I could barely feel Samantha holding my hand firmly in hers as we drove through our small hometown towards the hospital. My stomach hurt like hell, but it was nothing compared to the sharp pain in my chest. “I love you Samantha,” I wheezed out, not sure if she heard me. My girlfriend was the most important person in my life; I loved her more than anyone. I just never had the balls to say it until now. But I had to end it with her, or she would be in danger. There was no way that I was going to put her in danger just so I could be with her. “I love you too James,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against our hands. S***, this was going to be painful. I glanced up at Samantha and attempted a smile, but I failed. My eyes slowly closed and I drifted off to a place where there was no pain, only me, Samantha, a warm sun, and freshly cut grass. We were at the park a week earlier, enjoying a picnic that I had planned. She had her head on my chest and my arm around her shoulders. “It’s so warm,” she mumbled sleepily. I kissed her forehead gently and sighed. I wanted to tell her I loved her, but I didn’t want to freak her out. So instead, I just held her closer and rubbed her shoulder. “You’re perfect,” I whispered in her ear. Samantha giggled and leaned over me, a soft smile on her face. Her sea blue eyes were half closed and her wavy blonde hair fell in her face. I stroked her cheek with my knuckles and held her hip. “And so are you.” Samantha leaned back against me, almost on top of me now, and fell asleep. I rubbed her back, only thinking of how much I loved her and wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. I just wished I had told her that day in the park that I loved her. When Samantha screamed on the phone, I thought she was repulsed. Thankfully, she was just surprised. My eyes opened, my vision was blurry but I was able to see Samantha’s outline. She was gently stroking my face and holding my hand firmly in hers. That would be the last time I saw her for a long time.

I slipped on the silk black dress that James had loved on me and looked in the mirror. James had been gone for close to a month now, and I still couldn’t stop crying. He was dead, and I was never going to see him again. I put my hair back in a bun and grabbed my phone. Ever since James had died, I had just hoped and prayed with all my heart that he was coming back, that he hadn’t died and that the hospital made a mistake.


The funeral was being held at the park where James and I had met. The town had allowed us to bury his ashes there. I had been treated as James’s widow from the moment he died at that hospital. Mom drove me to the park, but didn’t stay. I slowly walked to the huge group of people mourning James. My eyes stung as I made my way to the tree.


James’s ashes were buried under the tree, but necklaces containing some of his ashes were given to close family members. James’s aunt handed me a small silver locket and gave me a sad smile. “James loved you very much. I know he would want you to be happy and move on.” She patted my hand and walked away. I burst into tears and fell to my knees in front of James’s grave.


“I love you James. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you,” I whispered. My heart was shattered into a million pieces. I couldn’t believe that James was dead; I thought I had saved him. If I had just gotten there a few minutes earlier . . .


“There’s nothing you could have done to save him Samantha.” A hand rested on my shoulder and I turned to face James’s older brother Lucas. He wrapped his arms around me and held me against his chest.


“I’m sorry Lucas. I wish I could have saved him. It’s my fault, it’s my fault.” I tried to control the hard sobs that escaped, but I couldn’t get a handle on them.


Lucas stroked my hair and pulled away from me. “You’ll always be my little sister.”


“What?”


Lucas sighed. “James was going to propose. He showed me the ring and everything.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small sapphire ring. “See. I know he would want you to keep it.” Lucas dropped the ring into my free palm.


“Thank you.” I closed my hand around the ring and my other around the necklace. This was the closest I was going to get to James.


I sat next to James’s grave long after everyone else had left. The locket was around my neck and the ring on my finger. I would have said yes, I knew I would have. James was the love of my life. I needed him and he needed me. We were a perfect couple, everyone had said so. James and I had been invisible when we were single, no one noticed us. Then we started dating and we were suddenly popular. Maybe everyone knew that we should have been together? Well, it didn’t matter. I had James and that was all that mattered to me. Now he was gone.


“I would have said yes,” I said softly. I pulled a letter out of my pocket and gently laid it on James’s grave. It was a note reminding him of how much I loved him and how I would never love anyone like I had loved him.


I stood up and brushed my dress off. James had loved this on me; he said it every time I wore it. I touched the silver locket with my fingertips before turning around and heading towards my mom’s car.


“Goodbye James.”

