Chapter Seventeen
Donovan
“Make that a little more level if you can,” I tell Mason, pointing to the Dutch oven he just set in the fire pan. Inside is a cake for tonight, but the sand isn’t quite flat so the batter is thicker on one side. “We don’t want it to cook unevenly and—gah!”
Derek appears out of nowhere, scaring the crap out of me because he comes right in my face, leaning over the table between us and giving me a scrutinizing look. “Totally Off-track,” he says.
My stomach twists into a knot. In any other situation, that would be an irrelevant phrase, but Derek isn’t one to speak nonsense. I swallow, desperately hoping he’s a little brain damaged from the oar hitting him earlier and that those three words came out of his mouth at random. “What?”
“Treasure Trackers.”
The blood rushes from my face, leaving me dizzy. Oh no.
Derek’s lips twist up in a smile. “Time Switch.”
“Stop talking,” I whisper, hearing the pleading in my voice but knowing he won’t listen. Not when he looks so pleased with himself for figuring it out.
Thankfully, he drops his voice so only I can hear him. “My Sister’s a Spy. Rescue Dogs 3. From Fiona with Lo—”
Clapping a hand over his smirking lips, I round the table and loop my arm through his, tugging him to the Hopper trail and snatching the paddle as I go.
We’re going to need some privacy.
Veering off the trail instead of following it all the way to the buckets, I find a small break in the tamarisk trees and drag him into it. There’s not much space, and while what I really want to do is to run and never look back, this is as far as I’ll be able to go.
I’m never going to outrun my past, am I?
“Don’t,” I beg, and the word comes out breathless. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Tell them what?” he replies, folding his arms. “That you’re almost as famous as me?”
“Was,” I counter. My heart’s racing, leaving me lightheaded. “When I was a kid. That’s not me anymore.”
“Donovan, you were an actor. A good one!” His glee slowly fades as his eyes trail over me, far more examining than he’s ever done before. I feel exposed beneath his gaze. “This is why you’re afraid of me.”
It’s the only reason, which makes this so much harder. If he had a different job—any job—we could be something. Tears prick my eyes, and when Derek’s expression shifts into worry, the tears come faster. “Don’t look at me like that,” I beg.
“Like what?” He runs a hand through his hair, and he seems to be truly processing this new information about me for the first time as his eyebrows pull lower than ever.
“Donovan, you were one of the reasons I got into acting.” His words are barely audible by the end of that sentence, but they hit me with a force I don’t expect, leaving me trembling.
“I loved your movies as a kid. They made me realize I could live a hundred different lives if I chose acting. That I could control my narrative when on a set. Do another take if it wasn’t perfect.
My entire life is…” He exhales, dropping his hands to his sides and looking at me with eyes full of an unnameable emotion. “It happened because of you.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say, and I suddenly feel numb. Like I’m no longer in my body. I thought I had escaped this part of my life, but I should have known that the moment I locked eyes with Derek Riley in that store in Moab was the moment it all caught up to me.
Derek exhales sharply. “Sorry? I owe you everything I have.”
I drop my head, shutting my eyes against my tears and a darkness that’s quickly swallowing me whole. “Including your demons.”
“I have my mom to thank for those. But you? You saved me, Donovan.”
His fingers find my chin and gently lift my face up, and for the first time it feels like he can actually see me. All of me. I’m stripped bare and vulnerable, but just like at the river’s edge, he seems to like what he sees. How? If he knows who I am, he knows what happened to me.
I don’t feel safe like I did before. I’m open and raw and have nothing to protect myself because he already tore down my walls, and now he’s taken my shield from me too.
“Derek,” I whimper. “I didn’t save you. Not if I’m the reason you have to deal with all the crap that comes with fame. I condemned you!” I turn to run.
Derek grabs my arm, his hold gentle but firm. “No.”
“Yes!”
“Donovan, will you look at me?”
I shake my head as I wipe lingering tears from my cheeks.
