DAVID: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security)

by Glenna Sinclair

  I closed my eyes briefly, the memory of it almost too clear to bear.

  “My father insisted we wait around for everyone else to leave. At some point, my mother snuck into the bedroom and I followed. We rested on the bed, side by side, and talked about the future. She was nervous about being the wife of a congressman. And I was nervous about all the elaborate wedding plans my fiancée was making. We tried to reassure each other, but I think everything we had to say to each other just made us more nervous.

  “And then my father came into the room and announced that everyone had gone and we could go home.”

  “You’re exhausted,” Mother said, as she went to him, her hand on the small of his back to try to keep him steady. “We should sleep here tonight and go home in the morning.”

  “It is morning,” Father said. “And I want to be in my own home, sitting on my own porch, when the sun comes up.”

  “It’s supposed to be twenty degrees in the morning, Father,” I said from the bed. “You’ll freeze to death.”

  “What a good way to die!”

  “Was it his car?”

  I nodded. “I’d driven it before. It was an older model Mercedes, one he’d had since I was sixteen or seventeen. I remember taking it to a school dance once not long after he bought it.”

  “So you were familiar with it.”

  “It wasn’t the car.”

  I touched her breast again, some unreasonable part of me hoping she’d be more interested in my touch than the story. But she just brushed my hand away and rested her head on my chest.

  I sighed.

  “The hotel was about ten to fifteen miles from the house. I was tired, but I felt all right to drive. Mother was exhausted, so she climbed into the back seat and drifted off to sleep before we’d gone very far. Father, though, he was so drunk that he was talking non-stop. He wanted to know my opinion on everything, wanted to discuss some of the most obscure things. He brought up an argument we had when I was fifteen. Something about a train set I used to have in the basement of the house, but he tore it out because he thought I didn’t play with it anymore. I remembered being angry with him, but not much more. But he remembered the argument we had…almost word for word.”

  “Parents are like that. Good parents, anyway.”

  I kissed the top of her head. “I suppose so.”

  I threw an arm over my eyes, blocking out the light, blocking out the sight of her beautiful body. I’d told this story a dozen times over, mostly to Ash in the hospital, to my girl, to Donovan and Kirkland once. But I’d never told anyone what I was about to say next.

  “We were nearly to the house. There’s this long curve that winds around this small pond about three miles from the house. We were approaching the curve, and we hit a piece of black ice. The car skidded, but I was able to pull it out, but then my father announced that I was doing it wrong.”

  “Turn into a skid, Davey,” he cried, reaching for the steering wheel.

  “I’m driving.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been driving much longer than you have. Turn into it.”

  “He grabbed the wheel. I knocked his hand away, but in the process I overcorrected and we hit another patch of ice. The skid was too much this time. By the time I reacted, the car was off the pavement and we were rolling. And my father…”

  I could see it so clearly that my stomach threatened to turn on me. I bit hard on my bottom lip, hard enough to taste blood.

  “David,” Ricki said softly, her fingers on my chin, “you’re bleeding.”

  I brushed her hand away, as I opened my eyes and focused on her. The nausea dissipated a little, making it possible for me to take a breath without feeling as if I was going to lose my lunch on her lovely wood floors.

  “He didn’t have his seatbelt on. I don’t know when he took it off. And the airbags did nothing to help him. I think maybe the front one might have actually done more damage than it prevented.” I shuddered. I could see him, bloody and broken, flopping around the car as we rolled down the steep embankment. And my mother, screaming. And then the silence.”

  Ricki touched my face, her thumbs brushing the blood from my bottom lip.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “How can you say that? Knowing all that—?”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Your father was a grown man who made his own choices.”

  “He grabbed the wheel. I should have stopped him. I should have done something, made sure he had his seatbelt on, made sure he stayed in his own seat. I was getting annoyed…” I shook my head, not even aware of the tears running down my face as I spoke. “I saw him put the seatbelt on before we left the hotel parking garage. I heard it click. I don’t know when he took it off because I didn’t bother to look.”

  “You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”

  “But if I’d simply looked at him—”

  “David.” She said my name so sternly that I had to look at her, I had to focus on her. And when I did, I could see the pain in her eyes. Pain she felt for me, for the man I was that night. It wasn’t pity; it was pain. She was hurting for me, just as I hurt for her when I read those police records from her dark childhood.

  “David, it wasn’t your fault.”

  And suddenly it was as if a weight had been lifted. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into my arms, sobbing against the top of her head in a way I’d never done before. I hadn’t cried for my parents. I read about their funerals and saw the video Ash made sure was taken for my benefit. I watched all the news reports and read all the condolence cards my father’s friends and supporters had sent. But I never cried. Not until now.

  Ricki pulled away, but only to gather me into her arms and cradle me like a child. We lay there for hours, even after the tears had exhausted themselves. I just wanted to feel her close to me; I wanted to know someone who knew, someone who understood, was there for me.

