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He shook his head, chuckling. “Where are the things?”
“At Carol’s apartment.” I frowned. I wasn’t sure I was ready to go back there. I’d been to her place once after she died, and it had been ultra-painful, but I had needed to get stuff for Devon.
“Would you mind?”
I stared at Devon, thinking about how much I didn’t want to go back to her apartment, but knowing that I needed to. I had to get her place cleared out by the end of the month anyway. I guess it was good that I now had a week off. “No, I don’t mind. I need to get her place packed up anyway.”
“What are you going to do with all her stuff? Are you going to give it to her family?”
I spun on him. “God, you didn’t know anything about her, did you? She grew up in foster care, Trevor. No, she didn’t have a family. Her family died when she was like seven. Of course, if you had gotten to know her instead of just using her body, you might have known that.” I rubbed my hands over my face as I tried to calm down. This man made me lose my shit so easily. “I’m going to take a few special items and give the rest of her stuff away to charity.”
He frowned at me as he leaned back against the wall near the kitchen, crossing his arms. “You really have a problem with the fact that I spent the weekend with Carol and then didn’t see her again, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why is that?” he asked as he stared at me hard.
“Because you’re what, forty or so? I would think by this time in your life, you would have grown up and stopped living the frat-boy kind of life.”
“Frat boy?” He pushed off the wall and stalked toward me. “I’ve never been a frat boy, Davina. I graduated from high school and did twenty years in the military. You have no right to talk down at the way I live my life.”
“Yeah, well, so what. You did twenty years in the military, and I bet you had a different girl in every port.”
“That’s a sailor reference, Davina. I was in the Marines.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Who cares. You know what I mean.”
He stepped closer to me, glaring down at me, and I got lost in his serious blue eyes for a moment. “I didn’t get involved in relationships, Davina, because I never knew if I was coming home. To be honest, I think that is a pretty mature decision. I never once got involved with someone and made them believe for one moment that I was in for the long haul. I was always honest with the women I dated and told them that our time togetherthenwas all there ever would be. Don’t get your panties in a bunch because I don’t measure up to your standards.”
“My standards!” I blurted. “You couldn’t possibly measure up to my standards! You’d have to have some for yourself first.”
For a moment, the two of us stared at one another, and I had this sudden urge to go up on tiptoe and kiss his sexy mouth. I held myself back, but I noticed his gaze drifted down to my mouth, and I knew that if he leaned forward, I probably would have kissed him. I hated myself for that.
Trevor didn’t lean forward though; instead, he did something else that surprised the hell out of me. He ran a finger down the side of my face. “I like your feisty nature, Davina. It makes me want to put you over my shoulder and take you to my bed.”
I jerked back from his hand and took two steps away from him. “It will be a cold day in hell before that day ever arrives.”
The side of his mouth tipped up. “We’ll see about that.”
Before I could pick my jaw up off the floor, he was walking back to the kitchen, and Devon began to cry.
Chapter Nine
Trevor
What in the world made me say that to her? Maybe it was because her whiskey eyes snapped with energy or that she said whatever came to mind. I knew that she didn’t like me, not really. Maybe she was slightly attracted to me, but she sure as hell didn’t want to be. And to be honest, that was the last thing that I wanted either.
I had enough to deal with now that I had a kid. The last thing I needed was to get entangled in a relationship on top of that. I frowned as I pulled the container out of the microwave and stirred it. There would never be a relationship with Davina, and I wasn’t sure why I even suggested that there might be.
Maybe it was because when I’d gone to check on her after she’d broken down, I’d found her curled up in my bed, and I’d watched her for a moment. She was the first woman to ever sleep in my bed, and I had to admit that I liked seeing her there. I also appreciated the fact that she had come over to help me last night and allow me to get some rest. I felt much more human today, and even though my life had changed so drastically, I felt like I could now navigate the waters and figure it out.
I’d re-read the letter from Carol, and then the other notes she had left. Devon’s middle name was Michael, and she said that she was going to have my last name put on his birth certificate. So my son’s proper name was Devon Michael Vaughn. I liked it. I’m not sure that I would have named him Devon Michael, but I did like it.
When Davina’s phone had kept ringing, I’d finally answered it. “Hello?”
There had been a long pause, and I wondered if the name that was on the screen calling her was her boyfriend. “Who is this?”
“Who is this?” I parroted back.
