DONOVAN: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Read online

  “Thank you, Miss—”

  “No. Kate.”

  A slow grin split his serious expression. “Kate.”

  He moved away from the door then, approaching me with the file folder he’d had in his hand all this time.

  “I have a few papers for you to sign.”

  A few papers? I’d signed fewer papers when giving a couple a mortgage! But I signed them patiently, not really minding having such a big, powerful man standing so close to me. And he smelled pretty good. Something spicy, which seemed to fit his personality quite well. Quiet, but potentially deadly.

  When the papers were all signed—contracts giving them permission to break into my house and set up surveillance, permission for them to watch me day and night, permission for their operative to live in my house, and of course, the all-important form that freed them of liability if I ended up dead on their watch—he stepped back and studied my face for a moment, as if he wanted to tell me something but didn’t quite know how.

  “Is there more, Ash? I can’t imagine how much more of my privacy and freedom I could possibly sign away.”

  “No. That’s all the paperwork.”

  “Then what?” I asked with what I hoped was a flirty smile.

  That smile didn’t come back as I’d hoped. Instead, he studied my face a second longer, then—clearly a decision made—he stepped back and gestured toward the door.

  “I should let them in now.”

  “Them, who?”

  I needn’t have asked. He opened the door and my father stepped inside, curiosity and concern dancing in his eyes. He came to my side, taking my hand between both of his.

  “Katie, if any pleasure can come out of such a terrible thing, this is it.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. I found myself wondering if he’d been drinking while he was out in the hall. And then I heard his voice as he spoke to Ash—something about whether the papers had been signed—and my headache became an almost unbearable, piercing pain.

  “Oh, hell no!”

  Chapter 4

  Donovan

  “Hello to you, too, Kate.”

  She jumped off the bed, nearly sending her father flying on the slick floor as he tried to control her—a mistake I could have warned him not to make—and charged me. Ash moved to head her off, but I stepped around him and grabbed her wrists before she could hurt herself, or anyone else.

  “You bastard!” she cried.

  “Kate…”

  “You killed him. You killed my brother!”

  “Katie, you know that’s not true,” Daniel said, confusion radiating from his tone.

  She didn’t seem to hear him. She was looking directly at me.

  “You should have been there. You knew those boys were looking for you. You knew they had a beef with you. You! Not Joshua.”

  I pushed her backward, trying to get her back on the bed before she pulled her IV loose.

  “You should have been there to protect him.”

  “No one could have predicted what was going to happen that night, Katie,” Daniel said. “You went to the district attorney and the police with me. You heard what he said.”

  “I know what the police thought. But I also know what they didn’t.”

  Her eyes were so full of anger, the same eyes I’d seen in nightmares much longer than I cared to admit. Beautiful hazel eyes when she wasn’t trying to rip my balls off. But now I just wanted to close my eyes and make them disappear.

  I gave her one more good shove and she fell onto the bed, nearly toppling over—except for my grip on her wrists.

  “You should have been there.”

  “You know why I wasn’t.”

  That cooled the anger a little. She turned her face away, and the power went out of her arms.

  I squeezed her wrists. “Are you going to settle down now?”

  She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t scratch my eyes out when I let her go either.

  But she wasn’t done.

  “Is this really what you call an operative, Ash?” she asked, her voice low and dangerous as she looked past me—or through me—at Ash. “Do you know what he did? Do you know how he left my brother at the mercy of a group of thugs he knew were looking for trouble? Do you know how those thugs left my brother bloody, his skull smashed in with a rock, on the beach? How they left him—?”

  “Enough!”

  The room fell deadly silent. And I felt like the weight of it was square on my shoulders.

  I’ve seen a lot in my life, in my service. Bodies torn apart by IEDs. Friends lying on the ground, bleeding from so many wounds I couldn’t figure out which one was the worst, which one I should be applying pressure to. Enemies torn apart through the eye of my scope. Whole families destroyed by explosives I set. I’ve seen a lot. But that night, the night we found Joshua there on the beach…that was the worst.

  She had no idea how heavy the guilt of that night rested on me.

  Ash was silent as Daniel, his face reddened with emotion, approached his daughter.

  “Enough, Katie,” he said a little softer.

  “Daddy, I can’t do this. I can’t have him be the one.”

  “You can and you will,” Daniel said, steel in his voice, reminding me of the man I knew as a teenager. “You were found feet from a man who was murdered. Your life could be in danger. You need protection.”

  “But not from him!”

  “I want someone I know, someone I trust. And since I’m paying for this, it will be Donovan, like it or not.”

  Kate’s eyes jumped from her father to me to Ash and back to her father. She opened her mouth to protest again, but she must have seen something in her father’s eyes that warned her not to. Then, at that moment, the door burst open and a woman I could only describe as eccentric sailed in the room.

