“What’s wrong?”
“It’s cold! My butt’s cold,” she complained. “I need a blanket under me.”
“We can still sit in my car. I can go get it.”
“I’ll be fine. Just give me a second.”
She shifted around a bit while Carter carefully took a seat himself. The cold didn’t hit as badly through his jeans as it must have her skirt, but he could definitely feel the chill.
They sat in silence a few seconds, staring out at the empty park, while Carter gathered his thoughts. It was Ellie who broke the silence, saying softly, “For you to come all this way to see me in person, I’m guessing your news has something to do with our…um, marriage.”
She sounded a little awkward. Carter knew why. It felt more than a little awkward to acknowledge the fact that they were technically man and wife when they barely knew each other. And half of what they did know about each other was that she thought shifters were freaks and he didn’t trust humans. Or so it had been up until virtually the last few hours they’d spent together.
“It does,” he admitted. He straightened, and she shifted on the bench, angling her body towards him, giving him her full attention. “During the past few months that I was laid up, Sean’s people were touching base with one of our contacts at the Fort Worth PD.”
Her eyes rounded owlishly behind her glasses.
“Wait, you have contacts in the police department?”
In spite of himself, the corner of his mouth quirked in a grin.
“Did you really think we wouldn’t?”
“I thought—I thought—I thought the police were supposed to be the good guys.”
“You’re saying we’re not the good guys?”
Ellie arched a dark-blonde brow. “Gee, I don’t know. Would you consider yourself the good guys?”
“I wouldn’t say we’re the bad guys.”
“I would,” she muttered.
“C’mon now.”
“C’mon now, nothing. You guys live outside the law. You’re constantly fighting and feuding and killing each other. Is that what good guys do?”
“It is if they have something vital to protect.”
He said it sternly, in a way that seemed to make Ellie rethink her stance. At the very least, she changed the subject.
“Whatever. There’s no point arguing about it. So, what did this contact at the police department say? It was about our case, I’m assuming.”
“Yeah, apparently when the whole thing first went down there was a homicide detective, a real bulldog of a cop, who had taken it on. She knew Sean’s, er, reputation, and she was the one who tied me to the scene. She thought she could possibly use our case, and me, to get at Sean.”
“But?”
“But, she was one of the two police detectives I was supposed to meet with at Sean’s lawyer’s office the day you left. I guess she was there when Nosizwe’s hit happened and she acted as a first responder.”
“Did she—did she see anything she shouldn’t have?”
“I don’t know. If she did, our contact didn’t give that up,” Carter said grimly. “But I do know that after I was knocked out of commission for so long her interest in the case fizzled. Not only that, but the DA said there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue it. No bodies ever turned up.”
“Because Amy burned them.”
“Exactly. It’s hard to make a murder case with no bodies. Practically impossible. Also, you were gone, out of the country, so they never could catch up to you for questioning. The Chief of Police let slip that there was no point in pushing it. The case was officially dropped last week. It had been cold for a while, anyway.”
“And did the Chief of Police also play golf with Sean Costas before he made this decision?” Ellie asked wryly.
“You know, most people wouldn’t think it to look at you, but you’re a real cynic,” Carter accused.
“It takes one to know one,” she muttered.
Carter pretended he didn’t hear. Actually, it was true that Sean Costas and the Fort Worth Chief of Police were on friendly terms, which may have played into the Chief’s decision. He didn’t admit it to Ellie, though.
“The upshot of all this,” he pressed on, as if Ellie had never sidetracked him, “is that Miguel thinks we should be able to have our marriage terminated soon.”
“Soon? Why not now?”
“Are you that anxious to get rid of me?”
Her cheeks pinked slightly. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not like being technically married has been a huge change in my life up till this point. Except there’s a couple of nice guys at the hospital, but I can’t go out with anyone.”
“Why can’t you?”
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Because we’re married!”
“Married,” he echoed. “Not for real, we aren’t. It was only ever a farce. A technicality to keep both our as—butts,” he amended, recalling her aversion to swearing, “out of prison.”
“I know that,” she sniffed. “I know it isn’t real, but it is legal. And while we’re legally married, I’m not going to date anyone else. It wouldn’t be right.”
“You and your morals,” he scoffed.
“Why, have you been dating other people?” she asked, almost accusatorially.
“You know me. I can’t keep the ladies away. For goodness’ sake, Ellie, we had this conversation already. I barely dated before I met you. I told you that. Since I met you, I almost died and spent months recovering. I’m barely back on my feet. I haven’t had the time or energy to chase tail even if I wanted to.”
“Boy, that must have been rough.”
She said it dryly, but her lips hinted at a smile.
“Actually, it was,” Carter maintained. “There I was laid up in bed, suffering, living on pain meds. And you weren’t even there to take care of me. My own wife.”
She glanced up, startled.
“I didn’t know, or maybe I would’ve been!”
“I’m joking, Ellie. I didn’t expect you to come.”
She looked down at her hands. “I might have anyway, if I’d known,” she said softly.
Carter shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. At first. Then, studying her, he decided it actually fit with the Ellie he knew.
To get them both back on track, he said, “Unfortunately, there’s a little more to dissolving our marriage than I was originally told.”
Ellie’s head came up sharply. “I knew it,” she exclaimed, scooting around to face him accusatorily. “I knew it. I knew you had something to tell me that you knew I wouldn’t like, or else you wouldn’t have shown up. It couldn’t have been as easy as saying our case was closed.”
“You act like you don’t trust me or something.” Carter tried to lighten the moment with a joke. Ellie was dead serious. The attempt fell flat.
“It’s not that big a deal, Ellie. We can still get an annulment. Texas has some leeway for it, especially since we didn’t live together after being married, which is one of the conditions. We can say one of us was drunk and coerced the other. That’s a condition. Or we were married within seventy-two hours of the marriage license being issued. Or one of us is permanently impotent.”