JE gets the credit for the characters below that she created.

Jenny (JenRar) thank you for all your work cleaning up my chapters as the beta on this story. You are amazing, and I'm so lucky to be able to work with you.

Chapter 24 – Epilogue…One Year Later

"I don't think I can do this," Stephanie spoke from her seat on the end of our bed.

"Yes, you can," I assured her for at least the tenth time. "All you really have to do is stand there, and then when it's all over, you can just deal with people one-on-one, which you know you can do."

"I'm not worried about the one-on-one conversations; I'm worried about being in front of over four hundred people and doing something stupid to embarrass myself or you," she confessed, breaking my heart that for some reason, she hadn't realized she could never embarrass me. "How do you even know four hundred people?"

The last question was funny enough, I couldn't help but laugh a little at it. Sure, I was quiet, so it might seem strange, but in my family, an event like this meant every cousin, second cousin, and third cousin once removed would be there, which meant the church would be packed, and the party afterwards would be even more crowded. This was definitely going to be a long day.

"You've met a lot of these people at some point," I reminded her while trying to pick out the right kind of tie for this occasion.

"Yes, but never all at once," she countered, stepping in front of me with two choices to ring around my neck.

I went with the blue instead of the red. I thought it matched the suit a little better, and I wanted to stick with something that was classic without making me look like a Republican politician.

"No, never all at once," I had to agree. "Mom still hasn't gotten over the fact that we didn't let her do something like this for our wedding."

"I'm not letting her do it this time," Stephanie argued, but her voice held no heat. "She just announced she was doing it and didn't really give us much chance to disagree."

I couldn't refute that, so I let it go and sat down on the bed, where Stephanie had been pouting seconds before. My hope was that now that she was in the closet, she would go ahead and get dressed so that we wouldn't be late.

Sitting there, I couldn't help but think back over how much my life had changed in a single year. I'd gone from being the most mysterious and unknown guy at RangeMan to the one who most of the guys tended to sit around in the breakroom just to shoot the shit with. I went from a person convinced he was destined to live a life alone to having the chance to get to know the most amazing woman, and then being fortunate enough to make her my wife.

After finally getting rid of the threats she had amassed when we first hooked up, we decided to take the break in the stress level and elope. Having made the plans one night, twenty-four hours later, we were in front of a justice of the peace at a hotel owned by my father. I knew I could have access to the penthouse, which ensured the best of everything and complete privacy when I asked for it. With no crowds or interfering family members, we very simply promised to live our lives totally devoted to each other until death forced us apart. It was the easiest vow I'd ever made, and it made me proud to know that every day we'd been given together so far, I had honored those words.

After we'd returned to Trenton, we'd told her family, who were both thrilled to hear their daughter was married and relieved that it wasn't some kind of circus the 'Burg could make fun of. While things around Stephanie did occasionally turn out differently than planned, I couldn't stop myself from pointing out to Mrs. Plum that those kinds of comments were the kinds of things that would ruin a family dinner. She wisely piped down and didn't insult Stephanie – even subtly – for the rest of the evening. Since then, things have gone much more smoothly. It seemed like her mother was finally beginning to accept that I was in love with her daughter as she was and trusted that this was it for both of us. And she liked the wine I brought over for dinner every time, so she'd been particularly careful to stay on my good side of late.

My parents were a little more difficult. To the extent that it's possible for a grown woman who typically carries herself with impeccable grace to throw a hissy fit, that's exactly how my mother reacted. She was thrilled we were married and happy, but she definitely felt robbed when we told her we weren't going to repeat our vows in a church here to put on some kind of show for the family, and we weren't interested in any size gathering to celebrate; we just wanted to announce it as we came in contact with people and let it go at that.

It took a while, but Mom finally calmed down, and then we began to get invitations to dinner nearly every weekend for two and a half months. I couldn't help but notice each dinner had a different guest list, basically showing us off to the family a couple of dozen people at the time. It was only when Stephanie came down with a stomach virus that we were able to put an end to the parade of family dinners.

It took Stephanie two days to get over the virus. I felt horrible, unable to help her in any way but not willing to leave her side. Finally, the worst of it went away, but it became apparent that she wasn't gaining her strength back because her appetite was not returning. After a week and a half, I could see she was losing weight and threatened to put her over my shoulder and haul her to Bobby if she didn't go to see a doctor. My mind had gone down every worst-case scenario like stomach cancer or tape worms. It was initially a relief when she came home from the doctor and announced she wasn't sick, she was pregnant.

