Then Ash arrived so there wasn’t even the possibility of ducking into the bathroom again.
I could hear him moving around in his bedroom, dressing in the tuxedo Ash brought him. I had to say, I was looking forward to seeing him in it. Not that he didn’t fill out a pair of jeans quite well. But some men look amazingly good in casual and formal clothing. I was pretty sure Donovan would be one of those.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath as I missed the line of my bottom lid. I carefully wiped away the makeup and started again, beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get it done.
He had a scar on his back, above his hip. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. When I remembered the Purple Heart in his bedroom, it frightened me. What or who hurt him? And how close had he come to death? I overheard someone mention that he worked with explosives over there in Afghanistan. Had something gone wrong? Or had someone tried to stop him from making something go right?
I was afraid to know. That’s why I hadn’t asked.
How would I deal with the knowledge that I’d almost lost him before I finally understood that I needed him?
I drew down my bottom eyelid with a shaking finger and tried to draw the line again, but again I screwed it up.
“Damn it!” I cried, throwing the eyeliner pencil at the mirror.
A slight woman dressed in a dark suit suddenly appeared behind me. I jumped, swallowing a scream as I realized she was the female operative I’d seen at the Gray Wolf compound yesterday. She pointed to the pencil and then at herself.
She wanted to help.
I nodded and stepped aside as she reached for the pencil. She gently pushed on my shoulder, settling me on the edge of the counter at almost the same spot Donovan had…well, she settled me down and moved close enough that I could see the green specks in her blue eyes as she carefully fixed my makeup. Not only did she apply the eyeliner, but she adjust the shadow I’d put on my lids and chose a shade of lipstick that she carefully applied, making a pucker face my mom made when she taught me how to apply lipstick.
“Thank you.”
She inclined her head and smiled.
I turned and looked at myself in the mirror, more than satisfied with the image that looked back at me. I was wearing a simple black shift that I bought weeks ago that someone had thoughtfully gotten from my closet at home, my hair pulled back into a simple French knot that I’d perfected from watching YouTube videos when I joined the workforce. My makeup was simple but sophisticated, thanks to this small woman.
“Your name is Joss, right?”
She nodded.
“You don’t talk much.”
She shrugged as though to say there wasn’t much to say.
I studied her face for a minute, then nodded myself.
“You’ve probably got it right. It’s the rest of us who are still trying to figure it out.”
She gave me a thumbs-up with a sweet, crooked grin. Then she gestured toward the door.
Time to go.
They were all there in the living room. Ash in dark clothes not unlike Joss’. Kirkland in jeans and a dark leather jacket, that charming smile permanently affixed to his face. And Donovan.
Dapper was probably the word my father would have used for how Donovan looked. I would have said drop-dead sexy. The tux looked like it was made for him, the way it fit his broad shoulders and thick arms almost perfectly. The jacket accentuated those broad shoulders and still managed to emphasize his narrow hips. And the high collar was exactly Donovan’s personality. No tie, but formal enough to still look right.
“Hey,” he said softly, his eyes moving slowly over me. And when our eyes met, we were the only ones in the room for that brief second.
“Okay, soldiers, let’s go over this one more time,” Ash demanded.
I wanted to slap him. Or make him disappear.
“Joss will drive you to the hotel. You are not to make any detour, no stops anywhere but the hotel parking lot.”
Joss nodded.
“Then Kirkland and I will be stationed inside the ballroom. Joss will take up a position by the back door. And we’ll have a team scattered throughout the hotel.”
Ash focused on me then, holding up a smartphone. “This is connected directly to David’s program. If you find yourself in trouble for some reason and you cannot identify a member of our team, you push this button,” he said, brushing his thumb over the home button at the bottom of the phone. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He studied my face for a second, then handed me the phone. “Keep it on you at all times.”
“Wouldn’t think of putting it down.”
Ash stepped back and studied each of us, one at a time, his eyes lingering on Donovan.
“Let’s get to work. And don’t get dead.”
Donovan slid his hand into mine and led the way through the house to the side door. There was a stretch limousine half pulled into the small garage, a whole third of its butt sticking out the door. Joss nearly knocked us over, pushing past us so that she could open the door. She even found a chauffeur’s hat somewhere that she took off and waved with a flourish as she bowed.
“Thank you, my lady,” Donovan said in his most haughty tone of voice as he ushered me inside.
Joss smacked his ass with the hat as he went to slip inside. “Hey!”
She just shrugged, looking around as though trying to find the real culprit.
Donovan laughed.
She slammed the door behind him and climbed into the front, making a show of closing the partition between the two sections to give us privacy. Donovan slid his arm around me and tugged me into his arms, kissing me quite intensely. I pressed my hand against his jaw, sliding my fingers over the curve just below his ear to tug him closer.
“I’ve wanted to do that all day,” he said when he came up for air.
