Claiming Serenity(37)

“What?” Donovan nodded, lifted his eyebrows when Layla again covered her mouth with her hand. She’d seen her father angry often enough. She’d even seen him tussling once or twice with an opposing team’s coach when matches got heated. But Mr. Donley had always been like a brother to her father. They’d been close. They’d known each other all their lives. It seemed unbelievable. “How did I not know this?”

“Because, Layla, this is Cavanagh. Folks are nosy, yes, but secrets… secrets run as deep as the history here. And probably because my dad was so drunk that Coach didn’t get even a scratch from that fight. He just picked my dad up and drove him to rehab, then wiped his hands of him completely.”

“Donovan…”

He’d sat up then, scooting next to her, and took her hand like they were friends, like there actually was something deeper between them. “I’ll admit, that’s probably why I gave you so much shit, why I had to retaliate every damned time. I blamed you for your cousin’s fuck up. It was stupid. I was angry for a long time because Jolie had me so wrapped up.” He’d spoken without looking at her, with his focus on her fingernails, rubbing his thumb over the smooth nail bed of her forefinger. “She got into my head and it took me a long damn time to get her out.” Donovan moved her hand to his chest, an afterthought that may have been a distraction from the barely there shake in his fingers.

“I don’t ever want anyone to do that to me again. I don’t ever want to drop my defenses.” He’d stared at her then, frowning, but more defeated than angry. “I meant what I said when all this started between us.” A quick squeeze of her fingers and then Donovan placed her hand in her lap. “It’s why I don’t make promises.”

Layla hadn’t wanted to think about promises and emotion. The conversation she and Donovan shared had been the closest they had ever come to real honesty and it scared her. But she wasn’t callous. Deep down she knew, she wasn’t so closed off that being with him had been totally emotionless. She’d worried about him then. She’d worried about how he’d recovered from something so heart aching, especially when she considered the aftermath of it all.

“What… what about you and your dad? Are things…”

“He’s sober. He laid all his skeletons out on the table while he was in rehab.” Donovan worried the sheet covering his lap, playing with a frayed thread rather than look at her. “My brothers, my mom, they all forgave him.”

“You didn’t?”

Finally he’d smiled, grinning at her as though whatever he thought of himself was unassuming and routine. “I’m not as well adjusted and mature as they are and something like that, shit, Layla, it runs long and deep. I at least don’t hate him anymore. I know he was lost, but I know everything he offers me, what he gives me, it’s all out of guilt.”

The aftermath had resurfaced in her mind and Layla thought about the muted conversations she’d overheard her parents have anytime Jolie’s name was mentioned. It made sense now. “He… is he the one… I mean, the baby…”

Donovan nodded and his lip started to curl, but Layla covered his mouth with her fingers, wanting to stop his anger before it came. He’d moved her hand away and kissed her palm, calmer then. “I’ve got a six year old little sister somewhere out in the world that I’ll probably never meet. A little sister that my father had with the girl I thought I loved.” Then, just like that, as if the memory, the pain moved out of his body when he lay back against the mattress and scrubbed his face, Donovan had smiled through his sigh, shaking his head one last time. “Damn. This is too heavy a conversation to have while we’re naked. You… you’ll probably want to go now.”

“Hey,” she’d said, moving down next to him. “I’m not her. I’m nothing like her and I told you. I don’t want any promises. Not from you. Not from anyone.”

Something caught in his eyes then, something that had him blinking, considering her in a way that had told Layla he was holding back, maybe trying to sort out what her words meant, if they’d meant anything at all to him. But Donovan hadn’t professed anything. He hadn’t argued with her or told her he wanted any promises at all. Instead, he’d rested his hand on her hip and squeezed her once. “Come here then.”

And she’d stayed with Donovan that night. She’d stayed with him and tried to forget it was her cousin, her blood, that had likely made him the way he was. Layla hadn’t left until the next morning and when she did, she’d kissed him, something quick, something brief, but still a gesture that had Donovan tensing when she moved away from the bed.