Chapter 10

CHAPTERTEN

“Damn, Jane,” Davis said around a mouthful. He chewed, swallowed, then finished, “you said you could cook, not that you served heaven on a plate.”

That felt nice.

Too nice.

It was becoming harder and harder to remember who Davis was and why he was with me. From telling me he was trying not to give me sex hair before our wedding, to the kiss he gave me after we were pronounced husband and wife, to the way he let me off the hook when he noticed I was uncomfortable with our earlier conversation, to holding my hand as we walked around the small beach cove near the cabana, to smiling at me, teasing me, laughing like we were a real couple, to giving in about going out to dinner—all of it was too much. And before that he hadn’t made me feel foolish for wanting to leave the hotel Trevor was paying for and he hadn’t made a comment about our new accommodations, which were far from luxury or paradise but a place where I’d be comfortable.

So complimenting me on my cooking wasn’t the first compliment he’d given me today which was why it was getting hard to remember my place.

I was his fake wife.

Period.

“It’s just fish tacos.”

“No ‘just’ about your fish tacos, Jane.”

He was being generous. There was only so much you could do with tilapia.

But he looked like he meant what he said.

“Thanks.”

We lapsed into silence as we ate. This was not uncomfortable, it felt natural and easy. Normal, or it would be if we weren’t sitting at a teeny-tiny table that had seen better days, pushed against the wall off the small kitchen, a table that was barely big enough for our plates and glasses. Those plates being paper and the glasses being red Solo cups. Mine filled with champagne, Davis’s with beer after he’d had his champagne.

The champagne was Davis’s idea. So was the toast he made that was simple and to the point but something I’d never forget. Because that toast would be the one and only toast I’d ever have on my wedding day since after we were divorced I planned on never getting married again.

I’d be lying if I tried to deny the thought of divorcing Davis knotted my stomach. It was because of that—the knot in my belly and the hurt in my heart—I broke the quiet.

“What did Wilson say about when we could go back to Idaho?”

Davis had stepped outside to speak to his boss while I was cooking dinner. I didn’t question why he’d done this and I hadn’t asked because I didn’t want reality to creep back in. But that was stupid; I needed reality. I needed to remind myself that one day soon we’d leave this hideaway and go back to life.

“The photographer already sent him the pictures from today. He picked one and sent it to the Coeur d’Alene Press to go with our announcement. He also sent the same to the Valley Journal. Not sure if your father or any of his brothers read the paper or go online to get local news but our announcement will be on the Journal’s website by morning.”

Satan read and watched the news religiously.

Shit.

This was happening. There was no going back now. Tomorrow my father would see I’d married a member of Takeback. Davis’s plan would either work and my father would figure out I wasn’t worth the trouble or it would piss him off to such an extreme he would scorch a path to Idaho and snatch me up himself.

Only time would tell.

“He’s thinking at least a week. Maybe more. Maybe less if your father reaches out to your brother, something Zeus says he’ll do when he sees the announcement.”

He would.

My father would call Zeus and lay into him. He’d also blame Zeus for allowing me to marry an outsider. He’d do it ugly and my brother would deny that my father calling him to give him shit would cause him pain but it would.

How could it not?

Like it or not the man was our father—a horrible one, but still we are his blood.

Being nearly abducted had scared the hell out of me. Being stalked all the way to Hawaii, the same. But that order coming from my father made it worse. Knowing that the man who made me didn’t care about me at all, had no love for me, not even common decency, killed even if I hated him. And by hate I meant I loathed him down to my bones. Yet I didn’t want him stalked, abducted, and sold into a life of sex trafficking. Put in jail for the rest of his life, yes. Violated and terrified every day, no.

“He’ll see the Journal and call Trevor tomorrow,” I mumbled, staring at my unfinished dinner.

Perhaps I should’ve waited to have this conversation until after I was done eating. The fish tacos were really yummy and now they’d go to waste.

“Jane?”

“Yeah?”

“Baby, look at me.”

It was the gentle ‘baby’ that had me lifting my gaze to meet his.

“Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Sure it will.”

I didn’t mean that snarky and I knew he read me right when Davis’s whole face softened.

“You have to trust me. Trust my team. Trust that as fucked-up as your brother is, he’s doing his part to protect you, too.”

