Colton on the Run

by Anna J. Stewart

  “Sounds perfect, thanks.” He removed his hat, set it on the counter and turned on the stool to look across the street. When he turned his attention back to his coffee, he caught sight of a familiar pair of brown eyes looking back at him from near the register. The missing persons flyer was taped prominently, full color, with contact information. His chest tightened as he stood and plucked one of the flyers from the stack nearby.

  Have you seen me?

  Yes, Leo thought. Yes, I have.

  “Such a shame,” Miss D said as she glanced over from the pie case. “Skye Colton’s a pretty big celebrity around these parts. Around most parts if my great-nephew’s to be believed. Some big social media star on that Snapgram or Instachat? Whatever it’s called. Just up and poofed!” She snapped her fingers.

  “What do they think happened to her?” That Leo managed to get the words out at all was a minor miracle. It was Jane. Or at least a woman who looked an awful lot like Jane. Her red hair was curled and coiffed to stylist perfection, spilling over shoulders bared by a strapless, shimmering evening gown. Her brown eyes were heavily outlined and accented with mascara, her skin flawless and smooth and pink in all the right places. But it was her lips—those full, pouty lips he’d kissed, the lips he dreamed about night after night—that erased any doubt.

  “Well, now, since you asked.” Miss D motioned him back to his seat, where she set the pink box. “Filtering through all the hogwash—” she leaned her arms on the counter and lowered her voice “—seems she got dumped by her rich boyfriend. Man up and married some other woman right out from under her. Next thing you know, the girl takes off. Family thought she’d just taken a few days to herself, but now it seems they’ve called in the authorities to try to find her. Word is they’re worried she’s been killed and left up in the snow like those other poor girls.”

  “She must have cared for him a lot to disappear like that.” Leo forced himself to drink the scalding coffee. And here he’d let himself believe she’d been unattached.

  Miss D shrugged. “Those Coltons, they tend to keep things pretty tight. But I’ve been keeping my ears open. Seems she was expecting a proposal and that’s what broke her heart, drove her away. Now it’s been more than a couple of months since anyone’s seen or heard from her, even that poor sister of hers. Those two, peas in a pod aren’t closer. Can’t be easy, growing up in a family like that, with all that money and expectation, to find someone to love. Me? I’m thinking the girl’s just lying low, reevaluating her priorities, so to speak. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d found someone she can trust, someone who might be trying to find out how to help the poor girl out of whatever situation she’s gotten herself into.”

  Leo dragged his gaze away from the image of the woman who had been sharing his bed and looked Miss D square in the eye. “You think?”

  “She strikes me as a smart one. A little lost, but not brokenhearted as the news reports would have us believe. Yes, sir, I know in my heart that girl is A-OK and safe.” She reached over, covered Leo’s hand and gave him a good squeeze. “You keep her safe, Leo.”

  “You know?” He could not have been more surprised if she’d suddenly announced she’d gone vegan. “Why haven’t you—”

  “Because I know you and if you haven’t gone to the police, there’s a darn good reason. I trust you, Leo Slattery. And so does your Jane.” Miss D patted the back of his hand. “You make darn good and certain you do right by her. You done with your coffee? I’m thinking it’s about time you get home.”

  “Yeah.” Leo nodded, reflecting on Skye as an unfamiliar tendril of doubt wove through him. Maybe she’d had enough of the spotlight. Maybe she just needs someplace to...hide. Maybe... It wasn’t possible, was it? His heart lurched into his throat. It wasn’t possible she’d been lying to him all this time, that she knew who she was, just so she had a place to hide away from her family?

  No. No, that was ridiculous. There was no denying she’d been attacked. Even a social media darling couldn’t have faked those injuries or the haunted, terrified look on her face. Or those heart-stopping nightmares.

  One thing was for certain. He’d been right.

  Jane, Skye, didn’t belong in his world.

  Not one little bit.