  “You should tell Ash,” she said after a while.

  I knew she was right, but I knew it would be a long time before I was ready.

  It was late when we lay back against the pillow and thought about sleep. I stared out the one window at the back of her room and watched the stars twinkle high overhead. They looked so different here than they did back in Texas.

  “I want to go back,” I said softly.

  “Back to the compound?”

  “No. To Austin. I haven’t been there since it happened.”

  “Then we’ll go.”

  I slid my fingers through hers and squeezed lightly.

  “Ash is throwing a birthday party for Joss this weekend. Would you be interested in attending with me?”

  She sighed a happy little sigh. “Yeah,” she whispered against my shoulder. “I would.”

  I smiled.

  It was time to get on with life. This seemed like a good step in the right direction.

  Chapter 18

  At the Compound

  Ash was up late, reading emails on his laptop in his bedroom. He was sitting with his feet propped up on a coffee table, reclining on the wide, overstuffed couch that he bought on a whim that he never regretted. The second floor of the house was divided into four rooms, the master suite the largest and most comfortably furnished. The sitting area of the large room was arranged beside wide, tall windows that looked out onto the many acres that extended out behind the main house. From here he could see Kirkland and Donovan’s cottages, as well as the forest of wild trees that some developer had been about to cut down when he bought the property out from under him. The scene from these windows reminded him of the house he had outside of Austin. The entire house reminded him of that property because it was designed to.

  He bought the property in Austin after his first deployment with the Green Berets. He wanted a place he could go to blow off steam, do a little hunting, a little hiking. A place where he could be the Texas boy he’d been born and raised to be. He’d never intended to share that place with anyone, but when he met Alexi, he kn
ew the moment he saw her face that he was going to share many, many things with her. They spent more than one weekend at that property. Now he couldn’t go there without being haunted by his memories of her.

  He got an email last month, an old military buddy who thought he’d seen Alexi in Maine. He was thinking about heading out there, but he wanted to make sure David was squared away first. He didn’t understand David’s attitude lately, but when he called the taxi company and learned that David had taken a cab to Ricki’s place of business, he was pretty sure he had a better understanding of the situation. If David and Ricki—

  He didn’t want to get his hopes up. He’d pushed and argued and encouraged David for two years. He was afraid to hope too much now.

  Ash pushed the laptop off his legs and sat up, stretching. He should really think about catching some zzzz’s. It’d been a long couple of weeks. Hell, it’d been a long couple of months. When Donovan was shot last January, he’d been convinced he was going to lose one of his best friends. Not just one of his best friends…Donovan was his best friend. It would have been a pretty terrible blow. He was relieved the guy made it through. Happy for him. Donovan had found the answer to his nightmares, found a way to get back to a normal way of life. Ash wished him well. Him and Kate.

  If only the rest of them could find a little happiness.

  He got up and headed for the bathroom, intent on going about his nighttime routine. But his cell phone buzzed.

  Speak of the devil.

  Ash took the steps two at a time, a little surprised to find Donovan working at David’s desk.

  “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to show you something. I thought it might be important.”

  “Is this about the Ricki Dennison thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  Donovan tapped his finger against the center monitor within the bank of monitors anchored to the front of the wide workstation. It was a series of tweets from different users that had a hashtag that mentioned Friend or Foe Corporation.

  “Dennison buying up employee stock,” one said.

  “#FriendorFoe doesn’t just take benefits, they buy them back,” said another.

  “Beware the fox in CEO clothing,” said another.

  “What does that mean?” Ash asked Donovan.

  “I’ve heard rumors that Ms. Dennison is buying back stock from employees who earned it through the employee compensation package that she recently took away.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Donovan shrugged. “Because she knows something about the company that no one else does?”

  “But that would be insider trading.”

  “She wouldn’t be the first CEO to do it.”

  “It just seems like adding insult to injury. Why not let the employees keep the stock?”

  Donovan shook his head. “I heard a rumor that she plans on launching a new website soon. One of the guys whose been in the IT department since the company began seems to think Ricki has something new up her sleeve and she’s trying to keep it all to herself.” Donovan sat back and looked at me. “He says it wouldn’t be the first time. Seems Ms. Dennison had a partner when she began Friend or Foe and that she cut that person out of everything when the first website, Friend or Foe, went public.”

  “Do you know who that partner was? Might be someone on our list of suspects.”

  “No. But it probably wouldn’t be hard to figure it out. Doesn’t David have a list of her known associates from back before she launched the website?”

  “Yeah, but David might be compromised.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I think he’s sleeping with her.”

  Donovan’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t ask. He just sat up and ran his fingers through his hair, an exhausted sigh slipping out.

  “Well, other than these rumors, I haven’t been able to find anyone who hates her enough to break into the servers. A few people who’d like to tell her a few things and others who are thinking seriously about new jobs. But no one who wants to hurt her.”

