by A. C. Arthur
Roark simply stared at her. Not a hard or uncompromising stare, but a sort of communal look that acted like a force field between them, drawing her closer or him closer. They stood only an arm’s length away from each other, in silence for much longer than she thought was normal.
He spoke first. “I’ll wait with you.”
When she didn’t immediately reply, he moved away from her and sat in one of those uncomfortable chairs. After blinking a few times in an effort to decide whether or not she still thought she was dreaming, Tamika finally accepted this was really happening. Every heart wrenching thing that had happened since May third last year was devastatingly real, and there was nothing she could do about it. Not one damn thing.
She sat in the chair next to Roark, not because it was the closest to him, but because it was the closest to her, and she was exhausted.
Two hours later, the nurse returned and announced that Tamika could see her mother. “Five minutes,” she instructed. “And the doctor will be waiting to talk to you when you come out.”
Tamika stood still for a few seconds until Roark touched her arm lightly. She jolted at the touch and stared down at his hand.
“I can walk you to the door if it’ll help.”
This was the first time they’d spoken in the last two hours. It had seemed oddly comforting that they’d sat in silence for so long. She hadn’t once felt the urgency to pace. “No. I’ll be fine,” she lied.
His arm fell to his side, and he took a step back. She was about to walk away when she remembered she’d taken her shoes off earlier. Finding them under another chair, she pushed her now-swollen feet back into the pumps and left the waiting room.
Minutes later, she was at her mother’s bedside, staring down at a body that looked even more frail than it had when she’d left the cottage this morning.
There was a bandage going all the way up Sandra’s right arm and one on her neck. An IV line was on the back of her left hand, a nasal tube in her nose giving oxygen, and stark-white sheets were pulled up to her chest. Other wires trailed down to hide beneath her hospital gown and were connected to the many machines that beeped and buzzed throughout the room. Shades were pulled down at the two windows on the wall farthest from the bed, and there was a chair a few feet behind her, which Tamika ignored.
Instead she stood directly beside the bed, her fingers lightly touching her mother’s. “I’m gonna find out who did this,” she whispered. “If it takes everything I have, I swear to you I’ll find out why.”
Her mother couldn’t hear the words and neither could her father, but the part of Tamika that loved her parents above all else in this world felt content in knowing the declaration had been made.
Roark had made the decision to help her long before she’d left the waiting room. He’d spent the silent time they’d waited together running it over and over in his mind, trying to make some sense of it, but that was pointless. It didn’t make sense.
He’d never met Tamika Rayder before today and had never heard of her parents before then. He had no idea how his mother had known this woman’s father, or how any of this connected to his mother’s death, but the two events were somehow intertwined. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that everything that had happened today was connected to what had happened to his mother a couple of weeks ago, and to Lemuel Rayder a year ago.
He could see her speaking to the doctor and knew he only had a few minutes before she’d be back in the waiting room. With his phone still in hand from the call he’d made moments after she’d left the room, he hurried to make a second call. “I’m going to forward an email with a letter attached to you. I need you to tear it apart, find out any and everything you can about everyone mentioned.”
“What’s going on?” Cade asked.
“I don’t know,” Roark replied. “I really don’t know. But it’s something we need to figure out.”
“Where are you? At the manor? Do you need Linc or Ridge to come out there with you?”
“No!” The answer was too vehement and probably too loud. Roark walked to the other end of the waiting room, boxing himself into a corner and turning his back to the entryway as he began to talk again. “For right now, just look into the email. Follow it wherever it takes you. I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Hey, man, you’re scaring me. You okay? I can call somebody and have them there with you within the hour.” And he could. Cade had more connections than anyone Roark knew. If Cade made a call to their other cousin Trent Donovan and his ex-mercenary friend Devlin Bonner, those connections would be tripled.
But Roark wasn’t ready to wake those sleeping beasts. No, he’d prefer to keep this as lowkey as possible until they knew exactly what they were dealing with. “I’m fine. Just got an unexpected lead. One I don’t think we should let the police know about just yet.” Roark had no idea why he’d said that. He wasn’t some type of private investigator. He was a businessman, but he was smart and he knew how to work a plan.
That was what he did for a living. He ran a company based on investigating and planning where to drill for oil next, and when they found the oil they were looking for, he developed a strategy for how to best market that commodity and negotiate deals with the highest bidders. Investigating and organizing were his thing, and he was convinced that whatever was going on here was part of someone else’s plan.
“Roark.”
He turned when he heard his name and stared at the woman who just might be a very integral part of that plan. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow,” he said to Cade and disconnected the call. “How’s your mum?” Walking toward her seemed natural. He never questioned the need to be close to her.
Her eyes looked blurry, not like she’d been crying, but like she’d been trying her best not to. Roark knew that look well. “She’s stable. Not awake. They said I should come back tomorrow.”
“Is she going to be alright?”
“The burns can be treated. There were no internal injuries. Tuppence probably saved her life.”
“Tuppence?”
