“Do you want anything? How’s the pain?” I asked.
“M’kay. Sleepy…” he said.
I placed another kiss on his forehead.
“Get some rest, baby,” I insisted. “The sooner you get better, the sooner I can get you out of here and take you home.”
Nicki closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, but this time there was a touch of a smile on his lips.
21
Nicki
The next fewweeks passed in a blur.
After I was released from the hospital, the Devereaux fam refused to let me go back to our second story apartment, for which I was grateful. I didn’t think I could have done the stairs on a regular basis.
Micah had put us in touch with an industrial cleaning crew who had managed to take care of all the blood and bits from the shooting, but none of us wanted to deal with the shadow of my father’s death on a daily basis.
The landlord was more than willing to let us out of our lease—I think his lawyers had told him he could be held liable for not having a better security system in place—but as luck would have it, he had another property that he was willing to offer us at a very reasonable rate. It was a three-bedroom house that wasn’t far from the Devereaux Den. It had an attached, two-car garage and a small yard.
There hadn’t even been any major discussion, Vivian and I had just included Kaine when we started planning the move.
Alex, Marty and Rhiannon were slowly becoming a major part of my life. Kaine and I typically spent Saturday afternoons or evenings with them, and I’d found my biological father to be an extremely intelligent, sensitive man. Marty had a wicked sense of humor, and he and Rhiannon had an ongoing pretend dislike of each other that was hilarious to watch.
One of my favorite things was to just to sit on the couch with Kaine’s arm around me, sipping a glass of wine while they reminisced about some of the crazy things they and my mom had done when they were younger—bearing in mind, “when they were younger,” was all of two years ago.
I never asked, because it wasn’t really my business, but it sounded to me as if she, Marty, and Alex had been a thruple, and a very happy one.
I loved hearing stories about my mom and the family she had chosen. It warmed something deep in my heart that she had found love and happiness, even if it had been incomplete because we were separated.
Speaking of family, Viv had been hanging out at the Devereaux home a lot lately, especially on the days when a certain red-headed sister was in town. No one had said anything yet, but I had heard some muffled moaning coming from Vivian’s bedroom late one night, and found some red hair in our new bathroom that was way too long to have been mine… I hadn’t said anything to Viv, because it still seemed really new, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen her happier than she was when she was with Weaver.
Her parents had come up for Thanksgiving, and introducing them to the entire clan had been a head-spinning experience. Dr. and Mrs. Dunwoody had adored the Devereauxs and had become fast friends with Alex, Marty, and Rhiannon. Mrs. Dunwoody had even spoken about possibly moving to Ohio to be closer to Vivian.
I was sitting on the couch in our living room one afternoon a few days before Christmas waiting on Kaine to get home. Christmas break was just beginning and I was looking forward to some quality time with my man.
Kaine had cut back significantly on both his work hours and his school schedule. He claimed that now that he had something more worthwhile to spend his time on, he didn’t feel quite so much of a need to keep busy all the time.
It might also have helped that he had decided to change from engineering to a fine arts major. He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to open his own photography business, or work for someone else, but I had a feeling we’d be seeing a “Kaine’s Photography” sign in the near future.
Things had started to move forward quickly for me, as well. I’d gotten a job at a call center in the area selling mobile phone services. The pay was decent, though the hours sucked. Still, I couldn’t complain. It not only provided great medical benefits but would also give me five thousand dollars a year toward my college education. I was continuing my internet classes for this semester but had applied to the University of Akron from Spring session. In the meantime, I had started a blog, and had begun doing freelance copywriting work in my spare time.
Huh. A photographer and a copywriter. What kind of trouble could we get into, I wondered?
Kaine walked through the door, pulling his knit hat off his head, his gloved hands full of mail as he brushed snowflakes off the shoulders of his coat.
“Hey, sexy!” I called, looking up at him from the article I was working on at the kitchen table. I could have worked in the area we had designated as “the office,” where we each had a desk and computers set up, but the view from the kitchen table was so much prettier. I had forgotten how much I had loved the snow when I was a kid. Years spent in Florida hadn’t dimmed my love of the changing seasons, or the colder weather.
Kaine smiled at me as he came over and wrapped his arms around me.
“Hey sexy, yourself,” he rumbled, placing a gentle kiss on my lips. “You about ready to go?”
I glanced back at the laptop, a document open with a couple of bulleted lists.
“Yeah, I was just putting together some ideas for the blog,” I answered, shutting the laptop so I could turn around and give Kaine my undivided attention.
I stood and wrapped my arms around him, ignoring the slight dampness on his coat from the falling snow. I pressed our lips together and savored the taste of him. He tasted like marshmallows and hot chocolate, and his breath smelled like cinnamon.
