Page 91 of The Secrets We Left Behind
They both laughed, and Cate relaxed against her friend, so relieved to be with her, to have someone to care for her after everything she’d been through.
“The ambulance you saw me in was one I took from the beach when we all arrived,” Lilly said. “It had just been left, abandoned, and when I saw the keys still in it, I knew I had to go back to get the patients who couldn’t walk all that way. I couldn’t just leave them behind.”
“It seems like a lifetime ago, that day, doesn’t it?” Cate mused.
“It certainly does.”
“And what happened when you left? Did you get all those patients to the beach?”
“I did. But I have a scar to show for it.” Lilly lifted her leg and pulled up her skirt, exposing a rippling red mark that ran down her thigh. “I saw a man, a British soldier, on his own, collapsed on the road. I knew I had space for one more since Jack hadn’t made it onboard, so I stopped to help him in, and when I went to drive away, I was stopped by SS officers. There was one standing at my door just as I was about to close it.”
Cate gulped, squeezing her friend’s hand even tighter. “And then?”
Lilly sighed. “He was so close I could smell the onions on his breath, and he yelled ‘Surrender’ at me,” she said. “And when he ordered his men to leave my patients on the road, I slapped him, clean across the cheek.”
“Oh Lilly, you didn’t!”
“Oh, I did,” she said, laughing. “But the bastard pulled out his dagger so fast and stabbed me straight in the thigh, so I screamed and slammed my foot on the accelerator, flying past the other German soldiers and not stopping until I reached the beach!”
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 onlyjustwon,” 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; hehadsaid that, but hearing Lilly say it, hearing her acceptance, was what Cate had needed.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Cate, honey, you’realive. 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.”
Lilly bent over her then and they just breathed, forehead to forehead, for the longest while.
“I love you, Lil. I’ve missed you so much.”
