Читать онлайн книгу «Colton Family Rescue» автора Justine Davis

Colton Family Rescue
Justine Davis
A broken-hearted cowboy finds his second chance with a single mom under siege in the newest Coltons of Texas romance!Being rich and powerful didn't save T.C. Colton from painful betrayal. His beloved Jolie Peters walked out on him for cold, hard cash offered by his controlling mother…or so he believed at the time. Now, with a killer hunting down her young daughter – a witness to a murder – Jolie turns to T.C. to keep them safe.But trusting her again isn't easy for T.C. at first…although their attraction is still hotter than a Texas summer and he's crazy about little Emma. For a short time in a remote cabin hideout, T.C., Jolie and Emma feel like family, until the killer closes in, threatening every dream they're building together…


A brokenhearted cowboy finds his second chance with a single mom under siege in the newest Coltons of Texas romance!
Being rich and powerful didn’t save T. C. Colton from painful betrayal. His beloved Jolie Peters walked out on him for cold, hard cash offered by his controlling mother…or so he believed at the time. Now, with a killer hunting down her young daughter—a witness to a murder—Jolie turns to T.C. to keep them safe.
But trusting her again isn’t easy for T.C. at first…although their attraction is still hotter than a Texas summer and he’s crazy about little Emma. For a short time in a remote cabin hideout, T.C., Jolie and Emma feel like family, until the killer closes in, threatening every dream they’re building together…
That was one of the things she’d most loved about him; Colton or not, he wasn’t above apologizing.
“I shouldn’t have made such a big deal out of a passing comment,” she said.
“And I shouldn’t have accused you of…what I did.”
She nodded, accepting the sincerity she heard in his voice. “I guess the past isn’t so far behind it can’t jump up and bite.”
For a long, silent moment T.C. watched the horse, who was back on his feet now, shaking to get rid of the dust he’d picked up.
Then, without looking at her, he asked quietly, “Did you mean it? About…wanting me?”
Honesty was the very least of the things she owed him. “I’ve never, ever stopped wanting you.”
His eyes closed. The silvery light made his lashes stand out as a dark, thick sweep above his cheeks. He turned then. Looked at her straight on. “You’d better get inside, Jolie. Or we’re going to start this dance again.”
“Then let the music begin,” she whispered.
* * *
We hope you enjoy this dramatic series:
The Coltons of Texas: Finding love and buried family secrets in the Lone Star State…
Dear Reader (#ulink_bd21e9f1-5a0f-5fee-a968-7e2355b9d7d1),
This is my third visit with the amazing Colton family. They certainly are spread all over! I think I may like the Texas branch best of all, at least so far.
Writing a book in a continuity series is always a challenge, not only keeping everything straight between multiple authors, but because they’re not “my” characters. I try to look at it as if I’m writing a script for a favorite television series. Those aren’t my characters, either, but that doesn’t mean I care about them any less, it’s just different.
I’m a Westerner through and through, so this felt like home for me. And I’m always glad for the chance to throw in a special horse! Besides, well…cowboys. Women who match them. Texas. Cute kids. Bigger than life. What’s not to love? And one of my favorite themes is that of lost love regained.
In this case, there are a lot of obstacles in the way, not the least of which is the formidable Colton family itself. When Jolie Peters ran out on T. C. Colton, she had her reasons. T.C. only knows the only woman he ever really loved didn’t care enough to stay, and took the baby girl he’d started to think of as his own with her. But now she needs his help, and…well, read on and find out.
Enjoy!
Justine
Colton Family Rescue
Justine Davis


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JUSTINE DAVIS lives on Puget Sound in Washington State, watching big ships and the occasional submarine go by and sharing the neighborhood with assorted wildlife, including a pair of bald eagles, deer, a bear or two and a tailless raccoon. In the few hours when she’s not planning, plotting or writing her next book, her favorite things are photography, knitting her way through a huge yarn stash and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.
Connect with Justine at her website, www.justinedavis.com (http://www.justinedavis.com), at Twitter.com/justine_d_davis (https://Twitter.com/justine_d_davis), or on Facebook at Facebook.com/justinedaredavis (https://www.facebook.com/JustineDareDavis/).
Contents
Cover (#u2c61ccb6-f7e0-5920-bcc9-1b6874564c11)
Back Cover Text (#ue894fab5-c453-502b-a994-e650e7acb2ca)
Introduction (#u4e868998-0f90-5d5b-b16e-c6c8f2c7397f)
Dear Reader (#ulink_46ffc62b-3625-53b3-a3f9-d52694d51b2b)
Title Page (#ud9a56a27-ec75-5086-89fe-cac7f93df1e8)
About the Author (#u3d19664c-a61d-5546-af44-8e052c6a13fa)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_bb0416ee-ecca-5593-9cf8-18a031aba924)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_c4e5d970-9266-5036-bf5b-355e749aad4c)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_3b2a1152-157b-5dfc-87f7-dae77dab7365)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_e4f0efc5-2238-5173-a7ec-1fffd514e182)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_20b89837-5dc1-5854-aea0-6db7df3acb6d)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_f2697912-0acf-5de9-ab8f-578946587e08)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_42dd3315-79fd-51e2-92ab-edbbbf838858)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_1516157c-662b-553a-a811-0395240831a6)
“You made him smile again.”
Jolie Peters glanced up at Mandy Allen as she paused by her prep counter. The server never failed to pass on little tidbits like that, and it made her job—and the fillips she’d added to it of her own volition—worthwhile.
“Thanks, Mandy.”
It was a simple enough thing, an extra swirl of the house’s famous barbecue sauce on the rim of the plate was standard presentation, but it was Jolie who had had the idea of doing it in the initials of their regulars. And the staff was always careful to give the plate the right orientation so the customer couldn’t miss it.
“And Mrs. Sandoval really liked the monkfish. I told her you suggested it, because she likes lobster, and she said to pass along her thanks.”
Jolie’s smile widened. “Thanks. I really appreciate hearing that.”
And she did. It would have been easy enough for Mandy to have implied the suggestion was her own, but the woman was scrupulously honest.
“Peters!” She turned at the call from Martine Amaro, the woman responsible for keeping the back of the house running smoothly, which she did with the efficiency of a twenty-year drill sergeant. “Garza is here. You’re done.”
“With two minutes to spare,” she muttered as she headed to the employee room, pulling off and dropping the crisp white apron and cap into the laundry cart on the way. Because heaven forbid she should run into overtime.
She immediately apologized silently to the woman who was in charge of keeping things moving. Not only had she hired her when many wouldn’t, but Mrs. Amaro had been more than fair, had allowed her to adjust her hours to be in keeping with Emma’s day care, and when there were leftovers to be doled out, she made sure a portion was saved for Jolie even if she was off shift.
She wasn’t getting rich, but she was getting by. Her apartment was in an old building and not in the greatest area, but it had been renovated recently enough. Her car was a decade old but reliable. Most important, her daughter’s day care was close enough to walk to for lunch, well staffed and utterly trustworthy. Between the cost for it and her rent, she had little extra, but she was content. She had, after all, come a very long way.
“See you for a moment, Ms. Peters?”
Uh-oh.
The reaction to Mrs. Amaro’s words was instinctive. Things had been going well here, and she thought she was all right, but nothing in her life had ever stayed right for long, except Emma. Jolie had been here nearly a year, but she never took anything good for granted. She never expected anything good to last. Because in her experience, it never did.
As she walked toward the office, her mind was racing. If she lost this job, what would she do? She was finally at ease, if not happy with her life. It had been a long, difficult trek to get to that point. Was it now going to blow up in her face? She’d been honest about her past, so at least there was nothing there to come back and bite her. She—
“Sit down,” the older woman directed.
Jolie sat. She tried to fight down the tension rising in her, but it was hard. She’d spent so much of her life in one scrape or another that she couldn’t help thinking she had—unknowingly this time—wound up in another one.
“Relax,” Mrs. Amaro said, and smiled. She did it so rarely it took Jolie aback. It changed her entire face, made the stern, brusque woman seem kind and approachable.
Jolie let out a breath. “I was afraid I was in trouble.”
“Quite the opposite. You’re doing good work.”
The last of her tension drained away, replaced by a warm relief. “Thank you.”
“In fact,” her boss said, “you’re getting a raise.”
Jolie nearly gaped at her. This, she would never have expected.
“Courtesy—” Mrs. Amaro’s smile widened “—of the governor.”
She blinked. “What?”
“He appreciated that you put his initials and campaign logo on all the plates at his fund-raiser back in July. The head of catering staff told him it was something we did for our regulars. The governor promised us his next function, and suggested whoever had thought of it should get a raise.”
“I...wow.”
Although she admired the governor and appreciated his graciousness to the staff, she had volunteered to work the prep for that fund-raiser mainly because the extra money would pay for Emma’s day care for the rest of the month. True, it had taken some time and practice to get the logo right, but she had liked doing it. And she was surprised the busy man had even noticed, let alone taken the trouble to say something.
“Thank you,” Jolie said. “Thank you very much.”
Mrs. Amaro dismissed the gratitude with a palm-out gesture, but she was still smiling. “Thank the governor.”
Jolie couldn’t help smiling back. “I’ll just drop in this afternoon and tell him.” When the woman’s smile became a grin, she added, “But thank you, too. You’ve always been more than fair to me, and you’ve understood about Emma, and I appreciate it so much.”
The grin changed to a thoughtful expression. Then the older woman said softly, “I was where you were once. A young mother, alone, scared, trying to get myself off a wrong path.”
Jolie’s breath caught in her throat. It was hard to imagine Martine Amaro as anything other than in control. “I didn’t know.”
“Not something I advertise,” she said rather gruffly. “But you’re doing well. And I think you will continue that way. You know what’s important, setting an example for your little girl.”
