The Cowboy's Son
Delores Fossen
Marriage for baby Ranchman Dylan Greer knew the baby he’d adopted was his in every way that mattered. Except beautiful cop Collena Drake swore a criminal ring had stolen her baby and that someone was crossing every line to keep the illegal adoption secret.In order to protect the innocent child, Collena made him an offer – get married and share custody. As a businessman, Dylan thought the plan brilliant. But resisting his bride as the danger mounted would be near impossible. For Their Baby’s Sake Safeguarding children is their first priority
“I think your need to protect me is all mixed up with what you think is an attraction to me.”
“What I think is attraction,” he repeated. There was a dangerous edge to his voice, as if she’d just pushed a button that shouldn’t have been pushed.
The air between them changed.
He changed.
Collena didn’t back away. She wasn’t afraid of him. But she was afraid of what she’d started. So much for analysing him and blowing off the attraction.
“Let’s test your theory,” he said. “Let’s see if there’s any lust buried beneath all that need to protect you.”
And with that, he reached for her.
Before Collena could even catch her breath, Dylan lowered his head and took her mouth as if he owned her.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Collena Drake – Former cop and head of the task force to find a group of illegally adopted babies, including her own. Her search leads her to powerful Texas horseman Dylan Greer, the man raising her toddler son.
Dylan Greer – The Texas billionaire who had no idea that he was participating in anything illegal when he adopted Collena’s son. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep the little boy he’s raised as his own. Even if that includes a marriage of convenience to Collena.
Adam Greer – Collena’s sixteen-month-old son was stolen from her at birth.
Ruth Sayers – Dylan’s former nanny who now helps take care of Adam. She’s possessive of Adam and resents Collena.
Millie Sayers – Ruth’s daughter and assistant nanny. Does she want Collena off the ranch so she can have Dylan for herself?
Deputy Sheriff Jonah Burke – There’s bad blood between Dylan and him, and Jonah could be letting their past interfere with the investigation that could save Collena, Dylan and Adam.
Rodney Harmon – The convicted felon went to jail because of Collena’s testimony. Now he’s escaped and is after her.
Curtis Reese – Adam’s biological paternal grandfather. He plans to fight both Collena and Dylan for custody of Adam.
Hank Sayers – Dylan’s longtime employee who might also be responsible for a string of deaths that have haunted Dylan for years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Imagine a family tree that includes Texas cowboys, Choctaw and Cherokee Indians, a Louisiana pirate and a Scottish rebel who battled side by side with William Wallace. With ancestors like that, it’s easy to understand why Texas author and former air force captain Delores Fossen feels as if she were genetically predisposed to writing romances. Along the way to fulfilling her DNA destiny, Delores married an air force top gun who just happens to be of Viking descent. With all those romantic bases covered, she doesn’t have to look too far for inspiration.
The Cowboy's Son
DELORES FOSSEN
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my wonderful editor, Allison Lyons.
Thanks for everything.
Chapter One
Greer, Texas
“Sir, we have an intruder on the grounds,” the housekeeper warned Dylan Greer.
Dylan’s stomach clenched into a cold, hard knot. He silently cursed, said a brusque goodbye to his business associate in London and dropped the phone back onto its cradle.
An intruder. Well, the person had picked a good day for it.
It was Thanksgiving morning, barely minutes after sunrise, and he’d given most of his household help time off for the holiday. He was understaffed. Plus, there was a snowstorm moving in. With the already slick, icy roads, it’d probably take the sheriff at least twenty minutes to get out to the ranch.
“Where is he?” Dylan asked Vergie, the housekeeper, through the two-way speaker positioned on his desk.
“The north birthing stables.”
In other words, too close to the house. That meant Dylan had to take care of this on his own.
“Call the sheriff,” Dylan instructed Vergie as he unlocked his center desk drawer and took out the Sig Sauer that he’d hoped he would never have to use. He grabbed his thick shearling coat from the closet and put his gun and his cell phone in the pocket.
“You want me to tell Hank to go out there with you?” Vergie asked.
“No.” Hank, the handyman, was seventy-two and had poor eyesight and hearing. Besides, this might be Dylan’s chance to have a showdown with the person who’d made his life a living hell.
Dylan worked quickly to get the information he needed. He used his security surveillance laptop to bring up the camera image of the exterior of the birthing stables. It wasn’t the most vulnerable spot on his six-hundred-and-thirty acres, but it did have one major security flaw.
Accessibility.
Anyone could have parked on the dirt road a quarter of a mile away from his property, climbed the eight-foot-tall wooden fence and made their way across the pasture to the stables. Not an effortless undertaking in the cold, but it was doable.
And, on his computer screen, he saw the person who’d managed that feat.
There, next to the birthing-stable doors, was a shadowy figure holding a pair of binoculars. The person was dressed all in black. Black pants, bulky black coat and a knit cap. That attire and those binoculars weren’t positive signs. Whoever it was hadn’t dropped by to wish him a happy Thanksgiving.
Mercy, did he really have a killer on the grounds?
With everything that’d happened, Dylan couldn’t take the chance that this was all some innocent intrusion.
“Lock up when I leave,” Dylan instructed the housekeeper from the intercom. “And call me immediately if our guest moves closer to the house.”
He left through the French doors of his office and stepped into the bitter cold. It wasn’t officially even winter yet, but the weather obviously didn’t know that—it was a good twenty degrees below normal. The wind howled out of the north, slamming right through his jacket, shirt, jeans and boots. A few snowflakes whirled through the air.
The birthing stables were on the opposite side of the house from where he’d exited, so Dylan knew the intruder hadn’t seen him with those binoculars. He ran, following a row of Texas sagebrush and mountain laurel, hoping the shrubbery would conceal him for as long as possible. He wanted the element of surprise on his side. Correction. He needed that. Because this person might have already committed murder.
With that brutal reminder crawling through his head, Dylan took out his gun so that he’d be ready. He had to protect his son at all costs, and if necessary, that would include an out-and-out fight. He wasn’t going to lose someone else he loved to this nameless, faceless SOB.
Though the cold burned his lungs and his boots seemed unsteady on the ice-scabbed pasture grass, he didn’t slow down until he reached the stables. Dylan went to the rear of the building so he could approach the intruder from behind, and peered around the corner. The person in black hadn’t moved an inch and was about fifty feet away.
He checked his watch. It’d been nearly fifteen minutes since the housekeeper had called the sheriff, and there was no sign of him. Dylan decided not to wait.
The wind worked in his favor. It was whipping so hard against the stables that it muffled his footsteps, and he halved the distance before he was heard. Dylan already had his gun aimed and ready when the intruder dropped the binoculars and spun around.
It was a woman.
She was pale and trembling, probably from the cold, and she reached inside her jacket, as if it were an automatic response to draw a weapon.
“Don’t,” Dylan warned. He wanted her alive to answer the questions he’d wanted to ask for twelve years.
She nodded and without hesitation lifted her gloved hands in surrender. “Dylan Greer,” she said.
It wasn’t exactly a question so Dylan didn’t bother to confirm it. “Mind telling me why you’re trespassing on my property?”
She didn’t answer. She just stood there staring at him.
Dylan didn’t want to notice this about her, but she looked exhausted and fragile. He didn’t let down his guard, though. There was too much at stake for him to do anything but stay vigilant.
He inched closer, so he could get a better look at her face. Definitely pale.
And definitely attractive.
Something he shouldn’t have noticed, but it would have been impossible not to observe that about her. Her eyes were dark chocolate-brown and a real contrast to the strands of wheat-blond hair that had escaped her black stocking cap.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
“No.”
