Chapter
SIX
Gavin drove to the Indigo Bay branch of Wild Child, where several customers sat at the round tables. His men were at two separate tables, one close to the door and the other near the counter. Both were alert and vigilant, despite the empty coffee mugs and plates in front of them.
One assessing sweep of the interior told him Mia wasn’t there. Not that he needed to assess anything. It had gotten to the point that he felt her presence or absence the second he stepped into the bakery. Instinctively, he was either pleased or vaguely disappointed—and both emotions were directly tied to a pretty blonde princess.
He exchanged nods of greeting with his men before taking an empty table.
“Hi, Gavin.” Polly approached, wiping her hands on her apron. “Can I get you a Declair or a croissant?”
“Not today, thanks.”
Though he always declined, she still always asked. He’d tried the Declairs when Polly was first inventing the recipes, but didn’t often have one when he was at the bakery.
“I’ll just have a black coffee, no sugar,” he said.
“Coming right up.” She gave him her friendly smile, but he detected the faint concern in her eyes, the lines of stress around her mouth.
Shit. Like Luke, the last thing Gavin wanted was for Polly to worry about the safety of her friends and family—especially right before her wedding.
“Hey.” He put his hand on her arm. “I won’t let anything happen to you or anyone else.”
She smiled. “I know. It’s just weird stuff to deal with when all I care about is being married to Luke. Well, and for everyone to have a great time. I’ve dreamed of a big, happy wedding since I was a little girl, but of course I never expected to need all sorts of security.”
“You’ll have a big, happy wedding,” Gavin assured her. “My team and any additional security will be barely noticeable. All you need to do is focus on marrying Luke and enjoying yourself. Everyone will stay safe and have a great time.”
“That’s the only wedding present I really want.”
“You’ll have it. I promise.”
“Thank you.” Polly smiled and squeezed his hand before glancing past him. Gavin’s body went into full alert, his senses tingling even before Polly said, “Hi, Mia,” and stepped away from him.
“Hey, Pols.” Her voice spilled into the air like music. “I need you to pick out new ribbons for the favors. The supplier doesn’t have enough for the extra ones. Here are the samples.”
Polly took the folder, and they consulted for a moment.
“Mia’s special caramel mochaccino?” Polly asked, heading back to the counter.
“Extra whipped cream, as usual,” Mia replied. “To go.”
Then she moved into his line of vision. Blonde hair caught in a high ponytail. Tight purple shirt. Polka dot mini skirt. White tights.
Instant hard-on.
“Hi.” She stepped closer, her voice uncertain. “I have all the binders in the car.”
“I need them to make copies.”
“You can’t keep them.” She eased into the chair across from him. “I don’t want them out of my sight. They’re too important.”
“You can come with me.” He studied her, not liking the faint purplish smudges under her eyes. “You didn’t sleep well.”
She shrugged, shifting in her chair and glancing around. Then she leaned closer and whispered, “Well, you left me in quite a state.”
His mouth twitched. He liked her forthrightness and honesty. He might even have liked the fact that she was making him smile more often.
“You want me to make it up to you?” he asked.
A flush rose to her cheeks before she said, “Yes.”
Christ. His dick throbbed. Served him right. For all his self-censure about starting up with her, he wouldn’t be able to help himself. She was too tempting, too sweet, too willing… and it had been too fucking long since he’d experienced anything close to what Mia Donovan could offer him.
If he ever had. Her bright, happy world with its heart-shaped pillows and ice cream would shine a welcome light on his darkness, if only temporarily.
He’d known that for the past year. But now that he’d had a taste of her whipped-cream lightness…
He stood and took out his wallet, dropping a few bills on the table to pay for his untouched coffee.
“Let’s go,” he told Mia.
After getting her takeout dessert drink—no way would he call that concoction coffee—Mia walked to the door. He pulled it open and stepped aside to let her exit in front of him. His gaze drifted to her ass encased in the short skirt. He wanted to flip her skirt up, pull her tights down, and—
“I’m parked over here.” She walked to an old Toyota sitting at the curb. A pair of pink fuzzy dice dangled from the rearview mirror, and a UC Santa Barbara sticker decorated the bumper.
“When did you graduate?” he asked, nodding at the sticker.
“Two years ago.” She set the coffee on the roof and hefted a stack of binders from the trunk. “I moved back here when I couldn’t find a job.”’
