CHAPTER TWELVE
Donovan arrived promptly at 6:58 with a bouquet of orange and pink spray roses and eucalyptus. Liz at the flower shop called it “Colorful Chaos,” and he couldn’t think of a more appropriate gift for Eva.
He knocked on the cottage’s front door, and through an open window, he heard footsteps hurrying across the upstairs floor. The footsteps hit the stairs too fast and something that sounded like a body hit a wall. He heard her curse, loudly, colorfully, and then she came into view sauntering down the stairs and crossing the kitchen to open the door.
“Hi.”
Donovan felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. Eva was standing there looking up at him, beaming. Her hazel eyes bright with anticipation, her full rosy lips parted in a heart-rattling smile.
He didn’t even notice what she was wearing. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the fact that he was inconveniently, irretrievably, nonsensically head over heels.
Still reeling from the face-first skid into realization, Donovan wordlessly held up the flowers.
“Wow. You are nailing the old-school date moves,” Eva sighed, accepting the bouquet and bringing it to her face. “Come in, and I’ll put these in water.”
He followed her inside, rubbing a hand over the heart that seemed to have grown uncomfortably full in his chest.
“Would you like a drink?” Eva offered. “Or are you on call?”
“Colby and Layla have it covered tonight.”
“Beer?” she offered.
He wished for something a little stronger, something that would take the edge off the realization that his life was never going to be the same. “Beer’s good.”
She opened a bottle for him and slid it across the island. When she reached for the glass vase above the sink, he was there pulling it down for her. He put the vase in the sink but stopped her when she reached for the faucet.
“Hang on a second. I just want to make it crystal clear that this is a date,” he told her, his thumb tracing the edge of her jaw. They were so close in the confined space, he swore he could hear the beat of her heart. “You seemed a little confused last night and this morning. So just so there’s no misunderstandings…”
She stole his damn move. He was getting ready to close in on her, to kiss her until she melted against him. But it was Eva who gripped him by the shirt and dragged him down to her hungry mouth.
If his thoughts had been of love a moment ago, they were now violently approaching lust. Her lips were so soft, so busy, against his. His skin burned beneath his clothes everywhere she touched him. He wanted to slow it down, to take his time and taste her.
And then she opened for him. And he lost his damn mind.
He lifted her up, dropping her on the kitchen island and changing the angle of the kiss. His tongue swept into her mouth, and she moaned against him, into him. He needed to find his control before they went too far, before he was stripping her naked right here and—
“Hey, Aunt Eva can I borrow—” Evan’s strangled cry tore them apart. Eva nearly fell off the island, but Donovan steadied her and helped her down.
“Sorry, Ev,” Eva said, fanning her flushed cheeks.
“What is with all you adults? Everyone’s always making out all the time. I’m starting to get emotionally scarred. Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Donovan grinned at her nephew. “In another year or two, you won’t be able to think of anything better to do,” he promised.
“Oceana and I have an intellectual relationship,” Evan lectured them on his junior high girlfriend. “Sure. We kiss and stuff, but man, not all the time and not where you make food.”
Eva wrapped him in a headlock despite the two inches he had on her. “Awh, poor Evan being surrounded by people who like each other.”
“You sound like my mom!”
“Not cool, man! Not cool,” Eva said, tightening her grip on him. “I’m the fun, awesome aunt.”
“Fine. If you’re so fun and awesome, can I borrow your zombie apocalypse game?”
“Schooling Beckett tonight?” she guessed.
“Yeah, he’s been stressed with all this planetary crossing crap and trying to find Reva and Caleb’s mom. I thought I’d distract him with some blood and guts.”
She ruffled his hair. “You’re a good kid, Ev.”
“Yeah. I know. I don’t know why everyone feels like they need to keep reminding me all the time. Why doesn’t anyone tell me I’m tall or I smell okay?”
“You’re a thirteen-year-old boy. You don’t smell okay.”
“Ha. Game please.”
Eva excused herself to dig through a stack of games and movies in the living room.
“So, you and my aunt,” Evan said, trying to appear taller.
Donovan grinned and held up his hands. “I remember your ass-kicking talk with Niko when he started dating Emma. You don’t have to warn me again.”
Evan sighed. “I knew this was going to happen. You always got that sappy puppy-dog look when she was around.”