Funny, he thought he would. Well, if she was the person responsible for two deaths. But he was beginning to doubt that she was the monster he originally believed her to be.
She didn’t look like a killer.
And he hoped his change in attitude didn’t have anything to do with those vulnerable brown eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Collena Drake.” She studied his face as if her name might mean something to him.
It didn’t.
But Dylan kept pressing. “What are you doing here?”
She looked away. “I needed…to see you.”
That hesitation and gaze dodging made him think she was lying. “The sheriff will be here any minute to arrest you for trespassing.”
“Yes. I figured if you spotted me that you’d call the authorities. I don’t blame you. If our positions were reversed, I would have done the same thing.”
Her rational, almost calm response confused and unnerved him. “Then why come? Why risk certain arrest?”
And he was positive he wasn’t going to like this answer. What would make this visit that important?
But the answer didn’t come after all. He could see that she was breathing hard. Her warm breath mixed with the cold air and surrounded her face in a surreal opal-white fog. Mumbling something that Dylan didn’t understand, she reached out with her right hand, grasping at the empty space, until she managed to catch on to the side of the building. The grip didn’t help steady her.
She crumpled into a heap on the ground.
Dylan didn’t let down his guard, or his gun, but he rushed to her to make sure she was okay. She’d apparently fainted, and when he touched her face, he discovered that her skin was ice-cold. After cursing, hesitating and then realizing there was nothing else he could do, he scooped her up into his arms and took her into the empty birthing stables.
He deposited her onto the hay-strewn concrete floor and flipped the switch on the wall to turn on the lights and the heater. Still, the place wouldn’t be warm for hours, so he grabbed a saddle blanket from the tack shelf and covered her with it.
Dylan checked the time again. The sheriff was obviously running late, and he debated calling an ambulance. Her color wasn’t great, but her breathing was steadier now and she had a strong pulse. This didn’t appear to be a life-threatening situation.
Since she had no purse, Dylan stooped down beside her and checked her coat pocket for some kind of ID. He found a wallet, a small leather flip case and keys. He looked inside the wallet and located her Texas driver’s license.
If the license was real, and it certainly looked as if it was, then her name was indeed Collena Drake. She was twenty-eight, five-feet-nine-inches tall, and she lived in San Antonio, a good two-hour drive away. Also in the wallet were credit cards and about three hundred dollars in cash, but no photos or other personal mementos to indicate exactly who this woman was.
However, the flip case gave him a clue.
It was a private investigator’s badge.
That didn’t answer any of Dylan’s questions, but it did add some new ones to the list of things he wanted to know about this fainting trespasser.
He pulled open her jacket and immediately saw the shoulder holster and gun. Since he didn’t want to take the chance of being shot, he extracted the weapon and put it in his own pocket.
“Miss Drake?” Dylan said, tapping her cheek. He took out his phone to call for an ambulance, but he stopped when she began to stir. “Are you all right?”
Her eyelids fluttered open, and she ran her tongue over her wind-chapped bottom lip. “What happened?”
“You passed out,” he informed her. “Are you sick?”
She hesitated, as if giving that some thought. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Are you pregnant?” Not that there were any visible signs of a pregnancy, but then it would be hard to see a baby bump behind that loose sweater.
Something went through those intense dark eyes. Something painful. “No. Not a chance.” Collena Drake held on to the blanket but maneuvered herself to a sitting position. In the process, she brushed against a post, specifically a raised nail head that caught onto her stocking cap. “It’s been a while since I’ve eaten. I’m light-headed.”
Dylan shook his head. “For a trespasser, you didn’t exactly come prepared, now, did you? You nearly froze to death and you’re starving. Is this your way of asking for an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner?”
“No,” she snapped. She pulled off her stocking cap, and her blond hair spilled onto her shoulders. She untangled the yarn from the nail and slipped the cap back on. “I didn’t come here for food.”
He hadn’t thought for a minute that she had. “Then, maybe it’s a good time for you to tell me why you did come?”
“Because you’re Dylan Greer.” She inched away from him. “I saw you yesterday. You were in town.”
That was true. He had gone into town the day before to do some early Christmas shopping. However, during all his errands, Dylan hadn’t seen this woman.
That caused his concern level to spike again.
Because Dylan wanted to make sure she understood that he didn’t approve of her, her presence or what she’d done, he leaned in closer. Too close. So that they were practically eye-to-eye.
She didn’t cower from him. In fact, her chin came up, and instead of fatigue and frustration, he saw some resolve in her expression.
“What’s a P.I. from San Antonio doing following me around town?” he demanded.
Her resolve increased even more. “I’ve been looking for you a long, long time, Dylan Greer.”
And it sounded a little like a threat.
“I’m not a hard man to find. I’ve lived in Greer all my life. The town is named for my great-great grandfather. And I own a fairly well-known horse-breeding business. My name is even on the mailbox at the end of my driveway.”
She made a soft sound of frustration. “You weren’t easy to find because I didn’t know I was looking for you.”
He heard the sheriff’s siren in the distance. Finally. It was about time. In five minutes, maybe less, he could turn all of this over to the authorities. But he couldn’t do that until he learned more about his visitor.
Tired of answers that weren’t making sense, Dylan decided to cut to the chase. “Did you kill my sister and my fiancée five years ago?”
Her eyes widened. “No. God, no.”
Collena Drake sounded adamant enough, but it didn’t satisfy Dylan. “Are you telling me that you didn’t know about their murders?”
“I knew. I mean, I ran a background check on you. Their deaths popped up on the computer records. But the computer records didn’t say anything about murder.”
“Trust me,” he snarled. “It was murder. Now, I want to know what you had to do with that.”
“Nothing. Until three days ago, I’d never even heard of you.”
Yet something else that didn’t make sense, especially since she’d said she’d been looking for him for a long, long time. “So, what changed three days ago?”
“Everything.”
The single word that left her mouth was more breath than sound.
Dylan didn’t need the winter to chill him, because that comment put some ice in his blood. He stood and stared down at her. Waiting for an explanation. And not at all sure that he really wanted to hear it.
“I’m a cop,” Collena Drake said, getting to her feet.
It was another crazy twist in this crazy encounter. “If you thought that would stop me from having you arrested, you thought wrong.”
“I have no expectations about how you will or won’t react to me.” She hugged the blanket tighter to her chest and waited a moment until her teeth stopped chattering. “Last year I took a leave of absence from the San Antonio PD so I could work full-time on the Brighton case.”
“Brighton?” he repeated. Dylan shrugged. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“You should. I’m talking about the Brighton Birthing Center investigation. Last year, the police discovered that the center was a front for all sorts of illegal activity.” She paused. “Including illegal adoptions.”
His heart felt as if someone had clamped a meaty fist around it. Because last year he’d adopted his own precious son, Adam. And he wasn’t just a part of Dylan’s life, Adam was his life.
“I didn’t go through Brighton to get my son,” he informed her.
“No. But Brighton still supplied the newborn that you adopted through the law firm you used.”
“What makes you think that?” Dylan fired back.
Her jaw muscles stirred. “Because for months I’ve investigated every detail, every file and every person who had any association whatsoever with Brighton. Then, three days ago, all the pieces finally came together, and I was able to figure out what’d happened.”
The siren grew closer, and Dylan knew that the sheriff was now on the ranch itself and headed straight for the birthing stable.
“Are you saying you believe that my son was illegally adopted?” Dylan asked.
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.
