Take Her to HeVan (Nephilim Book 6) (10 page)

“Marla!” he shouted, rushing into the room.

Marla jumped at the shout. Turning, she bobbled the pan she was holding, barely keeping it from falling to the floor. She put it down on the table.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Karlo looked at the table. Marla had put a cloth down and set the table with the plates she said had been her grandmother’s. There were also flowers. Gentle music was playing.

“I was worried when I saw the lights were out and noticed the flickers of the candle flames,” he said.

“Why would you assume something was wrong?” she asked, coming toward him. That’s when he noticed she was wearing a dress. He’d never seen her in a dress. She was beautiful.

“Karlo, you ran in here as if I were being attacked or something. Tell me what’s wrong?” she asked as she walked over to where he stood.

“Our saboteurs came back. They made a hole in the pasture fence and opened the gates to the corral from the pasture. One of the alpacas is dead. I think it’s the one you called Brownie. When I came in and saw the lights were out…”

“Brownie is dead?” Marla interrupted.

She walked away from him to stare out the window. She took some deep breaths.

When she turned, Karlo expected tears and they were there, in her eyes. She hadn’t allowed them to fall. Instead, he could see she had herself under control as she firmed and lifted her chin.

“I’m done with these assholes. Whatever we have to do, they are going down. I really mean it, Karlo. I’m up to here with this shit,” she said, holding her hand up to her head.

“I’m going to find out who’s doing this, Marla. I will stop them,” he vowed.

“Yes, and we’re not going to let these jerks give me
—
give us, one more second of pain. I’ll call the cops. Take a fast shower, dinner’s getting cold. I went to a lot of trouble to make us a nice romantic meal. They’re not going to ruin that too,” she said emphatically.

Karlo took a close look at her face. He could see she was still having trouble holding back the tears. If he took her in his arms, she wouldn’t be able to hold them back, and it was obviously important to her not to cry. He gave her a nod and moved toward the bedroom. He smiled and kept his expression blank. As soon as he was through the door, he allowed his anger to show.

The face he saw in the mirror when he entered in the bathroom was dark and scary. The ones responsible would be running in the opposite direction if they had seen it. Karlo was sure they would be seeing it soon. As he took off his clothes, he took some deep breaths the way Marla had done. He needed to calm done, both for her, and so he could think clearly.

He had a flash of memory. Someone, a woman, telling him to put all doors on lockdown. He tried to hold on to the memory, but it was gone. He let it go and went back to getting undressed. He had a special dinner to go to. He had just stepped in to the shower when Marla appeared at the bathroom door.

She blushed and then held out the phone. “Deputy Sheriff Tucker has some questions for you,” she said.

Karlo stepped back out of the shower. He didn’t bother with a towel. He’d be getting back under the water in a minute. Besides, he thought it was cute the way Marla got embarrassed about his nudity, especially after their lovemaking that afternoon. He took the phone and turned away, giving Marla a view of his backside.

“Sheriff Jim Tucker?”

“Hey, Karlo, Marla says one of her alpacas has been killed? Can you tell me what happened, what you found?” he asked.

This was going to take more than a moment. Karlo reached in and turned off the water as he started to go over everything that had happened.

Marla went back to the kitchen. She knew Karlo would be a few minutes. She decided to go out to the corral and check on her animals. When she reached the corral, they had moved from their protective formation and were walking around. She could tell they were still stressed. She started talking to them in a low, crooning voice. She saw their ears turn toward the sound, even as they remained alert. She kept speaking and after a minute, one of the females came over to the fence.

She talked to the alpacas for another ten minutes or so. When she saw that they were once again sitting, preparing to sleep, she left to go back to the house. When she entered the kitchen, Karlo was in the kitchen.

“I was about to start looking for you. I should have figured you’d want to check on your babies,” he said.

“They’re all doing fine now. Brownie’s baby and the other cria are old enough to be eating hay and grain. Otherwise, I’d have to start bottle-feeding Patches. I’ll keep an eye on him and make sure he’s okay. First thing in the morning, I’m going to contact some Komondor breeders. I should have done it when I got my first animals. It’s my fault Brownie’s dead.”

“You aren’t the one who opened the gates. Now let’s have our dinner, and you can tell me what a Komondor is,” said Karlo.

“I know I said I wasn’t going to let these creeps ruin anything else. But our dinner is already ruined. Everything is probably stone cold by now,” she said.

“Come on, Marla, we’re both hungry. I still plan to make love to you for what’s left of the night, so we’ll need our strength,” he coaxed.

He was determined to take care of Marla and give her whatever she needed. Right now, she needed to forget her troubles for a while.

Friday had been a stressful day. It had started out fine, and then there was the fire, bumping into her ex, dealing with the pre-nup, confessing her lies, fabulous sex, and the death of one of her alpacas, dinner, drama, and finally more fabulous sex. Anyone who said sex wasn’t stressful for a woman in this situation, well…they were obviously male.

They had been lying in bed, cuddling after another bout of loving, when the final stressor of the day hit. Her cell phone dinged to remind her she had an email. When she looked, there was an email from her lawyer. He had sent her a list of things she would need when they went for their marriage license on Monday, and also to let them know the time of their appointment with the judge to perform the ceremony.

What freaked her out was the list of requirements for the license. “Oh, God! We can’t get married,” Marla said, sitting up in the bed.

“What’s the matter? Why can’t we get married?” Karlo asked.

“We have to show photo identification to get married. Why didn’t I think of that? If you don’t have any ID, we can’t get married,” she said in a soft, resigned voice.

“So it’s something with my name and a picture of me on it? I have something like that. It was in my small bag you gave me. I didn’t need it for anything so I left it,” he said.

