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Janelle sat in her kitchen, as she waited for a call, with an update on the scenario from Guilliam.

Evan, for the umpteenth time, patted her hand and said, “He’ll be fine.”

“I know he’ll be fine,” she muttered, with a groan. “I just want everything over with.”

“I get that, but, even when it’s over,” he pointed out, “it won’t necessarily be over. Not in the way you want it to be.”

She winced at that and nodded. “Meaning that, just because they caught my kidnapper, it doesn’t mean we’ve solved everything.”

“Exactly,” Evan agreed. “Are you sure your kidnapper didn’t say anything that could be important?”

She pondered that and shrugged. “Honestly, I was only thinking about getting out of there alive. I wasn’t listening for intel that would help with the big picture.”

He chuckled. “And survival’s important too. When you stay focused, you would be amazed what you can pull off.”

“That’s what I had hoped,” she shared. “As it was, Guilliam managed to find me.”

“I heard you kicked and screamed enough that people heard you from inside the van.”

She chuckled. “Apparently I do have a good set of lungs on me.”

He smiled at that. “And apparently Guilliam’s still very important to you.”

She winced. “Yes, he is.” She stared off in the distance, as the reminder of why they had separated hit home again. She blinked back the tears. “I will need to make final arrangements for my mother.”

“Do you know what she wanted?”

“She wanted to be cremated, and she didn’t want a stone in the earth. She just wanted a little memory somewhere on a wall, someplace where I could go to and mourn. But, other than that, she just wanted her ashes spread out somewhere in nature.”

“That is a lovely sentiment,” he replied, “I don’t even know what the law says about things like that anymore.”

“I’m sure there’s a law against it,” she muttered. “It seems like a law stops everything you want to do these days.”

His lips twitched at that. Wanting to change the subject, he got up, walked over to the fridge, and asked, “Surely there’s something in here we can eat, right?”

“Are you hungry again?” she asked.

He glanced over at her. “We had a sandwich. A single sandwich.”

She laughed. “Let’s see what there is, and maybe we can create something. I gather we don’t want to order in.”

“No, I don’t want to invite anyone around right now. I would prefer not to go out either, and I’m damn sure not leaving you alone.”

“Right, so in that case,” she said, “we need to find food for you.” She checked the freezer and pondered some of the items.

He suggested, “I would be okay with just a big old omelet, and I can make it.”

“Sure, if that works for you.”

“It will.”

She watched as he cracked six eggs and frowned at him. “Are you sharing that omelet?”

He asked, “Do you want some?”

Her jaw dropped. “Can you seriously eat a six-egg omelet by yourself?”

He raised one eyebrow and replied, “Yeah, no problem.”

“Okay then. In that case, I think you need to have it all. I’m not that hungry.”

He frowned and walked closer to her. “You might not be all that hungry, but you shouldn’t be not eating either.”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “You go for it.”

Then she watched as he very capably made a hefty mushroom, bell pepper, and cheese omelet, and honestly, it looked wonderful by the time he sat down with it. “I hadn’t considered how much food you would need, given your size.”

“Size doesn’t necessarily matter, not when you’re working under stress,” he explained. “You need to keep your strength and energy up.” He had just finished eating, when his phone rang. He checked the number and frowned as he looked at it. “No name.”

“That happens though, doesn’t it?”

“Sure, it happens,” he agreed, still staring at his cell.

But she could tell that he didn’t like it. “So we just stay here and wait until somebody we know contacts us?”

“Pretty much,” he noted, with a smile. “Unless you need to go somewhere.”

“I would love to go to the hospital and see Tesla and Mason.”

He frowned at that. “We could do that, but only if she’s up for it. If not, I don’t want you anywhere around that place.”

“But you think it’s safe for them?”

“If it’s not safe for her and Mason, then it’s not safe for anybody,” he stated. “Meanwhile we have extra guards there.”

“Right, so that’s the one place that is safe.”

“It wasn’t safe for you,” he pointed out. “We’re probably still better off staying here.”

She groaned. “I hate sitting and waiting. I would much rather go to the hospital. Besides, I probably have paperwork and stuff to fill out for my mother.”

“ Hmm ,” he muttered. “That is possible too, isn’t it?”

“I have to make arrangements for her body.”

