by Lori Ryan
And then he saw Diya. She came from behind Sam and walked toward her, hatred etched into her face. Anger burning through every part of her being. Logan screamed at Sam to duck, but she only looked at him with confusion on her face. He could almost see her expression morph from confusion to understanding to fear and disbelief as it dawned on her that he was waving to her to duck.
Diya raised her arm, the weapon in her hand apparent. Logan had drawn his weapon several steps back, but Sam was between him and Diya. She ran toward Logan as though she might outrun what was about to happen, but she went no more than a step. Then her body pitched forward violently. He reached for her as she fell, hearing the report of the gun shots Diya had fired. Sam fell into his arms as he raised his gun and fired off three rounds. Diya fell.
Chad stood over them as Logan bent to Sam. He could hear her gasping for air and he ran his hands over her. Where was she hit? Where had Diya gotten her?
Then Logan realized, she was wearing the coat Jack got her. If the bullets hit her in her torso, she was protected. His eyes scanned her. He felt her back, the backs of her legs. No blood. She was gulping for air.
“I know it hurts, Sam. Try to slow your breathing. Feels like you were hit with a sledgehammer, doesn’t it?” he asked as he used his tone to try to soothe her. He knew what it felt like to take a bullet through a vest and he figured she’d taken at least one, if not more. Diya had gotten four shots off, so Sam might have been hit multiple times. They wouldn’t know until they examined her coat for damage.
“Just keep breathing. It hurts like hell, and you’ll be sore and bruised, but you’re alive. You’re all right.”
She looked up at him with eyes rounded in fear and he wanted to make everything all right for her. He held her close, but made sure his arms didn’t pull too tightly. He didn’t want to hurt her any more. But hell, his heart hurt, just ached at the thought that he might have lost her. He kept running his fingers over her face and telling her she was safe. He had her. He would protect her.
Chapter Thirty-six
Yoshi watched as the killer took the last of his family from him. Anguish filled him as he watched Diya’s body fall, but it quickly changed to anger. This man, this American mudak, had taken everything from him and Diya. Everything they loved. Everything that mattered.
Rage filled Yoshi just as the despair of what had happened hit him. He was alone now. There was no one left. No one to call his own. No one who would love him and stand by him as his family had always done. He should have stopped her. He should have been the one to go. Diya had told him to wait for her. Had told him to stay in the car. He knew what she planned to do and he should have stopped her and gone himself.
He should have been the one to make the sacrifice. She and her family had sacrificed so much for him. They had loved him and taken him in when he’d been all alone in the world after his parents had died. Uncle Nikolai had loved him as one of his own, had raised him alongside Diya as her brother. And, he had let them both down.
Yoshi put the car in drive and closed his eyes for a moment. Saying a prayer. He whispered to Diya, to his father and mother, his uncle and aunt, to the beautiful young boys he’d known as brothers. He whispered to all of them that he would make amends. That he would make it right and then he would join them, soon.
He opened his eyes, seeing nothing around him. Seeing no one, none of the screaming people, watching Diya’s body as she went to heaven. Seeing nothing but the American and his woman lying on the sidewalk. She was alive. As Diya lay dead before him, the American’s whore was talking to him. She was nodding as if telling him she was okay. The sight outraged Yoshi. He hit the gas and pressed down to the floor, as hard as he could. The car shot up over the curb but he kept the pedal pressed all the way down.
The tires shrieked and people screamed as they passed in blurs by his window. Then the American and his whore were in his sights. Dead center in his windshield. He closed his eyes and locked his leg down on the gas pedal. His mouth formed words over and over. Words of love and family and coming home. Words begging forgiveness for his failures. Words to his parents and his cousins and his aunt and uncle. He spoke them again and again until all the noise around him ceased and the world went black.
*****
Sam looked up at Logan and tried to speak, but her back burned and her chest ached. What had happened? Was she shot? Did the coat work or was she bleeding all over the place? She couldn’t tell. She felt numb. He kept saying she was okay, but was he simply saying that to try to keep her calm until an ambulance arrived or was she really all right? Confusion swamped her and chaos seemed to be breaking out around them.
It was Diya. Oh, God, Sam had been so foolish. So naïve. She thought she could handle everything on her own.
“Logan!” Chad’s warning bark from across the street came at the same time that Sam heard even more shouting from people on the street. The squeal of tires and Logan’s big body tossing her. Nothing made any sense. She saw Chad’s face gripped in horror. That look on his face scared her. Then Sam felt nothing but slicing pain through the back of her head and the world washed away at the edges. The world washed away and blackness took its place. Cold, empty blackness.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“Logan?” Sam tried to push the word through her lips but everything seemed foggy and thick. She wasn’t sure if she was opening her mouth and speaking or if she was only calling for Logan in her mind.
“Do you know your name? Can you tell me who you are?” Sam didn’t know who was speaking to her.
“Can you tell me where you are? Do you know where you are?”
“On the count of three.” They were words from someone else she didn’t know. Then a three count and her body was rolled to one side.
