Summer Breeze (43 page)

Fortunately, I won't have to be a spook for long. You '11 join me on the other side soon, and then we'll go
to heaven together. I swore once that I would never leave you again. I meant it. I will never, ever leave ypu,
my darling. You can go to the bank on that. And I know that God will allow me to keep that promise. I will
be the wind in your hair. I will be the bark of Buddy's great-grandson many times removed. I'll be the softness of a rosebud against your sweet cheek. I'll be the warmth of the blankets around you at night.

When I'm gone and you cry for me, dry your tears and feel my presence. I'll be right there beside you,
unable to touch you as I did in this life, but there all the same.

/
love you, sweet Rachel. I always will. My body may die, but that which is between us never will.

Your loving husband, into eternity, Joseph

The signature blurred in Tucker's vision, for he feared that he would never write such words to a woman. Maybe true love—the genuine article—had died out in modern times. Or maybe he was just unlucky. He'd never found anyone who meant a fraction as much to him as Rachel had meant to Joseph.

"Isn't that incredible?" Mary whispered.

It was, indeed, incredible. Tucker saw the proof, right there in his hand, that true love could actually happen. At least it had way back in the 1800s. Maybe women had changed, becoming more selfish and self-serving. Or maybe men had changed, becoming more focused on physical pleasure than meaningful relationships. He didn't know. He only knew that nothing so precious and lasting had ever come his way.

"When I was younger, I used to hope that your father might one day write a letter like that to me,"

his mother whispered.

Tucker turned to study Mary's sweet face. Her eyes were closed, and her smile glowed with happiness.

"But now that I'm older, with so many years behind us," she added, "I no longer need him to write the words. He loves me just that much, and I love him just as deeply. We'll go on, and one day we'll be at the last of our lives, as Joseph was when he wrote this letter to Rachel, but even though our bodies are dying, what we feel for each other never will."

Tucker had a lump in his throat. And a yearning. He'd seen his sister and brothers find such happiness in their marriages. They'd found the magic. What was wrong with him that he hadn't found it, too? Soon he'd turn thirty-fire. His good years were almost gone. God, he'd be forty before he knew it.

What did he have? Only one half of a veterinary practice. Rather than talk about that with his mother, he asked, "Do you think they're still there in Colorado, living near No Name?"

"Rachel and Joseph?"

"No, their descendants. Paxtons and Keegans. They must still be there."

Mary thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "It's a branch of our family that we've never kept in contact with, but they surely must be. People like us, who have bits and pieces of the past hidden away in their attics."

Tucker had a sudden yearning to go there—to No Name, Colorado.

Maybe there he would find the magic that eluded him in Oregon.