Sighing, he slowly loosens his hold but keeps his fingers on my arm, as if he wants me to know that I can run but he won’t be far behind. “Trust goes both ways,” he murmurs. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He can’t make that promise. Maybe he won’t hurt me, but that doesn’t change who he is. That spotlight that’s always shining on him isn’t going to go away, and if I step even an inch into that light, I won’t be able to hide anymore.
I almost lost this new life of mine when I trusted a man who hoped to earn a few bucks by selling my story, and I won’t make that mistake again. A simple gag order from my lawyer won’t withstand Derek’s level of fame.
When I don’t run—where would I go?—Derek shifts closer. I feel him more than I see him out of the corner of my eye, and my body still reacts to his nearness like it did in the water earlier, instinct telling me to lean against him. Instinct I fight with everything in me.
“What happened?” he asks softly. “Where did you go?”
I huff out a weak laugh and look back at him. “You didn’t read all the headlines?”
He frowns as if confused by my response. “I was seventeen. I was still trying to figure out the whole Hollywood thing when you vanished.”
As terrified as I am of the man in front of me, I wish I had known him then. He was getting started right as I was forced out, and I could have warned him to stay as far from that life as he could.
Except no, I wouldn’t have warned him.
I loved that life.
“Donovan, why wouldn’t you tell me something like this?
” He folds his arms, staring me down with those piercing blue eyes of his.
“Keep it a secret from everyone else, sure, but me? You…” He seems to be torn between laughing and growling in frustration.
“You know exactly what it is to live my life.”
Which means I know exactly how it will eventually destroy him.
Maybe it won’t. Maybe he’s stronger than me.
No, I know he’s stronger than me, but he can only be strong for so long.
He’s already exhausted from his need to be perfect all the time, and if he drags me into his life and tries to carry the burdens that come with my Hollywood story, like I know he will, they’re going to break him.
I can’t be the reason Derek Riley’s perfect life falls to pieces.
“Because we’re only going to know each other for six days,” I say, hating each word.
Derek’s brow furrows. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
Grabbing the paddle, I hand it to him without looking at his face. “Yeah, it does.” Then I make my way back down the trail to camp, feeling entirely spent.
Right as I reach the kitchen, Hunter steps in my way, his eyes on the trail I just left. “Did you two just…” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.” I look back to make sure Derek didn’t follow me, a question bubbling up inside me. I’m exhausted and want a moment alone, but I have to know. “You’ve worked with him for a while, right?”
Looking down at me, Hunter frowns. “Five years.”
Huh, not as long as I thought, given how close they seem. Still, I push forward with my real question. “Is he happy? Actually happy doing what he does?” Hunter is one of the few people Derek trusts to see his imperfections, which means he might be one of the few people with an answer.
Hunter grunts, staring down the Hopper trail again as worry starts pulling at his features. “Most of the time,” he mutters, but then he seems to realize that he said it out loud and looks at me again, his expression hard. “He loves making movies. Always has.”
“He was…what? Sixteen when he started?” That’s so young, but at least he didn’t have to spend his whole childhood on a set. “How long do you think he’ll keep going?” Derek never did answer the question.
The bodyguard drops his gaze, which is a good sign that I’ve hit on a touchy subject, though I can’t figure out if it’s touchy for Derek or for Hunter.
“How long will you stick around?” I ask when he doesn’t answer. “I can’t imagine your job is easy, being dragged to places like this.”
Hunter follows my hand as I wave it around camp, his eyebrows low and tension in his shoulders. “This isn’t so bad.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. I won’t take offense if you hate the river, even if you’re wrong.”
That brings out a small smile, but it barely cuts through the worry in his eyes. And dang it, I shouldn’t keep talking to him—Derek will head back any minute—but there’s clearly something bothering him. I need to fix it.
Pops, look what you’ve done to me.
Forcing a smile, I look around the beach to make sure no one is close enough to hear our conversation, and then I shoot for a casual tone, ignoring the irony of putting my rusty acting chops to use right now. “Do you ever get time off, Hunter?”
He scoffs. “That would require Derek taking time off.” But then his eyes go wide, and he looks back up the trail as if worried he’ll lose his job if Derek heard him say something like that. “I don’t mind going places with him,” he adds quickly.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“And I don’t care that he works as much as he does.” Something changes in his expression as he grits his teeth, like he’s trying so hard to hold things back, but the dam is starting to weaken.
