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

  Could it be that one of Daniel’s former clients, maybe someone he hadn’t been able to get off, had gone after Kate in retribution?

  I glanced at her, wondering what it was she might have unwittingly gotten herself into. And then I shook my head, shaking away that line of thought. It wasn’t my job to find out the who or the why. It was my job to make sure she made it through this unhurt.

  We pulled into the driveway of a modest brick house on the outer edge of Santa Monica. It had a small yard, a few rose bushes growing low under the front windows. And there was a one-car garage that Ash had left the remote to in the SUV’s cup holder.

  “Where did you…?”

  I pulled the SUV carefully into the garage and reached to grab her arm to keep her in her seat until the door closed completely behind us.

  “I’d rather you not make a target of yourself.”

  She jerked her arm away. “You don’t have to manhandle me. You could have simply asked me to wait.”

  “Would you have listened?”

  She didn’t answer, but the look she shot me was all the answer I needed.

  She climbed out and marched toward the door that led into the house. I followed closely behind, checking my phone to make sure an alert hadn’t come in from David’s program. Before David’s program, I would have swept the house before I allowed the client to walk in, but the program made that unnecessary. If anyone had gotten into the house between the time Carson’s team left and we arrived, I would know it because the program would have known it.

  The garage door opened into the kitchen. It was a galley-style kitchen with counters on either side. Kate didn’t pause as she made her way through, turning the corner at the archway into a large, welcoming living room. There was an overstuffed couch and a comfortable looking recliner situated in front of a plasma television on the wall. There were no adornments, no pictures on the walls, no flowers in fancy vases, none of the personal touches that I would have expected of Kate. There was no clutter at all, just the furniture, like a showroom in a retail store.

  Kate continued through the room and up a narrow hall. I should have stayed in the living room, but I followed.

  “That’s your room,” she said, gesturing to the first door on my right. “And the bathroom, obviously,” she said as she pointed to a door further up the hall on the left. Then she pushed through the door at the end of the hall, sighing as she went to the king-sized bed and threw herself onto it.

  I stood in the doorway, taking in the heavy furniture, another television on the wall, and the tall windows that were darkened by black drapes. Again there were no adornments in this room. A couple of books on the bedside table. A few clothes scattered over the back of a very uncomfortable looking chair in the corner. The only personal touch seemed to be the generic treadmill in the corner.

  But then there was one picture in this room. On the bedside table, nearly hidden by the books. It was a photograph I immediately recognized because I was the one who took it. It was a picture of her and Joshua with their arms around each other that I took a couple of weekends before graduation, before that night. They were laughing, staring into each other’s eyes with a sense of affection that you could only find in certain siblings. In twins.

  Looking at that photo was like having someone reach in and tear a piece of my soul away.

  “I’m safe in my own bedroom,” she said. “I think you can leave me alone now.”

  It was almost a physical effort to pull my eyes from that picture. When I finally focused on her, I saw her glance back and look at the photo, too.

  She sat up, her hand moving to her head as she did.

  “I might have to put up with you following me around. I might even have to put up with living with you for a few days. But I don’t have to put up with you invading my personal space.” That glare was back, that look that held all the hatred I knew she felt for me. “Please leave the room.”

  “Just so you know, if you try to sneak out the window, I will be alerted by the motion detectors our team set up. So I suggest you don’t try it.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  I studied her face for a second, some part of me unable to simply walk away. There was something about looking at her that was like coming home. Like I’d finally come full circle in my life. Logically, I knew nothing had changed. I knew she would never forgive me for what she thought I failed to do the night her brother received the injuries that killed him. I knew that, even though the boys who actually delivered the blows were serving their time in jail, she believed I’d gotten away with something. But being here with her, standing in her home, offered me some sort of hope that I had been afraid to seek.

  Her eyes narrowed and she waved her fingers. “Go away.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I turned, pulled the door closed behind me.

  Time to get to work.

  Chapter 6

  Kate

  I didn’t like to think I was prone to temper tantrums anymore. But I felt like screaming into my pillow and flaying my legs a little, like I might have done when I was a toddler. I didn’t want him here. Just looking at him brought back so many memories that I had finally come to terms with, that I had finally left behind me. Maybe if he didn’t look so good, if he didn’t look so much like he had back then…but better. Buffer. More masculine.

  I’d thought Ash was good looking, but he really had nothing on Donovan.

  When I knew him, his dirty blond hair was long, inclined to curl at the bottom. And those blue eyes? There was so much depth to them that you could never really know what he was thinking. I remember watching him from across a classroom, from across my own living room, wondering what it was that went on in that funny head of his. He was always the class clown, seeking attention where it wasn’t necessarily a positive thing. Polite as all hell around my dad, but wild and crazy at school, always pulling pranks on people, always the bad boy all the girls drooled over. And I mean literally drool. I remember the way the girls on the cheerleading squad used to talk about him. Half of them wanted to sleep with him. The other half wanted to marry him.

  But that was high school.

