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

by Marie Ferrarella

  Her head began to hurt.

  She needed help with this, she thought. Impartial help. That ruled out her siblings for now. They all viewed Selina in the same light that she did. If her intent was to be fair, she needed someone outside the circle so that she could be sure she wasn’t allowing her own intense dislike of the woman to color her outlook or taint her conclusions.

  She left the boardroom quickly.

  Wallace was waiting for her in the corridor. At her request, he had remained outside the boardroom because, with everything else going on, she didn’t feel like having to explain his presence to her father. Wallace had agreed only after he had checked out the boardroom and was satisfied that the large room was accessible only through one set of double doors.

  The moment she emerged from the boardroom, he was right at her side.

  Marlowe got right to what was on her mind. “Do you think your boss is out of his meeting yet?” she asked the bodyguard.

  “You’re my boss,” he responded in his quiet, authoritative voice.

  Marlowe sighed. “Your other boss, Wallace,” she specified.

  Wallace looked at his watch. “Yes. Unless it ran over,” he qualified.

  That was all she wanted to hear. “Thanks,” she murmured.

  It amazed her how quickly she recalled Bowie’s cell number. She’d started dialing it before she realized that she hadn’t had to pull out Bowie’s business card this time.

  He answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  She felt the hair on the back of her neck curling in response to the sound of his voice. This was getting worse, she thought, not better.

  “Are you available?” she asked.

  She heard him chuckle softly. “Well, you’ll have to buy me dinner first, but, yes, I’m available.”

  “Very funny,” she said dismissively, then got down to the reason for her call. “I really need to follow Selina.”

  “So you said.”

  “I know,” she said impatiently, “but I think it might be more urgent than I initially thought. I’m fairly sure that she’s got something big on my father. Something that has him practically twisting in the wind and jumping to obey her slightest whim.” She paused, looking for the right way to phrase this. “I might be totally wrong about this, but I think that it might have something to do with Ace being switched with a healthy baby at birth.” She realized how that had to sound to Bowie. “According to my father, when Ace was born, he was really sickly. They didn’t think he’d even make it through the night, and suddenly, not only did he make it, but he was thriving.”

  “And no one noticed?” he questioned.

  “From what I gather, my dad and his wife at the time chalked it up to being a Christmas miracle,” Marlowe told him.

  Bowie was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Well, best guess, Selina might be trying to bring down Colton Oil,” he suggested.

  “No, that’s more your father’s style,” Marlowe said. Then, suddenly realizing what she had just said, she tried to backtrack and apologize. “Sorry, that just came out. But anyway, Selina would have no reason to bring down Colton Oil. It’s far more to her advantage to have the company bringing in money. That way, she gets to continue living in the lifestyle that she’s grown accustomed to enjoying. That woman will never have enough money.”

  That made sense, but blackmail wasn’t always about making sense. “It could just be her way of getting revenge,” Bowie brought up. “You know, because your father divorced her all those years ago.”

  “According to the story, the divorce was Selina’s idea. And even if it wasn’t, wouldn’t she have done something to undermine the company long ago, not waited all these years to make a move?” she asked Bowie. That only made sense to her.

  “Ah, but revenge is a dish best served cold,” he said.

  There was that, she supposed, but she wasn’t convinced. “Maybe,” she agreed. “But right now, I just want to be sure that the viper isn’t going to do something awful to foul up Ace’s life.”

  “Which Ace?” Bowie asked.

  “The Ace I know,” Marlowe snapped. The next second, she instantly regretted her reaction. “Sorry. My temper keeps spiking.” She blamed it on stress and the pregnancy. The latter was in part Bowie’s fault, but she couldn’t allow herself to go down that path. There was no future there.

  Marlowe heard him chuckle again. The sound all but undulated through her, sending goose bumps all along her body.

  “Yes, I noticed,” Bowie said. “Okay, I’ll be there in the next forty minutes.”

  She sighed. Forty minutes might be too long to wait. She needed to be ready to take off at a moment’s notice. “That’s all right, I can just—”

  “Okay, hold your horses. How does twenty minutes sound?”

  “Better,” she told him. “Fifteen would sound even better than that.”

  He laughed. “Only if I learn how to fly.”

  “I thought you already had that superpower,” she deadpanned.

  “Very funny. Look, I just need to wrap something up and I’ll be there as quick as I can. Wait for me.” It wasn’t a request, it was an order.

  She didn’t like being given orders, even if she was asking him to come. She struggled to make light of it. “Or what, no dessert?” she asked him.

  Another one of his chuckles rippled through her. “Okay, if you want to call it that.”

  Was he talking about sex? She could feel herself responding to the very suggestion and abruptly shut down. That was what had gotten her into this mess to begin with, she reminded herself.

  “Robertson, if you don’t get down here in the aforementioned fifteen minutes, I will be gone by the time you do get here,” she warned.

  “Cool your jets for a few minutes, mama. I’ll be there.”

  Mama.

  Marlowe felt her back go up. “Don’t call me that,” she retorted.

