Deadly Rumors

by Cheris Hodges

  “We have a heartbeat.”

  Zoe closed her eyes and silently thanked God and her dad. “Is he going to make it?” she asked one of the EMTs.

  “It’s going to be up to him and what the doctors do at the hospital, ma’am. But your husband seems like a fighter.”

  Zoe took a deep breath. “He is a fighter and I’m going to be right by his side.”

  Once the ambulance arrived at the hospital, Zoe pulled out her cell phone and called Zach.

  “What’s up, Zoe?” he asked when he answered the phone.

  “Zach, Carver’s been shot. We’re at the hospital right now and I’m scared. He might not make it.”

  “What happened?”

  She told him about the scene at the courthouse with Lewis and how Carver threw himself in front of her and took the bullet that was meant for her.

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Zach said.

  Zoe hadn’t realized that she was sobbing until a nurse walked outside and tapped her on the shoulder. “Ma’am, do you need some help?”

  Zoe shook her head and walked inside. She headed to the admitting desk. “Where’s Carver Banks been taken?”

  The woman typed in his name. “He’s in surgery. Are you family?”

  Zoe nodded.

  “You can wait over here, and when the doctors have any information, I’ll let them know where to find you.”

  Zoe shivered as she walked over to the waiting room. She sat down for about five seconds; then she started pacing back and forth. She didn’t know how much time had passed when she felt herself being drawn into a pair of strong arms.

  “Zach,” she murmured as she hugged her brother.

  He took her face into his hands. “Are you all right?”

  She shook her head. “He’s in surgery and . . .”

  “Come on, let’s sit down. I know how you get in situations like this. Have you eaten anything?”

  “I don’t give a damn about food right now,” she exclaimed. Zach nodded and walked her over to a row of chairs.

  “Understand that, sis, but you’re also in a state of shock. If you don’t take care of yourself, how are you going to be there for Banks?”

  Zoe took a deep breath and sat down. Zach held his sister’s hand. “You know, it’s okay to be scared.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “We keep putting the people we love in danger.”

  “Actually, that’s all on you,” Zach quipped. Zoe shot him a cold look. “Okay, too soon. Listen, sis. I know you’ve been in dangerous situations that you’ve never talked about. I know you’ve kept your heart intact because you didn’t want to be sitting here feeling like this. Zoe, you’re not Wonder Woman, and that’s okay. You love Carver and God knows he loves you. But y’all have dangerous jobs.”

  “Did you just say y’all?”

  “I’m trying to be deep and insightful. All you got from this was the fact that I said y’all?”

  Zoe smiled for the first time in hours. “Zach, I do love him and I wasted so much time trying to pretend that I didn’t. What if I don’t have another chance?” Tears dripped from her eyes and Zach pulled her closer to his chest.

  “You’re going to have another chance.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. I know everything.”

  Zoe playfully punched him in the chest. “Jerk.”

  * * *

  Carver opened his eyes and looked around the room for one face. Zoe. Had she left? Was he dead?

  “Mr. Banks?”

  He looked up and took note of the young face staring back at him. Was his doctor Doogie Howser?

  “Yeah?” he croaked.

  “Good to see you awake. I’m not even going to ask you how you feel because I’m sure you’re in pain. The surgery went well and we were able to remove the bullet. We also had to give you a few blood transfusions. But we’re expecting a full recovery.”

  Carver nodded. “Zoe.”

  “The young lady in the waiting room, I assume. Because she’s very adamant about seeing you, I’m going to send her in shortly.”

  “I love her. Need to let her know that I’m going to be fine.”

  The doctor smiled. “I’ll get her now.” As the doctor walked out of the room, a wave of pain washed over him and he closed his eyes. He didn’t hear the door open, but he smelled her perfume.

  “Zoe,” he said.

  She stroked his forehead. “Carver, don’t you ever do anything that stupid again.” He opened his eyes and watched her wipe her eyes.

  “How long have you been crying? Baby, I’ve been shot before, and I’d rather take that bullet and this pain so that I can look into your eyes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “For wasting time, for allowing my heart and soul to finally open up when I saw you bleeding on the floor. Carver, we—”

  “Have a future together, and when this pain goes away, I’m going to show you how great our life together is going to be. But there is one thing,” he said, then coughed. Zoe poured him a cup of water.

  “What’s that?”

  “I need a job. You know a PI who might want to hire me?”

  She shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Come on, Zoe, you know I can’t live in New York without work.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You’re moving to New York?”

  Carver closed one eye. “Only if you get me a painkiller right now.” Zoe pressed the call button and held his hand until the nurse arrived.

  * * *

  When Carver took his pills and drifted off to sleep, Zoe slipped out of the room. She went to the waiting area to find her brother, but he wasn’t there. Then she headed for the cafeteria.

  “Hey,” she said when she saw Zach loading a plate with food. “You can go home and get some real food. Carver’s out of the woods.”

  “That’s great.”

  Zoe nodded. “I’m going to stay here with him.”

  “As you should,” Zach said as he took his food to the register.

  “Yeah, but you don’t have to.”

