Wait for Me: Family Love Story in Alaska... A Christian Romance Novel with a Sidearm of Suspense (Vacation Sweethearts Book 3)

by Jan Thompson

  “Something on your mind?” Logan asked Marie at dinner.

  She hadn’t spoken a word since they sat down, and had barely mumbled amen when they said grace before eating.

  Marie didn’t answer. Maybe she didn’t hear him. Logan decided not to press. Something was clearly on her mind.

  Across the table from them, Jonas was eating chicken fingers.

  Ten thousand dollars for this trip, and all the kid ordered were chicken fingers.

  “We came all the way to Alaska for fast food,” Logan said.

  He glanced at Marie. She was smiling.

  That’s my girl.

  Logan wished he could be her confidant. He wished she would talk to him and tell him everything about herself, her life, her career.

  Three years of marriage had not been enough time for them to know each other, with Marie gone ninety percent of the time.

  Maybe this cruise ship was a second chance from God for them to reconnect, reinforce the tenuous thread that had been their marital relationship.

  For Jonas’s sake, Logan would at least try. The poor kid had spent the last three years without his mother. A phone call here and there did not a bond make.

  Logan had almost remarried for Jonas to have a live-in mother, but Lexi Parker wasn’t the one for him, contrary to what everyone else had thought. Lexi only wanted to live in his twenty-room estate and drive his car collection.

  On the other hand, Marie didn’t want a thing from him. Not a dime.

  In Logan’s heart, he knew he could only love her. However, she was so far away, so distant from him that he wondered if he had been in love with only a mirage.

  “Marie?” Logan tried to get her to talk.

  She lifted her head.

  “Are we walking tonight?”

  She halfway nodded.

  It seemed like a partial commitment, but Logan was going to hold her to it.

  Mrs. Ping had said nothing throughout much of the dinner, only paying attention to wiping specks of food off Jonas’s face.

  One thing caught Logan’s attention. Mrs. Ping grinned a lot this evening. If he didn’t know any better…

  “Have you met someone?” Logan asked her. Maybe? How would anyone know such things?

  At first, Mrs. Ping looked stunned. Then she smiled again, like a giddy schoolgirl, peeling back forty years of her life.

  “That’s wild,” Marie said.

  Her first two words after the whispered amen.

  We’re making progress.

  Mrs. Ping’s face reddened.

  “Let’s not put her on the spot.” Marie’s hand was on Logan’s arm—like she had often done when she wanted his attention at those parties they would attend in Europe, meeting diplomats, heads of state, rich businessmen and businesswomen.

  Logan glanced at her. He had no idea what was in her mind. He dared not guess.

  “Are we having fun so far, Jonas?” Logan asked.

  He felt Marie retract her hand from his arm.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have changed the subject.

  “I want to see the whales again.” Jonas pouted.

  “We saw many whales today, didn’t we?” Logan asked.

  Jonas nodded. “I want to buy a whale.”

  “God owns the whales. They belong in the ocean.” Logan realized that they hadn’t bought any whale souvenirs. “When we get to the next town, we can get you a whale cushion or something.”

  “I don’t want a cushion, Daddy.”

  “A stuffed plushie, then?”

  “Okay. Where are we going?” Jonas dipped his chicken in the little ketchup bowl.

  “I think we stop at Skagway first, then Ketchikan.”

  “Catchy? Do they have geezers there?”

  Mrs. Ping looked stunned. Marie nearly choked on her water.

  “We’ll see the glaciers when we sail through the Inside Passage,” Logan explained.

  “What are we going to do in Catchy?”

  “Ketchikan. What do you want to do? Go on a boat? Walk in the forest? See the salmon hatchery?” Logan asked.

  “That sounds fun,” Mrs. Ping said.

  Logan waited, but Marie said nothing.

  That made him wonder why.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Marie was glad for the cloud cover tonight. Otherwise, with the moon out, Logan might recall their moonlight walks just like in the days. She didn’t want him to have any idea that they were getting back together again. The last time she checked, Logan wouldn’t leave the United States, and she couldn’t leave Europe.