  “Okay. We’ll probably wrap this up at the end of the week then.”

  Donovan nodded. “Then I should head out. I have to be at work at nine.”

  Ash patted his shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

  “No problem.” Donovan stood, but he hesitated just a moment. “Maybe it’s a good thing,” he said, turning back to Ash. “Maybe it’ll inspire him to do the surgery.”

  Ash nodded. “Maybe.”

  All he could do was hope.

  Chapter 19

  Ricki

  I was nervous. I held the bottle of wine tight between my breasts as I walked around the building, following the path the security guard had pointed out. I could hear voices, some raised in laughter, and music floating on the air. It sounded like quite a party. Judging by the number of cars parked in the front, there were more than a hundred people here. I hadn’t realized David’s silent coworker was quite so popular—not that I knew her. We’d just talked about her often enough that I felt like I did. But, again, Gray Wolf Security had done a lot of great things for a lot of powerful people in Santa Monica and Los Angeles.

  I stepped around the side of the building and found myself on the edge of controlled chaos. There was a long deck that came off the back of the house that sloped down into a well-sculpted garden. People were milling around both the deck and the garden, many with wine glasses in hand, the majority of people standing around the smoking barbecue pit that was sitting at the back edge of the garden.

  I recognized Ash and Donovan standing together at the barbecue pit, funny aprons around their necks and huge spatulas in their hands. They were joking with each other, likely competing over who was the better barbecue master. A slight, blond woman was standing near them, watching with acute interest, a small iPad in her hands that she held up to them from time to time. Must be Joss. I recognized many faces in the crowd, more than I’d expected to, not the least of which was the Santa Monica Police Chief, Jack Warren.

  But I didn’t see David.

  “Are you with the bride or the groom?”

  I turned, surprised as much by the soft voice as by the question asked.

  “I…uh…”

  The woman, petite with auburn hair, smiled.

  “Sorry, bad joke,” she said. She held out a delicate hand. “I’m Kate Thompson.”

  “Donovan’s girlfriend.”

  Her smile widened, as she squeezed and then released my hand. “Yes. How’d you know that?”

  “I’m David’s…” I didn’t know how to address myself. So I finished with a lame, “…friend.”

  “Oh, of course. You’re Ricki Dennison. Donovan’s been working at your company these last few weeks.”

  “He has. And I’m sure he’s glad the assignment is over.”

  “He might be, but I’d rather he stuck with it for a while. Telling secretaries to restart their computers is a lot safer than keeping crazed killers from shooting their bosses.”

  “True.”

  She seemed to look me over, as if she was trying to associate things she’d heard about me with the real thing. “I guess you’re wondering where David is,” she said finally.

  “I am.”

  She gestured toward the back deck. “Last I saw him, he was helping Rose organize the side dishes up on the deck.”

  “Thank you.”

  I headed off, brushing past laughing couples and exhausted parents, trying not to get in the middle of photo opportunities. David, I finally discovered, was just inside the main house, trying to balance a huge bowl of potato salad on his lap. I snatched it up just before it went sliding forward to become smashed into the laminate flooring.

  “Thanks.”

  “Look at you, always trying to take on more than you can handle.”

  “Well, you know, all this testosterone…”

  I just shook my head as I bent down for a kiss. David tugged me close when I tried to pull away and deepened the kiss
.

  “You are a dirty boy,” I said.

  “You didn’t come over last night.”

  “I had a late meeting, but I’m here now.”

  “You are.”

  He studied me for a minute, his eyes lingering on the low cut of my jeans. I just shook my head and walked away, pretending to be annoyed by his attention but honestly loving every bit of it. The way he looked at me had the power to send me flying higher than the space shuttle.

  We stepped out on the back deck and a flustered woman—must be Rose—gestured for me to set the bowl in the center of a long table, almost like a centerpiece.

  “They always take on so much more than they can handle,” she moaned to no one in particular.

  “Relax, Rose,” David said. “It’s a party.”

  I held up the bottle of wine I still somehow managed to carry. “Where should I put this?”

  Rose gestured toward a huge tub full of ice. “That’s as good as anywhere.”

  I walked over and peeked, surprised to find everything from water to soda to expensive bottles of wine all floating in the ice together. I pushed my bottle into a corner, half hoping no one would notice how much cheaper it was than some of this other stuff, then grabbed a bottle of water and went back to where David was watching the festivities in the garden below.

  “You guys often have these kinds of parties?”

  “First one in a long time,” he said, tugging at my hand until I settled lightly on one of his knees. “We’ve never been in much of a mood to celebrate until now.”

  “Ash and Donovan seem to be having fun,” I said, gesturing toward the barbecue pit.

  “They love that queinesmas macho crap.”

  “That what?”

  “It’s Spanish for who’s more macho.”