  Now he was quieter. More cautious. I could see it in the way his eyes moved around a room. Just like Ash, he was constantly looking for an exit, a threat. What would that be like, always watching for the next fight? It couldn’t be very conducive to relaxation.

  Not that I cared. He was the one who ran away to join the Army. He was the one who disappeared when everyone was still reeling from losing Joshua. He was the one who was a coward and couldn’t face what it was he’d done.

  My head was pounding. I sat up and the movement made the room spin a little. But when it settled down, I got up and made my way to the bathroom. I needed a shower. I needed to get the smell of that damn hospital off my skin.

  It reminded me too much of that day. It reminded me of the last time I spoke to Donovan.

  “He’s dead!” I screamed as I approached him in the hallway of the hospital, just outside the ICU where my brother had spent the last twenty-four hours fighting for his life. I kissed my brother’s lifeless cheek goodbye and left the room, stepped out into the waiting room, and his was the first face I saw.

  “He’s dead.”

  I saw the grief in Donovan’s eyes, saw the pain slice his expression in half. But it didn’t really register through the shock that held me prisoner.

  “Katie,” he said, reaching for me, “I’m so sorry.”

  “You should be,” I said, allowing him to pull me close for a minute. “If you had been there, if we hadn’t…”

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled again.

  “He’s dead. They did this to him.” I shuttered, as my imagination showed me a picture that was probably not far from the truth. Those boys, the same boys who’d confronted Donovan on the last day of school just after they found out that they wouldn’t be able to walk the stage at graduation because of a prank on the football coach that had
gone wrong. Those boys who told Donovan they’d come for him, that he better watch his back. The same boys who wanted to hurt Donovan but killed my brother instead.

  “It’s your fault.”

  I felt every muscle in his body stiffen. I pulled back and looked up at him; I saw the guilt and the pain in his eyes.

  “It’s your fault. If you hadn’t pulled that prank, if you hadn’t made it look like they did it—”

  “Katie, that’s not—”

  “You did this. You gave them reason to go after Joshua. And you weren’t there to protect him. You left him to this.”

  “No, Kate.”

  “You did. You’re the reason he’s on his way to the morgue, why my Daddy has to bury a child, why I have to live the rest of my life without my twin. It’s your fault.”

  And then I hit him because I needed to hit something. I buried my fist in his chest over and over again. He never once tried to stop me, never made an attempt to grab my wrists. He just stood there, the most pain a human being is capable of feeling rushing through me, mirrored in his eyes. And when exhaustion caused me to fall to the floor, he knelt beside me and tried to help me to my feet.

  “Don’t touch me!” I turned and looked at him. “I never want to see you again. Stay away from me, stay away from my dad. Disappear, Donovan.”

  My last words to him were to order him to disappear. And he did. Not immediately. I saw him at the funeral; I saw my dad stop and talk to him. He didn’t even try to talk to me. And then he was gone. I didn’t even know where he’d gone until a mutual friend told me months later that he’d joined the Army, went off to be G.I. Joe. And that pissed me off. He didn’t even try. He just ran away, escaped the nightmare that I had to live every second of every day. It wasn’t bad enough that I lost my mom and then my brother. I also had to lose…

  Anyway.

  I stood in the shower and let the hot water wash over me, loving the way calming stream washed away some of the pain in my head. I just needed to get back to work. I needed to have a purpose. I’d learned a long time ago that a purpose helps make even the darkest days a little brighter. I needed Donovan not to be in my house. I needed to not be enveloped in all these memories that refused to go away.

  My dad sure seemed happy to have Donovan back. Had he known he’d been back all this time? I knew Donovan had come back to Santa Monica. A mutual friend ran into him at a party about a year ago. Said he was quiet, distant. I laughed and said that Donovan was never quiet. And then I waited for him to show up, maybe stop by the house to see my dad. But he didn’t.

  If this hadn’t happened, would Donovan have sought me out at all? Probably not. And I don’t suppose I would have either—if I were in his shoes. Who wants to face the reality of their own actions? But it still pissed me off for reasons I couldn’t even begin to explain.

  I washed my hair, careful of the lump at the back of my head. It was pretty tender, and there seemed to be a little dried blood around it. I couldn’t remember what hit me, or even if something hit me or if I managed some bonehead move where I hit my head on something. It bothered me, this blank spot in my memory. I was always proud of how good my memory was. I never forgot anything, yet I’d somehow forgotten that I’d witnessed Joe’s death.

  Poor Joe. He was a good guy. I’d miss seeing him standing there at the door every night.

  I stepped out of the shower and dried myself, realizing I’d forgotten to bring clothes with me so I could dress here. Ash and all his damn cameras. I wrapped my towel tight around me and slipped out of the bathroom, rushing to my dresser to search for something comfortable. I glanced over my shoulder, looking for the camera or some wire or something. But there was nothing obvious.

  And then I heard laughter.

  I snuck up to the door and pressed my ear against it. Again there was a titter of laughter. Female laughter.

  Who the hell did Donovan have here in my house?

