Unforgiven by Lorhainne Eckhart

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