Oh, the thoughts that went through his mind. Nightmarish thoughts. Had the birth parents changed their minds about the adoption? Did they want Adam back? If they did, it wasn’t going to happen. Adam was his son in every way that mattered, and he wasn’t going to give him up.
Dylan pushed aside all the emotion he was feeling and focused on one glaring hole in her theory. “If you thought the adoption was illegal, then why did you come? Why aren’t the San Antonio police here instead?”
She met his regard head-on. “I came because I have a personal stake in this.”
Outside, the siren fell silent. Dylan heard the tires crunch on the frozen ground as the patrol car braked to a sudden stop.
“Is this your case?” he clarified.
Collena Drake shook her head. “It’s not just that I’m the investigating officer. I, too, was a victim of the Brighton Birthing Center. After giving birth there, my baby was stolen.”
Dylan was about to ask what that could possibly have to do with him, but the doors burst open. It wasn’t the sheriff but Deputy Jonah Burke, a hulk of a man who was armed with a semiautomatic. The deputy definitely wasn’t the person that Dylan wanted to see and, judging from Jonah’s expression, he felt the same about Dylan.
“Everything okay?” the deputy asked, his attention nailed to Collena Drake.
She let the blanket fall to the floor so that she could again lift her hands in a show of surrender. However, she kept her gaze pinned on Dylan.
“Sixteen months ago, I gave birth to a son,” she continued. Her voice cracked on the last word and her bottom lip began to tremble.
Dylan wasn’t trembling, but he felt some of that raw emotion himself.
“So?” he challenged.
“So, you illegally adopted him. I’m Adam’s mother.”
Chapter Two
Collena held her breath and waited for Dylan Greer’s reaction to what she’d just told him.
She’d braced herself for just about anything. Shouts, accusations, violence, perhaps even an arrest. But neither violence, nor an arrest would stop her from making him understand the truth.
Dylan Greer had her son.
Just silently saying the words made Collena’s heart ache. Yes, she’d found her baby—finally—but the man who’d adopted him was a massive obstacle who stood in the way of her becoming a real mother to her child.
Collena was prepared to make any and all compromises to be a mother. What she wouldn’t do was walk away and not be part of her son’s life. No way. She wouldn’t do to her child what her own mother had done to her.
“Well?” the deputy prompted. “Is someone gonna tell me what in the sam hill is going on here?”
With their eyes locked, Collena waited to see what Dylan would say. He didn’t make it easy on her—she had to wait several long moments.
“I’m not sure,” Dylan answered. “But I’ll find out.”
The deputy turned up the collar on his thick wool coat. “Mind if we ‘find out’ someplace warmer? I’m freezing my butt off out here. And if this is some kind of lovers’ quarrel—”
“It’s not,” Collena and Dylan said in unison.
But she did agree with the deputy on one thing. She was freezing, too. And she was dizzy. How could she have been so stupid not to eat before she set out to try to get a glimpse of her child? It was an understatement to say she’d been preoccupied with seeing her son, but fainting and feeling weak weren’t good bargaining tools for what would no doubt be a major battle with Dylan Greer.
“How about we take this to the house?” the deputy suggested. “I can have a cup of Ina’s coffee and you two can decide when you’re going to let me know what’s going on.” He aimed his index finger at Dylan. “But I warn you, if you brought me all the way out here on Thanksgiving for nothing, then even Ina’s coffee won’t improve my mood.”
The ruddy-faced deputy added a lopsided smile to indicate he was only partly joking. Dylan didn’t return the smile. The tension between them was almost as thick as it was between Dylan and Collena.
Almost.
“Can you walk on your own?” Dylan asked her. He waited just long enough for her nod before he headed out of the stables and in the direction of his house.
Where her son was.
That sent Collena’s heart racing, and it was for all the right reasons. She might get to see her child.
Ahead of her, Dylan took out his phone and Collena heard him make a call. He told whomever answered to unlock his office door and to make sure Adam stayed out of there for a while.
Collena wouldn’t be able to see him. Part of her understood that. Dylan Greer didn’t know her at all. Judging from the questions he’d barked at her, he thought she might be a killer.
Now, that brought on more than just raw nerves. What had happened to this man to make him think a trespasser was out to murder him? And were his suspicions valid? Collena certainly intended to look into the matter, because if it was true, her son might also be in danger.
“Some advice?” the deputy drawled. “It’s not a good idea to trespass on Dylan’s property. Since he adopted that little boy, he doesn’t pull any punches about stuff like that. He’ll have your butt arrested in a New York minute.”
Collena ignored the warning and brushed some snowflakes off her face. “Is he a good father?”
The deputy glanced at her as if she were mentally a little off. “Yeah. He is. A surprise, if you ask me. When the two of us were growing up, I never took Dylan for the fatherly type.”
Well, the deputy was apparently the only person surprised with Dylan’s fatherly attributes. In the past three days, Collena’s team of investigators had dug up everything they could on the man, and from all accounts Dylan wasn’t just a good father, he was an outstanding one. In addition, he had a sterling reputation and was considered to be an honest, dependable man if not a little ruthless when it came to running his business.
And it was all those things combined that had made Collena come up with her plan.
A plan that had to work. Even though she had no idea how she was going to convince Dylan Greer to do what she needed him to do.
She studied the man ahead of her. He had the looks to go along with that sterling reputation. He was, for lack of a better word, golden. Bronze-colored hair that fell low on the back of his neck. Naturally tan skin. And those sizzling green eyes. Amazing eyes to compliment his amazingly rugged face.
Collena hated that she noticed the last part, but it would have been impossible to ignore. If the world ever needed a cowboy cover model, Dylan Greer would be the perfect man for the job.
She’d expected to feel insecure and inferior around him, what with his money, education and power. There would always be some of that. But Collena hadn’t expected to feel the slight tingle inside that reminded her she was a woman.
A hungry woman.
The tingle couldn’t have anything to do with Dylan. Low blood-sugar levels were to blame. And Collena refused to believe otherwise. She had a job to do here, and she couldn’t let tingling feelings get in the way.
“I take it there’s a history between Dylan and you?” The deputy didn’t wait for her to answer. “Were you two lovers and then you gave up your baby for adoption?”
“Nothing like that,” she muttered. So she wouldn’t have to continue this interrogation, she hurried to catch up with Dylan. “Did you hear what I said about being Adam’s mother?”
It was a rhetorical question, a way to get the conversation started. Because Collena was dead certain he had heard every single word she’d said back there in the stables.
He spared her a glance and kept walking through the pasture. “There was no reason to respond because I don’t believe you.”
Ah, skepticism. She’d expected that, too. “It’s the truth. I have proof.”
Another glance. This one had some fire and ice to it. He had the eyes for such a range of emotion. Those shades of green seemed both hot and cold at the same time. Right now, they were leaning toward the chilly side, and that chill was all aimed at her.
“I’ll be interested in this so-called proof,” he said, opening the door. He went in ahead of her and checked out the place before he motioned for her to enter.
Collena stepped inside the toasty warm room, and she could almost feel her body sigh with relief. The deputy came in, shut the door behind him and brushed the snowflakes off his clothes.
Collena soon detected the source of the welcoming heat. There was a massive stone fireplace with flames flickering inside. The place smelled of mesquite wood and the scents from the winter pasture that they’d brought in with them. There was also the aroma of roasting turkey and pumpkin pie. Someone was apparently getting ready for Thanksgiving.
Her stomach growled, but Collena ignored it. She had a more important task at hand.
