“Yes. That’s right.” Devon realized at the last second what he had just said and what he had likely just started. “This is Kami Delgado.”
“All right, sir.” The policeman bobbed his head.
Time seemed to speed up. Kami still had yet to say anything after being ill. She kept her face pressed to his chest and she was shaking so violently that Devon was afraid that she was going into shock. He continued to hold her, whispering as he gently rocked her from side to side in his arms.
Finally after a few moments the paramedics came over. As the medics gently helped Kami toward the ambulance, she looked up at them and seemed to be forcing herself to speak. “I’m not his wife,” she told them suddenly. “We’re just sleeping together. I don’t know why he keeps saying that.”
The medics looked at each other and then gave Devon a sideways look of near confusion, but they did not speak. Devon wanted to protest, but he did not dare. He felt rebuffed. But should he? He had been presumptuous to say anything at all and yet the circumstances sort of demanded it. There was no way to just pretend that they had just happened to be in a car together late at night while driving around Dallas in a very rare and dangerous snow storm. If you could even call it that.
Devon climbed dumbly into the ambulance and they rode in silence to the hospital. It wasn’t far. Just a few blocks. But even the ambulance was slipping and sliding on the pavement. It was a bad night to be out for any reason and yet Devon had refused refuge to his own wife and expected her to go walking down the street to the bus stop where she would have likely had to wait upwards of an hour for anyone to pick her up.
The hospital was a whirlwind. He could hardly process what was happening. He stayed with Kami. The nurses had to help her get out of her clothing and into a hospital gown. When they would have asked him to leave, he shot the nurses one look and they stopped attempting to force him out of the exam room. Kami was lying on the thin hospital mattress with her face turned away from him. She was silent. It was late. There were dozens upon dozens of other patients in the busy ER, but it was so late that the dim quiet of the floor seemed rarely disturbed.
Devon sat with his head in his hands. He could barely process what was happening. A doctor came and went. He ordered some x-rays of Kami’s ribcage. Devon refused treatment for himself. There was no need to create a medical record that would then become confusing to any professional that looked at it when Devon’s body did not heal according to regular human standards.
“Kami?” he finally whispered her name after they had been in the ER more than an hour. “Kami, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
He lightly touched her leg where it lay underneath the blue and white patterned hospital sheet. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. If I had just brought you into the house none of this would have happened.”
She struggled to roll to her other side. He would have helped her, but she shoved his hand away. Finally settling herself on the mattress, she tucked her hands beneath her cheek and stared at him with those big dark eyes. It was several moments before she said anything.
“Stop trying to make this about yourself,” Kami finally murmured. “We had a wreck. Someone else died. Then you screwed up and told a policeman that I’m your wife. If you think that’s not going to come back and bite us in the ass, you’re wrong.”
“They’ve got no reason to spread that around.” Devon blew it off, but inside he knew that she was right. “It will die down and go away and then things will go back to normal.”
“Not normal.” She sounded almost panicky. “I don’t have anywhere to go, Devon.”
“So we’ll get you an apartment,” he decided. “That would be better anyway. Your own place?”
Her expression was flat and unreadable. Her lips parted in a yawn before she managed to respond to his suggestion. “I can’t afford an apartment.”
“I can.”
“I don’t want to take anything else from you.”
Devon sighed. He had made so many mistakes at this point that if Orion truly knew all of the details his brother would probably start beating Devon’s head against the wall. “Even if you divorced me right now, Kami, you would have money for an apartment. Hell. You could probably buy a freaking house.”
“What?”
“We’ve only been married a little over a year, but there are property laws here in Texas that apply and we didn’t have any kind of prenuptial agreement.” Devon sighed. “Let me help you. I’ll pay half. We’ll find something tomorrow after you get off work. All right? It’s Saturday. I’ll do some checking around and make some phone calls and we will go find something that you like.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Her question cut him to the quick. What did she think of him? Did she believe that he was just bored or something? Did she believe that he no longer wanted to be her husband? The idea that she could honestly believe that was horrible to contemplate. But now wasn’t the time. Was it? Devon exhaled a sigh and gave her thigh a very light squeeze. He had known her for so long now. That was what it felt like. He loved her. He really did. He just didn’t know—he didn’t know how to make everything right. He loved Kami. His family would likely never accept her. Right now the situation at King Security Solutions, Inc was absolutely untenable. There were so many lies and cover-ups and other messes to clean up that he could not just walk away. Besides, where would he go? This was the only job he’d had and all he knew.
In so many ways Kami was stronger than he was and that shamed Devon on a whole new level. So he leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I’m doing this because you deserve so much more than I give you and yet you never ask for it. I want to make things right. Okay?”
But for whatever reason this did not satisfy her at all. She only closed her eyes. There was no response from her, and soon enough he could tell by the softness of her breathing that she was asleep. That left Devon with a very serious problem. His car was absolutely totaled. He could deal with that to some extent. He was Devon King. He had unlimited funds at his disposal—to some extent anyway. But he could not magically make another vehicle appear out front. He could not magically make anything happen. And that meant a phone call to one of his brothers.