  “Thanks for the coffee, Miss D. And the pie.” He reached for his wallet and handed over a twenty. “Don’t say no,” he warned when she looked ready to refuse. “Put the balance on my account for those burgers. Saved me from having to cook.”

  “You’re a good man, Leo Slattery. Your gran would be right proud of you.”

  “I hope so.” He folded the flyer, stuck it in the edge of the box and picked up his pie and his hat before he left the diner and headed back across the street.

  “Hey, Trey, you got a minute?”

  The shouted name caught Leo’s attention as he pulled open the truck door. He looked over as a tall man approached the front door of the police station. In the past few days Leo had done his research on the Coltons and recognized Fox Colton, who looked a bit frazzled as Trey headed away from the police station toward his cousin.

  Key in hand, Leo watched as the two men spoke. From the way Fox’s hands were flying, it was clear he was upset about something, but it wasn’t the words that interested him. It was the way Trey slung his arm around Fox and led him into the station.

  They were family. Jane’s—no, Skye’s—family, and they were missing her.

  And if they were missing her even a fraction of the amount Leo anticipated missing her when she left the ranch, he wasn’t sure how they were enduring it.

  As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he’d run out of time. He’d made her a promise to get her home. To her family. A family that loved and missed her.

  It was time to keep it.

  Chapter 10

  “Trying your hand at something new?”

  Jane yelped and jumped, her flour-covered hand flying up to her chest as she glared at him. “Can’t you just say ‘Hi, honey, I’m home,’ like a normal cowboy?”

  He grinned and slouched against the door frame, pink bakery box in his hand. “Hi, honey, I’m home.” Ollie bounded over, spun in a circle, then planted his butt on the floor, tail wagging so hard the sound echoed in the kitchen.

  Jane smiled back as the warmth of his smile washed over her. The only sight more beautiful than the Colorado mountains was Leo Slattery. From the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, she thought him handsome. How could she not with that cautious twinkle in his eye and the generous tilt to his lips, that dimple she wanted to kiss? And as the days and weeks moved along, she began to accept there wouldn’t come a time when the sight of him didn’t make her heart trip over itself. Or for parts of her—every part of her—to tingle.

  “What are you baking?” He sniffed the air, removed his hat and leaned back to hang it on the hook behind him on the porch. “Smells great.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you just yet. I wanted to surprise you.” She hefted the cover of the hardback book. “I found one of your grandmother’s old cookbooks when I was reorganizing the shelves in the living room.”

  “Jane.” Leo sighed and shook his head. “You don’t have to keep finding things to do around here.” He set the box down, walked over to her and cupped her face between his hands.

  “I like doing it.” She shrugged. “And if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have found this. Chicken and dumplings. Look, it says right here.” She tried to turn, but he held her firm. “It says this is your favorite—what are you doing?”

  “What do you think?” His mouth lowered to hers and she giggled.

  “Oh, okay.” She linked her floury hands behind his neck and made it easier by meeting him halfway. Then melted like the butter in the Dutch oven. She sagged into him, raised up to meet him as his lips covered hers so completely, so masterfully, her entire body heated. Jane moaned, low in the back of her throat
, a sound so completely foreign to her she had to wonder if the part of her he’d found had even existed before.

  He angled his head, dived deeper, his tongue sweeping over hers as he tasted every part of her.

  When his hands released her face and trailed down her sides, she shivered and pressed herself higher. Closer. Tighter. “Did you forget to set the brakes?” she murmured against his mouth when the pressure eased. “Because if you keep this up, there won’t be any stopping.”

  “I know.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against hers. “I know.”

  “Don’t.” She drew back far enough to trace her fingers over the lines in his forehead. “Please, Leo, don’t pull away from me. Not again.” She kissed him again. Softly. “It’s time.”

  He started to shake his head, but now it was she who held fast. “I have something to show you.”

  “I have something to show you,” he countered.

