The Pregnant Colton Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  She looked at him, total confusion in her eyes. The title meant nothing to her. “I’m afraid I don’t get the reference. Is that a play?”

  It was something he’d been forced to read in college. “A farce for the most part,” he told her. “Filled with people who are a little off—but pretty much endearingly so,” he recalled. “Take away the endearing part, and you’ve got my family.”

  She felt as if he was trying to warn her. “I like your stepfather,” she said. He was the only one she’d had any dealings with. The others he’d mentioned she knew only by sight and only because she’d made a point of knowing them because of their connection to Zane.

  “Yes, but he’s not around right now.”

  She noted Zane said it as if Eldridge Colton was just temporarily away, like someone on a sabbatical instead of being the possible victim of a kidnapping. Or worse.

  Her heart ached for Zane. He really did love his stepfather, she thought, wondering if the senior Colton was aware of that.

  Without thinking, she put her hand on Zane’s. When he looked at her, his eyebrows rising in silent query, she said, “He will be. You’ll find him.” There was no room for any dissent in her statement. She said it as if she had every confidence in the world Zane would find his stepfather.

  Zane smiled at her. He knew there was no reason for her to staunchly hold to that belief, but he appreciated hearing it nonetheless.

  “Thanks. Anyway, let me go talk to Meyer about this list of possible disgruntled ex-employees so he can get started checking out their whereabouts. At least it’ll give us something to go on for the time being.”

  And after the legal means to go about an extensive search were exhausted, he was aware of the fact that the man who he regarded as his right-hand man in his security division was also acquainted with a number of so-called black hats, men and women who could—and did—hack into systems whose airtight security proved to be like the proverbial red cloak waved before a bull.

  In effect, the systems presented challenges and a way to stave off boredom for them, at least for a little while.

  If he had to, he would give Meyer the okay to turn to one, or more if necessary, of these men and women to track down whoever was causing him—and Mirabella—such grief and throwing their worlds into utter turmoil.

  He wasn’t sure just how he would decide to punish this person or persons who were creating so much damage in his life—he hadn’t gotten that far. First, they had to be caught, then and only then would he allow himself to start planning a fitting punishment.

  Get moving, he silently urged himself. He had to get this rolling and quickly, not just because he wanted to bring it all to an end, but because, once done, he knew he needed to get back so he could further prepare Mirabella to meet his family.

  The abbreviated warning he’d given her didn’t even begin to scratch the surface and he knew it. He was used to his family and their unique idiosyncrasies but for someone who had never been thrown into the deep end of the pool with these piranhas, well, it could turn out to be one hell of a shock.

  And Mirabella, he had already concluded, deserved a great deal better than that.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told her. “Until then, don’t read any more emails.”

  “Is that an order?” she asked, touched he was so concerned about the effect reading these emails might have on her.

  “It is a respectful request,” he corrected. “And if you don’t listen to that, then it’s an order.”

  Chapter 17

  The lighting in the IT section was deliberately dim, allowing attention to be primarily focused on whatever programming code was currently scrolling down the wide computer monitors. Carefully recruited tech experts worked like drones zeroing in on their particular targets and in this light—or lack thereof—it was difficult to distinguish one expert from another...except for Meyer Stanley.

  As head of this division, not to mention the man Zane had come to rely on rather heavily as of late, Meyer’s desk was set apart from the others by several feet. Not that Meyer actually took note of that fact. He was as riveted to his work, if not more so, as the others in the vast room.

  The IT expert was hardly aware of Zane’s presence until the latter placed a hand on his shoulder. Startled, Meyer jumped.

  “Sorry,” Zane apologized. “How’s it coming?” he asked, nodding at the screen.

  “A lot slower than either one of us would like,” Meyer admitted.

  The truth was something he’d never learned how to either hide or embellish on. It fell from his lips unadorned. Meyer had been far too busy learning code to take the time to learn how to lie, even for his own benefit.

