Cate laughed; she couldn’t help it. “You took on a German SS officer and managed to win? I should say I can’t believe it, but somehow I can.”

“Well, I only just won,” Lilly admitted. “I still had his dagger in my leg when I arrived at the evacuation point, and if it hadn’t been for the doctors who saw me collapse then and there, I would have bled out on the sand.”

“Thank God they were there,” breathed Cate. But as glad as she was for Lilly, her thoughts turned to those for whom there had been no doctor, those who hadn’t made it. She couldn’t put off telling Lilly what she knew any longer.

“Lilly, I had some terrible news since we parted ways.” Cate swallowed as tears welled in her eyes. “Charlie’s dead, Lil,” she murmured. “I found out that he didn’t make it, I’m so sorry.”

Lilly turned and put her arms around her. “I know. There was another telegram waiting when I arrived back in London. How did you find out?”

“Jack knew him. They served together. He was with him.”

“So tell me, you and Jack . . .” Lilly whispered.

Cate stiffened. Lilly was her best friend, but she was also supposed to have been her sister-in-law, and they were talking about Charlie.

“Jack’s a nice man, Cate. You don’t have to hide the way you feel about him, not from me.”

Cate stayed silent, wrestling with her words, not sure what to say.

“We don’t choose who we fall in love with, so if he’s the one, he’s the one,” Lilly said, as if it were the most simple thing in the world. “The only thing I’ve cared about all this time is finding you, and I have a feeling I have Jack to thank for that.”

“I tried to fight the way I felt about him from the moment I saw him,” Cate said. “I didn’t want to be disloyal—”

“You’re not being disloyal,” Lilly interrupted. “Charlie always said that if he didn’t make it home, he wanted you to be happy. We both heard him say that, Cate.”

Lilly was right; he had said that, but hearing Lilly say it, hearing her acceptance, was what Cate had needed.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Cate, honey, you’re alive. That’s all I care about, and you forget that I was there, I saw the way Jack looked at you. You two were never fooling anyone but yourselves.”

Cate managed to laugh. “Thank you,” she said. “I just can’t believe you’re here, that we’re together again.”

Lilly hugged her before standing. “It’s no coincidence, Cate. I volunteered for the hospital ship the moment I found out they were planning return trips, and I never stopped telling anyone who would listen that there was a British nurse left behind.”