“She didn’t put them in a safe,” he said. “She had something else done with the diamonds.”
I tipped my head at him and gave him a considering look. How did he know this? “What did Mr. Loren want talk to you about?”
“Turns out Babs had another part to her will in which she left me a little something,” Liam said. “In the note Mr. Loren gave me, she said she wanted to make things right.”
My heart started to thump hard in my chest. When Liam moved to get down on one knee in front of me, it stopped completely. He took something out of his pocket and held it up to me between two fingers. Sparkling in the light from the setting sun was the square diamond my father had given Babs when I was born.
“Julia Blumer, I asked you once before and I meant it then, but I mean it even more now. Will you marry me?” he asked.
My face crumpled and I started to cry. I couldn’t get the words out. Maybe this was what Babs had meant when she said she wished she’d had more time to make it right. Babs had done this for me. For us. For the first time ever, I felt my heart swell with gratitude for that woman. I could hardly breathe. So, I nodded and then hiccupped, “Y...Yes.”
Liam slid the ring on my finger. It was a perfect fit.
“We couldn’t hear her!” Soph yelled over the wall.
“Yeah, what did she say?” Em demanded.
I looked over my shoulder to see my sisters peeking over the top of the wall, along with Dante, Jessie, Hannah and Harry. I started to laugh.
“Sorry,” Liam muttered. “I sort of figured witnesses might be in order this time.”
“It’s okay, no, it’s perfect,” I said. I shouted to my sisters, “I said yes!” Then I turned back to my man, dragged him up from his knees and jumped into his arms.
He kissed me as if I was everything to him, and I kissed him back just the same. When we broke apart, because oxygen is required to live, apparently, we looked at each other with matching goofy smiles.
“I love you, surfer girl,” he said. “I always have, and I always will.”
“I love you, too, new boy,” I said. “And I’m never ever going to leave you ever again.”
“Excellent.” The look Liam gave me scorched. “Now we can go upstairs.”
I laughed and took his hand. As we strode through the house, the light caught the diamond on my finger and I stared at it for a moment, trying to wrap my head around Babs having a ring fashioned for me and giving it to the man I love so that he could propose. It was so touching, and charming, and waaaay overreaching—in other words, so Babs.
I squeezed Liam’s hand as one sly tear slipped out to glide down my cheek but that was okay. In this precise moment in time, all of the years of hurt and anger between me and Babs finally faded away.
When I glanced at Liam, I found him watching me with a tender smile on his face. He let go of my hand and opened his arms. I walked into his embrace, knowing that this time nothing would ever keep us apart.