  “I’m not. Chante wants this mystery hospital meal.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s seven months pregnant and eats weird shit.”

  Zoe laughed and looked at the food Zach had stacked on the plate. “Good luck to her and my niece.”

  “We’re having a boy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because God wouldn’t do that to me. I can’t handle having a daughter who would be a lot like her aunt.”

  “You say that as if it is a bad thing.”

  Zach pulled his wallet out and paid for the food, then shot Zoe a frosty look. “Whatever.” He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “You know I love you, but you were a hotheaded little girl who grew up to be a nuclear warhead. Can’t lock my child in the basement until she’s thirty.”

  “You didn’t do that to me.”

  “Only because Dad thought it was a bad idea.”

  Zoe picked up a ketchup packet and tossed it at her brother. “You make me sick.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Love you, too. Call me if you need anything,” Zach said, heading for the exit. Zoe glanced at her watch and headed back to Carver’s room. She needed to be by his side today and forever.

  Epilogue

  Zoe wasn’t sure if she was more nervous than her brother as she listened to Chante’s screams. Carver chuckled as Zoe paced back and forth.

  “What’s funny?” she asked, stopping midstride.

  “You acting like the expectant father. Sit down, babe.”

  Zoe sighed and took a seat beside her man. “This is torture.”

  “Imagine being the one giving birth.”

  She closed her eyes. “I think adoption will be our option.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes. But I’m putting the cart before the horse. We have to work out our other partnership.” She patted his knee. “I’m
not changing the name of my firm.”

  “Nope. We need a new name,” he said. “And we should move out of the Bronx.”

  “But I love the Bronx. What if I go with the name change and we stay in the Boogie Down?”

  “So you know how to compromise?”

  Zoe narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re evil.”

  “Now, now, that’s not what you said last night.”

  “Keep messing with me and it will be a long time before you have a night like last night.” Carver leaned into Zoe and kissed her slow and deep. Zoe moaned as she pressed her hand against his chest.

  “That’s just wrong,” she replied.

  Chante screamed one last time, then the sound of a baby crying filled the air. Zach stuck his head out the door with a huge smile on his face.

  “It’s a boy.”

  “Aww,” Zoe said. “Please tell me my nephew looks like me.”

  Zach grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Maybe.”

  “Zach!” Chante exclaimed. “We’re not done.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened with excitement. She turned to Carver. “Okay. Zach had twins, we’re good.”

  Carver shook his head. “I’m not sure it works like that, but I’ll take it.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Carver, I love you. Thanks for settling in with me and my crazy family.”

  “You know, I was serious about the name change for our agency,” he said as he pulled Zoe into his arms. “Banks Investigations.”

  Zoe narrowed her eyes at him. “How are you trying to take over my business like that?”

  “Not taking over anything, beautiful. We’re going to have the same name.” Carver reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a black velvet box. “Marry me, Zoe.”

  “What?” She stopped in her tracks, looking up at him with her mouth agape.

  “I don’t think I can be any clearer. I can’t see myself living my life without you in it.”

  “Carver.”

  “You’re the only woman I’ve ever taken a bullet for, and I’d take a hundred more.”

  “Carver.”

  “Say yes.”

  “I will if you shut up!” Zoe smiled and stroked his cheek. “I love you, and the rest of my life, I want to be Mrs. Carver Banks.”

  Carver pulled her into his arms and kissed her with a hot passion that made her knees weak. Pulling back from him, Zoe looked into his eyes—her heart filled with love and devotion—and knew that for the rest of her life, she was going to spend it with the man she loved.

  Carver slipped the ring on her finger, then kissed her hand. “So, Banks Investigations. That way when we have the twins, we can rename it Banks and Sons Investigations.”

  Zoe shook her head. “We are so having twin girls,” she quipped.

  “Let’s get started practicing then,” Carver said with a wink.

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  I Heard a Rumor

  Chante Britt is nobody’s fool—and she’s definitely not standing by her cheating ex-fiancé and current mayoral candidate, Robert Montgomery. Too bad he chose to tell the media otherwise. To escape an onslaught of prying reporters, Chante flees to her grandmother’s South Carolina beach house. But when she meets Zach Harrington, she may be out of the frying pan and into the fire. The man is arrogant, way too forward—and way too sexy…

  Enjoy the following excerpt from

  I Heard a Rumor...

  Chapter 1

  Chante Britt filled her favorite pink and green mug with Ethiopian blend coffee, which had been a gift from her best friend and sorority sister, Liza Palmer-Franklin. That girl knows coffee, she thought as she inhaled the fragrant aroma. She almost didn’t want to pour the creamer into the coffee. She took a sip and realized that it was perfect black. Reaching for the remote to the small TV set mounted over the stove, she sighed as she turned it on. This was her morning routine, and it was getting on her last damned nerve.

  Chante was bored, mad, and tired of the purgatory her life had become since her suspension from the law firm she’d worked for, Myrick, Lawson and Walker.