  “So you’ve got nothing new to report on the emails and the transfers?” Zane asked him, trying not to sound as disheartened as he felt.

  Meyer paused to look at his boss. “Only that once we catch this guy, if you don’t wind up beating him to a pulp for what he’s said about you and your assistant administrator, I’d strongly suggest recruiting him for our team. Every time I think I’m closing in on this guy, the signal turns out to not be coming from where I thought it was coming. It’s bafflingly encrypted, bouncing not just all over the building, but it looks like all over the immediate world. I hate to say it, but whoever this guy is, he is damn good.”

  Zane frowned, looking over Meyer’s shoulder at the screen. He was into coding himself, but not to this extent. “Except for the part where he’s got a completely black soul.”

  “Yeah, except for that,” Meyer stoically agreed, remembering to put what the hacker was doing into proper perspective. “Don’t worry, boss. Catching this SOB is my main priority,” the man promised.

  “No,” Zane corrected, “right now, Meyer, catching him is your only priority.” Zane could feel the IT expert’s eyes looking at him with a hint of curiosity. “I’ve got a feeling he’s somehow involved in Eldridge’s kidnapping.”

  “And the Lindbergh baby kidnapping?” Meyer quipped. It was Meyer’s feeble attempt at a joke and it fell unceremoniously flat. When Zane shot him a look, Meyer could only shrug as he delivered a vague apology coupled with an explanation. “Sorry, boss, but I think that good though he is, maybe you’re giving this guy too much credit.”

  If only. “And I think you’re not giving him enough.” Reaching into his pocket, he took out the list he’d written up, thanks to Mirabella’s suggestion. “Here’s a list of possible suspects to look at for this,” he told Meyer, laying the list on the expert’s desk.

  Meyer quickly skimmed the list, and then he raised his eyes to Zane’s. “These people aren’t with the company anymore,” he pointed out. Because he needed to monitor all employees’ official communications as well as their computers, he was aware of who was currently working for Colton Incorporated, and who no longer was. “That would give whoever’s doing this a working knowledge of our intranet without having to physically be somewhere in the building,” he said, thinking out loud. “That adds a whole new parameter to this.”

  Meyer stared at his computer screen thoughtfully for a moment. “That would explain a few things,” he murmured, talking to himself.

  There was no point in standing around, watching Meyer type. “I’ll leave you to it,” Zane told him, turning away.

  Engrossed, Meyer hardly heard him leave and definitely didn’t hear the words.

  * * *

  At fifty-five, Whitney Colton was judged by many who knew her to be a handsome woman. Twenty years her husband’s junior, there were others who viewed her to be nothing more than a heartless gold digger.

  No one in either group, however, could deny she looked younger than her years, a fact of which Whitney was exceedingly proud, having spent a great deal of time, effort and Eldridge’s money to make certain she remained that way.

  Some whispered Whitney was so consumed with maintaining her youthful looks because she was having an affair with a younger man, something which, although it had been largely specul
ated on, had never been proved.

  As for Zane, who saw his mother without the benefit of rose-colored glasses, he saw all her flaws and shortcomings clearly. He knew it was his mother’s vanity, not a lover, that had her going to such long lengths and great pains not just to make the most of what she’d been given by nature, but to improve on it.

  He was well aware of the fact that Whitney Colton was a rather vapid, shallow woman, but she was his mother and, in her own way, she had taken care of him and his sister, so he couldn’t fault her completely. He even harbored, on occasion, some tender feelings toward her.

  But feeling that way did not bless him with any insight into what she was thinking. For a seemingly simple woman, her thought process was rather complex in his estimation.

  For one example, she was fiercely protective of the Colton name, if not so protective of any actual Colton. Moreover, she had less than little regard for her husband’s two children, Fowler and Alanna, by his first wife, Darla, and even less than that for the daughter she was forced by her husband to adopt, Piper.

