Law and Disorder & Secret Bodyguard
Автор
Heather Graham
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EPILOGUE
It was to be the biggest wedding of the year, maybe of the century. J. B. Crowe had spared no expense. The guest list was huge and as varied as any wedding in history, from mobsters to cops to the governor himself. Even Olivia flew home from New York for the affair and to help with the hurried arrangements. Few people had ever been inside the Crowe compound. Most would never see it again.
But for one day, J. B. Crowe would open the doors and let the world in to see his only daughter marry the man she loved. The story had broken on page one of the Dallas papers and quickly spread across the country. Governor Kincaid’s Cop Nephew to Marry Mobster’s Daughter.
The story about Mickie Ferraro’s accidental drowning in White Lake got buried on a back page of the same day’s paper, but Jesse saw it and knew Ferraro’s death had been no accident. J.B., good to his word, had taken care of it. Just like he had the wedding.
Jesse had watched J.B. with his daughter and granddaughter, pleased with the mobster’s acting job. J.B. had seemingly convinced Amanda that he wanted to change. That he could change. She seemed deeply touched by her father’s acceptance of a cop into the family.
Jesse could tell that she also wanted to believe that J.B. really hadn’t had anything to do with Diana Kincaid’s disappearance. Or the black market baby ring. J.B. swore his men had been operating it independently of him and he would see that it was stopped at once.
“I want to change,” J.B. had told Amanda. “You have to admit, letting a cop marry into the family is a start.”
Amanda had leaned up to give her father a kiss on his cheek, her eyes full of tears.
“I just want you and Susannah to be happy,” J.B. had said.
That, Jesse thought, Amanda could believe. But for those few days before the wedding, Amanda seemed to enjoy the closeness she and her father shared. Like a lull before a storm, Jesse thought.
One night over a glass of brandy in his study, J.B. told them about the night he went to see Roxie, the night Jesse was born. He saw Frank leaving in his car. Even thought he heard a baby cry. But he’d been too upset over Billy’s death to understand what he’d seen, what it meant.
Like everyone else, J.B. had believed the baby died at birth. That Roxie had gone into premature labor after hearing about Billy’s death and because of complications, lost not only her baby, but later her will to live.
J.B. often held his granddaughter and seemed to take great pleasure in having the house full of life. Sometimes Jesse would catch him watching his daughter and granddaughter, a sadness in his gaze.
Even Eunice and Malcolm treated Jesse as if he was family. Consuela cried a lot, her happiness running over, as she made wonderful meals and raced about waiting on them as if they were royalty.
“Amanda and I will be leaving right after the wedding,” Jesse reminded J.B. Amanda didn’t want her baby raised behind fences and bars. She desperately wanted that normal life that Jesse had promised her. And Jesse planned on it beginning right after they were married.
J.B. had only nodded. It was obvious he didn’t want to lose his daughter, but maybe part of him realized he already had.
Jesse took Amanda up to meet his parents the day after their return to the Crowe estate. Amanda took to them instantly and they her, just as he’d expected.
“You made a huge hit with my folks,” Jesse told her on the way home.
“They are wonderful.”
“They sure loved you and Susannah. As soon as we get married, they’ll be expecting us to have more children. What do you think?”
She’d smiled. “I think we should start working on it soon. I’ve always liked the idea of a lot of kids, close in age. I can’t believe I’ve finally gotten the large family I’ve always dreamed of. Your brothers and sisters are great.”
He’d laughed. “We’ll see how great you think they are when you see them every holiday and every birthday and every—”
She interrupted him with a kiss. “I can’t wait.”
“Soon,” he’d promised and he’d seen something in her gaze... She knew, he thought. She knew he’d made a deal with her father.
And he knew that when J.B. went back to business as usual, Amanda would wash her hands of her father once and for all. And maybe, like him, she knew it was just a matter of time.
But she never said anything. Nor he.
He’d had a long talk with his parents about what he’d found out in Red River. They had never known who his real parents were but had always feared they might be people who would come after Jesse some day.
He loved Marie and Pete McCall even more now, knowing that they had adopted him, knowing what they had gone through all those years, worrying about the biological parents possibly showing up one day.
He and Amanda had also visited the governor and his wife a few times in Austin. Jesse told him about Brice and the other cops who’d come after them that night, unsure just who the cops worked for, and Jesse’s suspicions about his boss. Kincaid had promised to look into it. He’d also offered Jesse a job on a special government task force, making it clear that he still planned to shut down organized crime in Texas.
While he’d heard from his daughter Diana and she was safe and swore she hadn’t been kidnapped by J. B. Crowe, Kincaid wasn’t sure if he could make the wedding or not. Jesse understood.
On the big day, when all the wedding preparations had been made and the Crowe compound had changed more dramatically than even J. B. Crowe himself had appeared to, J.B. called Jesse down to his study.
“I want you to have this,” J.B. said, handing Jesse the heart and chain that Billy Kincaid had worn until his death.
Jesse put the two odd shaped hearts together for the first time. They formed a perfect small heart of solid gold. “Thank you, J.B. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
The older man had nodded awkwardly. “Promise me you’ll look after my girls.”
“I promise,” Jesse said.
Outside music played on the large lawn and a crowd began to gather. Dressed in his tuxedo, Jesse went down to stand at the altar with his two brothers as attendants, and wait for his bride. He held the heart in his pocket, balled in his palm, a reminder of the past—and his hopes for the future.
Then he saw Amanda coming behind the long line of bridesmaids, three of them his sisters. She took his breath away.
His beautiful bride appeared at the end of the long runway with J.B. by her side. Jesse wanted to remember J.B. this way, he thought. A father escorting his only daughter down the aisle.
When they reached Jesse, J.B. handed Amanda to him, a warning look in his eye.
“Make my daughter happy,” J.B. whispered.
“I’m sure going to try.”
When the preacher finally pronounced them man and wife, Jesse lifted Amanda’s veil and kissed his bride, then he pulled the heart and gold chain from his pocket and held it out to her. Tears welled in her eyes as she slipped it over her head, the two hearts finally united.
“Forever,” he said, against all odds. And as he and Amanda walked down the aisle, he had the strangest feeling that Billy and Roxie were watching. And that they heartily approved.
