What Lies Beneath

Chapter Twenty-Five

(Nathaniel's pov)

One Year Later

Its been one year since my life had been turned, completely upside down. I've been sober for a whole year now, and still going strong.

It took me a couple of months to get fully healed, the bullet had done a lot of damage to my leg. So between that and all the cuts on my body, I had set up a pretty bad infection. At one point they thought they were gonna have to amputate my leg, because the infection was so bad, but luckily it didn't come down to that.

Father and his little henchmen were shot down that day, so they weren't bothering us anymore.

The cops investigated Elizabeth, even had a big trial about what happened to her. They had ruled her not guilty, but she did have to undergo intense therapy.

Which seemed to be helping her a lot, when I was released from the hospital, Lizzy and I had decided to stay with dad since I was still having trouble getting around.

At first Lizzy was basically a recluse, she refused to leave the house, she was convinced if she did someone would get her.

No matter how many times we told her that he was dead she didn't believe us, which led to me calling Dr. Philip's, he eventually got her to leave the house.

Between her weekly visits with him and her medicine, she is doing a lot better now.

Jason and Sara recently got married, apparently the night that I had been taken, he had proposed to her at the restaurant.

Lana and I were also married, and expecting our first child, she was currently four months pregnant, and we couldn't be happier.

Lana was so amazing, from the moment I had woken up at the hospital, she was by my side the whole time. She was there everyday almost, if I needed something, she'd do it, no matter how many times I told her not to.

She even came over to dad's house to help when I got home. I remember dad told me that she was a keeper, and he wasn't wrong about that.

Lizzy wasn't quit ready for a relationship, she needed more time. She was currently having Sara help her get into college.

She's been volunteering at the hospital a lot, so we were all figuring  she'd go into the medical field.

We recently took her to momma's grave, which she took a lot harder than we thought she would have.

She kept insisting that she had to go, that she had to see her, we had kept telling her so wasn't ready but she just kept insisting, so we eventually just gave in and took her.

After we got back from the cemetery, she locked herself in her room for a few days.

Sighing, I looked out of the big bay window that overlooked the lake. Lana and I had managed to buy a house out by the lake.

We got it for a cheap price since it needed a little bit of work, which my dad was more than happy to volunteer to help out with.

He's been kinda stir crazy since he retired from construction, he doesn't want to admit it, but he misses working.

I reached over, grabbing my paint brush, dipping it into the color I needed. I started to put the finishing touches to the painting I was currently working on.

"Baby," Lana yelled from somewhere in the house.

"In the art room honey," I yelled out before looking at my finished painting.

"Perfect," I said as I cleaned my brush.

"Ah there you are." Lana entered the room, with Toby close behind her.

We had adopted a black lab puppy about a month ago, and ever since we got him, he either follows Lana around everywhere or its me.

"Everything ok?"

"Yeah everything's fine, I just wanted to know if you wanted lunch in here or if you wanted to go out, it's such a nice day today," she said as I pulled her into my lap.

"We can go outside, I need to stretch my legs anyway."

"Baby is this me?." Lana was looking at the painting I had just finished.

It was a painting of Lana on the first night we had met.

"Do you like it?" I asked, her cheeks turned red as she turned in my lap to look at me.

"I love it." She leaned down, placing her soft lips against mine in a loving kiss.

Pulling away from her, I placed my hand on her stomach, smiling as she placed her hand on top of mine.

"I've never been so happy in my life," I said smiling.

"Neither have I." I leaned forward to give her another kiss, until Toby's wining interrupted us. Looking down, I saw Toby at my feet, staring up at us with his head cocked to the side.

Lana got off my lap as she picked him up.

"I'll get lunch ready while you clean up." She left the room as I stood from my seat.

Life was finally good, I felt like all of my broken pieces had been put back into place, I felt whole again.

                          The End.