Dylan Greer’s office was exactly what she’d expected. Palatial and functional. Horse-themed artwork on the walls. Rich, glossy woods for the floor and desk, and on the desk was a sliver-thin computer monitor and a gleaming silver tray with coffee, raisin wheat toast, biscuits and crystal dishes of various jams and marmalades.
A photograph next to the computer monitor caught Collena’s eye. It was a picture of Dylan holding a baby.
Her baby.
But before she could get a better look, Dylan grabbed the photo and slammed it facedown on his desk. He picked up his phone, punched in some numbers and requested a background check on her.
Which she’d expected. She’d certainly done a thorough check on Dylan.
“Jonah, you can go get your coffee now,” Dylan advised.
The deputy scowled at what was obviously an order, but he headed for the set of interior doors. However, the doors opened before he could get to them.
A woman was in the doorway. Ina, maybe? She was in her late fifties, Collena guessed, and her copper-red hair was cut very short, less than an inch long around her entire head.
“Where’s Adam?” Dylan immediately asked.
“Still asleep. I was about to wake him for breakfast and then give him a bath.” She glared at Collena with piercing stone-gray eyes. “Are you the intruder?”
“Yes.” The woman’s scrutiny suddenly made Collena feel a tad guilty. “I’m sorry that I caused such a fuss.”
The woman made a grunting sound of disapproval.
“Go back to the nursery,” Dylan told his employee. It was another order. “And stay there until you hear from me.”
The woman’s sound of disapproval became one of concern. “What’s going on, Dylan?”
“I’ll fill you in later.” He didn’t say another word until both the woman and the deputy were out of the room and the doors were closed.
“Was that the nanny?” Collena asked.
He paused so long that she didn’t think he would answer. “Yes. Her name is Ruth. If you did a background check on me, then you also know she was my own nanny and someone I trust.”
“Ruth Sayers,” Collena supplied. “Her name did come up.” And she was clean. No criminal record. In fact, not even a traffic violation.
“Just what kind of proof do you think you have about the adoption being illegal?” Dylan asked.
“More than enough.” Because she was feeling light-headed again, Collena sank down into the plush saddle-brown leather chair across from his desk and tugged off her gloves. “As I said I’ve been investigating the Brighton case since August of last year. When I realized just how many babies had been illegally adopted, I asked for help from the pediatric community. I was able to get names of adopted babies, and I compared them to those who had been legally adopted.”
He pushed the silver tray toward her and motioned for her to eat. When he motioned a second time, Collena pinched off a piece of raisin wheat toast and popped it into her mouth. Even though it was cold, it tasted heavenly.
“And you’re saying that Adam’s name came up on that list of adopted babies?” he asked. But he didn’t just ask. It was buried under a mountain of skepticism.
She nodded. “Adam’s name and one hundred and twelve other infant boys. There were a lot of them, and that’s why it’s taken me so long to find my son.”
His jaw turned to iron. He paced a few steps in front of the fireplace, turned and stared at her before taking one of the biscuits, opening it and handing both it and the silver jam spoon to her.
With the hopes that her faintness would go away, Collena smeared some strawberry jam on one half and started to eat. Dylan didn’t say anything until she had finished.
“Adam’s my son,” he insisted. “And I don’t really care what kind of proof you have. You gave him up—”
“I didn’t give him up.”
Oh, that had not been easy to say. Collena had to choke back all the pain and emotion just so she could speak.
“Sixteen months ago, I went into premature labor while I was at Brighton,” she explained. “Without my consent, a doctor gave me a strong narcotic so that he could steal my baby. I fought him and his accomplice as much as I could. I managed to escape…eventually. What I wasn’t able to do was find my child. Until now.”
He cursed. And then as if he’d declared war on it, he peeled off his jacket and tossed it into the closet. He didn’t stop there. Dylan came across the room, bracketed his hands on his desk and leaned in so he could stare at her some more.
“And why should I believe you?” he challenged.
Collena tried to keep her voice level. “In my car I have the police and doctors’ reports detailing what happened to me and the subsequent arrest of the director at Brighton. I also have the original files. Both sets, the legal ones that Brighton put together, and the illegal ones they figured no one but them would ever see.”
He shook his head. “Reports and files don’t prove anything about Adam. So what if you had a child? It could have been any child.”
“Adam’s date of birth matches the day I delivered,” she pointed out.
“That could be a coincidence. You could be confused about the date.”
She took a deep breath and tried to tamp down her frustration. She couldn’t say she hadn’t expected this though. In fact, Collena figured there’d be many rounds of stonewalling before he started to come to terms with this.
“I’m not confused. There were only four baby boys born that particular day at Brighton,” Collena said. “And three are already accounted for.”
He waited a moment, and she could almost see the thought process going on behind those eyes. “This doesn’t make any sense. I want to talk to Adam’s birth father.”
“He’s dead.” And for the time being, that’s all she intended to say about her late fiancé, Sean Reese. Thankfully, Adam would never have to have Sean in his life, but that didn’t mean Sean’s DNA couldn’t come back to haunt them. Later, she’d have to explain all of that to Dylan. “Look, I know this is hard to accept—”
“You have no idea.”
“But I do. Remember, someone stole my baby and tried to kill me. I have an inkling of what it’s like to lose something as important as a child.”
Oh, mercy. She felt the tears threaten, and she tried to blink them back. One escaped anyway, but she quickly wiped it away so there’d be no proof of the pain that had ripped her heart apart.
“Look at me,” Collena requested. “Don’t you see some kind of resemblance between Adam and me?”
It was a gamble, because Collena had no idea if her son did indeed resemble her.
But the gamble paid off.
Dylan combed his gaze over her. Studying her, hard. And at the end of several snail-crawling moments, he groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. He dropped down in the chair across from her and raised his head.
“Adam has blond hair and brown eyes,” he admitted. “Like you.”
The relief washed over her. Not because she doubted this child was hers. No. She was positive of it. But the resemblance might go a long way to convincing Dylan of what she already knew.
It might also convince him to accept the deal she was about to offer.
“I won’t believe any of this until I see DNA results,” he added a moment later.
Collena had anticipated that, as well. “I already have DNA results to prove he’s mine.”
“You couldn’t.”
“But I do. You probably remember telling your adoption attorney that you wanted your baby’s umbilical cord to be stored in case it was needed in the future. Since the storage facility was also owned by Brighton, the police got a search warrant to have all the umbilical cords tested. The newborns’ identities were all in code, so I knew that one of the babies was mine, it just took a lot of DNA tests to figure out which one.”
He pulled in his breath. “And how do you know that you unraveled the code correctly?”
“Because all the other babies have been accounted for. All except Adam. He’s the last one on the list.”
Collena took the small DNA test kit from her pocket, opened it and wiped the sterile swab on the inside of her cheek. She put it in the plastic bag, resealed it and handed it to him.
“You can send it to any lab you choose,” Collena instructed. “Ask for a maternity study. Have them expedite it. Within forty-eight hours you should have the proof you need.”
“Need for what?” He stood and dropped the kit onto his desk. He pressed his thumb to his chest. “I love him. Adam is my son.”
Collena stood also, so she could make eye contact. “I love him, too. And he’s my son.”
He cursed, and it wasn’t mild. “I can’t give him up.”
“Neither can I.”
“I’ll fight this in court.” His stare turned to a glare. “I’ll have to.”
“Maybe not.”
Dylan blinked, and his forehead bunched up. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I know you’re a good father.” She motioned around the room. “And I can’t give Adam all the material things you’ve given him. Or the stability. Or the respectability.”