“It’s the only way I know to show her how to be,” Jolie said, feeling her eyes begin to sting. She fought the tears. She would not break down, not now, when things were looking so rosy. Or perhaps that was why she was getting emotional.
“You’ve been fighting so long you don’t trust anything good. I get that, too.”
Someday she would love to hear this woman’s story, but she knew this wasn’t the time or the place. There was one thing she felt she had to know, though. “Your child?”
The smile Martine Amaro gave her then warmed her to the core. “He’s twenty-three and already a licensed contractor, and I couldn’t be prouder of him.”
“And he of you, I suspect,” Jolie said.
“As Emma will be of you. Now, get on with you. Go buy yourself something nice.”
Jolie laughed, warmed even more by the hope that those words would be prophetic.
Something nice? she wondered as she headed out toward her car, pushing her dark hair back as the breeze tossed it. It had been a very long time since that possibility had been within reach. But maybe...something nice for her and Emma? The girl loved it when they wore matching things, so maybe something like that.
As she drove the short distance, she thought about taking Emma out for dinner to celebrate. They did it so rarely it was quite the treat for the little girl, and she always behaved immaculately; more than once Jolie had been complimented on the child’s behavior by total strangers.
She realized she was smiling. Realized with a jolt that what was making her smile was happiness. A feeling she normally didn’t experience unless she was with Emma.
The old alarms went off in her head. Don’t trust it. Don’t trust anything.
She’d had a very short learning curve on trust. Except it had been more like a roller coaster since her parents had died, one with more downs than peaks. The first real peak had been Kevin Oberman, Emma’s father, who had convinced her he loved her and vanished the day after she’d told him about the plus sign on that little stick. The second had been the day she was hired at the Colton Ranch. Which had led to the third.
And that one, the biggest one, followed by the longest drop, she tried never to think about. And when she couldn’t stave off the memories, she let them come in the nature of a reminder, pounding home a lesson learned the hard way.
Don’t trust.
She’d trusted with all her heart just once. It had been the biggest mistake she’d ever made. Even bigger than Kevin, because at least that had resulted in the child who was the sole highlight of her misbegotten life. The one person she loved without reservation, and who loved her back unstintingly.
But those trusting, halcyon days on the Colton Ranch, when she’d briefly but so very sweetly let herself think she’d found the treasure she’d coveted since her own childhood, a real family, seemed long ago now.
But the lesson learned was harsh and close and real, and she would do well to keep it that way. And to remember not the sweetness she’d had so briefly but the bitter ending. In fact, she would do well not to think about T. C. Colton at all but to remember every vivid, painful moment of that last meeting with his parents. Whitney and Eldridge Colton had presented a united and brutal front, and she’d been helpless to stand against them.
Now, she thought with no small amount of pride, they might find her not quite so easy to push around. Setting that example Mrs. Amaro had talked about. She wanted Emma to be a different kind of woman, and the only way she could see to ensure that was to be what she wanted her daughter to become, to show her the way.
Showing Eldridge and Whitney Colton they’d been wrong about her was just a bonus.
And T.C.?
“No,” she muttered under her breath as she pulled in to the back of the day care, where it was easier to find a place to park. “Not going there.”
She never let herself think about that part, that he had let her go, hadn’t even come looking for her. True, she’d never answered his calls or texts—that had been part of the deal—but she’d thought he might at least be curious enough to look. And she knew him well enough to know that if he decided to look, he would find; he was not a man who gave up easily. Unless he wanted to.
He never even missed you. He’d probably replaced you by the end of the day.
The old lecture played like a worn-out loop in her head. She could accept that. What she couldn’t accept was how he had let Emma go, too. She would have sworn he loved her. He’d been hesitant at first, unused to babies, but tentatively, he had begun to interact with her. She would never, no matter how hard she tried, forget the look on his face the first time he’d lifted the child above him and made her break into a rain of delighted giggles. His smile had matched the baby’s, and in that moment she’d believed in forever.
I can take it, she thought. But how could anyone not miss a child as sweet as my Emma?
No, she knew she’d done the right thing. For all three of them. His actions—or lack of them—afterward had proved that. He’d probably been relieved, since he’d made no effort at all to change her mind.
She hastened inside the day care, greeted the administrator in the foyer with a nod and a smile, and headed for the pickup area in the front of the building. Her first sight of Emma, as always, drove all the negative thoughts out of her mind. The little girl shrieked with joy when she spotted her, and ran to her with arms raised.
“Mommy, Mommy! Look what I painted!”
The child waved a large piece of heavy paper at her. Jolie looked at it dutifully. After a second’s scrutiny of the splotch of green and blue, she smiled. “It’s the park,” she said.
Emma was delighted she recognized it. “See the tree?” she asked, pointing at the slightly crooked shape that leaned toward the water, rather isolated and alone.
“I do.”
That park was why she’d taken that apartment despite the neighborhood, even though it was a bit over her initial budget. Having the park with the pond right across the street was worth it. She didn’t have to drive to give Emma room to run and play, and what she saved in gas money probably evened it all out.
And now with the raise, they would be fine. She hadn’t thought of all the ramifications of that extra money coming in. She gave Emma an even wider smile and the girl giggled.
“What’s this?” Jolie asked, pointing to a blotch of several colors on what was apparently supposed to be a fluffy white cloud.
“A rainbow,” Emma said seriously. “It’s not borned yet.”
Emotion welled up and nearly spilled over at the child’s simple words and beautiful imagination. “I love you, Emma Peters.”
“Love you back, Mommy. Can we go now?”
“We can. I have a little treat in store for you tonight.”
Emma’s eyes widened. “Really?”
It tugged at Jolie’s heart that a treat was so rare it astonished the girl. Maybe it could be more often now, she thought as she took the girl’s hand and they headed back to where she’d parked. Emma clutched her painting as they stepped outside and the wind threatened to steal it. Visions of it blowing away with Emma in hot pursuit made her grimace. There wasn’t much traffic back here; the only person she saw was a woman on foot walking past the back door of the boutique shop next door, but you just never knew.
“Why don’t I hang on to that, and you go get in the car?” she suggested, hitting the button that unlocked the doors.
“’Kay.”
Jolie took the painting with her free hand, keeping her eyes on Emma as she ran to the passenger side of the car and pulled the back door open.
“Jolie? She forgot this.”
The call came from behind her and she turned her head to see one of the day-care monitors in the doorway, holding out Emma’s favorite headband, paint stained from being used to hold her hair back while she was creating. Jolie glanced back, saw Emma was safely in the car with the door closed. Just in case, she locked the doors before she walked back to take the headband. The woman smiled as she handed it over, and waved to Emma before going back inside. Jolie stuffed the headband into her pocket, wondering if the paint was there forever, or if it might wash—
Somewhere nearby, a car backfired, and she felt a split second of satisfaction at the maternal instinct that had told her not to assume cars wouldn’t be around.
Emma screamed.
Jolie whirled, running before she was completely turned around. She could see her. Could see that she was looking out the side window, staring at something in great distress.
There was no one else around. She reached the car. Saw that Emma was apparently unhurt. But still staring. Jolie turned around.
The woman she’d seen behind the boutique was lying on the ground. Blood was pooling around her. It took a moment for Jolie to process what seemed impossible. And when she got there, her breath jammed up behind the knot in her throat.
That hadn’t been a car backfire.
It had been a gunshot.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_b087c47a-a0a3-529b-971c-17de4c366c45)
T.C. Colton leaned back in his chair, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at Dallas. He could see the Reunion Tower to the right, past the edge of the hotel complex built around it. He smiled as he usually did when he spotted it, remembering the first time he had, when he’d asked his father why they’d built it to look like a shifter. It had taken Eldridge a moment to realize it did indeed look like the stick shift on his car, and the old man had laughed.
Because it looks out over the place where the movers and shakers work, son.
Worry over his missing father spiked through him yet again. He tamped it down. He couldn’t let chaos creep in today; there was too much to do. Right now he envied his brother Zane, who as head of security was able to keep himself busy outside this building by visiting all the various Colton holdings for spot security checks. Here, things had gotten shoved aside in the initial panic after the senior Colton had vanished, and while Colton Incorporated was built to run efficiently no matter what happened, the distraction of every Colton at the top was beginning to show.
Not, he thought ruefully, that having Fowler distracted was a bad thing. At least he hadn’t left any messes for T.C. to clean up. That he knew about, anyway. Yet. But there would be something. There always was. There were many things not in his job description as executive vice president of Ranch Operations that had become his responsibility, and cleaning up after his ethics-challenged half brother was one of them. He couldn’t seem to help himself; if there was a devious or underhanded deal to be made, or a manipulative scheme to be hatched, Fowler Colton would find it, or come up with it himself. They’d clashed about it too often to count.
“You know if you put half that energy into honest dealings, we’d be right where we are, but I wouldn’t have to run all over town placating people and paying off the ones you’ve screwed over.”
“But it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, little brother.”
Fun.
Not something he strove for in his work. Oh, he enjoyed what he did, and truth be told he didn’t mind putting out fires. It was what intrigued him about his work, the various problems that cropped up and how to best solve them. Even Fowler had to admit his approach worked; T.C. hired good people and then trusted them, offering help if needed, but leaving it to them if they said they could handle it. Something his brother freely admitted he would never be able to do.
“I never trust anyone outside of family, T.C. And sometimes not even them. Especially not even them.”
He’d have made a hell of a politician, T.C. thought sourly. It was all like a game to Fowler, a game he was the best at. And that he took great glee in winning. He truly did have fun with all his machinations, and nothing pleased him more than triumphing over someone who was fool enough to be honest in his dealings.
Whereas T.C. hadn’t really had fun in...four years.
The memory shot through him the way it always did when his guard was down. He’d been fixated on his worry about his father and his weariness with his brother, leaving the door open for the thoughts he dreaded most.
