Days Of Our Lives Relationship Timeline: Shane And Kimberly

They haven't been seen in Salem together since 2016 and have only appeared sporadically since the 1990s, but Shane and Kimberly Donovan are a "Days of Our Lives" love story to remember from the 1980s heyday of soap opera supercouples when location shoots and high romance where the name of the game.

Played only by Charles Shaughnessy and Patsy Pease since 1984, Shane and Kimberly now live in California with their children and grandchildren, with Shane occasionally making an appearance to solve an international crime like he did on the show's spin-off mini-series streamed on Peacock in 2021, "Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem." However, when they lived in Salem, they captured the romantic imagination of fans — and even spawned a Billboard Top 40 hit in 1988 with the Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson duet "Friends and Lovers." Take a look back at their love story, which began when a super spy met a former prostitute.

Shane Donovan first arrived in Salem as an undercover agent for the International Security Alliance (ISA) in 1984 in search of three valuable prisms the evil Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) was after. Eventually, he teamed up with Bo Brady (Peter Reckell), Hope Williams (Kristian Alfonso), and Bo's sister, Kimberly Brady, who was leaving a life of prostitution behind in Europe. Soon, Shane and Kim fell in love (via Soap Central).

Not long after, another mystery took them all the way to England where Shane was shocked to learn his presumed dead wife, Emma (Jane Windsor) was still alive. Shane brought Emma back to Salem, but told her he was still in love with Kimberly and soon the stress of the situation brought on a case of hysterical blindness for Kim. She shut Shane out of her life and became friendly with the much older Victor Kiriakis (John Aniston). When Victor threatened Shane's life, her sight returned but she slept with Victor to save Shane. Not long after, Shane and Kim reunited, but when Kim learned she was pregnant, she had no idea who her baby's father was (via Soap Central).

While pregnant, Kimberly insisted that she have tests done to determine who fathered her child. It turned out to be Shane's baby, but Kimberly didn't know that because Emma forged the test results, a typical paternity soap trope. Now engaged to Shane, Kim decided to keep the fact that she thought Victor was the father of her baby a secret, but when Shane learned the truth, he broke things off with her.

Towards the end of her pregnancy, Shane and Kim ended up in a remote cabin together where she went into labor. Shane delivered Kim's son and decided he would raise him as his own. However, Emma wasn't done with them. Once Kim, Shane, and baby Andrew were back in Salem, Emma kidnapped the baby and sold him on the black market. Kimberly's grief over her missing baby caused another breakup with Shane, but months later, he finally found Andrew in the hands of unsuspecting adoptive parents and returned the baby to his real mother. When Andrew was soon sick and needed blood, Shane and Kim finally learned who his real father was (via Soap Central).

With Shane and Kim happily married raising a baby, it looked like they would live happily ever after, but since they were on a soap opera, that wasn't yet meant to be. In 1987, Kim befriended a young teen and hired her as a babysitter for Andrew. The teen, Eve Barron (Charlotte Ross), soon revealed that she was really Shane's heretofore-unheard-of daughter. While she thought her mother was Emma, who was now dead for real, it turned out to be Shane's former ISA partner Gabrielle Pascal (Karen Moncrief).

Shane and Kim took Eve in and tried to give her a happy home, but she was a troubled young girl who was also working as a prostitute on the Salem docks. She also tried to break up her father and stepmother so that Shane would reunite with Gabrielle. She even succeeded for a while, but Shane and Kim got it together again and remarried in 1988 after Kim miscarried their child (via Soap Central).

While Kim and Shane enjoyed a second honeymoon in England, she was introduced to Shane's twin brother, Drew — someone he had never mentioned before. When Drew turned out to be a crooked double agent working for the ISA, he and Shane parted ways temporarily, but danger came calling again on a 1989 ISA mission in which Shane was presumed dead. Kim's grief led her to seek comfort with a new man in town, Cal Winters (Wortham Krimmer). It turned out Shane was alive and he walked in on his wife in bed with another man. To make matters worse, Kim thought he was a burglar and shot her own husband.

Then, it was like a case of deja vu for the couple. After Shane recovered, he and Kimberly reunited and she found herself pregnant. Once again, she did not know who the father was and once again she ran paternity tests without Shane's knowledge. Just like the previous time, the results were tampered with. Cal made it look like he was Kim's baby's father and he and Kim broke up again. That's when Kim left town only to return with her baby daughter, Jeannie Theresa. She suspected Shane might be the father and tricked Cal into admitting he faked the paternity results. However, the damage had been done and Shane and Kim chose not to reunite this time (per Soap Central).

By 1991, Kim returned to Salem with Andrew and Jeannie and couldn't believe Shane was having a fling with her sister, Kayla (Mary Beth Evans). Things didn't work out with Kayla, but they didn't work out with Kimberly either — at least not for a long time. For years, Kim was with movie producer Philip Collier (Richard Burgi) while Shane traveled the world solving crimes and checking in with his son and daughter. Kim returned to Salem several times throughout the years and finally in 2010, the stars aligned and she and Shane reunited (via Soap Central). 

Both have returned to Salem a few times since then, especially when their daughter, Jeannie Theresa (Jen Lilley) — going by just Theresa — arrived in Salem as a troubled young woman. In 2018, Theresa moved back to California with her son, Tate, to take care of Kim, who was suffering from cancer. When Shane put in an appearance with the "Beyond Salem" gang in 2021, he mentioned his wife, so fans could assume all was right in the Donovans' world.