“Polly told me you were working at a florist’s.” He took the heavy binders from her.
“They shut down a while ago.” Her mouth twisted. “I work at an insurance company now.”
“As an agent?”
“No. I sit in a windowless cubicle and collate reports.” She slammed the trunk, collected her coffee, and fell into step beside him. “Sometimes I even staple them together. If there’s ever a contest for the world’s most boring job, I’m pretty sure I’m a number one contender.”
“Why do you stay?”
“Because I’m a French lit major who got through all four years on a full scholarship, thereby eliminating my need to work and gain valuable career skills.” A bitter note threaded her voice. “So while I can talk endlessly about Renaissance France or the politics of Proust, I have very little actual job experience. Imagine my surprise when I discovered employers don’t care a whit about feminism in medieval French epics.”
Gavin stopped. She took two steps before realizing he was no longer beside her. She turned, a frown pulling her eyebrows together.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re being petulant,” he said.
Mia stared at him before giving a short laugh. “I’m being petulant? Are you serious?”
“Yes. You can get discouraged, even upset, when you hit wall after wall. Which it sounds like you’ve done. But sulking about the fact that employers need to hire people with practical skills will do nothing to change your situation.”
“Good lord, Gavin.” Mia shook her head in disbelief. “You’re a freaking robot, aren’t you?”
“As you discovered last night…” he noted the telling blush rising to her cheeks “…I’m not a robot. And graduating from college after four years on a full scholarship is no small feat. But it doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be bitter when Fortune 500 companies aren’t fighting to hire you.”
“I don’t want to work for a Fortune 500 company,” Mia snapped. “But I don’t want to work in a cubicle at an insurance company either.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know!” She threw one hand up in the air, her body tensing with frustration. “That’s the problem. As far as skills go, mine are limited to writing academic papers, speaking French, and having fun. If you have any job openings I might fit, then by all means, let me know.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” Gavin said. “I asked what you want to do.”
“I…” Mia’s mouth opened and closed. She stepped back, her hands balling into fists. “I don’t know.”
She glared daggers at him and stalked away, her back rigid. He caught up with her.
“You can get mad at me,” he said. “I can take it. Blame me for forcing you to confront something you don’t want to face. But I won’t let you hide from the truth.”
“Oh, shut up,” Mia retorted. “Were you a therapist in a previous life or something?”
“No, but I’ve been in a lot of therapy.”
Some of the anger drained from her, replaced with curiosity. “Really? You’ve been in therapy?”
He nodded. “After my sixth tour in Iraq. I was given an honorable discharge for medical reasons, one of which was PTSD.”
“Oh.” Her voice sounded smaller. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Gavin stopped by his SUV, put the binders in the back seat, and opened the passenger side door for her. She ducked her head as she started to pass him. He slipped his hand beneath her chin, turning her face toward him. Wariness flooded her green eyes along with a hint of shame. He brushed his thumb over her lips.
“What I or anyone else has experienced doesn’t change things for you,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you can’t want more than what you have. It doesn’t mean you don’t deserve more.”
She only looked at him. The sun glinted off her hair like a halo. Little angel with her silly flirting, her boring insurance job, and her frilly, feminine apartment.
“You’re…” Her lips moved against his thumb, her breath warm. “You’re the strangest man I’ve ever met, Gavin Knight.”
He leaned closer, brushing a kiss close to her ear. “But I can make you come so hard you’ll see stars.”
She drew in a sharp breath. A visible shiver ran through her.
“Prove it,” she whispered.
Damned if he didn’t love her little challenges. And at that second, there was nothing he wanted to do more than prove it.
“I will.” He forced himself to step back and motioned for her to get into the SUV. “But first we have copies to make.”
She gave a little harrumph of annoyance before climbing into the passenger seat. Gavin drove back to the Knight Security offices, where he and Mia systematically took apart the wedding plan binders and made copies of all the relevant pages. He locked the copies in his office safe before they returned to the SUV.
“Can I see your place?” Mia pulled the seat belt over her body.
He glanced at her. “Do you usually ask to go to a man’s house?”
“No. And I’m not a slut, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking.”
“I like to flirt and go out and stuff, but I don’t sleep around casually,” Mia continued. “The last boy I slept with… we’d been dating exclusively for three months.”