Jolie.
And the worst—or best—of the memories, that moment when he’d given in to an urge he had never expected, to take the only-months-old baby he was still nervous about even holding, the baby who was looking up at him so solemnly, and swing her up above him so she could look down for a change. It seemed to have thrilled her, and she had broken into a peal of delighted laughter. He hadn’t been prepared for that, and certainly not for how it made him feel. Something deep and primal had sparked to life in him in that moment, an urge to protect, to nurture, to keep this beautiful bit of human life safe forever.
And then he’d looked at Jolie. Standing there, watching them. There were tears streaking down her face, but the glow in her beautiful gray eyes was pure joy. He’d known in that moment that it was right, righter than anything had ever been in his life. They were his, and they would build a life that would be rock-solid and Texas strong.
A month later, they were both gone.
She’d thrown them away and, as his mother so coldly put it, taken the money and run. Just as she’d predicted when she first realized her son had taken an interest in the lowly cook’s assistant.
“She’s a gold digger, Thomas. All she wants is Colton money,” Whitney Colton had said, after storming into his rooms on the second floor of the ranch house. Which he’d always thought was a singularly inaccurate name for a place that looked more like a mansion of the antebellum South.
“You know people said the same thing about you, don’t you?” he’d snapped back at her. He’d scored with that one; he knew it by the color that rose in her cheeks and the anger that flared in green eyes so like his own.
“And I’ve proven them wrong for twenty-five years now,” she retorted sharply.
Yes, he’d scored, but in the end he’d lost, because she’d been proven right. Jolie had jumped at the first chance at a chunk of cash. A big Colton payday must have been her goal all along. He’d fought the knowledge, right up until his mother had shown him the cashed check, with Jolie’s signature unmistakably on the back.
It had been the most painful learning moment of his life. He never, ever wanted to go through something like that again. And it only got worse when he started to wonder if it had been only the money, or if it had been him, too—if he had somehow failed her. So he kept things light, dating occasionally but never seriously, throwing himself into his work with a new energy, and in the process helping create the smooth-running machine that was now Colton Inc.
Which was a damned good thing, he told himself now, since everything else was in chaos. And the last thing he should have been doing was sitting here dwelling on useless, painful memories. And it irritated him that they were still painful, after all this time. He’d assumed he’d be well past it now. Maybe you never forgot the first time you really crashed and burned.
With ruthless determination, he shoved it all back into the compartment it had escaped. His father was missing, his nasty half sister Marceline wanted him declared dead so she could get her grubby hands on her inheritance. That had been a family fight he didn’t ever want to revisit, ending with Marceline putting forth the question he reluctantly had to admit had merit; if their father had been kidnapped and was still alive, why wasn’t there a ransom demand?
And then there was the very real possibility that not only might Eldridge be dead, but someone in the family had killed him.
A tap on the door spun him away from the view he’d no longer been focused on. His assistant, Hannah Alcott, stepped into the office when he called out an okay. Holding a sheaf of papers in her hand, she strode briskly toward him, her energetic stride belying her age, which T.C. knew to be nearly sixty. Once his father’s executive assistant—and, T.C. suspected, at least partly responsible for his father’s steering away from his more unethical turns—she had nearly quit when Fowler took over the reins of Colton Inc., saying bluntly that she wouldn’t deal with his methods. T.C. had tried to intercede, and been unexpectedly flattered when Hannah said, “You’re the only one in this place now that I could work for.”
And so she was here, and his life had instantly become easier. She was efficient, smart and utterly trustworthy.
“Are you happy over here?” he asked as he took the papers she held out. His office was—purposely—on the other side of the building from his brother’s, and smaller, and the adjacent office for his assistant was also smaller.
“Yes, Mr. Colton.” Her tone was formal, but there was a note of respect that had been lacking when she spoke to Fowler. His brother would have been surprised at how much that meant to him. Respect of underlings, as Fowler put it, didn’t matter as long as they followed orders.
“Thank you for accepting the offer. You’ve made my life easier.”
“Thank you for making it. I didn’t really want to leave.”
They were still feeling their way, and although it felt odd to T.C. that he was referred to deferentially as Mr. Colton by a woman a generation his senior, she seemed to prefer it that way. And what Hannah Alcott wanted, she also seemed to generally get.
“I don’t think I’ve ever said that I admire you for standing up to Fowler the way you did.”
She looked at him for a moment, quietly, steadily. “Someone needs to. And I’m here because you are the only other one who has.”
T.C. supposed Fowler would say he was ridiculous for being so pleased at words from a “mere executive assistant,” but nevertheless, he was.
“May I ask you something?” she said when he smiled.
“Only if you promise to stop asking if you can ask.”
She returned his smile. “Why didn’t you have an assistant before?”
He gave a half shrug. “I figured I needed to know how to do it all before I asked somebody else to do it.”
“And that, Mr. Colton, is another reason I’m here.” Briskly turning back to business, she gestured at the papers she’d handed him. “The Wainwright papers are on top, and the analysis you asked for is in the folder.”
“Already? You are a gem, Mrs. Alcott.”
“I am.”
He couldn’t help smiling again, rare enough in these days of worry and mystery that he appreciated it. “I should give you a raise.”
“You already did. I’m quite sufficiently compensated, Mr. Colton.” But she was smiling as she left the office.
He realized after she’d left that one of the reasons he liked her was that she imposed a sense of order on things, and amid the current chaos, that was no small accomplishment. She—
The door opened once more, and Hannah leaned in. “Hurricane Fowler headed this way,” she said.
He grimaced. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Five minutes?”
He gave her a grateful look. “Ten. I’m feeling strong today.”
She nodded and backed out once more.
His brother at full force was not how he’d wanted to spend this afternoon. He needed a back door, T.C. thought, not for the first time. He even considered a dive into the adjoining bathroom, but knowing Fowler he’d barge in anyway. He smothered a sigh and braced himself. It was easier, knowing that in ten minutes Hannah would remind him of some urgent piece of business that had to be attended to immediately. It felt cowardly to him, but sometimes it was the only way to deal with the steamroller that was his half brother.
There was a thud as the door was shoved open; the formality of a knock was usually absent when Fowler was involved. He felt—and acted—as if he owned not only the entire building but everyone in it.
“I know who killed Dad!”
T.C. stood up; he’d expected some business-related demand, or another lecture on his lack of bloodthirstiness on the Wainwright deal. T.C. believed in healthy competition, and the occasional solid partnership; Fowler believed in wiping the competition off the field.
“We don’t know,” T.C. reminded his brother, “that Dad’s dead.”
“Never mind that. I know who did it.”
T.C. groaned inwardly. Great, he thought. Here we go again. It’s not enough that Mother accused Alanna of all people. Now Fowler’s got some other crackbrained theory?
“I presume your glee means you’ve found another suspect for them to chase after besides yourself and Tiffany?”
“Oh, yes.”
Foreboding sparked in T.C.’s chest. Fowler was too gleeful. This was more than just some harebrained idea to throw suspicion off him and his self-absorbed, money-conscious girlfriend. T.C. waited silently, refusing to rise to the bait, denying Fowler some of the pleasure he seemed to get out of making people jump to his tune. Irritation flickered in his eyes.
“You’re so cool now, but you won’t be. Not when I tell you who it is, who I saw right here in town, not an hour ago.”
He’d been right. This was more. And it was aimed at him. “Just get it over with, Fowler. I have a busy schedule.”
Fowler folded his arms across his chest and smirked. “I’ve already called the sheriff, so don’t think you can stop that.”
T.C. frowned. “Why would you think I would want to stop you?” He wanted his father found, and while he doubted whatever wild claim Fowler was making now would prove true, he also felt every avenue should be explored.
“Because you’re a pushover and always have been when it comes to her,” Fowler said, in that nasty tone T.C. had learned meant he was about to spring his trap.
The foreboding exploded into full-blown apprehension. “Her?”
Fowler’s smirk widened. He was clearly taking great pleasure in this.
“Jolie Peters.”
Chapter 3 (#ulink_89895cf5-4408-53cd-ab3b-00e3fed5e6f7)
Jolie clutched her still-weeping daughter close, rocking her, cooing at her, trying to soothe her. The police were being kind, but as grim as she would have expected them to be, dealing with a cold-blooded murder. The Central Business District had its own dedicated police. They knew the area inside out and were coolly, briskly efficient. If she wasn’t in such shock, Jolie would have been impressed.
And if it wasn’t for Emma, she might feel safe.
“It’s all right, honey,” said the uniformed woman kneeling before them as they sat on the edge of the police unit’s front seat. Jolie had purposely put their backs to the bloody scene. The sight of a woman who just a couple of hours ago had been alive being put in a cold, dark bag and loaded in the back of a van was not something she wanted added to Emma’s already horrible images.
The woman’s voice was soft, gentle, and Jolie liked the way she looked at her for permission before she reached up and brushed her fingers over the child’s tearstained cheek. “Maybe you’ll remember more later when it’s not quite so scary.”
“I’m sorry,” Jolie said, “but she’s too upset.”
“Of course she is. Who wouldn’t be? And just knowing we’re looking for a woman helps a lot.”
“You believe her?”
The other officers had seemed to doubt Emma’s account, which Jolie understood, given that the girl had been practically hysterical. Although she seemed to be calming down now. As if the quiet, adult conversation going on over her head was soothing her. Jolie’s gaze flicked to the woman’s face and saw she knew that and was doing this intentionally. She glanced at the name tag over her left pocket, which read T. Wilcox.
“I have a three-year-old boy, Tyler,” she said, “and I know when he’s making things up. I trust you do, too.”
Jolie gave her a grateful smile. “I do.” She glanced at the people both in uniform and civilian clothes clustered around where the body was, at last, being removed. “But I’m not sure they believe her.”