  “Don’t worry, you’re not going to lose your identity. But you are going to be someone’s mama—aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Just get here, Robertson. We can have that other discussion some other time,” she informed him.

  She had already made up her mind about the baby. But she didn’t want Bowie thinking that he could just bend her will and turn her into some obedient, subservient human being.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have called him, she thought, terminating the call.

  She didn’t need this further aggravation.

  Chapter 17

  It had been almost a week that she and Bowie had been conducting their surveillance on Selina. Six days of discreetly sitting in his car near the guest house where Selina resided on the Colton ranch.

  It had gotten them no closer to any answers about her former stepmother. Nor had they gotten more information about the attempts on their lives or the mysterious email sent to the board.

  Selina was either determined to keep a low profile now that the wheels of her plan had been set in motion, or “she didn’t have anything to do with that email about Ace that went out to all of you,” Bowie concluded on the sixth evening. After sitting in the car, night after night, he was beginning to feel as if his legs were permanently cramping up. “And this is all just a wild-goose chase.”

  Bowie had parked his car well in the shadows, confident that Selina couldn’t detect them.

  From their present location, Marlowe couldn’t even see the main house, and after being out here, night after night, she was beginning to get a little antsy, not to mention really stir-crazy.

  Added to that, she felt much too close to Bowie, and she didn’t need that added stimulus.

  Glancing toward Bowie, Marlowe sighed in response to his last comment. “I’d hate to think you were right,” she admitted.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he qualified. “I am perfectly willing to sit in this car with you
for as long as you want, but wouldn’t you feel more comfortable sitting in a secluded booth in a restaurant?” Bowie asked her. “If nothing else,” he shifted, doing his best to get comfortable, “there’s more leg room in a booth.”

  Marlowe looked toward the guest house again.

  Nothing.

  Selina had gone inside the house a little more than two hours ago, and the lights throughout most of the house had been out for the last forty-five minutes. “She’s got to be up to something,” Marlowe insisted. She felt it in her bones, even as she noted to herself that no further attempts had been made on their lives.

  “Oh, no argument there,” Bowie agreed. Selina was far too devious a woman to just sit around and do nothing. “But right now I’m not so sure what that something has to do with Ace.”

  Marlowe sighed. Bowie was right. This was just a waste of time—just as the other five nights of surveillance that had come before tonight had been.

  “You’re right,” she told him. “Drive me back to Colton Oil headquarters and we’ll call it a night.”

  He turned on the ignition and slowly retraced his route, quietly driving away from Selina’s home until he got to the main road.

  “Why don’t we shake things up a little?” he suggested once they were headed away from the ranch. “Instead of you going back to the office so you can pick up your car and Bigelow, why don’t you give him the night off? You and I can get a late dinner, and then I’ll bring you home to the Colton compound afterward. You did say the place had security, right?” he asked, making sure that wasn’t something she’d said just to get him to back off when he’d suggested getting her a bodyguard.

  “I did and we do,” she told him, adding, “but I don’t think dinner’s such a good idea.”

  He slanted a look in her direction. “Still afraid to be seen with me out in public?” he guessed.

  Marlowe drew herself up. “I am not afraid of anything,” she informed him.

  “Right. I forgot. You’re fearless,” he said. “So then why this reluctance to be seen out in public with me?”

  “It’s not you,” she said, “it’s dinner. There’s no point in paying for a fancy meal when all I can keep down these days are crackers and tea—and I consider even that a victory,” she added.

  “Still getting sick to your stomach?” Bowie asked her. He’d thought that would have passed by now. Obviously not.

  Just talking about it made Marlowe feel queasy. “That’s putting it mildly, but yes, I am.”

  There was sympathy in his eyes as he looked at her again. “I’m sorry.”

  She almost believed he meant that, but then that night they had spent together came back to her like a blaring movie trailer. “It’s not your fault. Oh, wait, yes it is—and mine, too,” she deliberately corrected herself.

  There was no point in arguing over this part of it. He just wanted to take her to get something to eat, whatever she could successfully keep down.

  “We can stop at a restaurant and get you tea,” he told her.

  There weren’t that many places to eat in Mustang Valley. She was acquainted with all of them. “No restaurant is going to want to serve their customers just tea,” she told him.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Bowie contradicted. “They might be willing if they know that there’s a fifty-dollar tip coming.”

  “A fifty-dollar tip?” she questioned. “For tea?” That sounded absurd to her.

  The absurdity of that didn’t seem to bother Bowie because he said, “That’s right.”

  “For tea,” she repeated in disbelief.

  He nodded. There weren’t many cars out this time of night. They were making good time. “That’s what I said.”

  She shook her head. “It’s a wonder you people have any money if you spend it like water.”

  “Not water—tea,” he corrected with a straight face. “So, what do you say? You willing to go out and get some decaf tea and crackers and anything else that you might be able to keep down?”

  The man was going to keep hammering away at this, talking her ear off until she agreed, Marlowe thought. With a sigh, she surrendered.

