Colton's Fugitive Family

by Jennifer Morey

  Appliances lined the front and blocked the barred windows. A multitude of items ranging from clothes to toys filled the shelving, and in the display cases more valuable things like watches and jewelry gave testimony as to how they’d gotten here. People hard on their luck or battling addiction may have traded their possessions here.

  She walked with Lucas toward the back. A short, bald clerk with a round stomach stood behind the counter, blinking his eyes until they opened wider. He must have been very bored before they arrived.

  “Can I help you?” He saw Queenie sniffing the rows of the shop. “Is that your dog?”

  Demi went to the counter with Lucas, who handed the man the receipt and a photograph of Devlin. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about a purchase this man made. Do you recognize him?”

  “Your dog won’t go to the bathroom in here, will it?” The clerk took the photo and the receipt, looking at the photo first.

  “She’s well trained,” Lucas said. “Do you recognize that man?”

  “He does look familiar.” The clerk examined the receipt and then looked at the photo again. “Yes, yes. I do remember this man. Angry fellow.” He looked up at them. “He tried to buy a gun and when I refused, he argued. He offered to pay twice its worth. When I again refused, he grew very angry. I almost called the police. I had to threaten to.”

  “What did he buy?” Demi asked, catching a glimpse of Queenie heading to the back of the shop where the office must be.

  The clerk looked at the receipt again and then went to his computer and clicked the mouse a few times before he entered a number. “Ammunition. Lots of ammo.” He printed a page and handed it to Lucas. “The same caliber as the gun he wanted to buy.”

  Demi met Lucas’s glance when she saw the caliber of the ammo was the same as what had killed the victims.

  “I hear on occasion about black market deals. I make it my business to, so I know who not to sell to. In this part of town, a man can’t be too careful. I would lose my livelihood—which isn’t much—if the law came snooping around to see if I’ve made any illegal sales or sales to criminals. I know who the local criminals are and I added Mr. Devlin Harrington to that list after he came here.”

  “Where would he have bought a gun if he bought it on the black market?” Lucas asked.

  Queenie came to sit beside Lucas, indicating she had found nothing linked to Devlin. Demi hadn’t expected her to and she didn’t think Lucas had, either.

  “Who else? Those Larson twins or one of their lackeys.”

  It couldn’t have been the Larsons. None of the guns recovered from them matched the missing weapon.

  “If he didn’t get the gun from them, who would he go to?”

  “Could be a guy I know of who sells guns, but not on the same scale as the Larsons. His name is Slater.”

  * * *

  After leaving the pawnshop, Demi waited at Lucas’s cabin while he tracked down Slater using computers at the police department.

  Valeria stayed, agreeing to watch Wolf tonight after Lucas found Slater. They made a light dinner and Demi ate while she also fed Wolf. Lucas had said he’d grab something on his way to the police department.

  “I hope we didn’t ruin any plans you had tonight.” Demi didn’t mean to infringe on Valeria’s love life.

  “Vincent is studying late tonight,” Valeria said. “I get so tired of having to sneak around.”

  Demi imagined it had to be hard to find time to spend together. She joined Valeria on the couch, having just put Wolf to bed. “I know the feeling.”

  Valeria smiled at her quip. If anyone had to do any hiding, it was Demi. All those months had been difficult. Having Wolf had eased some of her loneliness and fear of the future.

  “Looks like you’re sneaking around with Lucas, too.”

  “Only until Devlin is caught.”

  Valeria’s smile changed, softening into something knowing. “I see the way he looks at you, and you him.”

  “How?” Like he’s afraid of falling in love?

  “Like the two of you have already...” Valeria wiggled her eyebrows. “You know.”

  “We haven’t.” Demi feared she’d answered too defensively.

  “Well, it looks like you will soon, then.”

  “Lucas isn’t my type.”

  Valeria moved back as though stunned. “He’s a great-looking guy. And you’re beautiful. Aside from that, you’re both bounty hunters. You must have a lot in common.”

  “Lucas doesn’t want to get married or have kids. There was a time when I might have preferred that, too, but now, with Wolf, I want a family.”

  “Everybody wants a family, even people who decide not to have kids. They still have each other.”

  “Lucas doesn’t.”

  “Well, that is just plain stupid for him to say that. What’s he afraid of?”

  “Falling in love.”

  “Then maybe you should make him.” Valeria eyed her pensively. “How do you feel about him?”

  Demi didn’t think she loved him, but she could. And that was the part that frightened her.

  “You’ve known him for a long time. You seem to get along. Aren’t you at least attracted to him?”

  “I’m probably too attracted to him.”

  “Well, I know he’s attracted to you. It’s so obvious. He might think he’ll never fall in love, but if it’s the real thing, there will be no escaping it. That’s how it was with Vincent. I wanted to finish school and start my career before I got married and had kids. When I met Vincent, those plans went straight out the window. I knew after our first date that I could fall madly in love with him. It just happened. And when it’s mutual, there is nothing like that feeling in the world. Nothing will stand in your way—or, I should say, love’s way.”

