“Why stick to waiting tables if what you really want is to be in the kitchen, cooking?” It was a flyer, but Kylie’s chin lifted ever so slightly, and bingo. Devon hit pay dirt.
“Money, mostly. I never had enough to go to culinary school,” she murmured, although her tone said that whatever made up the rest of the reason was responsible for the tension suddenly triple-knotting her muscles against the passenger seat. “Anyway, that’s why I left California last year. I had a bad breakup, lost my job. I wasn’t going to find another one if I stuck around, not to mention having nothing to stick around for. So, I headed as far east as I could until I ran out of cash, and that’s how I ended up in Wyoming.”
Devon’s head buzzed with so many questions that choosing one to put to words was a tall order. “California’s huge. Losing your job sucks, but how is it that you couldn’t find another one nearby?” There had to be hundreds of restaurant gigs, even in California’s smaller cities and towns.
Kylie laughed, although there was zero humor in the soft huff of her breath. “Let’s just say when you’re a better cook than your ‘chef’ boyfriend”—she paused to pin the word with an air quote/eye roll combo—“and your interview for the open kitchen position at the café where you both work puts that fact on display? Egos get bruised like summer fruit.”
“That explains the breakup.” Well, that and the fact that her ex sounded like a gold star member of the Dickhead of the Month club. “But if you were a better cook, how come you didn’t get the job?” Devon asked.
“Because my ex was better in the bedroom than the kitchen. He slept with the restaurant manager and convinced her I was power hungry and that I’d be a monster in the kitchen. She fired me, and restaurant circles are more like rumor mills. My résumé was pretty much Swiss cheese at that point anyway, so…” Kylie shrugged, but Devon filled in the blank.
“You took off.” Something else she’d said tugged at the back of his mind, and before he could haul the question back, he asked, “You said you got as far as Wyoming. Where were you headed?”
Kylie paused, although her expression remained tough. “I haven’t been to the East Coast in a while. I thought it might be cool to go see Kellan.”
“See him? Or live in NC?”
“Whichever,” she said, but the word came out with way less indifference than he’d bet she intended to stick to it.
“Why didn’t you tell your brother you wanted to move to Remington?” Hell, he’d bet Kellan would’ve moved a mountain range to bring Kylie closer to him if he’d known that was what she wanted. They were family.
“Because I’m a big girl,” she said, just as matter-of-factly as if she were telling him she had blue eyes or that the earth was round and not as flat as a two-by-four. “I was stuck in California of my own doing, and that’s exactly how I was going to get out. I might move around a bunch, and sometimes I fly by the seat of my pants, but I can still take care of myself.” Her gaze shot out the window as she tacked on, “Most of the time, anyway.”
Devon opened his mouth to tell her she didn’t have to be so tough. The last thing either of them needed was for her to pull another stunt like the Maglite stickup she’d tried last night in the motel parking lot, and just because Kylie was fierce didn’t mean she was bulletproof. But then, she turned to grab her sunglasses out of her purse, and the look on her face slapped him right in the solar plexus.
She might rather stick a pin in her eye than admit it, but she was barely hanging on. Which meant they needed to stop and get some supplies and real shuteye ASAP.
Because not only had Devon been in those exact same shoes four years ago, but if he didn’t regroup and get his shit together, he was liable to do something galactically stupid.
Like tell Kylie he knew just how she felt.
5
Kylie split her gaze between the navy blue baseball hat in her lap and the mom-and-pop drugstore to her right, unsure which one she liked less. The hat Devon had pulled out of his glove box was sure to be an obvious cover-up, and that was if she could actually cram all her hair under the thing. Then again, the store was a fixed place, an unknown place, and despite the cheerily painted sign and the trio of wide, sparkling windows gracing the front, Kylie knew all too well that the worst sort of bad might still be lurking inside.
“We’re going to be fine,” Devon said, sliding his gun into the holster beneath his rib cage before covering it seamlessly with his leather jacket. “Just keep your eyes open and try to relax, okay?”
She bit back the joyless laugh welling in her throat. “Tropical beaches are relaxing, Devon. This”—she paused to flick her wrist at the storefront—“is my own monogrammed version of hell.”
“I get it,” he said, and funny, he actually looked like he did. “I know the whole situation is intense. But the more at ease you look, the less likely we are to attract attention. From anyone.”
Kylie twisted her hair behind her nape, awkwardly wrangling the baseball hat over the thick knot and adjusting the brim. “Then how come we didn’t go to the superstore a couple exits back?” It had been the first and only sign of major civilization since they’d hit the road. “Wouldn’t blending in there have been easier?”
“Maybe. But a more crowded place has a lot of moving parts that are hard to control, not to mention security feeds we’d be sure to show up on. Getting in and out of a place like this will take us ten minutes, tops, with a whole lot less visibility to boot.”
“Okay,” she said after a pause. Yeah, she was scared, but she still trusted him. “Let’s do this, then.”
She followed his lead and got out of the car, sending covert glances around the nearly empty parking lot. Despite Devon’s powerful presence barely two feet from her dance space and the fact that he probably had enough weaponry on him to protect a small nation, Kylie’s heart still took up residence in her windpipe. Sweat beaded beneath the ill-fitting baseball hat, her palms growing clammy enough to slip off the handle of the drugstore’s front door.
“Everything’s fine,” Devon murmured, so close to her ear that his breath tickled her neck. “Just remember your spaghetti dinner, okay?”
She nodded, forcing herself to try on a shaky smile. “With wine.”
“Now we’re talkin’.”
He opened the door just as easy as you please to usher her inside, and okay. Okay, yeah, this wasn’t so bad. At least as far as running for your life went, anyway.
Kylie picked up a plastic basket, looping the handles over her arm. Scanning the store’s aisles, she was relieved to see the place sparsely populated at best, and definitely not with anyone who looked remotely frightening. Just a handful of people browsing the aisles and completely ignoring her.
