Chapter Sixteen
Derek
Hunter isn’t talking to me, which is another first I can add to my list. After Donovan left the river, he told me I was being careless and should stay focused on the reason I’m here.
I told him that I was asking her questions about the life of a river guide.
He told me that I’m acting like Liam and being reckless, which made me snap back at him for speaking poorly about one of my best friends, and he said he doesn’t want to have to protect my heart as well as my body but will do it if he has to.
Then he stormed off, apparently to make friends with the middle-aged group because, in his words, “They aren’t idiots distracted by pretty faces like the rest of you.”
He lumped me in with Brody and Cody, who have become attached at the hip to two of the WanderLove women. AKA the four of them were playing tongue twister behind the tents when I went that way to change.
It’s the most insulting thing Hunter’s ever said to me.
It doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
I am being reckless. It was bad enough that I told Donovan one of my deepest secrets, but then I joined her in the river and asked her questions. Her answers only fueled my curiosity, which is why I’ve turned away anyone who has tried to start a conversation with me.
While I should feel guilty for toeing the line of rudeness, I have to know what Donovan is hiding from me.
At this point, I’m almost desperate to know who this woman is, and I swear there’s something just out of reach, like the answer is there if I can only put the pieces together in the right order.
I flip through the last few pages of my notebook, the ones dominated by notes about Donovan.
It’s rare that I fixate so much on one thing, and I should be focusing more on the river trip as a whole.
I still need to jot down my experience with rowing today, but I can’t do that.
Not until I figure out what makes Donovan tick.
Donovan Tate. She was afraid of me learning her last name. But why?
Getting stuck in the shop in Moab made her nervous. It could have been me that worried her, or it could have been the crowd. Maybe it was both? My fans wouldn’t have paid any attention to her, as far as I know.
She wasn’t even a little starstruck from meeting me.
And yet she’s seen a significant number of my movies, even some of the more obscure ones from early in my career.
She’s not a fan of me, but she might be a fan of film.
That feels like I’m reaching, even after her passionate speech about the movie with Meryl Streep, but I jot down the thought anyway.
‘In my experience, people like you have never heard of gratitude.’ She said that the day I met her but claimed not to meet many celebrities in Moab.
So what experience is she talking about?
She’s been doing these rivers for fifteen years and said she spends the rest of her time at her uncle’s ranch.
The ranch could appeal to clientele of my caliber, but Donovan probably wouldn’t consider it a haven if it was full of celebrities.
Groaning, I flip the page again, skimming through my notes for the hundredth time this afternoon.
She doesn’t want a film crew in Moab. She’s used to getting unwanted attention from men.
Being around me still scares her. She hates fame and wealth when most people crave both.
I pause on that last one, pulling my eyebrows together.
Fame I understand, but wealth? Especially with the way her cousin’s company was clearly struggling financially before I came along, surely she can’t think money is a bad thing.
Not unless she had money and was ruled by it.
That would have had to be before she started guiding rivers, so unless I’ve completely messed up my timeline of her life—I haven’t—Donovan was wealthy when she was a teen.
Does that mean she was a spoiled child of wealthy parents?
Maybe her grandpa saw her toxic upbringing and pulled her out of it somehow.
Donovan said he found her after she crashed into his life, so that doesn’t quite fit.
And it’s highly unlikely she would have chosen to forgo that kind of lifestyle on her own.
It would have had to be a fall. She said she needed a soft place to land when she was telling me about the ranch.
What was it she said to me before I got nailed in the face by an oar? Something about needing to prove herself and making mistakes. Mistakes she doesn’t want me to make.
Cursing under my breath, I shut the notebook and stuff it into my pocket, irritated that I haven’t been able to figure this out.
No matter what problem I’m up against, I can always find a solution if given enough time, but I’ve been on the river with Donovan for two days now and have spent more than enough time studying her.
I should have an answer by now, and I swear I can almost taste it.
With a sigh, I sweep my eyes over the beach to distract myself before I start to lose my sanity. Maybe I’ll get better sleep tonight and have a clearer head tomorrow.
Just as he said he would be, Hunter’s sitting with the group of college friends, all of them chatting and laughing together.
He’s frowning at something on his phone and holding it in front of him, likely taking a picture, though he doesn’t seem very good at it as he shifts it around to find the best angle.
