“Yeah, we do.” Raoul tapped his foot, praying to a God he didn’t believe in to give him a second chance. His vivid dream was still with him—her beautiful sloping eyes alight with passion, a sultry smile playing about her lips as he threatened to whip her ass…damn it, was that why he hadn’t been able to let go? Had he known, on some visceral level that she was still alive? If she was. “Come on, come on, what’s keeping him from sending that damned picture?”
An e-mail popped up in Raoul’s inbox just as the words slipped past his lips. Both men paused when they saw it was the one they were waiting for. Raoul’s hand was shaking as he clicked the button to open it. He exchanged a glance with Zeke as his finger hovered over the attachment.
“You ready for this?” Raoul asked.
“I’ve been ready for three years. I guess I just didn’t realize it.”
“Me neither.”
Raoul drew in a ragged breath and opened the attachment. As he did so he looked at Zeke, rather than the image that sprang to the screen. Zeke was looking right back at him, obviously too scared to have his hopes dashed, too.
“Together,” Raoul said softly.
Zeke nodded, took his own turn to inflate his lungs and together they looked down at the screen, from which the face of a gaunt female stared back at him. A defeated female who was a total stranger to Raoul. The disappointment was so intense that he was unsure if he could withstand it.
To distract himself, he took another look, trying to find some empathy for all this poor woman had obviously suffered. She had dull green eyes that sloped, high cheekbones that jutted, a cute turned-up nose. Raoul’s breathing hitched. He had kissed that nose more times than he could recall. She looked half-dead, haunted by a thousand demons, suffering and deprivation evidenced in her expression. But now that Raoul was looking properly, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t known her immediately.
The love of their life was alive!
“It’s her,” they said together. “No question.”
Chapter Six
“It’s her,” Raoul repeated into the still open phone line. His voice sounded as raw as his emotional state. “Where is she now?”
“In a medical facility in Israel.”
“We’re going out there.”
“No need, she’s fit enough to come home. I needed to be sure she is who I thought she was before I got her back stateside. Now that I am sure, I’ll make arrangements for her to be flown into Andrews.”
“We want to be there.”
“Understood. I’ll call you right back.”
Raoul and Zeke slumped at the kitchen table. Both of them had moist eyes. Raoul felt overwhelmed by joy, panic, but most of all, guilt.
“We let her down, bud.” Raoul shook his head. “We made a basic stupid fucking mistake. We believed what we were shown and left her to suffer in some hellhole all this time.” He crashed his fist against the granite surface. “Fuck! I hate to say it but that asshole Pool was probably right to say we were too close to her to be objective. If it had been anyone else, would we have believed that video?”
“Yep, most likely.” Zeke nodded emphatically. “Even if we didn’t, we would have known there was fuck all we could do to pull her out.”
Raoul scowled at his buddy. “You might not have been able to, but—”
“Let’s just enjoy knowing she’s alive for now,” Zeke replied in a placating tone. “There’ll be plenty of time for recriminations later.”
“Yeah, she’s alive, but has lost her memory.”
“She hasn’t forgotten our names,” Zeke pointed out. “That’s just typical of our little gal, if you ask me.”
Raoul managed a grim smile. “I can’t bear to think about what she’s been through. It makes me feel like such a fucking failure.” He raked a hand through his hair. “She clung on to our names, but shut everything else out, and yet we had no idea. Not a fucking clue. We should have known she was alive. She’s our soul mate.” He glanced at a framed picture of the three of them on their wedding day that he kept beside his computer. The guys were suited and booted, each with an arm around Cantara’s slim waist. The bride looked radiant, smiling widely as she clutched a tacky balloon she had refused to part with all day proclaiming her to be just married. “Damn it, we should have sensed it.”
“Perhaps we did, which is why we’ve never been able to move on.”
“Yeah, could be, but we never would have hung around here if we’d known she was still in Palestine.”
“Damn straight we wouldn’t have, but we can’t change the past. All we can do now is concentrate on getting Cantara home and making sure she has the very best of everything.”
“We need to find a neurologist for her. The very best there is.”
“That we can do.” Zeke stood up, pulled Raoul to his feet, and engulfed him in a man-hug. “She’s alive, bud. We’ll get her back and we’ll spend every dime it takes to get her well. Focus on that.”
Raoul slapped Zeke’s shoulder. “Count on it.”
Raoul picked up the phone and called the local airfield. “Get the plane fuelled up, Pete,” he told the guy who answered. “We’ll be taking off for a while, probably this afternoon.”
“They’ll never let us land the Lear at Andrews,” Zeke pointed out when Raoul hung up.
“No, I’m fixing to fly us into Dulles.”
“Good idea, but bear in mind they might not even let us move Cantara out. They’ll wanna hold on to her.”
“They’re welcome to try.” Raoul growled. “I ain’t leaving her. Not again. If she’s well enough to fly all the way from Israel, she sure as hell is well enough to come back here, where we can look after her right.”
“I’ll start looking for a neurologist,” Zeke said, firing up his own computer.
“When we know what specialist needs she has we can arrange for nurses, if necessary.” Raoul picked up the phone to call Dulles, making arrangements to fly their jet into the private area of the busy airport. They were given clearance to land at six that evening.
“Okay, I’ve found the guy we need. The neurologist. I’m gonna call his office now.”
“Not much point until we know when we can get Cantara to see him,” Raoul replied. “Just see how available he is. See if we can get him on standby. Don’t care what it costs.”