Colton's Secret Service

by Marie Ferrarella

  “I’ll try,” she told him, crossing her heart. Right after I call Clay and ask him to watch over Jewel, she added silently. That was what she should have done in the first place, Meredith decided.

  Joe released her just as the phone on his desk began to ring. “That’s all I can ask,” he told her before turning his attention to the person on the other end of the line.

  Instantly, he became Senator Colton again, getting back to the ground work for his campaign.

  “I’ve got something,” Georgie announced, waving a piece of paper over her head as she walked quickly into her bedroom.

  Nick was exactly where she’d left him, sitting at her computer. He tried not to type too forcefully on the keyboard because with each stroke, the card table would wobble precariously.

  After a beat, he looked up from the screen on the monitor. “What?” he asked absently. Focusing, he realized that Georgie was holding one of the statements he’d printed out for her.

  “I found a charge here that had to have been made in person. There’s no online site for it. Baker’s Jewels,” she told him. When he watched her blankly, obviously waiting for more, she explained, “It’s the name of a jewelry store in Esperanza.”

  Her one piece of good jewelry, a bracelet her mother had given her on her sixteenth birthday had come from there. She’d left that in the safety deposit box, along with the deed to the ranch and several pieces of her mother’s jewelry that her mother’s lover—Georgie couldn’t bring herself to think of him as her father—had given her in what Georgie assumed was a moment of weakness. All the pieces of jewelry had been stolen from the safety deposit box. Something else she intended to get back along with her good name.

  “I’m going there now. To the jewelry store,” she added in case Nick didn’t follow her. He had that faraway look in his eyes, as if pondering some deep problem. “You want to come along with me to make sure I don’t make a break for it?”

  She made the suggestion glibly, as if she really didn’t want him along, but the truth of it was, she did. He’d awoken something within her last night, something she hadn’t even realized was there. She wanted to prolong that feeling for as long as she could. Having him around did that for her.

  Nick weighed his options. If he opted to go with her, it would seem as if he didn’t trust her and she’d take offense. If he remained, there was a small chance she could bolt. He didn’t want to be standing there with egg on his face even though the Senator had said he didn’t believe she had a part in this.

  Before he could say anything, his cell rang.

  “Go ahead, answer it,” she urged, waving her hand at his pocket. “I’ve got to go round up Emmie anyway. I’ll get back to you,” she promised, already going out the doorway.

  “Sheffield,” Nick said the moment he had the phone to his ear.

  “Nick, someone tried to break in last night.”

  He recognized the voice. Garrett Conrad, the Secret Service agent he’d left in charge while he was gone. Garrett was competent, but a little wet behind the ears.

  “Garrett, I just talked to the Senator this morning. He didn’t say anything about it to me.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t know yet,” Garrett answered. “I wanted to tell you first and ask what you wanted me to do about it.”

  Damn, he was wasting his time here. He should have remained in Prosperino. “Give me the details,” Nick ordered.

  Garrett recited the events as he’d committed them to memory. “Whoever it was by-passed the security system somehow. Several of the surveillance cameras had black paint sprayed on their lens. The window to the downstairs library was broken. We found a gun nearby. He must have dropped it—and the credit card.”

  “He dropped a credit card and the gun?” Nick asked incredulously. Whoever had tried to break in was smart when it came to technology and seriously lacking when it came to common sense. “That’s a little too pat, don’t you think?”

  Garrett paused, as if framing his answer. “Not every criminal belongs to MENSA.”

  This sounded more like the work of a high school drop-out. “What’s the name on the card?”

  There was noise on the other end, as if Garrett was looking for the card. “Got it,” he murmured under his breath, then read, “Georgeann Grady.”

  Okay, that cinched it, Nick thought. If he’d had any doubts, this erased it. Someone was definitely out to frame Georgie.

  Was it a matter of someone trying to kill two birds with one stone? Or was this strictly about revenge with the focus entirely on bringing Georgie down any way they could?

  “It couldn’t have been her,” Nick told his subordinate flatly. “Georgeann Grady has been here in Esperanza for the last two days.”

  “Maybe she’s working with an accomplice?” Garrett suggested.

  “An accomplice who is trying to implicate her?” he asked incredulously. “It doesn’t make any sense. No, my guess is that someone is trying to frame her.” Restless, Nick got up and began to pace. “The question is, is whoever’s behind this trying to get the Senator, too, or is there some other connection we’re missing?” He stopped by the window and looked out. Miles of flat land spread out before him. God, but the terrain was lonely. “Tell Steve I don’t want him leaving his desk until he has a complete history on the woman. If she had so much as a schoolyard altercation in kindergarten, I want to know about it. Is that understood?”

  “Understood.” He could almost see Garrett snapping to attention. “I’ll have him get back to you.”

  When he put away his phone, Nick felt the back of his neck prickling. As if he were being watched.

  Glancing to the doorway, he saw Georgie. She held on to Emmie’s hand. Antsy, Emmie all but danced from foot to foot.

  “I had lots of ‘altercations’ in kindergarten,” Georgie told him crisply. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her face.

  Emmie tugged harder on her hand. “What’s a ’cation, Mama?”