The relief had lasted about two minutes, and then the full impact of what she'd said kicked in. I was going to be a father. I had a partner to share my life with, and we were beginning a real family of our own. It was everything I'd envied of my parents that seemed so perfect until I was hit with the reality that I had to keep them safe. After Stephanie helped me put my head between my legs and take deep breaths – something I'd deny ever happened if someone asked – I'd been able to assure her the news was wonderful to me. Fortunately, she'd seemed to believe me and had then helped me out by expressing her own concerns about how we'd manage to raise a child and keep them safe with both our jobs and pasts. With her bringing it up, I'd been free to talk about it and not be seen as some overly obsessed security guy. Sure, she still told me I was, but I could always point to the fact that she was the one who'd brought up safety first. It was a small victory, but with a wife as sharp as mine, any victory was worth claiming.

Stephanie had struggled a little with morning sickness, but we'd managed to find some foods that were appealing enough to keep her eating until the thirteenth week, when it seemed to magically go away. It was at that point that I'd felt God was rewarding me for staying by her side when she greeted many days by running to the toilet and many nights by crying that she worried she wasn't going to be a good enough mother. After the initial hormones leveled off so that her stomach settled and her emotions stabilized, I'd been gifted with a whole different kind of hormonal effect. Something else I'd never admit to was that she'd nearly worn me out during that part of her pregnancy. It was as if she hadn't been able to help herself and anytime we were alone – and a few times when we weren't actually alone, just separated by a thin wall – she'd been all over me. Of course, only half a man would complain about having a sexy woman attacking him, but there had been a night or two when I'd faked late night calls just so I could nap at RangeMan for a few hours.

All too soon, I'd gotten an emergency page that Stephanie was in labor, and four hours later, our son had come into the world. Now that he was eight weeks old, we were on our way to the church I grew up in to have him christened. Of course, my mother had taken it upon herself to handle all the details so that Stephanie could just relax with the baby. Her altruism had been too good to be true, because with us out of the details, she'd managed to turn it into a full-scale family event, no doubt to make up for missing the opportunity at our wedding. After the service was over at the church, we were going back to the family compound for a party and dinner.

Stephanie's family and friends, along with all of RangeMan, had been invited, so them on top of the Pertucci organization that included my whole family and my father's closest business associates had given my mother a guest list of just over four hundred people – which was why my wife was on her fourth dress, complaining that nothing fit right anymore. Her comment was ridiculous because within the first month after the delivery, she had lost all the weight of the pregnancy. Sure, her breasts were bigger because she was nursing, but from where I was sitting, that only made her look even hotter in each of the rejected outfits.

Finally, I took pity on us all and walked into the closet, pulling out two dresses. "One of these will work."

Her eyes moved back and forth between the two options and finally landed on the lighter blue dress. It wasn't as tightly fitted but would still more than show off her figure. She slipped it on, finally regaining some of the calm I needed her to have in order for me to handle being around so many people. I might finally be opening up and returning to the man my parents raised me to be, but the idea of being surrounded by crowds of people all day was keeping me on edge, too.

Once we'd pulled ourselves together, I stood in the doorway and watched as Stephanie expertly dress our son, Stephan Francesco Pertucci, who today would be christened in the same outfit I'd worn thirty-four years ago. I liked his name because it was associating him more with Stephanie than me, and since she'd done all the work to give me this little miracle, I wanted to honor that in some way. We both wanted to honor her father, but Frank just wasn't going to happen, so we'd changed it to the Italian version of his name and finally had the hardest part of the planning to be a parent complete.

When she picked him up and kissed his head, I stood there in the doorway, mesmerized at how blessed I was. My mind was set that I in no way deserved what Stephanie and our son brought to my life, but I wasn't going to deny myself the gift that they were to me. It might make me selfish, but I preferred to think of it as being a challenge to become the man they deserved to have watching over them.

I'd changed in some ways after having a family of my own, and in other ways, I'd grown into the man that had always been there, just hidden under the surface. We'd bought a large house on a big plot of secured land about twenty-five minutes outside of Trenton. It had me close enough to work that the drive in each day was simple, and it got us closer to my family, which thrilled my parents. Stephanie also loved being out of the 'Burg and far enough away that she didn't feel anybody was constantly watching her as she adjusted to her new role as a mother. Of course, the staff we had to maintain the house and grounds and the security who worked at the front gate and around the perimeter were non-negotiable for me to even consider moving to a place with no immediate neighbors. Stephanie had been wise enough to realize I couldn't help myself and had allowed me to set up the state-of-the-art system monitored by RangeMan remotely and our staff of four guards on the ground simultaneously.

