Perfect.
He swung toward the SUV and caught sight of Jordynn’s pinched expression. Even from where he stood, he could see the conflicting emotions run across her pretty face, and he understood. She’d been ready to pummel the man with a club a few minutes earlier. Now she felt guilty about leaving him behind. To her, the world was still black-and-white. Good versus bad.
But Donovan was well acquainted with the gray.
Too well acquainted, he acknowledged.
With a frustrated sigh, he made his way back to the vehicle, let himself in, then turned over the engine and guided them out of the parking lot wordlessly.
Jordynn, though, wasn’t interested in silence, and just as Donovan thought, her mind was on the well-being of the man who he’d just dumped in a ditch.
“Will he be okay?” she asked.
“He’ll wake up with a bad headache,” Donovan replied through clenched teeth. “Just in time to find out that his friends are searching for him.”
“What if they don’t come? Or someone else finds him first and calls the police?”
“The former is unlikely. Reliable, loyal gunmen are hard to find. And the latter...well. That won’t be our problem. He’s sure as hell not going to tell anything to the cops.”
“Not even if he paints himself as the victim?”
There was the little rub. “You think he could play that role convincingly?”
“We did hurt him.”
“Self-defense. Unequivocally.”
“We jumped him in a parking lot. I hit him with a tree branch.”
“Jordynn...the man had a gun and would’ve been more than happy to use it. He stuffed you in a trunk earlier. So I don’t think we’d have a problem convincing the police we were in the right.”
“No. I mean. It’s not that hitting him was a problem.”
“What, then?”
He sensed a brief hesitation before her next question, which came out in a rush. “Have you ever killed someone, Dono?”
He had to work at not being offended. “No.”
“Not by accident? Or in self-defense?”
“What the—No. I’ve never killed anyone. Period.”
“What if I did?”
He whipped his head toward her and for a second lost his grip on the steering wheel. “What?”
She appeared unfazed by the way the car careened sideways before Donovan regained control. “What if I accidentally killed someone? Or did it in self-defense?”
“Why the hell would that happen?”
“Because we’re being chased by men who want to kill us. And I don’t want to die. I don’t want you to die. So. Can you teach me?”
“Teach you what?”
“To hit like you do?”
He almost laughed—but a quick glance at her face told him she was utterly serious. “I’d rather not.”
“You said it could save your life.”
“And it could.”
“What if my life needs to be saved?”
“You have me.”
He saw the way her eyes clouded, and he knew she had to be wondering if she could truly count on him. His chest squeezed. But then she spoke, and Donovan realized that his assumption about her feelings was way off.
“It’s not that I think I’m totally defenseless,” she said. “But I can’t be helpful, either.”
Donovan felt his jaw twitch with a surprised laugh, and he forced it down. “You can’t be...helpful?”
Seeming not to notice his amusement, she issued a single nod. “You can’t be with me every second of every day.”
“I can try.”
“Realistically.”
“I can realistically try.”
She went silent for a long minute, staring out the windshield pensively, then finally said, “I might’ve killed Denny, back there. Not because I wanted to, but because I thought hitting him in the head would stop him. Who knows if he would’ve lived or not?”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen,” Donovan replied.
“That’s exactly my point. I want to be the one to stop it from happening.”
He tapped his fingers on the wheel, unable to think of a truly good reason to argue against teaching her a bit of self-defense. Aside from his own need to guard her like a porcelain doll. Which she clearly wasn’t.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll give you a few pointers on how not to kill a man accidentally.”
“Thank you.”
Another quick look told Donovan his agreement had made her happy. As she leaned sideways and pressed her cheek to the passenger-side window, a little curve turned up lips, and her blue eyes nearly sparkled. Damn, how he liked making her smile. Liked doing anything that would elicit a bit of joy. For a second, it was almost enough to make him forget the dark reason for her pleased expression.
Then the SUV jostled him, and the gun he’d snapped up from the ground dug into his side, reminding him all too well that there was nothing enjoyable about being the reason a woman needed to learn to protect herself.
He tossed her another glance. She’d rested her head on the window and closed her eyes, but the tension in her forehead was back already.
Damn.
Donovan opened his mouth, then closed it without saying a word. He brought his attention to the road and tried desperately to find a way to make it so she’d never have to think about throwing a knockout punch ever again.
Chapter 8
The sound of water hitting glass dragged Jordynn back into consciousness.
Rain, she thought, and it made her reluctant to open her eyes.
She tucked her chin into the blanket and sighed, trying to hold on to the crazy dream she’d been so immersed in. She was with Dono. They were being chased. He was driving, and the car was full of his alluring scent, the one that made her want to—She sat bolt upright, cutting her thoughts off.
“Not a dream,” she said.
And though Dono’s scent definitely still filled her senses, she also definitely wasn’t in the car anymore. She blinked, trying to clear away the sleep that crowded her brain.