  She was maybe five feet tall with dark hair that had streaks of purple in it. She was as round as she was tall with prominent breasts that were clearly her favorite attribute because they were overly accentuated in the skintight, purple t-shirt she was wearing. And her hips were barely contained in a pair of black slacks that looked to be made out of leather, or suede maybe. Her feet were shoved into a dainty pair of purple pumps that appeared to give her no added height despite their three-inch heels. Her heavily painted face was animated as she began to talk, totally ignoring the tension that could be cut with a knife in the small room.

  “I brought you some magazines and candy,” she was saying, “though I couldn’t find Vogue. Can you believe they wouldn’t have Vogue? Do they think the women in this hospital don’t have a fashion sense, or something? I mean, really, with the prices they charge…”

  “Veronica,” Daniel said, a new strain in his voice.

  Kate rolled her eyes and threw herself back against the thin pillow on her hospital bed as though this was the last straw and she couldn’t handle anything else.

  It was almost comical.

  The woman stopped, apparently noticing Ash and myself for the first time. There was an immediate transformation that came over her as she studied Ash. I’d seen it before, but usually in younger women who might actually have a chance of getting into his bed. This was almost pathetic.

  “This is my wife,” Daniel said, almost stuttering over the word wife. “Veronica, this is Ashford Grayson and Donovan Pritchard from Gray Wolf Security.”

  I have to admit, I was a little shocked that Daniel had remarried. I suppose it was always within the realm of possibility, but it was difficult to wrap my mind around it. Daniel and his wife had been like surrogate parents to me. I felt like a child whose divorced father remarried some complete stranger, someone as opposite from Mom as a person could possibly get.

  I’d ask what Daniel had been thinking, but one look at Veronica and I could guess. Poor man must have been terribly lonely. I could almost relate.

  Almost.

  “Ashford,” she said, approaching Ash as she adjusted the handful of magazines she was carrying so t
hat she could offer him her hand, “an unusual name.”

  “It’s a family name,” he said, taking her fingers and sort of squeezing them before letting go.

  Her smile faltered for a second, but then she turned to me, her eyes moving slowly over my t-shirt and jeans, making me wish I’d worn something a little more…layered? It was unnerving the way she seemed to be trying to see through my clothes. Was this the way a woman felt when a man imagined her undressed?

  “And Donovan. Daniel’s talked about you, but he never mentioned how good looking you were.”

  Kate snorted.

  Veronica moved close, placing her hand on the center of my chest. “It’s always a joy to meet people my Daniel thinks highly of. He talks about you as though you were a surrogate son.”

  I inclined my head, not quite sure how to take that. Thank God Kate’s doctor chose that moment to come into the room.

  “Having a party, are we?” He smiled as he made his way to Kate’s side, people shifting to give him room. “How’s the headache?”

  “The same.”

  He nodded. “You’ll probably have a heck of a headache for several days. If it gets unbearable or you have vision changes, come back. Otherwise, follow up with your regular physician in three days.”

  He handed her the handful of papers he was holding. “Discharge papers. You’re free to go.”

  “Whoopee,” she said, her tone making it clear that she was less than thrilled.

  The doctor looked around the room, his eyes lingering on Ash, Veronica, and me. Then he touched Kate’s hand and said, “Take care.” Then he was gone.

  And now it was time for the fun to begin.

  Chapter 5

  Donovan

  Getting Kate out of the hospital was an ordeal all of its own. Ash bowed out—lucky guy!—and Daniel pulled Veronica out into the hallway. Kate stared at me for a long few minutes, then she groaned as she slowly sat up.

  “Are you going to leave so that I can get dressed?”

  “You can dress in the bathroom.”

  “You aren’t afraid I’ll sneak out the window?”

  “We’re on the tenth floor. If you want to go out the window, I say more power to you.”

  She shot me a dirty look just as the door opened and the nurse walked in.

  “I need to remove your IV,” she said, all business as she tugged on a pair of rubber gloves. “If you’ll just lie back and try to relax.”

  A flash of fear crossed Kate’s face as she did as she was told, laying back against the pillow again and turning her face to the window. I leaned against the wall and watched as the nurse easily and professionally slid the long needle out of the back of Kate’s hand and covered the wound with a Band-Aid.

  “Done,” she said.

  Kate kept her face averted, holding her hand against her chest as the nurse disposed of the needle and removed her gloves. She glanced at me, a flirty smile slipping over her thin lips. I nodded, but then my attention moved back to Kate.

  “Still not good with blood?” I asked after I heard the door close.

  Kate stiffened. “Don’t act like you know anything about me.”

  “Then I’m supposed to forget I haven’t known you since I was seven?”

  “You might have known me once upon a time, but you don’t know me anymore.”

  She threw her legs over the side of the bed, still cradling her hand, and stood. She hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure where she was going next.

  “I can ask Veronica to come help you,” I offered.

  That earned me another hard glare. “I’d rather have you help me than her.”

  “She’s…interesting.”

  “She must be really good in bed since that’s the only reason I can imagine why Daddy would marry a woman like her.”

  “How long have they been married?”

  “Six months. And I’ll be surprised if it lasts another six.”

  I had to agree with her. I’d only known her a few minutes, but the way Daniel looked at Veronica didn’t seem to bode well for a long marriage.