  She had been considered a distraction, according to managing partner Taiwon Myrick, because of her relationship with former senatorial candidate Robert Montgomery, who lost his bid for a senate seat after she and Liza exposed the fact that he was a liar and paid for sex with prostitutes. When Chante and Robert had been dating, she’d lobbied for her firm to support his candidacy, which they did. Taiwon liked Robert’s pro-business stance on several issues and threw a lot of money his way, even after Chante had expressed her doubts. But as always, Taiwon chose not to listen to Chante. Over the last two years at Myrick, Lawson and Walker, Chante had been working herself ragged to become a partner. But she’d been constantly looked over—despite the fact that she’d delivered over a million dollars in billable hours, boasted a ninety percent winning ratio, and brought in more than a third of the firm’s new clients.

  Taiwon was from the old-school law community and just didn’t believe a woman could be a partner with the firm his family had started. Though she couldn’t point to any provable sexual discrimination, she knew it was her gender that had been holding her back at the firm.

  So when Jackson Franklin won the senate seat after it was revealed that Robert had been involved with a hooker during the campaign, Taiwon had been happy to blame her for the firm being mixed up in the controversy.

  Bastard, she thought as she lifted her head and saw Robert’s image on the screen. Chante started to turn the set off. But curiosity got the best of her, so she unmuted the set to hear what he had to say.

  “Wonder if he’s still out there buying sex,” she muttered, then took another sip of her coffee.

  “I’m standing here today because of grace and forgiveness,” Robert said into the camera. “I made mistakes in my quest to become senator, and I hurt a lot of people. But those people, including the love of my life, have forgiven me. And their forgiveness has given me the courage to throw my hat into the ring to be Charlotte’s next mayor.”

  Chante spit her coffee across the kitchen. Was this man daft? Who was going to support him to be mayor, let alone the city’s dogcatcher? And who was the love of his life? Poor woman. She didn’t know what kind of mess she was going to be in as the pretend love of Robert Montgomery’s life. The only person Robert loved was Robert.

  She reached into her robe pocket and pulled out her smartphone to text Liza.

  “Last night, as I talked to my future wife, Chante Britt . . .”

  “What the . . . !” Chante exclaimed. Forget texting Liza; she was going to have to call her friend and hope that she wasn’t interrupting anything going on between the newlyweds.

  “This is Liza,” her friend said when she answered the phone.

  “Robert has lost what’s left of his blasted mind,” Chante exclaimed. “This fool just . . .”

  “Calm down,” Liza said. “I’m sure no one is taking him seriously.”

  Chante’s phone beeped. “Hold on, I have another call coming in,” she said. Clicking the TALK button, she answered the unknown number.

  “Chante Britt.”

  “Ms. Britt, this is Coleen Jackson. I’m a reporter with News Fourteen. I wanted to ask you a few questions about Robert Montgomery.”

  Click.

  “People were paying attention, Liza,” Chante said. “That was a reporter.”

  “Oh my goodness. While you had me on hold, they showed a clip of his announcement on the news here. He really called you the love of his life. Have you two been seeing each other?”

  “Hell no! I haven’t spoken to that man since two days after the election, and that was last year.”

  “I can’t believe him. What does he think is going to come of this, and why would he think that you would agree to being . . . ?”

  Chante’s phone beeped again. She looked at the incoming caller’s number and saw it was another unknown one. “I’m guessing that’s another reporter,” Chante said. “Wh
at am I going to do?”

  “Issue a statement. I’ll write one for you to e-mail to all the media outlets in Charlotte. This will blow over. Let’s just take control of the narrative and wait for the next news cycle. Everyone will move on to the next thing and you can get on with your life.”

  “Thank you, Liza. I’m going to go for my run now.”

  “Has your suspension been lifted yet?”

  “No. And I’m guessing this latest stunt from this asshole is going to give them another reason to keep the suspension going.”

  “I still think you should start your own firm,” Liza said. “You don’t need them.”

  Chante sighed. Part of her agreed with her friend, but there was something about the security of becoming a partner at an established law firm. Maybe she wanted that partnership so that she could prove her mother wrong.

  Allison Louise Cooper-Britt had grown up as the ultimate southern belle. She attended South Carolina State College for one reason—to obtain her MRS. That happened when she’d met and married Eli Britt. He’d been the crucial catch: wealthy family, right complexion, and a member of all the right organizations.

  When Chante had graduated from college and decided that law school was more important than a husband and a family, her mother wished her failure. Thankfully, her smarts and a few of her father’s connections had given her the blueprint for success.

  She and her grandmother, Elsie Mae, had a much better relationship than she had with Allison. Probably because they were so much alike. Elsie Mae Cooper had carved out her niche in Charleston, South Carolina, by selling her handwoven baskets to tourists. In 1972, she began adding unique pieces of South Carolina culture to the baskets and opened a gift shop on Folly Beach. Elsie’s Gifts and Goodies became one of the beach’s most popular tourist attractions.

  When Elsie Mae retired from running the shop, she sold it to a historical group while keeping a forty-nine percent stake in the company. The residual income allowed her to travel the world at will. Of course, Allison thought her widowed mother should spend her time in a rocking chair on the front porch. That was not Elsie Mae’s style at all, and her world traveling and adventure seeking became a bone of contention between mother and daughter.