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

  Yep. The last nine months had been nothing but a concerto of failures. For five years, they had failed to catch the fugitive of all fugitives, Molyneux. They failed to infiltrate her inner circle. What would it take to bring down the most notorious anarchist activist in the history of the world?

  Certainly, taking seven days off to bask in the Alaskan sun and stare at glaciers and mountains was not Marie’s idea of action.

  It’s unfair!

  This vacation was forced on me! I didn’t ask for it. But—

  “Mommy!”

  The high-pitched choir boy scream could slice off everyone’s ears in the massive embarkation hall where thousands of passengers waited to board the Alaskan Queen of the Arctic Seas.

  A fancy name for a refurbished 1969 cruise ship.

  Marie’s eyes darted back and forth from face to face in the sea of strangers, looking for something out of place—

  “Mommy!”

  Ah. Reality check.

  I’m not at work.

  No. I’m far, far away from my job. A whole continent away.

  Far away from Vienna, where INTERPOL and the FBI were still digging through the ashes for clues, picking up the pieces of the damage left by Molyneux.

  Marie caught herself.

  Why am I thinking of Molyneux every waking hour?

  She is not God.

  Marie felt that she had to find Molyneux, who had destroyed the life of very good friend of hers, Esperanza Diaz-Mendenhall, who had started out in Spain’s Centro Nacional de Inteligencia. Esperanza had told Marie that if she helped her track down Molyneux, then she could stay at her mountain retreat for free the rest of her life.

  Just what I need.

  Another vacation.

  “Mommy!”

  Marie stared at her boy—little no longer—making his way through the crowd toward her, dragging his nanny with him.

  How was he able to spot her in the crowd?

  Sure, she was tall—nearly six feet—but there were many people in this hall.

  Instinctively, Marie walked toward her son.

  Behind him, his nanny repeatedly said, “Walk, walk. No running!”

  But just like his dad, Jonas didn’t listen.

  Ah. I must be tired.

  Marie chided herself for projecting upon this boy everything she had disliked about his father. Their pride had driven them apart, but primarily it had been Logan’s inability to trust her.

  He had wanted to know everything she did.

  She could tell him absolutely nothing.

  All she wanted him to do was trust her.

  That, he couldn’t do without full disclosure.

  Marie stepped forward, the pain in her healing collar bones starting to bother her again. She could barely recall the raid two weeks ago now. All she could remember was her own sadness afterwards, when she had arrived at her apartment to take a hot bath and noticed the new email from Logan asking her to join them on an Alaskan cruise.

  It was then that she realized she hadn’t remembered her own son’s birthday until Logan said so in his email. In fact, half his birthday celebration would be over before this cruise. His one-hundred-guest birthday party in the backyard of his house in Atlanta had been the highlight of the week. That could have been enough, Marie thought.

  No. Jonas wanted more.

  And Daddy would give him the world.

  Jonas broke free from his nanny’s grip, and flew into Marie, wrapping his arms around her waist so tightly that she could hardly breathe. His blond head, which he had inherited from her, came up to her abdomen.

  He was so tiny when I left him with his dad…

  Marie blinked.

  Her motherly heart constricted.

  How could I have left him?

  She expelled her breath.

  I had no choice.

  “Miss Marie!” The nanny panted, catching her breath.

  Miss Marie?

  Miss Divorced Marie is who I am.

  “Mrs. Ping, how are you?” Marie replied evenly.

  Compartmentalize.

  Her real name was Amanda Ping, but everyone called her Mrs. Ping. The fifty-five-year-old live-in nanny had been widowed for six years before Marie hired her.

  Mrs. Ping had an interesting background that made her more of a bodyguard than a nanny. However, by the time Marie and Logan met her, she had retired from her past life and was running a dry cleaning business in metro Atlanta with her husband.

  Soon, all her children had grown and moved away, and she was unable to run the dry cleaner by herself without her husband. Her children refused to help. Consequently, the business folded, and Logan took his suits elsewhere, but not before Marie hired Mrs. Ping to be Jonas’s full-time nanny.

  Eventually, Mrs. Ping stayed, while Marie lost her job as mommy.

  Or had she?

  Once a mother, always a mother, right?

  “Mommy, I’m so happy you came.” Jonas’s voice was muffled in Marie’s blouse, but she could hear him. “Please don’t leave me again.”

  Was that a plea?

  Someday, when Jonas grew up—if Marie was still alive—she would sit down with him over a cup of tea and explain everything to him.

  She would hold nothing back, unlike what she had to do with Logan.

  I had no choice.

  Chapter Two

  Onboard the Alaskan Queen of the Arctic Seas, their lunch was served buffet-style. Jonas was too excited to eat. Antsy and unable to sit down, he wanted to explore the children’s activity center.

  That sounded way too boring for Marie, so she let Mrs. Ping take Jonas.

  As she sat alone by the window in the lunchroom, Marie wondered about her one-piece carry-on luggage that the stewards were taking to her stateroom at this moment. There wasn’t anything in it save for her clothes, toiletries, and her books to be read, but still…

  Then again, she had talked to the captain before coming to this deck for lunch.

