DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(112)

She smiled. “I’m kind of partial to it. Harrison keeps trying to convince me that you should only drink red with specific meals, but I drink it with anything. I don’t really care about all that stuff.”

“I like red, too. That’s all I ever order.”

“Good. I knew you and I would have something more than Harrison in common.”

I sort of nodded, my eyes falling to my hands where they were clutched in my lap. I felt out of place. Not only in the restaurant, but with Libby. I felt like she thought she knew something about Harrison and me…or maybe she was just so fond of her brother that she assumed everyone loved him too. I don’t know, but I hoped she would want to talk about something other than Harrison.

“So, I feel like I know so little about you. Harrison said that you run your parents’ bakery back in Texas?”

“It was the family business before they died. And after, it just seemed logical to keep it going to pay off their debts and to make a living for JT and me.”

“Do you like working in the bakery?”

No one had ever asked me that. The truth was, I hated it. I hated having flour in my clothing, my hair, my pores. I hated the constant cloying feel of sugar that seemed to get into everything. I hated having to taste the frostings and the cake batters and the cookies all day long. And I hated getting up before dawn to open the shop, hated keeping the books, hated having to deal with the customers—as much as I loved my friends and neighbors who’d done so much to help me keep the bakery open. The only thing I really liked about it was the cake decorating. But even that got a little tedious after a while.

Libby watched me search for an answer, her chin resting on her hand.

“You have so much in common with Harrison,” she said before I could come up with anything.

“Do I?”

“The last thing he wanted was to work in the furniture factory. From the moment he turned eighteen, he was out of here, going to the one college our father would allow him to attend that was as far from home as possible, taking every internship he could to stay away during the summers. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with Ashland Furniture.”

“What changed?”

“Father died.”

The waiter came with the bottle of wine. He poured us both a glass. It was the sweetest, most flavorful wine I’d ever tasted. I think I finished that first glass in just two swallows. Libby poured me another glass, waving the waiter away as she raised her own glass to her lips. After a long sip, she set it down and focused on me again.

“My father was a lot of things, but he was not a great business man. Turns out he owed everyone he knew and then some. Mother would have lost the house, and she and I would have been out on the streets if Harrison hadn’t agreed to come home and take over the business.”

“What about Randy?”

Libby groaned. “He’d already been in and out of rehab a half dozen times by then. Mother knew absolutely nothing about business and I was only fifteen, the same age as JT. Harrison was the only one who could do it. And he never balked.”

I needed another sip of wine. I hadn’t known any of that, what Harrison must have gone through in the wake of his father’s death. I had JT to think about after my parents died. Harrison didn’t have just an underage sibling, but his mother and a drug addicted brother, too.

“What had he planned on doing before your father died?”

Libby’s eyebrows rose. “He didn’t tell you?” Then she shook her head, answering her own question. “No, he wouldn’t have. He wanted to be a high school English teacher.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “The state of Oregon requires teachers to have a master’s degree in their chosen field. He was a semester short of that goal when Father died. It was almost as if Father did it on purpose.”

At least I got to live my dream briefly.

And so did he. Sort of.

“He’s in love with you, you know.”

I looked up, a little lost. Libby was watching me over the rim of her wine glass. She smiled as she studied me.

“I haven’t heard him talk about a woman the way he talked about you in a long time. I thought from all those phone calls that he was just frustrated by the situation. But after he met you, it was like every conversation we had centered on you, not JT. And then that morning in the courthouse, when he saw you in that room, I just knew. My brother was finally in love.”

I shook my head. “I think maybe you misunderstood what you saw.”

“No. I know my brother.” She set her glass down and reached across the table to take my hand. “Harrison has never been the type to wear his heart on his sleeve. It takes a lot for him to admit when he has feelings for someone. But don’t let him push you away because he’s acting like a stubborn ass.” She squeezed my hand lightly before letting go. “I’ve seen the way you look at him, too. I know you don’t want him to push you away. In fact,” she sighed as she picked up the menu, “I think everyone knows how the two of you feel about each other but the two of you.”

I blushed, wondering if my heart really was that obvious. But I also couldn’t ignore the fact that her words had made my heart soar in a way it hadn’t done…ever.




We shared a nice meal, then Libby drove me around town to show me the many brighter parts of Ashland. We ended up walking through Lithia Park; eating ice cream cones and laughing at the small children playing in the grass with their parents watching on.