There was more.
She’d save that for later.
On top of everything else he’d learned, it might be too much for Dylan Greer to hear that they might both lose the precious child they loved.
“And I can’t overlook the fact that you’re the only parent that Adam knows,” Collena added, hoping that she was making her case. “To take him from you now would be as criminal as what happened to me at Brighton sixteen months ago.”
His glare softened. “Are you saying you won’t fight me for custody?”
“Not exactly.”
The softening vanished. “Then, what are you saying?” he asked.
Mercy, she only hoped this sounded better aloud than it did in her head. But it didn’t matter if it sounded insane. She had no choice.
“What I’m offering is more of a compromise,” Collena explained. “When you weigh all the options, when you think about how we can both have Adam in our lives, there’s only one thing you can do.”
His glare returned and intensified. “And what’s that one thing that I can do?”
Collena braced herself for his reaction. “You can marry me.”
Chapter Three
Dylan hadn’t thought there could be any more surprises today, but he was obviously wrong. Collena Drake had just delivered the ultimate surprise.
“Marry you?” he questioned.
She nodded and moistened her lips. “I’m Adam’s mother. You’ve raised him, true, but we both love him. It seems…reasonable that we can both be his parents.”
“You don’t even know him,” Dylan tossed right back at her.
“He’s my child. I love him.”
He couldn’t dispute that. He’d loved Adam, too, from the moment that he learned Adam was his. Dylan hadn’t had to see him to know just how deep that love was. Still, that didn’t mean this woman had a claim to Adam.
“Neither of us wants to lose him,” Collena added as if that would change his mind. It wouldn’t.
“And you think the solution is for us to get married, even though we’re perfect strangers?”
She nodded.
He didn’t agree with her. It was an insane proposition. He couldn’t do it. Could he?
Oh, man. He hated to even consider it, but Dylan went through a mental list of reasons why he shouldn’t. He had no idea who this woman really was. And even if she proved everything she’d said, it would still mean a marriage to a stranger so that he could keep his child.
Dylan wasn’t sure he could go that far, nor was he sure he had to. There was rarely just one solution to a problem, even when that problem was as massive as this one appeared to be.
“And what if I say no to your marriage proposal?” Dylan asked.
She took a deep breath. “Then I’ll petition the courts to return Adam to me. In my car, I have all the documentation to prove that he’s mine and that the adoption was illegal. I’ve already retained an attorney. He could file my petition as early as tomorrow morning. In nearly all the Brighton cases, the illegally adopted children have been returned to the birth parents. And in those cases where they weren’t, it’s because both birth parents were dead.”
Dylan felt the knot in his stomach tighten. Collena had obviously given this plenty of thought, but then, according to what she had said earlier, she’d had three days to absorb it. He was still trying to come to terms with it, and for him, it was a nightmare.
The adoption attorney he’d used had sworn to him that there were no birth parents in the picture, that they were both deceased. Well, it seemed that either the adoption attorney had been wrong or he was a criminal.
Or maybe this was simply a case of someone on the Brighton staff lying to his attorney.
“In other words, if I don’t jump at the chance to marry you, you’ll try to cut me out of Adam’s life,” Dylan mumbled. “This is blackmail, pure and simple. If it’s money, you’re after—”
“I’m not after your money. In fact, I’ll sign a prenup agreement and won’t use any of your income or resources for my own expenses. What I’m after is far more important than money. I want a decent life for my child. A life that includes me. You were born and raised here. You don’t know what it’s like to be considered trash.”
That set off some alarms. Dylan stared at her. “And you do?”
“I do.” She glanced away for a moment. “I had the misfortune of not being born in the right family. My son has the chance I didn’t, and I don’t want that chance taken away from him.”
Neither did he. Nor did he want to consider what his own life would be like without Adam. Some way, somehow, he would keep him.
“I trust that you don’t need an answer right now,” Dylan said.
“Of course not.” She stood as if prepared to go.
Dylan heard the slight static sound then, and he groaned. Someone was listening on the intercom. He’d forgotten to turn it off earlier when he’d rushed out to find the intruder.
“This is private conversation,” he called out. He pointed to the intercom speaker so that his guest would know why he’d said that. No one confessed to the eavesdropping, but Dylan added, “Ask Jonah to come to my office. He’ll need to escort Ms. Drake to her car.”
Dylan turned back to face her. “I need some time to think this through.”
She nodded. “What you mean, is you need to consult your attorney.”
“That, too.”
“Go ahead. Talk to your attorney. I’m sure he or she will tell you what I’ve already told you—that I have a legal right to claim the child that was stolen from me.” She glanced at the picture that he’d turned facedown on his desk. “May I see Adam?”
Dylan didn’t even have to think about it. “No.” He wasn’t ready to share Adam with this woman.
Heck, he might never be ready to do that.
She stared at him, as if she might challenge his decision, but she didn’t. “When we were by the stables, you said something about a killer. Is there some kind of threat to Adam?”
Oh, hell.
Dylan didn’t want to go there, because this was exactly the kind of fodder she could use if she challenged him for custody. “I’m a cautious man,” he said. “Adam is safe.”
“But you said your fiancée and sister were murdered,” she reminded him.
“I believe they were. But they have nothing to do with Adam.”
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely,” he lied.
But the only thing that was absolute was that the two people he loved the most—his sister and fiancée—had been murdered.
Another girl, his high school girlfriend, had been viciously assaulted after Dylan had taken her to the prom. The incident had so traumatized her that she’d moved away from Greer. Dylan, too, had moved away for a while. To San Antonio, right after he graduated from college.
For all the good it’d done.
A woman he’d dated there had also been assaulted one night when putting her recycling bin on the curb. The police hadn’t been able to find the person responsible. Ditto for his prom date—no suspects and no arrests. And the local sheriff had ruled his sister’s and fiancée’s deaths accidental.
But Dylan knew better.
Those two car crashes had not been accidents. And neither had the other assaults. They were connected to him. He was the only common denominator.
Since he was aware of that, he’d learned to take precautions, and he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Adam—accidental or otherwise. In fact, that’s the reason he hadn’t been seriously involved with any woman since his fiancée’s death five years earlier. For whatever reason, it seemed as if someone didn’t want him to be happy in love.
“If there’s a threat to Adam,” he heard Collena say, “then I need to know about it.”
And Dylan decided to turn the tables on her. “You said someone tried to kill you after you gave birth.”
She nodded. And swallowed hard.
“Then maybe whoever it was will try to come after you again and finish what he started,” he pointed out.
“No. The Brighton criminals were arrested. Some are dead and some are in jail.”
Because he thought there might be doubt in the depths of her brown eyes, he pushed harder. “You’re absolutely positive that the police rounded up all of them?”
“I’m as certain of it as you are of the fact that your sister and fiancée’s killer has nothing to do with Adam.”
Touché. Under different circumstances, Dylan might have liked her.
“So, why suggest marriage?” Dylan asked.
“On paper, it’s the best solution. Adam will have two parents who love him. He’ll want for nothing. No shared custody. No one weekend with you, the other weekend with me. And if we’re married, if you legally adopted him, then there’ll be no way that anyone can cut either of us out of his life.”
That last part sounded reasonable, but the whole picture had flaws the size of Texas. “And what about a loveless marriage? Do you really want that?”
Collena made a soft sound of amusement. “From my experience, love is vastly overrated.”
“You’re too young to be so skeptical,” he commented.
