Unforgiven (10 page)

“This is my fault,” he said again—because it really was. He should have asked better questions, paid more attention.

“It’s not your fault, Samuel,” Logan said. “What’s done is done. Let’s just find out what we’re dealing with here. We don’t know anything yet, so let’s just chill and stop the blame game.”

Joe nodded before rubbing his hand over the top of his head, scratching his short dark hair. “I’m going to call Margaret and let her know what’s going on.”

Samuel watched as he moved down the hall. He idly wondered how Margaret and Ryan, Joe’s teenage son, were doing.

“Is Joe okay?” Ben asked.

Logan turned to look at their brother before he stepped outside. “This is hitting a little close to home with Margaret pregnant too, you know. But you know what? We’re here together, we’ve been through worse, and you’ll survive this, whatever happens,” he said to Samuel.

Samuel knew what Logan was saying. His brother had been in the thick of it, fighting a war and losing most of his unit because of the roadside bomb that had ended his career in the marines. It was different when something was hitting this close to home.

“You know what? I’m going to step outside and get some air.” Samuel started down the hall alone.

“Samuel, do you want company?” Jake called out to him—the brother he’d blamed for this entire mess. As he thought about it now, he realized this hadn’t been about Jake. It had been about him. It had always been about him.

“No, but, um…thanks, Jake,” he said. Jake didn’t push, just nodded and stayed with Ben and Logan. And Samuel started down the hall, turned the corner to the front doors, and stepped outside alone.

***

He stared out over the lake, which glistened in the early evening sunset. He loved the trees that filled this property and surrounded the private lake, which was stocked with the biggest trout Samuel had ever seen. The way the evening light danced over the water, he understood now why Ben loved this place. It was a place he could think and take the time he needed to heal from the hurt and ache that life had decided to toss his way.

It had been six weeks since he’d carried Jill into that emergency room only to learn, hours later, that the infection had spread into the placenta and the amniotic fluid. The worst part had been when the ultrasound was done. Samuel had stayed with Jill, holding her hand when the technician slid the wand over her swollen pregnant belly. She said nothing, but Samuel could tell something was wrong when she excused herself and returned with the doctor minutes later. After looking at the screen, the doctor only sighed. The baby was dead. It was a girl, and she had died at some point in Jill’s womb at only twenty-two weeks.

It was worse than he could have imagined. He’d held Jill while she cried. It shouldn’t have mattered at that point who the father was, but Jill insisted on knowing. A simple blood test confirmed that it was, in fact, Jake’s.

Maybe it was a relief, knowing the truth. It released a weight Samuel hadn’t realized he was carrying. When he told Jake the news that the baby had been his, that was the first time he’d seen him cry. Ben had sat on the arm of the deep leather chair, squeezing Jake’s broad shoulders. Logan had hugged him. And Joe had stood there, watching both of them.

When labor was induced to deliver the stillborn baby, Samuel wondered whether Jake would want to be there, but he’d said no. It wasn’t his place. His brothers had stayed and waited in the waiting area while Jill labored.

It was Ben who insisted Samuel go back in and be with Jill even when she pushed him away. And he did, although the one time she told him to leave and turned away, he had considered it for all of a second.

“No, I’m not leaving you,” he’d said, and he pulled up a stool and stayed with her through all of it, while the baby slipped out of her, was wrapped in a blanket, and was set in her arms. It was then that the tears had flowed. It didn’t matter that the baby was Jake’s. She was still a Wilde who hadn’t survived. He’d wondered then if he and Jill were strong enough to get through this.

“Hey, I was wondering where you were,” Logan said. He rested his hand on Samuel’s head and ruffled his hair, which was still long enough that he could tie it back. He hadn’t shaved still and was beginning to like the feel of the beard on his face.

“Just thinking,” he said from where he lounged in the wooden Adirondack chair on the back deck that overlooked the west side of the lake.

Logan joined him, sitting in one of the other chairs beside him. There were six that filled this part of the deck. “Should I be worried?” he asked.

Samuel felt a lightness touch his heart at his brother’s concern. “No, just needed time alone, you know, to figure things out.”

“And have you?” His brother extended his leg out, the one that had been pieced back together from the roadside bomb. Samuel knew it still gave him grief.

“We’re going to be okay, so stop worrying.”

“I have a right to worry. You scared us—scared me.”

He didn’t have to finish that thought or say any more. The day the baby was buried, he and Jill had hit a breaking point. Jill had fallen apart, dropping to her knees at the gravesite, and Samuel hadn’t been much use. He’d gone out to the bar and worked his way through a bottle of tequila. It had been Jake who gave him the kick in the pants he needed—and a busted lip. His baby brother had helped him figure out what he really wanted, and that was Jill.

“Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom, you know, before you finally get it right,” he said.

“That’s true for some. Just don’t go there again. Heard you left the law firm,” Logan said, and Samuel looked over at his brother.

“Jill told you.”

Logan’s expression was the same one he used on all his brothers when he expected a problem. “She did.”

“You talk to my wife way too much, Logan.” He stared out at the lake, knowing that Logan had become a very important part of Jill’s life. He talked to her as he would Samuel, and Jill looked to him as a brother, one she respected.

“You still haven’t answered me about your practice.” Logan was prying again.

It had been a hard choice for him to make, but when Jill lost the baby, he lost favor with the partners because of all the time off he needed. He later learned that Samantha Stowles had pulled her business and gone to another firm, all because Samuel wasn’t available. The day he returned, he’d been called into Rob’s office and given condolences before being promptly fired. He’d been shocked, but he’d left, feeling the humiliation and the walk of shame as he gathered his belongings and was escorted out of the office.

With the help of Erin, though, who’d turned out to be a surprising supporter of his, he’d opened up his own firm, a small two-man office—or rather, one man and one woman, as Erin had joined him.

“It’s a good thing, Logan. Don’t worry. Sometimes things happen for the best. I have my own practice, and I’m not lining the fat pockets of other wealthy lawyers. I’ll take the cases I want to take and work the hours I want, when I want.”

Logan reached over and patted the arm of his dark suit. “Well, fix that tie and get your butt inside. Your bride is starting to wonder if you ran out on her, and so are her mom and sister.”

Logan had been his best man as he and Jill exchanged vows on the edge of the dock that fall morning. His family was there, his mom and dad, and Jill’s parents, sister, and brother. Jake and Chris had been there too, along with Joe, Margaret, Ryan, and their newborn baby boy, Mark. Logan’s wife, Julia, her twins from her first marriage, and the baby that was now almost nine months old had also attended. And Ben had been there with Carrie and surprised the hell out of all of them by announcing before the wedding that he and Carrie had eloped in Vegas. It was truly a family affair, and Samuel finally felt as if the past was buried and would stay where it needed to stay: in the past.

“Thanks, Logan,” Samuel said without looking over at his brother.

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me, for helping Jill,” he said—and for being his anchor and helping him face up to the harsh realities of life when it had given him a kick in the ass when he was already down. For making him get up and be with Jill and helping him see that being afraid of loving was what was truly holding him back. For helping him see that he had been missing out. His throat thickened, because the words wouldn’t come out. He hoped Logan knew. He was sure he did.

“How is Jill?” Logan asked.

Samuel glanced up as he saw the screen door open, and Jill stepped out, dressed in a white lace gown, sleeveless and simple. “Better, one day at a time,” he said. He stood up and held out his hand, and Jill slipped hers into it. “I was wondering if you’d left,” he said. He squeezed her hand, feeling the simple gold band he’d slipped on her finger.

“No, I’m not leaving. Not ever again.”

He kissed the top of her head as she snuggled close to him, and when he looked up, he saw that Logan was watching him. His expression was one of sadness and joy, and as he reached out and touched Jill’s arm, for the first time, Logan looked at him with approval.

The End

I hope you enjoyed reading
Unforgiven,
the final book of The Wilde Brothers. What’s coming next is a brand new full-length book,
He Came Back
.

He Came Back
takes you into one woman’s haunting journey when her husband returns home and everything she thought she knew has changed.

He Came Back is
available from all retailers.
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New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author Lorhainne Eckhart’s books have been described as
Longmire
meets old-school
Dallas,
and she recently received the 2013 Readers’ Favorite Award for Romantic Suspense for her title
Lost and Found
. With over thirty-five titles under her belt, her big family romance series have become a fan favorite. She is frequently a Top 100 bestselling author in multiple genres, such as romance, western, military, and mystery/suspense. She has written multiple series, including
The Outsider
,
Walk the Right Road
,
The Wilde Brothers
,
Saved,
The Friessens,
and her two newest additions,
Married in Montana
and her high-stakes suspense and sizzling, red-hot romance series
Kate and Walker: Deadly, Dangerous, and Desired.

You can chat with Lorhainne on Facebook at
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, Twitter @LEckhart, and her blog at
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The following Lorhainne Eckhart titles are available in electronic format. Please scroll down for the links or visit her website at
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for available retailers.

The Outsider Series

The Forgotten Child
(Brad and Emily)

A Baby and a Wedding
(An Outsider Series Short)