Heart's Desires (18 page)

CHAPTER 30

              “The day has finally come!  I didn’t think we would ever be here.”  Korri beamed at her cousin.

              “I know, right.”  Charlie shook her head in disbelief.  “With everything that has gone down in the last year, who would’ve guessed that we would end up here?”

              Korri nodded in agreement.  Both of them had been through a lot, and both of them had come out on the other end, stronger and happier.

              “You know I wish Gran could be here to see this,” Korri sighed.

              “Me too, but she’s here in spirit.  I can feel it.”  Charlie smiled brightly, trying to reassure her cousin.

              Korri smiled.  “Well, like always, it’s you and me kid.”

              Just as the words left her lips, Brandon walked into the room and shut the door behind him with a click.  He placed his hands on his hips and huffed.

              “And me!”  He loudly said, “I heard you.  You heffa’s are always tryin’ to leave me out of the equation like I didn’t grow up with ya’ll.”  He playfully squinted his eyes at the cousins.

              Both women laughed.  “Sorry B, you know we love you,” Korri cooed at her best friend.

              He smiled broadly.  “And I love you too.”

              Brandon took a step back, admiring the beauty of his two friends.  “You two look gorgeous! Absolutely breathtaking.”

              “Thank you!”  Both Korri and Charlie chimed simultaneously.

              Charlie rubbed her hands down the front of her dress as she took a deep breath.  She smiled at her cousin, knowing just how extraordinary it was for them to be here on this special occasion.

              Both Korri and Charlie fussed with their dresses and hair, trying to rid themselves of all the nervous and excited energy they both had.

              “Brandon is right. You look beautiful,” Charlie beamed.

              Korri smiled brightly.  “No,
you
look beautiful. So are you nervous?  I mean it’s not every day that you get married,” Korri asked Charlie as she stood in her beautiful off white A-line wedding dress.

              Charlie smiled shyly at the thought of marrying Jake.  “No, I’m not nervous.  I mean hell, I should be, considering we threw this shindig together in mere weeks, but I can’t wait to be his wife.”

              Korri smiled as she admired Charlie.  She looked radiant, and in love. 

              Charlie could hardly believe that things had progressed so rapidly.  After hearing the news that she was pregnant, she thought she fainted from the shock of it all. However, the real reason she’d passed out was because she hadn’t eaten anything and had been vomiting, so her blood sugar had been extremely low and caused her to faint.

              When she awoke a couple of hours later, Jake was sitting by her side, holding her hand with a look of pure panic in his emerald green eyes.  But Charlie’s assumption that the panic was about her pregnancy was wrong.  Jake was ecstatic to be a father, and he demanded they be wed immediately.  “No child of mine will be a bastard. You’re my woman, and I don’t have it in me to let you go, so you and everyone else might as well know you’re mine forever,” he stated gruffly.

              It wasn’t the way Charlie thought she would be proposed to, but she was so excited about the baby and being with Jake she didn’t really care how he proposed.  Of course, a week or so later, Jake proposed again in his back garden. 

Jake and Charlie strolled hand and hand to the back garden behind their house.  As soon as he’d found out she was pregnant, he demanded that she move in with him.  After some arguing and some making up, Charlie conceded and moved in.

“Jake, I really love this time of year.  The garden looks so beautiful,” Charlie stated wistfully.  She was so caught up in admiring her surroundings she failed to notice that Jake had gotten down on one knee
. 

When Charlie finally noticed, her breath hitched.  She saw her big, strong man kneeling in front of her with tears in his eyes.  “Heart, I can’t imagine breathing without you being in my life.  I’ve never loved another person more than I love you and our baby that will be here soon.  You know the reason I call you Heart is because you are the sole owner of mine.  It will mean everything if you will be my wife because you are already my entire life.  I don’t want to ever know what it’s like not to wake up next to you.” 

Charlie happily nodded with fat tears rolling down her cheeks, but unable to speak.  Jake then slid a pink, princess cut diamond onto her delicate finger, and they celebrated for the rest of the night and into the next morning by making love.

             
Later, they told everyone that they decided to get married, but didn’t reveal that Charlie was pregnant.  Her pregnancy was one of the reasons, but the main motivation was love.  Jake didn’t want to be without his Heart and Charlie didn’t want to be without her Bear.