  “What went wrong with us?” Logan asked. His voice was as gentle as the breeze that floated across the top deck of the ocean liner.

  Around them, groups of people gathered here and there, some chatting and laughing away. Some walking, some on deck chairs, some attempting to read with clip-on nightlights. The deck below them was filled with people, both in the pool and poolside.

  Somewhere behind Logan and Marie, glass doors led to the piano lounge. Every now and then, when someone opened those doors, Marie could hear a jazzy number.

  She drew a deep breath of the Alaskan air. It was a cool June evening. She had buttoned up her cardigan before they left the dining room.

  If not for the company, it would have been just another evening out at sea.

  What went wrong with us?

  Logan’s question hung in the air.

  “I can’t remember,” Marie finally said.

  “Neither can I.” Logan seemed to have prepared his answer since it came so quickly after hers.

  “Maybe we were too young to be married,” Marie suggested.

  “I was thirty-one, and you were twenty-nine. I think we knew what we were doing.”

  “Maybe.”

  “On the other hand, you might be right,” Logan added. “If fifty is the new forty, and forty is the new thirty…”

  “Then we were acting like teens?” Marie asked.

  Logan sighed. “We fought over what we knew not of, when we should have surrendered a lot of things into God’s hands. He knows all things, whereas our own understanding is finite.”

  “Jeremiah 33:3 says, ‘Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.’ We should have called out to God. He would have shown us what to do.”

  Logan nodded. He stopped by a railing.

  Marie stopped too, if only to look fourteen decks down to the ocean. The waves were dark and looked mysterious in the cloudy night, but God held up the ship, didn’t He?

  How could He not have held up our marriage?

  “Tell me the truth, Marie. If you had more time to think about our whirlwind romance, would you have gone out with me six years ago?”

  Marie shrugged.

  “You’re not sure,” Logan said quietly.

  “I’m never sure when I’m with you, Logan.” Her eyes were somewhere else.

  Coming out of the piano lounge, two men started to light up near the No Smoking zone. They were two of the three bodyguards that accompanied Aliyah, her son, and her assistant, everywhere they went onboard the ship.

  One of them spoke on his cell phone. Marie could not read his lips from this far away.

  “Let’s keep walking,” she suggested to Logan.

  “Whatever you want.” Logan followed Marie.

  She led them close to the men. In the moonless night, Marie and Logan were well hidden in the shadows. She held Logan’s hand at one point, and it seemed to have caught him by surprise. She tried to prevent them from directly facing the two men by stopping at the railing every now and then. For all practical purposes, they did look like a couple on an evening stroll.

  Downwind now, she could hear faint Arabic. One of the languages that Marie spoke, it had been the second non-French language she had picked up, after English. There were Arabic communities in Paris during some of her childhood years not spent in Marseilles, offering her many opportunities to practice speaking almost daily.

/>   “Take them?” The man with the phone nodded. “I’ll wait for your call.”

  Take them?

  Them who?

  Take them when? Where?

  Marie checked herself. Maybe she was mistaken. For all she knew, the man could mean take Aliyah and her son on the next excursion. They would arrive in Skagway by morning, and had all day to roam the area.

  However, if the INTERPOL information had been any indication, it was more than a vacation for Aliyah and her son. The data were sketchy, and she had been told to remain on standby for further instructions, if any were required.

  The men were coming toward them. Marie leaned against Logan. He wrapped his arm around her. She didn’t push him away. She couldn’t.

  “What’s going on?” Logan whispered in her ear and wrapped an arm around her waist.

  Marie heard footsteps behind them.

  “Infidels!” One of the men snarled in a low voice.

  Logan must have heard it. Marie could feel his arm stiffen as tried to pull it away so he could turn around. She felt as though he was about to respond to the remark.

