Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (32 page)

The next few weeks? That confused Jack. She’d said
she was looking forward to her retirement, not that it had already taken place. “Who is my contact?”

“Mark Ellis is filling in at my desk until you get back. I am officially away on sick leave, but if you have need of me, of course I’ll make myself available.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I expected you two hours ago. What extra time we had built into the schedule is gone.”

Jack nodded brusquely, turned, and headed for the door. At the threshold, her voice made him hesitate. “Choose your path carefully, Jack Davenport.”

“I always do, Melinda. I always do.”

That’s why he almost went straight upstairs to grab his go bag without detouring into the great room, but Jack was done running from Cat. She stood beside her father at the telescope set up in front of the windows. “Sorry to interrupt, but Cat? Could you join me upstairs for a couple of minutes?”

She took one look at his face and subtly stiffened. “I’ll be right up.”

Jack took the stairs two at a time, mentally dragging his feet. In his bedroom, he took his bag from his closet and set it on the bed just as she walked in. She eyed the bag, then pasted on a smile that looked surprisingly carefree. “Another meeting on Capitol Hill?”

He hesitated. “No. I’m headed west this time, not east.”

“How far west?”

Jack did something then that he had never done—he talked to her about his trip. “I’m going to Manila. A couple of our own have gone missing and it’s my job to help find them.”

Her smile faded, but the scowl he expected failed to appear. Instead, she seemed surprised that he included her. “Sounds dangerous.”

“My part shouldn’t be. I’m determined to make it a
turnaround trip and get back here as fast as I possibly can.”

Her eyes narrowed and he anticipated her next comment. “The wedding.”

“I’ll do my best to get back.”

“Cam is your cousin, Jack. Your family.”

She didn’t say “Your only family” out loud, but he heard the words loud and clear anyway. “I know. Believe me, I know, but this trip truly is a matter of life and death. Cam will understand.”

“Sarah will kill you.” Then Cat drew back, shaking her head. “I’m not telling her. You better call Cam.”

“I will.”

He reached for the touch pad on the wall that operated the bedroom’s recessed lighting—among other things—and rapidly punched in a series of numbers. A lock snicked and a bookshelf behind Cat swung away from the wall. She startled, but quickly recovered. “Of course there’s a hidden wall safe.”

Jack didn’t even attempt to hide the guns, the bundle of cash, or the three passports he pulled from inside it. It struck him that Cat had never known about the safe hidden in the house they lived in after they married. He’d kept so much from her during that part of their lives.

No more. He was done hiding from her. He added the items to his bag, then approached her. “I’m sorry. This is the last thing I wanted for us. The timing just—”

She put two fingers against his lips, her green eyes filled with sadness, resignation, and acceptance. “No. Don’t worry about me. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I said I wanted to test the waters. No strings attached, remember?”

Frustrated, Jack dragged her against him and kissed her hard and fast. “I love you, Cat. When I come back, we’re gonna talk about diving into the deep end, talk
about strings and knots and for better or worse. Now, leave a candle burning in the window for me, would you?”

Before she’d fought her way back from speechless, Jack Davenport had turned and left Eagle’s Way.

Three days before Sarah’s wedding, Cat felt more like Alice down the rabbit hole than an adult woman, an award-winning investigative reporter who supported such causes as animal rescue and wounded veterans’ charities. Here in Eternity Springs, reality had transformed into fantasyland. Alternative-reality world. What else would explain the fact that she was sitting at a table in the attic workroom at Angel’s Rest with Celeste Blessing and Melinda Blackburn—the same Melinda Blackburn who was her mother and a spy for the CIA—and they were scrapbooking?

Scrapbooking. Her. Her mother. Together. Cat fully expected the world to come to an end sometime that morning.

She’d come because Sage, Nic, and Ali were supposed to be here to work on a scrapbook of the bachelorette party to give to Sarah. Then Sage’s baby started running a fever, Gabe had a work issue come up so he couldn’t babysit the twins, and Ali needed to be at the Yellow Kitchen to take delivery on some special ingredients she’d ordered for the wedding meal she was catering. By the time that all happened, Cat was stuck.

It was a surreal sort of stuck. In all her life, she and her mother had never sat and done crafts. Never. They’d never baked cookies together or worked on school projects
together. They didn’t sew or dye Easter eggs or make sock puppets. It was just weird to be sitting at a craft table with Melinda Blackburn.

It didn’t help that this was her first foray into the scrapbooking phenomenon and she hadn’t known what to expect. Before she’d sat down to work, she hadn’t understood the attraction of the activity. Now, after half an hour of work, she would admit to finding the paper cutting machine to be a fun toy.

“Do you have any more of those cute little gold halos?” Celeste asked.

Cat fingered through her pile of paper. “I have silver.”

“That will be fine.”

Cat handed Celeste the little scrap of cardboard, and a moment later, she lifted a completed page to show it off. “Is this not the cutest thing ever?”

Celeste’s masterpiece portrayed the zip line part of the party, and she’d combined photographs with paper cutouts of mountains, trees, and animals. Strings ran from tree to tree to portray the cable, and an angel figure complete with wings representing each of the partygoers dangled from the wire. The Sarah figure wore a bridal veil, Celeste the halo, and Nic, Ali, and Cat wore horns.

Cat laughed just as a knock sounded at the open door of the workroom. Cat’s father stood on the threshold, a shipping box in hand. “Your package arrived, Mel. I knew you’d want it.”

Melinda Blackburn lit up. “Wonderful. Thanks for bringing it up, George. How was the fishing?”

“Those trout are wily little beggars.”

“That bad, hmm?”

“I’m sure the problem is with the tackle I’m using. One of your friends, Cat, Mac Timberlake, said he’d show me how to tie his most successful fly this afternoon.”

