

Gabe turned to look at his boss then. “Yes,” he agreed.

“They made a special trip out here to see you?”

Gabe nodded. And then, because no one knew better exactly how he felt, he let it out.

“They want my wife declared dead.”

Josh was silent for a long moment. If it had been anyone else, Gabe might have assumed he had nothing to say, but the head of Redstone, Inc., was never one to speak lightly or without thought. That characteristic delay—and the drawl—gave some, to their detriment, the idea he was slow or lazy. They inevitably spent time afterward musing on the cost of their assumptions.

“They want their daughter declared dead?” Josh finally said, quietly.

And there, with the insight typical of him, Josh reminded him gently that their loss was as great as his. Greater, perhaps; they’d had Hope Waldron for twenty-nine years, he for only six of those.

“I know, I know.” Gabe shoved a hand through his dark hair, realizing only after he’d done it that he’d still, after all this time, raised both hands as if he were wearing his officer’s combination cap, to be removed before the gesture and resettled after precisely an inch and a half above his eyebrows, according to navy regs.

“Old habits die hard,” Josh observed mildly, and Gabe knew he’d caught the lapse. “Old thoughts sometimes die harder.”

“How long did it take you?”

The question escaped him before he could block it. Not for anything, even to ease his own pain, would he intentionally call up bad memories for this man he admired, respected, even loved, as did most who worked for him. Josh Redstone had built an empire that spanned the globe, employed thousands, and Gabe would be willing to bet there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t walk into hell for the man. In part because they knew he’d do it for them—and had.

“I’m sorry,” Gabe began, but Josh waved him to silence.

“How long did it take me to accept that she was gone?” Josh asked. “In my head, I knew it right away. But then, she died in my arms. I felt her go.”

Gabe’s breath caught. He hadn’t known that. He’d known Elizabeth Redstone had died of cancer several years ago, known that Josh had been alone ever since, knew the common wisdom at Redstone was that she’d been his soul mate and he would never even try to replace her. But Gabe had never really thought about the details of it. Hope, he thought, would likely have had the whole story within minutes of meeting the man; she had always been good at getting people to open up.

An odd smile curved Josh’s mouth, lifting it at one corner in an expression of ironic sadness. “I never thought of that as a particular advantage before, other than being with her until the end. But from your view, it is, isn’t it? At least I knew, without doubt.”

Gabe couldn’t deny that, and instead fastened on Josh’s answer to his question. He repeated his boss’s words back. “You said you knew it in your head.”

Josh’s mouth quirked, and the steady gray eyes closed for a moment. Then he opened them and looked at Gabe. “You always were detail oriented.”

“Comes from years of dealing with politically oriented navy brass,” Gabe answered. “Most of the time what they didn’t say was more important than what they did.”

“I’m sure,” Josh agreed. And then, after a moment, answered what Gabe hadn’t really asked. “I’m not sure my heart, my gut, have accepted it yet. I know, logically, that it’s crazy after all these years, but I still catch myself expecting to hear her voice, or thinking that she’s just in the next room….”

Gabe smothered a sigh. That was not what he’d wanted to hear. He’d wanted to hear that it was over, sealed away in some silent, impenetrable place in Josh’s mind, never bothering him, never surfacing unless he wanted it to. If Joshua Redstone, one of the strongest—and strongest-minded—men he’d ever met, couldn’t get past this, what hope did he have?

“What brought this on now, after all this time?” Josh asked.

“The U.S. Postal Service,” Gabe said wryly.

Josh blinked. “The Postal Service?”

“They just delivered a postcard to Hope’s best friend. From Hope, mailed right before she disappeared. It really upset them.”

Josh let out a low whistle. “Ouch. Eight years?”

To his own surprise, Gabe had to stifle a chuckle. Josh, he knew, would never tolerate that kind of thing. Redstone wasn’t consistently in the top five highest-rated places to work because it was easy. It was Josh himself, and his reputation, that made a Redstone job among the most coveted. He hired the best, let them do what they did best, paid them well, treated them all with fairness, and mostly stayed out of their way. But above all he let them know that if they needed it, the full power of the Redstone empire was behind them.

“Why don’t you head for open water?” Josh said.

Gabe drew back slightly. “What?”

Josh shrugged. “Take her out. Clear your head.”

Only Josh Redstone would make an offer like that, to take a hundred-and-forty-nine-foot luxury yacht, complete with a media room and helipad, out for a spin as if it were a new car rather than the latest, and as yet unnamed, design from his fertile and incredible mind.

“Thank you,” Gabe said automatically, “but—”

“You saying you don’t do your best thinking at sea?”

Gabe’s mouth quirked. “You can take the boy out of the navy, but you can’t take the navy out of the boy?”

Josh grinned. “Something like that.”

Neither of them mentioned that in Gabe’s case, he hadn’t been taken out of the navy, he’d quit. Gabe knew he’d had no choice, and Josh, when he’d learned the full story of what had driven a man who’d once chosen the navy as his career to leave, had answered in the best possible way: he’d offered Gabe a way out that didn’t require him to leave his love of ships and the water behind.

“I’ve got to head back to my office,” Josh said, and Gabe knew the reluctance he heard in his boss’s voice was real. Josh was not an office-bound executive, even at Redstone Headquarters, which was as much a paragon of comfort and thoughtful design as this boat was.

“Take her out,” he said again. “Put all this on the back burner, focus on something else for a while. It’ll help you work through it, where chewing on it up front won’t.”

Gabe smiled at the rustic simile, thinking again of those who made the mistake of assuming the drawl and the down-home manner were all there was to Josh. It amazed him how anyone could look at the size and scope of Redstone and think that anyone less than a genius could have built it, but people were often ruled by their own filters and perceptions, a fact Josh frequently used to his advantage. And since his naval career had come to a crashing end because of such people, Gabe couldn’t help but appreciate Josh’s talent in that area.

“And,” Josh added as he went down the gangway steps, “if you need anything, if Redstone can help, call.”

Gabe nodded, knowing that what would have been a casual offer, never really intended for acceptance from most people, was something quite different coming from Josh Redstone. When he offered help to one of his huge family—which meant anyone who worked for and with him—he meant it.

In the seven years he’d worked for Josh, overseeing the smallest but one of the most loved—by Josh, anyway—divisions of the empire, so small it didn’t even have its own name but rather existed as a sideline of the aviation division, he’d both seen and heard of the kinds of things Redstone had done for its people. The cruise he’d captained for the bereaved family had only been the latest in a very long string of things done that Josh took for granted; if you were Redstone, Redstone helped when you needed it.

Later that morning, when Gabe stood out on deck, having let the eager young first mate take the wheel for a while—although the boat had the newer, joystick type of controls, Josh was enough of a traditionalist to have also included the wheel—he had to admit his boss was right. Being out here, on blue water with the smell of the salt air and the sounds of the sleek red-and-gray vessel cutting powerfully through the water, soothed his mind and soul in a way nothing else could.

By the time they were back at the dock and he was overseeing the cleanup and making his log entry, he was resigned. He would do as the Waldrons had asked; he wouldn’t fight them. Gwen’s pain had been too real, too palpable, and he couldn’t stand in the way of anything that might ease it, no matter how ambivalent he might be about it.