  Whatever actual maternal love she had to offer, Whitney divided between the four that were the actual fruit of her womb, but she did it sparingly, reigning over all of them like a queen. A queen who had clawed her way into a kingdom and meant to hang on to it no matter what it cost her—or who.

  In the last six weeks, Zane had watched his mother vacillate between hysteria and over-the-top wringing of her hands as she dramatically kept vigil for the return of her Dridgey-pooh which was, in Zane’s opinion, the most god-awful pet name ever conceived—and one that she had given to his stepfather.

  After his less-than-satisfying visit with Meyer, Zane decided to go home to let his mother know in person what was going to take place at her dinner table that evening. This way, he hoped the histrionics he knew would take place could be at least diluted to some degree.

  Not wanting to go into any of this, he deliberately avoided telling Mirabella about his impromptu visit home. It was bad enough to have to do it without having to explain he was doing it as well.

  Arriving home, he cut through the ballroom-like foyer and found his mother pacing around the suite-sized living room, her designer dressing gown flowing behind her like a royal robe, marking her path. Agitation filled the very air.

  When Whitney saw him enter the room, she stopped dead in her tracks. Her expressive eyes widened with anticipation.

  “What are you doing home at this time of day?” she asked, each word all but throbbing with anxiety.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Zane began in a subdued voice—and got no further.

  “It’s him,” Whitney cried, her voice quaking. She brought her fisted hand to her lips as if to absorb any cry that might escape them. “You found him. You found my Dridgey-pooh.”

  The second the words had left her lips, Whitney swayed, conveniently collapsing directly over one of the two sofas in the room.

  Lowering her hand, she went on to dramatically clutch her chest with it as she moaned. “He’s dead, isn’t he? You found him and he’s dead. My Dridgey-pooh is dead. Oh, why is this happening to me?” she wailed. “Why can’t I just be happy?” Grabbing Zane’s arm—she had a remarkably strong grip for a thin woman her age—she anchored her son to her. “Where did you find him? Will I be able to recognize him or did they do something awful to disfigure him? Why would they do—”

  “We didn’t find him, Mother,” Zane said, raising his voice so he could cut through her keening rhetoric. He peeled his mother’s fingers off his arm as gently as he could.

  Whitney blinked like a person waking up from a bad dream. “You didn’t?” she cried, stunned. “Then what are you doing here at this hour? Why aren’t you at work?”

  He would have much rather been at work, he thought. “I came to talk to you.”

  Suspicion immediately entered the eyes attempting to pin him down. “About?”

  Why was there suspicion in her eyes? Now that she knew he had no news about his stepfather, exactly what did she think he was going to say? He really wished his mother was above suspicion—but she wasn’t.

  Tentatively, he began. “I want you on your best behavior at dinner tonight, Mother.”

  “I’m always on my best behavior,” she informed him haughtily, insulted by his unspoken innuendo.

  “Better best behavior, then,” Zane specified, knowing what she was capable of. His mother’s tongue could be sharper than a dagger, able to deliver remarks that could cut out the heart of an eagle three hundred feet away.

  Whitney’s eyes narrowed as she regarded her firstborn. “What are you up to, Zane?”

  There was no way to say it but to say it. If he waited until he brought Mirabella into the snake pit with him, her presence at the table wouldn’t temper his mother’s tongue. On the contrary, it just might set her off and he wanted whatever dramatics Whitney Colton intended to display to be out of her system sooner than later.

  His mother at half her usual capacity was still far more than most women displayed at full capacity. He didn’t want Mirabella intimidated.

  In order for that not to happen, he knew he needed to inform his mother about Mirabella’s changed marital status—as well as his own.

  Taking a breath, he mentally crossed his fingers and then said, “I got married yesterday.”

  “You—what?” Whitney paled for a moment, and then the next moment, she waved away her son’s words. “This is not the time for you to finally develop a sense of humor, Zane. I don’t appreciate the joke. Your stepfather’s been kidnapped,” she declared dramatically as if this was all news to him.