  She grinned. “I’ll bet you do. But me first.” She stepped out of his arms, turned off the stove and led him to the kitchen table, where she’d set the file folders. “I spent the day in your grandfather’s office. I did some playing around and got the computer to work. Limited internet access, but, well, whatever.” She shrugged. “Besides some information on the ranch I think you’ll want to read—” she slipped that folder out of reach before he could open it “—this is the one you need to read now.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now.” She flipped it open. “Or I can give you the abbreviated version. Which might just save time. Here.” She pointed to the first page. “My name is indeed Skye Colton. I have a twin sister named Phoebe. Identical twin, which answers that question.” The face in the mirror in her dreams suddenly made sense. “If you’re interested in my family tree, it’s all right here. Seems there are a lot of us Coltons around, all over the country. I work up at The Chateau with my mother and sister, where I’m in charge of publicity and planning. And not so long ago, I was dating a record producer who married another woman right out from under me.” She’d been rehearsing this for the better part of the afternoon, so the words came out in a bit of a rush.

  “But you don’t remember it. You don’t remember him?”

  “No.” As she’d learned from Leo, they didn’t lie to one another. About anything. “I don’t remember. Because it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter, Leo. When I look at this picture of the two of us—” she flipped the page to a society pages editorial from earlier this year “—there’s nothing that hits. Nothing other than how incredibly lonely this woman looks. Tell me you don’t see it?”

  She did. Beneath the glitz and the glamour, the beaded gown and the champagne flute in her hand, the diamond bracelet and matching necklace. The intricate curls that must have taken some poor stylist hours to create. And yet, there, in her own eyes, Jane saw the specter of unhappiness. “She’s empty, Leo. Her heart, it’s utterly and completely empty.” But Jane’s heart wasn’t. Jane’s heart was full to the point of bursting. Filled with Leo. “And I know this because that’s how I feel when I look at her.”

  “What about when you see this?” He reached behind him and plucked out a folded piece of paper from the edge of the bakery box.

  She took it, looked down at the missing persons flyer with her image. Her heart stuttered.

  “They miss you,” Leo whispered. “They’re looking for you. For Skye.”

  “I know.” Her online search had uncovered that much at least, but try as she might, the details of the life she lived before seeing Leo in that barn didn’t materialize. “But I’m not this woman anymore.”

  “They have a right to know you’re all right. Please, Jane. Let me call the police—”

  “We could.” She shrugged a shoulder and let the paper drift to on top of the pages she’d printed out. “Or you can admit you’re out of excuses and we can go to bed.” She reached down and untucked her shirt from her jeans. “I know who I am, Leo. I know what I am. I’m not married. I’m not with anyone. I don’t have children. But I know what I want.” She stepped closer, reached her hand up to his face, touched his cheek. His sharp intake of breath shot through her like Cupid’s arrow. “I want you. Now.” She backed up. “What are you going to do about it?”

  That he continued the debate with himself only endeared him more to her. His jaw clenched, his fists flexed and as she scanned him from the tip of his hair to the pointed toes of his boots, she smiled. Just as he had the day they met, the worst and best day of her life.

  She held out her hand, palm up.

  When he slipped his fingers between hers, she shivered and stepped into his arms. “About damned time, cowboy,” she managed to say before he dipped his head and kissed her.

  She had the sensation of spinning, falling, twirling. Breathless, excited, shivering, she gasped into his mouth as he wrapped one arm tight around her waist and hauled her against him. There wasn’t an inch of her that wasn’t pressed against him. Her breasts crushed hard into his chest, her nipples pebbling in an instant as she imagined the feeling of the fabric of his shirt scraping against them. They were moving, locked together so completely she didn’t think they’d ever break apart. Even as she clung to him she prayed they wouldn’t. This was all she wanted. This moment, with this man. For as long as it could last.

  “Ollie,” she whispered against his lips as he carried her down the hall to his bedroom.

  He raised his head, narrowed his eyes. “Leo.”

