Colton Christmas Protector

by Beth Cornelison

  Lenny shot a confused glance at the tree. “Who’s there?”

  Penelope searched deep in the branches and spied the orange kitten climbing from one limb to another, swatting dangling lights and glittery balls.

  And in her next breath, Reid was there, surging out of the kitchen and wrapping an arm around Lenny’s neck.

  * * *

  Reid seized the split second of distraction to put the nearest gunman in a wrestler’s hold. With a sweep of his leg against his opponent’s, he brought the man down on the floor. Before he could aim the weapon he’d lifted from the now-unconscious man in the kitchen, the guy’s cohort countered Reid’s leg sweep. The man’s move dragged Reid off balance and flipped him to the floor, as well. The impact as he landed forced the air from his lungs, and the gun was jarred from his grip. He gasped for a breath, while scrambling to right himself, trying to disarm the thug.

  “Reid!” Pen cried.

  His opponent wrenched free, and as Reid climbed to his feet, the gunman grabbed Reid’s arm and thrust him against the wall. He felt the cool muzzle jam into one ear while the thug’s warm breath hissed in his other. “Well, looky what we have here. We’ve been waiting for you, Colton.”

  * * *

  As soon as Reid burst into the room, Penelope had surged to her feet. Only to be met by Greg’s gun in her face and his steely hand banding her upper arm.

  “Don’t,” he warned in a low but menacing tone.

  While her initial kidnapping and the danger to Nicholas had shocked and chilled her to the bone, Penelope had since had time to stew on the situation, and anger simmered just beneath the surface. How dare these punks put her son in danger? How dare her father be so callous as to sign off on her execution for his own selfish gain?

  But watching Reid—a man who’d gone out of his way to help her, a man who’d given years to the Dallas PD to protect and serve...a man she loved—slammed against the wall and held at gunpoint made her see red.

  Gritting her teeth, she snarled at Greg, “Get your hands off me.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Shut up.”

  “You’ll pay for this. There’s no way you walk away from this free and clear.”

  His expression faltered for a split second, then hardened. His grip tightened on her arm, and pain slithered down her arm and to her shoulder. “Shut. The hell. Up.”

  “Do as he says, Pen,” Reid said, and stunned at his defeatist suggestion, she angled a look across the room. But the look he gave her was anything but defeated. He might be shoved up to the wall with a gun at his head, but she knew Reid was far from finished with these thugs.

  * * *

  “On your knees, rich boy,” the jerk behind Reid growled.

  “Bite me,” he returned. No way in hell would he bend to these SOBs. He would spend his last breath fighting to save Pen and Nicholas.

  The retort earned him a smack to the side of the head, and Penelope gasped her outrage.

  Reid shook off the ear-ringing blow and waited. At any time, an opportunity, a distraction, a split second shift in advantage could come, and he intended to be ready.

  Thanks to Pen’s comment about checking on Nicholas, he knew the little boy was in the room down the hall. But that could change if Nicholas woke up and wandered into the living room looking for his mother. The sooner they ended this standoff the better.

  From his peripheral view, he registered where his dropped weapon had landed. If he could get free...

  “What did my father promise you? How much is he paying you for my murder?” Pen asked, her tone full of hurt and bitterness.

  “Sit down, and shut up,” the man holding Pen’s arm grated.

  “Pen,” Reid said, her name a warning not to push the man to rash action.

  And then an orange blur at the edge of his vision caught his attention. The kitten. He’d almost forgotten the furball Pen had rescued. Not that a kitten could save them from two gunmen bent on killing them.

  And then...

  Lucky trotted closer to Reid and the gunman. The kitten jumped and latched onto the thug’s leg with twenty razor claws.

  “Ow!” The gunman flinched. “What the hell?”

  And Reid seized his chance.

  With an elbow in the gunman’s gut and a quick twist, he freed himself from the thug’s grip. He wrapped both hands around the man’s gun hand and shoved the weapon into the air. He fought for possession of the handgun, bending the man’s wrist to an unnatural angle. But the man fought on. He seemed to have a countermove for every tactic Reid tried. The man was well trained.

  A stinging blow landed on Reid’s jaw, and he stumbled back a step, his vision blurring. Reid regained his balance, lowered his head...and charged.