  Nothing to worry about, really.

  She told herself that several times. It didn’t help. She felt naked without her favorite Sig Sauer handgun. The sidearm was already in the safe in her stateroom. The captain of the ship knew who she was and why she carried it with her.

  So much for this vacation.

  She stared at the plate in front of her, at the calamari, mixed vegetables, stir-fried beef, and toast with strawberry jam, all huddling for space.

  What in the world did I put on my plate?

  It must be the jet lag.

  She hadn’t eaten anything since she had flown out of Lyon to Seattle by way of Paris and San Francisco. It had been a long flight, but the only one she could get.

  And Logan had paid for her plane tickets.

  As he had also paid for the three upper deck balcony suite staterooms they were staying in for seven nights. He had given her some privacy, but had put Mrs. Ping in the same stateroom as Jonas.

  Must be nice to push off the caring of his son to a nanny…

  Wait a minute. Didn’t I have a part in it by moving out of the country without my son?

  Her faced warmed at her own realization that she was a bona fide hypocrite.

  This was truly an opportunity from God for her broken family to come together for seven days to take a normal family vacation—if it could be normal with all of them staying in separate staterooms.

  Still, that space helped.

  Helped what?

  Marie pushed away the plate of food. She couldn’t eat it. It wasn’t that the international buffet she had absentmindedly piled on her plate looked simply inedible. It wasn’t that she had been forced into a vacation by a five-year-old spitting image of his father.

  The man she had once loved.

  Marie looked up, wondering whether to get another plate and force herself to eat something to settle her nervous stomach.

  Nervous?

  She was rarely nervous, except…

  Except when she was with Logan.

 
But he isn’t here, is he?

  He was probably in his stateroom conducting business calls and working on his vacation—

  Nope. There he is.

  Standing by the dessert bar, Logan towered over the petite woman dressed in the shortest mini skirt that Marie had ever seen. Shorter than a tennis skirt, for sure.

  She was cute.

  Logan seemed animated, telling a story, being lively and funny, as per usual—except during their last days of marriage together when he wouldn’t even smile at her. Then, he had only laughed when he wasn’t with Marie. Wouldn’t that be considered a cruel and unusual punishment?

  Now he laughed heartily with that little woman.

  Marie tried to look outside the window next to her table. Grey, overcast skies the color of everyday Seattle went along nicely with her mood right now. Over the water, in the distance at the wharf, giant cranes stood still, waiting for their next call to labor.

  Maybe it would be sunny, for a change, the next time she came to town—if there was ever another reason to visit Seattle than to settle into the gloom of a loveless marriage that once was.

  She remembered their last cruise together—just Logan and her—sailing through the Aegean Sea in their attempt to resuscitate a dead marriage. They had fought for two days onboard that yacht. By the third day, they both had gotten off at Mykonos, and went their separate ways, the rest of the paid cruise drowned in the Mediterranean. Marie flew to her mother’s house in Marseilles, and the next day, she filed for a divorce.

  All that time, Jonas had stayed behind in Atlanta with his doting nanny.

  Ah, dark days indeed.

  Why am I thinking about the past?

  Shouldn’t I give it to God?

  Why couldn’t she compartmentalize this part of her life like she had compartmentalized different aspects of her career, playing roles in deep undercover, taking on criminals all over the world, living her life as ordinarily as possible?

  But she could not put her ex-husband away. Thoughts of him, memories of him, times with him had all persistently occupied Marie’s mind for the last three years. No matter where she had been, what she had done, he had followed her around in her head.

  And now, after three years, they had to confront each other again.

  What was she going to say to him when they were together?

  What was he going to say to her?

  Here he comes.

  Ah, she needn’t have worried.

  In what seemed like a great show of hatred for her, Logan walked past without even looking at her, registering a look of disgust that Marie had been familiar with.

  Marie didn’t turn to see where he was sitting, but she had seen enough. That scorn on his face had told her everything.

  That’s how he still feels about me.

  Chapter Three

  I probably shouldn’t have done that.

  And that other thing too.

  Logan entered his stateroom, and made his way through the roomy space. He passed by his suitcase in the walk-in closet. He would unpack his clothes later, but at this time—even though it was Saturday—he had some business decisions to make.

  His cousin, Jared, wanted Urquhart Enterprises—the family business they had inherited from their parents—to invest in a steel company in India. That New Delhi company was doing well, which meant a steady income for its investors.

  But.

  Jared himself was a partner in yet another company, Ruttledge Yamada Urquhart Commercial Properties, based out of Atlanta, but with branch offices in Savannah and on St. Simon’s Island on the Georgia coast. He was stretched thin developing several mixed-use properties in those two coastal locations. The real estate projects had required Urquhart Enterprises to dip into their venture capitalist funds a bit too frequently.

  And now, Jared wanted to add one more investment to their portfolio.

  The way Logan looked at it, he wasn’t sure their bank account could sustain one more investment, its future projected income notwithstanding.

