Colton Baby Conspiracy (The Coltons 0f Mustang Valley Book 1)

by Marie Ferrarella

  She had a defensive look in her eyes, Bowie thought, so he tactfully retreated and changed subjects. “I made breakfast.”

  That was the last thing she was interested in. Her stomach was knotting up again. “I hope it’s something you like to eat, because I’m not hungry.”

  Bowie frowned. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “You have to eat,” he told her.

  “Later,” Marlowe answered, putting him off. “I’ll eat later,” she promised. “I never eat first thing in the morning.”

  “You didn’t eat last night, either,” Bowie reminded her.

  “So now you’re the food police?” she asked with a trace of annoyance.

  “No,” he answered patiently, “just someone who knows that you need to keep your strength up.”

  “My strength is fine, thank you,” she answered curtly, then immediately felt guilty about the tone she had used. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper. He was just trying to be thoughtful, she told herself. “I’m sorry, this whole situation has me on edge. I don’t mean to be taking it out on you.”

  “Well, that’s good to know. By ‘whole situation,’ do you mean this business with the email, the shooter or the pregnancy?” Bowie asked.

  “Yes,” she answered glibly. When he looked at her quizzically, Marlowe told him, “All of the above.”

  Bowie sat down on the bed next to her and put his arm around Marlowe’s slim shoulders. There was nothing sexual in the gesture. She sensed his only intent was to try to offer her some measure of comfort and support.

  “You’re not alone in this,” he told her quietly. “I intend to be with you on this new journey every step of the way.”

  She turned her head slightly to look at him. “You mean with the baby?”

  “With the baby, with finding out who sent this email to your family and with discovering who the hell is using either of us or both of us for target practice,” he concluded.

  Hearing him say that made Marlowe feel infinitely better.

  And a great deal safer, she realized.

  With a relieved sigh, she leaned her head against Bowie’s shoulder.

  Just having him there beside her like that succeeded in making her feel that all of this would eventually somehow be resolved.

  “Thank you,” she murmured so quietly that at first he thought that he had imagined it.

  She felt Bowie smile against her head.

  “Don’t mention it.” He rose to his feet, extending his hand to her. “Now come into the kitchen and keep me company,” he said.

  She was glad he refrained from asking her again to have something to eat.

  She would do that all in good time. He just had to be patient. It was, she thought as they left the room, a learning process.

  Apparently for both of them.

  Chapter 10

  Bowie watched as Marlowe moved around the kitchen, cleaning up and in general being what to him seemed very domestic. If anyone had asked him, he would have had to admit that he hadn’t thought Marlowe had it in her. Maybe once, as a lark, but definitely not twice.

  But there she was, cleaning up again, not just after lunch, but after dinner, as well. A dinner she hadn’t really bothered to eat because she still wasn’t able to keep much down.

  When Marlowe caught him watching her, she guessed what was on his mind. “I don’t like sitting still, and I don’t like leaving a mess.”

  “Well, it’s not like it’s exactly your mess,” Bowie pointed out. “Seeing as how you didn’t really have anything to eat so far, except for a couple of pieces of dry toast.”

  “And tea,” she reminded him as she rinsed off a plate. “Don’t forget the tea.” Trying to find a way to help her soothe her stomach, Bowie had managed to scrounge up half a box of herbal tea bags from the pantry. He boiled water in a pot and then made her a large mug. “I had no idea you had all these hidden talents.”

  Joining her at the sink, he took the towel from her and began to dry the dishes she had finished washing. “Dunking a tea bag into a mug of boiled water isn’t exactly a hidden talent,” he said with a dismissive snort. “It’s more of a wrist exercise.” He held out his hand to demonstrate. “A very slow wrist exercise,” Bowie emphasized before continuing to dry the dishes.

  “Still, I do appreciate the effort,” Marlowe said.

  Bowie laughed. Finished with drying the dishes, he retired the dish towel on the side of the sink. “Yes, now I’ll have to rest my wrist for the rest of the evening.” His expression turned serious. “Sorry you didn’t have any of the steak.”

  She shrugged his apology off. “I’m not. No reflection on your culinary skills, but the very smell of that steak sizzling tonight was almost enough to send me back communing with the porcelain bowl.”

  He couldn’t picture having to live that way. “I hope for your sake this morning sickness of yours doesn’t last too long.”

  “That makes two of us,” she replied, “although I’ve heard of women feeling like this for the first five months.”

  Five months of throwing up and the woman would waste away to nothing, Bowie thought. She was thin to begin with.

  “Competitive though you are, that doesn’t necessarily have to be you,” he told her.

  Marlowe gave him a look.

  “That’s not exactly something I’m aspiring to, either,” Marlowe replied.

  * * *

  Several times during that day Bowie had found himself observing Marlowe. Whenever he did, he forced himself to look away, trying his best not to watch her. Trying to get his mind on something else.

  Anything else.

  He had never been even mildly interested in marriage or in having a family. The idea of having a baby actually unnerved him, and he had always liked to think of himself as fearless. Until this child had suddenly come into the picture, he would have said nothing scared him—although having someone out there trying to kill him had come pretty close.

