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  “Hey, no worries. It’s cool if you don’t remember. We only spoke briefly.” He doesn’t seem put off or judgmental, just the same easy smile and relaxed demeanor he’s shown since he came over to the table. “It’s all right, you were the one making the big impressions that night.”

  “I’m sorry. I really don’t recall much about that trip.”

  But I do remember one thing. Because the Sydney trip was the first time I landed in the hospital, fatigued to the point of exhaustion. My brother flew to Australia and brought me home. Andrew was horrified at my condition, and insisted I rest up for a while. My agent had other plans. By the end of that same week, he had me back to work and booked for another show, propping me up with cocaine during the day and sleeping pills at night.

  “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work,” Gavin says, picking up the plate and used napkins. “Where’re you off to now?”

  I shake my head. “Nowhere specific. I’m just here to hang out and enjoy the time outdoors.”

  “You wanna lend a hand feeding some two-legged animals?” He grins. “I’m about to unleash the kraken over at the catering station. My staff’s got everything covered, but you’re welcome to help sling plates in the serving line, if you’re up for it.”

  I shrug, finding his energy irresistible. “Sure. I’d love to.”

  I follow him back to the area that’s been set up for the picnic, and he introduces me to his coworkers, then outfits me in an apron and puts me behind one of the long serving station tables near the grills. Before long, we are overrun with ravenous kids and grateful parents, all of whom descend on Gavin’s fantastic cooking in a happy swarm.

  I’m having such a great time being part of it all that I almost look past the tall man with broad shoulders and a thick crown of short chestnut brown hair standing just twenty-some yards away. But once I see Gabe, everything else fades to the background.

  Everything except the attractive woman he’s talking with under the shade of the large trees on the walking path across the way.

  They’re dressed casually, Gabe in jeans, sneakers, and a black T-shirt that showcases his powerful arms and clings almost indecently to the slabs of firm muscles on his chest and abdomen. His pretty, strawberry-blonde companion is also in jeans, paired with a summery, sheer short-sleeved blouse buttoned over the top of a camisole. Her arms are down at her sides, and I notice that her right forearm and hand is a prosthesis.

  It’s obvious that she and Gabe are more than passingly familiar with each other. They’re relaxed and friendly, almost intimately so. She says something that makes him laugh, and I am stung with a sharp and ridiculous stab of jealousy.

  Are they here together on a date?

  God, if he is involved with someone, I feel even stupider for the way I acted in my office with him. I didn’t even consider that he might not be single. Then again, that kiss sure as hell didn’t feel like he belonged to another woman.

  Whether I have any right to feel it or not, resentment simmers inside me as they walk off together. At least, this might explain Gabe’s obvious avoidance of me. Doesn’t make my disappointment hurt any less, though.

  I tear my gaze away from them as they depart, forcing a bright smile onto my face as I continue greeting the kids and families streaming through my catering line.

  11

  ~ Gabriel ~

  It takes me about twenty minutes to find her, after a not-so-casual patrol of the zoo grounds.

  I’d first spotted Evelyn hours ago, when she’d been sitting with Avery Ross and a couple other women near the private party’s picnic area. I hadn’t realized she would be here today and seeing her again was a gut punch I wasn’t prepared for. Once I laid eyes on her, it was all I could do to keep my focus on my job as my team and I covered the event.

  Even O’Connor sensed my mind was somewhere else. Hell, how could she not have sensed it? Each security circuit we ran together through the park seemed to bring us right back to wherever Evelyn was. I finally had to send my friend off to pair up with another teammate, just to put a stop to her relentless questions.

  Now, I can’t even pretend I’ve found Evelyn by accident. With a couple of hours left before the outing ends, I’ve ditched the rest of my team to walk the grounds on my own.

  Even though I’ve had time to get used to the idea that she’s here, seeing Evelyn halts my steps and sends an uninvited lick of heat into my veins. The sexual attraction is only natural. It’s the other response I feel, the strange mix of longing and regret, that twists my lips into a scowl.