“She’s the caretaker at the cottage. She was there with my mother. The doctor’s operated on her and she’s critical right now, but they’re optimistic she’ll make a full recovery.”
“Those sound like very good reports.”
She nodded, but he couldn’t tell if she agreed with what he’d said, or if she was just acknowledging that he’d spoken.
“Do you need to call anyone? Family?”
“My mother is my family,” she said in a voice that sounded isolated and bereft. “Her and Tuppence. They’re all I have.” She’d been looking at something over his shoulder as she spoke, but then she shook her head as if bringing herself back to reality. “Ah, I need to find a hotel and then figure out if I can get into the cottage tomorrow. I’ll have to see what can be salvaged and how bad the damage is. My mother owns the place and I’m sure there’s insurance, so I need to find that paperwork and give the insurance company a call.”
“I’ll take you to the clubhouse. You can get some rest and make those calls first thing in the morning.”
She looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. “The clubhouse?”
“Yes. That’s where I’m staying at my family’s B&B.”
“I can’t stay with you.”
“Do you really want to stay alone in a hotel tonight?”
It took her less than a minute to reply, “No.”
“Then, you’re coming with me.”
Chapter 7
This wasn’t the way Tamika had envisioned things turning out. She hadn’t imagined being at the Donovan manor again, and she certainly never thought she’d be in this private clubhouse with Roark Donovan, preparing to spend the night.
“I called Geoff, the concierge from the hospital, and told him you’d need clothes.”
She walked closer to the bed while Roark talked.
“He’s been here twenty years, which means he must be really good at his job. He
said he’d have everything in this room ready for you. But if you need anything, just let me know.”
She moved her fingers slowly over the three nightgowns laid out on the bed. The material was soft, silk no doubt. In bold colors—emerald green, fuchsia and royal blue. She spun around to face him again. “How’d you know I’d agree to come here?”
Because he was Roark Donovan, that was how. He didn’t say that, but the confident way in which he was standing with his legs slightly spread, arms folded across his broad chest, and chin tilted, spoke volumes. Yeah, he wasn’t the cockiest guy she’d ever met, but there was no doubt he knew all he’d had to do was ask. “I would’ve taken you anywhere you wanted to go.”
“Oh.” That was all she could come up with, and because his words contradicted what she’d thought about him and made her feel awkward, she clasped her hands behind her back and nodded. “Well, thanks. I’ll be out of your hair first thing in the morning.”
He let his arms fall to his sides. “We’ll talk first thing in the morning.”
“Is this what you do?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you always just tell people what to do and they do it?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw as he stood there staring at her. Thinking. That was what he was doing, thinking and deciding what to say to her next. “I run a successful corporation. I’m good at leading.” His voice was stern, but the look on his face was that of mild confusion.
“But you’re not very good at being questioned. That’s why you seemed so agitated at our meeting this morning. You like to have all the answers, but I caught you off guard.” And now she was acting like being in this room, standing close to this bed, wasn’t throwing her off just a little.
He took a step closer to her, and she willed herself to remain still. Not because she was afraid of him or of being alone in this room with him, but more so because she was uncertain what was going to happen next. “I don’t like strangers approaching me with things I didn’t know about my family. That has nothing to do with being a leader, but more to do with a man who protects what’s his.” His voice was deep with an edge of danger, or was that passion?
She couldn’t tell; what she knew for certain was that she liked it. “I like finding the answers to questions. Which is why I became a fire investigator. I’m naturally curious, and I’ve been told I talk a lot.”
He tilted his head, and she thought the corner of his mouth lifted as if he wanted to laugh at that comment.
“I didn’t mean to offend you by asking about your mother. I just thought there was a connection,” she continued when he hadn’t responded.
“Get some sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.” He was about to turn and walk away, but he stopped and looked back at her. “We can talk about it in the morning, if you’re up to it.”
She smiled, not worried about what he may have thought by seeing her do so. “I like to talk over coffee.”
There was no movement from either of them for the next few seconds. She suspected he was trying to figure her out, while she was reassessing what she already knew about him. He was an intriguing man. A sexy-as-hell, brooding and possibly unhappy, but damn intriguing man.
“Good night.” He said those two words in a huff, and then he was gone.
She watched him walk through the sitting area and out the door he closed behind him with a quiet click. Then she continued to stand there for another five minutes while she digested everything that had happened.
Her messages had finally gotten through to Roark Donovan, and he’d agreed to a meeting. She’d come to this majestic-looking place and had sat across from a handsome man who hadn’t wanted to hear a word she’d had to say. Then there was the fire, flames alive and hungry, licking along the stones of the cottage, ready to claim all she had left in the world. Tamika gasped, her knees giving out, and she dropped down onto the bed. Lifting her hands, she ran shaking fingers through her hair and then dropped her hands to her lap.
Her mother’s feeble body with an oxygen mask that seemed as big as her face, lying on that stretcher, had her chest heaving, warm tears filling her eyes.