  She ran her hand up his arm, as smoothly as possible, as if she herself didn’t hear the insult. She cupped Logan’s face with her hands, pulling his forehead toward hers, obscuring their faces from the men coming toward them.

  Marie had no idea what message she was sending to Logan, but he took over, caressing his lips over her cheek and chin and then…

  Their lips met.

  For a long moment, Marie forgot everything else.

  Chapter Seventeen

  After breakfast, Logan and Marie—with Jonas in between them—marched down the gangway connecting the cruise ship to Skagway. It was barely eight o’clock, but there were already many ship passengers walking about.

  Logan wanted to ask Marie what happened between them on the top deck the night before, but he wasn’t sure if they would have an opportunity. After the long kiss, Logan had escorted Marie back to her stateroom. Outside the door, he wanted to kiss her again, but Marie begged off, saying she had some work to do.

  Like what kind of work?

  Disappointed, Logan had returned to his own stateroom, wondering if things would ever be the same, if they could someday become a couple again.

  One thing he knew. He would never give her wedding ring to anyone else. If he had to keep the ring in his vault for the rest of his life, then that was the way it was going to be.

  This morning, Logan was awakened by Jonas knocking on his door. The boy was showered, dressed, and ready to go. Mrs. Ping looked exhausted.

  “Would you rather stay onboard to rest?” Logan asked her.

  Mrs. Ping quickly took the offer.

  It wasn’t a long walk to the touristy part of Skagway, and they made it in good time, listening to Jonas babble about whatever popped into his little head. He even commented on the dirt and small rocks on the dusty sidewalk.

  At an intersection, Marie looked at Logan. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Anywhere he wants.” Logan dipped his nose at Jonas. “Or it’ll be a long day for us.”

  “I hear you.”

  As they walked forward, Logan felt that since Marie had asked him a question first, she had opened the door for them to have a conversation. He’d take the opportunity until she closed the door on him again.

  “How are you this morning?” Logan asked.

  “Me?” Marie pointed to herself with her free hand.

  “Yes. Did you sleep well?”

  “You asked me that at breakfast.”

  “I did? I don’t recall.”

  “You did. I was there first, remember, and you came into the dining room with Jonas and Mrs. Ping. As you sat down, you said, ‘How are you this morning?’ I said, ‘I’m fine. And you?’ And you said you would have preferred to sleep in all morning.”

  “Wow. You remembered our entire conversation?” Logan sped up his pace as Jonas dragged them forward. “All I remember is that first cup of coffee.”

  “You still put too much sugar in your coffee.”

  “That, I do.” Logan knew he should cut back on putting too many sugar cubes into his coffee, but they were raw cane sugar, not processed.

  “Well, I’m glad you gave Mrs. Ping a way out of this. We’re basically chaperoning a spoiled brat—”

  “I’m not a spoiled brat!” Jonas snapped.

  Logan widened his eyes. Marie laughed.

  “Ice cream!” Jonas pointed.

  Marie checked her watch. “Not at eight thirty in the morning. Also you can get free ice cream onboard the ship if you wait until lunch.”

  “Free? He doesn’t know what that is,” Logan explained.

  At the back of his mind, he appreciated how his wealth mattered very little to Marie. Her focus was somewhere else and on something else more tangible, perhaps.

  Logan wished he had not divorced her. He had probably lost the most precious woman on earth.

  How do I get her back, Lord Jesus? How?

  The kiss on the top deck still lingered in his mind and heart. It wasn’t the same as before, but it seemed to be a more mature, knowing kiss—if there was such a thing. Logan felt that they’d had more life experiences in the three years they had been apart, and had grown up.

  Maybe this time it would last.

  What would last, exactly?

  “Something on your mind?” Marie asked unexpectedly.

  They were approaching the ice cream shop.

  “What Jonas wants, Jonas gets,” Logan said.

  “Is that what you’ve been thinking the last few minutes?”

  “No,” Logan confessed. “Not at all.”

  “Dare I even ask?”

