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.”