Besides, he thought, it might be a relief to him as well, when people asked, to be able to say with some truth that she was dead. It was so much more finite than “She vanished,” less painful than “She walked out on me without a word,” and certainly less uncomfortable than “I have no idea where my wife is.”

Of course, even if Hope were declared legally dead, it wouldn’t resolve anything for him. He knew too well that it would always be there, hovering, that her “death” would be of legal status only, that he would be forever no closer to knowing what had really happened. No closer to knowing if she’d had an accident, or if the worse-case scenario that haunted him was true, that she’d been murdered and dumped somewhere.

But after eight years, he’d gotten better at living with that. He’d learned—

“Captain?”

He looked up from the ship’s log entry at Mark Spencer, the young first mate he’d given the wheel to earlier.

“I thought you’d gone for lunch.”

“I was, but…there’s someone here to see you, sir,” Mark said, seeming oddly nervous.

“The Waldrons?” he asked, hoping they would understand why he’d disappeared out to sea after they’d left.

“No. A…woman.”

The way he said it, as if he’d had to choose among many descriptions, alerted Gabe. Whoever it was, she’d made an impression. Hiding the first real smile he’d felt coming on since his in-laws had arrived this morning, he stood up.

“She asked for you personally, by name,” Mark added, unable to mask the curiosity in his eyes. Gabe read the speculation there, knew what the younger man was wondering; had their reclusive, loner captain been holding out on them?

Not likely, he muttered inwardly, and the smile that threatened this time was wryly self-knowing.

“She give you a name, Mark?”

“Cara. She said you’d know.”

Any urge at all to smile vanished. It seemed his painful day wasn’t over yet.

“Where did you put her?”

“The main salon.”

“Go see if she needs anything, a drink, food,” he ordered, wanting a moment alone to deal with this next surprise.

“Already done, sir.” Mark’s formal tone told him his voice had been a bit sharp.

“Good job,” he said, careful to keep his own tone even this time.

“I’m Redstone,” Mark said simply.

That got him the smile, and it was genuine. “Thanks, Mark. Please tell her I’ll be there in a moment.”

“Yes, sir.”

The young man executed a turn snappy enough to earn him approval from any Naval officer, and left the bridge.

Cara.

Gabe sank back into the raised captain’s chair for a moment. She’d have that postcard with her, he thought. She’d expect him to look at it, read it. And for a moment he wondered if he could do this, if he could rip open those old wounds once more. If he could survive it if he did.

And then he realized it didn’t matter. The wounds had never healed; the constant dig of uncertainty had kept them open and bleeding beneath the surface. There might be scars over them, but it wouldn’t take much to tear those scars away.

A postcard would do it.

Chapter 2

Cara Thorpe, Gabe thought as he quickly finished his short log entry on the day’s cruise.

She’d not only been Hope’s best friend since elementary school, they’d been like sisters, and all the time he and Hope had been together, she’d been on the periphery, somewhere. She’d been so quiet she seemed to fade into the background, so much so that Gabe hadn’t minded much when Hope had insisted she go with them to some party, or attend a function with other people. He’d even tried to set her up with one of his buddies now and then, someone he thought might see past the quiet exterior, but something always seemed to get in the way of it actually happening.

Cara had always been bright, beneath the shyness, and she’d gone away to get her master’s degree shortly before he and Hope had married. She’d been home for the wedding, but Gabe hadn’t seen her again until after Hope had vanished. Gwen had called her then, of course, to see if she had any idea where Hope was, or if she’d heard from her. She had, in fact, had a phone message from Hope that last morning, but it wasn’t much help, only an excited promise to call her back with big news, the biggest.

The call had never come.

Cara had immediately come home to help in the search. Gabe only vaguely remembered the quiet, withdrawn young woman’s departure several weeks later; he’d been too sunk in his own misery to worry overmuch about hers.

As he rose once more and headed for the large main salon of the boat, he shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d show up now, not after being the one to receive that much-belated postcard.

Cara had likely never given up on the possibility of finding Hope alive and well. Hope had always said Cara was the most staunchly loyal person she’d ever known. That she’d often said it while pointing out how in her view that accolade didn’t apply to him was something he tried not to dwell on. Hope’s interpretation of loyalty hadn’t quite meshed with his, and certainly not with the navy’s. Which was one of the reasons, although not the main one, that he was no longer in the uniform he’d once expected to wear for life.

He slid open the large, glass door to the salon. It moved with the well-balanced, smooth silence expected on any Redstone vessel, and the woman seated with her back to him on the deeply cushioned couch upholstered in a rich, slate-gray fabric that looked like suede, didn’t turn. For a moment he stood there, staring at the back of her head as sunlight streamed in through the glass.

Had her hair always been that rich, autumn-leaves color? He remembered it as just sort of brown. Long and straight, and plain. Maybe it was the sunlight, although he’d certainly seen her in the sun before. If she’d done something more than just cut it so that it fell in soft waves just to her shoulders, it was subtle, yet made a world of difference.

And then, as if she’d sensed his presence, she stood up, turned.

And stunned him.

The quiet little mouse was gone. This was the woman who’d left Mark speechless. This was a tall, perfectly curved, vibrant, auburn-haired woman dressed in a cool, pale green that reminded him of mint ice cream. It was luscious on a hot, Southern California day.

This was a woman who looked back at him confidently with bright blue eyes that had so often avoided his before. A woman who walked toward him with an easy grace quite unlike the awkwardly tall, quiet mouse, who had always seemed to be hesitant or hasty, depending on the circumstances.

“Gabe,” she said softly as she came to a halt before him.

Had her voice always been so low and husky? Did he even know, could he even remember? She had always been so quiet, at least around him; Hope had said she talked all the time when they were alone, so he’d assumed it was just him she wasn’t comfortable around. He’d even asked her once, on one of those days so long ago, why she didn’t like him. She’d blushed furiously, said she liked him fine.

“Cara,” he said finally. “You’ve…changed.”

“Well, I should hope so,” she said with amusement. “In eight years. You, on the other hand, naval officer or not, are still tall, dark and ramrod-straight Gabriel Taggert, aren’t you?”

He didn’t smile; Hope had teased him far too much about the military carriage that had been drilled into him early on for him to take the echoed comment lightly. More than once he’d been driven beyond irritation by her insistence that he learn how to “unbend,” as if the way he stood or carried himself meant he was rigid and inflexible in mind as well.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment of silence. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You’re just repeating what she always said.”

“I know.” Something came into her voice then, a sort of regret. “I shouldn’t have said it. It took me a long time to realize she was really digging at you.”

His mouth quirked then. “Me, too.”

“I thought she was proud.” Those blue eyes, that he somehow hadn’t remembered as quite so vivid, lowered then, in a momentary reversion to the mouse of old. “I would have been,” she added softly.

The simple admission startled him, and to his surprise, moved him. “Thank you,” he said, not sure what else to say. This woman had been part of a life he’d lost long ago, yet she looked and seemed so different now that he wasn’t sure what to think of her at all.

