Declan (Wynter Hearts #4)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“Have you had your bowels open today, Mr. Quinn?”

WTF!

Declan gave an audible groan and closed his eyes to accompany all the inner horror he felt as he acknowledged, and not for the first time, that getting shot in the back, twice, sucked.

Especially when it had resulted in him spending a week in a private hospital, three of those days in the Intensive Care Unit.

The other four had been spent in this room, with its own adjoining bathroom.

Both of which looked as if they belonged in a five-star hotel rather than a hospital. Even a private one.

And on every one of those days, Declan had been asked this same embarrassingly personal question. Because, as one of the nurses in ICU had explained, surgery could sometimes result in complications with the digestive system.

The last four days, that personal question had been asked by this same cheerily pert and beautiful young woman.

The always-smiling Nurse Fawn Meadows.

Was it normal for someone to smile this much?

Or was the smile just a facade, a cover to hide something she would rather other people didn’t know and she preferred they didn’t ask about? A bit like the way Declan’s own facade hid the demons that haunted him.

Damn it, Fawn Meadows didn’t look old enough to have that sort of painful history.

She looked to be aged in her early to midtwenties. At work, her straight blonde hair was always pulled back and secured in a ponytail on her crown. But Declan would guess it would reach down to the middle of her back once it was released from the hairband.

In contrast to her always cheerful disposition, Fawn’s amber eyes were often darker than her smile, as if they might contain secrets in those topaz depths.

Her hollowed cheeks were smooth and creamy.

Her lips were full and usually curved into a smile. They were also a tantalizing deep rose color.

Her pointed chin was invariably set at a challenging angle.

Like the constant smile, Declan had no explanation for those shadows in the depths of her eyes, but he had a feeling the two were somehow connected.

But maybe the habitual challenge in her demeanor was because she was such a tiny little thing—at least compared to him she was—and it was her way of projecting strength?

Declan guessed Fawn was at least a foot shorter than his own six feet and three inches in height. She was also at least a hundred pounds lighter than his two hundred and twenty pounds. He believed she was possibly almost twenty years younger than his own age of forty-three.

In experience as well as years.

She had also, during the past four days, become something of a torment to him.

And not just because she liked to ask him verbally awkward questions regarding his bodily functions!

No, for the first time in longer than Declan cared to think about, he’d had a strong and completely inappropriate physical reaction to a woman.

To Fawn Meadows, in fact.

The first time had been on the day Declan was transferred into this spacious private hospital suite.

It had happened when Fawn came to help him to the bathroom so that he could wash himself for the first time in days rather than suffer through another one of the bed-baths the nurses in ICU had insisted on giving him. He hadn’t had the same physical response to any of them.

An erection was a difficult thing to hide when you were only wearing loose sleep pants and nothing else, but Declan really hoped he had succeeded.

As was usual in a hospital, the ambient temperature was kept high.

Consequently, it was more comfortable for Declan not to wear a T-shirt that would inevitably press against the two wounds healing on his back.

The fact that it also revealed the matt of grizzled gray hair on his chest was just another reminder of the very obvious age difference between the grouchy Declan and the blonde and always happy Fawn Meadows.

Which was why it was doubly embarrassing that she always took such great delight in asking about Declan’s bowel movements every day!

How did he know she took delight in it?

Probably because Fawn Meadow’s beautiful amber eyes always gleamed with mischief whenever she asked him that question. At the same time, her full lips twitched as if she was having great difficulty stopping herself from outright laughing at him.

Never mind that Declan had been in the army and was now ex-Special Forces. A career that had allowed him to have very little privacy from his fellow soldiers.

But no one during any of that time had ever asked him about the regularity of his bodily functions.

Until now.

Declan turned from where he had been packing his toiletries into his rucksack.

Linus Wynter, one of the four owners of Wynter Security, the company Declan worked for, had brought the rucksack from Declan’s apartment, along with some toiletries and street clothes, the day after Declan was shot.