Vincent liked to joke that the size of the place we'd purchased was so big that it looked as though we were setting up a compound of our own so that I could easily take over when Dad retired. I still refused to see myself as his successor, but over the last few months, he'd begun to share more and more about his business dealings, and I'd found that I respected the way he ran things, so a truce of sorts had been established between us.

Pulling me from my thoughts, Stephanie placed Stephan in my arms and asked me to keep him busy while she got his overnight bag ready to go. Even though we were only half an hour from our house, we knew we'd end up staying in our suite since the party would no doubt go on until the late evening. I took my son and lifted him up to rest against my shoulder, allowing him to look around in his favorite position and giving me a chance to just breathe in that new baby smell, which I swore could give anybody an attitude adjustment. No matter how bad a mood they had been in, that scent of innocence just melted a person.

I'd felt it myself, and each time Stephanie brought him to RangeMan, I'd seen it happen with the guys when she plopped the baby in their arms and walked away. Sure, there was that moment of panic at being handed a baby, but when they worked past that, they usually relaxed quickly and seemed to enjoy holding him. Stephanie said she did it to socialize Stephan so he'd be comfortable around people. I teased that she did it to give me a heart attack when I'd come upstairs and see one of the guys who had no idea what they were doing trying to shift the position of my fragile infant child. So far, I hadn't made any progress in getting her to admit I was right.

The drive was quiet except for a few tiny noises from the back while Stephan was settling down to sleep. He was a lot like his mother, in that long rides and overly noisy settings tended to overwhelm him to the point of wanting to shut down and snooze. It made him an easy baby, so I wasn't complaining. Of course, my mother, who was absolutely taken with her first grandchild, kept telling us we weren't real parents because Stephan was making it entirely too easy for us and when we had more kids, we'd see what an unfair representation he was for real babies. I liked to think that it was the loving and calm environment we were raising him in that made the difference. Stephanie hoped I was right, but the pale color of her skin whenever my mother brought it up told me she was leaning more toward believing Mom.

There was a space reserved for us at Sacred Heart church, which was good because the parking lot was already jammed and we never would have been able to park this close otherwise.

Stephanie grabbed my hand after I pulled the keys out of the ignition and said, "Please don't leave me alone while we're at the church, okay?"

It was unusual for her to be so insecure, so I quickly promised I'd stay by her side the whole time and then reminded her we needed to go inside to meet with the priest and the godparents to review the service.

Luckily, Father Mark had been my family's priest for a long time, so I was comfortable with him baptizing my son. His gentle nature and obvious authority helped Ranger and Lester to relax beside Vincent and Isabella when it came time for the godparents to present the child in the service. We'd considered having the traditional two godmothers and two godfathers, but when it came down to it, we knew our child was going to spend a significant amount of time at RangeMan, and it didn't make sense to name someone just to keep the genders balanced. The real people who would be spending time with Stephan and helping us to shape him into the man he was meant to be were all standing at the font with us, and I knew we'd made the right decision.

When Ranger was asked to pass the baby to the priest to actually baptize him, I had to bite the inside of my cheek when he whispered, "Be careful; he's asleep," to Father Mark. Between the size of the parish and my family's own growth, he'd done literally hundreds of christenings. It amused me that Ranger still thought he needed to be instructed on how to handle a baby. Of course, it was that dedication to watch over Stephan that made him the most obvious choice for a godfather.

Lester was Stephanie's suggestion and one that I was completely comfortable with as well because of the way he never hesitated to help me when I called on him as Stephanie and I were initially spending time together. That kind of loyalty was an ideal trait in someone who was pledging to God they would watch over this child.

Of course, despite the fact that they weren't standing at the front of the church, there were three rows of men dressed in black that had come from RangeMan to celebrate with us. It wasn't like our son would have a shortage of people around to guide and protect him.

When Father Mark led us through the prayers for Stephan, I found myself biting my cheek for an entirely different reason. I wasn't worried about speaking up and ruining the moment; I was more concerned that the words from the priest would make me show emotion and I'd never hear the end of it from the guys at the office. My plan had been to use the pain in my mouth to overcome the emotion of the moment I hadn't been expecting. When I noticed Stephanie was standing there with small tears rolling down her cheeks, I knew I wasn't alone in this feeling. I put my arm around her in an attempt to comfort her and share in her emotions so freely expressed. Somehow, being closer to her helped me to feel like I was letting go of what I was trying so hard to bottle up.

