by Jan Thompson
“Okay.” Marie read her text. “Mrs. Ping forgot to tell us that if we take the little one to the Klondike Gold Rush Historical Park, he could earn his Junior Ranger badge.”
“Where is this park?” Logan asked.
“I don’t know. She sent me a link. One sec.” Marie scrolled. “There’s an activity center down the road from here. He could get his badge there. I think that’s all it takes.”
Logan stared at Jonas. Half the time he had no idea what coursed through that five-year-old. At that age, Logan wouldn’t have given up a train ride to get a badge.
He wanted to say something to Marie, but she was looking out the window again. He followed her gaze. Out there, their new friends were walking toward a bench.
Three men, two women, and a lonely boy—not unlike Jonas. Logan wondered if the boy felt lonely sometimes, not having another kid to talk to. Maybe he and Jonas had become friends on account of that.
Logan wished he had more kids, for Jonas’s sake.
Marie’s phone vibrated on the table. She picked it up.
Logan almost said to her, “We’re on vacation.”
But when he saw her frowning at the message or email, he decided not to say anything.
Marie put away her phone. “Is it possible for you to take Jonas to the activity center? I have some work to do. I need to get back to the ship.”
“No.” Logan didn’t know why that came out of his mouth.
“No?”
“No, please. You’re going back to work next week. You’ll be working the rest of the year. Let’s save this time for our son.”
“Says the person who tried to work through the salmon bake on Monday. Remember Juneau?” Marie said.
“Well… I learned my lesson. And now we’re having family time—or what’s left of it. He will never be five again. This is our time.”
“This is our time,” Marie echoed him. “All right. Work can wait.”
“Thank you.”
“No. Thank you.” Marie reached across the small table and put her hand in his.
It was a small gesture, but it filled Logan’s heart to overflowing.
Chapter Eighteen
Handing Jonas over to Mrs. Ping at their stateroom door was the best thing Marie felt they could do for themselves this afternoon. A bona fide Junior Ranger now, Jonas himself wanted to spend the afternoon with Mrs. Ping—who had gotten herself a haircut and a perm while they had been in Skagway.
Mrs. Ping seemed happy to get Jonas back. “I missed you so much.”
“I’ve only been gone a little bit.” Jonas returned the hug. “What did you do all morning?”
“Well…” Mrs. Ping gently touched her hair with her hand.
“You got a haircut!” Jonas said.
“And a perm.”
Everyone, except Logan, complimented Mrs. Ping on her new hair color. Logan didn’t even bother to play along.
One of the things that Marie liked about Logan was how he’d tell it like it is. If he didn’t like something, he would say it. No embellishment.
A dish you cooked tastes bad. That color is ugly on you. And so forth.
Rude as might be at times, Logan meant well, and that was how Marie chose to view it.
“I think we need alone time,” he had said on their walk back to the ship for lunch. “We need to talk.”
“What about the t-r-a-i-n?” Marie spelled it out for him.
“Train?” Jonas interjected their conversation. “I told you, next time.”
Like father, like son.
In this particular case, Marie decided to tell Logan that she could not spend the afternoon with him. She couldn’t tell him that she had to get back to her laptop, connect to her secure account at INTERPOL, and find out who Aliyah really was.
Marie had a feeling something wasn’t right. Aliyah seemed to be a prisoner of some sort.
On the other hand, Marie might be wrong altogether.
She had to know.
And she couldn’t know if Logan was around her all the time. He had no idea what Marie did for a living, and that secret had been the downfall of their marriage.
If she told him…
No.
“Time for a bath to wash away all that gold dust,” Mrs. Ping said to Jonas.
He was rubbing his eyes.
“Maybe a nap after bath,” Mrs. Ping said to Logan and Marie. “We might go to the playroom. If they’re showing a movie at the theater, we might do that. I’ll keep him until dinner. You two go do your own thing.”
After Mrs. Ping closed the door, Logan waited for Marie to say something.
Marie assumed he wanted to know her decision about the “alone time” he had suggested.
“You’re right,” Marie said. “We both need alone time. I have some work to do. I’m sure you do, too. I’ll see you at dinner?”
Logan didn’t seem to visibly react too much, but Marie could see the disappointment in his eyes. He didn’t reach for her hand or anything, but Marie had a feeling he wanted to.
She debated whether to give him a hug.
“You didn’t answer my question in the ice-cream shop this morning,” Logan said.
“What question?”
“I asked you about your translator job, and you replied about the Yukon train running.”
“That. I don’t usually talk about my job in public.” Marie would have answered him had Aliyah’s assistant—who spoke English—not walked into the shop at the moment that Logan had asked Marie the question.
The last thing Marie wanted them to know was that she was a translator. Although they wouldn’t know what languages she spoke—they might have guessed it was a European language—Marie still did not want her cover blown.
What cover?
Marie closed her eyes. I’m not working this week. I’m not working this week.
“Are you tired?” Logan asked.