  I dressed quickly, forgetting about the camera, tugging on a pair of sweats and a light t-shirt. My hair still wet and dripping a little down my back, I slipped out of my bedroom and walked silently down the hall in my bare feet. There were definitely two voices. Donovan’s baritone and a woman’s higher pitched, overly sweet voice.

  “There’s that apple stuff that you like so much. I don’t know how you can stand that stuff,” the woman said.

  “You should try it. Then you’d understand.”

  “If even Ash won’t eat it…”

  She laughed and then there was a little squeal, followed by, “Cut it out!”

  I turned the corner of the archway that led from the living room to the kitchen and found Donovan towering over a dark-haired girl where she was backed up against the refrigerator. He was holding something in his hand and was trying to force it into her mouth, but her head was turned, and she was laughing so hard that she probably couldn’t have swallowed anything anyway.

  She spotted me and the laughter died. That made Donovan glance in my direction. He didn’t seem in a hurry to let the girl go though. He popped whatever he’d been trying to get her to taste into his own mouth and stepped back, his hand connected to her hip for a long moment before it finally fell to his side.

  “You must be Kate,” the girl said as she approached me.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her, warning her to stay back. She took the hint quite well, pausing awkwardly a few feet away.

  “Be nice, Kate,” Donovan said, as he watched the scene with slightly hooded eyes.

  The girl studied me a long moment, the she turned to Donovan. “If you need anything else,” she said, leaving the statement open ended.

  “Thanks, Stormy,” Donovan said, touching her arm as she passed him. She stopped and smiled up at him. I thought for a second that she might reach up and kiss him, but she just caught his hand and squeezed it before glancing back at me. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she had something she wanted to say to me, but then she left without saying anything.

  “That your girlfriend?”

  Donovan ignored me in favor of unpacking the grocery bags the girl must have brought. He pulled out coffee and juice and fresh fruits and an array of meats. There was enough there for several feasts, the kind of food Donovan and Joshua had always scoffed as teens. They’d rather devour a bag of Doritos than eat the pot roast our housekeeper slow cooked for hours and hours on Sunday afternoons.

  “Are you hungry?”

  I shrugged, even though I was starving. “You’re not going to answer my question?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because I want to know the kind of people you’re going to have coming and going in my house. It is still my house, isn’t it?”

  He tossed a couple of potatoes into the sink before stowing the bag in a dark, lower drawer in one of my cabinets before glancing at me.

  “It’s still your house.”

  “Then who is she?”

  “She works for Gray Wolf just like me, just like all the other people I’ll have coming and going out of your house these next few days.”

  “Well, excuse my disbelief. But the two of you seemed awfully cozy to just be coworkers.”

  “Yes, well, we’re a family at Gray Wolf. With the kind of work we do, you tend to get pretty close.”

  He opened a couple of cabinets, clearly searching for something. Then he glanced at me. “Do you have a frying pan?”

  I grunted, pushing away from the archway to grab a pan from the drawer under the stove. I held it out to him.

  “Don’t tell me you know how to cook.”

  “I can fry a steak.”

  I pulled the pan back before he could grab it. “I’ll cook. I’d rather not raise my cholesterol because you believe oil is a necessary seasoning.”

  He held up his hands and stepped back. “You’re the boss.”

  “If I was the boss, you wouldn’t be here.”

  ***

  Forty minutes later, the steaks
cooked to perfection and the potatoes melting in my mouth, we settled in the living room on opposite ends of the couch. I watched him eat for a second, watching the muscles of his jaw move. His hair was shorter now. Like Ash, he wore it in a grown-out version of a crew cut. No more curls. But he was tan, as if he still spent a lot of time down on the beach. And those muscles in his arms suggested he took the time to work out whenever he could. I remembered the summer he and Joshua decided they were going to get ripped muscles. It hadn’t gone well. I never thought he’d try it again.

  Funny how things change over time.

  “Does it bother your girlfriend?”

  “What?” he asked, glancing at me.

  “The work you do. Protecting other women.”

  “Would it bother you?”

  I pushed a piece of potato around my plate, giving it some real consideration. “It would, I think.”

  “Why?”

  “Beyond the point that you’re placing yourself in danger for a complete stranger?”

  “Beyond that.”

  “Because you’re spending long hours alone with a frightened woman.” I looked at him, honestly curious to hear his answer to what I said next. “Surely you’ve had clients throw themselves at you.”

  “A few,” he admitted, as he took another large bite of his steak.

  “Have you ever slept with a client?”

  His eyes moved over me, as he continued to chew his meat. “Are you offering?”

  I could feel the heat of my blush as my eyes immediately dropped back down to my own plate. “Of course not!”

  “Then why does it matter?”

  “I’m just making conversation.”

  “Interesting turn of conversation.”

  “Do you blame me for being curious? Aren’t you curious about the people in my life?”

  He lifted his plate and dug in his pants pocket for a second. Then he tossed me a piece of paper. “I know about the people in your life.”