              Jake stood at the end of the aisle in his back garden, watching as Brandon escorted his beautiful bride to him.  Her brown skin was glowing under the summer sun, making her off white dress stand out.  He took a deep breath and smiled slowly as their eyes connected, and her sweet face lit up as she softly smiled when their eyes met.  She wasn’t wearing a veil, just a jewel encrusted headband that held her long thin braids away from her face.  Jake couldn’t help the broad smile that spread across his face. 
She is finally going to be mine forever!

             
The couple looked deeply into each other’s eyes and exchanged vows that expressed their love.  They were surrounded by a small number of guests composed of Korri, who was Charlie’s maid of honor, Tony, who was Jake’s best man, Brandon, Lauren, all of the J.C. Incorporated guys, Chase, and finally, Jake’s parents.  They decided that they only wanted a small intimate affair because of the time limit they’d had for planning.  Plus, Tony and Korri’s nuptials were still taking place in three months, and their wedding was going to have a huge number of guests.  With Tony being a sports agent and with Korri being a local celebrity because of her designs, between the two of them the list just kept getting longer and longer.   But both Jake and Charlie couldn’t have been happier with how their day turned out.

              “I’m so glad we decided not to wait.”  Charlie smiled sweetly at her husband while they danced on the make shift dance floor of their patio.

              “Did you honestly think I was going to let you get away from me?  Especially with my little cub you got in your belly?”  Jake chuckled, as he nuzzled his beard against the side of her neck.

              “Your cub, huh?”  Charlie laughed as she caressed Jake’s beard.

              “I’m Papa Bear.  He’s my cub.”  He smiled down at her, his green eyes shining with joy.

              Charlie laughed again.  “How do you know it’s a
he
?”

              “I just got a feelin,’ baby.  I just got a feelin’…”

              Jake and Charlie laughed and danced with their friends and family for the rest of the evening.  It was the happiest day of both of their lives.  However, the thought of Tommy Angeletti was still lurking in the back of Jake’s mind, but for today, he would enjoy finally getting what his heart desired.

EPILOGUE

             
Chase sat in an uncomfortable chair beside Lorenzo’s hospital bed.  It had been weeks since the incident, and although the doctor said he was making progress, he had yet to stay awake, or be coherent for any substantial amount of time.

              Chase led her superiors to believe that her case was slow moving because of the shooting.  She was stalling because she didn’t want to chance giving them the evidence she did have, just in case it mysteriously disappeared as it had in the past.  Her superiors still weren’t impressed that she had little to no evidence against Tommy Angeletti, but they were willing to send some reinforcements.  Chase didn’t know who she could trust anymore in the Agency, and it had been weighing heavily on her mind.

              With Lorenzo nearly dying, her need for revenge wasn’t as strong as it had been in the past.  She still wanted justice for her fallen partner, but almost losing someone else she was close to had her more emotional than she had ever been in her life.

              She knew that she was too close to Lorenzo, and her feelings for him were shifting, especially when she found out that he hadn’t been doing anything illegal.  But she had a job to do, and the job always came first.

              Chase was staring off into space when she heard a knock at the door.  It was Mike checking in.  He had been a good friend to her, and he was also making sure that they continued to make progress with the Angeletti case.

              Once it was discovered that Jan and Justin were working together way before Angeletti even came to Texas, they virtually had to start over, gathering evidence against the mobster.  They still had surveillance of his illegal activities, but that wasn’t enough.  Chase still needed solid proof of his misdeeds.

              Mike entered the room with a small smile on his face.  Chase had been by Lorenzo’s side since the incident.  He was positive that her feelings went way beyond her case.  The only time she had left the hospital for any significant amount of time was for Jake and Charlie’s wedding.  He didn’t like that Chase seemed so wrapped up in this guy.  Although they found he wasn’t involved in any illegal activity with his business, that didn’t mean that he trusted the guy.  And Mike was determined to find out everything he could on Lorenzo Moretti.

              “Hey, Chase, I just came to let you know that the Jan and Russo situation has been taken care of.”

              “So Justin took the plea deal?”  Chase questioned, knowing that the bastard deserved way more than eight years for attempted homicide.  Justin had turned on Jan before she got the chance to talk and was reaping the benefits.  The weasel blamed everything on the idiot woman, and he made sure that he had proof to back up all of his claims.  Justin had recorded conversations with Jan demanding that he “take care of his mess.” He also had text messages proving they had an ongoing relationship.  He made it seem as though Jan was pulling all the strings in their warped ass love affair.