I shouldn’t push, especially because Hunter works for Derek and I should keep my distance from both of them, but my heart goes out to the big guy. His job can’t be easy, and now that I know so much more about Derek, it’s a lot easier to see the cracks in his life that he tries so hard to hide.
What if he expects perfection from more than just himself?
“He needs you, doesn’t he?” I ask. “He relies on you more than he realizes.”
Hunter’s eyebrows pull together as he looks at me, and he doesn’t have to say anything for me to know the answer.
He exhales slowly, and all of the weight he was carrying seems to slide off his shoulders as he does.
The poor man suddenly looks worn thin. “I worry about him,” he admits.
“All the time. And I care about him too much to not be there for him with whatever he needs.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“To tell him what? That he trusts me too much?” He scoffs, taking a step back, away from my touch. “The second that man learns of a problem, he does everything he can to fix it and won’t stop until he finds an answer. Telling him the truth would only make things worse.”
“But he should know—”
“His friends give him enough to worry about. I don’t need to add to it.” He turns to head down the beach but stops, probably realizing there aren’t many places for him to go. Or maybe he’s realizing that he shouldn’t have said any of this to me.
I’m glad he did. Hunter deserves to be healed by the river as much as anyone does.
“Aren’t you his friend too?” I ask quietly.
Though he glances back at me, Hunter’s worn expression doesn’t change.
At the sound of a twig snapping, he looks over to find Derek coming down the path, and all of the tension returns to Hunter’s shoulders as the two men stare at each other for a long few seconds.
Then Hunter sighs and heads for an empty camp chair near Maverick and Morgan, settling next to them without a word and pulling out his phone.
“Donovan?” Derek leans the paddle against a tree and steps closer.
“No,” I say wearily. “I’m not going to talk about it, Derek.”
“About what? Your first job or the fact that you and my bodyguard are conspiring against me?”
“Ha!” I roll my eyes. “Not everything revolves around you, you know.”
As his eyes shift from me to Hunter, he frowns and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Unfortunately, in my world it kind of does. Did he tell you what’s bothering him? He’s been acting strange since we got to Utah.”
I groan, running a hand down my face. “You’re grown men. You are aware that you can actually talk to each other, right?”
But Derek’s frown only deepens. “So he did tell you something.”
“If he did,” I reply, “I take river confidentiality very seriously. Client-guide privileges. Oathkeeper loyalty.” That last one slips out, and I grimace as Derek’s lips twist into a hesitant smile.
“That was from—”
“Yes, I know it was from Oathbreaker,” I snap.
I’m blaming him entirely for that accidental quote from one of my movies.
Then I sigh because his crooked little smile makes it impossible to be angry with him.
Maybe a small part of me is glad that he finally knows.
It’s one less secret between us. One less thing to hide.
“With how much of a fan you claim to be,” I grumble, “you’d think you would have made the connection sooner. ”
Derek takes a careful step forward, judging my reaction before taking another. “In my defense,” he says as slowly as he’s moving, “no one would have expected to find you in a place like this. And you look a lot different than you used to.”
I’m aware of that, but clearly not different enough, based on the attention I get from guys. I did well on screen only partly because of my acting skills; a large chunk of why I succeeded is because of my genetics.
Something no fourteen-year-old should have to concern herself with.
Derek gets close enough that he could tuck a hand around my waist, but he keeps his big hands to himself.
Thankfully. But he leans in, still not touching me, but I feel the heat of his skin against my face as he whispers, “I take river confidentiality seriously too, Donovan Tate. And you should know that my crush on Nova isn’t as dead as I thought.
It grew up just like she did and evolved into something…
” He leans back and lets his eyes roam over me in a slow, blazing perusal. “…better. Brighter. Bolder.”
With a soft smile on his face, he leaves me weak-kneed and shivering where I stand as he heads over to one of the college friend couples and starts up a conversation.
I’m in serious trouble. No matter how firmly I believe Derek and I can never be in a relationship, I’m starting to wish I was wrong.