“No, sweetheart,” Donovan said gently, it taking absolute concentration not to give in to the fiery rage brewing inside him. “I will never hurt you. Never. You can take that to the bank. I’d like to help you. Your brother and your sister. I’d like to be your friend.”
Both Cammie’s and Eve’s eyes went wide. Cammie looked uncertain, while Eve froze. Not a single tremor went through her body. It was as if she’d turned to ice. He could feel her staring at him, staring holes through him as if trying to figure out who and what he was. If he was a threat. If he was telling the truth.
Goddamn it, but he’d never felt so damn helpless in his life. He was a man of action. He wasn’t one to fuck around and play games. He never hesitated when it came to someone needing help. And yet he knew he couldn’t do that here. This was a delicate situation that he had to tiptoe through as though walking through a minefield. One that could blow up in his face at any moment.
“We don’t have any friends,” Cammie mumbled. “Evie says it’s not safe.”
“Cammie, shhh,” Eve said, turning swiftly to silence the child. She turned back to Donovan, a weak smile wavering on her face. “Cammie has a very active imagination. Most four-year-olds do, you know.”
She was nearly the same age as his niece, Charlotte. Charlotte, who was surrounded by a huge, loving family. Charlotte, who never had to worry where her next meal came from. Or if it would come. Charlotte, who had doting uncles and aunts. Grandparents to spoil her rotten. And an entire organization of badass military operatives who’d start a fucking war to protect her.
This child was the complete antithesis of his niece and her life, and it broke Donovan’s heart.
Rusty cleared her throat and inserted herself to alleviate the sudden awkwardness wrought by Cammie’s confession.
“As I was saying, Travis—and Eve—I can work Travis in a few hours every day this week, and of course he’s welcome to come in next weekend as well. I’m absolutely flexible, so whatever works for you is fine with me.”
Unease crossed Eve’s face, and then she glanced down, shame and embarrassment flashing in her eyes before they were hidden from view.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “But I don’t intend for him to have to work long. Just until Cammie is better and I can leave her. I don’t know if things will work out here, so I’d hate for you to depend on Travis when we only plan for him to have a temporary job.”
“And why wouldn’t they work out?” Donovan prompted carefully.
Her eyes became shuttered, the golden flecks dimming as her expression became indecipherable. She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “There are no guarantees. Ever. It may or may not work out that we can stay here. I have to prepare for reality.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Donovan challenged. “What then?”
“We move on,” she said simply.
She said it so matter-of-factly that Donovan knew this wasn’t new to them. He had no idea for how long they’d been running or how far. But relocating on short notice—and often—was not foreign to them at all.
He thought a whole host of crazy things. Things that would have his brothers thinking he’d lost his goddamn mind. Maybe he had. He had to get a grip. Take a step back, take a deep breath and gain some perspective before he did something really crazy like haul every one of them out of this dump and move them into his brand-new, very empty house, which had finished construction mere weeks before.
It was a house built with a large family in mind. The family he knew one day he wanted to be his. Though he had no immediate plans. No specific woman in mind. No one waiting in the wings. No one he was even considering. He hadn’t allowed anyone that close.
But it didn’t mean he didn’t know what he wanted. Someday. He’d always known. A wife. Children. A house full of children. Noisy, rambunctious. Much like his own upbringing in a house full of brothers, two older and three younger.
He wanted that life for himself. Wanted to carry his childhood into his adult life. Provide that warm, stable, loving home for his own children that Frank and Marlene Kelly had provided him and his brothers. He wanted nothing more than to come home to his own wife after being away on a mission. To be welcomed back with a sweet, loving smile. To be surrounded by his children. His kids. A part of himself. His blood.
But for now the house stood alone. A symbol of his hopes for his future. Apart from the other houses his brothers lived in at the Kelly compound surrounded by a tight security field. A reality of their lives and the career choices they’d made.
Empty except for the bare essentials. He’d always known that whenever he settled down, he wanted his wife to decorate. To put her feminine stamp on the furnishings, the wall decorations. He looked forward to girly, frilly knickknacks and fighting over the bathroom sink and arguing over leaving the toilet seat down.
All the things his brothers good-naturedly bitched about were the things that Donovan craved. Oh, not that any of his brothers truly bitched about their wives. They were completely over-the-moon, head-over-ass, stick-a-fork-in-them done. They’d met their other halves. The women who completed them. He envied them with every breath in his body, even as he shrugged off the teasing that he and Joe were the only ones not hooked and reeled in yet.
He’d perfected the laid-back, easygoing, laissez-faire attitude. To everyone else, he was content with his life. Not actively looking to change it. But his gut tightened every time he saw his brothers with their wives. Their children. His sisters-in-law and his niece and nephews.
One day . . . One day, he kept saying. It would all be his. Just what his brothers had. But that day hadn’t come, and years kept passing. Fading into yet another. Children getting older. More children on the way. His family was growing around him in leaps and bounds and he was standing still, the only one unchanged.
Christ, he was well into his thirties. Sam was forty! Donovan wasn’t that far behind!
He shook his head, forcing his thoughts back to the present. The utter gravity of the situation before him. Because he had to do something. There was no way in hell he’d stand by and allow this to go unaddressed.
Once again, Rusty saved the awkward silence that had fallen over the tiny room.
“Well, he’s welcome to work as long as he’d like. He’s good help, and that’s hard to find,” Rusty said enthusiastically.