“Any chance you caught some words? Even if you don’t know what they mean, do you remember what they said?” He spoke some Russian. Maybe she heard something that would crack this wide open.

She shook her head. “I have no idea what they said when they were speaking Russian, but I did understand what they said in English.”

“They spoke directly to you?” If they knew she was in the woodbin, why didn’t they grab her?

“No. But one of the men can read and speak English, and I think the other man understood him.”

He jolted. “What? How do you know that?”

She met his gaze in the dim light. “One of them found a letter.” She paused, then added, “He read it aloud.”

“A letter? What letter?” What was she talking about?

“I wrote…you…a letter. In case something happened to me.”

“You wrote me a letter.” He shouldn’t be surprised. Seeing him again and then having the world go topsy-turvy in a lethal way was bound to trigger a need to vent. He deserved every nasty word she’d put to paper. “I hope…I hope it helped you process things.”

“What?”

“I deserve all your anger.”

“I wasn’t venting in the letter, if that’s what you mean.”

“Then what was it?”

Audrey’s hand covered his, and she threaded their fingers together, then she lifted her thermal top and pressed his palm to her belly. She moved closer, twisting to hold his gaze as she pressed his hand against her firm stomach. “Before you came to my office last month…I tried to reach you. The day before. Did you get the message from Jae?”

“Yeah. Someone from the Navy’s regulatory branch tipped you off. You knew what was about to happen.”

“No. I was happy to see you. Remember?”

“That was a front for your boss—”

She pressed a finger to his lips, even as her other hand remained entwined with his. “Shh. I mentioned earlier that if you can’t talk about what you did, then you need to listen. We’ve reached that point in this endless night—or rather, early morning.”

They’d entered nautical twilight. Outside, the sky would have lightened ever so slightly since he’d first climbed into the tent. A new day would dawn in just over an hour.

He held her gaze as he considered her words. “You have something to tell me.”

“Yes.”

She moved his hand, running his palm over her warm belly.

His throat constricted, and his own stomach seized.

All at once, he remembered her sudden nausea in the Baldwin cabin. And the way she’d desperately gobbled crackers and cheese a moment ago. He recognized the symptoms. His sister-in-law had been like that.

He knew what Audrey was about to tell him a heartbeat before the words left her mouth. He would have said it with her, but he’d promised to listen.