Page 142 of Whenever You Call

A tear fell down my cheek, making me blink and turn to see the people I loved the most in my life staring up at me in both awe and shared pain. I smiled at Bella with all the sadness I felt knowing she’d have to grow up without Cole, and then I turned to Logan, silently thanking him for being there for her now, just as he’d promised.

“But there’s something besides the letter that tells me we were the last things on his mind, too,” I said quietly, letting the rest of the room fall away, leaving nothing but the three of us there. My rocks. My reasons for breathing. My everything. “Because I think Cole gave Bella and me one last parting gift before he left us forever. He sent us a man we never expected in our lives. A guy so caring, strong, compassionate, selfless, and loving, he doesn’t quite seem real. He sent us the last person to look Cole in the eyes. Cole knew this man would be the only one able to let us know what he’d been thinking in those final moments before he picked up his guitar and microphone stand, and he flew away to play for the angels instead. For that, I’ll always be grateful.”

Turning back to the crowd, I felt Cole’s touch of approval slide down my arm one final time, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake before he drifted away forever. I sucked in a shaky breath, closed my eyes for just a moment, and then I looked up again.

“Cole’s last word was simple yet powerful, and it was this:Sorry.He said sorry. Just one word, and it was enough. In fact, it was everything. One short breath and final plea for forgiveness. He was sorry to his family, and he was sorry to everyone who had ever loved him for no longer being able to carry on.” Another tear fell, but I refused to wipe it away. “If there’s one thing that we’re all able to take away from this night, it should be thateverybody hurts, even the ones you think have the whole world at their feet. Sometimes the weight of that is a curse, not a gift. Until we’ve walked a mile in another’s shoes, we should remember to judge them less and comfort more. And even though Cole never found the courage to open himself up fully and say all this when he was alive, I think me sharing it with you now is what he would have wanted more than anything. So, as my parting gift to my late husband, a year after his death, it’s time for me to offer him my comfort instead of my judgment, too.”

I smiled up toward the heavens.

“Goodbye, Cole. I forgive you, and I thank you. For this life, for our beautiful daughter, and for Logan. I owe them all to you. You gave me more than you or I ever realized until it was too late. It’s time to rest easy now… Both of us.”

LOGAN

Two Years Later

Hannah padded barefoot across the sand up ahead, kicking out the bottom of her long, flowing dress as she threw a stick to our new puppy with one hand while her other cradled her swollen belly that carried our first child together.

Bella ran ahead with Aurora, the black Labrador she’d pleaded for and finally got—as if there was ever going to be a different outcome—while I strolled behind them, the sand and water slipping between my toes.

It was the same thing we did most evenings, always around sunset.

We listened to the waves crashing against the shoreline, providing us with the favorite soundtrack to our lives. The one Hannah had always dreamed of, and I couldn’t believe was mine. Not a day went by when I didn’t look at what I had and pinch myself until it felt like I would bruise.

I had no idea how so much beauty had come out of such a tragedy, but there we were, Hannah and I, now married and waiting for our first son to enter the world any time now.

We’d sold the Beverly Hills home and downsized to a beachfront home on Malibu Beach as soon as we could. While that old home held some good memories, there were too many lingering ghosts there that we couldn’t outrun and couldn’t shake free. Ones that we needed to file away in a box marked ‘closed’ before we opened up the next chapter.

What a hell of a chapter it had been so far.

“Aurora!” Bella said, throwing the stick head of her again and chasing after it, pulling me back to the present. “Race ya!”

Bella had grown so much in the last two years. The contented life we’d been determined to provide had given her so much confidence and provided so much growth, she’d only got more amazing with every passing day. It was a life outside of the spotlight, giving her the freedom to find her own purpose, personality, and to make her own choices.

I must have stopped walking, just standing in the sand as I looked up ahead at everyone I loved and everything I never could have imagined would someday be mine, because Hannah soon began walking toward me wearing a smile and shaking her head.

She cradled our unborn son with one hand when she came to a stop in front of me. “You’re doing it again,” she said, her bright eyes staring up into mine.

“Sorry,” I said with a smile.

She rose on her toes and pressed her lips to mine, having to adjust herself because of the swollen belly that now came between us. “Never be sorry for taking a moment to appreciate what we have.”

I didn’t waste a second to push my fingers into her now longer hair, fisting it tightly and drawing a seductive moan from her. In all our time together, our kisses had never stopped making me hard within a second.

The thought of one day losing them or losing her became unbearable, and I had to force myself to push those worries down. To live in every glorious moment we had together.

Tomorrow would always be tomorrow’s problem when my today was this good.

I pulled away, watching as her lashes flickered, and that damn blush rose to her cheeks, highlighted by the glow of the sunset lighting up the sky in pinks and oranges behind me.

She sighed as though my kiss was the most romantic thing to exist. “I hope our children get to experience something like this when they’re older. I hope they get to feel this kind of love.”

“Let’s enjoy them being young first.” I smirked.

Hannah’s soft, almost sleepy chuckle had my eyes falling to her perfectly plump lips again.

“I have so much advice to give Bella when she needs it,” she said. “I made so many mistakes.”

“They’re not mistakes if they felt right at the time, and you did what was right for you.”

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