“If it’s all the same to you, I’d just not like to think of her getting married.” They both laughed. “Oh, Dad, it’s so wonderful to hear you laughing. You seem so much less tense all the time. Coming here, getting you help, it’s the best thing that could have happened to all of us, don’t you think?”
“Yes. I do think that.” He yawned, and she asked him if he was all right. “Some of those new drugs, they make me a little sleepy. The doctor told me not to fight it but to go take a nap. I’ve been doing that. And I think I’m sleeping better at night too. It’s made a world of difference to me having someone care about what I’m taking and why. They explain every pill I take too, so I know not only what it’s doing for me, but what the effects of it might be. I’m feeling better daily, child. Every single day.”
When she left her dad a little while later, she realized she’d forgotten to ask him if he’d chat with her. Then as the elevator was coming to pick her up, Emmie realized she didn’t want to take Dad’s time away from Olivia. That was what they both needed. Kylan was coming down the hallway just as the elevator dinged that it was on her floor. They stepped in together, and as soon as the doors closed, he pulled her to him and kissed her.
~*~
Kylan needed Emmie. He wasn’t going to rush her, but he just needed to be held. To be loved. When he pulled away, she leaned against the back of the elevator and stared at him. He felt the need to explain himself to her.
“The contract was rejected. Not for anything you did, but the man I’ve been dealing with for the last several weeks on this deal passed away in his sleep last night.” She said she was sorry. “I am as well. However, I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as his son made it sound. Like, his dad had been worrying over the contract and selling to us for days now. That it was just too much for him.”
“You don’t believe him.” Shaking his head, he waited when the door opened, and another couple joined them on the way down. Waiting until they were in the car was all right with him. However, Kylan was surprised when she spoke to him through their link. Do you think his son might have killed him off? I mean, it does happen—more than I’d like to think about.
I do. There was going to be a great deal of money to change hands. While I don’t want to think about Mr. Carver’s son killing him, I do know for a fact that he’d already taken his only child out of the will. As well as his new wife. William might well have found that out and decided he’d take over the company and get the money that way. She asked why he’d been taken out of the will. Mr. Carver told me he’d been having an affair with his new wife.
I don’t want to sound like one of those people that are always thinking the worst of people, but do you think they plotted this from the very beginning? He only had to nod at her as they stepped off the elevator and exited the hospital, and she understood where he was going with this. Kylan liked that she could think like he did too. “What do you want to do? I’m game for just about anything today. My daughter is happy. My dad is happy, and I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Kylan had no time to react to her declaration. She didn’t give him any kind of chance. After telling him she was in love with him, she got into the car and buckled in. He stood there, staring at her until she rolled down the window.
“Well, are we going to take care of this problem or not? Also, I don’t know about you, but I’m about to starve to death.” He nodded and moved to his side of the car. When he got in, he stared at her. “I hope you know I’m not going to sleep with you until we’re married. We have a teenager in the house, and I don’t want her to get the wrong idea about us.”
“What kind of idea do you think she has now?” Emmie turned to him and smiled. “I don’t know all your expressions just now, but I’d say that doesn’t bode well for me.”
“It doesn’t. But you’d better get us married soon, or I’m going to have to sacrifice myself by jumping your bones.” Pulling her to him, he kissed her with every particle of love he had for her. When she put her hand on his lap, he nearly cried out. Looking at her when he leaned his forehead to hers, she spoke again. “Forget getting married. I don’t know that I can wait that long. My daughter will just have to learn about the birds and bees the hard way.”
“I love you.” Emmie told him she loved him as well. “Do you want a big wedding? Or just something at the courthouse? I’m up for whatever you want.”
“Both. We’ll go get married as soon as it can be arranged, then we’ll get married in a fancy wedding at our house. It is our house, right?” He nodded, loving the fact that she was getting this planned out for them. “I want my dad to give me away. I also want my little girl to be there with me when I tell the world how much I love you.”
They drove home talking about the Carvers. It was either talk about that, he thought, or he was going to pull over, jerk her onto his lap, and fuck her right in the car. There was nothing else he wanted to do more than that. When she asked him if he was paying attention, something occurred to him.
“Mr. Carver told me he was going to do some sleuthing. I asked him what it was about, and he told me if anything ever happened to him, I’d be notified. He said I’d know what to do with the letter.” She asked him if he thought the phone call was it. “No. That came from his son, William. I’m thinking since he said I’d know what to do with the letter, I’m going to get something in the mail. Do you think he might have written out something that would blame his death on his wife and son?”
“I don’t know. Did he strike you as a man who thought one step ahead of a couple of killers?” Kylan pulled into a fast-food restaurant and asked her if she was still hungry. “I am, but this is not it.”
“I know. I just needed to pull over and think for a moment. There is a big variety of restaurants around here, so you look it up while I call Harper. She’ll be able to figure out for me if I’m on the wrong track or not.” He pulled out his phone. “If you want to drive, I can talk while you take us someplace to eat.”
