The Davonshire Series 2: Loving Words (21 page)

Wilfred came down to breakfast later than usual and had gotten a poor start to his Monday than originally planned. 

He was also ridiculously hungry.

He took out a cast iron skillet, got it searing hot and threw in a steak.  Instead of egg white omelets, he scrambled eggs with cheese and started dicing up potatoes and onions with green peppers.  The smell brought Gianni from the bedroom, dressed lopsided with his hair mussed.  He looked at Wilfred.  He eyed the steaks.  With his good hand, he slapped the old man on the back.  “Finally, Pops!”

Wilfred was appalled.  “What are you talking about, son?”

“You and the lady finally got together, good for you!”

Wilfred stopped what he was doing.  “Gianni, Elsie is my friend and she is my employee.  She is under our protection while she is here.  Suggesting anything otherwise is lewd, rude, and inappropriate- remember you are a gentleman.”

Rod walked in the back door and smelled the steak sizzling. As he was sitting down, he said, “Finally!”

Gianni, using his good hand, high-fived Rod.  Wilfred gave them both disapproving looks. Raul entered next, followed by Mario who also made the same comment, “
Finalmente
!” 

Wilfred was not happy and he knew White Bear would be coming in next.  He took the steak off the eye, cut a big chunk, and shoved it in his mouth.  “Can’t a man have some steak and eggs for breakfast?”

Raul laughed, but Rod made the comment, “That’s a lot of protein. You must have been burning up some serious calories!”  Mario and Gianni snickered.  White Bear entered, saw the meat, gave Wilfred the evil eye, and sat down.

Elsie came down the stairs looking spry and refreshed, calling good morning as she headed for the coffee pot.  “Oh steak and eggs, with potatoes! I’m starving!” 

She cut off a chunk of the steak taking big, hearty chews, which made everyone in the room laugh. Well, everyone but White Bear who looked like he had just lost his best friend and afterwards his dog ran away. Conchetta was the last to enter and looked at the two stuffing their faces over the stove.  “
Ay Dios Mio
!”

She began hugging the two of them and talking about niños and saying other Spanish words Elsie pretended she didn’t understand.  It only exacerbated their laughter when the housekeeper said, “Finally.”

Elsie turned to the group.  “What are you guys going on about?”  The group started chanting, “Kiss, kiss, kiss!”

Wilfred, still chewing on steak, said, “I guess the cat is out of the bag.”

Elsie shoved a spoonful of eggs into her mouth.  “I think the large quantities of protein you cooked here were a dead giveaway.” 

She wiped her mouth on a napkin.  “Let’s give the crowd what they’re asking for.”  She put her arms around his waist and turned him to face her.  He was still trying to eat.

He looked down at her with softened eyes and a heart bursting with emotion.  Sweeping her into his arms and dipping her low, he kissed her slowly and with purpose, making it clear to everyone in the room that Elsie was  his woman. The makeshift family that was also his staff clapped. 

He released Elsie and looked over at White Bear who only nodded his head in acquiescence.

It was a happy day until a call came from Elsie’s bank in Georgia.  Someone was attempting to access her account.  There was no one on the account and all the passwords and access codes had been changed over five years ago.  She thought about the last time she used her card – was it in Lake Havasu City or Phoenix?  She and Will never got to the store to purchase the pills and after last night, a morning after pill would be dumb.  As many times as they went at it, if they escaped an egg getting fertilized, they would be lucky. They would use more caution going forward. 

She needed to see a doctor or at least get an alternative form of protection.  Until she could do so, she would sleep in her own room.

That idea lasted only a good five minutes.  He walked into her room, picked her up and carried her back to his bed, and promptly fell asleep.  The odd thing was, he slept on the far side of the bed and had placed extra pillows between them.  Elsie took it as a sign that she needed to stay on her side of the bed.

When she awoke the next morning, he was already awake and standing at the bedroom window looking out.  He only had a towel draped around his waist and his hair was wet and hung down his back.  She just lay there quietly watching the process of him braiding the damp hair and sweeping it into the usual knot at the base of his neck.  He seemed as if he was coming towards the bed, but instead pushed a panel next to the headboard that opened into a closet, where he came out the other side fully dressed.  No wonder she never saw a chest of drawers or anything else. His closet was in the wall behind the bed.

She stayed behind a few minutes and took the time to put fresh linens on the bed.  When Wilfred came back up to check on her, she said, “I was wondering what was taking you so long.”

