Davan Part 1 Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by Penny Blush Books.

  All rights reserved. This work is under copyright. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on life experiences and conclusions drawn from research, all names, characters, places and specific instances are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Any references to historical events, real people or places are used fictitiously. No actual reference to any real person, living or dead, is intended or inferred and is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgments

  As per normal I have a million people who I have to thank. Firstly, thank you to all my readers, the people who demanded that Davan get his own story. When I first started writing the Barber Shop Ink Series, Davan was a background character, a throw away, a person of little consequence or so I thought. Thank you for demanding that his story be told.

  Thank you to Jen Renieck, you lady are a star! Thanks for all your notes, suggestions, questions and encouragement. I appreciate everything about you.

  Thank you, Nicola Squibb you are, an amazing human and I love you! Thanks for all your encouragement and pushing me to do better.

  Thanks Sherry Blossom #BFF1924. I love you to London and back. Thank you for all the late-night messages and edit sessions. Thank you for the laughs and international drinking sessions.

  Thanks to my ARC and Beta readers and everyone who shares my work it means the world to me.

  I met the woman of my dreams at my sister’s wedding.

  I was standing on the edge of the dance floor talking with my cousin when she walked right up and asked me to dance. A woman has never approached me like that before, bold and full of confidence. I’m a big guy and in my military dress uniform I can appear to be quite intimidating.

  My size didn’t faze her though, she walked right up grabbed my hand and dragged me out onto the dance floor.

  I met the woman of my dreams at my sister’s wedding.

  Too bad I am already married.

  Prologue

  I arrived late to the wedding.

  I missed the ceremony.

  I didn’t get to walk my sister down the aisle.

  I didn’t get to watch her marry the man of her dreams and say I do.

  It was just one more time I’d let Jupiter down.

  One more major life event of hers I missed.

  I tried to get there; I tried to be there for her, but the trip from home took longer than expected.

  A few months ago, my cousin Jaxon showed up at my house with my soon to be brother-in-law Memphis Blue to introduce us.

  Jaxon, although he loves me like a brother, had no hesitation in reading me the riot act. He didn’t hold back. He ripped into me about everything. Especially re-deploying not long after the accident that killed our parents, for not trying harder to fix things with my sister after we had a massive fight, and she took off to London with Uncle Charlie, and for dropping off the face of the earth and letting everyone believe I was dead.

  A decade of pent up anger, disappointment and maybe even a little resentment, came spewing forward in one almighty purging of his soul and then he demanded I come to my sister’s wedding.

  “I don’t give a fuck what you have to do or who you have to owe sexual favours to Davan, but you will be there. This is not a request. It is a motherfucking order soldier boy. You will be there. Do not make me come back here to get you Davan. I don’t care that you’re a decorated war hero. I don’t care how many medals hang from your damn chest. If you make me come back to get you, I will kick your ass, murder you dead, revive you and then murder you again. Are we clear?”

  Memphis stood beside Jaxon with his arms crossed, his whole stance defensive, glaring at me, trying to intimidate me. He had said little in the time they had been in my home but when Jaxon finished with his threats Memphis added his own. Letting me know in no uncertain terms only a life and death situation would be an acceptable excuse for me missing their wedding.

  “If you miss the wedding Davan, if you are not there for your sister, you damn well better have proof of whatever the fuck stopped you from being there. I will not tolerate bullshit excuses. If you want to reacquaint yourself with this family and be part of it again, you will make the fucking effort. You will move heaven and earth to get there.”

  Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Jupiter was my sister before she became his fiancée. Jaxon was my cousin, long before he ever became his friend.

  “Be a part of this family?” I growled. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? She is my family. Jaxon is my family.”

  “Oh, really? You walked away from this family. You stayed away from this family. You neglected to tell this family you were still alive. You’re nothing but a fucking ghost,” he spat, stabbing me in the chest with finger. “You have a colossal amount of damage control to do Davan and some mighty fucking high fences that need mending within this family. You can make a start by attending your sisters fucking wedding.”

  My first impression of Memphis was that he was an asshole. I soon found out Memphis was not your average asshole. He’s an asshole I could respect. The guy drove fifteen hours to meet me, yell in my face for treating the woman he loved like she meant nothing and then demanded I attend their wedding. We may have had a few choice words to say to each other, but we refrained for throwing punches.

  Then Jaxon pushed the point further by saying if I didn’t show, he would tell Jupiter that I am alive and where I live. Sure-as-shit if she knew where I lived, she would show up at my door and drag my ass there, chewing me out the entire drive back.

  Memphis explained they wanted a simple wedding, nothing fancy, and that it was being held it in the backyard of a friend’s place. I was a little annoyed that Memphis thought he was worthy of marrying my little sister, but I became a lot annoyed that he didn’t think she wasn’t deserving of a wedding fit for a queen. Jupiter deserves so much more than a backyard wedding! He should give her everything she wanted and then some.

