Colton Showdown

by Marie Ferrarella

  “You’re safe from those monsters now.”

  It’s supposed to be the final confrontation. Philly detective Tate Colton will go under cover to bust the sex trafficking ring targeting young Amish women. He doesn’t count on his sting operation falling apart—or being forced to escape with the breathtaking key witness he’s sworn to protect.

  Hiding in New York City with a handsome detective? Amish seamstress Hannah Troyer’s more than a little out of her element. The big city—and men like Tate—are part of a world that’s nothing like what she’s used to. As danger inches closer, he’s her only route to safety…and a forbidden attraction she dares to indulge in.

  You’re just playing a part.

  Despite everything, Tate could feel his body responding to Hannah. Responding to the intoxicating, sweet taste of her skin against his lips.

  Dammit, get a grip, Colton.

  Satisfied that he had performed as expected for whatever camera or cameras hidden in the room, Tate whispered the same message into Hannah’s ear that he’d told her yesterday.

  “I’m here to rescue you,” he told her.

  He couldn’t allow his guard to go down, not even for a moment. “You and the others,” he added. “But this isn’t going to be easy and I’m going to need your help to pull it off.”

  Hannah turned her head slowly to look at him. He could tell by the look in her eyes that he’d made a breakthrough.

  She was finally beginning to believe him.

  Dear Reader,

  We have exciting news for you! Starting in January, Harlequin Romantic Suspense is unveiling a brand-new look that’s a fresh take on our beautiful covers.

  There’s more! Along with new covers, the stories will be longer—more action, more excitement, more romance. Follow your beloved characters on their passion-filled adventures. Be sure to look for the newly packaged and longer Harlequin Romantic Suspense stories wherever you buy books.

  In the meantime, you can check out this month’s adrenaline-charged reads:

  CHRISTMAS CONFIDENTIAL by Marilyn Pappano and Linda Conrad

  COLTON SHOWDOWN by Marie Ferrarella

  O’HALLORAN’S LADY by Fiona Brand

  NO ESCAPE by Meredith Fletcher

  Happy reading!

  Patience Bloom

  Senior Editor

  Marie

  Ferrarella

  Colton Showdown

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Private Justice #1664

  **The Doctor’s Guardian #1675

  *A Cavanaugh Christmas #1683

  Special Agent’s Perfect Cover #1688

  *Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard #1699

  *Cavanaugh Rules #1715

  *Cavanaugh’s Surrender #1725

  Colton Showdown #1732

  Silhouette Romantic Suspense

  **A Doctor’s Secret #1503

  **Secret Agent Affair #1511

  *Protecting His Witness #1515

  Colton’s Secret Service #1528

  The Heiress’s 2-Week Affair #1556

  *Cavanaugh Pride #1571

  *Becoming a Cavanaugh #1575

  The Agent’s Secret Baby #1580

  *The Cavanaugh Code #1587

  *In Bed with the Badge #1596

  *Cavanaugh Judgment #1612

  Colton by Marriage #1616

  *Cavanaugh Reunion #1623

  **In His Protective Custody #1644

  Harlequin Special Edition

  ‡‡‡A Match for the Doctor #2117

  ‡‡‡What the Single Dad Wants… #2122

  ^The Baby Wore a Badge #2131

  †††Fortune’s Valentine Bride #2167

  ‡‡‡Once Upon a Matchmaker #2192

  -Real Vintage Maverick #2210

  Silhouette Special Edition

  ***Diamond in the Rough #1910

  ***The Bride with No Name #1917

  ***Mistletoe and Miracles #1941

  ‡Plain Jane and the Playboy #1946

  ***Travis’s Appeal #1958

  Loving the Right Brother #1977

  The 39-Year-Old Virgin #1983

  ***A Lawman for Christmas #2006

  ‡‡Prescription for Romance #2017

  ‡‡‡Doctoring the Single Dad #2031

  ‡‡‡Fixed Up with Mr. Right? #2041

  ‡‡‡Finding Happily-Ever-After #2060

  ‡‡‡Unwrapping the Playboy #2084

  ††Fortune’s Just Desserts #2107

  Harlequin American Romance

  Pocketful of Rainbows #145

  †The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise #1329

  †Ramona and the Renegade #1338

  †The Doctor’s Forever Family #1346

  Montana Sheriff #1369

  Holiday in a Stetson #1378 “The Sheriff Who Found Christmas”

  †Lassoing the Deputy #1402

  †A Baby on the Ranch #1410

  †A Forever Christmas #1426

  *Cavanaugh Justice

  **The Doctors Pulaski

  ***Kate’s Boys

  ‡The Fortunes of Texas: Return to Red Rock

  ‡‡The Baby Chase

  ‡‡‡Matchmaking Mamas

  ††The Fortunes of Texas: Lost…and Found

  †Forever, Texas

  ^Montana Mavericks: The Texans Are Coming!