“Me, too.”
I moved closer to him, resting my head against his chest, loving the feel of his heart beating under my cheek.
“Can I ask you a question?”
He groaned, the vibration rushing through me. “Haven’t we covered this already? Joss is not my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend. I just let you think I did because I was trying to see how jealous you would get.”
“Nice to know,” I said. “But that’s not what I was going to ask.”
“Oh.”
“What’s the deal with Joss? Why doesn’t she talk?”
Donovan shifted, forcing me to sit up. He looked uncomfortable, like he didn’t really appreciate the turn in conversation.
“I’m just curious.”
“It’s really her story to tell.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not telling much of anything.”
He glanced at the partition, then he sighed.
“She had a family. She managed to do what the rest of us haven’t: find some normalcy outside the military. And from what Ash tells me, she was very happy. But then there was an accident…”
“Accidents seem to follow Ash and those close to him around.”
Donovan glanced at me, and I knew it was the wrong thing to say.
“Bad things happen sometimes, Kate. It doesn’t have anything to do with who you are or who you know.”
I sat up a little more and slid further over on the slick seat.
“You have nightmares. Ash and David lost their parents. Joss lost her family. What happened to Kirkland?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re all broken.”
He glanced at me. “Not broken, Kate. Just human.”
“Yes, well, the five of you seem to be more human than most.”
Chapter 18
Donovan
The ballroom of the Florence Inn Hotel was a literal Who’s Who of Hollywood with a few Silicon Valley refugees and politicians thrown in for good measure. And Kate seemed to be in her element.
She strutted right into that room, a smile glued to her lips and gree
tings flying as she moved from person to person. I felt like a puppy on a leash being dragged across the floor without any idea of what the hell was going on around me.
“Better watch out for this one,” David said in my ear through the Bluetooth bud I’d placed there as we got out of the car, “she’s ambitious.”
“Mind your business,” I muttered.
The Bluetooth was supposed to be a way for the team to stay connected, not be a gossip channel. We couldn’t let ourselves get distracted from our mission. Even if these people were as overstuffed as the couch in my parents’ den.
About two hours in, Kate grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the dance floor.
“I need a break,” she said with a tired sigh.
“And here I thought it was just you wanting to be in my arms.”
“There is that, too.”
I pulled her into my arms, cradling her against my chest as we began to sway across the floor to a song that wasn’t really intended to be a slow song. But I don’t think she minded, and I knew I didn’t.
“Kind of makes up for the fact that you chickened out of taking me to prom.”
“Chicken out?” I pushed her back slightly so I could see her face. “You were the one who was afraid your dad would have a stroke or something when he found out about us.”
“Yeah. He might still.” There was a twinkle in her eye that I knew. She was teasing me.
“Is there something for him to find out?”
She shrugged even as she rose up on her tiptoes to kiss my bottom lip gently.
“Let’s not get distracted,” Ash immediately said in my ear.
I grabbed her hand and twirled her away from me, causing the guy dancing with some tall, blond woman a few feet to our right to glare at me. I shrugged, pretending to be slightly inebriated by stumbling as I gathered Kate back against me. The guy turned away.
“We better behave,” I whispered against her ear.
“Katie? Kate Thompson?”
I turned, suddenly on alert, tugging Kate behind me. But then my eyes fell on a face I never thought I would see again.
Amanda Graham.
Her eyes widened when she recognized me at about the same moment I recognized her.
“Donovan Pritchard?”
“Hello, Amanda.”
She stared at me for a long moment, making me wonder what was going through her mind. The last time I’d seen her…well, it wasn’t a pleasant moment.
She’d come to the hospital with a group of kids from the graduation party who got word of what’d happened. She came into the emergency room just in time to watch them roll him out of the trauma room to rush him up to surgery. And the screams that issued from her lips…I’d had to grab her around her waist to keep her from following him onto the elevator.
But then Amanda smiled and reached up to kiss my cheek.
“It’s so lovely to see you. I heard you went into the military.”
“I did. I was given an honorable discharge two years ago.”
Amanda nodded, a smile on her lips that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You should have looked me up when you came back.”
“Do you live in the area?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been in San Francisco for several years now, working at Daddy’s tech company up there.”
“Really?”
“Computers were always my thing. You know that.”
I did know that. She and I had half a dozen classes together our senior year, including advanced computer programming. I was happy to hear she’d continued on with it. When I knew her last, she still hadn’t decided what she wanted to do with her life, just that she wanted to be with Joshua.
She and Joshua were closer than any couple I’d known in high school. It was as if they knew they were meant to be together from the first moment she walked into our sophomore English class, a transfer from some high school in Chicago when her father decided he wanted to move the headquarters of his massive conglomerate to the Santa Monica area. From that moment on I was a perpetual third wheel to their almost sickening romance.
“So you work for your dad?”