“It’s not that they don’t believe her, it’s that she’s able to give so little to go on. And no one else saw a woman in the area. Plus, a crime like this isn’t usually the way a woman would go about a murder. But I heard John Eckhart caught the case. He’s a good detective, one of the best. He’ll—”
“Liddy,” Emma said suddenly.
Jolie looked at the child on her lap. “What, honey?”
“Her eyes were like Liddy’s.”
Officer Wilcox looked at Jolie, clearly puzzled.
“Lydia,” Jolie explained. “She’s an anime character Emma loves.” Her brow furrowed, and then she smoothed back Emma’s tousled hair. “Do you mean the color, honey?”
“Green.”
“Well, now,” Officer Wilcox said with a wide smile. “That’s brilliant, Emma.”
The flicker of a smile curved Emma’s mouth. Wilcox was obviously a very kind woman. Jolie gave a brief, silent thanks, as she always did, to Art Reagan, the beat cop who’d pulled her out of a morass of trouble and helped set her on a better path. And who had kept her from forever being wary of anyone who wore the uniform and badge. It was he who’d gotten her the job at the Colton Valley Ranch. He was distantly related to Bettina Morely, the cook there, and she’d given Jolie the chance on his say-so.
She felt a sudden burst of longing, something she hadn’t felt—hadn’t allowed herself to feel—in a very long time. A longing for the safety and happiness and hope she’d felt for that idyllic and painfully short time. Right now especially for the safety. And for the man who’d made her feel that way, that she—and her little girl—would be safe. She wanted more than anything to feel that way again.
She yanked her frazzled brain off that fruitless path.
“Do you know who she is?” Jolie asked. Was, she amended silently, grimly.
“Can’t say yet.” Officer Wilcox looked up, assessing her.
“What?”
“Just thinking...”
“What?” Jolie asked again. When the woman hesitated, she added, “My little girl has witnessed an awful crime, and was threatened herself.”
“Might have been worse, if you hadn’t gotten there so quickly.”
Jolie didn’t need the woman to remind her the killer could have broken a car window and gotten to Emma. That her little girl could have been killed right then. She suppressed a shudder and went on.
“You know what witnessing something like this could do to her,” Jolie said. Probably leave her with an indelible, lifetime, horrible memory long term, and likely nightmares and skittishness or worse short term. None of which she wanted to say aloud in front of Emma, for fear it might plant the ideas. But she was guessing this officer would understand that; she seemed a very perceptive and insightful sort. And she was a mom. “If she can deal with that, I can deal with whatever you’re thinking.”
Officer Wilcox glanced over her shoulder to where the van was finally pulling away. Then she looked back at Jolie, rather intently. “She was about five foot eight, I’d say a hundred and twenty-five pounds. Long dark hair. Gray eyes.”
Jolie’s breath caught as it registered. She went very still as her gaze shifted to the departing van. Her arms tightened around Emma, enough so the girl made a little sound of protest. She made herself ease up, tried to suppress the shiver that went through her.
Five-eight. A hundred twenty-five pounds. Long dark hair. Gray eyes.
Wilcox could have been describing her.
* * *
“She came back for more money, of course.”
T.C. barely heard his brother’s gloating words. He was staring out at the city he loved, the city he’d thought Jolie long gone from. In truth, he’d half suspected she was long gone from Texas altogether. But perhaps he should have known better; he’d been Texas born and bred just as she had, and the blood of Texians ran in her veins just as it did in his. They might succeed elsewhere, might even flourish, but there would always be a part of them that longed for this unique, amazing place.
“I told the cops she has a huge motive. I’ll bet the old man turned her down when she came at him for more money, and she killed him.”
T.C. knew Fowler wanted him to react, so he kept his mouth shut.
“As if what Mom and Dad gave her back then to stay away from you wasn’t enough. Greedy little bi—”
“Shut the hell up, Fowler.”
He knew the instant he said it, it was a mistake. And Fowler proved him right by practically crowing. “Ha! I knew it, you fool. I knew you’d never gotten over that little slut!”
T.C. spun around to stare at his brother. When he spoke, his voice was as cold as a rare Texas snow. “It’s going to take you longer to get over the bones I’m going to break if you don’t get your ass out of here.”
They were nearly the same height, but T.C. was younger, stronger, and tougher—those parties Fowler tended toward, not to mention the overindulgences, softened a man—and they both knew it. They’d been involved in enough brawls growing up, and a few after that, that there was little doubt who would be left standing. Besides, Fowler no longer got his own hands dirty. He paid others to do his dirty work for him.
Like someone to kidnap, or even kill, his own father?
T.C. tried to quash the thought, but at this point he had few illusions about his family, in particular his ruthless brother.
“Really?” Fowler said in that superior tone he adopted when someone called him on his obnoxiousness. “Resorting to physical abuse now?”
“It’s more honest than your kind of abuse,” T.C. said, knowing he’d won the instant he heard the shift in attitude. In a moment Fowler would raise his nose and sniff, as if of course he was far above such tactics. When it happened, T.C. nearly laughed aloud. His brother was nothing if not predictable.
Fowler left without another word. T.C. sat back down, and the sound of the desk chair shifting seemed abnormally loud in the quiet after their outburst.
In typical Fowler fashion, he left the office door standing open. T.C. stared at it, thinking he should get up and close it, but in that moment even that simple action was beyond him. And then Hannah was there at the doorway, glancing in only long enough to roll her eyes expressively before pulling it shut for him. A thought jabbed at him; given Fowler’s penchant for revenge, the passive-aggressive kind, he wondered how he was treating Hannah. He’d have to ask, because he doubted the assistant would complain. He was going to give her that raise, whether or not she wanted or needed it, T.C. thought.
He turned back to the windows, to the view he’d been contemplating before his brother burst in. It looked no different. There had been no change in the buildings, the reflections of the Texas sun on the glass edifices, the orb on the tower was still there.
And yet it felt entirely different.
How could the knowledge of the presence of one person among the million-plus that populated Dallas proper change everything? How could the thought that Jolie was here now make even the bright Texas sun seem different?
Why was she here? Had she ever even left at all? Could she have been within reach, even, as he went about his life, went about Colton business? Fowler said he’d seen her, and he rarely left the Central Business District unless it was for some party or function, and T.C. would have known about that. No, his brother liked to stay where he could tell himself he was an uncrowned prince of industry, with frequent jaunts to Austin to walk the halls of power, as if he needed to prove to himself just how much weight the Colton name carried. But he hadn’t made one of those trips for a couple of weeks, and he’d obviously seen Jolie recently.
Maybe even today.
Damn, he should have asked him where. But that would have given Fowler more satisfaction than he was willing to provide.
Besides, what did it matter where he’d seen her? It wasn’t like suddenly finding out she was still here changed anything. Fowler might as well have seen her in Antarctica. She’d still taken money to abandon him and what they’d built together. She’d destroyed their future. In the end, to take the money and run had been her choice. She hadn’t even loved him enough to tell him face-to-face.
And she’d taken sweet, precious little Emma with her.
Emma.
She’d be...four years old now. Halfway to five. He tried to picture the sunny little girl who had so captured his heart. What was she like? He had little contact with small children, so his only measure was trying to remember what his little sister Piper had been like then, when he was seven and she four. She had chattered, made wild leaps of imagination and pestered him with the question “why?” about seemingly everything, but that was about all he remembered.
“The old man turned her down when she came at him for more money, and she killed him.”
No. Not Jolie. Not the woman whose laugh could light up an entire room. Sure, she’d had a rough start in life and had gotten tangled up with some unsavory people, but she’d changed all that. For Emma, she’d remade her life. She would never intentionally hurt anyone. She just wouldn’t.
Would she? Could he really say this when she’d done just that, and for the most venal of reasons—money?
He spun the chair around, turning his back on the city that held the one woman he’d never been able to let go of.
* * *
“Don’t wanna go sleepy time.”
Emma mumbled it against Jolie’s side as she sat on the wide window seat in the study alcove that served as the girl’s bedroom in the small apartment. The nearly full moon shone in through the large window, something the girl normally enjoyed, but not tonight.
“I know,” Jolie said. She could only imagine what kind of nightmares the girl might be afraid of, and rightfully so. She’d thought of keeping Emma with her, but had had second thoughts that that might plant the idea of her having bad dreams, or worse, not being safe in her own bed.
“What if I see her?”
“Then I’ll be right here.”
“You won’t let her get me?”
“Never ever.”
That seemed to comfort the girl. She snuggled closer. “I don’t like her. She looked at me mean.”
“It’s all right,” Jolie began, automatically soothing before the sense of the child’s words sank in. Until now, it had always been the woman was mean-looking. But this...
“She looked at you?”
“When she saw me. In the car.”
The killer had seen Emma? Knew Emma had seen her? Jolie had to steady herself. “Did she come toward you? Toward the car?”
Emma nodded. “But I wasn’t scared, Mommy. ’Cuz you locked the door. She couldn’t get me. She ran away and you came.”
Jolie hugged the girl even closer, her mind racing but her heart outpacing it.
“Did she ever actually touch the car?” she asked, some vague idea of fingerprints stirring in the tiny portion of her brain that wasn’t flooded with panic.
Emma shook her head. “She ran away,” the girl repeated.
She could have killed my baby! She had a gun...why didn’t she just shoot...thank God, but why didn’t she... Emma is small. Maybe she couldn’t see her...that’s why she came toward the car...if I hadn’t come back when I did...why on earth did I leave her alone, even for seconds...? Never, ever again...
The horror was building rapidly inside her, and mixed with a healthy dose of self-condemnation, she knew the child would sense it at any moment. She already seemed to be waking up rather than winding down for sleep. Jolie fought down the roiling emotions. “Put your head on the pillow, sweetie.”
