The Trouble With Angels Page 0,88

following the news of Earl's death. It was as if her very heart had been ripped from her that fateful morning in June. As if her own life were over as a single bullet stole her beloved husband from her.

"I thought Ted was related to you through his mother."

"Emma was Earl's and my daughter," Catherine explained. Emma was the reason Catherine had gone on living. The reason she'd gotten out of bed in the morning and struggled through each new day. In the beginning she'd dragged the pain of the last one with her until the load became so heavy, the grief so burdensome, she couldn't continue. That was when she'd made her peace, such as it was.

"I don't know to this day if I ever recovered emotionally from losing Earl. I think sometimes we love so deeply, so profoundly, that anything else pales by comparison. It was that way with Earl and me."

"Do you still think about him, after all this time?" Blythe asked with surprise.

"Fifty years later and not a day passes that some memory of Earl doesn't come to mind. We were together so short a time. Too short."

"It must have been so difficult for you alone with Emma."

"The difficult part was that Earl was no longer with us. Anything else I could deal with or reason out, but not that Earl should die.

"He never knew the beautiful daughter we created, and I ached for Emma to remember her father. He would have been so proud of her, as proud as she is of him. Unfortunately she has no memory of him."

"But you got on with your life, you married again."

"Yes, in time," Catherine admitted, but it had taken nearly five years. She might never have remarried if it hadn't been for Frank's gentle persistence. He'd wooed her for three of those years.

Like Earl, he'd been a soldier, but the fates had been kinder to him, and he'd returned home from the campaign in the South Pacific to a hero's welcome. He'd been gentle with her, cajoling her for weeks before she'd agreed to go out with him.

Catherine never fully understood why Frank fell in love with her. She wasn't interested in remarrying, wasn't even interested in another relationship. Yet there he was, loving, gentle, eager to be a part of her and Emma's life.

By then she'd accepted Earl's death and made her peace with God. The battle had been hard won. Catherine had told God that if this was the way he treated his friends, it was little wonder he had so few.

She smiled at the memory.

"I loved Frank," she said, "not with the same intensity that I did Earl, but I did love him. A woman doesn't spend forty-three years married to a man without strong feelings."

"I don't understand why you're giving me this pin," Blythe whispered brokenly. "You said yourself you never intended to part with it."

"That's because it's the only piece of jewelry I have that Earl gave me, other than a plain gold wedding band. To this day, whenever I put on that cameo, I can feel Earl's love for me, as strong now as it was all those years ago."

Blythe tensed, and her shoulders went stiff. "I'm sorry, I can't accept this gift."

"Of course you can, child. I want you to have it. It's fitting that Ted's wife would wear it. You see, Ted was an Airborne Ranger himself for a time, like his grandfather."

"Yes, I know, but I still can't accept it." She tried to push the box into Catherine's hands.

"Blythe, it would do me a great honor if you were to take the cameo. Please. Accept it with my love and with Earl's. You're soon to be a part of this family, a very important part. This baby is Earl's first great-grandchild."

Blythe stilled, as if she weren't sure what to do.

"Recently I asked God to send the woman of his choice into Ted's life," Catherine went on to say, "and Ted chose to ask you to be his wife."

"That's because of the baby."

"I know, dear, but the baby is his responsibility."

Blythe didn't say anything for a long time and seemed to be struggling within herself. "He's in love with someone else," she admitted candidly. Her face hardened, her features went sharp and tight. "He didn't think I knew, but I'm not as stupid as everyone seems to believe."

"No one thinks anything of the sort," Catherine said sternly.

Blythe folded her hands and briefly closed her eyes. "I asked him about