Читать книгу Her Best Friend's Husband - Justine Davis - Страница 7

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 Gabe only vaguely remembered the quiet, withdrawn young woman’s departure several weeks later; he’d been too sunk in his own misery to worry overmuch about hers.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