  I’m not used to holding back on anything I want, yet now I stand in the shadows off to the side of the jungle path to watch her. She’s chatting with a group of kids at the observation area near one of the animal habitats. Alone with the half dozen boys and girls, she stands behind the safety railing overlooking the grassy enclosure for a herd of petite Thomson’s gazelles.

  “If you look really hard, you’ll see it.” I catch the velvet sound of Evelyn’s voice as she squats down to the children’s level and points to direct their gazes at the animals. “There’s a baby gazelle sitting in the tall grass just to the left of that big boulder. Do you see her?”

  “I see!” One little girl in a pink dress gasps in awe. “It’s so cute! Look, you guys, it’s right there!”

  The rest of the kids jockey and bob excitedly for positions at the barrier. Evelyn rises, smiling as she watches them enjoy the discovery. She is relaxed and open with the kids, a stark contrast to the wary, mistrusting woman who faced off with me in her office a couple of days ago.

  With her long dark hair swept up in a bouncy ponytail, she’s wearing casual beige slacks and running shoes, paired with a simple white V-neck top that hugs the fullness of her breasts and plays up the warm toffee color of her smooth skin. As gorgeous as Evelyn is in professional attire and high heels, the only way I’ve seen her so far, this relaxed, natural side of her is even sexier.

  So is her easy laughter, which shuts off abruptly as soon as she turns her head and spots me.

  She doesn’t move, not even when the pack of giggling children race off, prompted by the shout and summoning wave of a nearby parent.

  Part of me expects her to run after them.

  Part of me hopes like hell she will.

  But Evelyn stands firm as I approach, her lovely face unreadable, but watching me. Her posture is graceful, yet guarded, as if she’s trying to decide whether to brace for a fight or ready herself for a desperate flight, like the herd of skittish prey animals currently tearing from one end of their artificial plain to the other in the habitat behind her.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” I say, walking up beside her at the railing.

  She stares at me for a moment, long enough for me to recognize that I was wrong about one thing. There is nothing in this woman that’s prepared to back down. “I didn’t expect to see you, either.”

  Something in her tone tells me if she’d known our paths might cross, she wouldn’t have come at all. Her gaze flicks past me, and I wonder if she’s concerned that her brother or someone else from Baine International might walk by and catch us talking.

  I should be concerned, too, but being around this woman has the unfortunate tendency to make me reckless. She draws my attention away from things that should matter--things that do matter, and will, long after I force myself past this inconvenient infatuation.

  That’s what part of my seeking her out right now is about. I need to close the door on this feeling I have toward her. I need to lock it up tight and walk the fuck away before I do something idiotic like kissing her again.

  I’ve been telling myself it’s my job I want to protect. That I need to preserve the trust I’ve earned with Beck and Nick. But staring into her challenging green eyes leaves me no room to deny that pushing her away is in the interest of my own survival too.

  Especially when all I want to do is pull her into my arms and claim another taste of her sexy, silky mouth.

&n
bsp; “You’re good with the kids,” I tell her, watching her wave to the little girl in pink who shouts goodbye to Evelyn as her mother leads her up the path.

  “I hardly remember being that young,” she says, more to herself than me, it seems. When she glances my way again, a frown rides her brow. “What are you doing here, Gabe?”

  “The event only has a couple more hours to go. I was taking one last walk through the park and saw you here. I was hoping you and I could speak privately.” I pause for a moment, trying to determine the best way through this. When she doesn’t give me any indication that she even wants to see me, much less talk to me, I curse under my breath. Might as well plow straight in. “After my conduct the other day, Evelyn, I feel I owe you an apology.”

  She doesn’t hide her skepticism. Her lips press flat, and the look she gives me is somewhere close to contempt. “Or maybe you’re just worried I might say something that could make things awkward for you today.”