He blocked the thought of her with a “boy.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
“I don’t want you to judge me.”
He shifted into drive. “Do you think I would?”
“Sometimes. When you wouldn’t pay attention to me, I figured you were thinking I was just this flirty little girl who wasn’t worth your time.”
“You are a flirty little girl.” He shot her a half-grin. “But you’re definitely worth my time.”
A responding smile curved her mouth. He was tempted to drive her to her apartment—he wanted to be back in the place that had her stamped all over it—but he had a stronger urge to see her in his bed. And to cook her dinner.
He drove back to his house. Mia peered out the front windshield as he turned onto the narrow road leading to the hillside grove.
“This is really pretty,” she remarked. “It’s like one of those houses designed to blend in with the environment.”
“Most women think it’s too austere.”
“I imagine most women think you’re too austere,” she said dryly.
He almost laughed. It wouldn’t take her long to figure out that was the truth. Hell, he was counting on her walking away from his austerity. She’d leave a trail of ribbons and rose petals in her wake.
He unlocked the front door and pushed it open, waiting for her to precede him. She went inside, looking around at the neutral furnishings, the bamboo plants, the black-and-white prints.
“Very Zen.” She ran her hand over the teakwood sideboard. “So do you bring a lot of women here?”
Though her voice was casual, a faint tension threaded her frame. Gavin tossed his keys on the table and shook his head.
“I haven’t brought a woman here in a while.”
“When was the last time you had a girlfriend?”
“Probably when I was in college.” He walked into the kitchen. “I’m inclined toward short-term relationships. Or no relationship at all.”
Her expression darkened. A warning sign flashed in his brain. He’d crossed the line of their attraction, but he couldn’t let her get any ideas about a relationship. She was all about romance and pretty things. He was neither.
He gave her a level look. “You need to know that.”
“What, that you’re a stodgy old stick-in-the-mud who’s forgotten what it feels like to loosen up?” She lifted her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Guess what? I already knew that.”
Gavin suppressed a smile. “And yet it didn’t stop you.”
“Because I’m the one who’s meant to help you loosen up.” She leaned against the kitchen doorjamb, her arms crossed. Against the gray and olive-green colors of his house, she looked like a flower in her purple shirt and polka-dot skirt.
No, he couldn’t stay away from her any longer. He’d spent a year withstanding the hot pull of Mia Donovan. Now she was proving far too addicting for even his hardened self-discipline.
He turned away from her and opened the refrigerator. He took out a package of ribeye steaks, along with tomatoes, green beans, kale, and potatoes.
“Are you making dinner?” Mia asked.
“I am.”
“That looks impressive.” She moved closer almost tentatively, as if she wasn’t sure if he’d appreciate her entering his space. “Can I help?”
“Sure. Knives are over there. You can cube the potatoes.”
She washed her hands and set to work while he heated pans on the gas stove and seasoned the steaks. Soon the kitchen was filled with the aromas of grilled steaks and roasting vegetables.
Gavin uncorked a bottle of wine and poured a glass for her before getting his usual scotch.
“So did you start Knight Security after you came back from Iraq?” Mia asked.
He nodded. “I’d worked in security before that, but wanted to start my own business. Luke was looking to revamp the Sugar Rush security, both physical and cyber, so I took the job.”
“You were friends with Luke before?”
“I’ve known him since we were kids.”
“Like me and Polly.” Mia hitched herself onto a stool at the central island. “We met in fourth grade after she and her mom moved to Rainsville to open Wild Child.”
“So you grew up here?”
“Born and bred. Aside from living in Santa Barbara during college, I’ve stuck to the Indigo Bay area. My parents divorced when I was fifteen and moved to different parts of the country, so I went to live with my granny down by the beach.”
He liked the fairy-tale quality of that picture. Mia and Granny, living in a ramshackle little cottage on the beach.
“Does your grandmother still live here?” he asked.
Sorrow tightened her features. “She died right after my senior year of college. I moved back to take care of things and… well, I never left.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“Not at all.” Mia traced the edge of her glass with her finger. “I love Indigo Bay. I just want to be doing something different, more fulfilling. My granny was an artist, so she had this vision that we should make the world beautiful, whether through paintings or planting flowers or helping others. She always told me to follow my heart, do what I love and love what I do. I guess I’m still figuring out what that is.”
