Legal Heirs - Box Set Edition: Books 5-8 (Surrendering Charlotte Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page A

said as she laughed. “Now, I’m going to pick up Atti at your mother’s house because I miss him like crazy. Meet us at home in an hour and we’ll have quality family time. Then later I’m thinking we might watch a DVD I ordered on the internet, it’s called, The Lady Submits. I think it’s supposed to be educational, in fact, I believe you can earn college credits just for watching it and acting it out.”
    “Hang up the damn phone and meet me in our big bed, soon,” he said, and his voice meant business.
    When Charlotte turned onto Georgina’s street she could just see the roof of her house, and she wondered if Atti was wiggling his toes in the grass, enjoying the California sunshine. That was the last thing she remembered before another young mother ran the stop sign while texting, and totaled the Volvo. Charlotte didn’t wake up as her car lay upside down with her trapped inside, and neighbors from up and down the street gathered and screamed for someone to call 911.
    “Oh, dear God!” Georgina said as she walked toward the wreck with Atticus on her hip. She stopped when she saw the blood on Charlotte’s face, and her next-door neighbor stood at her side.
    “Is that your daughter-in-law?” her neighbor asked.
    “Yes, here, take the baby to the house, do you have your cell phone?” Georgina asked, and she handed the baby over and called 911, and then Finn.
    When Finn ran out of the office and flattened a parking meter with his car, JP caught up with him and told him he would drive. JP had never imagined that Finn would cry over anything, but when they reached the scene of the wreck, huge tears rolled down his face. Firemen were using the Jaws of Life to cut Charlotte out of the overturned car, her face was streaked with blood, and although her eyes were closed, she was moaning.
    Policemen yelled for everyone to stay back, but Finn pushed his way through the barricade they’d set up. He got as close to Charlotte as he could, without disturbing the paramedics and firemen, and he spoke to her.
    “My love, hang on. Do you hear me Charlotte? Don’t give up, we need you, Atticus and I need you desperately. Please don’t leave us, please my love,” he begged, and his voice was heavy with pain and raw fear.
    As they cut her free from the crushed metal, and the seatbelt and airbag, she opened her eyes for a moment as the paramedics stabilized her neck.
    “Finn,” she whispered, with a huge amount of sadness in her eyes.
    He saw that she was bleeding from a cut to the forehead, and when her hands moved instinctively to her belly, her skirt was covered in blood, as well.
    *
    “My love my love,” Finn whispered against her ear as she woke in the hospital.
    “Ouch,” she said, and he smiled.
    “I know it hurts, my love.”
    She pushed the blanket down and touched the swollen area under her naval, and tears ran in torrents down her cheeks.
    “You’re here with us,” he said, lying down beside her and gathering her against his body. “Our little family is just fine, you, me and Atticus.”
    She began to sob then and he wanted to cry, too. A perfect little boy, the doctor had said, the impact and the shock to Charlotte’s system had caused her to miscarry. They’d preformed a D and C even though her body expelled the baby on its own. “Just to tidy things up,” the doctor said nonchalantly, and JP had to hold Finn back from hitting the man. He also said there was swollen tissue in her lower abdomen, but the reproductive organs were tucked well away in the pelvis. She would have follow-up visits with the doctor and with luck, she had a fifty-fifty chance of becoming pregnant in the future.
    When she could finally speak, she said, “I wanted a little boy… for you.”
    “I have a little boy, my love, and I don’t want you to ever worry about that again. DNA, such a stupid thing, it doesn’t matter at all. Just blood and cells, that’s not what makes a child your own, is it? He loves me and I