  The more Valeria talked, the more apprehensive Demi became. “I don’t want to fall in love with Lucas. I don’t trust him.”

  “And how could you, after Bo and how he treated you?”

  Bo wasn’t the only one. Men in general were not to be trusted, not in the early stages of a relationship. Anything could happen. A woman didn’t truly know a man until she’d been with him for a long time. Worse, Demi had no idea how long that would take. How long before she felt comfortable in trusting a man... Lucas?

  Valeria put her hand on Demi’s knee. “Don’t worry. If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

  Demi thought she might have turned white. Even if she dug her heels in, would she be drawn inexorably to Lucas?

  Valeria laughed lightly and briefly. “You should see your face. I can’t wait until Devlin is caught and Red Ridge has weddings again. There will be one every Saturday for a long time.”

  “Starting with yours.” Please make her stop talking about Lucas and falling in love.

  Valeria lifted her yes dreamily. “Yes.” She put her hand on her chest just below her neck. “I want my wedding to be perfect.” She looked at Demi. “I wanted it to be the event that brings the Coltons and the Gages together again, but in the past year, so many Coltons and Gages have fallen in love. Vincent and I decided we want to have it at The Grange.”

  The Grange was an old farmhouse outside of town that had been converted into a bed-and-breakfast. It had a barn that could be rented for events like weddings.

  “Round tables with Christmas-candle centerpieces. A huge Christmas tree. Prime rib dinner and country music. My bridesmaids will wear red dresses with white flowers in a bed of evergreen as their corsages.” Valeria sighed. “I go crazy with impatience sometimes. Do you know I have all my invitations ready? I’m going to personally hand them out, since we’ll have to wait until the last minute to announce our wedding.”

  “Does your father know?”

  “He doesn’t know we’re going through with the wedding.” Her face fell with obvious disappointment.
/>
  “He’ll come around.” How could he not, with all the Colton–Gage weddings there would be when Devlin was finally either dead or behind bars?

  “We could have a double wedding,” Valeria said. “I mean, if you want to.”

  The girl had thought she saw Lucas giving Demi smoldering looks and now she had them getting married—in less than a month?

  She’d clearly wandered off in fantasyland a little too long.

  But she did get Demi thinking...

  * * *

  Lucas had returned home and brought Demi with him to confront Slater. He lived near the house she and her mother had lived in with Rusty, before her mother left him. Lucas parked on the street with the car lights off, while Queenie sat with ears perked and nose working through a crack in the window. Slater’s house was lit up and several people stood in the garage around a keg of beer. Music thumped from inside and the voices of people laughing carried out into the night.

  There was a loveseat and a rocking chair on the decaying front porch. Kids’ bicycles, a discarded cooler and bags of trash decorated the yard.

  Demi couldn’t stop Valeria’s words from repeating over and over. Valeria wanted a Christmas Eve wedding. That was less than three weeks from now. What if Lucas did fall in love against his will? What if she did? She imagined them standing at the altar with Valeria and Vincent. He’d be handsome in a tuxedo and she’d be in a white wedding dress, one that resembled what she had dreamed of before all her relationships had tanked on her. She hadn’t thought of that dress in a long, long time.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Jarred back to the now, she gaped at Lucas.

  “Must have been good.” He grinned. “Now you have to tell me.”

  He deserved to hear what she’d been thinking. What he didn’t know was that it would wipe that teasing grin off his face.

  “Valeria thinks you and I are destined to get married.” She smiled when his grin vanished in an instant.

  “Why would she say a thing like that?” He sounded scared, which only made Demi’s smile bigger.

  “She sees the way you look at me.”

  “The way I—” His brow shot low. “And how is that?”

  “She used the word smoldering.”

  He just continued to look at her.

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking about. It’s what made me think about it, but it isn’t what I was thinking about.”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “I bet you are, but you’re going to hear it anyway. I was thinking about the dress I used to dream about wearing on my wedding day.”

  “You were...” His brow lifted in befuddlement.

  “It’s made of silk and has a V’d bodice with lacy shoulders and sleeves, and a long, beautiful lacy train that tapers up the back.”

  “Sounds pretty.” His voice was stiff.

  She had to continue. “Valeria said you and I could share the altar for their Christmas Eve wedding.”

  As he continued to stare, Demi couldn’t stop smiling.

  “You’re saying that on purpose.”

  She laughed. “Yes, but it’s all true. And frankly, I think you need to hear more things like that.”

  “More things like what? That you want to get married?”

  He didn’t say to me and she was glad. “More things like talk of love and everything that comes with it.”

  “Says the woman who can’t trust men enough to get married.”

  “I was thinking about that, too.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes. I wondered at what point should a woman—namely me—start to trust a man she’s with.”

  “Probably longer than three weeks.” He nodded smugly. Christmas Eve was in less than three weeks.

  She laughed again. “You and I have known each other for years.”

  The smug look cut to a blank one.