“I’m a lot older than my age might imply.” She shifted her position. “Look, I’m not some starry-eyed gold digger, Mr. Greer. I don’t want a husband, a lover or someone’s shoulder to cry on. I don’t even want someone to support me or pretend that I matter to him. I just want the best possible life for my son. A life where no one is pointing fingers at him because he’s different.”
Dylan didn’t let himself react to the emotion. To the truthful tone of that obviously painful confession. “If you wanted that, you should have stayed away from him,” he challenged.
“I considered it.”
And she was serious, too. Serious enough to bring tears to her eyes. It was the second time today that she’d teared up, but even with that track record, Dylan didn’t think she was a woman accustomed to showing her feelings. Those tears looked out of place.
“You considered staying away,” he paraphrased. “Yet, you came anyway. Lucky me.”
“I tried, but I can’t give him up.” She moistened her lips, looked away. “I lost him once, and I can’t survive if I have to go through that again.”
Unfortunately, Dylan knew what she meant, but he pushed aside the camaraderie he felt. It was best to keep his feelings toward Collena Drake as detached as possible.
He checked his watch and realized it’d been a good ten minutes since he’d asked Jonah to return. Dylan hit the intercom button on his desk so he could be heard in the kitchen.
“Jonah?”
“He left,” Dylan heard Ina, the cook, say. “He said he had another call.”
Well, that was just great. Jonah wasn’t finished with this call. For all the deputy knew, Collena Drake could have been a killer. At a minimum, she’d trespassed, and Jonah should have waited around long enough to see if he was going to have to arrest her for that. Not that Dylan planned to have her thrown in jail. But Jonah didn’t know that.
“I can see myself out,” Collena insisted. She was heading for the door before she turned back around to face him.
She probably hadn’t realized how close they were when she turned around. Mere inches apart.
Both of them stepped back.
“Please think about what I’ve said,” she added.
“Oh, I will.” In fact, he would think of little else.
“I’ll get my car and drive back to drop off the papers that prove Adam is my son. Or I can have someone bring them to you if you’d prefer.”
Dylan didn’t want anyone else involved in this just yet. He went to the closet and grabbed his coat and car keys. He wanted to see what kind of evidence she had so he could start looking for flaws in it. He didn’t know what he would do once he’d found them, but he wanted all the information about this situation and the woman who’d proposed marriage and then threatened to take Adam away from him.
“I’d also like my gun back,” Collena said.
“It’s in my pocket. You’ll get it back when you’re off my property.”
Figuring that he needed to go on the offensive, Dylan picked up his phone and pressed in some numbers. “Sorry to bother you on Thanksgiving,” he said to the man who answered. “But it’s an emergency. Call me the second you have any information on Collena Drake. And I have a DNA test kit that I need you to pick up ASAP and take to a lab.”
“Your lawyer?” Collena asked when he hung up the phone.
“A P.I. I want as much information about you as you think you have about me.”
And he would get it.
He needed all the ammunition possible to stop this woman who’d intruded into his life.
They went back outside, and Dylan could have sworn the temperature had dropped even more. The snowflakes had picked up, as well. They weren’t steadily falling, yet, but it would happen soon. Despite everything that was going on, he couldn’t help but think of how Adam would react to building a snowman.
“You’re smiling,” Collena mumbled.
He put on the stoniest face he could manage. It was easy to do. He was riled at this woman who’d come in unannounced and threatened to tear his life apart.
Dylan motioned toward his truck and unlocked the doors. “I can walk,” Collena assured him.
“I don’t doubt that, but this will be warmer.”
But not faster. She could actually walk across the pasture quicker than taking the roads around the ranch to get to her car, but Dylan wasn’t sure how steady she was on her feet. She’d eaten a few bites in his office, but she was still pale and seemed unsteady.
And it irritated him that he was even remotely concerned about that.
This woman could cost him everything.
He wanted to hate her.
What he didn’t want was to believe that she was telling the truth. Because if she was, if someone had truly stolen her baby and left her for dead, then she’d been through hell, something that Dylan totally understood.
“I suppose Adam can walk?” she asked.
He groaned. He didn’t want to talk about Adam, not to her, but it’d be petty to withhold such simple information. Still, he considered it before he finally mumbled, “Yes.”
“And he can talk?”
He bit back another groan. “He can say a few things.”
Collena nodded. “Thank you. I know that wasn’t easy.” She watched as he drove out of the wrought iron gates that fronted the ranch. “I came today, hoping I’d get a glimpse of him through one of the windows. I really hadn’t planned on intruding on your Thanksgiving day.”
What could he say to that? That she’d gone about it the wrong way? Well, they both knew there was no right way to do this. If she’d come to his door with this bombshell on any day, holiday or not, he wouldn’t have let her in.
He made the turn on the dirt and gravel road that snaked against the fenced portion of his property. The snow had already dusted the surface, making it hard for him to see where the road ended and deep ditches began.
Because the silence was thick and uncomfortable, Dylan decided to push her for more information. “Tell me about the father of your child,” he said.
Collena took black leather gloves from her pocket and put them back on. She also took a deep breath. “Sean Reese was a lawyer. We’d been engaged nearly a year when I got pregnant.”
A year. That wasn’t a casual relationship. “You planned a family?”
She shook her head. “No. I was on the pill, hadn’t missed taking any, so the pregnancy wasn’t planned. When I came home from work the day after I told him, he was gone. He’d moved out and left me a typed letter saying he didn’t want to be a father and that he was breaking up with me.” She paused. “That’s the kind of man he was.”
“And he’s really dead?” Dylan managed to ask through his suddenly tight jaw. Because he didn’t want a guy like that in Adam’s life.
“Yes. About six months after he moved out, one of his drug-dealing clients murdered him when he received a guilty verdict that obviously didn’t please him.”
Dylan hated to feel relieved, but he was. It was bad enough having one birth parent in the picture. If Collena was indeed a real birth parent. It was hard to doubt it though, especially when he looked at her mouth.
That was Adam’s mouth.
Heart shaped. And capable of expressing a huge range of emotions.
So, if Collena Drake was truly Adam’s birth mother, then the question was—what was he going to do about it?
He didn’t get a chance to come up with any possibilities because Collena spoke before he had time to think.
“There’s something else you should know about Sean Reese,” Collena said. Her voice was practically a whisper now, and she looked down at her gloved hands. “I hadn’t planned on telling you this soon, but you’ll probably find out when you press your P.I. for a deeper background check on me.”
Which he would do, especially after an opening like that. “There really is someone from Brighton after you?” he asked.
“No. Not Brighton. The problem is Sean’s father, Curtis Reese. He’s been looking for Adam, too.”
Well, that sounded ominous, and Dylan didn’t like where this conversation was going.
“Curtis Reese is very wealthy,” Collena continued. “And Sean was his only child. He loved him, and he was obsessive about it. Once he learned that I was pregnant with Sean’s child, he became consumed with his unborn grandchild, as well.”
Dylan quickly came to a conclusion, but he hoped he was wrong. “Are you saying that this Curtis Reese will try to get custody of Adam?”
“He’ll try,” Collena confirmed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but since the adoption was illegal, you don’t stand much of a chance of keeping Adam.”
His jaw tightened even more. “That’s debatable.”
“It’s true. There are things in my past that Curtis Reese will try to use to challenge my own custody. Nothing criminal,” she quickly added.
Dylan would have questioned exactly what those things were if he hadn’t seen the smoke ahead. Collena obviously saw it, too; she pointed in that direction.
“That’s where I left my car,” she said.
