DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(144)

“No,” she said.

“What?”

She looked at me. “No, it wasn’t always just me and my dad. I had a mom. A sister.”

Her voice changed when she said that. And the kaleidoscope of sadness that I’d seen in her eyes from that first night in the bar was back. I waited. I didn’t want to push her. But I slid my hand over her ribs, let her know I was there.

“My dad was a cop. My mom used to worry so much whenever he went to work. She was always so afraid that one night we would get a knock on the door informing us that he’d been shot in the line of duty. But it wasn’t about him the night the knock finally did come.”

She reached up and brushed a piece of hair out of her face. She was staring at the ceiling like there was something important up there.

“Amelia, my sister, was an incredible nuisance. She always wanted me to play with her, always wanted some sort of attention. That night, I was trying to color in my favorite coloring book, and she kept coming over, begging me to help her with her Barbies. I hated Barbies. Hated the whole dress-up thing. My dad always said I was born missing that gene that makes girls want to dress up and wear makeup and whatever else. But Amelia, she had it in spades.”

She bit her lip as it began to quiver. I slid my hand over her side, drawing her closer against me.

“My mom suggested that we all get into the car and go get the ingredients for this new chocolate cookie recipe she’d just found. My mom was one of those women who was always buying those housewife magazines, clipping recipes and trying them out. And Amelia loved helping her out. But, again, that was just not my thing. I elected to stay home. I was nine, so staying home alone was a new thing. I took every opportunity I could, even if they were just going to be gone for a few minutes, like a quick trip to the grocery store.”

“But they never came back.”

She shook her head, a single tear rolling slowly down her cheek. “A drunk driver hit them before they were even half a mile from our house. They both died on impact.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, rubbing her hair against the pillow where she lay. “I should have been in the car. If I’d been in the car—”

“You’d be dead, and your father would have been alone.”

“Maybe I could have seen the drunk driver coming. Maybe I could have warned my mom.”

“And maybe you’d be dead, too.” I touched her face, pulling her close to me. “It sucks. You shouldn’t have lost your sister and your mom. I shouldn’t have lost my dad. He was only thirty-seven, you know? None of it should have happened. But we have no control over these things.”

“Do we have control over anything?”

“Yeah.” I ran my thumb over her bottom lip. “We have control over what we’re going to do right now. We have control over whether or not we’re going to go to sleep now, or if we’re going to find other, more interesting things to do.”

She laughed, the sound more melancholy than joyful. “Is that all you think about?”

“I’m a man lying in bed with a beautiful, naked woman. What do you think?”

She chuckled, amusement coming into her eyes. “If you don’t stop saying things like that, I might start believing you.”

“Then I’ll be very sure not to stop saying them.”

I kissed her and sighed when she returned my kiss. She moved closer, her body slipping underneath mine. I had to reach down and adjust my pump, but then I tugged at her hip and encouraged her to slide her leg up over my hip. I liked getting tangled with her, liked the feel of her warm body against mine. I don’t know when we finally moved apart, when she tucked her head into my chest and fell asleep. It felt like one thing just naturally flowed into the other.

But when she was gone, I became aware of her absence. I reached for her without opening my eyes, but my hands came away empty. I rolled onto my back, resting my hand over my eyes to shade them from the light streaming in through the windows.

“Adrienne?”

There was no answer.

I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair, groaning as every muscle in my body protested against movement. I stumbled to the easy chair in the corner and grabbed a pair of sweats, shoving my pump in the pocket as I headed for the door.

I found her downstairs, working on a computer at the breakfast bar. Jacob’s computer.

“What are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I mean, what are you doing with Jacob’s computer?”

She sat back on the high stool and crossed her legs, looking like a wet dream in my button-down shirt.

“We traced those emails back to Jacob’s IP address. I wanted to see if there was any possibility that they actually came from his computer, or if I could find evidence of a hacker in there somewhere.”

“And have you?”

“No on both counts.”

“Good. Go put it back where you found it.”

“He texted me this morning,” she said, pushing her phone toward me. “Wanted to know if you were okay.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said you were fine. Then he asked if we’d gotten your low home safely.”

I padded over to the refrigerator and took out a carafe of orange juice, pouring us both a glass.