“And, roll.” She was rolled the other way. She tried to move, but felt straps clamp down on her arms. Her neck seemed to be braced in place as well. And then she felt the pain and a wave of nausea rolled through her belly.
“Turn her.” The voice was clipped. Businesslike. She was turned just as she vomited. Then she heard Logan.
“Is she all right?”
I’m throwing up in front of Logan. That’s attractive.
“Answer me! Is she all right?” His voice was a command not a question.
“It can happen with a head wound. Stay back, sir. Let us get her to the rig. We need to get her to the hospital.”
“I’m riding with her.”
“Are you family?”
“I’m riding with her.”
Sam heard low murmurs and she was lifted. They must have acquiesced because she heard Logan talking to Chad, telling him to follow and meet them at the hospital. Then he was there, holding her hand. She knew it was him. The feel of his large hands holding one of hers had always made her feel so small. Like a little doll.
The voices began to fade. She tried to pry her eyes open and call for Logan. She tried to squeeze his hand, but she wasn’t sure her fingers were following the instructions. She felt like they squeezed, and yet she wasn’t sure she felt his hands holding hers any longer. Where were his hands? Sam felt herself drift and let herself fall into the deep sleep that continued to claw at her. She would sleep for just a little while.
*****
Logan sat by Sam’s bed and held her hand, rubbing his thumb over her soft skin as though he might be able to will her awake that way. The doctors said there wasn’t anything wrong with her head. She should wake up and be just fine. Only, she hadn’t woken up yet. Logan thought he might crawl out of his skin sitting and waiting. He needed Sam. He needed her to wake up and grin at him and say something cheeky and brilliant and irreverent. Something utterly unfiltered like she always did.
Sam’s mom came into the room and smiled at him. “I want you to go get something to eat now, Logan,” she said. He shook his head at her.
“I can’t leave her.” Was that his voice? It sounded scratchy, like he’d swallowed glass or sand.
Sam’s mom
came over and put her hand on his shoulder. “Yes, you can, Logan. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll be right here. But Sam needs you to be strong for her when she wakes up. And, if you run yourself down while you’re waiting, you can’t be there for her.”
The door to the room opened again, letting in the telltale shaft of light from the hallway and Sam’s father poked his head in the door.
“I’ll go with you, Logan. We’ll just go right down to the cafeteria and Iris will call the minute she wakes up.”
“It’s all right, big guy,” said Sam’s sister, Rose, as she slipped in the room past Sam’s father. “I’ll be here, too. We’ll make sure she knows you’re just downstairs if she wakes up before you get back.”
Logan looked at all of them. They had no doubt in their minds that she’d wake up. For them, it was simply a matter of when. They were just letting her sleep off the injury like it was nothing. He didn’t know what it would have been like to be surrounded by this family growing up. No wonder Sam was so incredible.
Her mother squeezed his shoulder and nodded her head toward the door. “Go on, now. Just a quick trip to eat and get some coffee. And, Gregory,” she said, looking toward her husband, “get some juice in him. He’ll pass out if he doesn’t hydrate.”
Logan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’d never been taken care of like this. Sure, he’d found brothers in the military, brothers who supported him and who he would support no matter what. And they would always be his brothers to him. It wasn’t a bond that could be severed by time or space.
But Sam had such a strong cradle of family surrounding her. She was held in love and strength and comfort no matter what happened. And, for some reason, Sam’s family was offering that strength and love to him now. As though he were one of them. As though he belonged.
He rose and joined Sam’s father as they walked down the hall and got into the elevator. Gregory punched the button for the second floor, where the cafeteria was located before clapping Logan on the back.
“Don’t worry, Logan, she’s tough. She’ll be just fine. She always did like to sleep in, though. We’d go up to the lake when she was younger, and everyone would be out on the water before she’d even peek her head out from under the covers. Always did like her sleep.”
Gregory laughed and shook his head as though Sam weren’t lying in the hospital. As though she wasn’t sleeping when she should be waking up. The doctors had assured them she wasn’t in a coma. She was simply sleeping, but Logan had no idea how her dad could be so calm about it.
They exited the elevator and went to the cafeteria where Logan dutifully ate a sandwich and chugged a bottle of juice, but declined the coffee. He rose to go back upstairs, but Gregory waved him back down.
“Give her time to rest, Logan. She’s all right. In the meantime, you can tell me what your plans are.”
“Uh, my plans, sir?” Oh crap, he felt like he was ten years old and being dressed down by his dad. Only Sam’s dad didn’t seem to be judging him. Logan looked at him warily, not sure what the man wanted.
“Sure, your plans. Are you going to marry my daughter when she wakes up? You love her, don’t you?”
Logan grinned. This, he knew the answer to. “More than anything, sir. And yes, if she still wants me when she wakes up, I hope to put a ring on that finger as fast as she’ll let me.”
