Falling For A Donovan (The Donovans Book 14) Read online

  It was dark inside, but something was off. She could feel it. Not just in the tension that had immediately stilled Devlin’s body, but in the atmosphere. There was a scent and since Devlin still hadn’t moved Bailey turned her body to the side and squeezed past him to enter.

  He cursed. She ignored him and reached behind her back to retrieve the gun he’d given her earlier. Arms up, finger trained on the trigger, she walked slowly, moving further into the room. A flashlight would have been good, but for now she’d work solely on instinct. Devlin was behind her. She’d heard the click of the safety being released on his gun only seconds after her own. She checked the bathroom. He moved further into the room to check the bedroom. They met again in the living room area, where Devlin turned on one of the lamps.

  The curtains at the window were open. Bailey knew she had closed them after she’d stood there earlier today. While she’d enjoyed looking out at the city in an attempt to get her mind off all that was going on in her world, she never liked moving around in her home or her temporary home for that matter, with open windows where the world could see her.

  Devlin was moving. When she turned he was lifting each lamp and looking beneath them, checking the phone, the television remote, behind and around the television. He went back into the bedroom. By the time Bailey came to stand in that doorway it was to see him slamming down the phone’s receiver in there. He checked those lamps on the night stands, pushed aside the curtains in that room, running his fingers all along the fabric.

  “Housekeeping? No, we put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door when we left. And Dane was with us,” Bailey continued because she figured that’s who Devlin was thinking about.

  There was no reason for Roslyn to break into their room, but Dane might want to know what, if any, information they had on his mother’s whereabouts so he could be sure to find her before they did.

  “Yes, he called the meeting,” Bailey continued, “so it connects that he wanted to get us out of the hotel. But for what? Did he think we were going to leave notes on our investigation into Roslyn’s whereabouts just lying around in a hotel room? And how would he have known where we were staying? You put the room under a different name.”

  When Devlin stormed out of the bedroom and went to the bathroom, Bailey followed.

  “Okay, so you’re thinking Dane has had someone tailing us. Since when? That guy I bumped into that made you…and me, I guess…all nervous at the rest stop, that was before we met with Dane. He didn’t know we were coming at that time. He couldn’t have.”

  She continued to talk while Dev opened and shut the shower stall door. He leaned over the Jacuzzi tub and stuck his finger into the drain. Standing he went to the wall length mirror and ran his hands all along its border. He checked the overhead lights, unscrewing each one and looking into the sockets.

  When he moved past her again and headed once again to the living room, Bailey was done.

  “Stop!” she called to him. “What are you looking for? Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Bugs. Cameras. Anything out of place,” he said and continued to move.

  “What? Why? Who would want to spy on us? Who else besides Cade knows that we’re here? Devlin, answer me, dammit!”

  He halted at her words this time, his back to her as they both stood still. Seconds—which seemed like hours—later, Devlin turned slowly to face her.

  “Get your stuff. We’re leaving tonight,” he said.

  That scar on his face looked more pronounced, his eyes were darker, his lips drawn tightly. His bald head gleamed in the light of the room, one hand still held his gun at his side, while the other was balled into a thick fist.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as tiny pricks of fear circled at the base of her back. She still held her gun, but she’d lowered her arms while she’d watched Devlin searching the place.

  “You’re going home,” he said gruffly. “Back to Connecticut.”

  “And what about you? Where are you going? What are you going to do?”

  Devlin shook his head, the corner of his mouth lifting so that there was a quick glimpse of his teeth. The action was like a snarl, a warning before the pounce. Bailey couldn’t help it, she took a step back.

  “You don’t want to know,” he replied finally. “It’s better if you never know.”

  Chapter 11

  Los Angeles, California

  “This is not how it was supposed to turn out between us,” Henry said quietly.

  Beverly stood a few feet away from him, hands clasped in front of her. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s not.”

  “When I took you home to meet my parents, I thought that was the first day of forever. I was going to go back to school and finish my last two years in college and then we were going to be married. That’s what I wanted more than anything else in the world.”

  She nodded, remembering that time like it was yesterday. Beverly had never loved like she had with Henry. She’d never thought there could be a man she wanted to be with forever, not until he walked into that bakery where she worked and smiled at her.

  “I wanted it to, Henry,” she said. “I didn’t always do what I should have to protect it. But I wanted it.”

  Henry shook his head. He wore a simple white linen shirt, tucked neatly into his black slacks. His gold watch was bright at his wrist, the wedding band he’d sworn to never take off, still shining on his left ring finger. The rich dark chocolate complexion she’d adored on him, hadn’t changed over the years, even if his hair was lightly peppered with gray now. He kept it cut low on top, just a neat goatee on his face. He was still a very handsome and distinguished man, who would always hold her heart.

  “You did what you had to do,” he insisted.

  “Marrying someone else was what I had to do?” Beverly asked.

  It was an old doubt, one they’d sworn to never talk about again. It had happened and it was over. Funny how now that word “over” didn’t seem to be as permanent as they’d once thought.