That almost made me smile.

“How hard was it for you to say that last part?”

“I’m still choking down the burn.”

Davis said it teasingly but I knew he was telling the truth. And that burn was for me.

Oh, yeah, I could barely remember this whole thing was fake.

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he repeated.

This time my “Okay” was a little more convincing.

After dinner I found out my new husband did the dishes.

I also learned he liked reality TV.

“Please tell me you’re not serious,” I said when he stopped on the Discovery Channel.

“What? You don’t like NAKED AND AFRAID?”

“Um…” I sputtered and my eyes went back to the television set that looked like it was purchased sometime in the ’80s, grateful that high definition hadn’t yet become a thing. “She’s naked and digging into that dude’s armpit. And seeing as she’s picking something out of there that’s most likely a flesh-eating bug I don’t think it’s a good idea they’re sitting in muddy water.”

Davis smiled.

I scrunched my nose and went on, “That’s nasty.”

“The naked part?”

“Are you not seeing the muddy water? There could be fish swimming around looking for something to eat. Soon the armpit bug might not be the only problem the dude has.”

“So you’re worried about his dick—”

“Becoming fish food,” I quickly cut in. “It’s just bobbing and floating under the water like a lure.”

Davis busted out laughing.

I watched him and I did this with avid devotion. Everything about Davis transformed and I realized that all the times he’d laughed before weren’t laughs as such, they were more like chuckles. Now he was fully committed to the act and it was beautiful. I wasn’t sure how a man who looked and acted like Davis could be described as beautiful but there it was. In all his rugged good looks he was absolutely beautiful when he was carefree.

This did not help me remember who we were. Further, it didn’t help when he hooked me around the shoulders and pulled me against his side. The worn-out, beat-up wicker couch was already small enough that our legs were touching, I didn’t need to be any closer. Apparently Davis was of a different mind when he held me close. Not knowing what to do with my hand, I opted to rest it on his chest.

“Thanks again for dinner,” he said and settled in to watch his show.

“It was just—”

He gave me a squeeze. I shut my mouth, or at least I did for a moment before I started again, “My pleasure.”

“Now, you good watching this or do you want to channel surf and find something else?”

I had a feeling he could scan all the channels cable had to offer and I still wouldn’t find a show I could focus on while I was laid up against Davis.

I didn’t tell him that.

“Sure, but if the guy’s penis gets bitten off I get to say I told you so.”

This time when Davis busted out laughing I didn’t get to watch, but I felt his big body shaking under mine and that was better…way freaking better.

The next thing I knew I was floating. Not floating so much as being lifted, but in my semi-awake, mostly-out-of-it-because-I’d-been-asleep state it felt a lot like floating. Not floating as in soft, fluffy clouds—because there was nothing soft about Davis—but floating in the warmth and strong arms of a man who I knew would keep me safe.

I was in deep.

Too deep.

But luckily I was only semi-awake, mostly out of it because this meant I couldn’t freak out. Nope, I couldn’t freak out about Davis carrying me the five steps it took him to place me in bed, and not about that bed being the only one in the cabana, and not when he softly asked, “Wanna change, baby?”

I must’ve answered in the negative because he got into that one-and-only bed with me, rolled me to my side, and cuddled in.

Cuddled. In.

Big spoon, little spoon. With me being the little spoon, him the big, and when he draped his arm around me and held me close I was too out of it to do anything but snuggle back and soak him in.

I felt his hand find mine, his thumb brushed over my wedding ring, and my eyes shot open.

It was dark. Or as dark as it could be with the moonlight streaming in through the sheer curtains.

I was no longer in a semi-awake-but-groggy state. No, I was wide awake and fighting all of the freakouts I should’ve had already but didn’t because I’d been lost in a dream that I never knew I could dream—being in the arms of a good, clean man who would keep me safe.

“Relax and go back to sleep,” Davis mumbled against the top of my head.

That wasn’t going to happen.

I sucked in a breath in preparation to tell him just that but all the air whooshed out before I could say a word.

“I got you, Jane. Just sleep, baby.”

I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, pinched my lips together so I wouldn’t embarrass myself by saying something like please never, ever leave me, and willed sleep to take me under.

