by Dana Corbit
Caroline didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until a nurse passing by in blue scrubs turned to look at her.
“Excuse me,” she said with a shrug.
When the woman continued past her, Caroline straightened and started down the hall to the elevator. Once outside the hospital, she hurried to her car but couldn’t help slowing as she neared it.
Even with most of her things in the trunk, she still had two boxes in the backseat. Mostly yearbooks and forensics trophies that her mother had been storing for her in the new house’s tiny attic. The packed car couldn’t have been a more obvious sign that she was ready to run again. This time she’d been planning to run from Logan and from feelings she felt for him that were just as scary as the prospect of being alone.
But she didn’t want to run anymore, and she didn’t want to hide. At once, the thought of the four-hour drive back to Chicago exhausted her, and the prospect of returning to that dark apartment didn’t make her outlook any brighter. She couldn’t even muster any enthusiasm for her upcoming interview.
What was wrong with her? If she got this job, she would be right back on the corporate ladder, not on the bottom rung, either. She was so confused. This used to be what she wanted, but she wanted different things now, and Logan was at the center of all those things.
Unlocking her car door, she climbed inside and put the keys in the ignition, but she didn’t start the engine. If there’s no one to share it with. As Mrs. Warren’s words played again in her head, Caroline rested her forehead against the steering wheel, gripping it with both hands. The words cut her more deeply than she ever could have imagined.
She realized now that she could have all the success in the world, but it wouldn’t feel like success if she couldn’t share her life with Logan. But the damage was already done. She’d walked away from him just as his father had. She couldn’t even imagine how badly she’d hurt him. How could she ever expect him to consider building a relationship with her after that? Even if he could forgive her, and she doubted he could, he would never be able to trust her not to leave again.
Why had she realized too late that she loved him more than she loved all her big plans? And she did love him. She wanted the best for him whether or not they could ever be together.
Caroline lifted her head and stared out the windshield. “‘Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’”
It took her a few seconds to realize she was quoting a memory verse from her childhood and only a few seconds longer to place it at as part of the passage from I Corinthians Chapter 13 that Jenna had selected for her wedding. Since when did Caroline quote Scripture? But the answer to that question was as clear as the image of the man always in her thoughts and embedded in her heart.
She was changed for having known Logan. His perspective on the world was different from hers, yet it had encouraged her to examine hers. His dedication to his faith had inspired her to open her heart again to her own.
How ironic that she’d thought she was helping him when she’d first shown up at the bakery. All along, he’d been the one helping her. It had taken her a while to recognize the blessing and be grateful. Though they’d agreed once not to keep score, she still wished there were something she could do to show her gratitude.
But then the idea struck her, so perfect and so simple that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized it before. It didn’t matter whether she and Logan could ever be together again. There was still something she could do for him and for his family. She’d always been focused on her own dreams, but suddenly it had become important for her to support someone else’s.
With her decision made, Caroline turned the ignition, the wheels in her thoughts turning long before she put the car in Drive. So much would need to be done once she reached her mother’s house. Checking into ending her lease was only the beginning.
She glanced in the rearview mirror at the boxes in the backseat. Her mother wouldn’t be able to rid her attic of those, after all.
“Lord, let all the pieces fall into place,” she began to pray, “if it is Your will. Amen.”
She wouldn’t let herself get her hopes up about Logan’s reaction to her decision to stay. That was in God’s hands. Right now she could only worry about her mom’s best friend and a bakery called Amy’s Elite Treats, because for the first time in a long time, she was absolutely certain she was doing the right thing.
Chapter Sixteen
Logan took a deep breath to calm himself as he climbed out of his truck and trudged through the hospital parking lot. Glancing around, he caught sight of Dylan’s and Matthew’s vehicles parked side by side in the south lot.
Maybe they should have met at the bakery as he’d first suggested, but Matthew had been right to mention that they would want to talk to their mother about it as soon as the three of them came up with a plan. Giving the news in person was the least he could do given that he’d begged for the chance to take over care for his mother’s business, and now he needed to make them understand why he had to walk away from that responsibility.
As he stepped on the walkway leading to the main entrance, something in his peripheral vision caught his attention. At the sight of the familiar-looking car, his breath caught. Caroline? Because he couldn’t be sure it belonged to her, he crossed back to look at the rear of the vehicle, his heart beating furiously. As soon as he saw the Illinois plates, Logan jogged up to the hospital’s main entrance.
Once inside the building, he held his pace to a brisk walk, but he couldn’t get to the waiting room soon enough. He skidded to a halt when he reached it, seeing only Matthew, Jenna and Dylan sitting at the table in the corner.
It felt like a cruel joke that someone from Illinois, driving the same model of car as Caroline, would have shown up at the hospital tonight, but that only meant he was back to Plan A. He continued across the room but at a slower pace.
“Oh, Logan,” Jenna called out in a loud voice. “There you are.”
When his brothers turned back to him, wearing those goofy grins, he looked around the room for whatever they’d found so funny. Emerging from the snack area carrying two sodas was Mrs. Scott with Lizzie trailing behind her. And following those two was the woman whose face was a permanent fixture in his best dreams.