  Henry nodded. He lifted his hands in an act of surrender and shrugged. “What choice did I give you?” he told her.

  “I thought I was doing the right thing by telling you that I’d starting seeing Roslyn a few months after I returned to school. I felt guilty and I wanted to be honest with you,” he said.

  Beverly recalled that telephone conversation, the sharp pang in her chest at this moment, matched what she’d felt all those years ago.

  “I was waiting for you, Henry,” she said quietly. “When you left to start your junior year in college, you said we’d be married as soon as you graduated. I wanted to get married right then, but you wanted to wait.”

  “I had to have something to offer you, Beverly. Your father had given you everything. What kind of man would I have been if I couldn’t at least try to do the same? Once I graduated, I was going to be a full-time employee at Donovan Oilwell. When I turned twenty-three my trust fund would be one hundred percent under my control. I could buy us a house and we could start our family the right way,” he told her.

  No matter how hard she tried to hold them back, tears filled Beverly’s eyes regardless. How had they come to be in this position? Their love had been so pure and true.

  “I knew you were going to make something out of your life, Henry. I knew you were going to provide for me and our family. And I had no problem working until you did,” she told him.

  “That’s not the type of man my father raised,” he said slowly. “After you told me you thought it was best that I do what I had to do, with who I had to do it with, and leave you out of it, I still wasn’t sure I did the right thing by telling you about my affair with Roslyn.”

  “Then I ran off and married John Grant,” she admitted, remembering that seven month stunt that probably changed the course of all of their lives.

  “When my mother sent me the invitation I must have read it a million times,” Henry said, his shoulders slumping.

  ““Congressman Russel
and Mrs. Sara-Ann Pembrook request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter Beverly…” I couldn’t think after that. I couldn’t see a future, not one that I wanted anyway. I broke up with Roslyn right after I received that invitation.”

  “But she came back,” Beverly said. “After my marriage to John had been annulled because I couldn’t stand being another man’s wife, especially not a man that I did not love with all my heart. I didn’t know how to reach out to you. But you came home that next summer and walked into the bakery again. I wanted to run and hug you, but pride held me still.”

  “Pride had caused me to lose you once,” he said. “I wasn’t going to do it again.”

  “So you ran and hugged me,” she recalled and lifted her hand to wipe the tear that slipped free. “And then she came back.”

  Beverly could not let that part go. Because of that one moment in their lives, everything they thought they’d overcome was now strangling them and the members of their family. The tension throughout the family, blame being cast, guilt being carried, pain ricocheting with deadly force. All because Roslyn Ausby had come back into Henry’s life.

  Beverly was angry and she was hurt and she wanted someone to pay for that. For weeks, no months, she’d tried her best to stand strong beside her husband. She did not want another failed marriage. Besides that, they’d taught their children that the Donovans were about loyalty and integrity. Part of that mantra had been tainted, she didn’t want to prove that none of it mattered. Her sisters-in-law had met with her, they’d consoled her, and they’d raged for her and through it all she’d been determined to stand by Henry. Not to defend his actions, but not to let the past dictate their future. Until now.

  “You let her come back, Henry,” she stated evenly, her fists now balled at her sides. “After all that we went through. The months apart. The pain of knowing you were with someone else—”

  “You were with someone else too, Beverly,” he countered. The moment the words were out Henry whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.”

  “That one word will not help what’s going on now. I wanted to remain calm, to give our children a united front. This family needed to see that we weren’t letting this woman break us. And dammit, Henry I tried. I’m still trying!”

  He nodded and sucked in a deep breath. “I know, darling. I know.”

  “No, you don’t know,” she argued. “You don’t know how it feels to watch my son falling apart each hour that his wife lies in that coma. Trent is nothing without Tia. The man he was to become woke up the moment she walked into his life. If she…”

  “She won’t,” Henry interrupted. “Tia is going to be just fine. She’s just resting right now. But she’s a fighter. She’s going to pull through this.”

  “This killing has to stop! That woman has to be stopped,” Beverly said with a shake of her head. “I don’t know how much more I can take of this. I think maybe we need some time apart. We need to figure out how we—you and I—are going to get through this.”

  Henry was holding a hand up to halt her words. “Stop. Don’t say that. Don’t say anything else. You won’t have to take anymore,” he told her. “All these years you’ve stood by my side and I knew I’d lied to you again. I knew I’d abused that fragile trust that we’d worked so hard to get back. I don’t know now if you’ll ever look at me the same again, but that’s okay. I’ll live with that. I will. What I won’t do is stand by and let this continue. I’m telling you now that I plan to reach out to Roslyn and we will stop this once and for all.”

  He’d said those last words with a chilling clarity that had Beverly going still.

  “What are you going to do, Henry?”

  “I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago,” he said and turned to leave her standing in that hotel room alone.

  Woodland Trauma Center,

  San Bernardino County, California

  “I love you, Tia,” he’d whispered. “I’ll always love you.”

  That’s what she’d heard. Over and over again, through the darkest fog that had ever clogged her mind. There was no light in that fog, no door that she could run to that would assure she would return to her son and her husband. There had only been the darkness. And his voice.

