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“Maybe just one of you for now. He needs his rest.”

“Go give him our love, Sweetie,” Johanna told her daughter.

Annika followed the doctor down the hall but hesitated at the door when she saw him in the bed hooked up to all manner of machines. He was deathly pale and somehow seemed smaller. It was a shock to see the once vibrant man reduced to this. Annika forced her feet to move, and she went to sit next to him. She lifted the hand that didn’t have all the wires sticking out of it to her lips.Please, Jamie, she prayed.Tell me,will he reallybeokay?She held her breath, waiting for a reply. Any sign that would give her the reassurance she desperately needed. She closed her eyes and concentrated on listening.

“Sunfire.” The whispered nickname came from the bed. Annika’s eyes flew open to see Logan looking at her. He opened the fingers of the hand she was holding and brushed her cheek lightly. “My Sunfire,” he whispered. “No tears, remember?”

“Happy tears,” she cried. “I love you, Logan.”

He smiled as his eyes drifted closed again. “Love you, Sunfire.”

Chapter 23

Twodayslater,Annikatossedandturnedonthereclinerthenurseshadwheeledinforher,herscattereddreamsmakingitimpossibletosleep.Jamiewasthereinherdreamsasalways,aswasthecaraccident.Loganfeaturedprominentlyinhernightmares.Inthem,she’dbesittingbyhishospitalbed,andhe’dvanish.Overandoveragain,she’dhavethisdreamuntilthefearoflosinghimfollowedherevenwhileawake.Shecouldn’tsleep.Shecouldn’teat.ShewasinaconstantstateofworrythatLoganwasgoingtodisappear.

Giving up on sleep, Annika stood and went to sit in the chair next to Logan. She placed his hand in hers and put her head down on the bed next to their joined hands, listening to his breathing. Johanna found her like that a few hours later.

“Annika.” She gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and when Annika looked up, her mother gasped. “Oh, Sweetie. You look beat. Why don’t you go home for a while? Get something to eat. Get some rest.”

Annika shook her head. “I can’t,”

“Sure you can. I’ll stay with Logan,” Johanna insisted.

“No,Ineed to stay. I can’t leave.” She could hear the panic in her own voice, and she was sure her mother could hear it too.

“Annika? What is it?” she asked, concern for her daughter in her voice. “Why can’t you leave?”

Annika felt like she was on the verge of madness. How could she explain her waking nightmare to her mother? How could she explain that she feared he’d disappear if she left?

She just shook her head, unable to voice her fears. Johanna crouched down beside her. “Sweetie, you need rest too. You are not going to do Logan any good if you collapse.”

“I know, Mom.” She pinched her lips together, desperate to keep the panic at bay.

Johanna searched her eyes. “You look scared to death. You’re so pale. Sweetie, what is it? Logan’s going to be fine, you know that. So what has you so scared?”

The tears slipped past her defenses. With all-consuming anguish, she cried out her fears. “I can’t leave him, Mom. If I leave, I’m afraid he’ll vanish. I’m so scared he’ll disappear. I can’t sleep. My dreams are filled with him disappearing. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Johanna pulled another chair over and placed it next to Annika’s, then gathered her into her arms. “Sweetie, you are not losing your mind. I think I know why you have this fear.” Annika looked at the sweet compassion on her mother’s face. “You are afraid that Logan will vanish because that is what happened after Jamie’s death.”

Annika gasped. The memory smacking her full in the face. “I left the hospital and went home to change.”

“And by the time we got back to see Logan …”

“He was gone,” she whispered.

Johanna smoothed Annika’s hair back from her face. “You fear that it will happen again. He loves you, Annika.”

“He loved me back then, too,” she reasoned.

“But this is different. You’ve both come so far, overcome so much to find each other again. He’s not going to give up what he’s found with you for anything in the world.”

“But he almost did when he placed himself between me and the gunman.” She still couldn’t believe he’d done that. He could have been killed.

“He was protecting you,” insisted Johanna. “And from what I hear, you did the same when you stepped between him and that man.”

Annika could see in Johanna’s eyes how hearing what she’d done had scared her mom. “I’m sorry, Mom. I just acted on instinct.”

“And so was Logan. He did exactly what he’d promised us he would do all those years ago when he told us he was going to join the Navy. He protected you.”