              Once his pampered wife got wind of what her dumb-ass husband was up to, she immediately filed for divorce and disassociated herself from him.  Her and her well to do family pretended that Justin didn’t exist, so as far as money was concerned, he was on his own, which was one of the main reasons he made sure to try to wrangle a deal.

              Mike sighed.  “Yeah he took the deal, and in turn Jan did the same since she was up shit creek without a paddle.  Because Jake caught her red handed in the office going through the files, and because her signature of authorization was on all the forms and account numbers for the money, she knew that there was no way she wasn’t getting jail time.  So she tried to get the least amount possible.”

              “How much time did she get?”  Chase’s eyes narrowed in contemplation as she thought of all of the charges Jan was facing if she didn’t take the deal.

              “She received ten to fifteen years.  They tacked on the extra because of the conspiracy to commit murder charge.  She didn’t pull the trigger, but she didn’t stop Russo from doing so either.  And according to him, she was the mastermind behind everything.”  Mike shook his head.  He knew all the evidence pointed to Jan, but there was no way she was in charge of a snake like Justin Russo.

              Chase shook her head in understanding.  “At least that’s something.”

              Mike nodded as his phone chimed with an incoming message.  “I’m going to take off, but I’ll check in with you later.”  He had contacts looking into Lorenzo’s past and how deep he was in with his family, and just how and why he got away from them.

              “All right.  Talk to you later,” Chase responded, already staring back into the abyss as a frowning Mike left the room.  She was too distracted with her own thoughts to notice that Mike was more than a little tense.

              Just when Chase was lost in thought about how she could explain to Lorenzo who she really was, and how she needed his help putting his cousin away for the rest of his natural born life, she heard a low agonizing groan coming from the hospital bed beside her.  She looked up to stare directly into the blurry, blood shot, ocean blue eyes of the man that she had missed so much.  Without a second thought, she reached her hand up and stroked his stubble covered cheek, softly giving him a smile.

              Lorenzo awoke disoriented.  The last thing he remembered was fighting with Justin Russo, and the asshole had shot him!  As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he clutched at his chest, feeling the deep ache there.  His arm was sore and it felt like an elephant had been sitting on his chest.  The continuous beeping noise seemed to get louder and faster, until he felt a small soft hand gently caress his cheek and then rubhis arm in a comforting motion.  He instantly relaxed, feeling the calming effects of her soft touch.  He looked up into the soothing chocolate-brown eyes that he couldn’t forget, even if he tried. 

              “It’s ok, Lorenzo.  Calm down.  Everything is fine, you’re ok.   I will call for the doctor,” Chase said, squeezing his arm in reassurance as she stood to go look for the attending physician.

              Lorenzo nodded, but when she made to get up, he tugged at her arm.  “Wait.  What are you doing here?”  He questioned in a hoarse voice.  He rubbed his throat to try and relax the irritation of the pain. 
I’m going to kill that asshole for this shit! 
Lorenzo thought, as the ache seemed to become more prominent.

              Chase couldn’t help but notice that Lorenzo was in pain; the discomfort was written all over his handsome face.  She poured a cup of water and held it up, helping him to get a much needed drink. 

              “We have a lot to talk about, but we have plenty of time for that when you’re up to it, I promise,” Chase answered, not able to completely look Lorenzo in his eyes.  “Right now, let me get you some help.” 

              Lorenzo again nodded, barely able to move his head.  He was still reluctant to let her leave, but the pain was continuing to get worse and he needed some pain medication quickly. Just as Chase reached the door to leave the room, a tall, slender, pale skinned man wearing a white lab coat entered.             

“Ah, Agent, just the lady I wanted to see,” The doctor stated with a smile, holding his clipboard.

              Chase grimaced when she heard a sharp intake of breath behind her. 
This is not going to be good. 
She turned slowly, reluctantly looking Lorenzo in his now stormy blue eyes.  She didn’t want to make eye contact with him, but in this moment she knew she didn’t have a choice. 
Shit!

              Lorenzo narrowed his eyes at the beautiful woman standing in front of him.  Her brown eyes were wide with guilt and shock.  He thought he was getting to know her, but in truth, he didn’t know who in the hell this woman was. 

“Agent?  What. The. Hell!”