“Yeah, but it was a manly sappy puppy-dog, right?”
“Oh, sure. Definitely. But you carry a gun, so that helps.”
The kid was placating him. No wonder the whole town called him Mini Mayor. He may not have been Beckett’s by blood, but they were destined to be father and son.
“Aha!” Eva wielded a case triumphantly. “Found it. Don’t scratch it, and don’t beat my high score or I’ll—”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll pelt me with pumpkin pies. Got it.” Evan snatched the game out of her hand. “Thanks Aunt Eva. Don’t cross any lines tonight, Sheriff.”
“You smell okay, Evan,” Eva called after him.
He grinned and ducked out the door.
“I love that kid so much I want to hug him until his head pops off,” Eva sighed. “Is that murder?”
--------
“Where are we going?” Eva asked as Donovan eased down Beckett’s driveway. He’d traded the cruiser for his SUV. Eva couldn’t help but shoot a glance over her shoulder at the big backseat. Her blood was still pumping from that kiss. She wasn’t sure what had come over her, but it had been worth it to feel that heat. And so much better than worrying about it until the end of the date.
After Evan’s hasty entrance and exit, neither of them had mentioned the kiss or attempted to reenact it. But Eva was fairly certain she wasn’t the only one thinking about it right now.
“I made us reservations at a restaurant in Cleary,” Donovan told her, heading east.
“Fewer distractions in Cleary?” Eva asked.
He glanced at her, his smile crooked, dimple winking, and took her hand in his. “Maybe.”
She was holding hands with Donovan Cardona. He brought her flowers, let her kiss the hell out of him, and now he was holding her hand. What alternate universe had she stepped into? Eva wondered.
“Oh, no,” she breathed, her dreams and fantasies collapsing in on themselves in a black hole of reality.
“Oh, no, what?” Donovan asked, squeezing her hand.
“Uranus.”
“Excuse me?”
“The crossing. The stupid stellar apocalypse. This is all because of that, isn’t it? You asked me out because you’re going crazy,” Eva wailed, covering her face with her free hand. “I knew this was too good to be true.”
“Eva.”
But she was too busy lamenting her cruel fate. “Why does this always happen to me? I’m not a terrible person. I shouldn’t have all this bad karma—”
“Eva. Shut up!” he ordered.
Eva snapped her mouth shut.
“This has nothing to do with any kind of planetary alignment. I’ve wanted you from the first second I laid eyes on you.”
“Great. Now I know you’re crazy.”
He squeezed her hand hard, and Eva yelped.
“Don’t tell me what I do or don’t feel, Evangelina,” he said evenly. “These feelings didn’t start up just this week or last or even last month. They’ve been around for a while.”
“You’re being very… honest,” Eva told him. Honesty made her a bit squeamish.
“It’s the only way to be in a relationship.”
“So, we’re in a relationship?” her voice squeaked up an octave.
“We are if that’s what you want. I want to give you what you want.”
Her laugh was nervous and sounded borderline hysterical to her own ears. What she wanted at this exact moment was a naked Donovan Cardona cavorting around in her bed. “This is overwhelming… I thought we were just going to dinner. Not planning a future.”
“I want to be upfront with you. No surprises, no secrets. I want you Eva. And I think you might be it for me.”
She had definitely hit her head at some point today and was hallucinating all of this. The handsome sheriff that she’d lusted after from afar was telling her she was it for him? Concussion for sure. Possibly an aneurysm.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. And now she was mute. Awesome. Mute and concussed. She felt nervous and excited and horrified and—dare she think it? —hopeful.
Donovan’s phone buzzed from the tray in the dashboard.
He swore darkly.
He grabbed it and stabbed a button. “I thought I told you not to call—”
Donovan stopped, listened. “Are you puking right now?” He pulled the phone away from his ear, and Eva could hear retching.
“Where’s Layla?” Donovan demanded. “Fuck. Okay. I’ll be there in ten.”
He hung up and tossed the phone back in the tray. “A little rain delay,” he told Eva.
“What’s going on?”
“Layla’s on a call, and Colby’s got some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning and can’t stop puking. I have to go check on Fitz at the bookstore. Some customer called 911.”
Eva was not about to let the evening end like this. Not without another kiss and a concussion check. “Can I come with you?” she asked.