Waiting for the One

by L. A. Fiore

  I’m missing him so much that my temper flares. “Save it for someone who gives a shit. You pimped him out. He came to you, and instead of sheltering him from the harshness of the world, you fucking threw him right into it. You’re having guilt now. You should. But he’s gone and it’s because he was trying to protect me from Elise, another left in your charge whom you failed. If you’re looking for absolution from me, you aren’t going to get it.”

  Broderick covers my hand. I didn’t realize I had balled it into a fist.

  “You’re right. We didn’t ask you here to seek your forgiveness, we wanted to apologize and we wanted to give you some insight into what Logan was dealing with. He wasn’t wrong to be worried about Elise.”

  “Meaning?”

  Patricia, who was sitting quietly, spoke up for the first time. “We didn’t discover this until after she died. Please come with me.” Patricia walks us down a hall to the room at the end. When she opens the door, I see a little girl’s room in varying shades of pink. The white lace canopy bed sits in the middle of the room, a dressing table with a pink gingham skirt to the left of the bed and a white dresser to the right. It’s odd that it looks as it does—Elise was my age, but even more strange, she wasn’t a kid when she moved into this house. There’s a large double-door closet and an adjoining bathroom.

  Patricia leads us into the bathroom to a linen closet, and when she opens the door I gasp—inside the closet are pictures taped all over the walls. They are of only two subjects: Logan and me. There are heart shapes around Logan’s face and big, fat, red Xs over mine.

  “She was so far gone that when she heard about David’s death, she drove her car into a tree going sixty.”

  “Her toxicology report was clean?” Broderick asks.

  “Too clean; she wasn’t taking her meds,” Patricia replies.

  “Meds for what?” I ask.

  “Her manic personality and, based on the report, she’d been off them awhile. Apparently, the drugs she was on would have stayed in her system weeks after her last dose.”

  Seems to me there was more going on with Elise than manic depression, because despite the fact that the closet is creepy as hell, it’s disturbing in its childishness, as is her room. I ask, “So if she had been on her meds, would the outcome for her have been different?”

  Harold answers, “She probably wouldn’t have been so out of control. She had a tough time of it, but she was a good kid, and it makes me angry to think that we didn’t see her spiraling out of control until it was too late.”

  When we reach the door we turn to say good-bye, but Patricia speaks first. “A few weeks ago we were informed that a substantial sum of money was deposited into our bank account with only one stipulation, that we use some of the money to educate people on mental illness: the signs to look for and how to seek help.”

  “Whom did the money come from?” I ask.

  “It was anonymous.”

  A look passes between Broderick and me, the meaning of it very clear, though no words are spoken. Logan. Somehow I’m able to bank my rising excitement. “Where is Elise buried?”

  “St. Mary’s Cemetery,” Harold supplies.

  We say our good-byes and start for the car, but Broderick touches my arm. “I’ll be right back.”

  A second later he’s back up the steps talking to the Martinellis. A few minutes later he comes back to me, takes my hand, and helps me into the car.

  Once we are on the road, I say, “I’d like to visit her grave.”

  He looks at me funny, but puts the cemetery into the GPS and before long we’re pulling through the black iron gates. We stop at the caretaker’s office for directions to her grave and when we reach it, the earth looks freshly tilled. This makes me think of Logan in such a place, but I push that macabre thought out of my head. I reach into my purse and pull out the figure of the swordfish.

  “What are you doing?” Broderick asks.

  “She was mentally ill, and, yes, I’m pissed and angry, but she loved him. I think she should have something of him.”

  “But he made that for you and, if my brother is truly gone, it’s probably the last thing he ever made. Are you sure you want to part with it?”

  I smile as I touch my belly. “I have the last thing he ever made right here. Maybe wherever Elise is now, it will give her a bit of closure having this small piece of him all to herself.”

  Broderick’s expression softens. “You are a better person than I. Would you like me to dig a hole?”

  “We can do it together.”

  We hunch down as Broderick pulls out his penknife. Looking at the swordfish, my eyes burn with tears. Kissing it, I settle it into the hole. Broderick covers it up and pats it down. He stands and reaches for my hand to help me up.

  As we walk back to the car I ask, “Do you think Logan is alive?”

  He doesn’t reply, but I know he’s heard my question. The silence stretches out and then he says, “I do.” He stops walking and I do the same. “When I was settling his estate I noticed a rather substantial withdrawal from one of his personal accounts. I thought it was theft and asked Dante to investigate.”

  “But?”

  “I went back to the Martinellis to find out how much money was deposited in their account.”

  “And?”

  A smile spreads over his face. “What was deposited in the Martinellis’ account and what was withdrawn from Logan’s account are the exact same sums, right down to the penny.”

  It takes a minute for my brain to catch up to my ears and, when I realize the implication of what Broderick is saying, I start to cry. “Oh my God.”

  “I think he’s out there and I think you should do as he asked. Look in the crowd for him because I think one of these days you’re going to see him coming home to you.”

  Three weeks after our trip to New Jersey, Dean pays me a visit.

  “Hey, stranger. What brings you to Harrington?”

  He hugs me, takes a moment to process the small swell of my stomach. “You look wonderful.”

