As they walked forward, Logan felt that since Marie had asked him a question first, she had opened the door for them to have a conversation. He’d take the opportunity until she closed the door on him again.
“How are you this morning?” Logan asked.
“Me?” Marie pointed to herself with her free hand.
“Yes. Did you sleep well?”
“You asked me that at breakfast.”
“I did? I don’t recall.”
“You did. I was there first, remember, and you came into the dining room with Jonas and Mrs. Ping. As you sat down, you said, ‘How are you this morning?’ I said, ‘I’m fine. And you?’ And you said you would have preferred to sleep in all morning.”
“Wow. You remembered our entire conversation?” Logan sped up his pace as Jonas dragged them forward. “All I remember is that first cup of coffee.”
“You still put too much sugar in your coffee.”
“That, I do.” Logan knew he should cut back on putting too many sugar cubes into his coffee, but they were raw cane sugar, not processed.
“Well, I’m glad you gave Mrs. Ping a way out of this. We’re basically chaperoning a spoiled brat—”
“I’m not a spoiled brat!” Jonas snapped.
Logan widened his eyes. Marie laughed.
“Ice cream!” Jonas pointed.
Marie checked her watch. “Not at eight thirty in the morning. Also you can get free ice cream onboard the ship if you wait until lunch.”
“Free? He doesn’t know what that is,” Logan explained.
At the back of his mind, he appreciated how his wealth mattered very little to Marie. Her focus was somewhere else and on something else more tangible, perhaps.
Logan wished he had not divorced her. He had probably lost the most precious woman on earth.
How do I get her back, Lord Jesus? How?
The kiss on the top deck still lingered in his mind and heart. It wasn’t the same as before, but it seemed to be a more mature, knowing kiss—if there was such a thing. Logan felt that they’d had more life experiences in the three years they had been apart, and had grown up.
Maybe this time it would last.
What would last, exactly?
“Something on your mind?” Marie asked unexpectedly.
They were approaching the ice cream shop.
“What Jonas wants, Jonas gets,” Logan said.
“Is that what you’ve been thinking the last few minutes?”
“No,” Logan confessed. “Not at all.”
“Dare I even ask?”
“I was thinking about last night, and how we have both matured in three years. I think we’re better people now.”
“Better?” Marie paused. “I don’t know if we can bebetterin our lives on earth, considering we drag around our sin nature even after we’re saved in Jesus Christ.”