Reluctantly the child did so. “Sing me the song,” she said.
Jolie’s breath caught. She hadn’t asked for it in a while. How odd—or perhaps not—that she asked for it today, the same day her own foolish brain had been so full of the man who had first sung it to her, surprising Jolie with his deep, beautiful voice gone soft and sweet as he sang—wonderfully, she thought—the song of all the pretty little horses to the babe in his arms.
She often wondered if Emma remembered, too. If she remembered him. Or if somehow the song had just lodged in her memory and she didn’t associate it with anyone in particular; she just liked it.
Her own voice wasn’t nearly as good, or as strong, as T. C. Colton’s, and she hated the way singing it brought him so close in her mind, but tonight she wasn’t surprised it was what Emma wanted.
She tried, although she was shaken. She managed enough that her daughter relaxed into sleep. Grateful, both that Emma had gone to sleep and Jolie was able to stop the song that brought such painful memories, she stayed put for a long time. Finally she stood, but she knew her focus would be on Emma all night, in case the child did have those nightmares she herself feared.
She called the police, getting a weary-sounding woman who was nevertheless polite, and if not comforting, at least reassuring. The woman would forward along the information—that the killer had seen the only witness—to the people handling the murder case first thing. She also took down Jolie’s address, assuring her they would keep her location on close patrol check.
Far from sleep, she busied herself around the small apartment, gathering dirty clothes for washing, putting her day planner—the one she clung to for several reasons, including the man who had given it to her—in a desk drawer and assembling Emma’s lunch for tomorrow. If she had the choice, the girl wouldn’t go anywhere near the day care. But Jolie didn’t want to make things worse by freaking out and have Emma sense it and become more frightened herself. And she had to work, so she had little choice.
“I wasn’t scared, Mommy. ’Cuz you locked the door. She couldn’t get me.”
A shudder went through her. She felt the crash coming and quickly put everything away. She returned to the living area, where she pulled Emma’s favorite item, the big bluebonnet-blue chair, over toward the alcove where she could hear easily. She sank down into the cushioned softness, only then letting it all wash over her.
For a long time she simply sat there, shaking. She felt as if the ceiling fan were turned on, although it wasn’t. She thought of getting up and checking the thermostat, but she knew what she’d see. It might be October, but this was Texas; it was hardly cold. The chill was in her, not the room.
Emma. Her precious baby, the only thing that really, truly mattered in her world.
She drew her feet up, curled her legs under her and settled in. She wasn’t going anywhere tonight. She would doze here. She didn’t want to go too deeply asleep in case Emma awoke, frightened.
She only wished she had a way to turn off her tumbling thoughts. But it was impossible to avoid the harsh reality; her little girl had witnessed a green-eyed woman kill another woman in cold blood, and the killer knew it. Jolie wondered if this would leave her child forever terrified of green eyes.
A vision of other green eyes, those belonging to the man she had hoped to spend her life with, drifted through her tangled mind. Funny how eyes that were so cool and dismissive in his mother, Whitney Colton, could be so different in him. His gaze had been sometimes amused, sometimes thoughtful, occasionally angry, but always powerfully male. And never, ever cold in the way his mother’s had been the day she had insisted Jolie was nowhere good enough for her son, and ordered her off Colton Valley Ranch.
She yanked her thoughts out of that well-worn track, even as she acknowledged the irony that thinking about her daughter seeing a murder was the only thing powerful enough to do it.
That, and the fact that the victim bore a distinct resemblance to herself. Although that was merely an afterthought to her. Everything was, except her little girl’s safety.
At last she slipped into fretful sleep, and it was she who had the nightmares, images of the lifeless woman whose name she didn’t even know, lying in a pool of blood, staring at the cloudless sky. In the dreamworld, she could only move in slow motion, as if she were underwater, despite her desperation to get to her daughter. When she finally got to the car and opened the door, Emma turned to look at her. She was also drenched in blood.
Emma screamed.
Jolie jolted awake. For a split second, not even a breath’s time, she thought she’d dreamed it.
Emma screamed again.
Jolie erupted out of the chair and headed for her daughter at a run, ready to soothe her child from the nightmare she’d probably had. In the next instant, something snapped in her brain and time slowed to a crawl.
There was someone there. All in black. He had Emma. Was dragging her toward the window he’d somehow gotten in through. The child was kicking wildly. Screaming when she could twist her mouth free of the hand covering it. The black-clad shape froze as light from the other room slashed across the floor. Something in the black-gloved hand glinted.
A knife.
The sight propelled Jolie into furious action. She ran, hard. Lowered her shoulder and dived at the black figure. All three went to the hardwood floor.
“Fight!” she cried out to Emma. Just as she’d taught her, the girl doubled her kicking, elbowing and clawing. She caught Jolie once by accident, but Jolie didn’t care. She was too focused on wrenching the would-be kidnapper off her little girl.
The would-be kidnapper who was, she realized with a little shock, a woman.
Simultaneously the woman pulled free, releasing Emma. Jolie had the ski mask she’d been wearing clutched in her hand. But before she could get a look at her, she was gone through the pried-open window. All Jolie could say for sure was that she’d been female, and maybe blond.
“Mommy!”
Jolie rolled over to Emma, and scooped up the terrified child. “It’s all right, baby, it’s all right.”
But it wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. Because there was only one person that woman could be.
The killer. And she was after Emma.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_36429f6b-14ef-51f5-afb9-ad7659c48dcf)
T.C. tapped a finger on the steering wheel. He was accustomed to Dallas traffic, and used it to work through the things on his plate for the coming day so he could hit the ground running when he finally reached the office.
But today he was spending more time pondering his restless night. He’d gone to his rooms at about ten, planning to do a little reading before bed, but hadn’t been able to focus. He’d finally given up and headed for the kitchen and some of Mrs. Morely’s incredible pecan pie, hoping the rare indulgence would soothe his scattered mind, but he had veered off when he realized just thinking about the pie and its maker made him think of Jolie, and he didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole again. Then he’d had to dodge the dining room, where his mother was apparently deep into a late-night session—because of course she couldn’t do it in the clear light of day, he thought sourly—with another one of her psychics. He didn’t know if she was foolish enough to actually believe in them, or if she just thought it might throw off suspicion that she had had something to do with her husband’s disappearance.
And that’s a hell of a thing to think about your own mother.
He had pondered just going back to his rooms. He knew it wasn’t really food he was looking for, it was peace of mind—enough to sleep. And that seemed out of reach, as it had for most of the three months now that his father had been missing.
Besides, he’d been in no mood to walk past Fowler’s room, not when he and Tiffany had been having passionate and very noisy sex when he walked past their door coming downstairs. Hearing that again was something he’d prefer to avoid. Leave it to Fowler to be as loud as possible, as if he wanted everyone to know he was getting laid. But Tiffany was just as loud, although he suspected that was her flattering Fowler as much as anything.
He wondered if the woman would ever manage to harangue Fowler into a ring. He thought his brother truly cared for her, at least as much as he was capable of caring for anyone other than himself, but he kept holding her off. However, Tiffany had a plan, and becoming a Colton was the goal. Was she determined enough, cold-blooded enough, to pull off the old man’s disappearance in the hope that Fowler would be shaken enough to take the plunge? It was hard to believe Her Whininess, as he and his sister Piper often called her, could be that clever, but maybe...
He hated feeling this way about his own family. But he hated even more thinking about his brother’s noisy sex, because it made him think of Jolie, who had always been rather quiet about it. But her heated whispers, the expression on her face, the amazement in her beautiful eyes as they made love, had been all he’d needed.
“Stop it, damn it,” he muttered under his breath as heat and need shot through him, making his entire body clench. Only Jolie had ever done that to him, only she had had the power to send him into overdrive with a mere thought. He stared at the delivery truck ahead of him as if it held all the answers.
By the time he reached the Colton building, he’d managed to force his unruly mind to stay on the things he needed to deal with today. Once at his desk, he went quickly through the plan Hannah prepped for him every morning. The format she suggested had seemed odd to him at first, but now he didn’t think he could function without it. Her method of prioritizing, and noting in advance which items could be time-shifted and which could not, had increased his productivity markedly, and he rarely disagreed with how she had weighted things.
Well, except when she slid in something like suggesting he attend a dinner function, an evening at the symphony or some other formal affair. He’d rather spend a day doing the dirtiest of work in one of their oil fields than tux up for one of those things. He’d leave that to Fowler, who could con the feathers off a peacock and leave them glad he’d done it. At least, until reality set in.
He was midway through his email inbox when Hannah appeared in his doorway.
“Mr. Colton?”
Something in her voice, an undertone of...what, he wasn’t quite sure, made him look up quickly.
“What is it?” He stood up quickly. “Something about my father?”
She looked immediately apologetic. “No, I’m sorry, nothing about that. But there’s someone here asking to see you.”
He opened his mouth to say he didn’t have time for unscheduled appointments today, then shut it again. Hannah knew this perfectly well, since she’d drawn up his agenda for the day. He also knew she would normally smoothly redirect anyone who wanted to disrupt that schedule without what she deemed a good enough reason. And he’d rarely disagreed with her on that, either. So something had made her think this was worth making an exception for.
“All right,” he said, not even asking who it was.
He saw a glint in her eyes that told him she knew exactly what thought process he’d just gone through. “Thank you,” she said, and he knew it was for trusting her.
“You’ve never made me sorry.”
She smiled. “I’ll bring them in.”
Them? he wondered as she turned to go. He reached down and closed out his email program, because he’d had a confidential communication open. He looked up when he heard footsteps in the doorway. Didn’t even hear Hannah quietly close the door. Could look at nothing else but the woman with the little girl in her arms.
Jolie.