  “Altercation,” Georgie corrected. “That’s a fancy word for fighting.”

  Emmie’s green eyes widened. “You punched someone out, Mama?” she asked, clearly fascinated.

  Georgie wasn’t ashamed of what she’d done. She’d been raised to stand up for herself. Her brothers had been proud of her. “Only when some nasty little kid called your grandmother or your mama a bad name.”

  “I’d altercation them too,” Emmie told her solemnly, carefully enunciating the word.

  It took effort not to laugh, but she didn’t want to hurt her daughter’s feelings. Emmie’s heart was in the right place. Georgie gave her a little squeeze.

  “I know you would, pumpkin. I know you would.” All the while, she kept her eyes on Nick. “Why are you investigating me again?” She thought they were past this, especially after last night.

  Or was she an idiot to believe that?

  “Because somebody tried to make it look as if you attempted to break into the Senator’s house in Prosperino. A gun and a credit card were conveniently left on the premises.” He didn’t want her to think he had any doubts about her innocence. “And because the laws of physics haven’t been, to my knowledge, repealed in the last few days, you couldn’t have been in two places at once.”

  “Mama rides really, really fast,” Emmie offered helpfully.

  Nick shook his head. “Not that fast. She would have had to have been in California and her bedroom at the same time last night.”

  Looking every inch like a miniature adult, Emmie nodded her head. “And she was there with you the whole time.”

  Startled, Nick exchanged looks with Georgie. It was Georgie who spoke first. “Emmie, how do you know where he was?”

  “’Cause I went to see him in the guest room. He wasn’t there. Then I went to your room and there he was. You were asleep. Was he keeping you safe, Mama?”

  It was ironic that the little girl would choose those exact words.

  “Yes, honey, he was keeping me safe,” she told her seri
ously, then glanced up at Nick. “Okay, Emmie and I are off to Baker’s Jewels.”

  He made a quick decision. “I’m coming, too,” he told her.

  A twinge of disappointment twisted inside of her. “Still don’t trust me?”

  “It’s not you I don’t trust,” he answered, getting his suit jacket from the back of the chair and slipping it on. “I think I need to go on keeping you safe,” he said, using Emmie’s words. The little girl flashed him an approving grin.

  His tone told Georgie that there was no way she was going to argue him out of it. She didn’t bother wasting her breath.

  “Okay, c’mon. Let’s get going. The sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” he agreed.

  Except that, she thought as she led him out of the house, once they got to the bottom of this, he’d be gone again.

  She blocked out the thought as best she could. There was no point in dwelling on what she couldn’t change.

  Chapter 12

  “Another day, another surveillance tape,” Georgie quipped as they drove back from Baker’s Jewels later that day.

  She was referring to the surveillance tape on the seat between them. Nick had obtained it from Clyde Baker, the jewelry store owner. Clyde had come to the store to speak to them personally. Getting on in years and in progressively poorer health, he left the running of his store to his employees and his nephew, Thom.

  Consequently, he had not been there on the day that “Georgie” was supposedly in to buy a very expensive diamond and ruby ring. But Thom had. However, Clyde’s nephew didn’t have much of a memory to draw on. To him, the woman on the surveillance tape and Georgie appeared to be one and the same, which he said as he viewed the tape.

  Nick had said nothing in the store to contradict that assessment, only thanking Clyde for his cooperation and promising to return the tape “soon.”

  Georgie fidgeted. Nick had been quiet on the way back from town. Her exasperation got the better of her. “So now you think it’s me again.”

  His mind elsewhere, it took him a second to focus on Georgie’s accusation. He spared her a glance. “Did I say that?”

  She blew out a breath, her irritation growing. “No, but you didn’t not say that either.”

  “This time, two negatives don’t make a positive,” he told her. He’d been entertaining a new theory since they’d gotten back into the truck. At the moment, he tried to work the theory out in his head.

  It took her a second to decipher his words. “So you don’t think it’s me.” It was more of a question than a statement.

  This time he looked at her for more than just a fraction of a second. “No.”

  She wanted more than that. She wanted something, an explanation, that would make her feel more secure. “Why not? Clyde’s idiot nephew did.”

  Her question made him laugh softly. “You just said it yourself. His ‘idiot’ nephew. Obviously Thom is not a keen observer. The woman on the tape was made up to look like you, but if you watch the tape closely, you’ll see the inconsistencies.” The silence was pregnant. She waited for him to give an example, Nick thought. “For instance, the woman’s taller than you.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because on the tape, she’s facing Thom over the counter and she’s half a head shorter than he is. You’re a whole head shorter.” The corners of his mouth curved. “And you’ve got more curves than she does.” He saw a blush rise up her cheeks and found it engagingly attractive.

  “What’s curves, Mama?” Emmie piped up from the confinement of her car seat in the back.

  “We’ll talk about that later, when you’re older,” Georgie promised quickly. “It’ll make more sense to you then.” She turned to look at Nick. “I guess this woman dressed up like me so she could get away with using my credit card.”

  “That’s part of it,” he agreed. “But I think it’s more complicated than that. I think she’s trying to ruin you.”