Forty minutes later, we were done and Father Mark was pronouncing the dismissal. Lester was holding Stephan, and when I offered to take him back, I got a glare and a slight growl that I took to mean, Nah, I've got this. It seemed like a better alternative than Back off or I'll hold the baby with one hand and attempt to kick your ass with the other. There was comfort in having worked around the same guys long enough to be able to read them that well.

Mom had put up the large marquee and turned the back couple of acres into an outdoor setting for an elegant party. For hours, people mingled, ate, drank and laughed. Even with my natural aversion to crowds, I could tell it was a perfectly planned event and could appreciate the time she'd spent planning.

As I was surveying the mass of people who made up our family either by blood or association, I felt Stephanie coming up behind me and link her arm with mine. Not happy with such limited contact, I turned so that I could pull her to me. "Where's Stephan?" I asked, realizing that on his big day, we'd held him very little.

"He just finished eating," she informed me with a lovely blush that told me she'd managed to sneak off alone and nurse him. "Maria saw me coming back downstairs and took him before I could even focus on her being near me."

"I think they like him more than us," I confessed, not blaming anybody for feeling that way.

Before we could get lost in our own little world, something that was always possible when we were together, Constantine came up. He shook my hand and offered me a token congratulations before kissing Stephanie on the cheek.

Uncle Guido noticed us together and moved to stand beside his son. "Enjoy today," he advised. "They grow up so fast."

Stephanie nodded, but I could see the pulling at the corner of her mouth and knew she was fighting laughter. As soon as we were alone, she burst out laughing. "I decided to say nothing, but all I could think was, of course you think they grow up fast; you went from being alone to being the father of a twenty-two-year-old son literally overnight."

After Vincent confirmed Uncle Guido was Constantine's father, he'd taken the role very seriously, making an effort to make up for missing his life up to that point. Attempting to set his absence right, he'd begun by having his son baptized, something that hadn't happened to date but was obviously very important in our family. It had given him a chance to officially mark the date he became a father and to change Constantine's last name to claim him for the family. He'd even had Stephanie and me named as the godparents for his son since it was because of our snooping that he'd discovered he had a family of his own.

There were a few tense weeks after Guido informed Constantine who he was related to and why. It wasn't until we were visiting for one of my mother's impromptu dinner parties that Stephanie took Constantine aside and let him know in no uncertain terms that he was too old to play the petulant teenager. When Constantine countered that his father had basically beaten him and that he owed him nothing because of that, Stephanie pointed out that he could consider it twenty years of well-deserved discipline rolled into one encounter. Sure, it was rough and difficult to endure, but considering how he'd lied about who he was, deceived our entire family, and then acted entitled, was he really worthy of a different kind of reception? After their harsh reality session, Constantine seemed to relax, and he and my uncle had begun to build a relationship.

Pop had made it clear that he couldn't come to work for the family directly until he proved where his loyalties lay, but if his brother wanted to introduce his son separately to the organization and give him something to do under Guido's oversight, he wouldn't stand in the way of that. For his part, from the moment Guido realized he was a father, he began to grow into the role, and he refused to let Constantine work, instead insisting he go to college. It took a few months of battles between the two of them before Constantine gave in and enrolled for the spring semester to major in pre-law. From the moment he brought home his first good grade, Guido had been bragging we would soon have a lawyer in the family. Fortunately, Constantine had stopped trying to control what his father said and had learned the art of silently enduring the loud opinions of an Italian family. I figured in another couple of years, he would fit in enough that we'd all forget he hadn't been raised among us.

I brought myself back to the present by remembering what my uncle had warned. "Do you think Stephan is growing up too fast?"

She shrugged. "Not at three in the morning." After considering it for a moment, she let out a breath before giving me a slightly better thought-out answer. "But in the middle of the night, when he's having a snack and the house is perfectly still, I wonder how much I'll miss that time when no one exists for him but me and I'm able to perfectly meet every need he has."

"Once he starts to get more independent, I'll still be looking to you as the person who meets all my needs," I tried to encourage.

"Maybe—" she smiled before moving on "—but once we get older and you have needs beyond that one major one, you may not find me as perfect, either."