  She deserved a grand ballroom, a designer label wedding dress, hand crafted fondant flowers on top of a twelve-tier wedding cake, with the pope himself marrying them if that's what she wanted, not a fucking backyard budget wedding.

  I made the fifteen-hour drive to keep the promise I made to Memphis and Jaxon.

  In my mind I have envisioned a couple picnic tables, a few paper-lanterns, maybe some fairy lights, and a recycled wedding dress. What I hadn’t expected, was to pull into the long winding tree line drive of a fucking mansion.

  Arriving at the venue for their wedding, I double checked the address to make sure I had the right place, then I noticed a sign advising the wedding was around the back. This was not what I expected, and I couldn’t believe it was a friend’s home. This place was huge. Grimes Manor is a beautiful old plantation style home on the river. The ceremony was being held in the extensive gardens out back with the slow winding river as a backdrop.

  Smirking, I thought, I had gotten one thing right, there were fairy lights. Not the handful of half functioning leftover Christmas lights I’d expected, no, there were millions of twinkling fairy lights strung up throughout the willow trees and crisscrossing above the dance floor. There was a long banquet table setup with chairs lining each side, so all their guests could sit together. A bar had been set up in the back and servers moved discreetly through the guests serving drinks.

/>   It was beautiful, regal and perfect for my little sister.

  I arrived late to my little sister’s wedding.

  They had already completed the ceremony, vows exchanged, rings accepted, the speeches already made. I arrived just as the emcee announced that Memphis and Jupiter would take the dance floor to have their first dance as man and wife.

  That is when I first noticed her.

  I felt her before I saw her. It was the same feeling I got when I was in country with my unit, call it a sixth sense, a knowing, a sense of foreboding. It was a prickling across my skin, anticipation of something big to come. An event to come that would change my life forever.

  Then there she was.

  Seraphina Knight.

  She was standing by the dance floor with Jaxon and his girlfriend Cassidy. Seraphina was the most stunning woman I had ever seen. She outshone every other woman there, all except maybe the bride. I stood back in the shadows for a moment longer, so I could take her in.

  You would think the first thing I would notice at my sister’s wedding, after being out of her life for close to a decade would be Jupiter, the bride.

  It wasn’t.

  It was her.

  Seraphina Knight.

  She was wearing an iridescent purple dress. The colour should have clashed with her flame red hair, but the shimmery fabric enhanced it. Cassidy whispered something in her ear, and Seraphina turned to her and smiled. It was an angelic smile that lit up her beautiful face, haloed by a mass of curly red hair. She stood with my cousin and his girlfriend oohing and ahhing over the bride and groom enjoying their first dance. In heels she came up to Jaxon’s shoulder, so that put her at around five-eight. Her body was soft and curvy, but you could tell she looked after herself. Like she worked out but still enjoyed her food - if she wanted ice cream, she would have it and not sweat the calories - which I liked.

  She laughed, a heartfelt laugh, it felt like an arrow to the heart from clear across the dance floor. She swatted Jaxon’s arm, pointing to the centre of the dance floor which drew my attention back to my sister with her new husband.

  It was time to focus.

  Time to face the music.

  With a deep breath, I stepped onto the dance floor to greet my sister for the first time in a decade; or so she thought.

  Four months ago, my unit and I were in London, tasked with taking down Morningstar, a mafia assassin we had been tracking for years, until without reason she dropped off the radar. She disappeared off the face of the earth for almost six years and then without reason she popped back up. We couldn’t figure out why, after all this time, she would come out of hiding. I didn’t care why, all I cared about was finishing the job and getting home to my family.

  I had to apologise to my sister, set things right and I owed her one hell of an explanation.

  As expected, Jupiter was shocked to see me. What I hadn’t expected was for her to punch me instead of hugging me. After we both got over the initial shock of reconnecting, for the rest of the evening we made sure we were always within eyesight of each other, as if afraid the other would disappear.

  Guilt riddled my heart that in my absence Jaxon had been forced to step into my shoes and take over the role of big brother. That he had helped to ease some of the contrition plaguing me. They had always been close, but I could tell through their interactions they were closer than normal cousins and they had been through some shit together.

  Throughout the night my eyes kept being drawn to Seraphina. She seemed to have this inner light that radiated from her; it was intoxicating.

  I was standing on the edge of the dance floor talking with Jaxon and Cassidy when Seraphina approach us. She walked right up and asked me to dance. A woman has never approached me like that before, bold and full of confidence. She didn’t so much as ask me to dance it was more of an inevitability. I’m a big guy and in my military dress uniform I can appear to be quite intimidating; people avoid me, they do not walk up to me demanding a dance.

  My size didn’t faze Seraphina though, she walked right up to me bold as you like and told me to come and dance with her. I was planning on declining but EJ gave me a subtle shove in her direction. Seraphina grabbed my hand and dragged me out onto the dance floor. We stood there staring at each other for a while, when again she took charge.

  “So, are you going to lead, or will I?”

  I met the woman of my dreams at my sister’s wedding.