I was sitting in the hospital room, waiting for Samantha to show up, when two cops came into the room. “Who are you?” I asked.


“I’m Detective Neal,” the blonde haired woman said. She looked a little like Samantha, blue eyes and blonde hair.


“And I’m Detective Milan.” The other detective was a bald Asian man. He and the woman seemed to be a couple by the way they were standing. His arm was around her waist and she was pressed against his side.


“Why are you here? Where’s Samantha?” Was she okay? I prayed that she was okay and that she hadn’t been attacked as well.


Detective Neal sighed and came to sit on the bed. “James, Samantha thinks you’re dead.”


“What? Why? She’s got to be scared shitless! Let me see her!” I tried to get up, but Detective Neal gently pushed me back down.


“Your dad also thinks you’re dead and your brother too. Everyone has to think you’re dead James. You have to go into witness protection. I’m sorry.”


“No!” Tears stung my eyes, but I knew what was going to happen. I was leaving behind the two most important people in my life, my brother and Samantha. The detectives allowed me to sit and relax for a few minutes before speaking again.


“You will have to start all over in a new town, in a new school, and a new family. The family you’re going to live with thinks that your name is Conner Jacobs and that you’re a foster kid,” Detective Milan explained.


I sighed heavily. “Will Samantha be safe?” Detective Neal gave a small nod. “As long as she’s safe I’ll do what you want.”


What I didn’t know was that the next time I saw Samantha, she wouldn’t be safe.

Sleeping became my hobby after James died. I slept like, eighteen hours a day. When I was awake I was either curled up in bed or staring out the window. Mom worried about me and even put me in therapy. I didn’t say anything though, I just sat there. The therapist told my mom that my reactions are completely normal.


School was starting in less than a month. I knew that I would have to get up on a daily basis and face my classmates with a fake smile. James’s seat would be empty in homeroom and at lunch. I would sit there with my friends, but I knew I wasn’t going to say anything. The necklace never left my neck and the ring never left my finger.


It was about a month and a half after James died that I got a visit from Lucas. We had been close since James and I started dating. Lucas was like my big brother, but I had never called him that. I guess he would have if James had proposed. We would be getting married at the park, I knew we would have.


“What is it?” I asked, running my fingers through my knotted hair.


“I miss him too Samantha, but I know he would want you to be happy. I know you loved him and I know he loved you, but this isn’t what you should be doing. Look at you, your hair is a disaster and you’re in pajamas at two in the afternoon!”


“I don’t want to be happy; I just want my James back.” I got up and went over to the picture Lucas had taken of us when we went on a double date with Lucas’s boyfriend Xander. We had gone to the park for a picnic, a very common date for us. It was very warm in the summer in Maine. The only problem was the tourists.


“You have to move on Samantha. That’s what James would have wanted.” Lucas opened my closet and pulled out a summer dress. “Put this on, I’m taking you out.”


“Where are we going?” I asked, taking the dress from him.


He smiled. “I was thinking the movies or something.” I was shocked, was he asking me on a date? I thought he was gay (considering he had a boyfriend) but the way he was acting, it seemed like he was bi.


“This isn’t a date, is it?” I threw the dress on my bed and looked up at him.


“Of course not,” Lucas said, almost cringing. Great, I was that unappealing to him that he would cringe. I knew he was gay, but still, he could have been a little nicer about it. And why was he acting so upbeat? His brother was murdered and the police still hadn’t found out who had done it. There was no murder weapon anywhere and they hadn’t found any DNA. No one really talked to James, but no one had a reason to kill him either.


I sat on the bed and looked up at him. “Fine, I’ll go to the movies.” I knew there was no way getting around this, Lucas never took no for an answer.


“Awesome, get dressed and brush your hair. And I’m begging you, please put on some makeup!” Lucas laughed and turned around so I could change.


I knew I wasn’t getting out of this, so I picked up the dress and ran my hand over the material. It was the dress that James had given me a few days before prom. He told me that he had a surprise for me and wanted me to wear the dress. James had brought me to prom, I was so sure he was going to tell me he loved me, but he didn’t. I thought he was never going to tell me, then he did, but it was the day he died.


When I thought about the first time James would tell me he loved me, I thought about us being on a date. Like, a midnight picnic, which we did sometimes. It was cold at night, even in the summer, but James and I loved the park. I thought about us being curled up under a few blankets together eating grapes and sandwiches. We came close to telling each other what was really in our hearts, but we both chickened out.