She moved then, reaching for the small shoulder bag that matched the light green of her silky shirt. A gold chain glinted at the neckline, vanishing behind the first button. He wondered idly where it ended up, and sucked in a shocked breath as an image shot through his mind of some personal locket or charm resting gently atop breasts that were all woman.

He quashed the image instantly, feeling a bit as if he’d had a lustful thought about the proverbial girl next door. But he couldn’t deny the fact Cara Thorpe had filled out some. Nicely.

She removed something from a side pocket of the purse and held it out to him, thankfully unaware of the misfire of his imagination.

“Obviously, this is why I’m here.”

It was the postcard, he realized. And caught himself looking at it much as if it were a venomous snake he’d stumbled onto.

He couldn’t face it, not yet. So he looked at her hands instead. Long, slim fingers, neat, not-too-long nails finished with a subtle shine that spoke of care but not vanity. No ring, he noted, glancing at her left hand. Nor any sign of one that had been worn for any length of time.

She was exactly one month younger than Hope, he remembered; the two women had celebrated together at the halfway point between their birthdays every year. So she was thirty-seven now. He found it hard to believe, if she’d left mousehood behind very long ago, that she hadn’t been snapped up by some man. He couldn’t be the only one who’d noticed the curves. And the eyes. And the new, confident air.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come here, but I thought you’d want to…see it.”

He realized at her quiet words that he’d left her standing there with that damned thing in her hand for too long. He shifted his gaze to the card. The sight of Hope’s familiar scrawl, as unruly as she had sometimes been, sent a jab of the old ache through him.

With the sense that he was breaching a dam holding back a host of pain, a dam it had taken him years to build, he reached out and took it.

She’d managed it, Cara thought. He’d taken the card from her, and she’d managed to keep from touching him in the process. That was success, progress even, wasn’t it?

And for the moment, he was staring at the postcard in his hand, focused on it with that quiet intensity she’d never forgotten. She could look at him now, couldn’t she? He’d never realize, or if he did, he’d think she was just watching for his reaction.

As, indeed, she would be.

Among other things.

Because now that she was face-to-face with him again, even after all this time, there was no denying that watching Gabriel Taggert do anything was and had always been one of her favorite activities.

She wanted to laugh at herself, as she had for so many years. She’d put girlish memories away, shaking her head in wry amusement whenever she thought of him and her own silly fantasies. But what she’d been able to do before, when she’d thought she’d never see him again, seemed impossible now that he was standing in front of her, all the six-plus feet, lean muscles, near-black hair and light-hazel eyes of him.

But she had laughed, back then. What else could you do when you realized you were a walking, breathing cliché? The only thing she hadn’t been sure of was which cliché was the worst, falling for a man in uniform…or falling for her best friend’s husband.

Not that she’d ever done anything about it. It wasn’t in her. For the most part she played by the rules, and always had. She’d gotten more adventurous as she’d gotten older—oddly, her daring streak had begun about the time Hope disappeared—but the basic code never faltered: there were just some things you didn’t do.

She’d known instinctively that it wasn’t in Gabe, either, to betray his wife or his vows. Not that he ever would have for her, anyway, even if he had been that kind of man. Not for the quiet, withdrawn little girl she’d been; no man would have cheated with the likes of her.

But even if she’d been some gorgeous, chic, supermodel type, Gabe just wasn’t that kind of man. Which, she knew, had been a big part of the attraction for her in the first place.

The problem now was, all the things she’d consoled herself with for the last eight years had been blown to bits.

It was a stupid kid thing, she’d told herself repeatedly. You just wanted what you didn’t have. It wasn’t Gabe, not really. You just wanted what Hope had, not the exact person Hope had.

She’d told herself that again and again, until she’d almost sold herself on the idea.

Until now.

Uh-oh, she muttered inwardly. She hadn’t seen Gabe Taggert in years, and yet within five minutes the old feelings were as strong as ever.

At least he doesn’t know, she told herself. She was spared that humiliation. She’d done that, at least, kept her silly feelings hidden from the man she could never have.

And you’ll keep it that way, she ordered herself sternly. Hope is still here, between us, and she always will be.

She made herself focus on the present, watching as Gabe’s face, tanned and attractively weathered from years on the water, changed as he looked at the postcard. The shock she had expected; it mirrored her own reaction. The envelope it had come in hadn’t given a clue to the jolt that awaited, and the letter of apology from the U.S. Postal Service had been wryly amusing. But then she’d turned over the colorful mountain scene, wondering who had taken some long-ago vacation she was only now learning about, to see the handwriting that had once been nearly as familiar as her own. The energetic and wild scrawl had made her heart leap before she even realized why, before she saw the postmark and her mind jumped in with the explanation.

“That looks like Hope’s writing,” she’d said aloud at the time.

And then, seeing the signature crammed 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 quiet words jabbed at him. He looked down at the card, not to read it again—he already had the words committed to memory—but in order not to look at Cara and see the look he now recognized as pity, or something close enough to it that it rankled.

“I never thought you’d give in to her…whining.”

Whining? An odd word for her to use to describe her best friend’s discontent, he thought, and his gaze flicked back to her face.

“Is that what you think? That I quit because my wife nagged me into it?”

“It seemed that way.” She had the grace to look uncomfortable. “On the surface,” she added, in a conciliatory tone.

“Thanks for that much,” he muttered.

“You’re still in uniform, of a sort,” she said.

He glanced down at the red polo shirt he wore, with the Redstone logo—a graphic of the Hawk I, the small jet that had begun an empire—on the left chest. Paired with crisp khakis, just as the rest of the crew wore, it was a uniform without looking like one.

“Josh doesn’t go in much for formality.”

“I’ve read about him,” she said. “He seems almost too good to be true.”

Grateful for the change of subject, Gabe nodded. “Anybody else, I’d probably agree with you. Not Josh. He started with nothing and built Redstone the hard way, one brick at a time, with his own hands. One person at a time, with his own judgment.”

She studied him for a moment. “You’re happy here,” she finally said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “I’ve got a great boat under me, and better, I answer to a man I respect completely.”

It was as close as he’d come to the real reason he’d left the navy, and he wasn’t about to come any closer with this woman he hadn’t seen in years.

He turned his attention back to the postcard. “It was mailed at eleven-twenty, according to the postage label meter. About the time it would take to get up there if she left where we lived then in San Diego at nine.”

“And Hope rarely got herself moving to go anywhere before nine,” Cara agreed.

This third dig was too much for Gabe to ignore. “I always had the idea Hope could do no wrong in your book.”

Cara shrugged. “Time was,” she said. “But a funny thing happened. I grew up.”

Gabe’s breath caught as she put her finger on the very thing that had always bothered him; Hope hadn’t seemed inclined to do that at all. She’d wanted the carefree life she’d always had, and hadn’t been happy with one reality had presented her. But she’d been so alive and vibrant that everyone had accepted it as just part of her unique charm.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Cara hastened to add, “I love her. She was the sister I never had, and I’ll always feel that way about her.”

Gabe noticed the confusion of present and past tense, but didn’t comment; he’d felt that way too often himself to make an issue of it. And more than once, in the dark of night, he had faced his innermost thoughts, admitted to the silence that it would be easier to know she’d left him. That she’d met someone who could give her the full-time attention she wanted. At least then he could be angry, or hurt, or stir up some righteous indignation. Something. Anything.