An unexpected tenderness nudged at Gavin. Mia Donovan was a girl who made the world more beautiful just by living in it. But she used her flirty, flaunting ways to hide her guilt because she hadn’t yet followed her granny’s advice.
This girl was turning out to be more of a surprise than he’d anticipated. And he wasn’t supposed to like surprises.
Gavin turned to the stove and checked the steaks. He took two plates from the cupboard and loaded them with the steak, vegetables, and potatoes. He set one in front of Mia and sat beside her at the counter.
She bit into her steak and murmured a noise of approval that flickered right into his blood.
“Wow, you’re a really good cook,” she said. “This is delicious.”
He took an inordinate amount of pleasure in her appreciation, as well as the fact that she ate with gusto.
“So why the military?” She sliced into a potato.
“My father was a retired Marine corporal. A tough one. It was drilled into me early on that I’d join the Marines. Never thought there was an option.”
She glanced at him. “But you didn’t want to?”
“I knew I’d be good at it. By the time I was twelve, I’d been smacked around and ridden hard enough that I figured I could get through anything.”
She stilled, her gaze on him. “Your father was abusive.”
Gavin shrugged. “He eased up when I hit my teens and got bigger than him. Took a knockdown, drag-out fight to warn him he couldn’t fuck with me anymore. But it worked.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died ten years ago. Heart attack.”
Mia fell silent, looking down at her food. He felt the distress simmering inside her. He didn’t like it, didn’t like making her feel anything unpleasant, but he’d meant what he’d said to her earlier. He wouldn’t let her hide from the truth. Not even his.
He pushed his plate away. She’d stopped eating and was rubbing her thumb over the edge of her wineglass. Her fingers were long and tapered, the nails painted a glossy pink with silver glitter. He imagined her sitting on her sofa, a romantic comedy playing on the TV. Her head bent, long hair falling forward as she carefully painted her nails.
Gavin turned both their stools so they were facing each other. She fixed her gaze on his shirt front, her eyes downcast. He rubbed a few loose strands of her hair between his fingers and tucked them behind her ear.
“The Stone brothers were my safe house,” he said. “They never knew how bad it was, not even Luke, but their family treated me like one of their own. If there was anything I wished for when I was a kid, it was to have been born into that family. To be one of them. They stayed in contact whenever I was deployed. Letters, care packages, video calls. Kept me sane.”
She lifted her gaze to his. Her green eyes seared right through him.
“Were you in Iraq for all six tours?”
“Yes.”
“What was it like?” she asked. “If you want to talk about it.”
He didn’t—not because he hadn’t dealt with it, but because he hated the idea of it tainting her.
Multiple kills. Not always insurgents. The bombs that blew apart his fellow soldiers. Hauling body parts into the Humvee so no one would get left behind. Stench of rust, blood, and gun smoke that still permeated his nightmares. Heat and dirt. A girl’s foot, clad in a yellow plastic sandal, lying by the side of the road.
Any woman he was with had to learn about all that eventually—which was one reason he always cut his relationships short. If a woman wasn’t there, she didn’t have to know.
But Mia… she had to know. Sooner rather than later, so she’d run away from him back to the safety of her princess tower.
What was it like?
“You know the expression war is hell?” he said.
She nodded.
“That’s not what it’s like. That’s what it is.” He didn’t take his gaze from hers, needing her to see the darkness discoloring his life. “A twenty-year-old kid on his first tour fires ten rounds of ammunition into a car, thinking it’s a suicide bomber. Turns out he just killed a family of five. On a convoy, a grenade hits the truck ahead of his, and he can’t save the soldiers trapped under the vehicle. He loses track of the number of IEDs exploding around him, killing his comrades. Figures one day it’ll be his turn.”
The shock and despair in her eyes stabbed right through him.
“My God, Gavin.” Mia put her hand on his chest, the warmth of her palm sinking right into him. “You keep all that in here?”
His past was no longer a fire, hot and burning. It had died down to ashes that still smoldered, but could at least be controlled. And Mia was like a rush of cool, clear water pouring right down his parched throat.
He was so fucking greedy for more.
Her ponytail was draped over her shoulder like a gold ribbon. He twisted it around his fist and tugged, pulling her closer. Her lips parted the instant before he crushed his mouth to hers.