  †††The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

  -Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than two hundred books for Harlequin Books and Silhouette Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

  To

  Sebastian Burgess,

  Welcome to the world,

  little guy

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Marie Ferrarella for her contribution to The Coltons of Eden Falls miniseries.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Her face haunted him.

  Ever since he’d seen her on that DVD, the one that had been made to showcase the “selection” available for purchase by the members of the “discerning” male audience viewing it, Detective Tate Colton had been equally fascinated and sick to his stomach.

  Fascinated because Hannah Troyer, one of several young women displayed on the video, was at once hypnotically beautiful and so obviously innocent. And sick to his stomach because he knew what was going to happen to Hannah. Knew what was going to happen to all the innocent young women who appeared on the video. Each and every one of them was destined to become the object of some depraved pervert’s lechery—as long as the right price was quoted and met.

  Unless he and the FBI agents on his team got to those girls first.

  Someone was kidnapping Amish girls and selling them to the highest bidder because in this jaded age of too much too soon, the idea of an untouched, pure young woman still held an almost addictive allure for some men.

  In this case, the “some” were exceptionally wealthy men because innocence had become a commodity that did not come cheap. Instead, it was bade and bargained for like the rare product it
had become, only to be forever lost at the hands of depraved men who had no idea how to rightly value such a treasure.

  Eyes on the screen, Tate went back over the DVD and played it forward again, watching the same small section he’d viewed before of the girl he’d seen while going undercover as a prospective buyer.

  Watching her.

  Gray-blue eyes, alabaster skin, hair like flame.

  They called her Jade. But she was Hannah Troyer.

  He knew her name—her real name, only because Hannah’s brother, Caleb, was desperately searching for his younger sister. The search had created strange bedfellows because, just recently, Caleb had wound up becoming engaged to his sister, Emma, a Special Agent with the FBI. They were working together on a joint task force to find the missing girls. According to what his sister had said, she and Caleb were going to be married once this case was finally wrapped up.

  That made it sound so easy, Tate thought cynically. A piece of cake—and it wasn’t.

  There wasn’t anything at all easy about this case. Not for the two dead girls they’d already found. Not for the whole of the small Pennsylvania Amish community—ironically called Paradise Ridge—which was holding its collective breath, waiting and praying for their own to be returned to them unharmed.

  Tate had an uneasy feeling that wasn’t possible. Even if they found all the other missing girls and they were still alive, they were no longer unharmed. Far greater than the physical scars they might have incurred were the emotional scars that had to run across their young, tender souls.

  In this sex trafficking ring, the mostly faceless bastards who were abducting the young women were systematically destroying their innocence so that the girls—all between the ages of 16 and 20—bore little to no resemblance to the sweet young women their families were frantically searching for.

  “I’d like to gut each and every one of those bastards,” he muttered under his breath, finally shutting off the DVD player. The large screen he’d been watching went blank.

  Emma, the only other person in the room with him, laughed shortly. There was no mirth in the sound. “You’re not the only one who feels that way.”

  As she spoke, she put her hand on Tate’s broad shoulder and was surprised by how rigid it felt. Well, maybe not so surprised, she silently amended. Tate, who’d been the one to initially ask her to join his task force, took his work very seriously, but this had to be a new level of intensity, even for him.

  “I think that if we ever find the people who kidnapped Hannah, Caleb would be tempted to temporarily renounce his pacifistic ways, just for the time it would take to pummel these worthless scum into the ground. But indulging in fantasies isn’t going to help us rescue these girls,” Emma pointed out. “And we are going to rescue them,” she told Tate with utter conviction, not for the first time.

  Failure, as the saying went, was not an option here. There were too many lives at stake, too many families waiting to get their daughters back.

  Tate knew he would have felt a personal obligation to bring the girls all back to their families even if the people affected by this heinous ring were not technically his neighbors.

  The Colton family ranch in Eden Falls, Pennsylvania, was named the Double C in honor of Charlotte Colton. Charlotte was the woman who, even though she hadn’t given them biological life, had, for all intents and purposes, along with her husband, Donovan, given him and his five siblings a reason to exist, a reason to live.

  The couple, whose lives were so tragically cut short along with those of so many others on 9/11, were well-known for their dedication and their generosity. Over the course of two decades, they had adopted six completely unrelated orphans, given them their name and their love and knitted them into a family. A family who never took what they had for granted. The ranch where they grew up was right outside a little village named Paradise Ridge.

  Civilization, with all its technological progress, seemed to have stopped at the borders of the tiny town. The hardworking citizens of that town led what was considered an idyllic life that echoed their ancestors’ existence. Until a serpent somehow found its way into Paradise Ridge and stole some of the town’s young women.

  Tate was determined to find those girls and the ones from Ohio.

  Especially, he silently promised the face that haunted him, Hannah. Find them and free them. Even if it was the last thing he ever did on this earth.