Hell, it would even be easier to know she was dead than to live forever in this limbo.

“What about you, Gabe?”

The question startled him out of the grim reverie. “What?”

“I was surprised when I talked to Hope’s parents. I’d assumed you’d have taken the legal steps by now. To have her declared dead, I mean. It’s been long enough, hasn’t it?”

“Death in absentia?” Gabe said, his mouth twisting into a humorless smile. “A very inconclusive ending.”

“But necessary, for you to go on with your life.”

“I’m here and alive, aren’t I?”

There was pure curiosity in her look then. “But…haven’t you ever wanted…I mean, hasn’t there been someone, in all this time, that made you want to—”

“No.”

There had been, in fact, women in his life. Briefly. But when the subject of his status arose, that usually brought things to a quick end. He wondered how many of those women suspected he’d had something to do with his wife’s disappearance and had run for their lives. He couldn’t blame them, not really; too often it was the truth, and none of them had gotten to know him well enough to trust in his innocence. The fact that he’d been half a world away aboard an amphibious assault ship had been a pretty unassailable personal alibi, but there were conspiracy theorists everywhere, too many of them writing the news, it seemed.

And in the end, he hadn’t cared enough to pursue it. That part of him seemed numb, and he wasn’t sure he didn’t like it that way.

“Do you think it would be worth looking into?”

Again her question snapped him out of the unpleasant thoughts. He wasn’t usually one to get lost in his head like this, and it bothered him that he was now. It had to be Cara, he thought. Just her presence, so familiar and yet so changed, that had his mind spinning into all these old, dark places.

“Do you even want to?” Cara asked after a moment when he didn’t speak.

Her tone was even, non-judgmental, and he had the feeling that if he said no, she’d accept it. And if she thought less of him for it, she would never let it show. Not just because she’d always kept her thoughts to herself, although she had, but because he sensed the classy demeanor was real, not just a facade.

“Is it worth it?” He echoed her words, running them through his head.

“I don’t know. My first thought was to call the police. But I couldn’t drag it all up again, if it’s going to come to nothing. Hope’s parents…”

Her voice trailed off. He knew exactly what she meant, and slowly shook his head. The memory of the pain in those much-loved, worn faces made his chest tighten.

“They’ve been through enough,” he said.

She nodded. “Calling them, telling them, was so hard. They took it so hard…I didn’t know what to do. So instead of calling the police, I came to you.”

Something in her voice made his chest tighten even more. “Why?”

It was out before he thought, and he wondered why he’d asked, when in fact it didn’t really matter why she’d come here. She had, and it was in his lap now.

“Because no one has a bigger stake in this than you,” she said simply.

“Yours is pretty big,” he pointed out. “She was your best friend for most of your life.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But she was your wife. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.”

Oddly, it was her assessment of the marriage relationship that he focused on, rather than the old ache of speaking of Hope in the past tense. Interesting, he thought. And wondered again if she’d married somewhere along the line. And then, suddenly, he was asking her.

“Did you marry someone, Cara?”

She looked startled at the sudden shift. But she answered, with the direct honesty he’d always remembered, the honesty he was glad hadn’t been glossed over by the more sophisticated appearance.

“No. I was engaged. He was killed.”

In seven short words she made him regret he’d ever asked, wish he’d smothered his curiosity.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. He was a nice guy.”

He wondered if he should ask what had happened, now that he’d lifted the lid on that box of troubles.

“It’s all right,” she said, her voice still even. “It was six years ago. It’s not…raw, anymore.”

Six years. Fairly soon after Hope had vanished. Connection? he wondered. Had she gone looking for comfort and found it in some…nice guy’s arms?

None of your business, he told himself. And gestured abruptly with the card.

“I’m not sure this is enough to go to the police with, not after all this time.”

“I wasn’t sure, either,” she said. “But it seemed as if I should do…something.”

He looked again at the postmark, at the date and time that would be a marker in his life for as long as he lived. Could he really pass up the chance to get answers? Perhaps too much time had passed, perhaps nothing would come of it, but could he really just walk away, hand this card to Cara and pretend he’d never seen it, that this message from the past had never arrived at all?

He knew he couldn’t. His gaze flicked back to Cara’s face, and he suddenly knew she couldn’t, either. If he said no, she would accept it, but she wouldn’t walk away from it herself. She wouldn’t forget, wouldn’t even try. He wasn’t sure how or why he was so certain of it, but he was. Maybe he’d known the little mouse better than he’d realized; tenacity had always been one of her qualities, he thought now.

“I just don’t know what I could do,” she said. “The police, they have resources, ways of checking on things, that I don’t have.”

He wondered for the first time what she was doing these days. He vaguely remembered she’d been a business and marketing major in college, and wondered what that had translated into in a real-life career.

And then her words stirred up something in his head.

They have resources, ways of checking on things, Cara had said of the police.

…if you need anything, if Redstone can help, call.

Josh’s words echoed, and Gabe suddenly realized that while he wasn’t the police, he certainly had some sizable and impressive resources at his disposal. Maybe even Redstone Security, the much-vaunted and incredibly effective private security force that had grown along with Redstone to handle problems around the world. He’d heard stories he wouldn’t have believed were he outside Redstone, of things they’d done, operations they’d pulled off, all without stepping on the toes of law enforcement. In fact, he’d heard they were the envy of cops wherever they went, for both their freedom and those resources.

And wouldn’t it just figure, he thought, if the job he’d taken in near desperation while floundering in the aftermath of his wife’s disappearance, turned out to be the instrument of his finally discovering what had happened to Hope?

“Let me make a call,” he told Cara.

He took his cell phone out of his back pocket.

He was about to find out if all the stories were true.

Chapter 4

“Expected you.”

Gabe blinked. “You did?” he said into the phone.

“Josh said.”

St. John’s terseness was legendary at Redstone, and anyone who’d dealt with Josh’s right-hand man had had to learn to translate. But he was so incredible at what he did, so efficient, and had sources Gabe figured even Josh didn’t know—or want to know—about, that no one was about to quibble that they had to pay extra close attention to follow his extraordinary verbal leaps.

“Already?” Josh had only left here this morning.

St. John didn’t answer. Gabe supposed his comment didn’t require one; he should have known Josh wouldn’t dally if he thought one of his own might need help.

“A list?” St. John asked.

Gabe shook his head, thinking dealing with St. John as liaison was going to be interesting. Technically, his title was vice-president of operations, but anyone who’d been around very long knew there were few aspects of Redstone St. John didn’t know more about than seemed humanly possible.

“Not yet, not really. All I need right now is some info on Pine Lake, California. It’s a little town up in the San Bernardino mountains. Near Lake Arrowhead.”

“Target?”

This seemed oddly familiar, Gabe thought as he answered. “I’m trying to backtrack someone from a postcard that was mailed eight years ago.”

If St. John thought he was crazy, he kept it to himself, as it was rumored he did most things.

“Going yourself?” was all he said.

“Yes. Shortly.”

“This your cell?”

“Yes.”

Gabe stifled a lopsided smile as he stopped himself from giving the number St. John no doubt already had from caller ID. The other part of his reputation was that he had little patience for people who belabored the obvious.