Declan didn’t bother asking the younger man how he had got into his apartment; Linus was the tech wizard of the company, and he had also designed and installed the security system in Declan’s apartment building.

“No, I haven’t,” he now answered Fawn tightly.

“Oh dear.” She gave an exaggerated shake of her head. “Mr. Hargreaves left strict instructions that you are not allowed to be discharged until after your bowels have been opened.”

Declan snorted. “You have got to be kidding me!”

His initial emergency operation had been performed by the very capable female surgeon who had happened to be on duty the day he was shot. Apparently, she was one of the three doctors who worked at the hospital under Colin Hargreaves, the world-renowned surgeon.

The operation had been a complete success, but Fergus Wynter, another one of Declan’s employers at Wynter Security, had still insisted that Colin fly back from his holiday in the Bahamas so that he could personally take over Declan’s care.

The fact that the surgeon had done so was a testament to how much Fergus must be paying him.

Declan was pretty sure that, as he was one of the employees at Wynter Security and he had been shot while he was at work actively protecting someone, the Wynter family would have ensured he was well taken care of, no matter who he had taken those two bullets for.

But that care had doubled in its intensity because the target Declan had protected that day had been Thea Morgan, the woman Fergus Wynter would shortly marry.

Protecting her had been purely an instinct on Declan’s part, having wrapped his body about Thea the moment he had seen the shooter pointing a gun in their direction. No one was getting shot on Declan’s watch.

Except him, apparently.

The police had been to see him on the day of the shooting and the one after, that last one to inform him that they had identified the man they now believed to have been the shooter from that day. They had also found him dead in a London alley earlier that day.

The police had left the case open in case of further evidence to confirm their theory, or if they managed to find whoever had killed him, but otherwise, it wasn’t one they were continuing to pursue.

As they had identified the man as Russian, with gang-related tattoos, they thought that Declan must have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That, as a consequence, he had probably been caught in the crossfire between two warring street gangs.

Declan wasn’t about to inform them otherwise.

Even if Fergus had told him in confidence that the hit on Thea had been deliberate, and that if Declan hadn’t stepped in to take those two bullets, she would now be dead.

There were just some things the police didn’t need to know. Nor was there any reason for them to do so, in this case, when the matter had already been dealt with.

By Nikolai Volkov.

The moment Nikolai, the second to the head of the Russian bratva in London and a friend of the Wynter family, had become involved, the continued existence of the man who had attempted to shoot Thea Morgan had been reduced to hours rather than days.

Which was why the man’s dead body had been found in an alley within a day of his having shot Declan instead of his intended target of Thea.

“No, I’m really not kidding.” Fawn’s unwavering amber gaze met Declan’s as she answered his derisive dismissal of her question.

His eyes narrowed. “You have to be shitting me— Fuck,” he muttered, glaring when he saw the mischief in her eyes turn to open laughter at his accidental gaffe. “Dammit, you were joking,” he accused irritably.

“Yes, I was,” she confirmed without a shred of remorse as she glanced down at the half-packed bag on the bed. “Need any help with that?”

“I’m reliably informed by one of my bosses and his fiancé that they have employed someone full-time to stay at my apartment and take care of me for the next couple of weeks while I recuperate.

” He grimaced at the mere idea of it, knowing he was going to be sick of having someone else in his space long before that couple of weeks was over. He already was.

Except he really didn’t have a choice.

Getting shot while protecting Thea had also resulted in the newly engaged couple coming to visit him in the hospital every day, sometimes together, sometimes apart.

For the last four days, since it had been decided Declan could eat more than the pureed food they had served him while he was in ICU, Thea had arrived at the private hospital every day with the hot, delicious, and enticing meals she had acquired from a local restaurant on her way here.

The moment Thea had been informed Declan was going to be discharged today, she had set about finding someone to stay at his apartment with him twenty-four-seven for at least the next two weeks. Longer, if he needed them to.

None of Declan’s protests had stopped her from doing exactly that, nor was he in a position to insist.