by Lexy Timms
Saving Forever
Part 4
By
Lexy Timms
Copyright 2014 by Lexy Timms
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2014 by Lexy Timms
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SAVING FOREVER SERIES
SAVING FOREVER SERIES
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This is Part 4 of a 5 book series
The Final Chapter
Book 1 of this series is FREE!
DESCRIPTION:
When Dr. Elijah Bennet proposed to Charity, she said yes. There were doubts in the back of her mind but she understood one thing; she loved him and did not want to be without him. She believed they could handle any of the reservations or uncertainties she felt inside.
The complicated relationship with her father seemed to be traveling down a road she never believed they would ever find. Could they really be making amends?
As life begins to come full circle, the things Charity has so longed for seem within her reach. A life within the walls of the medical world, a husband, a family including her father, are all no longer a fleeting dream.
Just as everything begins to turn into the childhood fairy tale she has always dreamt about, complications arise and Charity’s hopes may be wrenched from her grasp.
How big do you dream? How much are you willing to risk for love?
* This is NOT erotica* This is a love story and a romance.
For mature readers only. There are sexual situations, but no graphic sex.
Chapter 1
Charity shifted on the hard oak bench, trying to not let the discomfort show on her face. Her stitches pulled against her skin and she resisted the urge to touch them. She played with the ring on her left finger, twirling it around so the diamond faced up. She checked her watch. It had only been five minutes since the last time she looked. A sigh escaped her lips before she could stop it.
Elijah leaned over toward her, at the same time lifting his arm to rest it lightly on her shoulders and along the back of the bench. “You okay?” he whispered, his warm breath tickling her ear.
She nodded and smiled. “Just bored,” she mouthed. She lied. She just didn’t want him to know her side ached and she needed to get up and move around. She could tough it out a little while longer.
Everything had changed because of this woman. Except unlike the others, Charity felt things had changed for the better instead of worse – until a week ago.
The eyebrow above his right eye rose in a questionable gesture. “What?” he mouthed back.
Someone behind them cleared their throat. Charity straightened and turned her attention back to the lawyer speaking to the judge. He droned on about instability and malicious intent. It all sounded like pomp and circumstance to her. She should be listening intently, concerned with the outcome, but all she wanted to do was move forward and not be here. Except she had to. So did Elijah. So did her father as well.
This woman had taken a gun to the Diamond Gala of her father’s birthday and turned the weapon on Charity. She now sat straight in her chair, all prim and proper. An innocent smile plastered on her face. Laura was the nurse’s name. Charity had learned that while she lay healing on her hospital bed. The police had come in the day after surgery and questioned her on what had happened. Witnesses collaborated with Charity’s account of the evening and another nurse had come forward to share more information regarding Laura stalking both Charity and Elijah. The young policeman had assured her the woman was behind bars and would never hurt Charity again.
Now Laura sat in front of the judge dressed in innocent white clothes, her fading bleached blond hair was French braided and away from her face. Her natural red had begun to show through at her scalp. Charity didn’t want to look at the woman but she couldn’t stop herself from watching her. One moment Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie, the next Poison Ivy from Batman. Today the woman was playing her part perfectly.
Maybe she’s taken acting classes in the last few weeks. Charity gave her head a slight shake and tried to listen to the lawyer. He stood recounting to the judge the events that had led up to the Diamond Gala.
Elijah reached for her hand and squeezed it. “This is bullshit,” he muttered under his breath.
The judge banged his gavel calling for an hour recess for lunch. Charity stood and leaned to the side, trying to stretch the muscles between her ribs without harming her stitches. Silently she followed Elijah as they filed out of the courtroom and into the large foyer to wait for her father, Dr. Scott Thompson. Camera’s flashed and media personnel were told they needed to take their cameras outside of the building.
As they left grumbling, Charity’s father exited the courtroom. He looked tired and irritated. “Ridiculous.” He glared at the backs of the journalists, as if daring one of them to turn around and try to cop a photo.
Elijah pointed to her side. “I want to have a look.”
Charity playfully but intentionally slapped his hand away. “It’s fine. You saw it this morning.” She grinned wickedly, feeling her body warm as she thought about the two of them in his bed this morning. He had used the excuse of needing to check the injury closely and then had brought his lips from her ribs into the center of her abdomen and then trailed down lower…
“Charity!”