With the snow and the wind, it wasn’t a day to burn brush. Besides, he’d given all the hands the day off. Dylan took the last turn, dreading what he would see.
There, off to the side of the narrow dirt road sat a dark blue compact car, engulfed in flames.
Chapter Four
Collena saw the fire and smoke.
She felt the instant slam of adrenaline, and she reached for her gun, which wasn’t there. Because Dylan still had it in his pocket.
Dylan reacted, too. He caught on to her shoulder and shoved her down onto the leather seat. Hard. Then, he drew his own weapon, threw his truck into Reverse and sped backward to put some distance between them and her burning vehicle.
It was a good decision. With the flames already eating through the interior, the car could explode.
“Do you see anyone?” she asked, trying to get up. But he merely used his muscled body to keep her in place. Protecting her.
More than likely, it was an automatic response, something he would do for anyone who happened to be in danger. And there was no doubt in Collena’s mind that this was a dangerous situation.
Someone had set fire to her car.
And that someone could still be around to do even more damage to them.
“No, I don’t,” Dylan relayed to her. He pulled his phone and her gun from his pocket and handed both items to her. “Call nine-one-one and ask for the fire department.”
Surprised, she blinked. “Not the sheriff?”
“Dispatch would only send Jonah back out.”
Collena understood. The bitter and perhaps incompetent deputy obviously had some kind of personal grudge against Dylan. Besides, this was a fire, and the fire department would be able to tell whether it was from natural causes or arson.
She had a bad feeling it was the latter.
Collena made the call, and the emergency dispatcher told her that she would send a fire-response team right away.
And then she lay there on the seat, waiting for Dylan to make a decision about what to do. Unfortunately, he was practically lying on top of her. For reasons Collena didn’t want to explore, she didn’t want to be this close to Dylan. She could feel parts of his body that she shouldn’t be feeling.
“I’m a cop,” she reminded him. “Let me up so I can see if I can spot any evidence.”
He did, reluctantly. “Stay low,” he warned. “If someone’s out there, he could be armed.”
That didn’t do much to steady her breathing or heart rate.
While Dylan kept his gun aimed and ready, Collena did a visual search of the immediate area. There were trees, most of them bare from the winter, but there was also a thick clump of massive live oaks, complete with thick branches and green leaves. They completely obscured the view of the ranch. It was the main reason she’d chosen the spot, so that her car wouldn’t be seen when she parked it.
Those trees could now be hiding an arsonist.
But who would do something like this?
One answer immediately came to mind. Curtis Reese, Sean’s father. Collena hadn’t told him that she’d found Adam, but with Curtis’s resources, he could have learned that information. Maybe this was his way of warning her not to try to keep Adam from him.
But that’s exactly what she was going to do.
“See anything?” Dylan asked.
“It’s what I don’t see that bothers me. There are no other tire tracks that lead directly to my vehicle.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
She turned her head, and their gazes met. There was plenty of concern in the depths of his green eyes. “The snow might have covered the tracks,” she said.
His attention drifted toward those live oaks. “Or someone could have taken this path. Or that one,” he said, shifting his focus to the other side of the road where the bare trees were.
He was right, of course. There was another dirt road less than a quarter of a mile away, and it paralleled this one. Someone could have parked there and walked over. Too bad the snow would almost certainly wipe out any tracks there.
“We need to get out of here,” Dylan announced.
Collena glanced at her car and saw why. The flames were even higher now. If the gas tank blew, they were a safe enough distance away, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get pelted with debris.
Dylan began to drive in reverse down the road. He took it slowly to avoid slipping into the ditch. If an arsonist was truly still around, Collena didn’t want them to be in the woods on foot.
“Both my sister, Abigail, and fiancée, Julie, died in car accidents where fires were involved,” he mumbled.
“You think this is related to their murders?” she asked.
A muscle flickered in his jaw. “No one was ever arrested. In fact, the police ruled them accidents. But in both cases, the cars caught fire and that caused the accidents and their deaths. Neither was able to get out alive.”
“But why would whoever killed them want to set fire to my car?”
Collena was certain he would dismiss any connection. Just as he’d dismissed the danger earlier.
However, he didn’t dismiss it now.
“Most of the women I’ve been personally involved with have encountered some kind of violence.”
“Excuse me?” And Collena held her breath.
“You heard me,” he snapped. His posture and tone became defensive. “That’s why I’ve sworn off having a relationship, and it’s the reason I adopted a son and not a daughter.”
She shook her head. “But Adam—”
“There hasn’t been an incident since I adopted him.”
Collena pointed to the fire. “What about my car? You don’t think that’s an incident?”
“That might not be related to the other fires.” And he didn’t add anything else, as if waiting for her to confirm or deny it.
Sweet heaven, she couldn’t.
Dylan finally made it to the end of the dirt path and turned onto the main road that would take them back to the ranch.
“Now you understand why I can’t consider your marriage proposal,” he continued. “Though my past is only one of many objections I have.”
Collena understood. In fact, his past terrified her. But not as much as the alternative of losing Adam. “We might both lose custody if we don’t work together.”
“Working together,” he repeated. “I’ll give you that. But marriage is out.”
Not being married to Dylan would put a serious wrinkle in her plans. Besides, this fire might not have anything to do with his past or with Sean’s father. “Maybe this was some kind of prank. Kids are out of school for Thanksgiving. Maybe someone was bored and decided to light a match.”
Dylan didn’t answer right away. “Maybe.”
Collena released the breath she’d been holding and hoped they weren’t deluding themselves.
Individually, they both had some old baggage, but she hoped that it wouldn’t surface. Above all, she had to do whatever was necessary to keep Adam safe. And if that meant taking her son and fleeing, she would.
But she also knew an action like that would heavily impact her little boy. After all, she’d be taking her child from the only parent Adam had ever known.
That was the very thing Collena was trying to avoid.
While they sat in silence, Dylan drove through the gates to the ranch. There was still no sight or sound of the fire truck. Of course, it was winter, and the weather wasn’t cooperating. Her car was gone, as was everything inside it—including the copies of the documents to prove she was Adam’s mother. The only thing left for the fire department to do was tell them how the fire had started.
And then the sheriff could maybe determine who had started it.
Dylan had been with her the entire time, so she knew he wasn’t the culprit. Besides, this wasn’t his approach to things. He wouldn’t have set fire to a car to destroy documents or to intimidate her.
He was a face-to-face kind of man.
“I have a visitor,” Dylan commented.
Collena picked through the other vehicles that were near the house and spotted a black luxury car parked in the circular driveway in front. She didn’t recognize the car, but she had no trouble recognizing the tall dark-haired man who was pounding on Dylan’s front door.
“Oh, God,” Collena mumbled.
“You know him?” Dylan asked, firing an accusatory glance at her.
She nodded. “Yes. That’s Curtis Reese, Adam’s biological grandfather. He’s probably here to try to take him.”
WELL, THIS WAS SHAPING UP to be the day from hell.
Dylan braked to a halt directly in front of the house and barreled out of his truck. He was not going to let Curtis Reese anywhere near Adam.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Collena say. “I didn’t know he’d follow me.”
Dylan didn’t take the time to respond to that. Besides, what could he say? He certainly wasn’t going to give her a pass.
Yesterday, his life was as close to perfect as it could get, and now mere hours later, things were tumbling down around him.
In the distance Dylan heard the fire sirens, but he focused his attention on the man trying to beat down his front door. Dylan kept his gun gripped in his hand, and he started up the porch steps.
His visitor whirled around with his tight fist still high in the air. Dylan didn’t raise his gun. He didn’t issue any threats. He just stared at the man, daring him to use that fist in any way.