“Before you get there.”

“Uh…thanks,” Gabe said, his hesitation marking the time it took him to realize St. John had hung up without another word.

“Who was that?” Cara asked.

“St. John. Josh Redstone’s right arm.”

She lifted a brow. “You look…taken aback.”

“I am,” he admitted. “He’s a little like listening to a machine gun.”

And suddenly he had it, the source of that familiarity. It had been like the old days in the navy, on war games or training exercises; the more tense or dangerous things got, the fewer words were spoken. Commands, reports, decisions, they all got shorter, sharper and tenser.

“He talks,” Gabe mused aloud, “like he’s at war.”

“Perhaps he is,” Cara said.

Gabe focused on her then. “What?”

She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug that echoed his own earlier one. “There’s more than one kind of war, isn’t there?”

Gabe thought of his own personal war, with the memories of Hope and the questions she’d left in her wake. “Yes,” he said, acknowledging her insight with a nod. “Yes, there is.”

“So, we’re going to Pine Lake?”

He blinked. “We?” He’d thought he’d just head up there, ask some questions, poke around a little. He hadn’t intended on having company.

“You did say I have a big stake in this. And the card came to me.”

He couldn’t argue with that, so didn’t try. “All right,” he said. “Let me go change clothes.”

As he went to the spacious cabin allotted to the captain of this latest Redstone boat, a space that managed to be luxurious and utilitarian at the same time, he didn’t wonder if he was going to regret this. He already knew he would.

He just wondered how much.

“Sorry for the delay. I had to leave some orders with the first mate.”

Cara, who had been standing before a glass case, studying the intricately detailed, one-eighth scale model of the boat she was now standing on and marveling at the kind of mind that could take something like this from idea to reality, glanced at her watch before she turned. It was only a little after one.

“Not a problem, we have…plenty of time.”

She thought she covered her quick intake of breath fairly well as she turned and saw him. Well enough, she hoped.

Gabriel Taggert in naval uniform had been stunning. In the more casual Redstone attire, he’d been extremely attractive.

In snug jeans and a long-sleeved dark gray T-shirt he was sexy as hell.

He frowned suddenly. Cara’s next breath caught; had he seen her reaction after all, had he somehow guessed what simply looking at him had done to her pulse rate?

“Do you have a jacket or sweater or something?”

She knew she must be looking like an idiot, staring blankly at him, but she was having trouble making the shift from contemplating flat abs and the appeal of back pockets to the mundane question.

“What?”

“It’s warm here, but it’ll be cooler up in the mountains. It’s only March, and it might be in the forties or so. Could even still be snow around.”

“Oh. No, I don’t.”

She felt even more foolish now; she should have realized a man like Gabe wouldn’t waste any time, but would want to do whatever could be done and do it now. She should have come prepared.

He turned and walked back down the hallway he’d apparently come out of. She had a moment to appreciate the view, but quickly made herself turn away, not wanting to get caught gaping at him.

But when he came back and tossed her a soft, fleecy sort of zipper jacket that had the Redstone logo embroidered on the front, it was something else that sent her reeling; it was his. She knew it was, because she could smell the faintest trace of the clean-scented aftershave she’d always associated with him.

God, you’re hopeless!

She’d meant to chide herself out of her stupid meanderings, but instead it sounded, even in her head, pitiful.

“I meant to ask,” she said hastily as she resisted lifting the jacket to her face for a deeper breath, “you were wearing the same thing as the rest of the crew. No special uniform for the captain?”

His mouth quirked. “Yeah. I get to wear a ball cap with the boat’s silhouette stitched on it.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, no scrambled eggs.”

He remembers, Cara thought with a start. He actually remembers.

It was one of her most vivid memories, that day when he’d sailed out and she’d gone with Hope to see him off. It had been only the second or third time she’d met the new man in Hope’s life. He’d been wearing one version—she hadn’t known there were so many kinds—of a dress uniform and in her ignorance of things military, she’d asked him what all the gold on his visor was.

He’d grinned at her, and explained. And she’d promptly fallen for him.

And apparently she’d never gotten around to standing up again.

“Seat belt,” Gabe said absently.

“Got it.”

Cara shifted in the seat of the low-slung coupe; the Lexus was a nice change from her little compact, and it was pure luxury to be able to completely stretch out her legs. They had decided, since he knew how to get to where they were going, that he’d drive. Once she’d seen the sleek, dark blue car, she was glad she had agreed. She wondered if he had trouble with other cars, as tall as he was.

“Nice car,” she said now. “Redstone pays well, obviously.” She’d heard that anyway, but it was hard not to comment on it when she was sitting in the evidence.

“It does,” Gabe said. “But it’s not just that. There’s another, financial benefit to working for Redstone.”

“What’s that?”

“Mac McClaren.”

Cara’s brows shot up. “The gazillionaire treasure hunter?”

“And the guy who gave Josh his start, when all he had was a pilot’s license, a design in his head and a dream. That Spanish galleon he found helped build the foundation of Redstone.” Gabe smiled. “Of course, he’s pouring money into his wife’s pet cause now. There are a lot of homeless animals eating better these days.”

“I didn’t realize he was connected to Redstone.”

“Most people don’t. But the man’s a lot more than a treasure hunter. He did that mainly to prove his father had been right about where that ship had gone down. He’s also a financial genius, and he’s at the disposal of anybody who works for Redstone. Including—” he gestured at the interior of the car, the rich leather, the polished wood “—me.”

“Nice perk,” she said.

“One of the benefits of working for a guy who makes friends for life,” Gabe said.

She looked at him curiously. “Is he? A friend, I mean? Is that how you ended up there?”

“He is now,” Gabe said, “but I didn’t even know him when he offered me my first job at Redstone.”

“How’d that happen?” she asked, intrigued now. “It’s not like you see advertisements for them.”

He chuckled. “No, Josh doesn’t have to advertise. People are lined up literally around the world wanting to work for him.”

She noticed he hadn’t actually answered her. “So, how?” she persisted.

When he hesitated, then let out a compressed breath, she knew she hadn’t imagined that he had been dodging her question.

“He’d read about the…incident that made me quit the navy. He was angry. Asked some of those friends he has about it, friends in or with connections to the military. My name came up.”

There was a flatness in his tone that made her remember their earlier conversation.

I never thought you’d give in to her…whining.

Is that what you think? That I quit because my wife nagged me into it?

“Why did you really quit, Gabe?”

“Hope, remember?” She’d irritated him now. Or he was still irritated by her earlier assumption.

“Hope was…a very social person,” she began, needing to say something, anything.

“Yes,” Gabe acknowledged. “And she needed someone who could be there for that kind of thing, social occasions. I couldn’t give her that, not the way she wanted.”

“But…she knew that, going in. She had to.”

“She thought she could deal with it.” He lifted a hand from the polished mahogany steering wheel to the back of his neck, rubbed as if it were aching. “She couldn’t. Long deployments take a huge toll. It takes an incredibly strong person to be a military spouse, in the best of times.”

“I can only imagine,” she said softly.