  As far as his resistance to having a family went, part of the problem was that he had no model to emulate, nothing to even remotely give him a home base. His own father had hardly ever been home, and even when he was home, he really wasn’t. His mind was always elsewhere, calculating and refiguring things that had already been done.

  Franklin Robertson was the epitome of a workaholic. Bowie knew that their relationship was tense, and Bowie wanted nothing more than to prove to the demanding man that he had it in him to take over the company when that day came.

  A baby didn’t figure into any of that. Especially not a baby whose lineage was half Robertson and half Colton. He was certain that his father would go absolutely ballistic once he found out that little tidbit.

  While he wanted Marlowe to know that the baby’s future would always be secure, Bowie didn’t want her thinking that what the two of them had between them would ever develop into something more than what was there already.

  They were outside the cabin at the moment, looking at the peaceful sky and just enjoying, as much as they could, the night air.

  But because the stillness was getting to be too much, and he didn’t want to risk saying something that might lead them to far more dangerous territory—like the bedroom—Bowie reiterated what he’d already said to her before.

  “You know, I meant what I said earlier, about my being there for you and the baby.”

  “I know, because your word is your bond. Did I get that right?” she asked with a touch of cynicism, parroting what he had told her the day before.

  “Yes,” he answered, pretending not to notice the shift in her tone. But he really didn’t want to take a chance on misleading her. That wouldn’t be fair to Marlowe. He needed to be clearer, he decided, so there would be no mistakes made. “Maybe I should also mention that I’ve always been sort of a lone wolf.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you howl whe
never there’s a full moon out?” she asked sarcastically.

  “No,” he answered impatiently. “I’m trying to tell you that with my being a lone wolf, well...marriage isn’t in the cards for someone like me,” he said bluntly, then quickly added, “but that doesn’t mean that I would shirk my duty toward the baby.”

  Her tone grew icy. “That’s very nice of you, but you don’t have to concern yourself about doing your duty,” Marlowe told him. “I am more than capable of taking care of and providing for my baby,” she concluded flatly.

  “You mean our baby,” Bowie corrected her.

  Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “The last I heard, possession was nine-tenths of the law,” Marlowe informed him, her hand moving to protectively cover her as-of-yet exceptionally flat belly.

  She’d clearly had just about enough for one night, she thought. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just turn in early.”

  She didn’t wait for Bowie to respond. Instead, she turned on her heel and walked back into the cabin. Once inside, she went straight to the bedroom in the back, slamming the door in her wake.

  Damn it, he hadn’t meant to do that, Bowie thought, upbraiding himself. His only intention was to spare her from entertaining any false hopes about their future.

  He frowned, looking back toward the cabin door. In getting his message across, he had somehow managed to scare her off altogether. That wasn’t what he was trying to do.

  This was all damn confusing. He was really attracted to her, probably a great deal more attracted than he had ever been to any other woman before her. But a wife and baby were just not in the cards for him, he silently insisted. RoCo was everything to him, and he had to focus on the company, not on the daughter of his father’s archenemy—as melodramatic as that had to sound, he thought, mocking himself. More than likely, she felt the same way about Colton Oil.

  With a sigh, Bowie decided to call it a night himself and went into the cabin. Closing the door behind him, he made sure that locks were all secured. Satisfied, he started to go toward the back bedroom, wanting to apologize. But he stopped himself before he got halfway there.

  It was better this way.

  He couldn’t afford to pursue Marlowe, or to allow the attraction he felt for her to get the better of him, beyond being a good dad. For all he knew, if he said anything at all about being attracted to her, she’d laugh at him. Or she might tell him that even though they’d had one good night together, that didn’t mean anything in the long run.

  Marlowe was married to Colton Oil for the long haul; she had all but told him so. He needed to stop letting his emotions rule his head and get his priorities straight and keep them that way once and for all.

  * * *

  Bowie spent an even more restless night this time than he had the previous night when he had intentionally stayed awake.

  Come morning, he had made up his mind about what to do next.

  “We can’t hide here indefinitely,” Marlowe told him early the following morning. “I think it’s time to go back. I know I have work to do and I’m assuming so do you. If I stay here for another day, I’m going to go stir-crazy.”

  Bowie smiled, nodding. At least they were in agreement when it came to this, he thought. “Yeah, me, too.”

  “Maybe Callum, who’s a bodyguard, can help keep an eye out. I guess we have some things in common,” Marlowe told him.

  Without thinking, his eyes ran over her body. He felt himself reacting before he shut down. “Yes, we do,” he responded.

  * * *

  The trip back to Mustang Valley was fairly tense. Bowie kept looking over his shoulder, as if he expected their unknown stalker to pop up at any moment, while Marlowe was very quiet. Her mind was busily trying to figure out just what her connection was to the killer who was after Bowie—and perhaps her, too. Was Bowie right that this had all begun after he left her room that night, or was that all just a terrible coincidence? Or could one of Colton Oil’s clients feel that their investment money was being misused because they found out she was looking into making the company green?

