Falling For A Donovan (The Donovans Book 14)

by A. C. Arthur

  Dragging a hand down the back of his head, Dev took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “You will,” he replied. “She’ll be yelling at you about you being in the field with us in no time.”

  “Hmph. I hope so.”

  There were a few seconds of silence and Dev was about to get off the phone. He had enough information to give Bailey when she awoke. He did not have to stay on the phone with Trent when he knew he was being of absolutely no help to him at all.

  “How’s Bailey?” Trent asked.

  Dev almost cursed. He knew he should have ended the call sooner.

  “She got some rest,” he said even though he wasn’t sure how true that was since they’d spent a good portion of the night doing much more than sleeping.

  “It would be better if she went back to Houston. Uncle Al and Brandon can keep an eye on her there. You have the number for the jet. All you have to do is call them and put her on it. Then you can be on your way,” Trent said.

  The dismissive tone irritated Dev more than he expected. In the years since Trent had retired from their team, he’d been the one more often than not, asking Dev if he wanted to stay in Vegas longer. There were offers to spend more time with Trevor, to go on trips with Trent and his brothers and cousins. To do “normal” things as Trent used to tell him. It was good for a guy to get used to some normal to go along with all the strategic killing and fighting they’d been trained to do for so long. Trent had found the normal. Dev was happy for him. But Dev wasn’t Trent. He needed something different.

  “I had to change the locks and security codes on your house,” Dev replied. “I had York go in to get my tablet. I’ll arrange for the new codes and keys to be delivered to you at the hospital.”

  “I’m sick of this crazy ass woman,” Trent said through clenched teeth.

  “That makes two of us. So I plan on tracking her down and putting a stop to her madness.”

  “This is my fight,” Trent interjected.

  “Your fight is there, with your wife. Last night proved that you and Tia have too much to lose to be in the middle of this mess. This is what I do,” Dev told him. “So I’m going to do it.”

  “It’s my family,” Trent insisted.

  “It’s my friend,” Dev replied. “I don’t have many of those so I’d kind of like to keep the ones I do have.”

  “You have to understand why I don’t want you with her,” Trent said after waiting a beat.

  Dev shook his head.

  “I know who and what I am. I don’t need any reminders,” he replied and then added a quick line about keeping in touch before disconnecting the call.

  Dev had meant what he said, he didn’t need Trent’s comments on what his life was like. Nor did he need the reminders of his past. No matter how much time had passed Dev had never forgotten and from the text messages he was receiving and deleting, there was someone else out there that hadn’t forgotten either.

  “More food?” Bailey asked as she made her way into the living room just as there was a knock at the door.

  Dev jumped up from where he’d sat at the table during his call with Trent.

  “I’ll get it,” he said.

  It wasn’t room service, at least not at first. The delivery of Bailey’s clothes came first. Three black bags and a box with several smaller boxes inside. How long did they think she was staying here? Before Dev could close the door, the room service had arrived. Just as he had with the delivery guy, Dev took everything from this uniformed man with the tray. Bailey only wore the hotel robe. Dev knew there was nothing beneath it. The thought of another man being anywhere near her when she was naked had him thinking really violent thoughts. So for their safety it was best to keep them at a distance.

  “She sent you clothes too,” Bailey announced after he’d closed and locked the door.

  Dev was pushing the cart to the center of the living room when he looked over to where she stood near the couch. She’d put each of the bags on the couch and was going through one pulling things out and draping them over one arm.

  “Yeah, these jeans are clearly too big for me. And there are some t-shirts and other personal items in there too,” she said before placing the items on her arm back into the bag. “So this one is all yours.”

  She held it by the royal blue satin handles and extended her arm in his direction.

  “I didn’t ask anybody to send me anything and nobody knows my size,” he told her.

  The way she looked at him was sexier than any X-rated film Dev had ever seen. Her gaze had been slow, taking him in from his booted feet to the top of his clean shaved head.