He nodded, as he looked down at his phone. “You contact Tesla and see if she’s okay with a visitor, and then we can go take care of some of that stuff.”

“Good,” she replied, with a beaming smile. She quickly phoned Tesla, and her friend was more than happy to have her come by.

“I had a serious conversation with Mason today, more than two minutes long,” Tesla exclaimed. “He’s getting better. Oh my God, I could… Well, today it seemed as if he was really here and doing better.”

“Excellent,” Janelle said. “We’ll try not to tire him if he’s awake. But what about you? Do you need us to bring you anything?”

“No, I think I’m okay,” she replied. “Now that I know he’s out of hot water, I should be able to go home now and then and get changed.”

“Good Lord, do you need us to bring you clothes?’

“No, I’ve got several changes with me,” she explained. “It’s just, there’s a difference between getting changed in a small hospital room versus in your own home.”

“Of course. I totally get that. Anyway, I’m not sure how long we’ll be, but we should be there fairly soon.”

“Good enough. If you wanted to pick up some of those muffins or a little bit of something along that line, I wouldn’t object.”

“Consider it done,” Janelle stated cheerfully. When she got off the phone, she told him about Tesla’s request.

“Right. She likes the muffins from Mario’s, doesn’t she?”

“I think so.” Janelle frowned. “She may have other favorites as well, but Mario’s has good muffins and doughnuts, and that would be a change of pace from the hospital cafeteria.”

“Exactly,” Evan confirmed. “We can go pick up a few things for her. She’s bound to be sick of whatever food she’s getting there.”

“And yet she’s not complaining because that is not her way.”

“That’s very true. I’m thrilled to hear that Mason is doing better and pulling through this.”

“It’s easy to say that we never expected anything else from him, yet we know how swiftly things can completely change.”

Looking somber, he nodded. “That’s very true. Yet he’s improving, so we will stick with that and will stay positive.”

“Of course,” Janelle agreed. “Anyway, if you’re okay to go to the hospital now, I’m ready whenever you are.”

He nodded, and they got up and locked up the house. As he led her out to the car, she could tell that he was constantly looking around.

“Even though those guys are in custody, you’re still that wary?”

“I am still that wary,” he declared, “because we never know for sure if other people were working with them.”

“Those dead bodies you have linked to Mason’s sniper are an awful lot of people already,” she noted. “Surely Gabe’s vengeful family are bound to run out of bad guys eventually.”

He burst out laughing at that. “We keep thinking that about the evil in the world, yet they keep showing up.”

She winced and didn’t have anything to add. They made a detour to pick up some muffins. Janelle also grabbed some fresh coffee, some fruit, and a few other items on offer.

By the time she came back out, he asked, “Is that for us?”

She groaned. “Don’t tell me that you’re hungry again.”

“I’m always hungry,” he stated, with a fat smile.

“Never seen the likes of it,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Are you sure you don’t have a tapeworm?”

“That would be pretty distressing,” he noted, looking at her in horror. “Why would you even suggest something like that? I’m just a growing boy.”

“Yeah. It’s the growing part that worries me,” she said, with a laugh.

Back at the hospital, he parked as close to the front entrance as he could. Then, keeping an eye all around, he led her inside. He still didn’t relax until they got up to the floor where Mason was, and, indeed, three guards were stationed there. Evan nodded at them and spent a few minutes speaking with them, while Janelle walked into the hospital room. She stepped inside to see Mason sleeping, but Tesla was sitting up, working on her laptop. She teased her friend. “There’s got to be another way for a pregnant woman to work on a laptop.”

She laughed. “You would think so, wouldn’t you? Yet even with a portable laptop, they still aren’t the easiest things to get a belly around.”

“Of course not. Anyway, you need to relax a bit, so get off that laptop and have a fresh coffee, if that’s what you want. I also brought you some tea bags and a few other things, including muffins and some fruit.”

“Oh, lovely.” Tesla eyed the tea bags and muttered, “I wonder how I can get water.”

“Nurses station? I could go get it.”

“Mason’s team won’t want you running around the hospital. Maybe I’ll just have the coffee right now,” she noted. “I haven’t had any today, trying to keep my consumption down because of the baby. However, I could sure use a cup now.”