“This is the perfect date,” I whispered, dropping a grape into James’s mouth. I quickly put my arm back under the blankets. Even in two layers of clothes and three blankets I was cold. Even James’s body heat didn’t keep me warm.


“Maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea to come at midnight. It’s freezing out here.” James wrapped his arms around me and held me against his chest.


I yawned. “It’s alright. I like being with you.”


“And I . . .” James trailed off.


“What is it?” I frowned and looked up at him.


James shook his head and kissed my forehead. “Nothing, I was just going to say that I like being with you too.”


My heart fell. “Oh,” was all I said. I snuggled closer to James and nodded off. It was around two in the morning when James woke me up and told me we had to go home. It was almost the perfect night, except that he didn’t tell me he loved me. He left me standing in my backyard next to my first story bedroom window, and at that moment, I was sure he didn’t love me like I loved him.

I sat in my new room in New York City staring at the only picture of me and Samantha I had left. My dad had taken it when I had brought Samantha over for dinner a few weeks ago. She ended up falling asleep basically on top of me while we watched a movie on the couch. Dad crept in and took a picture of the two of us.


Samantha’s golden locks were falling in her face and on my leg. Her head was in my lap and her small hands rested on her stomach. I had one finger wrapped around her curls and the other on the knee she wasn’t sleeping on. The detectives had gotten the picture for me before I left. It was the only thing I had left of Samantha.


“I love you so much.” I ran my finger over the picture and tried not to cry. I put the frame down on my bedside table and looked around the small room. It was bare, it didn’t show my personality. I would usually have pictures of family and friends (when I actually had friends) all over the walls. They were all important to me, but I couldn’t let my foster parents know about my past. I had a made up past, a past I didn’t want.


I was Conner Jacobs and I had lived in an abusive home until I was twelve. My father had killed my mother and baby sister then committed suicide while I was at school. I had found their bodies and was emotionally scarred. But that wasn’t me. What I really had was an awesome dad who did the best he could after Mom died of brain cancer and an older brother that was always there for me.


And I had a wonderful girlfriend and close friends that I hoped to have for the rest of my life. Yeah, they only started hanging out with me after I started dating Samantha, but they were nice and they were true friends. Samantha had gotten me to come out of my shell, even though she was shy as well. We had brought out the best in each other and had loved each other deeply.



But Samantha was in danger and I knew I had to save her or he was going to get to her. The man I had trusted my entire life was going to kill the most important person in my life. I got off the bed and walked over to the mirror. What I saw wasn’t me, it was just a shell. No one here knew about my real past and I needed to let Neal and Milan know that Samantha was in danger.



I picked up my phone and dialed the number I had committed to memory. Detective Neal had told me that I could call her whenever I needed her. I needed her right now; I needed to tell her that Samantha was in danger.



“Hello James. What’s up?”



“I need your help. Samantha might be in danger.”

I sat next to Lucas in the movie theater trying to focus on the movie, but I couldn’t. My mind kept telling me that something was up, that this wasn’t right. Everyone said that James was dead, but the doctors had told me that he had a good chance of living, that he was going to make it.



But he had died, I had to accept that. Lucas had already accepted that, he was even giddy about moving on. That struck me as strange, but Lucas was never one to dwell on the past. He had told me before that when his mother died, he basically tried to cut her out of his life completely. It had helped him move on, and he felt better after he had.



After my dad died in the war I had a lot of emotional problems. I never let anyone in, I was afraid they were going to leave me like my dad did. But then my mom moved us here, to this small, insignificant town. Suddenly, I was falling for James and making friends. James cut through my barriers and got me to open up.



“I miss you James,” I whispered, gently touching the locket on my neck.



Lucas stayed quiet throughout the entire movie and took me home after. I just smiled at him and went inside. He stayed in his car until I was inside, then drove off. It was a little creepy, but I guess he was just looking after me.



When I got up to my room my phone went off. I picked it up and noticed an unfamiliar number on the screen. “Hello?” I answered.



“Samantha, this is Detective Grace Neal, I need you to come down to the police station to answer a few questions,” the woman on the other end said. I was confused; I had already told the cops everything they had wanted to know. Where were you? Do you have an alibi? Did you attack James? Do you know who attacked James? The questions were endless and asked in three different ways.



