Logan had a bag in his hand, and he pulled out the red blindfold we’d taken from the boutique months ago but had not used.
I raised a very curious brow.
He shrugged and the corners of his mouth tipped up. “I thought we’d have time for this, but now I have to ask you to put it on.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Please,” he begged and stepped toward me.
I held a finger up. “Hang on. You were going to let me blindfold you?”
He nodded. “That was the plan, but then I got lost in you.”
I bit my lip. “I didn’t mind, really.”
His grin was devilish as he strode toward me. “Turn around.”
With a shake of my head, I waved my finger back and forth. “No, no, no, you turn around.”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Please, I promise you can use the blindfold and the handcuffs on me later if you just turn around and let me put this on you now.”
He was vowing to give up control one night in the future. I didn’t have to think twice. I stuck my hand out in shaking position.
He raised a brow.
“Deal,” I said.
He shook his head and then my hand. “Deal.”
With the blindfold over my eyes I was surprised it didn’t freak me out, but it didn’t. I always felt safe with Logan.
Step by step he guided me down each stair, and when we were at my front door he opened it.
Music started to blare and I heard the sound of Peyton’s laugher. “Declan, turn that off,” she chided.
“Dumb ass,” Logan muttered.
I heard other voices too. “What’s going on?” I asked Logan.
He tugged my blindfold and it fell to the ground. “Well, this is not how this was supposed to happen, but I’ll just have to roll with it.”
Everyone we knew—Frank, Molly, Sean, Declan and Peyton holding hands, Rachel and her boyfriend, Miles, Erin and her husband and kids, and even Mrs. R and Clementine—were standing in the street with red balloons in their hands. “I thought we were supposed to go see each of them.”
Logan shrugged. “I thought it would be better this way.”
I nodded. I had to agree it was. I’d come to love each and every one of these people and I was going to miss them, but I’d made a promise to Michael and I intended to live up to it.
Logan gave a slight nod toward the crowd and then they all backed away to reveal a shiny red Prius. “Bon voyage!” they yelled.
Tears stung the back of my eyelids and I brought my hands to my mouth. “How did you even remember I’d wanted one in the midst of everything going on?”
His grin was cocky. “A very wise man once told me that it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.”
I threw myself at him. “He wasn’t wrong.”
Logan twirled me around on the stairs and then tossed me over his shoulder and started to carry me to the car.
“Hey, this isn’t very romantic.”
He laughed. “I told you I wasn’t good at romance.”
I think I might have been giggling and crying at the same time because he couldn’t have been more wrong.
When he opened the driver’s door, he set me down and smiled at me with that smile that from the very first time I saw it made my stomach flip.
“Mommy,” I heard Clementine say.
“I got her.” Logan closed my door and extended his hands to Mrs. R, who brought her to him. He strode around the car whispering something to her and then the two of them got in on the passenger side.
I smiled at her. “Hi, silly girl.”
“Shiny,” she kept saying.
I was laughing. “It is very shiny.”
“She’s not talking about the car,” Logan said, holding her on his lap.
I glanced into the backseat and all I saw was a car seat.
When I turned back around, Logan had his hand around Clementine’s. “Open it,” he whispered.
She did.
I gasped.
“Elle Sterling, will you marry me and let me be a part of your and Clementine’s life?”
My jaw dropped. My body shook. Never in a million years was I expecting this. Happiness surged through me and I was fighting to hold back the tears. I couldn’t remember a time in my life ever feeling like this.
“Say yes, say no, say anything,” he said, sounding mildly distressed.
“Yes,” Clementine answered.
My laughter and joy turned into big, sobbing tears as I struggled to talk. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
The ring was the absolute most beautiful thing I had ever seen. “Logan, it’s exquisite,” I said through my tears.
He slid it on my finger and it fit perfectly. “It was my grandmother’s and before my grandfather died, he gave it to me and told me he wanted you to wear it. Somehow, some way, he knew you were made for me.”
I threw my arms around him and Clementine and found his lips. “That’s because he knew we were made for each other.”
When Clementine would have no more of being constrained, Logan opened the door and handed her to his father. Then he turned back and honked the horn. As if it was a signal, everyone let go of their red balloons.
Clementine was clapping her little hands together like it was a show.
I watched as the sky filled with my favorite color. The color I always saw as hope.
“You ready to say goodbye?” he asked.
I nodded. I knew we wouldn’t be saying goodbye forever. There would be visits. But it was time to go.
The three of us were starting a new life together away from the madness of Boston. I never in my life would have thought I’d have a family of my own. I never in my life would have thought I could be so happy. But here I sat in my new car, with my new fiancé, and my newly court-appointed daughter, and life couldn’t be any sweeter.
The sorrow that brought us here would always remain in my heart, but I wouldn’t wear it on my sleeve.
I was stronger than that.
We held hands and watched through the windshield until we couldn’t see any more balloons, and then we turned toward each other.
Logan ran his finger over the slight scar on my cheek.
I ran mine down the one under his eye.
War wounds.
Tragic memories from our past that we would never forget but together would be able to put behind us.
Together.
Not apart.
Not alone.
Together.
DAY 275
LOGAN
Brooklyn is the place we call home.
Here, I found myself no longer divided between worlds.
My grandfather Ryan owned an authentic brownstone built around the turn of the century by his father’s father and when he heard how much Elle loved the architecture of Beacon Hill, he gave it to Elle and me as a wedding gift.
It’s odd because before I met Elle, I never wanted to get married, but with her, I couldn’t even tell you anymore why.
We married in the Botanical Gardens with fewer than thirty guests. We both decided on something small and meaningful. The vows we recited included Clementine, and she even stood up at the altar with us.
My father had moved to Brooklyn as well, and together we opened McPherson and Son Family Law.
Elle chose to run her online boutique from home to be closer to Clementine and I try to stay home one, sometimes two days a week to pull my share and give her time. She loves her life and her circle of friends. She’s even recruited them to help her. Phoebe, Lindsay, and Lily go with her as she combs through antique stores looking for the best of the best.
I’d been thinking about my grandfather Killian a lot lately. He was a man of great wisdom and guidance. Sure, I knew he was an outlaw, but that was a part of his life I never saw. To me he was one of a kind. A man who loved his grandson. And there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss him. I’m thankful, though, for the time he spent with me because those memories are what will keep him alive in my mind forever.
There’s this pizza place in Brooklyn called Paulie Gee’s. Elle and I took Clementine there last week.