The Groom's Stand-In

“I don’t think so.”

He took a step toward the doorway. “I’ll go start the ATV, and bring it around to the front.”

“Donovan.” It took more courage for her to speak then than it had to plunge into that forest on the first night, or to face any of the obstacles they had shared since. “What do you feel about me?”

He stopped with his back to her, his shoulders tense. “What I feel at this moment isn’t really relevant. It’s what’s waiting for us in our real lives that matters. You have your shop, your sister, your parents—you can have Bryan, if you want him. I have my work. You want to get married, have kids, paint your picket fences. I don’t even want a houseplant. Too much responsibility. The thing would die of neglect.”

Was it that he didn’t want responsibility—or was he afraid of it? He’d survived a father who had walked out on him, a mother who had died of a neglected infection, relatives who apparently hadn’t wanted him or cared enough about him, a stint in the military, a bodyguarding assignment that had ended badly. The only stability he’d known in his life had apparently come from his friendship with Bryan.

Understanding his fears didn’t help her figure out how to get through them.

Maybe she was reading too much into a few kisses. But she didn’t think so. She believed Donovan cared for her. He’d shown her so in too many ways to discount. Now if only she could get him to admit it—first to himself, and then to her.

He didn’t give her a chance to argue any further. “I’ll bring the ATV around to the front. Meet me there when you’re ready to go.”

He walked out of the room without looking back.

Pushing away a weary urge to cry, Chloe ran a hand through her hair and tried, in vain, to be more excited about the prospect of rescue.

“Chloe!”

Looking around in response to her name, Chloe didn’t even have a chance to speak before she was engulfed in a hug that nearly cut off her air supply. Instead of protesting, she returned the embrace, as happy as Grace was to be reunited with her twin. The IV line in her right arm got in the way, but they ignored it as they rejoiced in being back together.

Wearing a thin hospital gown to replace the clothes she’d borrowed from the trailer, she was lying in a narrow bed in a northwest Arkansas hospital. She could hardly remember how she’d gotten here. After a teeth-jarring, bone-jolting hour on the back of the noisy ATV, she had been dazed, feverish and exhausted when Donovan had driven them into a small town. The town’s tiny police station was one of the first buildings they had spotted. Donovan had driven her straight to the front door.

The next couple of hours had been a blur of activity. Explanations, telephone calls, people hovering over her, bringing her blankets and warm drinks, and finally a long ambulance ride to this hospital, where she and Donovan had been separated immediately. She’d wanted to cling to him, but she’d managed to resist, knowing that he needed medical attention as badly as she did.

It bothered her that he had hardly looked at her as they’d wheeled him away.

She hadn’t been in this room long before Grace and Bryan had rushed in. Sitting on the bed beside her, Grace finally pushed back far enough to study her. “Oh, my God, you look awful. Are you all right?”

“The doctor treated some wounds on my feet and prescribed some strong antibiotics to ward off infection. I was mildly dehydrated, so they hooked up the IV. I’m tired, of course, but I’ll be fine.”

“You scared me half to death,” Grace scolded, lines of strain still visible around her eyes and mouth. “I didn’t know if you were alive or hurt or…well, you know.”

“I know. I’m sorry for what you went through.” Chloe could only imagine how she would have felt if the situation had been reverse

d.

Having held back until after the sisters’ reunion, Bryan approached then, his blue eyes dark with concern. “I’m so sorry about this, Chloe. If I’d had any idea something like this would happen—”

Managing to give him a weary smile, she shook her head against the thin hospital pillow. “It wasn’t your fault. Donovan was certain some man named Childers was behind the kidnapping.”

“Donovan was right—as he usually is. Childers hired the men who grabbed you.” Though he kept his expression pleasant enough, there was a hardness in Bryan’s voice that she hadn’t heard before.

“And the other three? The men he hired?”

“We have two of them. The other’s still at large—but we’ll get him.” His eyes were as hard as his voice now, glittering like polished blue metal.

This was the Bryan Falcon she’d heard about but had never personally encountered, she realized. The ruthless businessman who was as cool as ice in the toughest business crisis, utterly merciless when he was double-crossed. He wore his power like an invisible cloak—not a soldier, but a general who surrounded himself with a small, carefully selected and highly skilled ring of followers.

And yet it was his second-in-command who occupied Chloe’s thoughts. Who had captured her heart.

“How is Donovan?” Bryan asked, looking toward the open doorway of her room. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

She roused herself to answer briskly. “He’s having his right leg X-rayed. I’m pretty sure he broke a bone in a fall a couple of days ago. He’s been walking on it ever since, so I’m worried that he’s done some damage to it.”

“What have you been through since Monday evening?” Grace murmured, brushing a strand of hair from Chloe’s cheek.