“A little bit.” Marie stepped back. “I think I better go take a nap. You rest, too, and I’ll see you at dinner.”
Logan nodded. “And once again you did not answer my question about your job.”
“I’m still doing the same thing I did five years ago.” Marie took another step back. Her stateroom was down that way.
Logan didn’t move from his spot. He didn’t say anything.
Marie felt sorry for him. Poor guy needs a hug.
So she gave him a hug, wrapping her arms around him, and stroking his back. He relaxed under her arms.
In spite of everything he had and owned the world over, all he needed right now was a free hug.
Oh, the irony.
Chapter Nineteen
“Don’t walk with me tonight because you feel sorry for me.” Logan pushed the elevator button outside the dining room. He felt that Marie had come along only because she had to keep her word to walk with him this evening.
Dinner was over, and the ship was back at sea, cruising toward the next port of call. They should arrive in Ketchikan by morning.
“I know you want to talk,” Marie said, stepping over the threshold. “I know you have questions.”
“That you can’t answer—or are not willing to.” Oops. Logan cringed. He waited for Marie to spin around and walk away from his life.
She did not.
He was surprised.
They said nothing more to each other as they climbed the stairs to the upper deck, where they had been the night before. The wind picked up, flapping Logan’s unbuttoned jacket, pulling him this way and that. The wind also spun around Marie’s narrow ankle-length skirt, twisting it up and down her calves.
“Maybe we should go inside,” Logan suggested.
Marie nodded.
The nearest door was to the piano lounge. There were people inside, drinking, laughing, talking. Someone was at the grand piano.
As they entered the area, a couple vacated their corner bench seat. It was tight space, but Marie nodded in that direction, so Logan went for it.
They settled into the corner, hip t
o hip.
“I don’t know how we can talk here.” Logan chuckled. “I have to turn my neck ninety degrees to see your face.”
Marie glanced at her other shoulder, where a rather large, muscular man had wiggled himself into the seat next to her.
“Maybe we should leave,” Logan whispered in her ear. “Do you want to try my balcony? We’ll pile up with blankets and coats if it gets too windy.”
Marie nodded.
Logan got up first, and pulled Marie to her feet. He decided not to let go of her hand as they made their way to his stateroom.
“We can order some snacks,” Logan suggested.
“Oh, no. I’m too full.” Marie touched her stomach. “Maybe mineral water, but that’s all.”
Logan nodded. Suddenly he remembered that his stateroom was a mess. He was sure the stewards had made his bed a second time while he was at dinner, but he had piles of paperwork and plugged-in laptop strewn all over his table.
Oh well.
“The reason I agreed to go to your room is that we’ve been married before to each other,” Marie said.
“No need to explain. God already knows.”
“I wanted it to be clear to you that I’m not asking for a reconciliation.”
Logan was still holding Marie’s hand. “I just want God’s perfect will to be done for our family, especially for Jonas. I’m grateful that you agreed to take time out of your busy schedule to give him this birthday present. He won’t forget it.”
“You?”
“I won’t forget it either. You’re still the mother of my son.” Logan unlocked his stateroom door.
Sure enough, the stewards had made his bed. Everything looked nice and clean, except his messy workspace.
“Can’t get away from work, huh?” Marie smiled. “Still printing out everything, I see.”
“They make small and portable printers these days.”
Marie stepped away from the door so that Logan could close it. “Ever heard of digital documents? Save a tree.”
“I should, but I think better on paper.” Logan opened the small refrigerator below a counter, where the stewards had put a bowl of fresh fruits. “Mineral water, you said?”
Marie nodded.
Logan handed her a small, cold bottle of mineral water and a glass. “Should I pour it for you?”
“I can do it myself.” Marie thanked him for the water.
Logan led the way to the sliding glass door. Outside, the moon was out and the wind had subsided. Perhaps it was because each stateroom balcony was private, separated by a panel that acted like a windbreaker.
They stretched out on the lounge chairs.
“I suppose being a translator has its adventures,” Logan said.
“Yeah, no dull moments.” Marie seemed to wait for the next question.
Logan knew she wasn’t going to volunteer any information. It had been like that for a while.
“I have a confession to make.” Logan watched Marie’s face. That got her attention.
“You’re dying?”
“No. I’m as healthy as an Urquhart can be. It will take a lot to kill us.”
Marie flinched a little bit.
“Are you okay?” Logan asked. Was it what he just said?
Marie didn’t answer. She sipped her mineral water. Looked out into the night sea and sky and stars.
“I must tell you now, even if you’ll hate me, and even if we’ve had a good time onboard this ship. I think you need to know.” Logan was starting to feel better already even though he hadn’t said what it was.
“Go on.”
“Before we divorced, I hired a private investigator to follow you around Europe.”
“Cost you a pretty fortune.”
“You knew?”
“He didn’t know how to hide. I almost invited him to have a cup of coffee just to make him feel at home. Next time, hire someone from Europe. He might blend in better.”