“How do you know who I am?”


“From James Rice’s cell phone, we need to ask you some more questions. Is that alright with you?”


“Um, okay,” I agreed, somewhat reluctantly. I hung up and grabbed my keys. I guess I was going to the police station.


When I got there a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes (much like me) was waiting outside with her arms crossed and leaning against a wall. I walked up to her, pretty sure that she was the woman who had called me.


“Are you Detective Neal?” I asked, walking up to her.


“Yes, you’re Samantha?” I nodded. “Come on.” She pulled me inside and to a small room like the one I had been in more than a month ago.



I looked down at her (surprisingly I was taller than her) and sighed. “Why am I here?”


“We need to know what James said to you in the ambulance. The paramedics that were there said that he told you something, but they couldn’t remember what.”



I thought back to that day in the woods. My heart had been beating a mile a minute and my hands were clammy. James had told me someone was going to kill me. “He said, ‘He’s going to kill you.”



“Do you know who he was talking about?”



“No, he never told me. He had a heart attack after that. Then he told me he loved me. That was the last time I saw him.” The tears were coming back. The tears I had tried to keep back were flowing down my cheeks.



“Could he have been talking about his father or his brother?”



I was a little surprised. “No, he couldn’t have been talking about them. His dad was great and his brother was always there for him. Yeah, Lucas was a little jealous of James, but he didn’t want to kill him.”



“Why was Lucas jealous?” Detective Neal sat down across from me and crossed her legs.



“James had the good grades, the friends, and the girlfriend while Lucas didn’t. Lucas is gay and was tortured for it. He never really had good grades and no one talked to him.”


“So Lucas was jealous that James had been the prodigy in the family?”


“Yeah, wait, you don’t think Lucas killed James, do you?” Oh God, I had been with Lucas today. “Lucas doesn’t seem to care about his brother,” I whispered. “Lucas did it!”


I jumped up and ran out of the police station. I had to confront Lucas, he had killed James. He was going to pay, maybe with his own life. At that moment I didn’t care if I was arrested for killing Lucas, I couldn’t wait to get a hold of him.


But just before I was about to open my car door an arm wrapped around my waist and a hand covered my mouth. I tried to scream and kick my attacker, but I couldn’t get loose.



I twisted out of my attacker’s grip and spun around. Lucas stood there with a knife. “Come with me or you die.”