  Too bad I am already married.

  Chapter 1 Seraphina

  I didn’t think love at first sight was real until tonight.

  I had always believed you needed to know a person for love to grow. Your values and beliefs need to align, you needed to have common interests, at the least you need to know the person’s name before you fell head over heels in love with them.

  Tonight, I became a believer.

  It was only a few hours ago I was standing in my living room staring at a sea of moving boxes wondering where to start. My hair was in a messy bun, I was wearing the same pair of sweats I’d had on since I arrived at my new home and there was a chocolate milk stain on my t-shirt; I was a red-hot mess. My belongings packed in boxes of various shapes and sizes, remained scattered around the cottage creating a labyrinthian path throughout the house that would have caused even Indiana Jones a spot of bother. All I needed to do was pick one box, just one as a starting point but even that caused me anxiety, because all I could think of was the laundry list of things, I needed to do that were way more important than picking a box to unpack.

  Naïvely, I thought the whole thing would be so easy.

  Step one purchase a home, step two move in, step three begin my fabulous new adventure.

  That is not what happened.

  I’ve been in town for over a week, but my cupboards are still bare, my fridge hasn’t been stocked, hell I hadn’t even bathed in two days. My mattress lay on a plastic sheet on the dusty floorboards in my room because I couldn't locate my broom or vacuum cleaner. The only reason I have bedding and the ability to make coffee is because on the way to the cottage I stopped off at a big box store and bought a new pillow, sheet set, blanket and splurged on a top of the line coffee machine that came with a free set of mugs. My plan had been to set up my bedroom, make a coffee, then make unpacking my bitch.

  That didn't happen.

  Moving here from New Zealand had zapped all my energy and enthusiasm, the last thing I wanted to do was unpack, having to sort through what felt like twelve trillion boxes, deciding where things should go, let alone go to a party; much less attend the wedding of people I didn’t know.

  My best friend Cassidy Aims arrived on my doorstep with a dress, some heels and yelled at me to shower and put the damn dress on.

  I tried to refuse. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t want to feel like an interloper, coming to their wedding for the free food and drinks. I didn't want to shave my legs and wear a dress. All I wanted to do was shower, put on my super comfy pyjamas, order takeout and binge watch Supernatural.

  Miss Cassidy Aims would not be ignored.

  Cassidy, although tiny, five-foot-tall, is a persistent pain in the ass. She stood in front of me with her hands on her hips looking intimidating despite her pink and peach hair styled into an intricate updo and her makeup done to highlight her bright green eyes, wearing cut-offs and a button up checked shirt. She insisted I attend the wedding as her plus one. When I pointed out I couldn’t be her plus one as she was going with her boyfriend Jaxon, she said he was in the wedding party, so he didn’t count. Cassidy argued with me all the way up the stairs, through my bedroom and into the bathroom before I realised, I had agreed to go.

  The wedding was of her brother Memphis.

  Memphis isn’t really her brother, he is her best friend, her mentor, her protector, they are as close as siblings. They may not be a family by blood, but they are family.

  Memphis was marrying Jupiter, who they call Hedge, a nickname given to her by Jaxon, her cousin and Ca
ssidy’s boyfriend.

  Cassidy is head over heels in love with Jaxon. Their relationship was like a 90s teen movie, where the hunky jock befriends the brainy nerd to help him with his homework, not realising he loved her, until she took her glasses off and let her hair down from a severe bun. In other words, Jaxon didn't realise what was right in front of him until someone had shown him. Anytime we spoke she always wove in a story about something funny he had done or how amazing a boyfriend he is. You could tell by the smile in her voice and the longing look in her eyes that Jaxon James O’Hare, owned her heart.

  I made sure Cassidy knew I was not happy about being forced to go, but once I began getting ready, I realised that I was excited about leaving the house and meeting new people. We didn’t have to go far for the wedding; in fact, we didn’t even have to drive. We walked along the river path to the backyard of my next-door neighbour Mason Grimes, who everyone calls Bear. Bear is a fitting nickname for my neighbour, he’s tall and wide like a grizzly bear standing on its hind legs. He has a loud booming voice he tempers as to not frighten people. I met him the day I moved in to my cottage.

  I was trying to manoeuvre a large antique dining table out of the back of Jaxon’s truck; I borrowed after insisting I needed no one’s help. The large piece of furniture was hanging over the end of the tailgate. I was hot, sweaty and frustrated, swearing like a sailor. I gave the leg of the table one final forceful tug, the brute of a thing shifted, and I couldn’t hold the weight. If it hadn’t been for Bear, it would have crushed me. He caught the table lifting it as if it was a piece of plastic children’s furniture.

  He carried it all by himself into my kitchen and didn’t mind when I asked him to move it and then put it back where it was. My dad always said I have an instinct with people, and I could tell straight away that Bear is one of the good ones. Since that day we’ve been meeting on one another's back porch for a drink and discuss the issues of the day, mostly, what we were planning for dinner.