Moonlit Wishes
Book II, Part XXXIV

Sami awoke with a start, rising up from her position on the couch and looking around the room, realizing it must be in the early hours in the morning. She sat up noticing a blanket had been placed around her as she began to stretch her arms above her head. She felt her arm muscles were slightly sore from the painting she had done in the laundry room yesterday afternoon, but nothing too major.

She must have been more tired than she realized not to have heard anyone come home last night, and if she hadn't of seen the blanket that had been placed around her she might have been alarmed that her children were not at home. It had taken a great deal of faith on her part to allow EJ to take the children with him without her going with them, although she knew they needed some time together. It was going to take these small steps for her and EJ to repair the damage they had caused one another and she hoped last night proved she was trying her best to believe they both could work together raising their children without the fighting and tension that had been ever present between them over the last year until EJ had left Salem.

She continued her stretching while she walked up the stairs, making her way to first Johnny's room and then to the girl's room, smiling as she watched them quietly sleep. She enjoyed this time of day, when the house was quiet since those moments were all too rare these days. Her children were a rambunctious bunch, something she was glad of most times. No wallflowers amongst the lot of them, they were all going to forge their way through this life leaving their marks on the world as they traveled through it.

Then she smiled to herself, how could they not be that way? After all she was their mother and with EJ as their father, then she stopped for a moment thinking about Lucas also. Her taste in men ran from one extreme to the other apparently because Lucas and EJ had been as different as night and day, throw Rafe into the mix along with Austin and her time with Brandon and she began to shake her head.

Her love life hadn't been boring, but she was glad she wasn't on the merry-go-round of love anymore. For the first time in a long time she was on her own without any kind of machinations to snare a man or worrying about how to keep one with her. Her life was taking a different direction and while she wasn't sure exactly where she was going, she felt more confident she was on the right path.

Before she walked into the entrance of her bedroom her eyes glanced down the long hallway to the master bedroom, noticing the door was slightly ajar and instead of going into her bedroom she tiptoed to the door. She cocked her head slightly knowing she shouldn't look into EJ's bedroom, but of course her curiosity always seemed to get the best of her and she looked in anyway.

EJ was asleep, sprawled out sideways on the bed with only a hint of the sheet covering him. There was no doubt about it, he was the most handsome man Sami had ever seen, his features were ones that an artist would love to paint or create a sculpture in his likeness. She shook her head, her mind was going fanciful and it was too early in the morning to have thoughts like these running through her head because if she kept this up she would do something stupid like walk on into his bedroom and climb into the bed with him.

She needed to walk away and quickly because how would she be able to explain it if he awoke and saw her standing there. EJ would think she was crazy and maybe she was for even entertaining thoughts of sneaking into his bedroom in the wee hours of the morning.

She turned on her heel and walked away, needing to get into the safety of her bedroom and close the door. Apparently she needed more sleep or something. As she quietly shut her bedroom door, leaning up against it for support, she hoped it was sleep because she didn't need to entertain thoughts of the man lying asleep in his bedroom down the hall.

Hopefully they were on their way to being friends again, if she was smart she would know she shouldn't expect anything else from him.

Then again when was she ever smart when it came to EJ?