  “Since when are you the one who does the teasing?” he finally asked.

  “Who says I’m teasing?” She was and she wasn’t. She couldn’t explain why his anti-love attitude bothered her so much, but she could explain why she had to let him know what she’d been thinking. She found him very attractive, always had, and spending this time with him had changed her opinion of him. While she didn’t welcome the feeling, she was falling for him. Part of her intended to get him thinking along similar lines.

  But that was enough for now. Time to change the subject. She looked out the window. “I can’t believe my mother and I used to live here.”

  He cleared his throat and adjusted himself on the driver’s seat. “Here?” He seemed slow to move from such a romantic topic to that.

  She pointed behind the house. “About two blocks that way.”

  “You grew up here?”

  She turned to look at him. He still seemed tense. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

  “Well, yeah. I knew you were Rusty’s daughter. I—I guess I never thought of you living in a place like this.”

  She had never heard him stutter before. Maybe she had gotten him thinking. How would that change anything between them? Demi couldn’t wait to find out.

  Then what he’d said registered. Would he have had an issue if she had grown up in a place like this? Feeling her temper flare, she breathed a few times and let it pass. “My mother left him when I was young. She did all right supporting us and raising me. Our house wasn’t anything special but it didn’t look like that.” She indicated the party house. “It was small but clean and maintained.”

  “That’s why I never thought of you as the wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of girl.” His tension faded and Demi knew he’d fallen into relaxed conversation with her.

  “As you said, I’m Rusty Colton’s daughter.”

  “You’re also your mother’s daughter.”

  She smiled. He sure could be charming when he tried. She scrutinized him, the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes and the now-happy light in them. He wasn’t trying.

  “Lucas Gage, is that natural sincerity I hear?”

  “I’ve always been sincere.”

  Her temper had been easily triggered and he’d played with her. Why had she never seen that before? Even now her ire rose. Why had he teased her, deliberately made her angry?

  “Like when you teased me?”

  “I don’t know if I’d call that sincerity.”

  “No, it was mean.”

  “I wouldn’t call it mean, either. You were too easy to set off.”

  So he had done it because he knew he could and enjoyed it? Well, she wouldn’t let him do that ever again! She could recognize his tactics now.

  “Easy.” His deep, low voice touched her most sensitive areas, challenging her control.

  He had just read her reaction. He had known he had triggered her again. She held back her temper the way she always practiced.

  Then she remembered a time when he hadn’t teased her. That had been after she’d saved his life. Before they’d gone their separate ways, before and one else had intruded, he’d thanked her. The way he’d thanked her had been unmistakably sincere and she had seen more than friendly warmth in his eyes.

  “Atta girl.”

  He had read her reaction again, her control of her temper. With a low growl, she softly swatted his shoulder—equally playful, getting him for the first time.

  He chuckled, the deep sound doing more to put her off-kilter.

  “You better watch it or I’ll keep talking about my wedding dress and Valeria’s invitation.”

  His laughter faded but she sensed he hadn’t tensed with the mention of weddings this time. Instead, she found herself caught by his gaze. His smile slowly vanished and he seemed just as caught. Endless seconds passed. She savored each one. A minute wasn’t a long time but it felt like several. She didn�
�t want this feeling to end.

  He turned away first, his brow creasing above his nose.

  The magic fled. He’d shut himself off. Demi looked out the passenger window into the darkness, too-familiar disappointment arresting her.

  “That’s Paulie Gains. The other one is Slater.”

  She turned to the party house and saw two men walking toward an old, beat-up truck. One was shorter than the other—Paulie. He wore a puffer jacket and black jeans with a beanie on his head.

  “Paulie is the one who said he saw me running from the bar where Bo’s body was found,” she said, remembering the bitter taste of injustice.

  “Police think Devlin paid him to say that. They couldn’t prove it, though.”

  She hadn’t heard about that. Glancing at him, she wondered if that was what had changed his mind about her. Likely it had been a combination of many things, that included.

  “They’re on the move,” Lucas said.

  She watched with him as the two men got into a truck.

  “How do you know the other man is Slater?” She saw him use a small pair of what must have been night-vision binoculars.

  “Finn sent a photo of him. He’s got a rap sheet like Paulie.” He lowered the binoculars. “Get down so they don’t see us.”

  She slouched low, as he did, hearing the truck pass.

  Lucas started the truck and made a U-turn, turning on the lights and following. He stayed far enough back to avoid notice. Slater turned a corner and a few seconds later, they followed. Demi saw them turn into a trailer park.

  Parking down the street, Lucas got out and opened the back for Queenie. Demi got out and walked beside Queenie and Lucas. They headed down the first street and, at the second intersection, Demi spotted the pickup truck. Queenie trotted ahead and began inspecting the truck. At the back door of the crew cab, she sat and barked once.

  Lucas opened the door and she hopped in while Demi checked the trailer. The drapes were shut. Music played but at a reasonable volume and she didn’t hear anyone talking.