Her father looked at Logan for a long time, not breaking eye contact, not giving any clue to what he was thinking. Logan didn’t squirm at all. He kept his gaze locked on Gregory and let him look his fill. For once, he felt whole. He didn’t feel damaged any longer like he had when he first came home. He wasn’t broken or a danger to anyone around him. He finally felt like he was worthy of Sam
He wasn’t an idiot. He knew he still had PTSD, and that there would be some hard times ahead of them. He knew he would need Billy to pull him out of flashbacks. He knew he had a lot of sessions with Ernie in his future, but he felt somehow like he could be whole despite that. He could have a future and work through it all with Sam at his side.
Gregory nodded. “Well, good then. Let’s go see if my little girl is awake. Maybe I’ll tell her she’s had enough time to lollygag in bed. She’s got a man waiting for her.”
*****
Sam didn’t wake up. Not for another six hours and by then, Logan wanted to claw through his skin and right on out of it. Billy sat next to him, his head in his lap. The dog had alternated between sitting and calming Logan, and climbing up onto the bed to lie with Sam. As a service dog, he’d been allowed in the hospital as long as Logan was there, and none of the doctors or nurses seemed to object to him lying in bed with Sam. Logan had taken Sam’s hands and threaded them through Billy’s fur, and he would swear Sam’s eyes began to move behind her closed lids at that.
But now Logan was back to his vigil by her bedside with Billy sitting by him. Her family was coming and going, taking turns going down for food or out for a walk, when needed. They all seemed to have unflappable confidence that she would simply wake when she was ready.
Billy raised his head and whimpered. Logan followed the dog’s eyes to the bed and saw Sam watching him, eyes open and calm.
“Sam!” Logan shot from his chair and was by her side in an instant. She simply smiled up at him.
“Can you talk, Sam? Are you okay?”
“Of course, I’m okay, silly man. Why wouldn’t I be? You took care of me, didn’t you?” she asked him with such confidence, much in the same way her family had believed she would wake up. As if it was simply so.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting in the chair by her bed and raising her hand to his lips. He kissed each finger. “Yeah.”
Then he laid his head on her chest and listened to her breathe and to the soft rumble of her laughter, until one of the nurses arrived to check her vital signs.
Yeah. He would take care of her for the rest of her life. For as long as she’d let him.
Epilogue
“Is she serious?” Logan whispered to Sam, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, tugging her back to his front.
Sam nodded and murmured “mm hmm.”
“Wow.” Logan had never seen a woman on a mission quite like this. And he’d also never seen a woman deny being in labor quite so vehemently.
“The baby is not coming.” A very pregnant Kelly Bradford waddled around the room, one hand on her lower back, the other hand pointing and giving orders to those around her.
Somehow, she gave the impression of whipping around, even though her pace was slow. Her pace was also marked by the occasional clutching of her stomach as she bent and groaned, all the while denying that she was in labor. They were there with several of their friends and Kelly’s family members for a “nesting party” designed to help top off the nursery design and help the couple prepare for the baby’s arrival in three weeks.
From where Logan stood, it seemed like this baby wasn’t going to wait three weeks. Hell, to him it seemed as though the baby wasn’t going to wait three hours, but he could be wrong. He was no expert on babies.
Sam seemed to sink further back into him, snuggling in his arms and he tightened his grip. He’d never been so happy in his life. They had planned to have the wedding the following summer because her mother and sisters wanted time to plan. Sam didn’t see the need for a big wedding with a fancy dress and all the frills, but she was doing it for her mom and sisters. She and Logan had gone down to town hall and gotten married quietly. They simply didn’t want to wait. They’d never tell anyone. As far as the world would know—with the exception of the city clerk and the witnesses they’d grabbed in the hallway of the building—they would be wed the following June.
He didn’t care how they were married, just that they were. He had Sam by his side for the rest of his life.
He had resigned from Sutton Capital. Not because he didn’t love the people and the work there, but because he’d found something more important to do. Jack had approached him and told him a friend of his was lookin
g to donate a large chunk of money to fund a nonprofit. Jack was going to match the friend’s donation on the condition that the nonprofit was geared toward helping military service men and women with PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. They wanted Logan to head it up, with Ernie as the head of the counseling side of things. It turned out, Jack’s mysterious friend who wanted to donate money was Samantha. She had quite a lot of money sitting in the bank from the online games she’d designed. She was the only millionaire he knew who lived like she earned a week-to-week paycheck, the same as the rest of the world.
Thanks to her, Logan would get to help other veterans. And he would start with his own father. They’d gone out to visit him, and his dad was struggling, but Logan and he talked—really talked—for the first time in a long time. He had checked himself into an alcohol treatment facility and Logan had lined up a place for his dad to come live in Connecticut when he got out. He’d help his dad get the long overdue help he needed.
They’d found a building to house the new nonprofit and they were working on staffing it. One of the first things Logan had done was to have a plaque made, dedicating the space to Nick “Dopey” James. Logan had chosen a quote from Henry Scott Holland for the plaque:
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room… Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me… I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.