Curtis Reese stared back at him.
When Collena had first told him that this was Adam’s biological grandfather, Dylan had expected someone who looked like a grandparent. Curtis Reese didn’t. Dylan figured he had to be at least in his early fifties, but he looked much younger. There wasn’t a strand of gray in his dark brown hair. The man was at least six-four, and he had a muscular build that his Italian cashmere suit didn’t hide. And Curtis Reese had a formidable expression on his wrinkle-free face.
“I’m here to see my grandson,” Curtis announced.
“Then you’ve wasted your time,” Dylan shot back.
Curtis looked past him, and his equally formidable granite-gray eyes landed on Collena. “Did you think you could hide my own flesh and blood from me?”
“For a while.” Collena took the steps slowly, and Dylan hoped she wasn’t having another dizzy spell. “It’s Thanksgiving, Curtis. Go home and give me a chance to work things out with Mr. Greer.”
“What you really want is time to figure out how to steal him from me.”
Collena shook her head and slipped her gun into her coat pocket. “I don’t have to steal him. You have no right to Adam.”
“And this conversation is over,” Dylan intervened.
Curtis’s gaze snapped back to Dylan. “It’s not over. I know what Collena’s trying to do. She’ll try to make a pact with you to stop me from getting custody. Well, you should know that Collena Drake isn’t fit to be a mother. Her own mother was a drug addict and prostitute—did she tell you that?”
Dylan shrugged. “It didn’t come up in conversation. Now, are you leaving voluntarily, or do I need to help you to your car?”
“I’m not going until I make you understand what an unsuitable mother she is. It’s her fault that she was at Brighton, and it’s her fault that Adam was stolen. She took a deep-cover assignment while she was pregnant. Something bad could have happened there. And it did. She endangered herself and therefore her baby. I think I can convince a judge that what she did can be construed as child endangerment.”
Dylan tried not to react to that, mainly because coming from Curtis, it could be a lie. But then he glanced at Collena. He didn’t think it was his imagination that she was even paler now than when he’d first seen her. Later, after Curtis was off the grounds, they would obviously have to discuss this latest allegation.
“Adam’s in danger,” Curtis said, his voice strained with emotion. “And it’s all Collena’s fault.” He volleyed glances between them. “Did you know that Rodney Harmon escaped from jail last night?”
Collena actually dropped back a step, and Dylan caught her arm so that she wouldn’t fall on the slippery porch. He’d never heard the name Rodney Harmon, but he figured soon he’d know why the man had caused Collena to have that kind of reaction.
“Harmon will come after you again,” Curtis warned Collena. “And if you’re near Adam, he’ll come after him, too. You shouldn’t be within a hundred miles of that baby.”
Collena glanced at Dylan and stepped out of his grip. “Rodney Harmon is the man I helped arrest and put into prison. He was one of the security guards at Brighton. And among other things, he was responsible for…stopping me from going after the doctor who stole Adam.”
He didn’t have to guess how the guy had stopped her. Dylan had a strange gut reaction to that realization. He wanted to pound the guy to dust because he’d attacked a vulnerable woman who’d just given birth. And why? All so someone could steal her infant son and sell him.
But Dylan had lived the flip side of Rodney Harmon’s diabolical plan. He’d adopted the baby that Rodney had helped steal. Dylan couldn’t regret that. Ever. But he could regret the pain Collena had gone through.
But maybe that could be overshadowed by Curtis’s other allegation. That Collena was responsible for what had happened.
Had Collena assisted Rodney in some way?
Since there was obviously a lot of new issues to discuss, Dylan chose the one that could cause the most serious and immediate problems. “Why would this Harmon guy come after you?” Dylan asked Collena. “Weren’t there dozens of cops who helped put him away? Why single you out?”
Collena looked him straight in the eye when she answered. “He blamed me personally for his arrest because I was the only one who was able to identify him. And I tes tified against him during his trial.”
Hell.
So, there was a new threat—a serious one. And if Harmon had escaped the night before, he could have been the one to set fire to Collena’s car. But that was a stretch, since Harmon would have first had to know where Collena was and then follow her.
Still, it wasn’t impossible.
But Harmon was a threat Dylan would have to deal with later. Right now, he had to get Curtis off his porch and far away from Adam.
“Look, I have zero patience for you and this visit, especially today,” Dylan told Curtis. “Have your lawyer contact my lawyer, and stay away from anything that’s mine. And right now, Adam is mine.”
“This isn’t over,” Curtis insisted, though he did proceed down the steps. “One way or another, I will get my grandson. There’s not a judge anywhere in the world that will give Collena custody. Nor you, Dylan Greer.”
That did not sound like an idle remark. “Been digging up dirt on me, too?” Dylan calmly asked.
Curtis caught the door handle of his car, but he didn’t get in. “You bet I have.” The man smiled. “That’s some dark cloud you got hanging over you. Two women are dead. Others are psychologically scarred for life. It could happen again. And I’m going to use anything I can to get custody of Adam.”
With that threat still lingering in the freezing air, Curtis got in his car and slammed the door. Dylan and Collena watched as he sped away, kicking up a spray of snow, dirt and ice. The back end of the car fishtailed on the slick surface, but Curtis continued to speed out through the gates.
“Why don’t you come in?” Dylan invited Collena. He took hold of her arm to make her realize this wasn’t an invitation she could turn down. “You have some things to explain.”
Chapter Five
Collena had hoped to tell Dylan about her past in her own way and on her own terms. She didn’t want to have the conversation on Thanksgiving before he’d had a chance to consider her offer of marriage.
But it was obvious this couldn’t wait.
He opened the front door, and they stepped back into the warm house. Dylan immediately locked it. Double locks, then he set the security system before he led her in the direction of his office.
They weren’t alone in the house. Ruth, the nanny, and a younger auburn-haired woman peered out at her from what appeared to be the family room. There was no sign of Adam, but since Collena had run a brief background check on the staff, she figured the younger woman was probably Millie, Ruth’s daughter who’d been raised at Dylan’s estate.
There was a lot of disapproval in the women’s expressions.
It matched the disapproval in Dylan’s.
Oh, yes. She had some explaining to do. However, before she could even begin, her cell phone rang. After one glance at the caller-ID screen, Collena knew it was a call she had to take.
“I won’t be long,” she told Dylan, who walked into his office ahead of her.
He gave a look that conveyed she’d better not. He practically ripped off his jacket, shoved it into the closet and dropped down into the chair behind his desk.
Because the two women were still lurking nearby, Collena stepped inside Dylan’s office, as well, and closed the door. It was a matter of picking her poison—she’d rather have Dylan overhear this particular conversation than his staff. Besides, she apparently didn’t have anything else to hide. Curtis had already spilled the unsavory details of her life to Dylan.
“Collena,” the caller greeted. It was Sgt. Katelyn O’Malley from the San Antonio PD.
And Collena was almost certain what this call was about.
“Rodney Harmon escaped from jail last night,” Katelyn confirmed. “We’re doing everything we can to locate him and put him back behind bars.”
So, it was true. Curtis hadn’t been lying after all. And this added a new wrinkle. “Yes. I heard about the escape. From Curtis Reese. He came to Dylan Greer’s ranch a couple of minutes ago.”
She risked looking at Dylan, knowing what she would see. She was right. He was glaring at her. And waiting.
“So, Curtis knows that you found Adam?” Katelyn verified. “What about Dylan—how’d he take the news when you told him who you were?”
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