“All right.” He called Harper. “Also, tell her to keep an eye out on any kind of courier service that might be around. I have no idea when the letter will arrive, but if someone that had the letter was notified, they might have already made arrangements for you to get it.”
“I was just going to call you.” He asked Harper if she’d gotten a letter for him. “Yes. I had to sign for it. It had mine and Bryant’s name on it in the event you weren’t home. It’s from a law firm I’ve never heard of.”
He told her everything he and Emmie had been talking about. The will, the family, and wondering what the letter might say. When she said she’d open it for him, she did so without hesitation. As soon as she whistled, he knew it was going to be far worse than he’d thought.
“It’s not worse. Why do you guys always jump to the worst case scenarios? It’s an amendment to the will.” Harper told him to hang on a second while she read some of it. “He talks about how you were coming to his office today, today’s date as a matter of fact, and your firm was going to buy out his company. The price is stated here, but I believe it’s lower than we all agreed we’d pay for it.”
“What else does it say?” She told him to hold his ass. Not even sure how that was to work, he waited on her. Emmie parked them in front of a pretty little restaurant he knew wasn’t a chain restaurant. He was glad for that, helping out the people that weren’t as funded at bigger places. He put the phone on speaker so Emmie could hear too.
“Well, you own the company. It says that if he is killed or dies in any way before the date you’re to come and have him sign the paperwork for the sale, that the building, contents, as well as anything else pertaining to the companies he owns, are to be gifted to you to do with as you please. It goes on to say that his home, cars, and any contents of the house are also yours. Holy Christ, Kylan, what did you do to this man that he is leaving you what amounts to, according to this letter, seven billion dollars?
” She laughed, but he wasn’t finding any of this funny.
“Has the letter been notarized?” Harper told Emmie it had been. Also, that copies had been sent to the bank, his son, as well as his wife. “It’s on there that his son has been notified? Great. That’s one smart man you’ve been working with. What does Kylan have to do to claim the business and property?”
“Wait. Wait a minute here. I’m a little overwhelmed by this. Just…can’t we call someone to see if this is real? What if his son did this or something?” Emmie asked Kylan why he’d do that. “I’m not sure. But seven billion is a lot of money.”
“It is. But he trusted you to do the right thing. Obviously, he didn’t trust his family.” He looked at Emmie as Harper agreed with her. “Is there anything else in there that tells us who we have to contact to get this done quickly? I have a feeling that since the son or whoever has gone this far, he won’t hesitate to sell off as much as he can before we can get to it.”
Eating first, they made arrangements with the person that had sent the letter to him. However, instead of going to his offices, Mr. Blacksburg said he’d come to them. They were just ordering his lunch when a little man walked into the place. He knew immediately that this man was who they’d been waiting on.
“Oh my, young man, I was so happy to hear from you. I thought it might be days I’d have to be fobbing off the son and wife. She’s wailing herself up big time. I’m sorry, miss, but she’s not the kind of woman that marries someone like Harold. Poor man was lonely, and I told him he didn’t have to marry to get what he was lonely for.” Mr. Blacksburg wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “My goodness. Well, here we are. Getting it settled up the way he wanted anyway. You read this over, and we’ll get this finished up. Yes, sir, that man was about the nicest one I’ve had the pleasure of working for.”
Emmie read it over, asking questions about a couple of places in the contract. There wasn’t going to be any exchange of money because Mr. Carver wanted it that way. His family would get nothing. Kylan wondered how terrible a person would need to be for their own father to take them out of the will.
“You can sign this. Everything in it is cut and dried and at no cost to you.”
Kylan put his name on the contract where he was told. After it was finished, Mr. Blacksburg enjoyed his lunch.
He wasn’t sure what the family was going to do with the property now that he owned it, but for now, he was a multi-billionaire. Not that he wasn’t before this, but he was more so now. It was the strangest thing he’d ever done of late, taking the property he’d worked so long to get without any cost or trouble to him.
Have you signed off on the contract yet? He told Bryant he had. Good. His son is here. I don’t know yet what he’s looking for, but he’s got himself a brand new car that has temp tags on it. I’d say that dear old William here is looking for a way to spend all his daddy’s money even before he’s put in the grave.
“Tell your brother to call the police.” After telling Emmie what was going on, she sat there a moment before telling Bryant what to do. “Have them hold him on suspicion of robbery. For now. There are a great many things we can get him on once I talk to the bank, but for now, this will work.”
After getting the name of the dealership from Bryant, they gathered everything up and left. Mr. Blacksburg paid for their meal. He told him he’d been wanting to get William arrested for years now. They had made his day.
It took them thirty minutes to get back to their town. When they arrived at Bryant’s home, Kylan was glad to see the entire police force was out for this. As soon as he and Emmie entered the house, he knew Bryant and Harper had been having a wonderful time playing dumb with William.