As Janelle sat in the visitor’s chair, she smiled at her friend. “I’m sure you’ve heard the update.”

“I have. I also heard about your kidnapping ordeal.” Tesla studied Janelle carefully. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, almost back to normal.”

“Almost?” she asked, with a note of humor.

“An awful lot is going on in my world right now. All that time, especially these past few weeks, I’ve been waiting for something to happen, waiting for that inevitable time when my mother would pass on, and now that she has, I haven’t even had a chance to properly grieve for her.”

“I’m sorry. This all came down at a very strange time for you.”

“And yet, in a way, it’s the best timing. I certainly didn’t expect Guilliam to be here, but get this, apparently my mother contacted him.”

Tesla stared at her friend in surprise. “She did?”

Janelle nodded. “I think Mom felt it was time for him to come back into my life because Mom knew she was dying.”

Tesla sat back and frowned. “She knew she was that close to death?”

“She did know apparently—or she felt it, or something. I don’t know. It blows me away that she reached out to him.”

“And do you know that they haven’t been in contact at any other time? Any chance Guilliam was always there in the wings, just waiting?”

She stared at her. “I don’t know, but that would have been very rough on him, wouldn’t it?”

“Think about it. If the man loves you, and you made a hard decision that he struggled with, wouldn’t it make sense that he was always right there, on the perimeter?”

“Maybe,” she muttered, as she sat back and stared at Tesla. “I never considered that.”

“When you get a chance, you can always ask him about it. I’m sure at this point he would tell you the truth.”

“I think he would have told me the truth no matter what,” Janelle replied. “That was never an issue between us. If anything, we are too blunt and too much into sharing the unvarnished truth. The thing is, I realize now that I could have given him a different answer. I could have given him a different alternative to what I did. Hell, I could have just asked him for his opinion, for his insight, with both of us coming to a decision. Instead I made us live very painful and lonely lives. Instead of having support at a time I really could have used it, I cut him out,” she admitted, looking at her friend helplessly. “I don’t get it. I just… I still don’t even understand why I chose that route.”

“I don’t either,” Tesla admitted. “Yet you did what you did, and now it’s over. So you need to just accept that whatever it was, whatever reasoning you had, it was the right thing for you at the time. You’ll have to let it go and move on.”

She laughed at that. “I forgot how easy everything is for you.”

“It’s not easy at all,” she declared. “Yet you do learn, over time, that answers aren’t always there and that things don’t always go the way you thought they would. Whenever you make plans, life can turn around and can tell you, Nope, not happening .”

Janelle groaned. “It’s scary though, isn’t it? You think everything is all set to work out one way. Then you turn around, and it’s not even close. I had no idea what I would do when my mother was gone, and, ever since her death, I haven’t had a moment to even blink.”

“And yet, somewhere in the back of your mind, you were probably thinking you would get in touch with Guilliam at some point in time.”

“Yes, definitely. But it was also very cocky of me to think that he would still be there, waiting, available.”

Tesla chuckled. “Absolutely, and it is quite remarkable. Not many men would still be sitting there, waiting for you, when you made a difficult decision like that. He waited for years.”

“I know, but Mom was supposed to survive,” Janelle muttered. “In my head we would fight hard against the cancer, and she would beat it. Then we would all go back to normal. And instead it took far longer than I ever envisioned, and this is where we’re at.” She felt the tears choking the back of her throat.

Tesla reached out a hand and gripped hers. She tasted the coffee, then winced. “It doesn’t taste the way I was hoping it would.”

“You’ve probably forgotten what a good strong cup of rich coffee tastes like. No worries, just put it down. Maybe I’ll drink it, or I could always give it to Evan. He’s like a bottomless pit. Do you want me to get you some hot water for tea?”

She nodded. “That sounds wonderful, but I don’t want to put you out.”

“Nonsense, if nothing else, there’s got to be a teakettle somewhere. Let me go check it out.”

She stepped outside the room, and the four men who had been standing there talking, turned and glared at her. She rolled her eyes at them. “I was just going to see if a teakettle is somewhere so Tesla could have a cup of tea.”

“She doesn’t want the coffee?” Evan asked.

She smiled and shook her head. “No. Not now, anyway. Yet she would love a cup of tea.”

“Of course.”