Michelle’s mouth dropped open. I hadn’t told her about Gabriel signing these forms until now. She’d asked how I got him to leave her alone but I refused to give her all the details.
“He actually signed them?” she questioned.
“I can be very convincing. See, I was thinking we could change Diego’s last name.” I had to release her hand to switch the top document and reveal the second set of forms I had already begun filling out.
“Are those …”
“Adoption papers?”
I nodded. “I think Diego Townsend sounds a hell of a lot better than Diego Garcia, don’t you? Oh, and of course, his mama’s name needs to match. So, I was thinking, Michelle Townsend sounds better than Clarke.” I paused to pass the forms to Diego, while I pulled the ring box out of my back pocket and got down on one knee.
Michelle let out a small gasp.
“Michelle Clarke, will you do me the ho–”
“Yes!” she blurted out, falling to her knees to wrap her arms around my neck.
I pulled back to cup her face and press a kiss to her lips. It wasn’t the full on kiss I wanted to give her, but we needed more privacy than we had at the moment for that type of kiss.
“Sugar, you didn’t let me finish. Diego and I had a whole speech written out. Didn’t we?” I turned to Diego.
“Yeah, Mama!”
Michelle cupped Diego’s cheek. “You were in on this, too?”
“Yes! Mr. Carter asked my permission to marry you and be my forever daddy.”
Michelle cupped Diego’s chin with her hand. “And how do you feel about that?”
Diego’s eyes grew big and he turned to look at me, smiling so wide the gap from yet another fallen tooth was apparent. “I love him like he’s my daddy already.” He moved from Michelle and wrapped his tiny arms around my waist.
I will not cry … I will not cry … I will not …I’d hear about it for months if I broke down in front of my squad, but dammit if Diego wasn’t making it hard. I ruffled his curly hair, clearing my throat.
Thankfully, Michelle did the crying for me. She turned to me with watery eyes and said, “Thank you.”
I pulled her in again. “Thankyoufor filling my life up with what I never knew was missing.” I managed to get the ring out of the box and slip the twisted halo diamond ring, set in platinum, around her finger.
“This is too much!” She gasped as she finally took in the ring.
“Not enough as far as I’m concerned.”
“’Bout time someone made an honest man out of you, Townsend!”
I heard Don’s voice not too far off and I glanced up to see him dabbing at his wet hair with a towel strewn around his shoulders. I stood and helped Michelle to stand, so we could accept the congratulations from my squad members. Eric clapped me on the back while Angela pulled Michelle into a warm hug. Next was Sean, followed by the captain, and a soaking wet Don who kept his distance from Michelle with just a handshake to avoid soaking her, but did his best to drench me.
We all laughed, and I felt lighter than I ever had. Even with the shadow overhanging Rescue Four. Corey still hadn’t adjusted to his new life, even though he had been discharged from the hospital and was in a rehabilitation facility ? one of the best in the city, since ananonymousdonor provided the financial means he would need to get back on his feet. And we still didn’t know who or evenifthere really was someone after Rescue Four. No more incidents had occurred in our day-to-day calls. Even still, I was relentless in ensuring Diego and Michelle were safe, hiring discrete security guards to keep an eye over both of them, at Diego’s school and at Michelle’s work. Neither one of them knew about that and I planned to keep it that way. Gabriel was out of the picture. He was tied up in a very messy divorce, blacklisted in the Williamsport legal world, and for all intents and purposes a non-factor, but I still kept tabs on him just to make sure. Nothing was going to touch my new family.
“Who the hell is that?”
I looked up from a giggling Michelle to where Don’s head was turned, and squinted.
“I’ll be damned,” I uttered.
Walking across the Williamsport City Park in our direction was a tall figure I was very familiar with. With his darkly bronzed skin, dark hair, and dark glasses, I couldn’t see his eyes but I was sure they held some mischief.
“’Sup boys!” he called as he moved closer.
“Emanuel? The hell are you doing way across town? Your squad’s not participating in the picnic this year,” Sean stated, slapping fives with Emanuel.