  “This isn’t a joke, Mother,” Zane persisted, determined to at least get his mother to come around now that he’d gone this far. “Mirabella and I flew to Vegas—”

  “Mirabella?” she echoed disdainfully as if she were repeating the name of a misnamed pet. “What sort of a name is that?”

  “A beautiful one as a matter of fact,” he told her with some feeling, taking offense for Mirabella. His mother had a way of tossing out insults the way a farmer tossed out feed before his nameless hens.

  Anger flushed Whitney’s carefully made-up cheeks. “Did she trap you? This Mirror person, did she trap you?” Whitney demanded hotly. “Is that it? Did the scheming little witch say something or do something—did she tell you that you got her pregnant?” she suddenly guessed in pronounced outrage.

  “No, Mother,” Zane refuted, struggling to keep his voice at an even keel. “You’re projecting your own way of handling things on to her. She didn’t trap me,” he informed his mother. “As a matter of fact, I had to convince her to marry me.”

  “Convince her?” Whitney echoed in disbelief. “Why? What’s wrong with her? Doesn’t she have any common sense? Can’t she see what a catch you are? Just what is this girl’s endgame?” she wanted to know, her suspicions breeding more suspicions.

  Zane glanced at his watch. He didn’t have time for this. “You have about five hours to get all this negative reaction out of your system, Mother. When I bring Mirabella here tonight, I want you to welcome her, not scare her. Am I making myself clear, Mother?” he asked, his eyes pinning Whitney down.

  Whitney drew herself up like a queen disrespected in her own palace. “Since when do you talk to me this way, Zane?”

  He knew all her tricks. She wasn’t about to get him to back down or apologize. He wasn’t a boy anymore and hadn’t been for some time. “Since it matters to me that you behave yourself.”

  Whitney sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes. “If it’s that important to you, Zane, fine, bring this Mirror person on.” Another worn, resigned sigh punctuated her words. “I’ll make nice to the little gold digger—”

  “Mother!” Zane cried sharply, letting her know he wasn’t about to let her get away with this.

  “Sorry, I meant the new Mrs. Zane Colton,” Whitney corrected herself. She made no effort to bank down the shiver that accompanied her words, or the disdain in he
r voice.

  “Remember,” Zane warned his mother, “your best best behavior.”

  There was no humor in her smile and no affection, either. “But of course.”

  Biting back an annoyed sigh, Zane left the room.

  Maybe he should just look into getting a house close to work, he thought, as he walked out.

  He was almost out of the massive house when he decided to make a quick detour to his stepfather’s bedroom—the room where the man was last seen. He knew the sheriff had been through there—as well as the grounds outside the window—not once but twice—the second time producing that cuff link. Any sort of evidence that could be found there had supposedly all been accounted for.

  But given the fact that the sheriff had missed the cuff link until he’d returned to look the room and grounds over again, Zane decided it wouldn’t hurt for him to do the same.

  Who knew, maybe he’d get lucky.

  When he came to Eldridge’s bedroom, he saw his stepbrother, Fowler, was inside. And from what he could see, the president of Colton Incorporated had something in his hand. Something he was apparently trying to leave tucked behind a sofa pillow.

  What the hell was going on here?

  Zane said the first thing that came to his mind, though he couldn’t quite believe it even as he said it. “You wouldn’t be planting evidence there now, would you, Fowler?”

  Startled, his stepbrother swung around to face him, accidentally dropping what he held on the floor.

  Zane’s eyes widened as recognition set in.

  “Is that my hunting knife?” Zane demanded, stunned. It had gone missing a few weeks ago. What was it doing here, in Fowler’s hands?

  Moving quickly, he picked the knife up before Fowler had the chance.

  Zane examined it in disbelief. “I thought I lost this. What are you doing with it?” It was more of an accusation than a question.