And strong was not a word Cara would use to describe Hope. Beautiful, vivacious, energetic, impulsive, yes, but strong? No. Not when she remembered all the seemingly endless phone calls where Hope had whined—not a flattering word, but the only one that really fit—about her husband’s absence. As if he had chosen to leave, as if he’d abandoned her intentionally.

He lapsed into silence, apparently focused on driving although traffic was light. She waited, and when they’d pulled to a halt at a stop light, quietly asked again.

“Why did you really quit?”

He turned his head. Her breath stopped in her chest. She’d never seen him look this way before. He’d always seemed intense to her, but there was something in his eyes now that made her almost afraid to move.

It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing; there was more of the military officer left in Gabriel Taggert than she’d thought. This was the kind of man who did what others were afraid to, who knew things, did things, went places the average person going about their comfortable life never had to think about, precisely because there were men like Gabe in the world, willing and able to do it for them.

It was only with great effort that she managed not to look away from that fierce gaze.

“I quit,” he said in measured tones that hinted at a lingering anger, “after twenty-three good, honest, heroic people died because some politicians—” he snarled the word “—decided it would upset the balance of power in the entire world if they were warned about an attack on them in time to defend themselves.”

Cara smothered a gasp. “They could have warned them? And didn’t?”

He looked away then, back to the front as the light changed, as if even now he was completely aware of his surroundings. When he went on, his voice was quieter, but she didn’t mistake that for calm.

“They chose not to, knowing what would happen. They didn’t just let them die, they sacrificed them on the altar of political expediency. They died, horribly, without ever knowing why.” He sucked in an audible breath. “Which may have been better than knowing the truth.”

Judging by the fact that he was still angry after all these years, she tended to agree with that.

“I didn’t know, Gabe. I’m…I don’t know what I am. Sick, maybe. That something like that could happen. Be allowed to happen.” She hesitated, then made herself ask. “The ones who died…they were your people?”

He flicked her a sideways glance. “They were navy,” he said.

The words were simple, but they spoke volumes about the man. And told her that everything she’d ever thought about him was true.

Chapter 5

“I’m sorry, Gabe. For ever thinking you’d quit your career for…anything less than something like that.”

He glanced at her again. Her words had surprised him. Not as much as the fact that he’d told her what he just had, when he rarely spoke of it at all, but she’d still surprised him.

“I would have thought you’d expect me to quit, if Hope demanded it.”

Her mouth quirked. “There was a time when I suppose I might have,” she said. “I’m not particularly proud of that at the moment. Hope’s demands seem rather petty stacked up against the real reason you left.”

That surprised him, too. Perhaps he’d gotten used to thinking Hope’s version of what a woman needed was the only one.

“So how did Redstone happen, then?” Cara asked.

He’d told her so much already, there didn’t seem to be any reason not to give her the rest. He kept his eyes on the road now that they were on the freeway, but his peripheral vision was as good as it had been in the navy, and he could see her fairly clearly.

“Somebody he knew told Josh I’d quit, and why. He tracked me down. Offered me a job running his maritime division. I took it.” She saw one corner of his mouth curve up slightly. “Saved my life, after Hope.”

He said it lightly, in an effort to negate the intensity of the past few minutes.

“I should have been in touch more, then,” she said, as if she suspected there was more truth in the words than his tone admitted to. “I was so caught up in my own grief at the time I was afraid I’d break down sobbing every time, and I didn’t think you’d appreciate a weepy woman pestering you. Besides, I—”

She stopped suddenly and looked down at her hands in her lap. He risked a glance then, and he saw that her cheeks were pink. He let a moment pass while he turned his focus back to the roadway.

“You what?”

“At the time, I’d never been in love, not really, so I didn’t really realize what it feels like to have the one person you love most ripped out of your life without warning.”

“And now you do.”

He said it softly, and it wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“Who was he, Cara?”

“His name was Robert. He was a police officer. Killed in the line of duty, during an armed robbery. He got between the robber and a little girl.”

She recited it as if it were a speech she’d memorized. He imagined it probably was; it was easier to answer the inevitable questions if you had an answer packaged and ready, one that you didn’t have to think about. He knew that from his own miserable experience.

“I’m sorry. We lose too many good guys.”

He meant it, and tried to let it show in his voice. When she looked at him, and gave him a smile he realized she didn’t think he could see, he knew she’d gotten it.

“Yes, we do. And he was definitely one of them.”

He let a moment pass, in silent tribute to a man he would never know, before he said quietly, “I wouldn’t have minded you calling, Cara. Even crying. Especially crying.”

He glimpsed her sudden, startled look out of the corner of his eye, sensed her sudden stillness. And wondered what his wife had told her that had made her assume he would want nothing to do with someone because they were grief-stricken and expressing it in the most common way.

He felt a little jab of guilt at the thought; Hope was gone, and the arrival of this much-delayed postcard didn’t change that. He shouldn’t be having negative thoughts about her. Hope hadn’t been perfect, he knew that, but he’d loved her, been captivated by her easy charm and vivacious beauty. And the fact that she had loved him had been flattering in a way, even if now he wasn’t sure exactly what she’d loved.

“I wanted to,” she admitted. “Except for Hope’s parents, you were the only one I knew who was hurting as much as I was, but I didn’t want to make it worse for you.”

The thought that she’d worried about that, even then, touched him, more deeply than he ever would have expected. Disconcerted, he seized on the first thing that came to mind.

“We can’t tell them what we’re doing,” he said. “Gwen and Earl, I mean. It may—likely will—come to nothing.”

“Of course we can’t. We have to do it, I couldn’t rest if we didn’t. But I wouldn’t raise their hopes for anything, when it’s all so…nebulous.”

Her words stabbed at him, and his voice was tight when he spoke again. “It’s new ground in the search,” he admitted. “But you’re not thinking we’re going to find her up there, are you?”

Cara blinked. “Hope? You mean…alive? God, no.”

He breathed again; he’d always suspected little, shy Cara lived a great deal in her mind, and for a moment he’d feared she might have built some kind of fantasy in her head about finding her dearest friend alive and well.

“In the beginning,” she said, in the tone of an embarrassed admission, “I wondered. I used to lie awake at night, picturing Hope living a new life somewhere, maybe with a new name, like she’d seen something and ended up in witness protection, maybe with amnesia, silly things like that.”

It was so close to what he’d been worried she was thinking he was disconcerted all over again. Perhaps he’d known her better than he’d realized.

“Not silly, under the circumstances,” he said, all the while glad she knew now the thoughts had been seriously implausible.

“I know that, now. Grief does crazy things to you. Coupled with uncertainty, it’s almost unbearable.” She took in an audible breath. “That’s why I know we can’t say anything to Hope’s parents. It’s not that I’m expecting to find her, but if we could find out what happened to her, it might…not help, nothing can, but at least they’d know.”

“Closure?”

He hated the word; it made him think of people expect you to pick up and go on as if nothing had happened once the funeral was over, because you had closure. But now he was beginning to wonder. Cara had lost someone, too, and she’d clearly managed to get past it. Was the difference just that, that she’d had closure, where he was left forever wondering?