  Georgie snorted. That was a no-brainer, she thought. “Well, she’s cleaned out my bank account and maxed out my credit cards. I’d say that she’s doing more than just trying.”

  “Are we ruined, Mama?” Emmie asked, sounding clearly distressed.

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  Both Nick and Georgie said the same words at the same time. Hearing the other say it, they looked at one another in surprise.

  Nick grinned. “Hell of an echo in here.” And then he remembered Emmie was in the back, listening to everything. “Heck,” he amended. “Heck of an echo in here.”

  Georgie laughed, appreciating the fact that Nick was trying to police his language around her daughter, although the words really had no effect on Emmie. She took solace in the fact that Nick seemed determined to come to her aid and track down this impostor. At this point, her independence didn’t matter. She more than welcomed his help.

  “Why would this woman be trying to ruin me?” Georgie asked.

  “That’s what I intend to find out,” he told her. Reaching for his dark glasses, he slipped them on again. The sun seemed to bounce off everything, giving off a glare that made it hard to see. “There’s an outside chance that she’s got some kind of grudge against all the Coltons and you’re just the first one on her hit list.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because of the e-mails to the Senator.” From what he’d gathered, it had all started there. “If it was just you she was after, she would have picked someone closer to home—either that, or she would have sent threatening e-mails to the President himself. That would have gotten a really quick reaction. Instead, she picked another Colton, one who was out of state. There has to be a reason for that.” He just hadn’t figured it out yet, he added silently. But he would. And soon.

  Georgie rolled his words over in her head. “Makes sense, I guess.”

  Of course, with this growing headache, it was hard to make sense of anything. Georgie absently rubbed her temples with her thumb and middle finger.

  Nick caught the telltale movement out of the corner of his eye. “Headache?”

  It had begun in her shoulders and moved along the circumference of her skull, from rear to front. The tension of all this had finally gotten to her.

  “A big one,” she acknowledged. “It’s still in the forming stage.”

  He dug into his pocket and handed her a small bottle that contained an extra-strength, over-the-counter, pain killer. The bottle was half empty, testifying to the fact that he used the pills a great deal himself. “Here, take two of these.”

  “And call you in the morning?” she quipped, quoting the instructions doctors were said to give.

  “Or sooner,” he murmured meaningfully, unable to help himself. He kept his voice low enough for Emmie not to hear.

  Georgie gave the bottle back to him, unopened. “Thanks, but I’ve got my own way of dealing with killer headaches. The minute we get back, I’m going out for a ride.”

  That would have been the last thing he would have done for a headache. “Won’t all that jostling just make it worse?”

  “Nope, clears out my head. I haven’t been on a horse since I came back. Maybe I’m going through withdrawal,” she kidded.

  As she contemplated the ride, she began to feel better already. There was nothing like going off into the country, just her and her horse, to restore peace in her world. She’d even gone riding shortly before she gave birth to Emmie. It was in her blood. Riding for her was as natural as breathing.

  Getting on the back of a horse wouldn’t have been his first choice—or his twentieth—to clear his head, or any other part of him. That fact underscored that they were from two very different worlds.

  He had to remember that.

  “I’ll only be gone for a little while,” she promised Nick and her daughter, getting on the horse she’d quickly saddled.

  The palomino, a three-year-old mare named Blue Belle, was the mount that she took with he
r when she traveled the rodeo circuit. She’d given the mare a couple of days to relax and graze, but now it was time to renew their bond and she was more than ready.

  Seated in the saddle, Georgie was filled with the sense that she’d come home and that all was right with the world.

  “C’mon, Belle, let’s ride.” It was what she said to the mare whenever they were in competition. With a toss of her head, Georgie kicked her heels into Belle’s flanks and the palomino took off.

  It didn’t escape Nick’s notice that Georgie had entrusted him with her daughter. He’d finally won her, he thought with a tinge of unexpected satisfaction.

  He looked down at the little girl beside him. “Let’s go inside, Emmie, and see if I can get some good shots off the tape.”

  The little redhead cocked her head and eyed him quizzically. “You’re going to shoot it?”

  Nick laughed. “No, I’m going to try to freeze the tape so that I can get a good picture of the woman who’s pretending that she’s your mother. Maybe someone around Esperanza will recognize her and tell me her name.”

  Emmie nodded. “Okay. I’ll help you,” she volunteered.

  The little girl slipped her hand into his and then glanced over her shoulder to look at her mother one last time. It was then that Emmie froze for a second before she let out with a bloodcurdling scream. Because at that exact moment, just as Georgie, her horse going at a full gallop, was about to head for the winding path that led away from the ranch house that she suddenly slid off her mount.

  The saddle came off with her and she landed on the ground, hitting her head hard.

  There was less than half a second between when Nick turned to see why Emmie screamed and his breaking into a run. A sick feeling churned in his stomach.

  Emmie was right beside him, pumping her small legs as quickly as she could. She had speed, he had length. They reached Georgie almost at the same time.

  “Georgie!” he called even before he sank to his knees beside her.

  “Mama! Mama!” Grabbing her mother’s hand, Emmie shook it, trying to make her mother open her eyes.