  She was fervently hoping that she would be able to think more clearly once she was back at work. Back in familiar surroundings.

  Going to the cabin had ultimately been a bad idea. She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that she was a sitting duck, waiting for some invisible villain to get off a kill shot. And having Bowie around was just a bitter reminder of the mistake she had made six and a half weeks ago: Bowie thought of himself as a lone wolf. Wolves didn’t settle down; they prowled around, she thought.

  Well, he was free to do that once they got back to town. She certainly had no intentions of standing in his way.

  As a matter of fact, the way she felt right now, she would be more than happy to push him on his way, and good riddance.

  * * *

  As Bowie pulled his vehicle up in front of the Colton Oil building, he noted the rather strange, contemplative expression on her face.

  “Everything all right?” he asked her, setting the hand brake and shutting off the engine.

  “Just peachy,” she replied with what sounded like false cheerfulness. “You don’t have to get out,” she told him. “I can just get out here.”

  “No, I’ll walk you in,” Bowie said firmly. Not giving her a chance to protest, he told her, “I’ll carry your suitcase for you.”

  Her shoulders grew rigid. “I already told you, Robertson,” she said, opening the passenger door, “I’m perfectly capable of carrying my own suitcase.”

  Bowie began to answer, then closed his mouth. Everything was a fight with her ever since he’d said something to make her angry last night. He was tired of fighting.

  “Fine,” he declared. “Have it your way.”

  Plucking the suitcase from the back seat, she pulled it out. “I usually do,” she replied, sounding deliberately smug.

  He should have his head examined, getting mixed up with this bullheaded, stubborn she-devil, Bowie upbraided himself angrily.

  Still, rather than pull away, he continued to sit where he was, watching Marlowe as she walked up to the building entrance and then went inside.

  * * *

  Marlowe was thinking similar, equally critical thoughts about Bowie as she rode up to her office and swept in. Parking her suitcase off to the side, she sank down behind her desk and let loose with a long, deep sigh of relief.

  This was more like it.

  She was back in her home territory. She knew what was expected of her here, what she needed to accomplish. Being alone in that cabin with Bowie had jumbled up her brain for a little while, made her entertain thoughts she had absolutely no right to entertain.

  She—Marlowe froze as she saw the large package that was placed in the middle of her sofa. She didn’t remember ordering anything.

  Maybe someone had sent her a gift, she decided. Rising from her desk, she crossed over to the sofa. Sitting down beside the package, she picked it up. She turned the box around, examining all six sides of it. There was no return address.

  An oversight?

  That was odd, she thought. But maybe whoever had sent it didn’t want to call attention to him or herself. There was undoubtedly a card inside, probably meant for her eyes only.

  Going to her desk to get a letter opener, she used the sharp object to rip through the wrapping paper around the package so she could get to the box underneath. When she did, she still had no clue who had sent it.

  Ordinarily, she would have thought the package had been sent by a secret admirer. But the strange events of the last three days, especially her one interaction with the mysterious shooter who had fired at both her and Bowie, well, that had changed the way she viewed things like a package.

  She was being silly, Marlowe told herself. This was probably some harmless gift, or maybe even some promotional gimmick meant to get the attent
ion of the president of Colton Oil.

  Having calmed herself down to an extent, Marlowe gingerly opened the cardboard box.

  She found a profusion of tissue paper covering a sweet-faced stuffed teddy bear that could easily be placed in any baby’s nursery.

  Pulling the stuffed bear out, she also managed to pull out a card.

  Finally, she thought, wrapping one arm around the bear to hold it in place. Mystery solved, she told herself, opening the envelope and pulling out the card that was inside.

  Congratulations on your baby. Wish it was mine.

  The scream that escaped her lips came totally unbidden. As was her reaction as she threw the stuffed bear to the floor.

  Her assistant came running in immediately, looking as if she didn’t know what to expect when she opened the door. “Is something wrong, Ms. Colton?” Karen asked breathlessly.

  Marlowe struggled to get herself under control. The last thing she wanted was to be seen as a hysterical woman, even though everything inside of her was shaking. Who could have sent this?

  “Did you see who left this, Karen?” she asked her assistant.

  Seeing that the threat was just a stuffed teddy bear, Karen relaxed and seemed a little calmer as she ventured forward.

  “Oh, how adorable,” she said, her face softening and forming a smile as she looked at the gift.

  “Did you see who left this?” Marlowe repeated, this time more sharply.

  Karen shook her head, looking somewhat nervous again. “No, Ms. Colton. Whoever left it must have come in before I did.”

  Marlowe looked at the teddy bear as if it was the enemy. “So it was already in my office before you got in? What time did you come in?” she asked, her uneasiness growing.

  It was obvious that it took Karen a minute to think. “I was here by seven,” she remembered. “I had some paperwork to catch up on. Whoever left this for you had to have done it before seven. Is something wrong, Ms. Colton?” she asked.