She shrugged. “I’m not much for buzzwords like that, but there’s something to the theory, I think. Especially when it’s something like this, where you simply don’t know what happened. It’s too easy to slip over the edge and start clinging to thoughts like I had in the beginning, to slide into the madness of believing them.”

Her words hung there between them for a moment while he negotiated a traffic slowdown for a stalled vehicle on the center divider of the freeway. When they were clear, he glanced over at her.

“You don’t think the Waldrons are doing that, do you?”

“No. For all her sweet acquiescence, Gwen is a strong woman. She wouldn’t, and wouldn’t let Earl, either.”

Gabe couldn’t have agreed more with that assessment. And her easy statement of it reminded him once more of the quiet girl who would never have spoken of someone of her parents’ generation in such a way. “You’ve really gone and grown up, haven’t you?”

She smiled then, a flashing, bright expression that nearly stopped his heart in his chest.

“It happens,” she said, her tone so teasing he couldn’t help smiling back.

And just like that the mood in the car changed, from a rather edgy tension to an easy camaraderie he was thankful for; it was much easier to handle.

When they started up the mountain highway called the Rim of the World—for obvious reasons, given the curves and steep drop-offs that marked every mile—they were talking like the old, fairly close friends they’d been. He asked about her own parents, found out they were living in Oregon, where her father was headed toward a happy retirement of endless fishing and her mother was building yet another of the beautiful gardens she was known for. She asked about his father in turn, and smiled when he told her the admiral was still as gruff and feisty as ever at sixty-one, and running his staff ragged down in San Diego.

“He never remarried, after your mother died?”

“No. He says there’s not another woman on the planet who would put up with him the way Mom did. Having lived with him myself, I tend to think he might be right.”

She laughed, and an unexpected warmth flooded him again.

Strange, he thought. He never would have thought seeing quiet little Cara Thorpe again would stir up so much emotion in him. True, she’d been a big part of his life for a while, although always on the edges, and he’d accepted her at first because he loved Hope and she was her best friend. But later he’d come to like the quiet girl for herself, enjoyed trying to gently nudge her out of her shyness, to get her to open up and talk to him.

He’d seen flashes of a different Cara back then, times when she’d surprised him with a cogent, astute observation about something that had made him realize she was indeed the personification of still waters running deep. But he’d been wrapped up in first true love, and hadn’t thought much beyond that about the girl who was the quiet shadow of the lively, vivid Hope Waldron.

Cara Thorpe now would stand in no one’s shadow, he thought suddenly. Not in looks, demeanor, or personality. She—The ring of his cell interrupted his thoughts. He hit the button on the hands-free system built into the controls of the Lexus.

“Taggert.”

“Smallest village in the county. No sheriff’s substation. Two restaurants, one twenty-room motel, some touristy stuff. Post Office in the back of the general store. Same person running it for thirty years. Anson Woodruff. Town gossip. He’s there now.”

Gabe stifled a grin at St. John’s clipped, concise report, and at Cara’s bemused expression as the man’s brusque voice sounded in the car.

“Thank you,” he said.

“More?”

“Not yet. I’ll let you know.”

The click was audible as the connection was severed.

“I gather that was…the machine gun?” Cara said.

“It was.”

“I see what you mean. He’s always like that?”

“I don’t know for sure. This is the first time I’ve dealt with him at any length on the phone.”

“Surely he’s not like that in person?”

“No, he’s mostly silent,” Gabe said, still grinning. “At least, he has been the few times I’ve met him. He’s got quite the reputation for being a man of no words. So when he does talk, you’d best listen.”

“He seemed…efficient in the extreme.”

“That’s the other part of the reputation,” Gabe said. “Josh says if you ever hear him talking normally, look out. That’s when he’s the most dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Odd word for a business executive, isn’t it?”

“Not when you meet him.”

She seemed to ponder this for a moment. But when she spoke again, it was about their destination.

“We start with Anson Woodruff?” she asked.

“Seems the most logical. Let’s hope he has a good memory.”

Cara smiled. “In my admittedly limited small-town experience, it seems town gossips usually do.”

He laughed, and even as he did he marveled a little that he could, given the mission they were on.

And it was a mission, he couldn’t deny that. That he was on it with the most unlikely of people didn’t change that.

No matter how much Cara Thorpe had changed.

Chapter 6

Mr. Woodruff, as it turned out, all seventy-two years of him, had an excellent memory.

And absolutely no problem with sharing everything in it, without even asking who they were or why they wanted to know. The problem, Gabe soon realized, was in keeping him on the track they wanted.

“That was the summer the old roadhouse burned down,” he was saying now, rubbing a hand over his bald head as if it were a long-standing habit. “Never seen such a fuss, although if you ask me, it was no great loss. Place had turned into a dive, nothing but drunks and pool players every night. Firemen had to go in and pull those sorry drunks out. And we only have a volunteer fire department you know, they’re not—”

“It must have been awful,” Cara said, just as Gabe was about to impatiently yank the man back to their original question. “Was this before or after you saw Hope?”

“Your friend?” the man asked, as if it had been hours ago, not ten minutes, when they’d first come in to ask.

“Yes,” Cara said patiently.

Gabe himself was ready to snap, Yes, the only reason we came in here! but realized Cara’s approach was much more likely to be productive.

“Oh, before,” Mr. Woodruff said. “She came in the very next day. Lovely young woman. I told her all about the fire, she was very interested.”

I’ll bet you did, Gabe thought. He let Cara continue; if the old gent preferred to talk to another lovely young woman, far be it for him to interfere.

“How did she seem to you?”

“Seem? Why, a pretty young girl. Charming, just charming. She bought that card, went over to the café to write it, then came back and mailed it.”

“So she wasn’t…upset, or distraught, anything like that?”

Mr. Woodruff drew back slightly, his thick, bushy gray brows lowered. “Upset? Why, no, she didn’t seem to be. In fact, she seemed very happy, excited even. Bubbly,” he added, smiling.

That was Hope, all right, Gabe thought. Except when she was upset at his long absences, she’d always been that way.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“My memory,” Mr. Woodruff said primly, “is razor-sharp.”

Yeah, he definitely preferred talking to Cara, Gabe thought. Can’t blame the old guy for that.

Cara asked quickly, “She didn’t seem like she was unhappy, or frightened or anything?”

Mr. Woodruff frowned at that. “No, not at all. And I would have remembered, I think. I don’t like seeing pretty ladies in distress.”

He gave Cara a smile Gabe was sure was supposed to be charming in turn. The man was a flirt, Gabe realized suddenly, and had to hide a smile as his irritation vanished.

Cara chatted on for a few more minutes while Gabe inwardly laughed at himself; after eight years, he was suddenly in a hurry?

So Hope had been happy. He hadn’t been wrong about that. But they were no closer to knowing why she’d been here in this little hamlet to begin with. Or what had happened after she’d come in here, bought that postcard, scrawled her hasty, excited message on it, and dropped it in the mail.

It was very Hope-like, that after calling and being unable to reach her friend, that she would write something. She was always scribbling things down, and had kept journals she’d made him swear on his honor never to snoop into. He’d kept his word, although he’d let the police look through them when she’d first vanished. They hadn’t been much help, since they’d ended about the time she’d gotten her new laptop computer, and he assumed she’d begun to keep her journals electronically.