Mrs. Scott stopped so quickly that Lizzie ran into her back, and then she moved off to the side so that Caroline had an unimpaired view. He knew the exact moment she saw him because she stopped, frozen.
In four long paces, he’d made it over to her. “What are you doing here?”
She swallowed visibly and then indicated the table with a gesture of her hand. “I’m with your family.”
“I mean why are you not back in Chicago already?”
“I planned a meeting with them.”
As much as he hated looking away from her, Logan turned his head to Caroline’s mother for confirmation. “I thought I planned this meeting.”
Trina smiled and held her hands wide. “Well, isn’t this wonderful, because technically you’re both right. You both called a meeting.”
Logan turned back to Caroline. “I don’t understand.”
“This was supposed to be a surprise,” Caroline said.
“Did you decide to wait until tomorrow to go back? I know your interview isn’t until Wednesday—”
“I canceled the interview.”
He looked into her eyes for answers but didn’t find any. “Now I really don’t understand.”
“I’m not going back to Chicago.”
Logan blinked. “You’re staying in Markston?”
When Caroline nodded, his pulse raced just as it had on his jog from the parking lot. “But why?” He wanted to smack himself for asking it. Did he really want her to think he’d wanted her to leave?
“I’ve been meeting with your brothers and your future sister-in-law here about the possibility of my managing the bakery long-term.” Caroline held up her hand when he tried to interrupt her. “This
way your mother will be able to return to work in whatever capacity she is capable of. It will be good for her to know she can still be a part of the business.”
Logan started shaking his head, but Caroline continued on, as if she was determined to get her argument out before he could stop her.
“Now don’t get me wrong. The business will always be Mrs. Warren’s. I’ll run it however she sees fit. And you can pay me whatever you’re able. I’ll supplement that income by getting a second part-time job and using some of my savings.”
He glanced over to the table for assistance from his brothers, but they appeared to be having a great time watching the exchange that he clearly wasn’t winning. Finally, she took a breath, giving him the chance to get in a word or two.
“But why would you want to do this? What about your career? What about the glass ceiling? You can’t give up all of that just to work in my mom’s bakery.”
“Sure I can,” she said lightly before becoming serious. “Why was it okay for you to give up your career to run the business, but it’s not okay for me to do it?”
“A lot of reasons,” he answered, but then he found it difficult to say them to her. How could he tell her that he believed her goals were somehow more valid than his? “But mostly it’s that I can’t allow you to give up your dreams for my mother’s or even mine.”
“What if I were to tell you that I have different dreams now and that they all involve living in Markston and being near family?”
Logan tried to keep a straight face. This all sounded too perfect, and so he was waiting for the bubble to burst. “I would question your sanity.”
“Well, don’t. I am perfectly lucid.” She stopped and planted her hands on her hips. “And you know how stubborn I can be when I want something.”
“Yeah, a mule has nothing on you.” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
Caroline held up her hands as if to signify how simple the answer was. “I want to make sure that the world’s best park biologist isn’t forced to leave the beautiful outdoors, where he belongs.”
Logan could only stare at her, finally understanding that she was doing this for him. She might as well have answered his question, “because I love you.” It all became clear to him now.
“Then it’s settled,” Trina chimed in, having been uncharacteristically quiet for the past few minutes. “Can you believe these two are still arguing over who is going to run the bakery?”
Logan hadn’t noticed his brothers, Jenna and Lizzie moving closer, but suddenly they had joined Caroline’s mother and crowded around them.
But Caroline wasn’t paying attention to the others. She was still studying Logan with a perplexed expression on her face. “Wait. You said you called a meeting, too. Why did you do it?”
“Yeah, Logan,” Matthew chimed with a chuckle. “Tell her why you called this meeting.”
Dylan elbowed Jenna. “This is really getting good. We should have brought popcorn for this.”
“Glad we could entertain you.” Logan frowned at his brother before turning back to Caroline. Obviously, the others had left her in the dark about discussions he’d had earlier with his brothers just as they hadn’t told him about Caroline’s offer to stay. “I brought everyone together so I could quit at the bakery.”
Trina touched his shoulder. “Now, Logan Warren, that isn’t exactly the case, is it?” She turned her head to Caroline to explain. “Yes, he said he wanted to step away from the day-to-day operations, but he said he could continue doing all of the books from Chicago.”
Caroline swallowed, sure she must have heard wrong. “Chicago? You’re moving to Chicago?”
“There’s a good chance, anyway,” Logan told her. “I’ve scheduled two interviews for Friday.”
“But you told me you couldn’t picture yourself living anywhere but in Markston. And you didn’t want to leave your work at the park.”
Logan shrugged, grinning. “It turns out those are only a place and a job. I can live anywhere and work anywhere as long as…”
He let his words trail away as if he was suddenly aware that he’d been about to say private things in front of a crowd.
What had he been about to say? Caroline couldn’t believe her ears. Logan was willing to give up his life in Markston and the work he loved for her? She was even more convinced that she’d done the right thing by choosing to stay.