  “Camille’s a designer and she’s known you for years now. I’m sure she’s good at guessing,” Bailey finally said. “Besides, as good as they still look on you, it makes sense that if I’m changing my clothes every day that you should too.”

  “We’re not on vacation,” he told her, but took the bag from her anyway.

  “No,” she said solemnly, without looking at him now. “We’re not.”

  Feeling like an idiot for obviously upsetting her, Dev decided to switch tactics with her the same way he’d tried to do with her cousin just a few minutes ago.

  “I put some feelers out to a few of my associates last night. This morning I got word that Dane didn’t have Jaydon transported to the same hospital as Tia. In fact,” he said, slower now because she’d turned her attention from the bag to him.

  “She’s not listed as a patient in any California hospital,” he continued.

  Bailey dropped the additional clothes she’d just picked up back into the bag. “How can that be?” she asked. “The medical transports were from San Bernardino County. I saw the insignia on the side of the medevac. Wouldn’t that mean they have to take the patient to a nearby hospital?”

  “Money rules the world,” he replied dryly. “Trent requested that Tia be taken to the Woodland Trauma Center because your uncle knows the Chief of Trauma there. I’m guessing Dane requested Jaydon be taken somewhere else.”

  “That would have still been in-state. There’s no way that medevac was prepared with enough fuel to go any further,” she told him.

  Dev agreed and that’s why he’d begun to make his own travel plans.

  “He took her back to New York,” he said. “They would have landed at a hospital, that’s what they’re bound by law to do. Dane could refuse treatment for her at any facility. He’s wealthy enough to have chartered his own plane to go wherever he wanted.”

  “Why would he do that? She’d lost a lot of blood by the time the paramedics arrived. I could see it on the floor when I walked out of the cabin. Not getting her to a hospital quickly could have led to her death.”

  The last was said quietly.

  “I know you knew her and that for a while you considered her family,” he said. “But she was undoubtedly working with them.”

  Bailey nodded her agreement, reaching a hand up to tuck curly strands of hair behind her ear. “We figured that out when Savian was accused of murdering that director and it turned out that Jaydon did it.”

  “And Dane picked her up from the scene of that crime.”

  She nodded. “So my cousin is a killer. That’s just great.”

  Dane was her cousin. Dev knew that was a fact but the family had only found that out for sure a few weeks ago. He hadn’t realized that the news meant they were actually claiming him.

  “Like I said, I think he’s gone back to New York,” he said.

  “Why New York? He has a house in San Francisco. Why not just go there?”

  “He was born in New York. So was Jaydon. Dane and Roslyn both have homes on the Upper East Side. He’ll go there,” Dev told her.

  “And then what? Tell Roslyn that Jaydon is dead? Or if she survived, keep her off the grid so we won’t press charges?”

  Dev didn’t think that was Dane’s plan, but it wasn’t necessary to tell Bailey that at the moment.

  She dropped onto the couch then, run
ning both hands through her hair now and shaking her head.

  “When is this going to end? What does she think doing all of this is going to prove? There’s nothing for her now. The secret is out,” she said before sighing heavily.

  There was another knock at the door and this time Dev knew exactly who and what it was that had arrived. He took the things from the clerk, gave the guy a tip and closed the door. Holding the large package in his hands he walked back to the living room where Bailey was sitting. There was a coffee table across from the couch. Dev sat there and put the package beside him.

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. Then he moved his arms, intending to reach for Bailey. To take her hands in his, to touch her while he promised to make this go away. The thought seemed too serious, too intimate, and he changed his mind. Instead he let his hands fall to his knees as he stared at her.

  “It ends now,” he told her. “I’m going to New York to see Dane and to force Roslyn out of hiding. Your family has been through enough and it’s time for it to stop.”

