Devil You Know(Lost Boys Book 1)(83)

Settling on one of the chairs, I looked out at the view of nothing but mountains and trees and tried to come to terms with how royally screwed up my life was now. A few weeks ago my biggest concern was making sure my DVR recorded Game of Thrones and now I was hiding out in Deadwood, South Dakota with bad people wanting to hurt me, the love of my life killed a man, my best friend covered it up, my brother was getting shot at and my mom and dearest friends were out of reach.

I didn’t know when the tears started, but I moved back into my room, climbed on the bed and muffled the sound of my tears with the pillow.



An hour later, I headed to the kitchen in time to see Damian reaching for his keys. “Where are you going?”

“Town. We need supplies.”

“Can I come?”

In response, I got the chin lift. I had learned, during the long car ride with the Damian looking cyborg, meant affirmative. I belted in and asked, “So what’s our story?”

He responded with the best blank look I had ever seen. I had received this stare many times during the course of our journey and yet it didn’t grow old.

I clarified, “We’re married, so how did we meet? Why did we move here? People are going to ask.”

“No one will care. We’re just here to lay low.”

Words. He spoke actual words. I couldn’t bask in his temporary case of verbosity though because his comment was nonsensical.

“What do you mean people won’t care? Deadwood has a population of fewer than thirteen hundred people and we’re strangers. People are most definitely going to care. Okay, I know. We met at Dahlia’s and fell in love over chocolate cake.”

My eyes were trained on his profile, but the only reaction I got from that was the jump in the muscle of his jaw, so I continued. “We had only dated for a few months when you realized you could not live another day without me as your wife. We married in a private ceremony and after three years of wedded bliss you whisked me away to Deadwood because you know of my love of wide-open spaces. We don’t have children, but we are actively pursuing that...” It hurt because my fake life sounded an awful lot like how I wanted my real life to be, so I turned my head and looked out the window. I felt Damian’s stare, but he kept his thoughts to himself.



No one will care, right! That belief of Damian’s was dispelled immediately upon parking along Main Street. People stared at us. Some were even talking behind their hands. We were most definitely news. Damian came up on the curb and opened my door for me. Even when he wasn’t speaking to me, he still had impeccable manners. We walked toward the market and I reached for his hand. He didn’t hesitate to link his fingers with mine. We were supposed to be married after all. He didn’t hold my hand long though, releasing it almost as soon as we entered the market so he could push the shopping cart.

Half an hour, that was how long we spent in the produce aisle. The man wasn’t a vegetarian. I had shopped often with him as a kid and had witnessed him eating countless meals featuring meat, the latest of which was watching him stuff a double cheeseburger with bacon in his face during a rest stop at a diner on our way here. But he was packing up the cart with a variety of lettuces and kale, beans and peppers and fruit. I was all for eating your greens, but really. Where was the bakery?

Next came the milk and cheeses, the man apparently had a fondness for dairy products and lastly he selected meats, all of which were lean.

“What about bread?” I asked.

“I don’t eat it.”

I wanted to step on his foot because he knew damn well that I did. “Well, I do.” I left Mr. I Don’t Eat Bread in the middle of the meat aisle and went in search of bread and cake. Maybe I’d even get a pie. The bakery wasn’t what I was hoping for, there were no assortments of cookies, the cake selection was limited as were the breads, but at least I’d have something for my sweet tooth. In the midst of debating over the coffee crumb cake and the orange glazed cake, I met my first resident of Deadwood. She was older, maybe early seventies, with whitish gray hair that leaned more toward purple. She was dressed in a blue housedress and sturdy, thick soled shoes.

“Hello. You are the new gal who just moved to town with her beau.”

“Yes, I’m Thea. Damian is here, somewhere.” The words were barely out of my mouth when I felt Damian come up behind me. His arm wrapped around my waist as he pulled me close to his side. The gesture to this woman would look like a loving husband, but I knew it had nothing at all to do with that and everything to do with his job of protecting me, even from friendly older women with purple hair.