“Hey, Matthew, didn’t Haley just call to say she was being released?” Trina called out. “Why don’t we all go upstairs and collect her?”
Caroline would have kissed her mother right then as Trina led the others from the room, but she found herself rooted where she was. It was as if her whole life had led her to this spot and to the next words Logan Warren had to say.
“They’re gone.”
Her trance broken, she couldn’t help but to grin. It wasn’t exactly the dialogue she would have written in her dreams, but this was real life.
She cleared her throat, though she still couldn’t remove the thickness of emotion from her voice. “You were saying you could live anywhere as long as…”
“As long as I can be with the woman I love.”
Her breath caught as she heard the exact words that dreams were made of, that reality made perfect. Logan didn’t even hesitate. He dropped to his knee right in the middle of the waiting room. Caroline realized that hospital visitors and personnel had to be passing through the room, but she didn’t care about anything except this moment and this man she’d been waiting for all her life. When he reached for her hand, Caroline, who did nothing without a plan, offered it without a second thought.
“I’m in love with you, Caroline Scott. You’re the one. I’ve been spinning my wheels for years, going on too many first dates and not knowing why.” He smiled at her. “Now I know. I was waiting for you.”
He held her hand between his two. “The only way my life will be perfect is if you will agree to a lifetime of first dates with me. Will you marry me?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
At once, Logan was on his feet, and Caroline was in his arms. Exactly where she always should have been. When he lowered his mouth to hers, Caroline lifted up on her toes so she could meet him halfway. His kiss felt like a promise fulfilled, a prayer answered. He tilted his head and kept right on kissing her, touching her heart with every brush of his lips.
When someone cleared her throat, Logan and Caroline stepped back from each other and turned to see the crowd gathered next to the elevator. Several members of the group broke out in applause, and Matthew and Dylan started fanning themselves.
“Whew, it’s getting warm in here,” Dylan said with a laugh.
“All right. Everyone out of the way.” Trina’s authoritative voice came from behind the younger members of the family.
The others separated, and Trina stood there with not one but two wheelchairs. Matthew and Lizzie crossed back to push Haley’s chair, while Trina pushed Mrs. Warren in the second chair.
Logan stepped back but still held on to Caroline’s hand.
Once they were all together in the middle of the waiting room, Trina crouched next to Amy.
“Oh, we’re too late.” Trina snapped her fingers. “We missed it.”
“But he asked…right?” Amy wanted to know.
The side of Logan’s mouth lifted. “Yes, Mom, I asked. And she said yes. Well, sort of.”
At his sidelong glance, Caroline grinned. “Yes.”
Logan smiled back and then, stepping over to his mother, crouched in front of her wheelchair. “Are you okay, Mom? Are you sure you should be up and about?”
“Don’t worry,” Trina told him. “I got permission from her doctor. She’s going to be transferred back to the rehab center tomorrow, but I couldn’t let her miss this.”
Caroline looked back and forth between the two women. “This?”
Trina grinned. “The fruits of our labor, of course. Our third and final matchmaking p
lan was a success.”
“What?” Logan and Caroline chorused. They looked at each other in shock and then turned back to their mothers.
Her mother was chuckling, and Caroline was almost convinced that she saw the beginning of a smile on Mrs. Warren’s lips.
Caroline drew her eyebrows together. “How can that be? Logan is about the last man in the world you two ever would have chosen for me.” She glanced at him apologetically, but he only shrugged.
“That’s what we thought at first. Remember, we did try a few others earlier.” Trina shrugged as she glanced over at Matthew and Dylan. “But then we realized that nobody but Amy’s Logan would be perfect for my Caroline.”
Logan shook his head. “I don’t believe it. Caroline and I found each other. You’re just taking the credit for bringing us together.”
Trina lifted a shoulder and lowered it. “Mothers never reveal all their secrets.” She reached down and brushed Amy’s silver hair.
Then Amy surprised them by speaking up. “God does work…in myster-ious ways.”
“You’re right, Mom,” Logan told her. “And His ways are perfect.”
With that he leaned over to kiss Caroline, and she smiled against his lips. Yes. Perfect.
Caroline blotted her lipstick and adjusted her veil in the mirror and then glanced over at Jenna, who was touching up her makeup. Her gaze went to her hand, and she was still surprised to see the lovely diamond solitaire and shiny gold band together for the first time.
“Hurry up, will you?” Caroline said. “Everyone’s waiting for us to cut the cakes.”
Jenna grinned at her reflection. “Relax, Miss Type-A. Or should I say Mrs. Type-A? We’ve already made it to the chapel.”
She hummed the tune to “The Chapel of Love” until Caroline finally took a deep breath and grinned back at her.
“That’s Mrs. Warren to you,” Caroline said. “Okay, Mrs. Warren?”
It had been a whirlwind eight-week engagement to make their wedding on the last Saturday in August, but as far as Caroline was concerned, it had been entirely too long. She’d been so excited to finally be Logan’s wife.