  Logan didn’t have peace about it. He had told Jared he needed more time to pray about this.

  God had worked it out for him in an interesting way. Jonas’s birthday meant Logan was taking time off. Jared then decided to go to London for a few days to visit his girlfriend and their daughter.

  Anything to buy time.

  Time to pray for more time.

  Sigh.

  Logan walked outside to the wide balcony deck. The ship was still docked. He and his family—well, plus Marie—had boarded the ship first, ahead of all the rest of the passengers paying less for their staterooms.

  He leaned against the plexiglass railings of his balcony, at the edge of the ship—sun and wind in his hair—as he stared back into his stateroom. Marie had another stateroom just like this one. In between theirs, around the corner, Jonas and his nanny had a penthouse stateroom.

  It was a splurge, but then Jonas was the birthday boy.

  Still, Logan wondered what would become of his son if he continued to lavish such luxuries on a child who probably preferred the children’s activity center and pool, and would only stay in his stateroom to sleep at night.

  Then again, he was sure Jonas was going to be a good boy for all of them. He had always been such a good-natured boy. Calm and happy.

  I wish Marie and I could be like that.

  Logan felt bad all over again. He should apologize to her, but at the same time, he didn’t want to.

  Let her think what she will.

  When Logan had chatted up that woman in the lunchroom, he had been fully aware that Marie was nearby. He wanted Marie to see that he had moved on.

  Had he moved on, really?

  When he had walked past her in a show of deliberate shunning…

  He had felt terrible doing it.

  He wanted to sit at her table and talk about Jonas, how much he had grown in the last three years she had been wasting her time in Europe.

  Wasting?

  Truth be told, Logan had no idea what Marie did in Europe these days. She hadn’t been transparent about it ever since they had met more than six years ago. She had never come clean about the lies.

  All he knew was that Marie Bouchard had not been a translator at all.

  Beyond that, no amount of investigation could dig up who she was, except that she had been a translator. After a while, Logan stopped paying the private investigative firm.

  As far as he was concerned, Marie Bouchard was not who she had said she was.

  Was that even her real name?

  It was as if Logan had married a mirage.

  A chimera.

  Still, she had mothered a child. There must have been some love there, yes?

  Whether or not Marie confessed her dissimulations to God was of no concern to Logan. He knew that he himself had to be blameless before God.

  For that reason, he had to apologize to Marie for being rude to her—the mother of his child.

  He turned around to put both elbows on the wood railings. “Lord, why wouldn’t Marie tell me the truth about who she really is and what she really does?”

  The answer came to him quickly, just like that.

  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

  “Romans 3:23. Should’ve figured.”

  Logan hung his head, then warily emailed Marie.

  Logan dragged himself across the carpeted hallway between his stateroom and Marie’s. He had emailed her, and she had ignored him.

  Or he thought she had.

  Logan wanted to get this gnaw off his chest so he could at least have a pleasant weekend before he dove into what would probably result in a big argument with his cousin on Monday over the failed investments they had made.

  Until then, he wanted a quiet Saturday and Sunday, thank you very much.

  Logan slowed down his steps, saying hello to the stewards greeting him, the entire time wondering what to say to Marie once he knocked on her door.

  Six years prio
r, he had known what to say every time they were together, starting from their initial meeting at the French Riviera, and then ending in Atlanta.

  Ending, indeed.

  She had been beautiful, charming, sweet, and had spoken seven languages. After he had hired her for her first translation job for Urquhart Enterprises in Sweden, she then accompanied the Urquhart cousins to the various branch offices in Europe, translating for them in both business meetings and at social events. By the time they reached London, Logan was madly in love.

  Madly?

  Logan stopped outside Marie’s door, and stood there.

  Just stood there.

  In some of their arguments throughout their short-lived marriage, Marie had accused him of having married her on the rebound. It could be true. Logan had been engaged to a twice-married wealthy businesswoman, who had abruptly broken off their engagement and had eloped with someone else to wherever.

  Whatever.

  Logan lifted his knuckles to knock on the heavy door. It opened before his hand reached it.

  Marie peeked out through the partially open door.

  “You’re forgiven,” she snapped.

  And then she slammed the door in Logan’s face.

  Chapter Four

  Summoned by a child to a morning Bible study, Marie was only too eager to be there to have something to do while the cruise ship was at sea. Due to her jet lag, she had been up since three in the morning, and had gone to the gym and pool and back to her empty stateroom before sunrise.

  However, now that she was sitting in the same space as her ex-husband, Marie didn’t feel like she belonged, as if three years of being gone had erased all feelings of familiarity in this once-family.

  The fifteen-minute Bible study had turned into twenty minutes, as little Jonas had insisted that Mrs. Ping read them the riot act—uh, participation rules—the first five minutes of the all-too-important meeting.

  Everyone had to sit down quietly. No cell phones allowed. No texting.

  “Sit and listen,” Jonas had warned them twice.

  “If you do not have a Bible, a paperback one will be provided for you,” Mrs. Ping added. “We look at paper, not pixel.”