“I run the company. His name is just on the door.”
“That’s awesome, Amanda.”
She smiled as she tilted her head in acknowledgement. “I’ve actually been talking to Kate about doing business with her bank. We have quite a few telecommuters from this area, and it would be convenient to have a local bank we can work with them through.”
“We have,” Kate said.
Amanda shifted, hiding her face a little behind a curtain of her long, dark hair. There was something about the movement that bothered me. But then Kate stepped forward and kissed her bare cheek and they started talking about dividends and something I didn’t quite catch and I was suddenly lost.
I’d been very careful since coming to the Santa Monica area to join Gray Wolf to avoid people I knew from the past. But this was…not as bad as I’d thought it would be.
I guess it is true, what they say.
Time heals all wounds.
Chapter 19
At the Compound
“Mind your business,” David muttered under his breath as he watched Kate Thompson reach up and kiss Donovan. “Do they really think they’re fooling anyone?”
He’d seen a lot, sitting here watching the monitors day in and day out, but watching Donovan fall for his childhood sweetheart had to be the most interesting thing he’d seen in a while. Watching Kirkland charm his targets was one thing, but this…there was actually some plot to it. It was like the difference between a porn movie and a chic flick.
“Let’s not get distracted,” Ash’s voice announced.
David glanced at the monitor that showed his brother standing just inside the entrance of the ballroom. He didn’t get what was going on with him. Did he not want happiness for Donovan? The man survived an IED attack, for Christ’s sake! Why shouldn’t he find something beyond the drudgery of this job?
But again, Ash had been a different person since Alexi disappeared. It was as if something inside of him just evaporated. He left the Army and drifted for a long time, just moving from place to place with no real purpose. And then when Mom and Dad died a little over two years ago…David knew he came back for him. He hadn’t asked him to, but Ash never did anything anyone asked. Then he started this company and brought in all these buff military guys—it was almost a relief when he brought in petite little Joss until David saw what she could do…he would never mess with her!—and tried to build something like a family again. But David knew he hadn’t forgotten Alexi. He knew about the file in Ash’s desk.
David knew that if Alexi suddenly showed up on the front doorstep, something that was missing in Ash would come back. But David suspected that would never happen.
But why not allow Donovan a little happiness? Someone around here should have it.
David studied the screens arrayed around the back of his workstation, checking the camera feeds as well as the code he was constantly working on, constantly trying to improve the system that kept the operatives safe. He could clearly see all six subjects at the party. Ash was still near the door, Kirkland was flirting with a couple of women by the refreshment table, and Joss was playing dice with a couple of chauffeurs by the back door. Donovan and Kate were still in the middle of the dancefloor, but they were talking to a blond woman they both seemed to know.
David watched for a minute, wondering who the woman was. But then he was distracted by something else. He just wasn’t sure what it was.
There was something wrong with one of the pictures on his video feeds. He began pulling them up, one at a time. Something…something…and then he realized what it was.
He pulled up the camera feed from the safe house, then the one from Kate Thompson’s house. Looking at them side by side, it was so obvious. He should have caught it sooner.
Damn!
Someone hacked his cameras!
Those cameras were suppose
d to be hack proof, but he of all people knew that anything could be hacked given enough time and patience. Whoever had done this, they were smart. To hack them in such a small amount of time—they’d only been in Miss Thompson’s house for three days, only activated in the safe house for twenty-four hours. How the hell…it didn’t matter how.
“The safe house is compromised,” he said, pushing a button on his keyboard that allowed his voice to be heard by Ash only.
“What do you mean, compromised?”
“Someone hacked the cameras.” He continued to type on the keyboard as he spoke. “I’ve got a team headed over there to check it out.”
“How the hell did that happen?” Ash demanded of him.
David looked up at the monitor that showed Ash. He could tell, even from miles away and through slightly grainy video footage, that his brother was pissed. And he had right to be. This was David’s thing, and he’d clearly messed up.
“I don’t know. But I’ll find out.”
“You’d better.”
David cleared the monitors, focusing on the code that ran the cameras. It was easy to reverse what the hacker had done, but he had to go a step further, to block the hacker from coming back. It took him a few minutes to search for the backdoor the hacker would have left to make reentry easier. That’s what he would have done. And he found it just as the team he’d dispatched radioed in.
“We’re approaching the house.”
“Proceed with caution,” he told them.
He pulled up the video feeds that covered the outside of the safe house. He identified the dark shapes of the remote team making their way carefully through the front yard. And then the screen went white.
“Oh, fuck me!” David cried, shocked into inaction for a second.
“We’ve got a problem, Ash,” he said a moment later, his voice shaking as he watched one, then two, then three of the members of the remote team begin to reappear on the screen. “You’re not going to like it, but you’re going to have to send them to Austin.”
Chapter 20
DONOVAN: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) Page 12