He only realized how long it had been, and that he’d forgotten to breathe, when he at last had to suck in a long, audible gulp of air. Crazily he could hear Fowler’s voice in his head, chanting as he always did, “Never let ’em see you sweat.”
In this case a cold sweat, rising not out of exertion but pure, emotional reaction. Fowler had forewarned him, and yet he was still stunned.
Jolie.
And Emma? Could that girl with the tousled blond hair and the finger caught between white, even teeth as she stared at him really be her? Could this be the baby he’d held, made laugh, thought would be his daughter?
Of course it was. Look at her eyes—they were Jolie’s eyes, wide and thickly lashed and that gray shade that could go from silver to stormy in the space of a moment. She was wearing jeans embroidered with a cartoon character he didn’t recognize—not his forte at all—and a T-shirt that matched the bright green thread in the design. She had a small Band-Aid on her neck, and he nearly smiled when he saw it had the same cartoon character on it.
“I’m sorry,” Jolie whispered.
His gaze snapped back to the woman. God, her voice. That same husky, low voice that always sent a shiver down his spine and had once had the power to stir him no matter how distracted or tired he was.
Judging by his body’s instant response, it still did.
“What?” Oh, brilliant, Colton.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated quietly. “We didn’t have any place else to go.”
His brow furrowed. She’d managed to stay completely gone for four years, but now she showed up saying she —and Emma—had nowhere else to go? This made no sense.
“I would never have dared to come to you, but it’s for Emma.”
His gaze shifted to the child, who was staring at him with what appeared to be fascination. He knew she couldn’t possibly remember him. She’d been barely six months old when Jolie vanished out of his life, but she was looking at him now much as she had done then, although with more awareness.
“What?” he said again, almost blankly, aware no one who’d ever dealt with him in the business world would ever believe this was really T. C. Colton, the man with the reputation for quick, incisive thinking.
He saw her glance at Emma, then back at him, without speaking. It took him a moment, but then he realized she didn’t want to talk in front of the girl. He felt an odd reluctance to do anything about that, but finally he reached for the office intercom. “Hannah? Do you feel up to a little babysitting?”
“That cutie? I’ll be right in.”
Jolie hesitated, looked doubtful. He guessed she was reluctant to let the child out of her sight with a stranger. He said the only thing he could think of to reassure her of Hannah’s utter reliability. “She has three grandsons. I think time with a girl would delight her.”
Somehow they were the right words. Jolie nodded. Hannah came in, and Emma went to her willingly enough, after an encouraging nod from her mother.
“We’ll be right outside, not a step beyond my desk,” his assistant assured Jolie. “And in that desk,” she said to Emma, “there are some very interesting things. Would you like to see?”
When the door closed after them, T.C. looked at Jolie again. “Afraid you’ll have a sugar high to deal with. Hannah has quite the candy stash.”
“She deserves a treat. It’s been a horrible couple of days.”
He raised an eyebrow at her, but she didn’t go on. For a moment, he was torn between wanting to know why she was here now and why she’d left then. He scoffed inwardly at himself, still a fool, wishing there was a valid reason beyond a check with a lot of zeros on it.
He waited, letting the silence pressure her. And finally, without the diversion of the little girl, he was able to look at her more carefully.
She looked exhausted. Her eyes were reddened, whether from a sleepless night or tears or both, he couldn’t know. She looked thinner than she had, the sweet curves he’d so lusted for slightly lessened, and he felt a sudden urge to feed her to get them back.
“I thought about going to the ranch,” she finally said, “but I know your mother would try to throw me out under the best of circumstances, and this is hardly that. I’m sorry about your father.”
As a Colton, he was used to everything about the family being general knowledge, and something like the disappearance of the family patriarch was still headline news, even after three months.
“Try to?” He gave himself an inward shake; why, of all things, had he fastened on that?
Jolie’s mouth—that wonderful, soft mouth—curved up at one end in a soft, almost pleased smile. “She might not find it quite so easy to bully me and send me packing this time.”
His eyebrows shot downward. And suddenly his brain kicked into gear.
She’s back for more money, of course.
He’d barely heard his brother’s gleeful words. He’d been too startled by his news that Jolie was here. But he would have discounted them anyway; Fowler was desperate to get the spotlight off Tiffany, and if doing so meant throwing someone else—anyone else—to the wolves, then so be it.
“She’s a gold digger, Thomas. All she wants is Colton money.”
His mother’s words echoed in his head.
Maybe it takes one to know one?
Yes, she had stuck it out, but that didn’t necessarily mean it hadn’t started as a strictly mercenary arrangement. He had few illusions left about his mother.
“I would hardly call a payoff in six figures bullying,” he finally said.
Her gaze shot to his face, and he saw some of the old fire in her eyes. “What would you call threatening a baby?”
“What?” She’d startled it out of him this time.
She started to pace the office, and when she spoke it came out as if rehearsed. Or as if she’d been thinking what she would say to him for a very long time.
“It wasn’t enough for your parents to tell me I was ruining your life, that I had no place in it, that I would never, ever be good enough to be a Colton. I already knew that anyway. And I knew you knew that, and you wanted me anyway.”
“I never thought that.” The words came out sharply, because they were true. He’d known that because of her past Jolie carried around some pretty strong feelings of worthlessness. He’d had it all figured out, how he would help her get past that, that one day she would really, truly believe how crazy in love with her he was. But she vanished before he ever had the chance.
She kept pacing, the words coming out in a rush. “I’m not talking about what you believed. I’m talking about what I believed. And deep down I believed every word they said was true. But I still said no. I told them I loved you, and I was staying.”
He drew back slightly. “You did?”
“Yes.” Her mouth tightened. She stopped, turned, looked at him. “That’s when your mother brought out the big guns.”
“She has them,” he said neutrally, although it was difficult under the steady gaze of those gray eyes. But he knew well enough, his mother used her weapons on him often enough, imperiously wielding her power as the Colton matriarch to get her way.
“She told me if I stayed, she would make my life a living hell. With a few potent examples.”
He hadn’t actually thought about that. He’d known his mother didn’t approve, didn’t think Jolie was good enough—although he’d never been certain if she’d meant good enough for him, or good enough to be a Colton—but he hadn’t thought it through to how she might express that disapproval had Jolie stayed. He knew too much of his mother’s ways to take that lightly now.
“And then,” Jolie said, stopping in front of him, a mere two feet away, meeting his gaze levelly, “she promised to do the same to Emma. To make her life hell, to make sure she always knew she didn’t belong, she wasn’t welcome, she was unworthy and despised.”
T.C. went very still.
“And to top it all off, she dropped some very pointed hints about children having accidents on ranches all the time.”
He couldn’t imagine even his mother threatening that. Emma had been a baby, helpless, innocent.
And your father’s a frail old man, and you’re wondering if she killed him.
“She wouldn’t have done it,” he said, but there was enough uncertainty in him to make the words less than convincing.
“I couldn’t take that risk. Not with Emma.”
He was shaken, he couldn’t deny that. Told this way, what his parents had done seemed much more nefarious. And the threat to Emma, then only months old, was more than a little disturbing. And made him wonder again, just how far would his mother go to get what she wanted?
“And the money?” Jolie said, her voice fierce now. “I took it so Emma would have chances I never did. It’s in a trust fund, for her. I’ve never touched a penny of it, and I never will.”
T.C. stared at her, a little awed at that ferocity, of the depth of her love for her daughter. He’d known it before, or thought he had, but at this moment she took his breath away.
But then Jolie Peters had always taken his breath away.
His own reaction, the swiftness of his response to her, as if the last four years had never happened, unsettled him. And that made his voice sharp when he grasped at something—anything—as distraction. “Why are you here now?”
Something flashed in her eyes, and her expression went from fierce to frightened in the space of a split second. He saw her take in a deep breath, as if she needed it to steady herself.
“Someone’s trying to kill Emma.”
Chapter 5 (#ulink_c118ff58-b195-5a37-a250-2bdb5c32819c)
She’d never put it in words until this moment. And now that she had, Jolie felt an icy chill go down to her bones.
Someone was trying to kill her precious girl.
And, she realized as T.C. stared at her, he didn’t believe her. As easily as if they’d never been apart, she read him. “Have I ever been prone to hysteria?”
“You weren’t, no.” The implication that things could have changed in the past four years was clear.
“Still not.” She took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “Emma witnessed a murder.”
She saw his eyes widen. Those vivid green eyes that had melted her with a glance.
“I think you’d better sit down,” he said after a moment, gesturing toward the leather couch in the sitting area of his office. It had changed, she realized belatedly. The entire office had been redone since she was last here. Even the desk had been replaced. She wondered at that; he’d always cared little about the trappings, it seemed unlike him to just redecorate on a whim.
“New couch,” she said as she sat, wondering if it sounded as inane to him as it did to her. “Among other things.”
He didn’t sit beside her. He sat in the big, matching chair positioned at a right angle to the couch. The chair was a subtle statement of who had the right to private real estate in this setting, the reminder of who was in charge in this domain. As if anyone could ever forget.
But he’d never done it to her before, in the few times she’d been here.
He stared at her, his expression almost grim. It hit her then, a memory so hot and strong it nearly sucked the air out of her lungs; the day she’d tried to tease him out of here, to get him to take a break from preparing for some upcoming high-powered negotiation with an Angus breeder in Kansas. They’d ended up making love on his desk, urgently, and then again on the couch, long and slow and sweet.
No wonder he’d gutted the place.
And she guessed she knew now how he’d handled her abrupt departure.
“Talk,” he commanded.
She didn’t quibble over his tone, or the sharp order. He had every right. It took her a moment to get started, although she’d thought of nothing but how she would explain all the way here; it had helped keep her mind off the terrifying knowledge that someone had actually tried to grab Emma. But once she had begun, it came pouring out in a rush.