“Mr. Carver, I’m sorry about the loss of your father. He was a great man. But there are a few problems we’ve run into since this morning when you called me. For now, my wife here, Emmaline, has called the dealership about your car, and we’re to hold you here until they can come for it.” William asked them what the fuck he was talking about. “Your father had a will made out in the event he didn’t make it to our meeting this morning. I just left his attorney, Mr. Blacksburg. You know him, correct?”
“Yes. He’s the family attorney. What does that old coot have to do with me and my car?” Emmie asked him if he’d used his father’s company money or a company credit card to buy the car. “I did. So? My father is dead, and I’m set to inherit his businesses and money. Again, what does this have to do with me?”
Emmie told him what it had to do with him, even letting him see the copy of the second will naming Kylan as sole beneficiary to everything. William looked the paperwork over twice before he said it wasn’t real.
“Oh, but it is real. Not only that, but Mr. Blacksburg has filed it for us at the courthouse on his way back to the office. He called me with the file number just as we were pulling into the drive. If you’d like, there is someone standing by for you to call to have it verified.” William shook his head. To him, it was clear the young man knew he was beaten. “You’ve stolen from my client, Mr. Carver, and that isn’t going to go well for you.”
William called his dad every name in the book, even going so far as to scream out his frustrations. Even as he was being read his rights and handcuffed, he started spilling everything he knew about Kelly, his dad’s wife and his lover.
“This was all her idea. She’s the one that poisoned him too. You go ahead and check it out if you don’t believe me. Kelly has been feeding him poison every day since they got married. It was all on her. I was being led around by my dick.” The cop snickered. “Yeah, I’ll admit it. My dick was what was being used, and damned well too. You see if I’m not right. She did it. Kelly did it all.”
After he left and the police did as well, the car dealership showed up and was soon gone as well. Kylan sat down on the couch and looked at his brother. He asked him what he wanted to do now.
“For now, I think we hold onto the property. Since the house and its contents were never anything we were interested in, that is all on you. I’ve spoken to the rest of them, and they’re willing to let you handle all that.” He thanked his brother. “However, we do have a couple of suggestions for you concerning the money from the house and contents. The house can be used for out of town clients that have their staff with them when they come to town to do business. It has a lot of bedrooms, from what I’ve seen, and a large kitchen. Or, and this one is what they’re leaning toward more, we think you should donate the house to the city to be used as a halfway house for people with problems like Emmie’s dad has.”
“You’d do that?” Bryant told Emmie there just wasn’t enough room in the place they had now. “That’s why there is a waiting list. You want to do this to cut down on the wait time to get in.”
“Yes. It will help a great many people, and I think it’s something that would be good to name for Mr. Carver Senior. The William Carver Help Center.” Kylan told his brother he’d need help with it. “You’re going to be marrying a great attorney, Kylan. I’m sure she can get you whatever you need to get the sucker up and running in no time.”
On the drive back to their place, Emmie told him how much she loved the idea about the center. He did too. It was going to be a good way for a lot of people to have a place that could help them. Being around as long as he had, Kylan had seen a lot of people with the disease, and anything they could do to help was just fine with him. But right now, he wanted to make love to his wife.
Chapter 3
“Are you sure it’s all right with the parents?” Emmie wasn’t sure about this. Her daughter spending the night with the wolf pack? What if they hurt her? What if they decided to, she didn’t know, run naked and howl at the moon?
“They don’t do that, Emmie.” She felt her face heat up when Kylan spoke behind her. “She’ll be safer there than she would be in her own bed.” Besides, if she’s there, you can be as loud as you want.<
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Emmie wasn’t sure if Kylan spoke softly in her ear or in her mind. But every part of her wanted to tell her daughter to spend the next month with the pack. Turning to the man she knew she’d love forever, she looked him in the eyes as she finished speaking to her daughter.
“Please make sure you try to make friends with your cousins. It was nice of Marie to invite the four of you over.” Olivia said she thought it best that she got to know everyone living around them. That Emmie should too. “I will. Don’t lecture me, child. I’m still older than you are.”
She put the phone back in the cradle. Not moving, she thought about what Kylan might want her to do. What he might do to her. Suddenly, she was afraid. Wanting to change her mind, Kylan only put his hand on her elbow, and she felt calmed by the touch. Like she had every other time he’d done the same thing.
“I’m not going to do anything to you that you don’t want. Even if you’ve changed your mind about us making love, I’m all right with that. I know you’ve been stressing about a lot of different things lately. I don’t want us making love together to be one of them.” She loved this man. She didn’t know why it had taken her so long to figure that out. “Who else is staying with Olivia at the packhouse?”
“Allie’s girls. I don’t know why I thought this, but I would have thought Lynette might have been a little old for sleepovers.” Kylan told her what was going on. “What a wonderful idea. I guess having them learning about the things you’d need to know when out in the woods is a good idea. Olivia took a few survival classes last year too. I’m ready.”
Kylan picked her up and held her in his arms like she didn’t weigh anything. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him on the cheek then inhaled deeply in the crook of his neck.
Kylan: Prince of Tigers – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance Page 4