  Of course there had been other voices. Some talking of medications, possibilities, future damage. And there was another that talked of the past, recriminations, promises to make things right. But mostly, it was his voice. She’d known it even though she also knew that she was in a deep sleep. She would always know that voice and when he touched her. At least she thought it happened when he touched her. There was warmth and familiarity and home. Her soul had whimpered and the darkness had claimed her once more.

  That’s what it had been like, Tia thought as she lay in the hospital bed, machines still chirping around her. The nurse said it had been seven days since her surgery. A whole week since she’d been shot. If she moved too fast she could easily remember that a bullet had ripped through her chest. But when she closed her eyes and tried to recall that night, that moment, she came up blank.

  “It’s okay. You’ve been through a terrible shock. That’s probably why you had to take a little rest. Our bodies don’t like when we put it through too much stress. So the memory may just be lost in all that time your body was so tired and ready to give out,” the nurse named Wanda had told her.

  “But my body didn’t give out,” Tia had replied, her voice a little raspy, she figured from lack of use. “I was shot.”

  Wanda nodded. “Such a terrible thing too. Still, it got you here, lying in this bed. That bullet could have killed you, but it didn’t. It provided you with time to take a much needed rest. Sometimes He’s just gotta knock ya all the way down to get ya to take note of the important things.”

  That had been familiar. Tia thought back to when she was a young girl. For some reason those memories came much easier than the recent ones. Her mother had said something similar when Tia had lost one of her modeling gigs. She’d dropped out of attending her class trip in her senior year of high school to go to Miami for this special photo shoot for a big magazine. Her agent had called her at the last minute and offered her the job, so she’d cancelled going to Paris with her girlfriends. The cancellation meant the girls needed to scramble to find someone else to pick up Tia’s part of the expenses for the loft they were going to stay in. She hadn’t cared then, she’d wanted that job. Then, when it fell through, she’d wanted to crumble up and die. Her mother had told her that it was a sign from God, saying that He had a way of slowing you down until you could see and do what was really important.

  Tia hated to think that was why she was shot in the first place, but she could certainly relate to needing the rest. She’d been very stressed about having another baby, starting her new lingerie line and what was going on with Trent’s family. Maybe the bad thing had to happen, to get her to stop and simply appreciate the good things she already had in her life. Trent. Trevor. Her home, her health. Love.

  Wanda had left the room a while ago. Maybe it was an hour or two. Tia didn’t know. There was no clock in her room and of course, she had on no watch. All she knew was what they’d told her, what the doctors and nurses had said to her since she’d opened her eyes. And what he’d said in those first moments afterwards.

  “I love you, Tia. I love you so very much.”

  Tia closed her eyes now as she remembered how he sounded. So sad and yet so happy. Was that even possible for someone to sound that way simultaneously? Her lids had still felt very heavy as she’d tried to hold them open. His face had been close to hers, tears streaming slowly down his cheek. He didn’t cry. Trent never cried. She did and when that happened he held her, tight and securely, to assure her everything would be okay. But now he was crying and she was afraid of why. She was very afraid.

  “I love you, Trent.” Those were the first words she’d spoken and they’d seemed to weigh on her heavier than the pain from her wounds.

&n
bsp; Tia had no idea how long ago that was either. All she knew for certain was that right now she was alone in the dimly lit room. The machines beeped and hummed to a monotonous rhythm that she wished like hell would stop. She also wished she could get up off this bed. But she couldn’t. She could barely lift her arm to scratch the itch on her cheek. There was a bandage there. One of the bullets that went flying through that room in the cabin had hit the window breaking it and shattering glass everywhere. A thick shard had pierced her cheek. Trent had asked if there would be a scar. Tia hadn’t even wanted to think about that.

  She did want to see her son. Trent said he would pick him up. Trevor was staying at the hotel with Henry and Beverly. They were all going to want to see her, Trent had told her. He was going to go get them and return to the hospital.

  “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll be right back and while I’m gone there’ll be guards outside your door. You don’t have to be afraid that anyone will get in here or hurt you again,” her husband had told her.

  But there was still reason to fear, because the person creating all this havoc was still on the run. So when the door to her room began to slowly open she sucked in a breath and tried like hell to ignore how painful that action was. When she looked down she could see that her fingers were moving but that little button thingy the nurse told her to push if she had a problem was dangling on the bedrail, just out of her reach. She tried to lift her arm by jerking it upward quickly. That was a mistake. The IV that had been inserted in the crevice of her arm pinched and Tia winced. It was the last sound she heard before his voice.

  “Tia Donovan. It’s good to see you awake,” the police officer said.

  Tia relaxed only minutely as she lowered her arm slowly to the bed. “Who are you? Did Trent send you?”

  “No,” he said as he came closer to the bed.

  He had a badge, a gun in his holster, other lawman paraphernalia attached to his belt and a surly looking face. She figured she should probably relax since he was a cop, presumably one of the good guys, but she couldn’t. She still wanted to call the nurse.