“You just disappeared,” Liam pouts, shaking his head. “I couldn’t believe you just left like that, Lola. You just left!”
“Oh, I know! I’m so sorry,” I babble, reaching out to cup his cheek in my hand. The feeling of stubble on my palm is so wonderful I feel like I could start crying all over again. I reach out and touch each of them, making sure they’re real, that they are really here.
“I know you said that you wanted to be alone,” Carty says cautiously. “If you need us to leave, I understand. But we had to see you. We had to try.”
“I don’t think she minds,” Jake says, his voice low and comforting. I gaze up at him, at the steady strength in his eyes, feeling stronger than I have in months. I hadn’t even realized how I was struggling until just now. Being close to them again is like…
“I can’t come back with you,” I whisper. “My home is here. The mountain is so remote, and I’m afraid of what would happen, you know, being pregnant in the middle of nowhere.”
“What’s that old saying?” Kill quips. “Something about bringing the mountain to Mohammed?”
I shake my head. “What the hell are you talking about? Did you bring me a mountain?”
Jake smirks. “Not exactly.”
Carty holds his hands out, gesturing around the room. “It is one of the nice things about being fabulously wealthy. We could live anywhere. We could live on a cruise ship that circled the globe 365 days a year. We could buy an island in the middle of the Pacific.”
“We’ve got an option on being one of the first families on Mars!” Liam nods. Kill elbows him in the ribs.
“Not now, Liam!”
“Well, we do,” Liam pouts.
“Remember when you told me that you wanted to be alive?” Carty says, taking my hand in both of his.
“Yes, I do remember that. I’m sorry if that hurt your feelings.”
He shakes his head, pressing his lips together. I can sense all the emotion he’s holding back. “No, you are right. That was the right thing to do. For me, for all of us. For you too.”
“But what does that mean?”
“It means making decisions that lead us more into life. And for us, that means being wherever you are, Lola. There is no life without you.”
My heart stops. My ears are filled with the sound of rushing waves.
“What are you talking about, Carty?”
“We can’t live without you, Lola,” Jake adds, shaking his head. “We tried. We really did. But we just can’t do it.”
My eyes dart from brother to brother, meeting identical expressions. They are all nodding, watching me intently, asking me a silent question.
“So, we bought this building,” Carty continues, taking on his corporate tone again. “It’s perfect for us. Even bigger than the mountain mansion. The security is excellent, and we were able to outfit it with a birthing suite, even an apartment for live-in medical personnel, if it comes to that.”
“What are you saying? This building? The one we are in?”
“The very same,” Carty smiles proudly.
“Do you want a tour?” Timothy asks excitedly.
“You bet I want a tour!” I answer, grinning. “I can’t wait!”
As we stand together, it’s so easy to fall in walking with them. It feels so natural, with me slightly ahead and all five of them next to and behind me. It feels like something I have been missing in my heart all this time.
As we pass through the arched doorway that leads out into the secret courtyard, I catch Nance’s eye as she leans out of Alice’s office. She waves at me timidly, wiggling her fingers and I realize that she helped to arrange this. Maybe she is on my side, after all.
“Obviously, since it’s in the middle of town, we had to make some other adjustments,” Carty explains as he walks me through the courtyard. With the sound of a fountain, the noise from the road and people in the area just fade away.
“There are security guards on site, as well as cameras everywhere. But we didn’t want to disturb the architecture. All of these mosaics and murals are original to the building.”