After I had gotten off the phone with Detective Neal I was knocked in the back of the head. I woke up in a car, my hands and feet bound with rope and my mouth covered with tape. S***, someone had found out where I was. Lucas had found out where I was. Why hadn’t I told the police that Lucas was the one that stabbed me? I guess I was just trying to protect him. It was my fault that he hated me so much. For what seemed like days but could only be hours I struggled in the back of the car, trying to get loose. It was nightfall by the time I was let out of the car. I was back in Kennebunk, Maine, my hometown. A masked man who could only be one of my brother’s goons dragged me out of the back of the car and pushed me towards an old well built house. The ropes were taken off of me and the tape ripped from me mouth before I was taken to the basement of the house. The goon that had brought me there shut and locked the basement door behind him. I tried to look around, but it was dark. “Hello?” a small voice called out. It sounded familiar, it was Samantha. “Samantha!” I cried, searching her out in the darkness. I found her hand and held it. She screamed and pulled away from me. “Shh Samantha, it’s me. It’s James. I’m not dead.” Suddenly, there was a beam of light in the room. Samantha was holding a flashlight and had pointed it right at me. Her eyes brightened and she threw her arms around my neck. “James,” she whimpered. I hugged her back and made little designs with my finger on her hip. “I’m so sorry Samantha. The detectives told me that I had to leave, that you had to think I was dead.” “I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re back.” Samantha clung to me, her hands balling up in my shirt. I pulled back and gently pressed my lips to hers. She threaded her fingers in my hair and I could taste her tears. We were finally together again, just like we should be, just like I wanted it to be forever. My heart raced and my palms sweated. Samantha pulled away, her dimly lit face flushed and smiling. “I love you Samantha. If we make it out of here, will you marry me?” I held her face in my hand relishing in the newfound warmth. Samantha lifted her hand and showed me a ring. My heart stopped, she’d gotten engaged to someone else. “Oh, you, um, you got engaged to someone else.” She pulled her eyebrows together and looked down at the ring. “Lucas said that this was the ring you were going to propose to me with.” Her eyes widened and she pulled the ring off. I took it and threw it across the room. “No, Dad was going to give me the engagement ring he gave to Mom. He told me that he would when if I ever decided to marry.” I put the flashlight on the ground next to us and held both of her hands in mine. “Samantha, you never answered me. Will you marry me?” Samantha nodded and touched a locket on her neck. “Yes,” she whispered. “Where did you get that locket? That’s the locket I had in my room for our one year anniversary.” Our one year anniversary was on the first of October, I had been trying to figure out what to put in the heart shaped locket. I decided that I was going to put a picture of the two of us in there, but I had to find out which one and get someone to make it small enough to fit in the locket. “Your aunt gave it to me. She said it had your ashes in it,” Samantha mumbled. She took the necklace off and opened it. Some ash (most likely from a fireplace) fell out and onto the already dirty basement floor. “I never took it off, it made me feel close to you.” She tucked it into my jeans pocket and smiled. I picked up the flashlight and flashed it around the room. There was a twin bed in the corner, just big enough for the two of us. Samantha nodded and held my hand in hers. We curled up on the bed, our legs intertwined and her head on my chest. This was a terrible situation, but we were together again. Samantha fell asleep on my chest, her arms wrapped around my neck. It was about an hour later that the door flew open. “Why didn’t either of you turn on the light?” Lucas barked from the stairs. “It’s dark down here!” He turned on the light and came downstairs with two plates of food. He put them on a small table, sneered at us, and walked out. Samantha stirred and groaned beside me. Suddenly, she shot up and cried out, “Where am I?” I pulled her back down and rubbed her back. “Shh, it’s okay Samantha.” I kissed her throat and tried to calm her down. “But where are we?” she whimpered. “We’re in a basement.” I kissed her forehead and got up to get the food. I wondered how long we were going to be here and what my brother was going to do to us. Samantha sat up and watched me grab the sandwiches sitting on the table. I brought the food over and we ate slowly and in silence. Samantha glanced at me occasionally, a worried expression on her face. I didn’t know how to comfort her or make the situation any better. Samantha finished her sandwich and got off the bed. She walked around the room, running her hands over everything. There was an open closet with some of her clothes and mine (I wondered how Lucas got a hold of those), the one bed we had been sitting on, a table, a couple of chairs in the corner, and a bookshelf with old dusty books. “What are we supposed to do in here? I don’t know why we’re here, why did Lucas bring us here?” “Because he wants something out of us, once he gets it, he might kill us, or he might let us go.” I picked up the two plates and put them down on the table. There were some cleaning supplies on the table as well. Was Lucas expecting us to make this home? “Well, I want to get my mind off being kidnapped. Can we do something?” Samantha coughed and held her chest. S***, I forgot that she had asthma. “Maybe I should clean this place up before you have an asthma attack,” I suggested. Samantha reached into her pocket, but didn’t pull anything out. That wasn’t good, she had forgotten her inhaler. “Lucas! Samantha needs her inhaler! Let us out of here!” I screamed, pounding on the wall. The door opened and a small red thing flew down the stairs. “Shut up! I’m trying to sleep!” Lucas called down. I picked up the inhaler my brother had thrown down and handed it to Samantha. I rubbed her back as she inhaled the medicine. “I don’t feel good,” she muttered. I helped her over to the bed and laid her down on the bed. “Do you want any water?” There was a big three gallon water container that you saw in businesses in the corner. Samantha nodded and I grabbed an empty cup off the table. Lucas had thought of everything to keep someone alive down here. Had he done this before and I just hadn’t known about it? Samantha slowly sipped her water as I wiped down the furniture, swept the floor, and dusted. I went into the closet and pulled out her nightgown for her. She smiled at me and I handed her the nightgown. I turned around so she could change and waited. Samantha tapped my shoulder and handed me the sun dress I had given her before prom. I didn’t know where to put it, so I just hung it over the back of a chair. “Do you mind if I sleep in my boxers?” I asked her. Samantha shook her head and crawled into bed, resting her head on the only pillow. I watched her for a few minutes before stripping down to my boxers and turned off the light. I got into bed beside Samantha and drifted off to sleep. Samantha turned over in the middle of the night, resting her head on my side and whimpering. I wrapped my arm around her and the whimpering died down. Sleep came after that, heavy and deep. A bang on the door woke me up the next morning. Samantha shot up and I almost fell off the bed. “Wake up, time for breakfast.” Lucas came downstairs with two plates and took the clothes I had rested on the chair the night before as well as the plates. He left the basement without another word. Samantha got out of bed and sat down at the table. I sat beside her and sighed. Were we ever going to get out of this place? “When do you think we’re getting out of here?” I picked up a piece of over cooked bacon and took a bite. “I don’t know. But maybe we can try to break out tonight?” “Maybe, but what if Lucas has guards on the door?” “Then we’re dead.” Samantha picked up her fork and picked at her eggs. “I want to go home and see my mom.” “I want to see my dad.” I put down the bacon and pushed the plate away. “I’m not very hungry.” “Me either.” Samantha pushed her food away and pulled her knees up to her chest.