Wilfred could not hide his surprise when he saw her changing the linens and wanted to know why.  Elsie explained, “After three nights with you, those need to be changed.”  Wilfred acted as if it was something new.

“So, you do change the sheets, right?”

“No, Conchetta changes the sheets.”

“Has Conchetta changed your sheets after you and … spent three nights making love on them?”

“No, never has happened,” he said as he helped her make the other side.

“What do you mean, never happened?”

“No woman has ever slept in this bed but you.”  She stopped and looked at him, he sort of frowned.  “Well, that’s not entirely true.”

She arched her brows.  “My sister sleeps in here when she comes to the ranch, but that’s a twin thing you know…. ”

She was curious.  “How long have you had this ranch… or rather this bed?”  He looked at her then rolled his eyes upwards as if actually counting, “I‘ve had the ranch for almost ten years, which makes this bed,” he paused and she was expecting him to say six months, “almost nine years old.” 

“Are you saying that you have never had a woman friend come over?”

“I don’t date, Elsie.”  His tone was flat.  “And I don’t have women in and out of my house in front of my son. And to make sure we are clear, until two days ago, you are the first woman I have woken up with…” he frowned before finishing the sentence, “… with the exception, of course, of my sister.”   Now that he said it out loud, it sounded creepy, even to him.

“I don’t know which of those sentences sounded worse,” Elsie said.  His brows were furrowed as he pondered his words.

“Can I ask why there is no furniture in the room?”

He ran his hand across the top of his head.  “I put bullet holes in the dresser in the middle of the night thinking it was someone standing there.  The same thing happened to the chair when I mistook it for someone crouching by my bed.  As you see, there are no drapes either.”

“Is that why Gianni isn’t allowed upstairs?”

Wilfred nodded his head.  “Kids like to wake you by standing next to your bed.  I can’t run the risk…”

Elsie walked over to him and wrapped her hands around his waist. 

“When you put the pillows between us in the bed, I knew it meant to stay to my side. I was waiting for you to tell me… so I could understand.”

Wilfred exhaled deeply. He had to tell her and let her make the decision of whether she could help repair a broken man.  In his heart he prayed she would, “Elsie, as we move forward, there are two very important things for you to know.”  He planted a small kiss on her forehead.  “Don’t ever stand over my bed while I’m sleeping and NEVER wake me up by initiating any kind of sex or intimate contact.”  The look on his face changed and was very stern. He had managed to get through the first three nights, but he would not take the risk going forward.

The air became dense with the weight of his words. She asked softly, “Is that why you sleep with the gun under your pillow and a locked bedroom door in your own home?”

“I don’t really sleep,” he told her, not admitting that his only restful nights were when his sister stayed over. “I haven’t truly slept well in years.” He looked at her with concern filling his eyes that she was going to mock him or think he was a freak not worthy of being loved. “I was sleeping okay last night, though.”

She knew he felt vulnerable telling her.  “Well, since we are confessing… until two days ago, I never had an orgasm.”

She arched her brows.  “And since then…” she rolled her eyes upward as if counting, “I have had eight.”  She licked her lips.  So much for making the bed. He quickly helped her produce numbers nine and ten.

Later in the day, as they sat on the patio closing out their evening, she reminded him, “We have to take a few more precautions- we are being careless.”

Elsie told him she had no doubts about him as a potential father, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to be a mother.  “You have done a great job with Gianni, you and his mother must have been young.”

“I don’t know his mother.  I’ve never met the woman. She is serving a life sentence in prison.”

Elsie dropped her cup.

David Devonshire, Sr., had been overseeing a case involving a ring of drug traffickers involved with the Mexican drug cartel.  It was a nasty case and involved several crystal meth houses in Phoenix and Tempe.  The investigation kept hitting snags and taking twists and turns.  The young boy was named Julio. His father was promised a deal and witness protection if he testified, but he never made it to safety.  He was killed with the five-year-old in the room watching.  The drug cartels do not like leaving anything to chance and set about to find the boy.

“Initially, Julio was placed into foster care,” Wilfred told her.

“His first set of foster parents came up missing. I don’t think they ever found them—or their bodies.  The second set died in a house fire and little Julio was always conveniently missing.”  Wilfred explained that it was a message Domingo Rodriguez was sending to Julio’s mother and other dealers and distributors.

