Chapter Twenty-Four — Justice

Six months later.

Joseph grunted as he climbed the stairs to the second floor with arms filled with moving boxes. How could one little human who wasn’t even in this world yet need so many things? Well, he guessed, it would only be more once his daughter was born.

“Why don’t you walk twice and carry less?” Maria asked from the nursery, shaking her head and giving him the “your knee still needs rest” look. He couldn’t take her seriously though. Not with her space buns and the nineties revival mom-overalls that clung to her beautifully rounded belly. Moose stood beside her and gave him a scrutinizing look of his own. If the dog already sided with Maria most of the time, he really hoped his daughter would turn into a daddy’s girl to counter their shared power.

“Because walking up the stairs twice is just as bad as walking it once with more to carry.”

Maria huffed and returned to the nursery, a dream in pinks and purples with lilac dotted giraffes and smiling lions with fuchsia manes frolicking on the wall. Joseph was certain his little girl would suffer from overexposure to pink once she was born and lived in this paradise for jungle princesses.

He still couldn’t believe he was going to be a father soon. It helped that he had her first sonogram on his desk at Leonard’s company to remind him that this was actually happening. So much had changed over the last year…

He had been alone and a little too comfortable in his misery with nobody but Moose to witness, and then Maria came along, literally like a storm, and changed everything he thought he knew about himself and the world. Now he was less than three months away from having a daughter, and less than a week from Maria’s divorce.

After they moved to Maryland and closer to Leonard, along with Alma who fell head over heels for the Alpha almost twenty years older than her, there was no more reason not to pursue legal actions against Chad. In the initial trial a month ago, Maria had been so brave. She sat in the witness stand, her hands protectively around her belly, while telling the judges and jury of the abuse she had suffered by him.

Chad had colored her a liar and unfaithful wife during his testimony and showed evidence himself where Moose and Joseph had attacked him. It was the testimony of her old neighbor that really decided the case. Unknown to Maria, Mr. Douglas had kept record of every argument he had heard, every bruise he’d noticed on her, and every time Chad had snuck out in the middle of the night only to return early in the morning.

Bethany refused to say anything about those nights at first or the fact that she had gotten pregnant before Maria had run away. Diane used her time in the stand to blame her oldest daughter for destroying their lives. The judge ruled in the only way imaginable. Chad was sentenced to seventeen years in prison for domestic abuse and rape, and Diane still had to face her trial for sexual exploitation of a minor after Bethany had come out with the whole truth afterwards.

Apparently Diane had pressured her into seducing Chad to keep them in his favor. Only then her mother had still made sure she was on the pill. That changed after her eighteenth birthday. With Chad being a convicted criminal, it was an easy feat to divorce him. Not that they needed any money from him now that Joseph had a well-paying job as Leonard’s right hand. Some might call it nepotism, he called it family. And who was Joseph to argue with his future father-in-law?

“Where do you want me to put this?” he asked with a small groan. Even though his rehab specialist told him he was doing an amazing job with his knee, when the weather changed or he overestimated his strength, he still found himself back with the aching he had gotten so used to before the surgery.

“On the dresser please,” Maria said absentmindedly as she stared at a still blank wall. Joseph loved watching her like this, creating the perfect nursery for their little one. She was surprisingly talented when it came to painting child friendly characters. So much so that he suggested she might illustrate his next children’s book. For now, he was working on a sequel to his more mature book which had been a decent success amongst the many other crime thrillers out on the market. The publisher still wanted another one since apparently it would do well as a duology.

He set down the boxes on what would be a dresser/changing table combo once Maria was done working on it and came up behind her to wrap his arms around her middle and kiss her still unmarked neck. Once their little one was there, they had already decided to go ahead and use her first regular post-partum heat to bond. It wouldn’t be for another nine months, but Joseph could live with that. All he wanted was to be close to her.

Maria let out a soft sigh as she leaned back against him and placed her hands over his.

“We still have to decide on a name,” she reminded him with her eyes closed.

“You didn’t like my suggestion last night.”

“We will not call her Justice,” Maria said with a snorted laugh.

“Why not?”

“Because we aren’t hippies and I don’t want her to get bullied in school.”

She turned in his embrace and circled her arms around his neck, giving him a deep kiss. Joseph loved feeling her baby bump press into his lower abdomen when they stood like this. Thankfully, now that they were past the 30th week, Maria had calmed down about her fear of losing this baby as well. She was now further than the last time and it definitely showed in her behavior. Where she had been scared to even walk downstairs too quickly, he had to stop her now from climbing up on ladders to paint the top of the blue-purple trees above where their daughter’s crib would eventually be… unless Maria changed her mind again.

“Is there no other strong woman in your life you would want to honor by naming our daughter after her?” she asked and buried her face in his neck to suck in his scent.

“Well, my first choice here would have to be Maria, but that would only lead to strange encounters if I get too loud while trying for a little sibling.”

“Naughty,” she murmured against his skin and gave him another kiss under his jaw.

“My mom’s name was Elisabeth,” he eventually said and let go of Maria as she gently pushed against his chest.

“You never talked about her.”

“There’s not much to talk about. She was a great woman who died too early.” It was what he usually said about her as memories of her warmth and tenderness came flooding back. At times like these, he missed his parents the most, knowing that his mom could have been a better mother to Maria than her own. And his dad could have taken the fear of the unknown away from him. He was going to be a father soon and he had no idea if he could do it. Sure, Leonard was there when he had questions, but he had also lost his chance to get through all the good times and bad times while his daughters grew up. He couldn’t wait to scare off pimple-faced high schoolers who wanted to take his little girl out on a date. She would probably find him overprotective and embarrassing, but he would revel in it.

“Would she have liked me?” Maria asked in a small voice.

“They both would have loved you for sure.”

“Elisabeth it is then.”

He chuckled and kissed her lovingly.

“And maybe Justice as a middle name?”

“We’ll see,” she giggled between kisses and purred completely content.

This was it. This was what life was supposed to be. A future in his arms and stability around him. He would never forget the moment he saw her in that raging storm, beaten and unconscious, close to dying. Had he kept on driving, all of this would have been lost to him. One decision and he would always be grateful for it. After all, it had saved two lives and created a third.

Joseph placed his hands on her taut belly and swallowed against the wave of emotions fighting to overtake him.

“You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Maria let out a content purr and kissed him again. “Who am I to argue with that? After all… Alpha knows best.”

THE END