It didn’t. Not for a long time.

But there in the silence, in the dark, with Davis wrapped around me I started to wonder if Trevor was wrong.

Wrong about people using what they knew about you to manipulate you.

Wrong about never trusting anyone.

Wrong about never getting close to anyone.

Just wrong.

Because if this was what trust felt like I’d been missing out.

Ditto on the closeness.

I was slowly drifting off when I heard Davis whisper, “That’s it, baby, sleep.”

And I slept.

* * *

The next morningI woke up alone.

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed.

Nope.

That was a lie.

I was totally disappointed and that was dangerous.

Last night I’d fallen asleep leaning against Davis before NAKED AND AFRAID was over. Side note: the dude’s penis hadn’t become fish food but he did have ticks. Blah! I’d closed my eyes to ward off the disgustingness and didn’t reopen them until I felt Davis fiddling with my ring.

And what was up with that? It was sweet. It was gentle. It was something a new husband would do with his real wife. Not a fake husband with a woman he barely knew.

I heard a door slam and I looked in that direction just as Davis stepped in from the rickety porch facing the beach. The door was a screen door without the intent of keeping the bugs out. Or, if it was meant for that, it failed due to the holes and tears in the screens.

“Coffee’s ready,” Davis said as he made his way into the kitchen.

I glanced at the mug he was carrying and wondered how long he’d been awake. Or better yet what time it was. Yesterday I’d noted there wasn’t a single clock in the cabana. I didn’t know if that was an “island time” thing or if the cabana didn’t see many overnight guests so the owner didn’t bother with clocks.

“What time is it?”

“Just past ten.”

Ten.

Holy shit.

I’d slept for at least nine hours.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept that much in a twenty-four-hour period. I knew I hadn’t slept that long since my father’s asshole-lackey paid me a visit and before that I averaged six hours tops.

I rolled to the edge of the bed—more like a scoot than a full roll—and tossed my legs over the edge while asking, “Why didn’t you wake me?”

Davis was mid-pour when he asked, “Wake you?”

“Yeah. Why didn’t you wake me up when you got up?”

His gaze was steady on me but at my question his eyes started to roam—my face, my hair, then back to holding my stare.

“Baby, you need your sleep.”

Again with the baby.

Hearing him call me that was the sweetest torture and it was going to send me straight to hell when I stopped getting it.

I should’ve told him to stop calling me sweet names and call me Jane.

I didn’t do that.

“Nine hours is a little excessive.”

“More like fourteen.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t even eight when you passed out.”

That was impossible.

Though it was semi-light outside when we started watching TV and we hadn’t taken a year at the grocery store and fish tacos were easy and quick.

But eight.

I hadn’t gone to sleep at eight since I was…well, eight.

Davis brought his mug up to his mouth, which brought my attention to his lips, and right then they were tipped up and he was grinning.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because you’re cute when you’re confused.”

“I’m not confused,” I semi-lied because I wasn’t totally confused—just confounded that I’d slept hard and long and felt more rested than I had in months.

“Being on the run takes it out of you,” he sagely noted.

I said nothing to that because he was right and obviously he knew that since he’d said it.

“You want coffee?”

“Am I breathing?”

I heard Davis chuckle and watched him open the cabinet above the coffee machine.

“On a scale of grow hair on your chest and watered down how strong is the coffee?” I asked as he poured the nectar of the gods into the fresh mug.

“Two steps down from hair on your chest.”

“You’re perfect,” I breathed. Davis’ gaze sliced across the room and bore into me. I rushed to correct myself. “I meant, that’s perfect.”

“Right.”

He elongated the word.

Shit.

“I’ll wait for you out on the porch.”

I watched Davis walk to the door, kick the bottom wood portion, and walk out with my coffee.

I might’ve moaned at the delay of my morning brew.

Or maybe it was because Davis had on loose-fitting workout shorts that highlighted his perfect ass.

“I heard that,” he shouted.

“You stole my coffee.”

“Then get your ass out here.”

I hopped up and got my ass out there, telling myself it was because I wanted my coffee, not because I wanted to sit next to Davis on the porch looking out over the beach while I enjoyed my morning coffee.

Hey, sometimes a girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do to get through the day.