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.