  She raised her brows at his words. A look of intrigue, Dev thought. Not one that said he was crazy or reckless for trying. “What are you going to do when you get there? Call Roslyn out on the street and tell her to stop it? Accuse Dane of things we don’t even know if he knew were going on in the first place? How does this stop?” she asked.

  “I know how to stop it,” he said simply because that was the only explanation he could give her at the moment.

  “You sound just like Trent,” she added and clasped her hands together in front of her. “Is that what they teach you in the Navy? Unshakable confidence and superiority?”

  Dev ignored the questions and the sarcasm. He was doing this for Trent. For Tia. And yes, for Bailey.

  “What’s that?” she asked and nodded toward the package he’d set beside him.

  Dev reached for it and ripped open the seal. He pulled out his tablet and set it on the table. Then he pulled out two cell phones. He extended one to her.

  “I want you to go with me,” he said.

  For a few very quiet moments, she only stared at him. He was just about to pull his arm back and figure out something to say to convince her that this too was what needed to be done, when she finally accepted the phone from him.

  She looked down at the plastic packaging, rubbing her fingers over the phone before lifting her head to look at him again. “When did you decide all of this? How did you get this stuff so fast?” she asked.

  “Last…earlier this morning,” he replied. “I made some calls.”

  It had been a purely selfish move at first. Being inside her again after the fear of her being missing and possibly dead these past few weeks had Dev’s mind whirling with different scenarios. None of which he totally understood, and some he definitely wasn’t willing to let happen. So he’d sent York a text message, adding the burner phones and plane tickets to New York to the things he needed sent to him. He’d joined her in bed once more after that and then she’d climbed on top of him for round two. After very minimal sleep Dev had pulled himself out of that bed and headed for a shower to try and clear her from his mind. But that second text message had been on his phone by then. The one that confirmed for Dev what he’d already been thinking—that he was being watched.

  Now, having Bailey with him was a safety issue. He definitely had no intention of letting her out of his sight just in case whoever it was that felt the need to reach out to him now, got crazy and went after her. True, he didn’t know who was sending the texts and right now he didn’t have time to figure it out. He also didn’t have time to wonder about where Bailey was and if she was safe. If she was with him, nobody—not her crazy new family member or some lunatic from Dev’s past—was going to get to her.

  “And you just presumed I’d jump on board?” she asked. “Does everybody always do what you say?”

  “No,” Dev answered immediately. Not unless he held a gun to their head or broke a leg or something else along those lines.

  “But you expect me to?”

  “I think you want to help end this for your family. I’m giving you the opportunity to do that,” he replied.

  If she refused, Dev was certain he would graduate to the kidnapping business. Leaving Bailey behind was not an option.

  She looked down at the phone again before finally ripping the plastic off. “When do we leave?”

  Chapter 5

  “Where are you?” Brandon asked her for the third time since the beginning of the phone conversation.

  Bailey lowered her head, knowing her brother couldn’t see her, but still feeling the way she would have if she were about to lie to his face.

  “I’m at the airport,” she said, giving herself a small pat on the back for that piece of honesty.

  “How’s Amber?”

  Bailey knew the question was just a temporary reprieve. Brandon wanted to know where she was. He actually wanted her to be in Houston with him and her father. To be fair, he would have been fine if she were on her way to St. Michael’s to stay with Brock and Noelle. But Brandon was definitely not going to be pleased to hear that she was with Devlin and they were going to approach Dane about his mother. No, Bailey was certain that wasn’t going to go over well with anyone in her family. That’s why Devlin told her not to tell them.

  “She’s not liking the bed rest order, I can tell you that,” Brandon replied.

  “I don’t blame her,” Bailey continued. “How long does she have to stay in bed? How’s the baby?”

  “When she went to the doctor last week they said the baby’s heartbeat was strong and after he took some measurements and did a little more poking, the doctor said the growth was good.”

  “So what’s the problem now?”