“That’s nice of him,” Melinda observed.

“Mac is a wonderful, generous man,” Celeste observed.

George set the box down in front of Melinda, then kissed both his wife and his daughter on their cheeks and took his leave. As Melinda opened her package, Celeste continued, “Eternity Springs lucked out when Mac decided to follow Ali to Eternity Springs and reconcile. Their marriage experienced some rocky times and came close to ending. It would have been such a shame for them both and for their children had that happened. They are so happy now, but it took time and effort and commitment for them to heal their relationship.”

“Ali told me about it,” Cat said. “I noticed the angel’s wings necklace she wears.”

“The official Angel’s Rest Healing Center and Spa blazon,” Celeste said.

Melinda glanced up from her photos. “Your friend Nic wears one. They’re simply lovely.”

“Aren’t they, though?” Celeste agreed. “They are a Sage Anderson design—our own Sage Rafferty—and they are fashioned from the silver that was left with the poor Cellar Bride.”

“Are they for sale in the gift shop?”

“Oh, no. The blazons are not for sale. They are awarded only to those who have embraced love’s healing’s grace.”

“Sarah told me she was so jealous of her friends when they got their medals. She said she never expected to earn one of her own … and then Cam came back to town.”

Celeste’s smile was beatific. “Sometimes miracles do happen, Cat.”

Nothing veiled about that message
, Cat thought. Looking for a distraction, she turned to her mother and was once again struck by the absurdity of seeing her
mom with a glue gun in her hand rather than a Glock. “What’s in the box, Melinda?”

“Some family photographs I had at the office. I want to include them in my scrapbook.”

Family photos from the office? On the rare occasions she’d visited her mother’s office, Cat had never seen photographs on her credenza or walls or desk.

Celeste said, “Oh, do share, Melinda. I simply adore family photos.”

Cat watched with surprise as her mother drew a tattered photo album from the box. It was the sort of inexpensive album once offered for sale in drugstores with sticky-back pages and clear plastic sheets to cover the pictures. Melinda wore a bittersweet smile as she flipped back the cover to reveal her wedding photo.

Celeste said, “Aren’t you two a handsome pair!”

“We were so young,” Melinda replied.

Cat had seen the photograph before—her father kept it on his desk both at home and at his office on campus—but she hadn’t really looked at it in a very long time. Now, it struck her just how much she looked like her mother.

Melinda flipped the page and all of a sudden, Cat was looking at her own wedding photo. She barely noticed when Celeste excused herself, saying she had to cover the front desk while her employee took her break and she’d return in twenty minutes. Cat’s heart twisted as she stared at the photograph. Girlfriends who’d married before her had warned Cat that she wouldn’t remember the moment, that the details of the ceremony and her wedding day would be one big blur in her mind. That’s not how it’d been for Cat. The important moments of that day were etched into her memory, and she could recall them today as though they’d happened yesterday.

They had eloped to Las Vegas, but instead of doing the deed at a tacky wedding chapel or even one of the
fancy chapels in a hotel, they had found a Methodist church in a residential area of town and a real, ordained minister to conduct their ceremony. She’d bought a wedding gown off the sample rack at a bridal shop and he’d purchased a tux at the mall—no rental for Jack Davenport even back then. She wondered if Jack still had that tux.

The minister’s wife had played the organ and the office secretary and youth minister had served as witnesses. At the time, a part of her, admittedly a very small part, had missed having family or friends with her to mark the event.

But it had been right for her and Jack. He didn’t have family, or really any friends outside of work, and under the circumstances, having work friends at his wedding wouldn’t have been appropriate. She recalled the first notes of the bridal march and stepping to the back of the aisle. Then Jack had turned, and the fierce look of love and admiration on his face had her gliding up the aisle.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said to her as he met her at the altar. “You make me weak at the knees. If I faint, you have to catch me.”

“Are you kidding? In these heels, no way I’d keep my balance.”

They stood at the altar of a Methodist church, the minister asked them to bow their heads in prayer, and moments later, she was facing Jack, holding his hands and gazing up into his serious blue eyes. They had chosen traditional vows, and when he repeated the minister’s words, his voice rang with such sincerity, truth, and promise that she was struck by the fact that this was what the term “vow” truly meant
.

When she repeated those same words back to him, she meant them with every fiber of her being. Cat’s heart swelled with love and joy as the minister announced they were husband and wife. When, a few moments
later, he took a snapshot of the newly married couple in front of the altar with the small camera Cat carried in her purse, she truly believed their love was strong enough to defeat whatever trials came their way
.

Now, seated at a table in the attic workroom of a Victorian house in a little Colorado mountain town with years of heartache behind her, Cat stared at the photograph and stated, “You didn’t want me to marry him.”

Following a long pause, Melinda said, “No, I didn’t.”

“You never came out and said it, but it was obvious. That’s why we eloped. Neither one of us wanted to deal with your disapproval.”

She paused, waiting for her mother to speak in her own defense, but when Melinda remained stubbornly silent, Cat said, “I always wondered what you held against us. Care to finally clue me in? Wasn’t I good enough for your golden boy?”

“Oh, don’t be silly.”

Cat folded her arms as questions that had brewed within her for years demanded answers. “I’m not being silly. It’s a legitimate question. Why didn’t you want Jack to marry me?”

“I didn’t think the two of you were right for each other. Jack was committed to his career and you made no secret that you despised that career. I thought you both would be happier with other people.”

“Were you glad when we split up?”

“No. You suffered, Cathy. You and Jack both suffered, and I hated that. Once it was done, however, I hoped you both would get on with your lives. You did a good job of it. I’ve been proud of how you recovered from the miscarriage—”