  Her venom shocks me. “I guess I deserve that.” I shake my head, deciding here and now that she’s got every right to be angry, even vengeful. “I stepped way over the line when I kissed you, Evelyn. It won’t happen again. If you feel you need to tell your brother or Nick what I did--hell, if you want to demand my job for it--I’m not going to fault you.”

  She scoffs. “Actually, I expected you to be more concerned that I might say something to your date.”

  “My what?”

  Folding her arms, she pins me with a cold look. “I saw you, Gabe. You and the pretty blonde you’re here with. I saw you chatting and laughing with her over by the picnic area.”

  I frown, as confused by her assumption as I am amused by the fact that she seems to be stewing in jealousy. “O’Connor’s not my date. She’s a friend. As of this week, she’s also reporting to me on the Baine security team. We’re working this event today.”

  Her lips part and some of the chill leaves her expression. “Well, it doesn’t matter to me, anyway.”

  But it did matter when she thought there was something between O’Connor and me. I refrain from pointing it out to her, because as pleased as I am by her possessiveness, that’s not why I’m here.

  It can’t be, no matter how much I’d like to chase that stung look off her lovely face with another kiss.

  One that would leave no doubt in her mind about just how powerfully I want her.

  Instead, I let her denial stand and opt for a less thorny subject. “Were you recruited to help out today, too? I couldn’t help noticing that the surfer dude in the kitchen uniform kept you busy for hours behind the catering station.”

  “So, you did know I was here,” she says, sounding smug and eyeing me with raised brows. “That ‘surfer dude’ is a world-renowned celebrity chef, by the way. His restaurants here in the city are booked solid months in advance. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Gavin Castille.”

  I shrug. “Heard of him, sure. But I’m not really impressed by that kind of stuff. Maybe I’ve spent too much time camping out in desert war zones. Basic meat and potatoes is as close to gourmet as I’ll ever need.”

  And even if I did have more than a vague idea of who the guy was or why I should care, I’m not about to reinforce Evelyn’s apparent favorable regard for him. I’d cruised by the catering area more than once after I spotted her there, checking to see if the good-looking Aussie seemed anything less than professional with Evelyn. He’d passed all of my investigatory fly-bys, but that didn’t mean I had to like him.

  “Is that where you met your friend O’Connor?” Evelyn asks. “Were you in Afghanistan together?”

  “No. She served in Iraq. We didn’t meet until after we both came home.”

  I know why she’s asking. I know if she’s seen O’Connor’s prosthetic arm and hand, it’s not that great a leap to assume Kelsey is a veteran like me. What Evelyn doesn’t understand is that time in service isn’t the only bond O’Connor and I share.

  “We met at Walter Reed, actually. In the amputee physical therapy center.”

  For reasons I haven’t stopped to analyze, I haven’t let on to Evelyn that I am anything but whole. I don’t know why. It’s not like me to hide my injury. I’m not ashamed of it and never was. It’s just something that happened to me, something I survived.

  My injury was something I couldn’t control, no matter how well-trained and confident I’d been leading that routine patrol that claimed the rest of my platoon and nearly killed me too.

  Yet as I watch Evelyn absorb what I’m telling her, I realize that I do know why I’ve kept it from her. I haven’t wanted to see her shock or horror. I haven’t wanted to see her pity.

  I haven’t wanted her to view me as any less of a man.

  But fuck all that.

  She is not mine, and unless I want to lose my job and my friendship with her brother, she never can be.

  I lift the pant leg of my jeans, revealing the lightweight carbon-and-titanium prosthesis that extends out of my left shoe. “The stump starts below my knee. It’s called a transtibial amputation.”

  I hear Evelyn’s quiet inhalation and that small sound kills something inside me. I don’t know what I expected her reaction to be, but I’d hoped for something else. I meet her gaze, hardening myself to whatever I’m going to see in her eyes.