  “C’mon, Big Brother,” Emma was urging him. “You and I have a sting to plan and coordinate.”

  Snapping out of his mental fog, Tate rose from the chair he’d taken to view the DVD for the umpteenth time, searching for some telltale clue he might have missed before.

  He looked at his sister as they got ready to meet the others involved in this undercover operation. “Tell the truth, Tomato-head, you’re going to miss this once you turn in your badge for a butter churn.” He still loved to use her childhood nickname, to her annoyance.

  Try as he might, he just couldn’t picture his driven sister in that kind of laid-back, rural setting—not for more than ten minutes.

  “No, I’m not,” Emma countered with feeling. Then, when Tate’s eyes held hers, she shrugged. “Well, maybe just a little,” she allowed as they left the office. Because he’d forced the truth out of her, Emma punched his arm.

  Tate’s deep laugh echoed up and down the hallway. Maybe Emma wasn’t going to miss this life, but he sure as hell was going to miss Emma.

  Chapter 1

  He wasn’t one of those people who had an obsession about cleanliness. Tate Colton had never had a problem with getting his hands—or any other part of him, for that matter—dirty, if the job required it. That kind of dirt he could put up with and ignore.

  But dealing with these subhuman creatures who made their living trafficking in human flesh, in destroying young lives and thinking absolutely nothing of it, was an entirely different matter. It made him want to go back to the hotel room where he was registered under his assumed name and take a shower. A long, scalding-hot shower to wash away their stink.

  Once he received the assignment from his supervisor, Hugo Villanueva, he knew that going undercover in order to find and save the Amish young women who had been kidnapped would require him to associate with, in his opinion, the absolute dregs of the earth.

  Dregs in expensive suits.

  You could dress a monkey up in fine clothes, but he was still a monkey, Tate thought. No amount of expensive clothing could change that, or change the fact that the people he was forced to interact with were lower than scum.

  He’d think more about stepping on a beetle than he would about terminating the existence of one of these cockroaches.

  To look at the man who had brought him up to this particular hotel suite—his current tour guide to this underworld—someone might have thought the man was a successful businessman or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company instead of the utterly soulless lowlife that he actually was.

  Impeccably dressed in what was easily a thousand-dollar suit, his guide to this lurid world of virgins-for-sale smirked at him confidently as he opened the door leading into the suite’s bedroom.

  “I’m sure we can find something to pique your appetite, Mr. Conrad,” he said.

  Tate scowled at the shorter man. “I said no names,” he snapped, mindful of the part he was playing in this surreal drama.

  The other man laughed, enjoying what he considered to be the display of ignorance on the part of this new client.

  “Nothing to be worried about. What are they going to do?” he asked, gesturing at the bedroom and the young women being held there. Each and every one of them were dressed in identical long, slinky white gowns. “Post it on the internet? None of them even know what the hell the internet is,” he stressed, jeering at the young women who were virtually prisoners in this suite. “They all live in the Stone Age. Trust me.” He patted Tate’s arm and the latter shrugged him off as if he was flinging off an annoying bug—an act that wasn’t lost on the ma
n. “Your name—and your sterling reputation—are both safe here,” he assured Tate.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” the man snapped at the young woman he was herding into the room for his “client’s” final review. “He hasn’t got all night. Or have you?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Tate, a lecherous grin spread across his angular face. “You know, if you’ve changed your mind and want to make your purchase now—” He left the sentence open, looking at Tate expectantly.

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” Tate answered formally. The deal was that he got to see the young women in person in order for him to finalize his choice, and then the negotiations regarding the pending “purchase” would go from there.

  Inside, Tate was struggling to contain his fury. The woman he’d “requested,” “Jade,” was looking at him apprehensively like a mistreated animal afraid of being beaten.

  Had she been beaten?

  Tate looked her over quickly. “What’s wrong with her?” he demanded, channeling his anger into the part he was playing—a man who wanted the “goods” he was considering purchasing to be perfect. He was well aware of the fact that the blue-gray eyes continued to watch his every move. Tate swung around to confront the other man. “She looks like she’s been manhandled,” he accused angrily.

  The man shrugged indifferently. “Don’t worry. Nothing happened that would have left a visible mark on her.” His flat, brown eyes raked over Hannah from head to toe, as if to reassure himself that she wasn’t displaying any sign of bruising in plain sight. “That’s the one rule—other than payment up front—the boss won’t tolerate any visible marks left on the merchandise.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tate saw Hannah flinch at the label the man had contemptuously slapped on her. Merchandise.

  His anger flared.

  “She’s a person, not merchandise,” Tate retorted, glaring at the guard.

  “Hey, at the price you’re going to pay, she’s anything you want her to be. You want a person? You got it, she’s a person.” He turned to look at the redhead he’d led out of the bedroom for Ted Conrad’s perusal. “A soft, sweet-smelling person, aren’t you, honey?”