  Kate crossed to the tall, plastic wardrobe stuck in a corner of the room and pulled out her clothes, a pencil skirt and simple, white blouse. She glanced back at me, a little bit of a blush on her cheeks.

  “Stay there.”

  “That’s my job.”

  She rolled her eyes, then disappeared into the bathroom.

  I pulled out my cell phone and called the head of the prep team, Carson, to check on their progress at her house. He assured me they were finished and on their way out. The cameras were up and working, routed to David’s computers back at the compound. David had a program that monitored the cameras and motion detectors set up by Carson’s team. If anything were to happen at the house, David’s program would alert me instantly and set off an alarm to which David could respond. It was a system that had saved more than a few of my targets since it was implemented a year ago. David was constantly tweaking it, so it was more and more efficient each time we used it.

  Thank God for computer nerds.

  She came out of the bathroom a minute later, so beautiful that I couldn’t take my eyes off of her for a moment. She’d always been beautiful. Tall and slender, with curves that were subtle, yet incredibly feminine; she was the object of so many teenage dreams that Joshua and I used to joke about the gun his father should have bought. But again, most of those boys were burned pretty significantly by Kate herself whenever they tried to get too close. Yet, there was something different about her now—something that had been missing back when we were teens—that called to something deep inside of me that I’d thought I’d successfully destroyed when I left town.

  “Stop staring at me,” she said, as she gathered the rest of her stuff.

  “Just watching over my target.”

  “Do you stare at all your female clients that way?”

  “Sometimes.”

  The blush I’d noticed earlier was more profound now. She glanced at me and quickly looked away as she drew her bottom lip between her teeth. I’d forgotten about that, about how she chewed her lip when there was something, or someone, she was thinking about having for herself.

  Interesting.

  “Ash said that they were putting cameras in my house.”

  “They did.”

  “And that you’d have to stay in my house with me until this is over.”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you don’t expect me to play hostess to you. My fridge is empty, and I don’t even know if there are sheets that fit the bed in my spare bedroom.”

  “I can take care of those things.”

  “Can you?”

  “I’ve done this a few times before, Kate.”

  She nodded as she stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. “I’m sure you have. But this is the first time I’ve had a bodyguard following me around, so excuse me if I’m not quite sure how it works.”

  “Just think of me as an old friend come for a visit.”

  She snorted again. “As if I’d have you in my house if Daddy hadn’t insisted.”

  She started for the door, but she sort of swayed, as if she’d been hit by a sudden wave of dizziness. I moved up behind her and grabbed her upper arms, pulled her back against me so she had something to lean on. I felt her knees start to buckle and felt her push back into me, but then her spine stiffened and she straightened up again.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Let go of me,” she said, jerking away from me.

  “Kate…”

  “Let’s go.”

  With that, she was out the door, strutting down the hall as if nothing had happened.

  Daniel was waiting, sitting on the edge of the same bench he and I had shared. Veronica was gone, a relief for everyone, I’m sure.

  “Promise me you won’t let anything happen to her,” Daniel said more to the floor than to me.

  “I promise.”

  It wasn’t a promise I made lightly. But it was one I m
eant to keep.

  ***

  She wasn’t thrilled to learn her car was still in the parking lot at the bank and that it would remain there until this issue was resolved. She also wasn’t thrilled to get into the black SUV Ash had left for us. She stared out the window all the way to her house. I followed the GPS coordinates Ash had programmed into the system, glancing at her from time to time just to make sure she was still there. There was a knot in my stomach that was tight and uncomfortable, a sort of nervousness that I’d thought boot camp had beat out of me. Women don’t make me nervous. I usually know where I stand with any woman—no matter the circumstances. But this one? She was my personal dynamite, and I wasn’t ever sure when she would go off.

  “Your dad still has his law firm?” I asked in an attempt to kill the silence.

  She shrugged.

  I knew the answer, of course. I kept tabs on the family over the years despite the fact that I never intended to contact them again. I wanted to know they were doing well, that life was treating them better than it had in the last five years I’d known them. First Louise, Joshua and Kate’s mother, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at thirty-five. It was a quick and ruthless illness that turned her into a ghost long before death finally came. And then, less than four years later, just as they were putting their lives back together and looking forward to the future, Joshua was killed. They deserved happiness, and it offered me a small condolence to know that they did have it, in a small way.

  I hadn’t known that Daniel remarried. But I followed the cases his firm handled these last ten years, some quite notorious cases that underscored the reputation he already had as one of the country’s top litigators. Not only that, but cases that had made him quite wealthy, too.

  I wondered if that could have something to do with what happened at Kate’s bank. It seemed more likely that it was just a hit on the bank. However, I wasn’t quite convinced that was what it was. Why would a bank robber hit the bank after hours, after everyone was gone and there were no employees to open the vault? After all, the cash drawers would have been emptied when the bank closed, so the vault would have been their only option. So why attack then? Why not wait until morning, to wait for those moments when the employees were setting up for the day and the vault was open? Why not wait until it would be a much simpler attack, a snatch and grab?