  He was quiet for a second, then answered, “While you were…um, away…they noticed that her cervix was already beginning to thin. It does that in preparation for delivery and because we’re nowhere near time for her to deliver, that wasn’t a good thing. They performed a procedure to hopefully stop any further progress. But that coupled with the blood pressure scare a few weeks ago, had her doctor deciding that it was best to keep her on bed rest. He actually wanted her to stay in the hospital but I convinced him that her blood pressure would definitely rise if Amber were forced to stay in the hospital until it was time to have this baby.”

  Bailey closed her eyes and bit back a curse. Brandon sounded stressed and why wouldn’t he be. This was his first baby. To top that off, her father wasn’t one hundred percent better after his heart attack. She should be there with them. But she couldn’t be.

  “The two of you just have to think about the baby. Healthy is what we’re striving for, so if things have to be a little tough for now, the outcome will be worth it,” she said thinking those words actually applied to her situation too.

  “Yeah, she’s twenty-one weeks now. They’re hoping to get her to thirty weeks, thirty-four would be even better. So as long as she stays in bed, keeps the stress down and eats the right things, her blood pressure should remain stable and there should be no more pre-labor issues.”

  Bailey was nodding as her hand tightened on the phone. “She can do it. Together you two can get through this.”

  Brandon sighed. “For a minute there I wasn’t as sure as you sound, Bailey.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “When we didn’t know where you were or if you were…it was hard on all of us.”

  “I know and I’m so sorry about that,” she told him. “But I’m fine. Really, I am, so you can stop worrying about me. Tell Amber I said she shouldn’t worry anymore either.”

  “So you’re going back to Connecticut? Sam said you could stay with him and Karena,” he told her, his tone hopeful.

  Bailey massaged her temple with her free hand. “No. I’m not going to inconvenience anyone. Look, Brandon, I told you I’m okay. There’s no need for you or dad or anyone to worry about me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,”
he snapped. “You know we’re going to worry. The way to fix that is to come here to Houston with us or go to St. Michael’s with Brock. If one of us can’t lay eyes on you every day we’re going to worry. That’s just where we are now.”

  She knew that and could admit to herself that she felt the same way about them and about all of her family. That’s what this all had come down to, fear.

  “They’re calling my flight,” she said hastily. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Where are you going, Bailey? Why haven’t you answered me?” Brandon asked.

  “Just listen to me…I have to go,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll make sure to talk to you every day Brandon, because I need to hear your voice to know that you are safe too. So I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you.”

  Bailey hung up without waiting for her brother’s response. If he’d been about to press her further, or declare that he loved her too, she hadn’t heard him. She hadn’t thought she could bear hearing him.

  “You okay?” Devlin asked when she walked back to the row of chairs where he’d sat with their bags.

  She managed a nod and then took the seat beside him. She crossed her legs and shifted her body away from him because Bailey wasn’t totally certain that tears weren’t going to flow. To further counter that, she pulled the sunglasses Devlin had purchased for her at one of the shops in the airport from the front pocket of her denim jacket. When they were comfortably fashioned on her face, Bailey stared forward, praying that she was doing the right thing this time. Everything she cared about in this world was riding on this being a success.

  How she and Devlin were going to do what Trent and his highly trained team hadn’t been able to pull off in the last year, she had no idea. All Bailey knew was that they had to take this chance. Her niece or nephew’s life depended on them this time. Regan’s son Raleigh, Lyra’s daughter Ilyssa, Keysa’s unborn child and all the other nieces and nephews in the family were depending on the adults to get it right this time.

  The children, that’s who were on her mind. Before the kidnapping they’d been on Bailey’s mind a lot, especially since for the first time in years she was sexually active. She’d been on birth control even during the time she wasn’t sleeping with anyone, but had been especially glad for that fact when she and Devlin had first, spontaneously, had sex. Each month she’d renewed her prescriptions and continued to take a pill each day. Except for the last couple of weeks, she thought with a start. Luckily Devlin was adamant about using condoms. Having a child with him would have been…