This was not a pleasant possibility. But the necessity of trying to get ahold of Orion or Zane was put off by the arrival of a police officer into the exam room. The young officer was in a regular uniform when he put his head in between the curtains and motioned Devon out of the room.
“Sorry,” the officer whispered. “I don’t want to disturb the poor girl. I just wanted to verify a few things.”
“Sure.” Devon’s gut clenched as he realized that one of the verification issues was probably the fact that he had referred to Kami as his wife. “What can I help you with?”
“Where were the two of you going?”
“The King building.” Devon could at least answer that easy enough. “It’s only a few blocks from there. I didn’t want to get on the highway in this weather so I just took back roads all the way to the downtown area. We started out at my family’s University Park house.”
“I see.” The policeman scratched his neck. “And Kami Delgado is your wife?”
Devon pursed his lips. “Legally, yes.” Then he sighed and shoved his fingers through his hair. “It would really help both of us if you didn’t make a big deal out of that. Neither of our families are aware of our association. It was—was—let’s just call it a business transaction.”
What in the hell was he thinking? Even as the words came out Devon was absolutely disgusted with himself. He was calling his association with Kami a business deal. How was that even a thing? She worked for a subcontractor at his building. It wasn’t like they were having some kind of dirty affair. And yet he had just made it sound like that, hadn’t he?
The policeman was nodding. “All right, Mr. King. I can just leave that part out. I do have to inform you that the other man involved in the accident w
as pronounced dead on the scene.”
“We worried as much.” For some reason that made Devon feel worse about the whole thing in general. Someone had died. Kami was in a hospital bed barely speaking to him and someone else had lost their life all because Devon was too cowardly to just be honest with his family.
Chapter Twelve
If working long hours on her feet was usually tiring, doing so after being spun what felt like four hundred times around in a car made things exponentially worse. Kami was so sore that she felt like she had been on every single ride at a huge amusement park about a thousand times in a row. That was the only comparison that she could make. She had never been in a car wreck before. She had never spent much time in a car. It wasn’t like their father had invited the kids to ride around in his work truck very often.
In contrast, Kami had been on a few very rough rides in a cheap amusement park a very long time ago. It had been a field trip and she had felt luckier than lucky to go. The rides had been fun at the time, but the following morning she had been very sore in her neck and back. Not unlike how she felt right now.
“Kami, are you all right?” Shawn was giving her a doubtful look like he was only about ten minutes from sending her home, which would be bad. “You look like you feel awful. What happened?”
“I was in a bit of a fender bender last night. That’s all. I’m fine. Really.” There. That was pretty minor sounding, right? Kami pulled the lever to froth the milk on the machine and tried hard not to wince as her shoulder protested loudly.
“A fender bender?” Shawn was now wide eyed with shock. “You must be joking! You were out driving in that ridiculous weather?”
“It’s still ridiculous,” Kami reminded him with a roll of her eyes. “And you’re at work.”
“I live close. I walked.”
“What is the temperature right now?” Kami was desperate to divert him from her personal issues. “Like thirty-one? We’re barely on the freezing scale. The snow never actually stayed like snow. It just sort of adhered to the pavement and then hung around until it froze solid.”
“Right. So it’s even more treacherous out there than it was last night. You should be home in bed!” Shawn told her with authority as he smiled and asked a customer for the seventeen dollar tab on the coffee and pastries the guy had ordered.
“And yet,” Kami mused as she quickly pulled an espresso for another customer. “The supposedly horrible weather has not slowed anyone down when it comes to getting their booties out of bed and getting in here for their coffee.”
A customer at the counter laughed at this and pointed at Shawn. “Weather does not negate the need for caffeine.”
“You know, they make coffee makers that you can set up in your very own kitchen so you don’t have to come in here at the crack of dawn to get yourself some java.” Kami made a face at the customer and then grinned as she picked up the next cup in line.
Shawn was quick to wave her off. “Don’t listen to Kami. She apparently hit her head last night so she’s just talking crazy. You need to come in here every single day. Multiple times if you can.”
“Uh huh, right.” Kami shot Shawn a good-natured look of exasperation. “And they should listen to you because you have no personal stake in this at all.”
The banter continued and Kami made it through most of the first four and half hours of her ten hour shift without having to stop and crouch in the corner to cry with the pain of it all. Her weekends were such long days. She sometimes despaired of ever coming to a point in her life where she didn’t feel as though she had absolutely no free time at all. Ever. For the most part she often experienced what could be considered a horrible amount of stress over—well everything.
Kami wasn’t sure what time it was when she spotted Skye standing at the counter waiting to order her drink. Kami could not count the number of times that she had waited on Skye Kincaid since starting work at the coffee shop years and years ago when she was only eighteen years old. But Skye’s face had always just melted into the background of customers that came and went with appalling regularity and seemed to have lives that were easy enough to allow them an untold amount of time spent inside a coffee shop doing pretty much nothing.
“Hey.” Skye smiled at Kami as though the two of them were suddenly friends. “I’ll just take a café mocha with four shots of espresso and nonfat whipped cream.”
