He doubted Elijah would ever stop. And he understood that too. That connection, once established, would not be severed. Didn’t matter if it were distance or death, the heart would never let go. For those who were blessed to know or to have known the type of love that Elijah and Beth shared, the same type of love that Logan and Sam shared, they knew it was forever.
Regardless of circumstance.
Logan’s attention was diverted when Sam moved. She walked behind Elijah, and then inserted herself between them, her arms around them both. Logan dropped his hand from Elijah’s shoulder and held Sam.
The three of them stood in silence for a few minutes and then Elijah turned to them, a gentle smile on his face.
“What do you say we get out of here?”
Logan nodded, releasing Sam as she turned toward the car.
“Can we go to dinner?” she asked, looking between the two of them.
“I’d like that,” Elijah said, his eyes meeting Logan’s.
If he weren’t mistaken, there was a measure of peace in Elijah’s eyes. And despite the tears that he’d silently shed, Logan got the impression that Elijah was breathing a little easier.
Chapter Nineteen
One week later…
Sam was sitting on a lounge chair by the pool. The temperature hovered in the upper eighties, but the gentle breeze made it bearable. She’d opened one of the umbrellas to shield herself from the brutal rays of the sun as she sat quietly. Reflecting.
That’s what she’d been doing since the moment Elijah left that morning.
He had, for the first time since they’d visited Beth’s grave, spent the night with them. They had ended up falling asleep in the guest room, Logan on one side, Elijah on the other, while she’d slept in between them.
Last night had been… God, she didn’t know what it had been but she almost felt as though Elijah was trying to pull away when for the last few weeks they’d all been growing closer. Yet last night had been emotional. Yes, that’s the word.
She hadn’t wanted him to go, but she had known at the time that he needed some space. So, she’d let him walk away. And after he left, Logan had pulled her into his arms and held her. It took her a good half hour to find the strength to pull away from her husband, but she finally managed.
At that point, Logan had gone about his day, a lazy Sunday like most Sundays, and Sam had gone to do her thing. There was no lingering tension, nothing that should’ve drawn attention to last night being any different from any other night they’d spent together.
But her thoughts drifted to Elijah. She wished he were there. She wanted him there. Even if he were just sitting in the house, reading or watching television, whatever he did on a Sunday afternoon when there was nothing on the calendar. That’s the only thing that seemed to be missing. At least for her.
“Hey,” Logan’s voice broke through her thoughts and Sam shielded her eyes as she glanced up at him. He was holding a glass of iced tea, which she took from his hand.
“Thank you.”
“What’s on your mind, baby?” he asked as he squatted down beside her, his hand settling warmly on hers.
“Elijah,” she admitted.
Logan didn’t say anything and Sam didn’t know what to say. They stared back at one another as though they were both trying to figure out what the next steps were but wanting the other one to make the decision.
Finally, Sam said, “Where do we go from here?”
Logan shifted, sitting on the edge of her lounge chair. He took the glass of tea from her hands and set it on the table beside the chair. “That depends. We need to talk to Elijah.”
“This is moving so quickly,” she told him. “It’s only been like, what, a month? But I…” Sam clamped her mouth shut, tears suddenly springing to her eyes as she realized what she was about to say.
“You love him,” Logan said. It wasn’t phrased as a question because her husband knew. He knew just how much she had come to care about Elijah.
“Yeah,” she whispered, a sob breaking free. “Does that make me a bad person?”
Logan reached for her, wrapping his big arms around her, holding her against him and Sam went freely. She grabbed on to him, holding tightly.
“I love you, Logan. I love you more than anything in the world. My life would never be complete without you.”
She was rambling, her tears wetting his t-shirt but he didn’t pull away from her.
“I know that, baby. I’ve never doubted your love for me.”
Sam released him, pushing away so she could look at him. “Doesn’t that bother you? That I said I love another man.”