  “I feel wonderful. Come in. I just baked some cookies.”

  We head into the kitchen and settle at the counter as I plate up the sugar cookies I can’t seem to eat enough of. The fact that my baby bump is small is a wonder, with the way I’m eating.

  Dean slips something across the counter to me and it takes a minute for me to register that it’s a wedding invitation. My head snaps up. “You and Katherine are tying the knot?”

  “In January, and we both really want you to be there.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. When did this happen?”

  “A few months ago. I realize we haven’t been together all that long but we just knew and didn’t want to wait.”

  Even now, a pain stabs through me. I know what he’s too polite to say. Logan and I had waited. “I will definitely be there.”

  He looks uncomfortable, which is odd since he’s here to share the news of his upcoming wedding. “What’s on your mind, Dean?”

  “There’s another reason I’m here. Logan came to me right after he called off your engagement and asked me some rather pointed questions.”

  “About?”

  “He wanted to separate his assets obtained as David Cambre from his estate in the Logan MacGowan name. He also wanted a few legal documents drawn up, including having a fund set aside in the event of his death. Any costs incurred at the time of his death or after could be paid out of this fund.”

  “Why did he come to you?”

  “I asked him that very same question and he said he wanted it handled through a third party to establish impartiality.”

  “What he asked you to do, would it fall in line with the idea of him trying to fake his death?”

  Dean pales and I know that’s exactly what he thinks. “Yes, that’s why I thought you should know.”

  “He’s been leaving clues, at least I like to believe that he is.”

  The cloud that followed him in instantly clears. “Seriously
?”

  “Yeah. And now with this, I know he planned it, but he was injured based on the amount of blood the police found soaked into the seat of his car. Whatever his plan, it didn’t play out like he intended. Did he die or is he healing from a serious injury? I don’t know, but I’d like to think it’s the latter.”

  His expression loses some of its spark. “You could be setting yourself up for disappointment.”

  “I could be and if I am, I’ll move past it. I’ll have this little one to help with it. But for now, I’m going to indulge myself and wish with all of my heart that Logan is alive.”

  Dean whispers, “Then I’ll wish for that too.”

  Broderick is pacing in my living room, Dante’s head is in his hands and his parents have tears streaming down their faces.

  “I hesitated sharing this, but to deny you the hope that I’m feeling seems wrong. We may lose him all over again but if there’s a chance, however small, that he was successful, I had to tell you what Dean shared with me.”

  “Why would he do that, fake his own death?” Briana whispers.

  “He feared Elise and he wasn’t wrong to be afraid.”

  “She killed herself, how terribly sad.” Rory moves to stand behind his wife, resting his hands on her shoulders.

  “He wanted me safe, wanted us free from her and, sadly, his death caused hers. In the end, he achieved what he set out to do.”

  “And it may have cost him his life, based on the findings of the police.” Briana stands, her face turning red with the anger that’s rapidly replacing grief.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “If he is alive, why hasn’t he contacted us?” Dante asks the question I’m sure everyone is thinking.

  “He was injured, enough that it’s believed he died. Maybe he is unable to.”

  “How long do we wait? How long do we hold on to the hope that he’s alive and coming home?”

  “I don’t know, Dante. I imagine it’ll be different for each of us. Personally, living in a world where there’s a chance he’s coming back is a much easier world for me to live in than one where he’s gone. For the chance to see his face, hear his voice, to touch him, I’ll happily wait forever.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We’re all at my house, on the beach, celebrating Callie’s birthday. I can’t believe she’s four. It seems like only yesterday I watched as she came into the world. My hand moves to my baby, to the life growing inside me. At night, I lie in bed and tell our baby stories about his or her daddy; it’s just as much for me as it is for the baby. I ache for Logan. Not just my body but my soul, an emptiness that not even our child can fill. I had feared that I would forget his smile or his scent, that his memory would fade over time. It hasn’t; closing my eyes, I can see him so vividly, his small smile that is so rare a treat, his quiet intensity he has when he’s watching me, his laugh and the way it rumbles up his throat. It’s days like these that I miss Logan the most, the small gatherings we have with just family and close friends.

  Ever since our trip to New Jersey, a lightness fills my heart. Logan’s out there. Believing that makes me eager to face each new day. One of these days I will see him in the crowd. I’ve been writing a pregnancy journal for Logan, documenting every day since that day in October staring at two tests confirming that Logan was still with me. Not stimulating reads—most entries are nothing more than details of raging heartburn or extreme exhaustion where I can only climb from bed long enough to walk and feed Reaper—but for Logan it will be a bestseller.

  And it’s while I’m thinking about Logan that our baby really kicks for the first time, and not the squishy sensations I’ve been feeling for a while. Love tightens my throat, my hand moving to the hard little lump. Closing my eyes, I reach out to Logan wherever he is. “Please come home to us.”

  “You okay?” Josh asks, moving across the sand to drag me back to the festivities, no doubt.

  “The baby just kicked.”

  Josh yells, “We got baby kicking action over here.”

  Immediately I’m surrounded. Hands press up against my stomach. Rory and Briana’s eyes grow wide with wonder when their grandchild kicks again.