Her father’s exasperated voice brought her back to the present. She blinked and smiled, the heat from the moment earlier turning into embarrassed warmth on her face. “Yes, Dad?”
If he noticed anything he made no note of it. “Can I ask you a favor? Would you mind grabbing Elijah and I some lunch? Sorry to bother, but Gerritt, our attorney, wants to go over a few things about the hospital with Elijah and I. If it’s not too much trou
ble?” He glanced down at her left side by her heart.
She nearly laughed when her father’s stomach rumbled. At least she knew where she got that family trait from. “It’s fine. There’s a deli not far from here. I can grab you each a sub. Does it matter what kind?” She wished Elijah and her dad would stop worrying about her. She was fine. It was this stupid case and what did the attorney want to go over with just Elijah and her father?
“Nothing saucy,” her father said. “Maybe chicken or tuna?”
“Same here.” Elijah, holding his phone, leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips then he glanced back to his phone as he scrolled through his messages. “Hospital’s doing alright,” he said, his head still bent as he looked over his phone. “I have a major surgery scheduled for three. I can’t get anyone to fill in and I don’t want to cancel it again.”
“Just go,” Charity said, cutting off her father before he had a chance to speak. “You don’t need to be here twenty-four seven.”
Dr. Thompson shot her an annoyed glare.
She grinned. “I’ll get the food.” Charity turned to go as her father started talking to Elijah. Probably a lecture about responsibility for her lucky fiancé. She sighed as she stepped out of the courthouse building and into the warmth of the May sun. She did sympathize for her father. He had every right to feel agitated about the court preliminary trial. In the next day or possibly two, lawyers would be wrapping up the case and the verdict would be in.
She was nervous.
They all were.
All for different reasons.
This trial had nothing to do with what the devil-Laura-woman had done to her. Ironically, Charity had opted to settle out of court, requiring the woman seek psychiatric help, and there be a restraining order in place for her, Elijah and the hospital. Laura’s lawyer had agreed without much contest, so Charity had thought the issue was closed and they could move on… Start planning a wedding, for instance.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Laura didn’t go after her as per the agreement.
The crazy-woman had decided to sue the hospital for medical malpractice, citing Dr. Elijah Bennet had sexually harassed and assaulted her.
Chapter 2
The bad dream turned into a horrific nightmare. Laura’s lawyer obviously resided in the bowels of the underground and had made it his life’s mission to try to ruin the hospital, and Elijah’s reputation.
Elijah wasn’t the one on trial, it was the hospital. Their attorney had made that very clear. Laura might be trying to ruin Elijah’s reputation, but she had to go through the entire hospital to try to get to him. The judge had already put an order through which allowed Elijah to continue to practice. There was no proof in Laura’s claims so Dr. Elijah Bennet had every right to continue working at the hospital.
The look on Laura’s face when the judge had settled that issue made it clear to Charity and those around her what Laura was after. The she-devil was determined to drown Elijah and take the whole ship down in the process.
Now the media were having a field day with every tidbit of information available on the case. The judge had ordered them outside of the courtroom, but it was no surprise information continued to be leaked. Charity only needed one guess as to who it might be.
She slipped her sunglasses on and ignored reporters as she made her way down the courthouse steps toward the deli. It felt good to move. Someone jostled her and she tensed to stop herself from stumbling. The move ripped at her side. Her right hand crossed over her chest, automatically covering the bullet hole wound and trying to protect the muscles and skin surrounding it. So help me, if I’ve pulled another stitch… She envisioned red blood brightly spreading on her white shirt.
A man ran in front of her and pulled out a camera. He snapped a close up picture of her face. “How does it feel to be engaged to a man with no morals?” He snapped another photo, the flash blinding Charity momentarily. “Did you know Laura Talbot planned to shoot you?”
She ignored the man and continued walking. The hospital’s attorney had advised all the employees to avoid answering any journalist’s or reporter’s questions. She pushed her sunglasses up to stop them from slipping. As much as she wanted to respond, she bit her tongue. What kind of idiot was he? Who would take a bullet willingly, right by their heart? Dumb-ass!
Her father had hired the best of the best in law firms. He had no intention of letting one woman try to ruin the reputation of his hospital. There was no evidence or proof to the woman’s claims, except what she and the media had fabricated.
What had her father’s attorney said the other day when he had asked Charity about the shooting? They wanted to crucify a handsome doctor simply because he was good-looking. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, had been Charity’s reply.