  “Oh, all right. Let’s go and get some tea,” she told Bowie, giving in. Her stomach was really acting up and threatening to give her a hard time. Maybe having some tea would make her feel a little more human.

  * * *

  “Better?” Bowie asked her fifteen minutes later.

  They were sitting in a small booth in Lucia’s Italian Café, and Marlowe was sipping a cup of tea very slowly. In between the sips, she was taking small bites of the plain crackers that were arranged in a small circle on her otherwise empty plate.

  Marlowe nodded in response. She had to give him his due, she thought. “Better. Thank you,” she added after a beat.

  “Hey, like you pointed out, this was all my fault,” he said, glancing toward her waist. “The least I can do is get you tea and crackers to make your stomach feel a little better.”

  That made her feel guilty. Bowie had put up with her recriminations and her mercurial shifts in mood these last few days when he didn’t have to. Anyone else would have told her to get lost and then left. But he hadn’t. He was a good man—one worth a woman’s time and affection. Even if that woman wouldn’t be her...

  Marlowe looked at him for a long moment.

  “What?” he asked, glancing down at his chest. “Did I spill something on my jacket?”

  “No,” she answered quietly and then forced herself to say what she was thinking. “You’re not such a bad guy,” she acknowledged.

  Surprise filtered across his face. And then Bowie said, “Careful. You don’t want me to get a swollen head now, do you?”

  Marlowe frowned slightly. She was attempting to apologize, and he was making jokes. For a second, she thought about just abandoning the whole thing, but she was too stubborn not to continue. “I’m trying to say I’m sorry,” she said, exasperated.

  For a moment, Bowie grew serious. “I know,” he said. “And I’m trying to let you know that you don’t have to,” he countered. And then he turned his attention back to the turbulent condition of Marlowe’s stomach. “Now, how are the crackers?”

  She looked at what was left on the plate. They weren’t exactly tempting, but at least she wasn’t throwing up. “Flat.”

  “Are you talking about their shape or their taste?” he asked her, curious.

  She didn’t even have to think about her answer. “Both.”

  Bowie found her response encouraging. “Well, at least your sense of humor is alive and well—such as it is.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was a put-down or his idea of a compliment. Most likely the former, she thought. “Sorry I’m not up to your stand-up comedian standards.”

  “You’re forgiven,” Bowie deadpanned. And then he decided to get down to business. “Seriously, what does your doctor have to say about this?”

  “My doctor?” Marlowe repeated, momentarily confused by the question.

  “Yes, about your morning sickness,” Bowie stressed.

  Finished, he wiped his fingers and put aside the napkin. “Surely he or she must have a better remedy for what you’re going through than just tea and crackers. That was the solution of choice back in my grandmother’s day. Seeing all the progress medicine has made, they have got to have come up with something better than that in this day and age.”

  In response Marlowe merely shrugged and looked away, avoiding Bowie’s eyes.

  For once, Bowie evidently decided that he wasn’t going to drop the subject. “What’s that supposed to mean? They haven’t come up with anything better?” he questioned.

  Why was he hammering away at her like this? “I have no idea what they’ve come up with,” she retorted.

  “You haven’t asked the doctor?” he guessed, somewhat surprised.r />
  She sighed. “No, I haven’t gone to the doctor,” she answered, exasperated.

  Bowie stared at her, stunned. “You haven’t gone to the doctor?” he repeated incredulously.

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with your hearing,” she retorted.

  “Which is more than I can say about your common sense,” he informed Marlowe. “Why haven’t you gone?” he demanded.

  She could feel her temper beginning to spike and had to struggle in order to keep from telling him what he could do with his questions. She knew he was concerned, but it annoyed her that he was treating her as if she didn’t have enough sense to think for herself. Why did she have to go to the doctor? She knew what was going on. She was pregnant. As far as she knew, she was healthy, so there was no rush to submit herself to having her doctor poke and prod at her, right?

  Why did people keep nagging her about seeing a doctor? First Callum, now Bowie. Didn’t anyone have anything better to occupy their lives with than her life?

  She felt as if she was spoiling for a fight. “Maybe you haven’t noticed this, but I’ve been a little busy lately.”

  “That’s no excuse,” Bowie informed her quietly so that they wouldn’t attract any undue attention from the handful of other people dining at the café. “You make time for the doctor.” His eyes held hers as he went on to tell her, “This is important, and you’re not the only one involved here, Marlowe.”

  “Meaning you?” Marlowe asked, ready to tell him what she thought of his interference in her life.

  “Meaning the baby,” he told her.

  That took the wind out of her sails, effectively deflating them as well as embarrassing her. Damn him, he was right. For the baby’s sake she should have already gone to the doctor just to make sure everything was all right. Except for this awful morning sickness, she felt she was healthy. But what if she wasn’t? What if she was overlooking something important, or hadn’t realized it yet? And even if she herself was healthy, she needed to take prenatal vitamins and get checkups—for the child’s sake.