And rather confused. But he didn’t stop her, or ask questions, and she knew he was more than capable of taking her rather scattered account and putting it in order. It was one of the things that made him so good at what he did, better even than his half brother Fowler, who was the more famous—and infamous—Colton of the two. As president of Colton Inc., Fowler loved all the trappings and used them to aid in his wheeling and dealing, while executive vice president Thomas simply did what needed to be done to keep things rolling. She had little doubt which of them Colton Inc. would miss more.
“She tried to do a sketch with the police artist,” she said when the story was finally out, “but she’s only four. She couldn’t describe much more than her eyes. Then last night it was dark and she was terrified.” Her fingers were knotted together and resting on her knees, the only way she could stop them from shaking. “But it was a woman. It has to be the killer.”
He just looked at her, in that quiet, assessing way he had. She made herself go on.
“I know it’s crazy, asking you for help. But with you, at the ranch, is the only place I’ve ever felt completely safe. And I know you loved Emma, once. So when the police asked me if there was someplace safe I could take her...”
He still said nothing as her voice trailed off. She steeled herself, and sat up a little straighter. She saw something flicker in his eyes then, as if something had shifted in his clever brain. But still he said nothing. And even knowing it was a tactic, knowing he used silence as a tool, she felt compelled to fill it. And to give him the acknowledgment he deserved.
“I know you hate me, and you have every right. Nothing, not even your mother’s threats, can change the fact that from your point of view, I took money to leave. But this is for Emma—as was that, not that it makes any difference to you—and I’d do a lot more than beg to keep her safe.”
“Would you.”
It wasn’t a question, and Jolie belatedly realized how her last words could be interpreted. She felt her cheeks heat but told herself at least he’d finally spoken. But then she had a sudden vision of him demanding sex in return for his help, of him taking out whatever anger at her remained, ruining forever the sweet memories that were all she had left of that brief, too-brief time in her life when she’d thought she’d truly found her place.
“So you really think I’d do that,” he said, his voice harsh.
She looked at him, realized she’d forgotten he read her as easily as she read him, and that he’d guessed what she’d been thinking. The sex part, anyway; she doubted he could guess at how much those memories tormented her. She made herself hold his gaze, and it was one of the hardest things she’d done since the night she’d left him.
“No. You would never use that to punish, even if you wanted to.” Her mouth twisted. “Besides, you can’t want me anymore.”
“Oh, I want you,” he said, his voice so harsh now it made the admission more a threat than anything. “But, lady, I can’t afford you.”
The words she doubted had ever been spoken by a Texas Colton in decades echoed in the space between them. But she knew how he meant it. And for the first time she had an inkling of what her departure had cost him emotionally.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, meaning it fiercely. “Sorrier than you can ever know. But I couldn’t make her live like that, under your mother’s hatred. I took the only chance I would ever have to make sure Emma would never grow up like I had to.”
“So you made your little deal with the devil.”
She blinked. “These are your parents we’re talking about.”
“Exactly.”
Her brow furrowed. He’d never been blind to his parents’ quirks, but he’d never been this critical. It struck her as especially odd now, with his father missing. But she didn’t want to go there, so she said nothing.
“Where have you been?”
He sounded as if he’d fought asking, so she considered her answer carefully. “Here.”
“You never left Dallas?”
“Only for a while. I went to school. Came back. Had a couple of jobs, worked my way to where I am now.”
He looked at her over steepled fingers. “Which is?”
She gave him a sideways look. “I work at a hotel.” She decided not to tell him at the moment that her hotel could be seen through the big windows of this office. Or that she’d hesitated taking the job for that very reason.
“Doing?”
“Sous-chef. Mainly I work in one of the restaurants, although I’m on the banquet staff, too.”
She waited, thinking silence could work in both directions, and that she could do it, now that she was a little calmer. And if answering these questions would get him to help her keep Emma safe, the cost would be little enough.
“Stayed in the kitchen, then.”
He didn’t say it the way some did, his mother in particular, who had a way of using the phrase “kitchen help” that had set her teeth on edge.
“It was what I knew.”
“Use us as a reference?”
That cut, and she knew he’d meant it to. He would never belittle her job, he respected honest work. But what she’d done...
She pulled herself together inwardly. She’d done what she’d done, she’d thought it her only option at the time, and she couldn’t change it. She’d apologized, both for coming here and for what had happened four years ago. He deserved that. And she would beg, if she had to, for Emma. But she wouldn’t grovel at his feet. She would find another way.
“If I’d been braver, and smarter—and less scared for my daughter—at the time, I would have demanded a glowing reference as part of the deal.” She got to her feet. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Colton.”
“Leaving so soon?” He didn’t even react to the formality. She realized she was getting a taste of what negotiating with him must be like.
“This was obviously a mistake.” She grimaced. “I thought I was past making them this big, but obviously I was too scared by last night to think straight.”
His jaw tightened. She wondered if it was in outrage that she’d had the nerve to even begin to think he might help her. She wouldn’t blame him if it was.
“I can’t change what happened, but I am glad to have had the chance to apologize and explain. I know it makes no difference to you, but it does to me.”
She turned and walked toward the door. Her heart was sinking, and she felt panic hovering anew. Mrs. Amaro, she thought desperately. Perhaps she would watch Emma tonight while Jolie went back to the apartment and gathered some things. She didn’t want the girl to go back there, wondered if she would ever feel safe there again, even if the killer was found.
And then they would go...somewhere. She didn’t know where, but somewhere safe. She would think of something.
She had to.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_cbf46e47-365c-5f28-9bd8-32939e63a141)
T.C. watched her go. He was so angry at himself he said nothing. Well, angry at his body, anyway, for the instant, fierce response to her. If he’d had half that response to anyone else, he’d likely be married and have produced the precious grandkids his father kept nagging him about.
Had kept nagging him about.
And that unwelcome thought made him realize that after that first moment, he’d never once thought of Fowler’s accusations.
“Jolie.”
She stopped, half turned back to look at him. He steeled himself and ignored the flash of hope he saw in her eyes.
“Have you seen my father?”
Her brow furrowed. She seemed genuinely bewildered by the question. “Of course not. I would have told you, first thing. And the police. I wouldn’t have forgotten that, no matter what that woman did last night.”
Out of what he told himself was idle curiosity, he asked, “I thought it was too dark to see?”
“It was. That’s why I can’t say for sure she was blond. It could have been the light.”
“Then how are you so sure it was a woman at all?”
“I could tell when I tackled her.”
He drew back slightly. “Tackled her? You tackled an armed assailant?”
“Of course,” she said with a frown. “She had my little girl.”
And a knife, T.C. thought. Jolie might not have had the strength of will to stand up to his mother and father four years ago, but as a mother, she was clearly a tigress.
He wondered, only briefly because the images the thought caused were beyond disturbing, if the would-be abductor was indeed this killer, why she hadn’t simply killed the child—the witness—in her bed? Why try to take her? Had she intended to just kill the girl, but panicked when she was caught in the act? Had Jolie interrupted a murder?
And why was he even wondering, when he was not involved? He was so not involved, he insisted to himself.
When he said nothing more, she turned back and opened the door to the outer office.
“Mommy, look!”
The little girl’s voice was excited, happy. She appeared in the doorway, a large piece of paper in her hand. It appeared to be a drawing of some kind.
“The nice lady gave me markers. An’ a big piece of paper. So I could draw a picture.”
“Bless her for putting a smile back on your face,” Jolie said softly.
“It was a dog,” the child said, pointing. “But it got too big. So it’s a horse.”
“I can see that.”
T.C. watched this exchange with every effort at detachment. He failed miserably. Memories of the baby he’d held—rather inexpertly—who had smiled up at him and cooed, reached out and touched his cheek with seeming fascination, threatened to swamp him. And then he again noticed the Band-Aid on her neck, finally connected it with the story Jolie had told him, and nausea roiled his gut.
“Can I show your friend?” the little girl asked.
“Emma, no, I—”
It was too late; the child was already running toward him, confident, happy, the nightmares behind her for the moment. His first thought was what a good job Jolie had done with her daughter. His second was utter panic.
“See?” Emma plopped her slightly crooked drawing down on his desk. He saw the bits of red, black and green on her hands, which he guessed corresponded to a couple of smudged spots he noticed on the drawing.
“I...yes.”
“He’s eating grass. ’Cuz that’s what horses do.”
“Yes, they do,” he said, wondering if he sounded as awkward as he felt. The girl was busy explaining all the features of her drawing, and he caught himself just watching her rather than the paper she was pointing to. He could see traces of the baby he’d known, in the round cheeks, the sunny blond hair, the gray eyes. Her mother’s eyes...
“And he’s got big spots.”
T.C. focused suddenly on the drawing. His first thought was that it wasn’t actually too bad, even if it consisted mostly of squares and circles cobbled together over four stick legs, the animal was recognizable as a horse, although crooked and out of proportion. But she’d caught details that surprised him, like the slope of the pasterns and the presence of hooves. Wasn’t that a bit advanced for a kid not yet five years old? Maybe Hannah had helped her a bit, he thought. She’d been quite the horsewoman in her day, and still rode regularly.
He looked back at Emma. The child’s brow was furrowed in concentration. “I saw a horse like that.”
He smiled despite himself, and looked back at the drawing. And belatedly it hit him.
Flash.
He stared. Coincidence, surely? The green highlighter grass and the lopsided red pen square he guessed was a barn, that could have come from anywhere, but a piebald paint horse? She’d only had markers to use, so a black-and-white horse wasn’t unexpected, was it? He doubted Hannah’s collection ran to shades of brown.
But that didn’t change the fact that his own personal mount, the horse he rode most often at the ranch—and had ridden when Jolie and Emma had lived there—was a black-and-white pinto.