Charity slipped into the deli and ordered the subs. As she waited she checked her phone. There were several emails, one in regards to her job. Dr. Malcolm Parker was the chief of Forever Hope Hospital down in Atlanta. She had signed a two-year contract just over six months ago as the fundraiser liaison. She had been doing a fantastic job, well ahead of schedule, until Laura showed up at her father’s Diamond Gala for his sixty-fifth birthday and shot her. It seemed beyond surreal. However, the stitches and pain in her rib cage just below her heart reminded her of the proof it had really happened. She had spent just over two weeks in the hospital; neither Elijah nor her father would release her until they were ridiculously confident she was okay.
Dr. Parker – er, Malcolm as he wanted to be called – had readily agreed, and then called her father. It was then decided she should take however long she needed here in New York. When she felt well enough, she called Forever Hope and told Malcolm that she would be back as soon as she could, hopefully after the next weekend. He disagreed saying he felt she needed to deal with the trauma from the whole ordeal. Her job would be waiting when she was ready. She couldn’t argue. It also meant time with Elijah, her fiancé.
She grinned at that thought. They had a wedding to plan. She still couldn’t believe that he had actually asked her to marry him and she agreed. In the back of her mind, she had figured she would get cold feet or talk herself out of it. Instead, she had grown more excited and fallen further in love with him.
They had both been looking for each other and hadn’t known it. She originally had wanted to hook up with the hot, playboy doctor but it became more than that ever since their first dinner at the Twisted Cork with her father. She had tried to tell herself otherwise but deep down she had known and longed for it.
“Thompson?” a young guy from the other side of the deli called out. “Your food is ready.”
Charity shook her head free of past thoughts. She would get back to Malcolm once she managed to maneuver through the pit of viper cameramen. She had informed her boss about the court case and that she would need to testify. Again, Malcolm had agreed without argument and told her the job would be waiting for her when she was ready. There was no rush. She had nearly reached their original fundraising goal in a quarter of the time expected.
Head down she made her way back to the courthouse, surprisingly managing to avoid the cameras. She checked her messages as she walked. Forever Hope planned to re-open a wing that had been completely redone from part of the proceeds she had already earned the hospital. Malcolm had emailed if she wanted to come down next weekend to cut the ribbon.
Time seemed to be flying. The wing had begun its renovations just after Christmas. She should be there for the ribbon cutting. The funds raised had come from the Christmas gala at the beginning of December that she had organized.
She needed to be there.
Except right now she needed to concentrate on getting inside the courthouse and not fall on the long set of concrete steps she had just stumbled and nearly fallen on. Her side burned as she caught herself. She shook her head and clutched her side. “My own fault,” she muttered. “Put the damn phone away.”
A camera flashed and s
he glared in the direction of the accuser. Did people have no shame? The man taking the photo lowered his camera. “Sorry. Are you alright?”
He seemed a few years younger than Charity, a nice looking guy with dark hair and dark brown eyes. Concern etched across his eyebrows and forehead. “Seriously, you okay? You look a little pale.” He held his hand out.
Charity twisted out of his reach as if his touch would burn. It annoyed her that she looked vulnerable.
He dropped his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
The sincerity in his voice let her guard drop a bit. “I’m fine. Sorry, I didn’t mean to seem so nasty.” She glanced around, surprised other cameras hadn’t come flocking. She grimaced as she twisted the abdominal muscles on her side. “It feels like a bit of a battlefield out here.”
He grinned, glanced down at her side and tried to hide the worry on his face. “I’d prefer no casualties on my watch.”
Charity laughed. “If I can survive a shooting, I think I can manage the stairs.”
“I’m not so sure. There needs to be a law that forbids cell phone use when walking.” He grinned, his face lighting up as he teased her. “I’m Craig, by the way.” He held his hand out again at the same time slinging his camera over his shoulder.
She appreciated he wasn’t trying to snap more photos or ask for an interview. “I’m Charity.” She rolled her eyes jokingly as she shook his hand. “I’m guessing you already know that.”
“I had a hunch.” He grinned again and winked at her.
She had the feeling his looks helped land him a few interviews or get into a few places that worked perfectly for his job. She had no intention of being part of it. She started up the steps, ignoring the pain slowly dulling on her side. “It was nice to meet you.”
He followed along beside her, not closely but with enough space to make her comfortable. “Between you and me, this trial is a crock of bull.”