Then there was another flash of memory, and she could see the light-gray headstone at the cemetery in Arlington. “Daddy,” she whispered the words as her voice cracked. “I almost lost her too.”
Her head dropped, and she took deep breaths in an attempt to calm down. It wasn’t working. A sob bubbled deep in her throat as she lay back on the bed and rolled onto her side. With her eyes closed tight, she dared any tears to fall, even as her body shook with more memories. She’d buried her father. Standing next to her mother, she’d moved her lips along with the pastor, reciting the scripture he was reading during the internment. With family and friends standing beside them, she’d held her mother’s hand, promising to get to the bottom of what happened. Thirteen months later, and she still didn’t know who’d killed him.
Or, now, who’d just tried to kill her mother.
Tamika rolled onto her back and took another deep breath, releasing it slowly. Opening her eyes, she stared up at the cathedral ceiling. With a start, she remembered she wasn’t in the cottage but was at the luxury B&B formerly owned by Maxine Donovan. Easing herself up to a sitting position, her mind cleared a little more, and this time she sighed.
Seconds later, she eased off the bed and grabbed all three of the nightgowns before heading into the bathroom. “Damn,” she said the moment she flicked on a light.
This place was like a movie star’s home or those design photos on Pinterest. The bathroom was bigger than the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen of her apartment in Arlington. She took tentative steps over the glossy black marble floor. Double doors were to her right, and she assumed it was the linen closet.
She opened one of the doors, and bingo! After grabbing a towel, she moved further into the space. A double-sink marble vanity with dark gray cabinets beneath was on her left. Glass doors that opened to a shower big enough for six people was on the right. The wall of the shower—a stunning gray-and-white marble—matched the countertop of the vanity. The dainty crystal chandelier hanging from the center of the room matched the wall sconces between the mirrors above the vanity and another set over the freestanding tub.
“Who are these people, the black Rockefellers?” Shaking her head, she dropped the nightgowns and towel on the vanity top and went to open the shower doors. It took a moment to figure out the fancy handles, but once she did, she watched the waterfall-like spray shoot from the big square nozzle on the ceiling. Another few seconds were spent opening every drawer in search of a shower cap. There had to be one in here, because not everybody washed their hair each time they hopped into the shower, especially not Black women.
A fist pump came when she found the cap and then fitted it over her head before she removed her clothes. They smelled like smoke. Everything from her blouse to her trouser socks. The water was heavenly, just hot enough to leave a sting along her skin when it hit. She held her head back and for the next twenty minutes just let herself enjoy the glorious solitude.
The royal-blue nightgown felt like heaven sliding over her skin. It fit. She turned in the mirror, staring at the cute crisscross straps in the back and noted the way the material hugged her F-cup breasts was even better than in her best eighty-dollar bra. “How did he know my size?”
The question was muttered while running her hands down her sides, over her full hips and thick thighs. Another turn and look over her shoulder had her shaking her head. The gown came to her ankles with slits up to her knee on each side. It was sexy and comfortable and not at all something she guessed would be just lying around in this fancy B&B. But clearly, she’d been wrong. It had taken them about twenty minutes to get here from the hospital—no way that concierge ran out to a mall and came back with these perfectly fitting garments in that short amount of time.
Anyway, it was late and she was bone-tired, so trying to figure out where these clothes came from wasn’t high on he
r list of priorities. Instead, she returned to the bedroom and pulled back the comforter and sheets. She found her purse and retrieved her phone and charger, plugging them both in and setting them on the nightstand after checking for messages. There were none, and she was glad. Her mind couldn’t deal with one more thing tonight.
She let out a soft sigh once her head hit the pillow and closed her eyes. Roark’s face appeared, the warmth of his potent brown eyes lulling her to sleep.
A piercing scream yanked Roark out of his sleep. He bolted up in the bed, immediately kicking the sheets aside so he could get up. By the time he grabbed his sweatpants off the chair across from the bed, there was another scream, and he took off running. He yanked the door to his room open and headed down the hall. At the last door, he opened it and caught her just as she was about to step out.
She began talking the moment his hands gripped her shoulders. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just a bad dream.” Her hands went immediately to his biceps and two seconds later she started to pull away, but he held on.
“You screamed.” A sound he didn’t ever think he’d get out of his head.
“I was scared.” She was blinking fast, like she couldn’t believe he was there, or maybe she didn’t think she was really awake. “That’s what nightmares do. They…um, scare you.”
“Where were you going?” he asked, because she was still afraid, even though he knew if he pointed that out, she’d deny it.
She shook her head. “Water. I always need…want water after the dream.”
“There’s a mini-fridge in your room.” Her skin was cool beneath his touch, and soft.
“I didn’t see it. But I’m fine, really. I’ll just go downstairs, get something to drink from that big-ass kitchen and then go back to bed.” She eased out of his grip, and because he’d been raised right, Roark let her go. But she only took a couple of steps before her legs wobbled, and then his hands were on her again. This time he wrapped his arms around her, holding her from the back.