After quickly clicking Meara’s car seat into place, we were ready to go.
“So, any clues as to where we are going?” I asked, looking over to him, as he raced down the road.
“Nope.” He just grinned.
It didn’t take long to reach our destination, and as my eyes wandered around the construction site, I began to get suspicious.
“What are we doing here?” I questioned. I took a step out of the car.
“Just wait a second, and I’ll explain everything.”
I pulled Meara out of her car seat and held her to my chest. She hated being trapped in that thing, and if the car wasn’t moving, she would demand to be freed from it. As I walked around, I noticed the expansive ocean view immediately. It was endless and uninhibited to whatever they were building since it was the only house around.
I turned just in time to see Jude returning side by side with another man wearing a hard hat and vest.
“Lailah, this is Jim Duncan. He’s the lead on this project, our project.”
My eyes flashed back to the building, looking from one end to the other. “Ours?”
His grin widened as he nodded. “Yep. Ours.”
“Is it an investment property?” I said, trying to figure out just what was going on.
There were boxes all over my house that were going to New York at the end of the week. We were moving to New York. That was what he’d said.
“We’re not moving back to New York—ever.”
“We’re not?”
“No.” He laughed.
“I don’t understand.”
He looked over to Jim, and some sort of understanding was struck between the two of them. Jim gave a nod. As Jude took my hand, we walked up the stone path leading to the front door. Landscaping hadn’t been done yet, but mostly everything appeared to be finished. A large Spanish-style door greeted us, and we entered. The entire back wall was completely made of glass, giving a surrounding view of the sandy beach beyond.
The Spanish theme continued inside. Rustic colors of deep orange, yellow, and various shades of tans moved throughout the kitchen and living room. No furniture yet, but it already felt warm and inviting just standing there.
“I couldn’t let us leave,” he finally said, turning toward me, as we stood together in what would be our family room.
“But what about the company? Your job?”
He smiled. “Part two of our stops for the day. We’re opening a West Coast division. Expansion seemed like a good move, and several of the New Yorkers were looking for a change of scenery. When I suggested it to the board, they wholeheartedly agreed. Roman about croaked, but he’ll get over it. He once told me he could be a grown up when he wanted to, so now he’ll just have to make good on that promise—permanently.” He shrugged. “So, here we are.” He opened his arms out wide.
“We don’t have to move?”
He laughed, pulling me close. “Well, we do but not cross-country. And not away from that,” he said, pointing toward the ocean.
I looked around at this amazing house he’d built and then back to him. “It’s breathtaking.”
“And so are you.”
There were still a hundred boxes scattered everywhere, but we were finally here, in our very own house.
Home—it had a nice ring to it.
Over the last year, I’d become quite attached to the house we rented on the beach, but there was always a part of me that knew it wasn’t permanent. It wasn’t ours. It had been a temporary solution, and I’d thought, eventually, we’d move away, back to New York, so I’d never allowed myself to get too attached to it.
But here, within these walls, I could finally find peace.
As I settled into the glider with Meara that night, taking a deep breath as she nuzzled up to my breast, I knew I was home.
Feeding an infant gave me a lot of quiet downtime.
I couldn’t recall a time in my life, except for maybe long silent hours spent in the hospital, when I’d just simply sat and thought. These special moments with Meara had given me much needed time to process everything that had happened over the last year . . . and even beyond that.
I’d thought the moment I’d met Jude, I’d begun maturing, growing from the small naive girl I had been into the woman I was meant to become. By the time I’d followed him to New York, I had truly believed the process was nearly complete. It was a bold move after all.
But really, I’d been blossoming into myself every day since then. Maybe I always would be.
As my hand gently stroked the tiny hairs on Meara’s head, I smiled, remembering how boring I’d thought life was within that drab hospital room.
Little had I known what was waiting for me beyond it.
When my mom and I had driven by people standing on the street corner, holding their coffees and bagels, I’d thought about how glamorous their lives looked, how normal it must feel to be late to work or to cross a street. I had envied them, envied the normal.