“It does look like Flash, doesn’t it?” He hadn’t even realized Jolie had returned until she spoke, from barely two feet away. “I don’t think she could really remember, she was so young, but who knows? She’s a very bright girl.”
Could she really still read him so easily? With an effort he managed to say evenly, “And not a half-bad artist. I was expecting stick figures.”
“The lady helped a little,” Emma said honestly. “How their feet go.”
Oddly T.C. felt relieved at this confirmation of his guess. “Not quite a child prodigy, then.”
“Thank goodness,” Jolie said, echoing his relief, rattling him yet again. “Bright I can handle. Genius would be something else altogether.”
“She’s...” He didn’t know what to say. Polite? Charming? Enchanting?
“Yes,” Jolie said, proudly. “She is.”
Emma picked up her drawing and looked at it with childlike satisfaction. “I was gonna draw the mean lady. Like the policeman wanted. But I don’t want to.”
And just like that the elephant in the room trumpeted, and T.C.’s stomach knotted at the thought of this child in danger. He’d been able to dodge this when the child wasn’t right here in front of him, had been able to focus instead on her mother, and how much pain she’d caused. But now, with that sweet, innocent face right here, with those wide eyes, still trusting despite what had happened, the thought of something happening to her was more than he could take. Helplessness was not a feeling he was used to or tolerated well, and he’d had more than enough of it in the last few months.
He might have lost his father and been unable to do anything about it, but he could do something about this.
Telling himself he simply couldn’t leave a child—any child—in danger when he could help, he made a rare, snap decision.
He stood up. “Come with me.”
Jolie blinked, probably at the edge in his voice. “What?”
“You asked for help.”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t quibble now.”
“Mommy?” Emma asked, very clearly uncertain.
T.C. moderated his tone as he looked down at the girl, who was clutching the drawing in one hand, the other firmly in her mother’s grasp.
“It’s all right, Emma,” he said gently; whatever his feelings about her mother were, no reason to frighten the child any more than she already was. “Would you like to see a real horse that looks like that?”
He heard Jolie’s quick intake of breath but kept his eyes on the little girl, who suddenly smiled at him, a wide, dimpled smile that made him a different kind of helpless. And there she was for an instant, that tiny being who had once giggled at him with delight, filling him with emotions he hadn’t even had names for. The memories, the hopes, the plans for a future that included this child flooded his brain, and even the pain and anger of Jolie’s desertion couldn’t overwhelm it.
Emma nodded enthusiastically, then looked at her mother. “Can we, Mommy? Please?”
He lifted his gaze to Jolie. Found her staring at him.
“It’s what you came for, isn’t it?” he asked.
Slowly she nodded. “But I thought you...”
Her voice trailed away, but not before he heard the doubt, and an echo of the fear he’d heard before. She’d known that five minutes ago his answer was no, that he would have let her go without a second thought, after what she’d done.
All that had changed the moment a sunny, innocent little girl had plopped a childish drawing on the desk where he did work that helped shape this city.
And he gave Jolie the one answer that trumped all the others.
“For her,” he said softly.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_dd2d296e-5bfa-5789-8f3b-28338a968189)
It was amazing how different, how much better it felt, just to be doing something. Although to be honest, it was T.C. who was doing it, she felt as if she were simply riding along in his wake. And right now she was willing to do that, because she knew better than anyone what he was capable of accomplishing. How many hours had she spent while Emma was in the children’s section at the library, doing internet searches on him, reading about his progress up the Colton ladder? How many voices she knew and respected—including the governor, who had complimented her—had said they’d much rather deal with the tough but honest and straightforward Colton than his brother Fowler?
She’d finally weaned herself off the compulsive research—it hurt too much. Telling herself she’d had no choice only carried her so far. And no amount of rationalizing changed the bottom line: she’d abandoned what they had for money. And T. C. Colton was a bottom-line kind of guy.
“Did you drive here?” he asked as he led them toward the elevator after stopping for a brief conversation with the apparently unflappable Mrs. Alcott. Telling the woman to cancel appointments, rearrange his day?
“No. My car’s at home. The CBD officer dropped us off here when I asked him to.”
He gave her a sideways look. “You’ve been with the police all night?”
“Since it happened.”
“I took a nap in the big man’s office,” Emma said happily.
Jolie laid a hand on her daughter’s head. “Yes, you did. The lieutenant was very nice, wasn’t he?”
“And Mom,” T.C. said, eying her, “got no sleep at all, I’m guessing.”
“I slept before.”
“Mommy slept in the big chair, so she could see me,” Emma confided. Rather inanely, Jolie was glad she’d never spoken to the child about him, the way she was now burbling about everything.
“I’ll bet she did,” he said. He gave the child his full attention when he spoke to her. She liked that. Most adults talked over her, not realizing Emma was exceedingly bright and understood more than they expected. “She wanted to be right there if you needed her.”
“Mommy’s always there when I need her.”
He shifted his gaze back to Jolie. He spoke quietly. “All anyone needs to know.”
They were in the elevator and headed down before Jolie’s weary brain got around to wondering where they were going.
“What...?” she began, then faltered, unsure of what to say. She’d asked for his help, after all, and he’d miraculously agreed; she shouldn’t be questioning him.
“We’ll pick up what you need from home, for both of you, for a few days,” he said. “Leave your car there, so it’s not obvious you’re gone. Then we’ll head to the ranch.”
“Oh.”
“Second thoughts” was hardly the description for what she was feeling as he took charge. She was up to at least a dozen reasons why this had been a bad idea by the time the elevator doors slid open in the subterranean parking garage. No one was going to welcome them, the opposite in fact. His mother would probably pitch a fit laced with high drama, Fowler would sneer and that nasty Marceline would be cutting and cruel as always. Another half brother, Zane, was much nicer, and although the big man was intimidating, Jolie had always thought of him as fair. But then, she’d always thought his full brother, Reid, had been a good guy, and he’d left the Dallas Police Department in disgrace over a year ago, after some corruption scandal that had ended up with his partner dead. She’d been too busy at the time to follow the case, had in fact avoided it once she realized it was truly Reid Colton involved; the last thing she needed was more in her head reminding her of T.C.
No, the only Colton sibling she’d really bonded with had been Piper, because Piper, adopted by T.C.’s parents after her mother’s death, knew what it was like to come from nothing and to always be the outsider. But even Piper would probably hate her now, for what she’d done to her brother, adoptive or not.
“Maybe...maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Jolie began, but stopped as a car pulled up in front of them. A uniformed valet got out of the light blue SUV, a young man who looked fresh out of high school.
“Vacuumed, gassed up and ready, Mr. C,” he said, leaving the driver’s door open.
“Thanks, Jordy. How’s your dad doing?”
The young man smiled. “Lots better, thanks, Mr. C. He said to thank you for the barbecue.”
T.C. grinned at the kid. “When I was in the hospital last year, that was the thing I missed most.”
“Him, too.” Jordy walked around and opened the passenger door. He also opened the back passenger door, and Jolie saw with surprise that there was a child’s booster seat already strapped in. She flicked a glance at T.C., who only shrugged.
“Hannah is very efficient.”
“Obviously,” she said. “But you have these just sitting around, waiting?”
“Mrs. Alcott said to take it out of her car,” Jordy explained. “Her grandkids are off somewhere. Here you go, princess,” he added, smiling at Emma, who smiled back in obvious delight.
“That was kind of her to even think of it.” Jolie smiled at the young valet. “And thank you for getting it in right. I always have trouble.”
The young man grinned. “I’ve got five little brothers and sisters. I know car seats.”
Jolie smiled, but still checked the fastening herself once Emma was inside. Then she got in herself. The valet smiled back, then tapped his forehead in a salute toward T.C. and turned and left, whistling cheerfully.
“Nice guy,” Jolie said as T.C. got into the car.
“Yes. He’s a good kid. Even if he does want to be a rodeo star.”
She gave him a sideways look. “Is there a kid in Texas who hasn’t wanted that at some point?”
“Not that I know of.”
He said it lightly, and as if he didn’t remember at all telling her that being a professional calf roper had once been his highest ambition. That had engendered a lengthy discussion of the various rodeo sports, from bull riding to barrel racing, and the strength and skills required for each, which had morphed into a discussion of his dream to someday breed top-drawer cow horses.
And she realized belatedly that her protest about this perhaps not being the best idea was long past, and here she was going along as if she’d never had those second, third and many more thoughts.
He put the car in gear, and in moments they were at the driveway out onto the busy street. He gave her a questioning glance.
“Where are we going?”
She couldn’t seem to find any words, least of all the ones that would get her out of this situation she was now regretting she’d gotten into.
“We live at Cliff Park,” Emma piped up from the back seat.
Jolie nearly jumped. T.C. said nothing, but she thought his focus had suddenly sharpened. Her first thought was to hush the child, but then she wondered what she had expected. Emma was merely following her mother’s lead, so she had no reason to mistrust this man. And for all the “be wary of strangers” lessons she had given the girl, it had to be clear to even the four-year-old that this man was not a stranger. And before her mind could leap to all the ways in which he was not a stranger, she looked away from him. She didn’t want to see the expression on his face.
“It’s changed,” she said. “There are parts that are still bad, but our neighborhood is much safer.”
She stopped, realizing she was talking about the place where Emma had nearly been kidnapped, or worse.
“It’s what I can afford and still get to work in less than an hour most days.” She sounded surly even to her own ears. She tried for a more even tone. “And my place has been redone. It’s really nice.”
“Jolie.”
It was the first time he’d said her name. She suppressed the little shiver that went through her. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything about where you live.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She heard him take in a deep breath. “If we’re going to get there, I’m going to need more than just the neighborhood.”
“Oh.”
She gave him the address. And was startled into silence when, as he pulled out and merged into a brief break in the traffic, he tapped a button on the steering wheel and a disembodied voice said from above her head, “Select name and action.”

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