“All right then.” Kami rang up the purchase and pulled out a cup. She scribbled the order on the paper cup in black marker and set it aside. “That will be five dollars.”
Skye handed Kami a five dollar bill. But she didn’t move. She just stood there. Unfortunately, there was nobody else in line behind her so it wasn’t like there were other customers to help things along. Kami didn’t feel like repeating the conversation from the other day.
“I didn’t realize that you actually worked here,” Skye said in what was probably supposed to be a conversational tone of voice.
Yeah and I bet you don’t know that legally you’re my sister-in-law. Wow.
It was an unsettling thought. But Kami had gotten used to her marriage being on the down-low. No. That was the wrong term. Try the no-low as in nobody knew and it wasn’t even real in the minds of the two people who were supposedly married.
“I’ve worked here for years actually,” Kami murmured.
She didn’t want to be rude. But at the same time she felt like being totally rude because Skye was obviously one of those customers who thought she owned the place. Maybe she did. Maybe that was the way it was for regulars. But they rarely understood the real inner workings of the coffee shop itself. They were just there to sit and enjoy the ambiance and the coffee and the free Wi-Fi.
“Oh. Well, maybe you don’t work here during the week. I’m usually not here on weekends.”
Dammit. Kami was now officially curious to know why Skye was here on a weekend. The weather? Something with a family situation that Kami should know about? Like the whole family had suddenly found out that Devon had been in a wreck and that the policeman was now saying that the other person in the car had been his wife? Was that what had brought Skye out on a weekend?
“Yeah,” Kami finally said quietly. “I’m only a Saturday and Sunday employee. I work for a janitorial service during the week, remember?” Did the woman honestly think that Kami pulled eight hour shifts at the cleaning company and then came over here to close? Sheesh! That would be a hard life.
“Yeah, I guess it would be hard to work half days at the King building and then close over here.” Skye was nodding and behind Kami she could feel Shawn’s eyes on her as he finished up Skye’s drink.
“Half days?” Kami gaped at her. “My days start at four. That’s usually when I get to the King building. I work four-thirty to twelve-thirty. If that seems like an easy half day to you I cannot imagine what you do for a living.”
“I’m a writer.” Skye made this sound like a real career. Ha!
Kami snorted. She couldn’t help it. “No wonder you wanted to marry into the King family. Must be pretty nice to have that second income helping you pay the bills. A writer? Seriously? That’s a career?”
Skye’s pale red eyebrows shot up. Their elegant shape bespoke of having enough money to go to a cosmetologist and have them carefully waxed and plucked. Her hair was perfectly trimmed too. She was wearing nice clothes. She looked good. She looked expensive. And that just made Kami hate her.
“Wow, what do you have against writers?” Skye frowned and shook her head. “I work hard. Thanks. I might not get up at four in the morning, but I sure as hell don’t ask Jason to support me. That would be low.”
“Do you live together?”
“Yes.”
“So he has a salary that he uses to help with bills. Right?”
“Sure.” Skye frowned. “That’s what married couples do.”
Kami bit her lip. The words were just dying to bust out of her mouth. She wanted so badly to tell this woman exactly how a married rel
ative of hers was treating his wife, but then maybe that was really going to change since Devon had promised that they would go apartment hunting tonight. That was good of course. Hopefully, someone would let her move in today because Kami literally had nowhere to go once her shift at the coffee shop was done.
“I’m sorry,” Kami offered what she knew was a brittle smile to Skye. “There’s a customer behind you that needs help. If you want to step to the end of the counter Shawn will have your drink for you in just a moment. Thank you so much.”
Finally Skye left and Kami could focus on something else. But that sense of relief did not last long because Devon came strolling into the shop about five seconds after that and Kami became utterly and completely aware of how amazingly awkward things were about to get.
Kami finished helping her current customer and then took a deep breath as Devon came up to the counter. There had to be a way to warn him about Skye’s presence in the coffee shop. But there was no time. Devon was smiling at her. And from the corner of Kami’s eye she could see Skye notice him.
“Hey, how are you doing after being here all morning?” Devon asked in a voice that was so gentle it nearly made Kami want to weep with the need to collapse.
“I’m fine.”
Kami had only just managed to get the words out before Skye came bouncing up. “Devon, what on earth are you doing here? It’s Saturday! Don’t you have something else to do on a Saturday? You’re not much of a coffee shop junkie to begin with. Do you even drink coffee? Your brother doesn’t, you know?”
Devon turned and the expression froze on his face when he realized what he’d inadvertently walked into. “Hey, Skye. I could ask you the same question. I didn’t think you came out to this place on Saturdays. I thought that you and Jason were hanging out at the ranch on weekends with Gemini.”
“I sent Jason for this weekend,” Skye told Devon in a tone that made it sound like this was actually a huge sacrifice. “When the weather is bad out there it’s impossible to get my wireless hotspot to work on my phone so I’m stuck without internet. Besides, I’ve got blog posts and articles that I need to write and this is a chance to catch up. But you never said. Why are you here?”
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 80