She was in a bedroom she didn’t recognize, bundled in a cushy duvet that was crisp enough to feel brand-new, and seated on a firm, king-size bed.
She fought to recall how she got there, but her mind refused to cooperate.
“Dono?” she called softly.
He didn’t answer, and a quick survey of the room told her he definitely wasn’t in it. The decor was bare-bones—a simple nightstand and a single dresser, with no sign of any personal items.
Strange.
Where was she? A friend of Dono’s? She couldn’t imagine that he’d held on to any in Ellisberg. So what did that mean? Breaking and entering?
Jordynn swung her legs sideways, pressing her bare feet to the cool ground.
Bare feet?
She glanced down and saw that yes, her feet had been stripped of their shoes and socks. She wriggled her toes, then stood and stretched, and realized she could still hear the slap of water on glass. But when her eyes drifted to the window, she couldn’t see any evidence of rain. The sky was dim. But clear. How long had she been asleep?
“Dono?” she called again, this time a little louder.
Still no answer. So she moved across the room to flick on the light. Then paused, her hand halfway to the switch, as her eyes landed on a slightly ajar door on the other side of the room. The rainy sound was coming from inside. And then Jordynn recognized it for what it actually was.
A shower.
She abandoned the light switch in favor of the bathroom. She placed her hand on the door, and pushed, telling herself she just wanted to make sure it was him.
“Dono?” she said a third tim
e. “Is that—”
Her words dried up in her throat. Because it was him. One hand lifted high, clinging to the showerhead, the other pressed sideways against the marble wall as the water beat down on his body. And he was breathlessly perfect. Hard, and wide, and marked with evidence of suffering in the form of scars. Ten years ago, Dono had been leanly muscular, his frame attractive, and not boyish, but not like...this.
Jordynn swallowed. She couldn’t tear her eyes away, even though she knew she ought to.
Helpless to stop herself, she traced the line of him. Strong, solid-looking feet. Defined calves. Thighs made for running. A rock-hard rear end that led up to a well-cut back, then a set of shoulders that spanned the shower stall.
And as Jordynn stood there staring, he shut off the water, then turned slowly. Like he could feel her eyes on him. And in spite of the way her face burned with the embarrassment of being caught, she still couldn’t stop.
His strong jaw, peppered now with day-old stubble.
His Adam’s apple. Moving up. Then down.
His chest.
His pectoral muscle, his abs, his—
Jordynn drew in a sharp breath.
A red slash, just below Dono’s rib cage, glared angrily up at her. He followed her gaze, lifting his hand to cover the cut for a second before he swung open the glass door and snapped up a towel from the rack.
“You okay?” he asked as he wrapped himself up.
“I’m fine,” Jordynn said. “But you’re hurt.”
“It’s not bad.”
“It’s not good. Let me look.”
She pulled him from the bathroom into the bedroom, turning on the light as she moved past it, then positioned Dono beside the bed and sank down to the mattress so she was at eye level with the wound.
“When did it happen?” he asked.
“Sometime between punching the Nose and...well, punching the Nose.”
Jordynn looked up sharply. “You had this the whole time?”
“Most of the whole time.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I’m not sure we actually had a good moment for me to bust in with, ‘Hey, honey? You remember the Nose? Yeah? Well. He poked me a little with his small knife. And no, I’m not sure whether or not that’s a direct parallel for the rest of him.’”
She covered her sharp inhale under the guise of leaning in more closely. “Not funny.”
“You sure about that?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I am sure.” She gently probed the edges of the cut with her fingers. “Does this hurt?”
His abdominal muscles tightened under her touch. “No.”
“Lying about it won’t help.”
Dono sighed. “It stings. A bit.”
She leaned closer. The edges of the cut were a little jagged, but it wasn’t deep. She leaned back and let out a relieved breath.
“I think you got lucky,” she said. “But even if it doesn’t need stitches, it should still be disinfected. We should grab some alcohol wipes and some bandages.”
“Gonna be hard-pressed to find either of those in here.”
She frowned, remembering that she had no clue where “here” was. “What do you mean?”
He eased down to the bed. “Shove over.”
She did, and Dono lifted his thickly muscular legs onto the bed, then laid his head back on the headboard. The towel slid sideways, exposing a significant amount of thigh.
Jordynn fought to keep from jumping up and drawing attention to the fact that she’d even noticed, and forced her eyes to stay on his face as he explained.
“A first aid kit probably isn’t on the list of the recommended decorations in a show home.”
“A show home?” It explained the lack of personality, anyway.
Dono nodded. “One of the final ones in Glenn Ridge. Marble tubs and heated floors and no Band-Aids. When I commit a B and E, I do it with style.”
“Seriously. You’re not funny.”
He grinned. “I’m a little bit funny.”
She shook her head, her eyes drifting to his torso and the wound. “Would you think it was funny if the roles were reversed? If I got stabbed trying to save you?”
His smile fell away. “No.”
“So stop making jokes. You’re hurt, and it’s because of me.”