I may have been back with James, but now we were trapped in a basement with no way out. I didn’t even know what Lucas wanted with us. James and I were lying on the small bed in the basement and trying to make the most of being alone. Yeah, this was a bad situation, but we were just as much in love as before. We had to make it out of this alive.


“When do you want to get married?” I rested my head on his shoulder and threaded my fingers through his.


“Um, how about next summer? It gives us plenty of time to plan the wedding.” James turned his head and kissed me deeply, making me forget about everything. I forgot that we were in a basement, that Lucas had kidnapped us, and that we were probably never getting out.


A loud bang made us jerk apart and we looked at each other, totally terrified. “Police, put your hands up!”


“Help us, we’re in the basement!” James cried out. The basement door burst open and two detectives came running in, one of them was Detective Neal.


“James, Samantha, are you guys okay?” Neal lowered her gun and I jumped up. James nodded and got off the bed.


“Are you alright?” he held my face in one hand and my hip in the other. I nodded and threw my arms around him. There was a loud pop sound and a sudden hot white pain running through my body.


I slumped to the ground and hit my head on the concrete floor. Another pop sounded followed by a series of thumps and bangs.


“Samantha, can you hear me? Samantha sweetheart stay with me,” James muttered in my ear.


“It hurts,” I moaned.


“I know, I know. But don’t leave me, please don’t leave me.” My eyes slowly closed and I drifted off.


The next thing I remembered was bright lights and James crying. He never cried; I had never seen him cry. “Make the pain go away,” I whimpered.


“I can’t sweetheart, I’m sorry.” James squeezed my hand. “Is she going to make it to the hospital?”


“She might,” a deep voice answered.


James kissed my fingertips. “I love you so much. Please don’t leave me. I’ll never leave you again, I promise.”


“But it hurts so much.”


“I know it hurts honey, but you need to make it, for me.”


The pain grew to be too much for my small body and I passed out again. This time I woke up in a small room. “Where am I?” I mumbled. I didn’t know if anyone was with me, but I felt the need to ask it.


“You’re awake,” James’s voice echoed through the room. “Oh my God, you’re alive.”


“What happened?”


“Lucas shot you in the back. But one of the cops shot him. He’s dead Samantha. He can never hurt me or you again.”


I started to cry, but it hurt, so I had to try and get a handle on myself. “I love you James.”


“And I love you.”

I took Samantha’s fingers in mine and spun her around in a circle a few times before pulling her close. She wore a white gown that fell to her ankles with no straps and matching heels. The necklace I had given her was around her neck, a picture of the two of us the day I officially proposed was inside.


I had on a simple black tux and had gotten a haircut for the first time in almost two years. Samantha wrapped her arms around my neck and swayed with me to the soft country music playing in the background. The two of us were heading off to Tennessee for our honeymoon, and then we were moving there for college.


“I love you,” I whispered against her lips. One of my large hands rested on the small of her back and the other held her small hip.


“I love you too. And I have some good news for you.”


“What is it?” I gave her a curious smile.


She stood on her toes and muttered so softly I almost couldn’t hear her, “I’m pregnant.”


I kissed her deeply and pulled her closer. “We’re going to make great parents.”


“Maybe,” Samantha giggled. I picked her up and twirled her around.


This was the perfect ending to a perfect story.