Logan didn’t know what to say except, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too, that we could not communicate,” Marie said. “Tonight is your chance, Logan. Ask me anything. Maybe that will clear the air between us, and we can move forward as parents to Jonas.”
After all these years, Logan was stumped. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s fine. My father’s fine too, but he lost his sister last year.”
“I’m sorry. Aunt Juliette?”
Marie nodded. “You know she was ill for a long time. In the end, the cancer took her.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“She’s in heaven now, with her beloved husband. You remember they were married fifty years before he had the heart attack while working in his garden? He died in the middle of the flowers he had planted for his wife.”
“They had many wonderful years together.” It was all Logan could say.
“Many grandchildren,” Marie added. “But my family is not really what you want to ask about, right?”
Logan crossed his legs. “I don’t know what I want to know, really. I want us to be honest with each other, but we’re not married anymore, and it doesn’t seem like I have the right to ask you to tell me about the ninety percent of your life that I didn’t know about when we were married.”
“It’s for the best.”
Logan laughed. “That’s what they all say. And then they spend the next three years with a hole in their lives, having let someone slip away.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“You know our marriage vows. ‘What God has put together, let no man put asunder.’ That one?”
“It was a traditional vow.”
“We chose it together.”
“Yes, we did.”
“And then we broke it. We broke our marriage.”
“It’s too late, Logan,” Marie said. “We have both moved on.”
Logan sat up and faced Marie. “Have we moved on? Are you seeing someone now?”
“No. You know my job. I travel a lot—too much, sometimes. I’m hardly in one place long enough to date anyone.”
“I’m busy with work too. You were the last person I dated.”
“Really?” Marie laughed. “I thought the other bazillionaires would have swarmed around you.”
“They want to date my money, you mean?”
Marie stopped laughing.
“Did you know that you’re the only person I’ve ever gone out with who didn’t care about my money?”
“Was that why you married me?” Marie closed the cap on her empty mineral water bottle and placed it on the small table next to her.
Logan hadn’t noticed it until now, but she had kept her small clutch purse next to her hip instead of on the table, which had space for that little purse.
He wondered what was in the purse, but he wasn’t going to ask. The last time he looked into her purse, a little Glock stared back at him. However, he doubted that the captain of this cruise ship would allow armed passengers onboard.
He sighed. There was so much he didn’t know about Marie.
“I married you because…” Logan walked over to Marie and gently pulled her to her feet. “You saw me for me only, we were good with each other, we both love God, and I knew that I could never love another like I loved you.”
“But we’re divorced.”
“I don’t know what happened, and I wish we never did.”
“You were jealous, Logan,” Marie reminded him. “You thought I was having an affair. You sent that bungling PI to track me down. What did he tell you?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly.” Marie let go of his hand. She stepped toward the railing. “Because there was no one else. However, because you sent the PI, you put yourself and Jonas in danger.”
Logan sat up. He couldn’t believe it. “It took you three years to tell me that?”
“We took care of it.”
“We who?”
“I can’t say, but trust me when I tell you that your PI put our son in danger
when he went out there asking people about me on behalf of a then toddler.”
“I—uh…” Logan didn’t remember telling the PI to keep a lid on who had sent him. He certainly didn’t recall asking the man to use their little boy as bait.
Logan drew a deep breath. He walked back and forth on the small balcony. “All I tried to do was to find out if…if you were…”
He couldn’t finish his sentence.
“Someday I will tell you everything,” Marie said. “For now, know that when the PI tracked me down at a trade show I attended, it put you and Jonas on the radar. That took months and months of work to undo.”
“Radar? Whose radar? How?”
“I can’t say. Suffice to tell you that your PI talked too much to anyone and everyone, even putting himself in danger. I’m glad you fired him.”
“Wait. Danger? He said it was like a vacation.”
Marie’s eyebrows rose. “Of course he would say that. He was nearly killed. He didn’t tell you?”
“No. Come to think of it, he said he had another assignment following the job I sent him to do, so we didn’t see each other until six months later.” The new information made Logan realize that Marie was definitely not only a translator.
“During which time he was probably all healed up.”
“I don’t know what to think, Marie. I did what I thought was the best thing to do.”
“A marriage is based on trust.”
“And we have too little—or none—of it.” Logan sighed.
For all practical purposes, everything was water under the bridge now. The only thing that had between them was a small handful of happy moments, including the birth of their only child. Beyond that, what was left of their relationship?
“If you want to find me next time, call this person.” Marie retrieved a card from her purse, and handed it to Logan.
“Mendenhall Security. No contact name?”
“She’s all over the place. If you’re looking for me, call that number. Ask for Espy.” It was time to tell Logan at least one other person he could trust for the safety of their family.
Esperanza did not work for INTERPOL. She was a freelance security specialist who ran her own company, Mendenhall Security, although Marie had known her long before she started the company with the money her husband had left her after he was murdered. Marie met Esperanza for the first time on the project that had ended three years before, and Esperanza was like an older sister to her.