“What? Go get it. If it’s a real ID, it will have your address on it! We could find out about you. Got get it right now. Don’t you want to remember?” she asked him.

Karlo got out of bed. Heedless of his nudity, he walked to the closet and pulled his duffle down from the top shelf. He’d removed all the clothing, putting it away in the bureau. The only thing left inside was a thin card case. He took it out and after returning the duffle to the closet, he walked back to the bed. By the time he got there, Marla was grinning. He handed the card case to her.

“You never answered my question,” she said, opening the case. But before he could say a word, she’d opened the case and saw the two items inside. The second item she left alone. She picked up the ID.

“Aha! Now I know when your birthday is. You’re a Gemini and you’re…thirty-three years old. Your birthday’s in only a few weeks, so we’ll have to have a cake. According to this, you live in Wisconsin. We can send a letter to your address and see if someone answers. Or we can call the police in Wisconsin and have them drive out to your address, see if anyone is there.”

She handed the ID to Karlo and picked up the other card that had fallen face down. She’d never seen one before, yet she didn’t have any trouble recognizing it for what it was, an American Express Centurion Black card. On top of everything else, it really was too much.

“You’re rich! You’re filthy stinkin’ rich!” she shouted.

Karlo looked at her in puzzlement. “I don’t understand, is that bad?”

“No, it’s not bad. It just makes things a lot more complicated, that’s all. Come on, let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll send a letter to your home address, and on Monday, we’ll get married.”

She had said the right thing. Karlo didn’t make any additional attempts to discuss why wealth made things complicated. Instead, since they were awake, he convinced Marla he wasn’t tired enough to sleep. In fact, he set out to prove how very awake he felt, in all areas.

Marla and Karlo spent the weekend dealing with the authorities, making reports, and finding a breeder/trainer of Komondors. Oh, and they had lots and lots of sex, too.

Sunday night, Marla insisted on sleeping alone because they were getting married the next day. Karlo didn’t understand, he just went along with it because Marla wanted it. He did make sure to kiss her to the melting point before leaving her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Dream of me,” he said as he turned her around and gave her a little push. He was absurdly pleased that she was unable to speak and barely able to walk up the stairs. As he left the room, he sighed, because now he had his own
hard
problem to deal with.

The next morning after seeing to the animals, they left the ranch to drive into Boulder to get married. Her attorney had made an appointment with the judge to perform the ceremony for four o’clock in the afternoon. They had plenty of time to drive in, get their license, and then have lunch, maybe even do some shopping before they got married.

As they drove to Boulder, Marla thought about everything that had happened. Karlo had helped Marla through it all. He’d been her rock. She was still amazed he wanted to marry her. She knew Karlo had strong feelings for her. What she didn’t know is if what he felt was love or something else. He had a strong protective streak and she was in trouble. She was the only woman he knew, the only person he knew.

With his memory gone, she was his entire world, so she kept that in the front of her mind to everything he did and said. She was trying to protect her heart. Unfortunately, she was starting to realize it was too late to do that, she was falling in love really fast. And she knew, sooner or later, she was going to have to let him go.

For the time being, she was going to make the best of it and concentrate on saving her ranch.

“You know, when I shopped for you, I only got you a few things. Boulder is a big city. We should stop by the mall and get you some more clothes,” said Marla, speaking over the sound of the radio as they drove down the highway. They would be in Boulder in another ten minutes or so.

“Alright, if you think I need them. I’d also like to stop at the farm store on the way home. We need some supplies, and since you tell me I’m rich, we should get them,” he said.

“Are you sure? Until you remember everything, maybe you should only buy things for yourself. I mean, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Marla said.

“Marla, we’re getting married. Sure, the urgency is because of your grandfather’s will. Just remember we’re also joining our lives. We need things and I’m going to buy them,” he stated. His voice was quiet and firm. Still, Marla could hear the anger.

“Okay, don’t get mad. I’m just feeling residual guilt for my lies. When your family finds out, they’re going to think I’m some kind of gold digger. They’ll believe I took advantage of you when you were ill and they’d be right too. I should have taken you to a hospital.”

“Marla, I haven’t said anything, but I have been having some dreams, flashes of memory. I didn’t tell you because nothing I’ve seen or remembered makes sense. I don’t think they can be real memories. They must be from a movie I’ve seen or a television show. The only thing I’m sure of
—
well, as sure as I can be, is that I have a brother.”

“A brother? We definitely need to try to contact your family. I don’t want your brother hating me,” Marla told him.

They had reached Boulder so Marla stopped talking and concentrated on navigating to the municipal building.

They were prepared, other than dealing with the long line. It didn’t take long to get their marriage license.

“Okay, step one complete. Now, let’s do some shopping,” said Marla as they left the office, marriage license in hand.

Even though they had thirty days to use their license, there was no reason to wait and every reason to get married right away.

Margaret Lewis had worked in the Clerk of the Courts office for over twenty years. It was her job to file all of the license information into the permanent archive. When she started out, they were kept in large heavy binders. All the paper files had been converted to computer storage about five years ago. Now she took the forms filled out by the applicants and entered the information into the computer. All her years of experience reading the sometimes barely legible writing of applicants made her ideally suited to the job.

She was thinking about taking a break for lunch when she came across an application that bothered her. Putting off her break, she started typing; she was on a mission of discovery.

While Mrs. Lewis worked away on her computer, Marla and Karlo shopped for the wedding and for the ranch. Her big truck was fully loaded when they pulled into the parking lot at the hotel. Marla had rented two rooms so they could get ready for the wedding. It might be a quickie wedding in the judge’s chambers, but she still wanted them to dress up a little and make it a memorable occasion.