“Well that’s abundantly obvious,” she muttered.
“I knew your fiancé,” he said. “I was with Charlie the day he died. We were in the same unit and the day we came under fire, we lost him and four other men in our regiment.” Jack swallowed and wiped his eyes. “He’d talked about you, shown me your photo, and when he died ...”
It was like an arrow had been shot straight through her. “He’s dead? Charlie is actually dead?”
Jack reached for her, but she swatted him away.
“Yes, he’s dead. I was with him, but everything after that is such a blur, there were so many men falling, and ...”
She was barely holding it together, her fists balled, nails digging into her palms. “You took this photograph from his dead body? You thought you could steal it?” All this time, she’d known deep down he was gone, but to actually hear it from Jack was something else. It was like receiving the news all over again.
“No, Cate. It wasn’t like that,” Jack said. “He was holding it, it was the last thing he saw before he died, and when I bent down and closed his eyelids, I didn’t want to just leave it. Not when it meant so much to him. It didn’t seem right to leave it behind in the mud.”
Emotion choked her, but eventually she managed to get her words out. “You didn’t think you should have tucked it into his jacket? To leave it with him?”
Jack’s head fell. “I didn’t,” he said. “But I took it because I wanted to find you. I wanted to show your photo around and be able to tell you how he died.”
“But you didn’t,” she whispered. “Did you?”
“All those months I kept looking at your face—I would have recognized you anywhere, and when I woke up in hospital and saw you standing there over me, I thought I was dreaming.” His voice cracked.
She swallowed, her throat like sandpaper, not bothering to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“Cate, I wanted to tell you, but I was fighting for my life. You were the only thing keeping me going, my light amongst so much darkness, and then I just couldn’t. I kept thinking that if I told you, I’d take away what little hope you had, and I couldn’t do that to you. Then too much time had passed, and suddenly I just didn’t know what to say—”
“So you said nothing at all,” she finished for him.
He slowly stood as Cate watched, eyeing the door, ready to flee when he moved. It was like being stuck in a room with a stranger. But instead of blocking her as she’d expected, he turned the handle and then stepped aside.
“You can leave, Cate. I’m not going to force you to stay in here, I only wanted you to hear me out,” he said. “The truth is, I think I fell in love with you before I met you. Your smiling face was what I held on to in my darkest days, huddled in mud. Staring at it was what kept me going. But when I met you ...” His voice was ragged.
“Don’t Jack, please don’t,” she begged.
“I’ve loved you since that first day, Cate. You must know that, you must realize that what I feel for you is so much more than this photo?”
“It wasn’t yours to take, Jack,” she cried.
“It wasn’t, you’re right,” he said. “But I was the one who was with Charlie as he passed, I was a good friend, I was a good soldier. I didn’t do anything more than take something he’d shown me of his own free will. I should have told you before now, I should have at least given you the closure of knowing what happened to him, and for that I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Cate crumpled forward, gasping, tears making her shoulders tremble as she let them all out.
“I’m the same man you met in that hospital, Cate,” Jack whispered, close to her now, his hands reaching out. “Nothing has changed. Nothing about the way I feel about you or you feel about me has changed.”
She shrugged him away, but he didn’t stop, wrapping her in his arms. She fought against him, slapping at his chest, beating her fists into his shoulders, before finally slumping into him, letting him hold her, the fight within her slipping away. “You’re wrong, Jack. The way I feel about you has most definitely changed.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I should have told you, I should have been honest, but Cate, you need to hear this. He saved the lives of our friends, we both hauled them so far to get them out of harm’s way, and your Charlie, he didn’t even know the bullet was coming. He was gone before he could have felt anything, and I need you to know that.” He sobbed. “Please, this doesn’t have to change anything.”
She clung on to him, needing to be held in that moment, but knowing at the same time that she needed to leave. “It does,” she cried. “It does change everything, Jack. Because you lied to me, and you had a connection to my past that you kept hidden.”You knew Charlie—how could you have known him and never, ever said?It onlymade her feel more guilty about moving on, following her heart instead of her head. Her only relief was to hear he’d died a fast death.
“Cate, please,” he whispered, his thumb gently wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“Leave me, Jack,” she said, finding the courage to move away from him. “We have a big week ahead of us and I just want to be alone.”
He stood, hands hanging at his sides, his eyes filled with tears. And she knew, for as long as she lived, she’d never forget the forlorn way he stared at her as she backed away and then ran to her room.
Cate shut the door and curled up on the bed, her knees touching her chin as she cried like she’d never cried before. She loved Jack, she’d fallen so hard and fast for him, but like her mama always said, a man will say anything to get close to a girl.
They’re like peacocks, strutting around, doing anything to attract a female and lure her in.