At last Cara bid the affable Mr. Woodruff goodbye, and they turned away from the postal counter in the back of the store. It was one of those small, old places that nevertheless seemed to have everything you could possibly need. A little expensive, although not exorbitant given what it probably cost to keep the place supplied; not a lot of variety, but all the essentials were there, from fresh produce to souvenir T-shirts to spark plugs. Gabe imagined the locals both avoided it and welcomed its presence, depending on how desperate they were to avoid a trip down the mountain road to other shopping options.

The old wooden floor creaked as they walked, and it was an oddly comforting sound. Cara paused to smile at a display of chain saw parts next to stacked bundles of kindling.

“The implication being if you buy the one you don’t need the other, I suppose,” Gabe said.

Cara grinned at that. “Good marketing.”

Gabe glanced back at Mr. Woodruff’s domain, where the man was gesturing widely as he told another story to yet another captive listener, a woman with a small child in her arms. No wonder he’d lasted thirty years there; it was the perfect venue for him to have a constant, rotating audience.

“I’m glad you thought to bring that photograph,” Gabe said as they continued through the store.

“It’s always in my wallet. I know it’s of both of us, but it’s clear enough of her.”

“Yes. He recognized her right away. She hadn’t changed much, since then.”

He didn’t point out that Cara herself was barely recognizable as the same woman.

“No, she hadn’t. Even though it’s almost eleven years old.” She paused, then said in a voice that seemed quite different, “It’s the one you took. In La Jolla that time.”

It took him a moment, but he finally remembered. “Your joint birthday bash.”

She smiled, seeming pleased he’d remembered. “Yes.”

His ship had been in port in San Diego for some refitting work, and Hope had been deliriously happy that he was going to be around for several months. So happy that it infected everyone around her, even quiet Cara, who had joined in the fun wholeheartedly when, at Hope’s insistence, they went out for dinner at Hope’s favorite restaurant. Hope had always been good at that, loved planning things down to the last detail. And she’d always been generous with her friends, Cara most of all.

He even remembered the moment when he’d snapped the shot; the two had posed at the beach park, on the bluff above the rocky, sheltered cove that was one of the seaside community’s major attractions.

It was also the day he’d asked Cara why she didn’t like him.

“I always wondered if you were mad at me.”

It was out before he thought. And Cara looked so astonished, he knew he’d been wrong about that before she even answered him.

“Mad? Why would I have been mad at you?”

“I married your best friend. She didn’t have as much time with you after that, when I was around.”

“But you included me so often,” she said, a slight urgency in her voice that puzzled him. Her next words explained the tone to him. “And you never, ever made me feel like…like a fifth wheel. I never thanked you for that. Not many men would have put up with Hope wanting me along so much.”

“I never thought of you like that, a fifth wheel,” Gabe said. “I was glad she had a friend like you, to rely on when I couldn’t be there for her.”

“Well,” Cara said wryly, “I could do that, since not much else was going on in my life, wallflower that I was.”

“You were…quiet,” he said, somewhat carefully.

She laughed, and it was a genuine one, light and pleasant. “That’s an understatement.”

“Obviously you outgrew it,” he said, that laugh making him unable to stop himself from teasing her.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant that way. You’ve really…blossomed,” he finished a bit lamely; it sounded impossibly corny to his ears.

“That wouldn’t have been hard. I was very…unsure of myself, back then.”

“I thought you were just shy. Or like I said, didn’t like me.”

“I liked you.” She looked away quickly, then back at him. He thought he heard her take a quick breath, and when she went on, her words came out quicker than usual. “Too much. I had a bit of a shy girl’s crush on you.”

Gabe stared at her. “You what?”

“I thought I did, anyway. It took me a while to realize it was mainly that I wanted what Hope had. The love, the feeling, not necessarily…the person.”

It happened so fast Gabe could barely keep up, the astonishment at her admission, and the sudden refutation of it. To his amazement, he found himself feeling oddly disappointed when she explained she’d essentially been in love with the idea of what he and Hope had, not him.

This was a revelation he didn’t quite know what to think about; he’d never thought of himself as the kind of man who needed women falling all over him. He’d wanted Hope, and he’d gotten her, and that had been more than enough, while the good part lasted. So why this sense of letdown because Cara Thorpe had decided she hadn’t had a crush on him? Especially when he’d never known she even thought she had?

“So we know Hope was really here the day she disappeared, and she bought, wrote and mailed that card the same day.”

Cara had obviously moved on, perhaps embarrassed by what she’d admitted. Since he wasn’t at all sure how he felt about it, he welcomed the change of subject.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But we still don’t know why she was here.”

“Or where to go from here,” Cara said.

“Well, if she stopped here to get and mail that card, maybe she did something else, too. Let’s ask around, maybe—”

“Hello?”

They both turned at the hesitant interruption. It was the woman who’d been after them at the postal counter. The child she held, a dark-haired little girl who looked about two, was dozing on her shoulder.

“I’m Laura Ginelli. Mr. Woodruff said you were asking about Hope Taggert.”

Gabe and Cara exchanged a quick glance. He chose his words carefully, using present tense, for reasons he didn’t stop to analyze. “You know her?”

“I haven’t seen her in years, since she stopped coming up here.”

Gabe went still. He knew Cara had picked up on the same thing he had, when she asked, “Stopped?”

“Yes. Without a word. I always thought that was strange, but she was kind of…flighty that way, my grandmother would say. No offense, if she’s related to you or something.”

“I’m Gabriel Taggert,” Gabe said, watching the woman for a reaction.

“Oh! I should have guessed,” Laura said with a flashing smile that lit up her dark eyes. “She said you were the personification of tall, dark and handsome.”

Gabe blinked as Cara laughed. “Isn’t he just?” she said to the woman.

Gabe was rarely at a complete loss for words, but he was now. Not that he didn’t appreciate the compliments, but he was never sure how to deal with such open admiration. Was he supposed to say thank you, or what?

Fortunately, Cara saved him from the awkward moment. “I’m Cara Thorpe,” she said to the woman. With a glance at Gabe, she added, “Hope…was my best friend.”

He noted the change of tense, and agreed with her; this woman obviously had no idea anything unusual had happened. Cara quickly explained about the much-delayed postcard.

“Oh, you’re the one she wrote to, then?” Laura said after marveling at the belated delivery. “I wondered who on earth she’d been sending a postcard of this little burg to, and she said she hadn’t been able to reach you by phone.”

“You seem to remember pretty well, for something so long ago,” Gabe said, careful to keep his tone merely curious.

“I do,” Laura said. “I’m good with that kind of thing, and besides, I remember because it was the last time I saw her, and I always wondered why she never came back.”

“So you saw her that day?” Cara asked. “The day she mailed that card to me?”

Laura nodded, and gestured across the street to the small coffee shop they’d noticed when they arrived. “I used to work over there, until my older son was born. Hope would come in when she was in town, for a milkshake. She loved them, and they make them the old way, with a big blender, not out of a machine.”

“Strawberry,” Gabe said softly.

“Yes,” Laura said with a smile. “Anyway, she came in for one, and was writing on a postcard. When she finished, we chatted a little, like always.”

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