  I’m not prepared to see mortification, even humor. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “In the garage,” she says, wincing and shaking her head. “The day we met, that stupid thing I said to you--”

  I chuckle, remembering. “You mean the crack about me only having the wrong foot?”

  “Yes! Oh, my God.” She groans and covers her face in her hands before laughing with me. “You probably thought I was a bitch and a complete moron. Not that you didn’t have it coming.”

  I’m still laughing, both in relief that she’s not treating me any differently and because the irony of what she said that day is even better now that we can share it.

  I lift my other pant leg. “As you can see, no wrong foot here. It’s the right one all day, every day, baby.”

  “Stop!” She makes a face and smacks her palm lightly against my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I shrug, not ready to go there yet. Not that we’ll ever get there, not if I can help it. “Why didn’t you tell me about being famous once upon a time?”

  Her expression relaxes into one of quiet solemnity. “Because I don’t like people making judgments before they see me for who I really am.”

  “Ditto,” I reply, arching my brows.

  She nods, a silent acknowledgment of our common ground. Then she glances away for a moment, pensive. “I don’t volunteer anything about that part of my life because I don’t ever want to feel I’m being used for what someone thinks I am, or what they think I should be.”

  “That seems fair.”

  “It’s the only way I know how to live. It’s the only way I got through a lot of bad times, by putting that part of my life in a box and never opening it again.”

  “I’m no psychologist, but that doesn’t sound like dealing with it. How are you going to come to terms with something that hurts, if you only let it fester in a locked box somewhere?”

  “What about you? It can’t have been easy fighting in the war, but I don’t imagine it was easy coming home realizing you would never go back, either.”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  “How did you get through? How did you cope?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still trying.”

  It’s a glib reply, yet there is a lot of truth in it too. I could leave it at that, and I probably should. But talking to Evelyn is easier than I thought it could be. Maybe it’s because I have no reason to try to impress her. Or maybe it’s because I sense we’re both fighting similar demons in some ways. Both of us still trying to claw our way into the light, onto safe and solid ground.

  “I was engaged when I deployed for Afghanistan,” I tell her. �
��My high school girlfriend, Tracy. I was young and stupid. I guess we both were.”

  “Did you love her?”

  I nod, then it turns into a shrug. “I thought I did. I wanted to know I had someone back home who gave a shit about me, other than my mom and my brothers. I wasn’t thinking about what I was truly asking from her. When I woke up in the military hospital and saw her face, I knew she wouldn’t stay. I’d been gone half as long as we’d been together. We hardly knew each other by that time. I was looking at long months of recovery and rehab. She wasn’t prepared to travel that road with me, and it wouldn’t have been fair for me to expect it of her. I was still living at Walter Reed in Bethesda when she moved out of our place three months later.”

  Evelyn’s brows pinch. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been very hard.”

  “It was better, easier, not having to worry about Tracy while I was recovering. I focused on my rehab, threw myself into it because it was all I had left.”

  “And your family?” she asks cautiously. “Were they there for you?”

  “My brothers were, especially Jake. I’m the youngest of us four. He’s next, nine years ahead of me.” I blow out a breath, my lungs feeling heavy when I talk about my brother who’s always been my best, tightest friend. “I don’t even recall how many times he came down to the amputee ward at the hospital to be with me. He used up all of his vacation time and sick days at the precinct--time he could’ve been doing anything else other than helping me clean and work with my stump or propping me up while I learned to walk again.”

  “He sounds pretty great.” Her green eyes search my face for a moment. “What about your parents? I know you told me things aren’t the best with your dad.”

  Shit. I didn’t intend to wade this far into my own head or my pathetic home life, but it’s hard to push Evelyn out now that I’ve opened the door. I glance away, watching a pair of male gazelles knocking their antlered heads together in the field. “Mom visited a few times with Jake or one of my other brothers, Shane and Ethan. I know she wanted to be there more, but she struggled seeing me like that.”