Was he the one who took the blurry photo of me in Moab?
No. I shake my head as if I can shake away the thought.
If I’m going to start questioning Hunter, I might as well question my friends too.
Distrusting my bodyguard, who has protected me for literal years, is as bad as thinking Freya became my friend because of my connections.
As if a princess needed the influence of an actor.
Sighing, I pick up a handful of sand and let it slowly fall from my fist. It was for that very thing—Freya’s influence—that I befriended her in the first place.
I knew she would never see my fame and wealth as anything but a part of what makes me me.
I’ve always been able to trust that Freya likes me as a person, not as a celebrity.
And I’ve always been able to trust that Hunter has my back.
Thoroughly annoyed with myself now, I look past Hunter to watch Emmett attempting a conversation with one of the WanderLove women.
Steph, I think. She’s clearly uninterested but politely listening as he talks with his hands.
Behind him, Maverick watches the whole exchange with a curious expression on his face, like he’s both amused and disappointed, though he seems to be the kind of guy who keeps his emotions to himself for the most part.
Either way, he’s invested in the awkwardness in front of him.
The other two WanderLove guys are chatting closer to the kitchen, and though Cody is talking, Brody’s eyes are on the kitchen.
Where Donovan and Farah are getting dinner ready.
I wrinkle my nose as protectiveness builds in my chest. Brody’s not technically doing anything, but now that I know he put a move on Donovan before the trip even started, I don’t like the way he watches her.
That’s unfounded jealousy talking, especially because Brody’s attention instantly shifts when Rosa walks past him on her way to rescue Steph.
I don’t like the way he looks at Rosa either…
“Ugh, why can’t my hair look like Donovan’s?”
I flinch at the female voice that speaks closer to me than I’d like, but Morgan doesn’t seem to have noticed me sitting in the sand beneath a river willow just a few feet away from her.
She and Zahra were down by the water, but I’m guessing they were on their way to their tent before Morgan paused to compare her hair to Donovan’s.
“I like your hair,” Zahra says, quieter than her new friend. “I don’t think I could ever do anything but brown.”
“Sure you could!” Morgan snatches a handful of Zahra’s dark hair and fans it out.
“I bet you would be so sexy as a blonde. Maybe I need a new stylist. One who actually knows how to make red look natural.” She grabs her phone and points her camera at the kitchen, zooming in so Donovan takes up most of the frame.
“Yeah, see, I need to go a little darker. More of a copper red than a red red, you know?” She snaps a few photos.
I bite my tongue so I don’t ask her to send those to Janie when we get back into cell service.
I’m lucky I’ve still gone unnoticed, and something tells me Morgan won’t be as easily turned away as the others if she decides to start up a conversation with me.
Still, leaving my phone with Janie means I can’t take my own pictures of Donovan, and since she isn’t on her cousin’s website, I’m going to be left with nothing but memories unless I can figure out who she is.
Clenching my jaw, which aches in protest, I pick up a stick and start peeling the bark off while I wait for Morgan and Zahra to move on and leave me on my own again.
They’ve brought my thoughts back to Donovan, but now I’m thinking more about the way she ran her fingers through my hair earlier.
How gently she touched my face, leaving my whole body reacting to her.
I’ve never let myself be that vulnerable with someone before, and if Hunter hadn’t interrupted…
“Gah, I hate how pretty she is!” Morgan says with a little stomp of her foot, knocking me out of my imaginings.
She glares at the picture on her phone as I grip my stick with both hands to keep my irritation at bay.
“I would kill to have that kind of natural beauty, and she’s wasting it in places like this. ”
“I love that she guides rivers,” Zahra counters. “She gives us girls a good name, you know?”
“Maybe if her name wasn’t so masculine,” Morgan mutters, rolling her eyes and making my protective instinct rise. “She should find a cuter nickname, something better than Dono.”
“Van?” Zahra wrinkles her nose. “No, that’s masculine too.”
Morgan’s eyes light up. “Oo, what about Nova?”
The stick in my hand snaps, and I let out a soft curse.
But not because the women jump and look over at me, finally realizing I’m here.
No. That name was the piece of the puzzle I was missing, and suddenly the picture is completely clear.
Her hair is lighter than it used to be, and she’s not wearing the makeup I’m used to, but I can’t believe it took me this long.
Nova Tate.
I know who Donovan is.