She tried to stand, but Dono sat up quickly, one of his rough hands landing on the inside of her elbow and pulling her back down. Then both his palms came up to cup her face.
“Honey, I’m not hurt because of you,” he said. “I’m hurt because of what that son of a you-know-what, Ivan, did ten years ago. I’m hurt because of how I dealt with things when I was nineteen years old and too stupid to think of a better way.”
“But you did those things because of me,” Jordynn pointed out, her voice small.
“You’re wrong about that, too. I did it because of me. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.” He ran his thumb over her cheekbone, then dropped his hands to his lap. “I put you through hell so I could know you’d keep living. And I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I’d take a thousand jabs of the Nose’s knife as punishment if I could.”
She could hear the fierce honesty in his words, and it scared her. “Promise me you won’t.”
“I won’t lie to you.”
She reached for his hands, grasped them both and pulled them to her heart. “I don’t want you to lie. I want you to promise and mean it. You can’t let yourself get hurt because you think you deserve it. You don’t deserve it.”
He stared back at her, his eyes burning with a desire to trust her words. But tinged with self-doubt, too. And suddenly she wanted to hear it all. She wanted to know what he’d experienced so she could try to understand what made him choose the path he did, even though it had clearly scarred him. Continued to scar him.
“Tell me,” Jordynn said softly.
“Tell you?”
“The rest of the story. About what happened when you found Ivan at your dad’s house.”
“You don’t want to hear it, honey.”
“I don’t want to hear it? Or you don’t want to tell me?”
Then he took a breath. He nodded. And he started to talk.
* * *
“I came downstairs that afternoon, knowing my dad had worked the overnight shift the day before. He was pretty big on routine, so I expected to find him at the table with his coffee and his paper. Decaf, always. And the comics before the news,” Donovan said, trying to sound lighter than he felt. “And he was there.”
“But not alone,” Jordynn filled in.
“No. And I was speechless. My dad served lunch. He poured the other man coffee, and introduced him as Ivan Lightfoot. A rep for a real estate development company.”
As he spoke, he closed his eyes. He couldn’t help but acknowledge that Jordynn was right. He would rather have discussed about almost anything else. His father’s death. The first hungry days he spent in the street. Even the ache he’d felt when he was sure he’d never see her again. Recalling the past aloud gave it a power he didn’t want it to have. It turned him into his young, scared self. A man he’d rather not go back to being. After all, that younger version of himself was the one who’d left her behind. The one who hadn’t been able to find another way out.
God, how he hated that he’d had to do it.
Jordynn squeezed his hand then, and he opened his eyes again. He reached out and dragged her close, and thankfully, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she just settled comfortingly against his chest.
“Was it Fryer?” she asked. “The development company Ivan was representing?”
“No. He said he was from the Haven Corporation. The one you said built everything around here.”
“Including this community we’re in now,” she pointed out.
“Yep. Glenn Ridge. Four Tops. That big apartment building where the ball field used to be... I’m pretty sure they wanted the mountainside, too. A project that would bring in millions—a lot of millions—and take ten years to complete.”
He heard her draw in a sharp breath. “So the building started the year you left.”
“That’s right.”
“But Haven didn’t get the mountainside. Fryer won the bid.” She tipped her head to look up at him. “Is that why the sign back there bothered you?”
“Could be,” he agreed, thinking about it.
Why had Haven let Greyside go? Who were Fryer Developments? Were they involved, or was it just a coincidence?
Donovan shook his head to clear it, and went on. “But of course... I didn’t know anything about the developments while I sat and ate with my dad and Ivan. It was surreal. Ivan gave no sign that he knew me, and my dad sure as hell had no clue what I’d seen the guy do in the woods. Dad was excited, because the Haven Corporation had picked him to show their spokesman—Ivan, who said he was their head of security—around Ellisberg. They wanted someone who’d been born and raised here to lead the so-called tour. Someone who was in a position of authority, but who was also a familiar face to the locals. He was so damned pleased about it.”
Jordynn pulled away, then repositioned herself so she was facing him. “You decided not to tell him because of that?”
Donovan shook his head. “No. I mean, I knew Dad wouldn’t be pleased to hear me accusing his new friend of being a killer. You know how much friction there was between us after my mom died. I never seemed to be able to please him. And it wasn’t like I could just blurt it out while the guy was sitting there, stuffing his face with my favorite casserole. But you remember my dad...”
“Cop first, dad second, everything else last.”
“Exactly.” He offered her a small smile. “Not always my favorite priority list, but true nonetheless.”
“And you knew it meant he’d want to hear the truth.”
“I had to wait for Ivan to leave before I said anything, and I could barely choke down the food with Ivan there anyway, so I excused myself as quickly as I could get away with. But before I could even get through my bedroom door, someone jammed a gag into my mouth and tossed a hood over my head.” He paused. “Sound familiar?”
Last Chance Hero Page 10
