“Well,” he finally said in a quiet, low tone I’d never heard before, “I’m pretty sure that as long as there’s hope, I’d wait forever.”

It was the catch in his voice, right at the end of the sentence, that changed my mind about the whole thing. Josh was not an emotional guy. He was the kind of guy who, during father-daughter wedding dances, took the opportunity to go to the bar for another beer. He didn’t see the point to musical theater and could barely be bothered to buy Christmas presents, let alone Mother’s Day cards or flowers. If he was willing to let his emotions for Mia show, then he was deeper in love than I’d realized. And since Josh was my friend, I needed to do what I could to help.

*   *   *

Ten seconds after telling Josh I’d talk to Mia for him, I desperately wanted to run after him, to tell him I’d changed my mind, to say I’d temporarily lost all impulse control and could we forget that I’d ever volunteered to intervene in his love life?

But instead of any of that, I sighed and went into my office to eat my sandwich and small bag of potato chips as I prepared for the Friends’ meeting. For a change, the meeting went smoothly and even finished on time, primarily because the long-running Friends’ president, Denise Slade, was out of town. I commended the vice president on a well-run meeting and headed down the stairs and back to my office with the full intent of magically figuring out a way to staff the bookmobile’s expanded schedule.

“There you are.” Tabitha popped out of the reading room. “They said you were upstairs, so I’ve been lying in wait for you.”

I looked left and right and saw no one. Still, I kept my voice quiet as I said, “Camille did a search on Bob Bernier.”

“And?” Tabitha asked. “Don’t leave me hanging, missy.”

“Right. From what she found, he had a great military career. Lots of promotions, lots of moving around. But here’s the thing; he’s never been married.”

“Never?” Tabitha squinted at me, frowning. “Not married young and divorced?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t seem like it. No engagement or wedding announcements in the paper. And my local source for that age group doesn’t remember him getting married, either.”

“Interesting.” Tabitha tapped her chin. “And curious. But I wonder what percentage of career military never get married, and how that differs from the general population.” She looked thoughtful. “I have a friend who works for Veterans Affairs. I’ll ask him if there are statistics we can get.”