“The state didn’t want to jeopardize any more civilians, so a couple of federal agents were sent to watch over little Julio.”  As bad feelings went, David Sr. was hit with a bad one.  “On his way to the gym after work, my dad decided to check in on the kid and went to the hotel room to find the agents gone and the kid alone.”

The judge scooped the kid up and took off.  “My Dad did a press conference and announced the death of the agents and the boy. The cartel thinks little Julio is dead.”

In the dead of night, Wilfred received a phone call and a small package was dropped off at the Green Gables Ranch.

“My dad never said what he was dropping off. He just handed me a blanket, with an extremely small and frail five year old swaddled in it said
take care of this,
and I will call you in a week.”

Wilfred explained that his father did call the following week.  “He never mentioned the package, which indicated his phone was probably being tapped.”  He smiled as he thought back.  “My dad talked about the new tie my sister had gotten him, fishing, and my mom wanting to redecorate their bedroom.”

“I kept quiet and took care of the child.”

Three days after Julio arrived, Conchetta showed up.  Wilfred looked at Elsie with a scowl on his face.  “I’m still trying to figure out who the hell hired her!” he looked frustrated.

Elsie wanted to know.  “She just showed up and you let her in?”

Wilfred explained, “When she showed up, she called me by a family name that so few in the immediate family used and she said, ‘
I now work for you
.’” Wilfred was frowning when he looked at Elsie, “I’m honestly trying to remember if that woman is on my payroll…”

Elsie was less curious about Conchetta and more curious as to why his father brought the child to him as well as the family nickname.

“I was young, rich, and had purchased a ranch in the middle of nowhere.  He was afraid that I was going to retreat from the world. The boy was my reason to stay connected to it.”

Wilfred explained, “I had to get up every morning, plan balanced meals, and do school work.  Gianni was homeschooled until the trial ended.”

The whole trial and ordeal lasted almost two years.  “By then the boy was turning eight and had a home here.  So instead of making the child a ward of the state, he wanted to know if he could stay and if I would keep him.”  Elsie had a lot of questions.

 Wilfred explained that the only time Gianni was allowed on the upstairs floor was when his cousins were here and that the boy had never seen the inside of his room.

“In case some judge thought something wrong was happening here, but everything went well.”  He explained that Khalea actually processed the paperwork to move his adoption forward and it almost didn’t happen.

“The day the case was to be heard in court, Gianni was acting up in the lobby of the court house.  He was afraid that I was going to give him back.”  Wilfred explained that he took him out into the lobby to have a one-on-one and he was not aware that the judge overseeing the adoption was there, listening.

“Gianni was asking all kinds of questions, about who would feed and ride his pony if the mean judge didn’t let him come home.”  The list of questions went on and Wilfred took the time to answer each question as best he could. 

Wilfred also explained that the judge was moved when Gianni asked, “So, if they let me stay with you, will I be like your son or something?”

“Yes, you will be my son,” he told him.

“Then you will tell everybody in the family that I am your boy?”

“I will tell everyone in the family that you are my son.”

“Well, does that mean that if you tell everyone that I am your son, then that must mean I can tell everyone that you are now my papa?”

Wilfred smiled at the fondness of the memory.  “Yes, you can tell everyone that I am your dad, but you know what that means don’t you? It means we will have to change your name.”

Gianni’s little face lit up.  “You mean to say my name will be Devonshire?”

“Yes, your new name will be Devonshire.”

“Since I get a new last name, Papa, can I have a new first name too?’

 Wilfred looked at Khalea, who nodded.  Wilfred pointed at Khalea.  “She says you can have a new name. Do you know what you want it to be?”

“I want to be Gianni Rujillio Devonshire.”

Wilfred smiled at Elsie.  “So here we stand, ten years later, me a single dad, raising a child that grew up inhaling crystal meth.  Next autumn, he heads off to college and Gianni Rujillio Devonshire is a happy well-adjusted child.”

“Rujillio?”  She laughed, but he was not going to get away from her initial question.  “What was the name Conchetta called you?”

“
Maní
,” he said with a chuckle.

“What does that mean?”

Wilfred looked down at her.  “It means peanut in Spanish. It’s something my parents call me, so I figured my parents hired Conchetta.”

Her eyebrows went up. There was no way this big ass man could be considered to be a peanut by anyone’s standards.  “Willie was greedy in the womb. I was much smaller than her when I was born.”

Elsie stood, wrapping her arms around Wilfred’s waist.  There were still more questions, she would ask them later.