DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(5)

“The weekends?”

Daniel shrugged. “Usually out with friends, I think.” He glanced at the closed door of Kate’s hospital room. “We go to the cemetery together some Sundays.”

I nodded, looking down at the list again so I didn’t have to look this man in the eye.

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Daniel said. “They told me you would need to know that, too.”

“Okay. That makes things simpler.”

“Oh? How?”

“A boyfriend would want to be involved. He’d want to have a role in protecting her.”

Daniel snorted. “Her last boyfriend wouldn’t have. Guy was such a loser; he probably wouldn’t even be here now even if she called and begged him to come.”

“Yeah?”

“He was some hotshot with the bank. Didn’t like to pay for meals out, didn’t like to hang out at her place. Always wanted the opposite of what she wanted.” Daniel leaned close to me as if Kate could hear us. “Tell you the truth? I was glad to see the bastard go.”

I smiled because I couldn’t help myself. But I also wondered how much of the ex-boyfriend’s behavior was based on Kate’s behavior. At eighteen, the girl had been a handful. Tortured the boys who liked her and pined after the ones who didn’t. Treated everyone like they were her subordinates and she their queen. Drove Joshua crazy. But again, I’d never seen a brother who gets along with his sister as well as Joshua did with Kate. I always put it down to the whole twin thing. He would laugh when I said that though. He thought I didn’t see the real Kate, the person she kept locked down deep inside. The one he adored unconditionally.

If he only knew how hard I’d tried to find that Kate.

“So I think that’s all I need,” I said, slapping my hands against my denim-covered legs. “Ash said they’re going to release her soon?”

“Yeah, pretty soon.”

Daniel grabbed my arm as I tried to stand.

“Sit and talk a minute, Donovan,” he said with a sad smile. “It’s been so long.”

I nodded, suddenly unable to look him in the eye.

Daniel put his hand on my shoulder. “It was hard on everyone. But you especially, I think.”

“He was your son.”

“But he was your best friend. Had been since preschool.” Daniel laughed softly. “I think you spent more time at our place than you ever did your own.”

And that was for good reason. My parents…let’s just say, they were more interested in their careers than they’d ever been in having a child. I often thought I was just an experiment that had gone horribly wrong. I think they were relieved when I went to school and found other things to fill my time rather than making demands on theirs.

“I was sad when I heard you’d joined the Army. But I was also quite proud. And I think Joshua would have been, too.”

That was the first time anyone had said they were proud of me for my choices. I stared at my hands where they were still resting on the tops of my thighs. My fingers were spread, and they looked so powerful. So capable. But it was these hands that weren’t able to stop what happened to Joshua that night. And it was these hands that stood in the corridor of this same hospital and waited to find out just how badly I’d let my friend down.

I’d never expected the worst. Never thought I’d stand at the edge of his grave and watch as the funeral director pushed the button that would lower his coffin slowly into that hole they’d dug just for that purpose.

We were eighteen. It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. We were supposed to have our whole lives ahead of us. But we didn’t.

And I often thought it was the wrong boy whose life was spared that night.





Chapter 3


Kate

My head was throbbing. I lay there, staring out the window at another clear, winter day, wondering who was taking over my loan applications and if they were throwing out the borderline credit risks instead of reading that person’s story the way I always did. It was all in the stories. But the other loan officers didn’t always agree.

I’ve missed an entire day. The doctors say that I hit my head—which explains the headache—but that my memory of Monday will eventually return. They also tell me that I was involved in an attack on the bank, and that Joe, the security guard, was killed. That upset me. I liked Joe. He often offered to walk me to my car even though it was just on the other side of the building in the employee parking lot. And he always had a smile for me that often cheered me up when I was having a bad day.

The police think I saw something. I told them that if I saw something, I would surely remember. But, just to be safe, my dad hired some security firm to watch over me—even after the police said it was likely unnecessary. The police were convinced it was simply a robbery attempt and that the perpetrators were long gone. But my dad tends to be a little overprotective.

When the door opened, I just assumed it was my dad or one of the nurses who kept taking my temperature, as if I wouldn’t notice if I suddenly started running a fever. I didn’t look to see which it was. The traffic rushing by on the street outside the windows was a hell of a lot more fascinating. But then there was the sound of a very masculine creature clearing his throat.

I turned, wincing a little as pain shot through my head, and beheld absolute perfection.