  She grinned. “No, I mean—”

  “I know what you mean, darlin’.” He waited until they were across the threshold before he turned to face the dog that had trailed behind them. “Private time.” He pointed down the hall and Ollie sighed, blinked up at Jane, then turned and walked back down the hall. Leo closed the door as Jane grabbed the edges of her T-shirt and—

  “Stop.” Leo said it even as he removed his boots and socks.

  “You’re ahead of me,” Jane teased, and thrust out a hip. “No fair.”

  “Completely fair. You know the image I’ve been carrying around in my brain for weeks now?” His voice carried a gravelly sound. Primal. Possessive. Male.

  “Tell me.”

  “You in that bed that first night. Wearing only your bra and panties.”

  Far less modest than his old T-shirts she’d been wearing since.

  “That is what you were wearing under the sheets, right?” he pressed.

  “Maybe.” The deep baritone of his voice thrilled her. She arched a brow, took a step back to the bed until she felt the mattress hit the back of her knees. “Maybe not.” She inched her shirt up, exposed her stomach and grinned as his gaze slipped to her fingers splayed across her belly. “I’ll let you keep imagining.”

  “No need.” He stood over her, the desire in his eyes equal to the heat she felt radiating off his body. “I’ve finally got the real thing in front of me.” He pushed her hand away, took hold of the hem himself and in one quick move, lifted her shirt up and over her head. Where the garment landed she had no idea.

  The cool breeze of the ceiling fan brushed across her skin as she sucked in her stomach, which pushed her breasts to the limit of the plain white cotton bra. He caught her, hands grasping her below her rib cage, his thumbs resting beneath the edge of the underwire, and she trembled, the promise of feeling his hands over her almost too much to bear. He rubbed against her nipples over the fabric and she moaned.

  “More,” he demanded, and kissed her again. The softness, the hesitancy, the caution had vanished somewhere between the door and the bed. He devoured, he took, he challenged and she answered every thrust of his tongue with her own.

  “Off,” she managed to say on a gasp of breath. She could feel him hard and ready against her, straining against the jeans she’d admired for weeks. The way they fit, the way he moved in them. She’d lost track of the ways she imagined getting them
off him. “Get this off. I need to feel you.” Her fingers fumbled for the buttons on his shirt. He laughed against the side of her neck between nibbling bites when they wouldn’t cooperate. She swore, struggling, until her frustration took over and she grabbed at the sides and ripped. Buttons landed with tiny clatters on the hardwood floor.

  “That’s my favorite shirt,” Leo said on a chuckle. “May it rest in peace.” He kissed the sensitive spot behind her right ear. “Tell me what you want.”

  “Everything. I want it all.” But for right now, all she wanted... She gasped as she pushed the shirt off his shoulders and finally pressed her hands flat against his chest. Smooth. Taut. Toned. She could feel his heart pounding against her as she trailed her fingers around his pecs, down his abs, lower. So much lower.

  A surge of power shot through her when he sucked in a breath, his hand covering hers as she flicked open the button of his jeans. “You’re moving too fast, darlin’.” He kissed her again, drawing her tongue into his mouth for a duel she surrendered to. “Let’s enjoy this.”

  “Oh, I plan to.” But he was going too slow. All these weeks of watching him, longing for him. Wanting him. She wanted him now. Fast. On her terms. Sense of honor be damned, he’d kept her waiting long enough. “Next time we’ll go—Wait!” She flattened a hand on his chest when he reached for her hips. “Tell me you got protection.”

  “Darlin’, I got it two days after I saw you in nothing but your underwear.” He hooked a finger into the loop of her jeans and tugged her against him. A second later, he had her unbuttoned. Another second, unzipped. He turned her in his arms, one hand pressing against her stomach, holding her tight against him as his free hand drifted lower. She whimpered as his fingers slid firmly beneath the fabric of her panties and cupped her, the tip of his finger rubbing hard against that tiny nub of pleasure.

  “Oh!” She reached a hand up, caught the back of his neck, parted her legs to give him better access as he pressed and rubbed and circled, pleasure and pressure building inside her until she couldn’t breathe.