  Gwen steps up next to me and takes my hand. “Wait until they start pounding on your bladder, not as much fun then.”

  “No, I don’t suppose that is fun.”

  “What do you think that is, a leg, a hand?” Rory asks in awe.

  “I don’t know, but it’s damn strong.” And it is, now that the baby has stretched, it seems it wants to continue to stretch, spinning around in there, nailing me in a circular pattern.

  A laugh bubbles up my throat. Standing here with my best friends and family, feeling Logan’s baby moving inside me, I need for them to know.

  “I need to tell you guys something.” And I just launch right in. They listen without interrupting and when I’m done, I notice that their eyes all seem overly bright.

  Gwen speaks up first. “Do you really think he’s alive?”

  Briana and my gazes meet—the same feeling of hope and excitement is burning through her. My focus shifts back to Gwen. “I know I shouldn’t, because if he isn’t really out there, I’ll lose him all over again, but I really do.”

  Tommy’s voice sounds harsh, but I know he’s trying to rein in the swell of hope. “What’s he waiting for?”

  “I second that,” Broderick says, but it’s not anger that feeds him either, it’s love.

  “I don’t know. Maybe just making sure all talk of David Cambre has faded before he reappears.”

  “I can’t believe that about Elise. You didn’t like her. From the very beginning, you didn’t like her,” Josh says.

  “No, but I didn’t realize she was sick. Maybe if she had gotten help, it never would have spiraled so far out of control.”

  “If she had learned that you were pregnant . . .” Josh doesn’t finish that statement, but it does cause a chill to go through me, because I imagine if Elise had learned about that, it would have been the last straw. She wouldn’t have tried to kill me—she would have made sure she killed me.

  Gwen pulls me from that creepy thought when she says, “I think it’s romantic, the flowers, the figure, the letter. Don’t get me wrong, if he is alive I’m going to smack him hard when I see him, but I can’t deny it’s very romantic too.”

  “Get in line for the smacking,” Dante says.

  I couldn’t agree more, he has a solid whack coming and then I’ll kiss him until we’re both breathless.

  “How long do you suppose he’ll wait? It’s been six months already,” Gwen says.

  “I don’t know, but I hope it’s before the baby comes. I have to believe he knows and that he’s watching. He’s planned it all out so carefully,” I say.

  Pain slices across Tommy’s face. “You were right; when we first learned of his death, you said he wasn’t dead. We didn’t believe you. I’m sorry, Saffron.”

  “Don’t. You were worried about me, worried I wasn’t coping, and under normal circumstances your concern would have been justified. Our situation is so not normal.”

  He wraps his arm around my shoulders. “I really hope he is out there and that you get your happily ever after.”

  “Hear, hear,” agrees Rory.

  “You still up for walking me down the aisle?” I ask Tommy.

  “Absolutely.”

  “We’ll need to get you a new dress.”

  Josh’s comment is so not what I’m expecting that I look at him like he’s on fire. “Why?”

  “Well, because by the time you get married, it’s very likely you’ll be the size of a barn. Taking out a dress one size, maybe two, is doable, but to cover all that”—he gestures with his hands—“no one is that good a seamstress.” I smack him at the same time Gwen does.

  “Oh dear.” Briana looks like she wants to smack Josh too.

  “Hey.” He almost sounds affronted as he looks to Tommy and the other guys. “Aren’t you going to help me?”

/>   “Hell no. You walked right into that one,” Tommy says, and at the same time the guys all take a few steps away from Josh, even Derek.

  “Nice friends you are,” Josh mutters.

  His eyes glaring at his love, Derek winks, so clearly he isn’t feeling repentant. And then he says, “Not going to work. I ain’t stepping into that, not with a pregnant woman. Too many hormones.”

  “Two,” Gwen says.

  “Two what?” Josh asks.

  “Two pregnant women.”

  My gaze flies to Gwen, taking in her flat stomach. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Yes. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything since it’s your first, but I thought since we’re all sharing.”

  “Oh my God. How far along?”

  “Two months.”

  “We can do this together. Gain weight, eat chocolate, cry for no reason whatsoever.”

  “Don’t forget the non-stop peeing, back pains, and heartburn.”

  “Yay!”

  She grins at me. “Spoken like a first-timer.”

  Briana hugs Gwen, a true mom hug. Gwen has awesome parents, but I love that Logan’s family and my friends have grown as close as they have. But then, under the circumstances, I suppose it was inevitable.

  “Congratulations, Mitch,” I say.

  His smile is pure perfection. “I was having trouble keeping it to myself. You aren’t upset, are you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I told her that.” He looks at Gwen and, though he’s teasing her, I can see the love. “I told you.”

  “You did.”

  He kisses her hard on the mouth before he hands her the glass of juice.

  “Look at them,” Broderick says. The entire group turns in the direction of the kids. Michael and Callie are imitating Reaper, all three of them chasing their tails, well, imaginary tails for the kids.

  “They get that from Mitch’s side of the family,” Gwen teases, which earns her another hard kiss from her loving husband.

  “Hey, I want to play,” Josh calls to the kids as he and Derek hurry over to them.