  “I was thinking about last night, and how we have both matured in three years. I think we’re better people now.”

  “Better?” Marie paused. “I don’t know if we can be better in our lives on earth, considering we drag around our sin nature even after we’re saved in Jesus Christ.”

  “True. I guess I meant that we aren’t as dull and insipid as we once were three years ago.”

  “Speak for yourself, Logan.” Marie chuckled.

  They entered the ice cream shop, crowded with wide-eyed kids and their befuddled parents. Someone remarked about not eating ice cream so early in the morning. Someone else said they were on vacation, as if that was an excuse.

  “Are you getting anything?” Logan eyed the wall-to-wall list of items to choose from.

  “I don’t know,” Marie replied.

  “I want everything!” Jonas jumped up and down. “Daddy, buy this ice cream shop!”

  Logan and Marie laughed. A few people in line joined in.

  “Kids,” someone said.

  “We came all the way here to eat ice cream, can you believe it?” Logan remarked.

  Several of the parents nodded. “Yeah. Might as well stay at home.”

  “Exactly what I thought.” Logan inched forward in the line.

  “I can’t see the board, Daddy.” Jonas had his arms straight up.

  Logan lifted him to his shoulders. He wondered what good that would do, since Jonas could barely read, even though he could now see the board above all the other heads.

  Marie was on her phone. Logan was about to confiscate it like she did his, when she showed the screen to Jonas.

  “They have an app with photos of all the cups and cones,” Marie explained. “You want to see what they can make you?”

  Jonas nodded. His little index finger scrolled the page up, as if it was the most natural thing to do.

  “When I was his age, I turned pages in a physical book,” Logan said.

  “I know. His digital generation is so many light years ahead of us,” Marie replied.

  “I want this…and this…and this…” Point. Scroll. Swipe.

  When they reached the front of the line, the crowd did not thin out.

  “I’ll find a table,” Marie said.

  “Tell me what you
want.” Logan wondered if she…

  “I always get the same thing.”

  So she hadn’t changed. She still only ordered sorbet. “Any flavor?”

  “Surprise me.”

  Surprise me? Now that surprised Logan. “Okay.”

  Some minutes later Marie was waiting, wiping a round table by the window that had just been vacated by a messy family. Logan arrived with more napkins on a tray of ice cream for him and Jonas, and sorbet for Marie.

  “What did you get me?” Marie pointed to a chair for Jonas to sit on.

  “Taste and see.” Logan wanted to know if she liked it.

  Before she responded, Marie glanced at the entrance to the ice cream shop. Logan’s back was facing it, so he turned to look.

  Aliyah and her entourage entered the ice cream shop.

  “Abdul!” Jonas waved to his new friend.

  Abdul nearly came over, but his mother held his hand tightly. She didn’t smile. Her assistant was looking at a takeout menu. Behind them, Zaid stood guard.

  Logan looked back to find Marie staring out of the window. There, by the roadside, were two familiar-looking men.

  “Aren’t those the men from last night?” Logan asked.

  Marie didn’t respond.

  “Shall we thank God for the ice cream?” Jonas asked, preventing Logan’s thoughts from wandering too far off.

  They said a blessing over their ice cream and sorbet.

  There was nothing to talk about. Ice cream was ice cream. Logan decided to ask Marie about her work.

  “I suppose being a translator has its adventures,” he said.

  Instead of answering him, Marie said something odd. “When do you think the next Yukon train runs?”

  “Why?” Logan asked.

  “Maybe we could take Jonas on a train ride.”

  “Train is fun,” Jonas said. “But not today. Today I’m a gold digger.”

  “What?” Logan was losing track of the scattered conversation.

  “Mrs. Ping said if I get enough gold nuggets, I can be a Junior Ranger.”

  “What?”

  Marie pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll text her.”

  Logan finished his small scoop of ice cream. It had too much chocolate and sugar and fudge in it.

  He wanted more. But the line was too long.