"Bullshit," I couldn't help but disagree. "You know this has always been about more than sex."

"Yes, but you know we've always done sex really well," she countered, not willing to be pulled into a more serious conversation at the moment.

"Really well?" I repeated with an eyebrow raised as a challenge.

"If you want another really thrown in there, you're going to have to refresh my memory," she took my bait. "I just fed Stephan, and there's more than enough willing volunteers to keep him occupied that you could have at least an hour to try to increase the adverb usage."

"I'll give you five minutes to get to the suite, and then I'll be there," I warned her. "And I'm holding you to the full hour of time for me to devote to you."

Her warm palm cupped my cheek, igniting a fire in me as soon as she made it obvious I had her undivided attention. "I don't need five minutes; I'm ready for us to go together."

Hand in hand, we made our way out of the party and to the main house, riding in the elevator to our suite. I couldn't help but smile at how many things in my life had changed, yet some things would no doubt forever remain constant – like her insistence on taking the elevator to the third floor.

Despite a whirlwind romance into a fast elopement to begin our life as husband and wife, what we had always felt so natural to me. I was sure a lot of people had pulled out their calendars when we announced we were having a baby, but our little guy was born after almost a full year of marriage, so he was nearly an anniversary present and in no way justification for why we'd moved so quickly. I knew that even though people had accepted it, very few understood why Stephanie and I had fallen into our life together.

As much as I might want to explain it to them, what we shared defied explanation. There were no words to do justice to how she made me feel. It wasn't because I tended to be quiet by nature – my nickname at RangeMan was no accident – but I had no ability to describe trust and how she had earned mine from the first moment we spent alone together. This woman both accepted me for who I was and challenged me to be better. She loved me unconditionally and demanded the same from me in return. She'd taught me that even without having the right words, there was nothing wrong with my ability to feel, and without me saying a thing, she always understood exactly what I was telling her.

When we walked into the suite, she slammed the door closed and then backed me up against the door. "One hour, Mr. Pertucci."

"It's not nearly long enough," I answered her honestly.

"Then I suggest you zip it and start putting up some action to back up your big talk earlier," she threatened.

I growled in return, lifted her up in my arms to carry her to bed, and spent every second of the next sixty minutes proving I was willing to fully devote myself to worshiping her.

As she pulled her dress back on, she tilted her head in my direction and smiled sweetly at me.

"What's that look for?" I asked, always wanting to learn what was going on in her head.

"For you." She shrugged. "For us."

"You're happy?" I asked, feeling a sudden wave of insecurity that she might regret part of what we had.

When she shook her head no, it did nothing to assuage my concern.

"I'm over the moon, deliriously ecstatic," she clarified, which from where I was standing sounded a lot better than just happy. As I was basking in what felt like the praise of our life together, she brought me down a notch by throwing out, "But if you want a chance to try to top that tonight, I'm more than willing to give you an opportunity."

Returning to the party, hand in hand exactly as we'd left it except for our matching satisfied expressions, I begrudgingly released her when Cal brought Stephan to his mother and pulled her back to talk to the guys.

Pop clapped me on the shoulder and congratulated me once again on the day before ruining the moment by adding, "And based on how you two look, I'm guessing we'll get to do this all again sometime within the year."

He walked away, laughing at his own crude remark, and left me standing alone, overlooking our family and friends. I'd never have pegged this as being a life I'd be comfortable in, but here I was, surrounded by a crazy group of people, celebrating my son's birth. While it might not have been my plan of how my life would turn out, I recognized that I just needed to be grateful that my plan didn't happen so that I could know a richness beyond my wildest dreams.

A/N: And here we are at the close of another story. Thank you all for reading along, and for sticking with me through to the end. It was fun to make my own version of Zip, and I appreciate your patience while I created a new family for Stephanie to learn to operate in.

To Jenny (JenRar) a simple thank you at the top of the page never seems like enough to do justice for the time you spend reading and correcting my chapters. Giving you the title of beta makes it sound as though the work you do is somehow secondary, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Thank you for your encouragement, your editing and your gentle suggestions. I'm convinced any merit in my stories is attributable to our working on them together.

And to everyone who read and took the time to leave a review – a huge thank you! Hearing from readers provides the motivation to keep typing so that there is a steady stream of chapters to post. I'm taking my usual head clearing break and I'll be back with something – although I have no idea what it will be yet. I hope you will all come back for another adventure with our favorite bounty hunter.

~Jennifer