  * * *

  When Greg’s attention shifted to the struggle between Reid and Lenny, Pen acted. Just as Andrew had taught her, she smashed her forehead into Greg’s nose, followed immediately by a hard knee to his groin.

  Her guard doubled over, groaning, and she snatched up the stone horse sculpture from the coffee table and swung it down on Greg’s head. He crumpled on the floor. His hand went limp around his gun, and Pen wrested it away.

  Spinning toward Reid and Lenny, she aimed the weapon at Lenny and shouted, “Freeze, you bastard!”

  But he didn’t freeze. Instead, Lenny made a move for the gun Reid had knocked from his grip.

  Penelope fired. Lenny collapsed, and blood bloomed on the man’s shirt. Hearing a grunt and scuffle behind her, she spun back to Greg and fired again.

  Greg gave a shout of pain and dropped to the ground, clutching his thigh. He spat invectives that sounded hollow against the ringing in her ears from the gun blasts, the buzz of adrenaline...and the frightened crying of her son from down the hall.

  She stood shaking, numb with shock, and stuttered, “N-Nicholas.”

  Reid appeared at her side, and he eased the gun from her hands. “Well done.”

  She hiccuped a nervous laugh. “T-told you I could shoot.”

  He kissed her temple, and hitched his head toward the hall. “Go take care of our boy. I’ll secure these SOBs until backup arrives.”

  Chapter 20

  An hour later, after Reid and Pen had given preliminary statements to the police, they were allowed to leave the scene to take Nicholas to the emergency room. The three gunmen, in varying states of injury and under guard, were taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital. Pen and Reid opted to go to a different urgent-care center, one where Pen’s pediatrician could meet them and treat her son’s infected ear and ruptured eardrum.

  Reid’s cell phone rang as they sped down the highway. He had Pen answer and put it on speakerphone.

  “It’s Zane,” his half brother said. “We went to Barrington’s, but we were too late. The staff said he was there long enough to clean out his safe and throw a few things in a suitcase before he took off again. My guess is he’s headed for the airport.”

  “Damn it.” Reid thought a moment. “DFW is too public. Too slow. My guess is he’ll have a plane waiting at a private airstrip.”

  “Yeah. But which one? There are more than a few of those within 100 miles,” Zane said.

  After a bit of discussion, Zane and T.C. were dispatched to different small airports deemed likely candidates, and Reid promised to check a third after dropping Pen and Nicholas at the urgent-care center.

  Pen disconnected the call and sat in silence for a moment before saying, “Harvey Freeland has a plane in the hangar at the airstrip just east of Fort Worth.”

  Reid cut a side gaze toward her. “You think this Freeland guy would fly your father to Mexico?”

  “Harvey would fly him to the moon if he could. My father saved him from going to jail on money-laundering charges ten years ago.”

  Reid�
�s pulse spiked, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “What’s the name of the airport?”

  She bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “I don’t remember, but I know how to get there.”

  “But Nicholas—”

  She turned to look back at her son, asleep in the car seat. “I don’t like the delay, but...I hate the idea of my father skipping town. Of escaping justice.”

  Reid tapped his thump on the steering wheel. “Are you sure?”

  She furrowed her brow and met his concerned stare. “His fever has broken, and the eardrum is draining. Dr. Shaw said he’d need to start antibiotics today, but it was too late to do more than that. A short delay won’t hurt him.” She sighed. “Go to the airstrip.”

  * * *

  As they bumped up the pothole-riddled road to the remote airstrip, Penelope spotted her father’s Lincoln Continental. “There,” she said, pointing it out to Reid.

  “All right.” He whipped his Range Rover into the parking lot and jammed it into Park. “You stay in the car. Let me handle this.”

  “He’s my father. I—”

  “All the more reason for you to stay put.”

  She started to argue, but knew someone had to stay in the car with Nicholas. And Reid was the ex-cop. He’d know better how to handle her fleeing father. Assuming they weren’t too late.

  She grabbed Reid’s sleeve as he shouldered open the driver’s door. When he faced her, she leaned across the center console and gave him a deep kiss. He returned the kiss, cupping her cheek in his palm before climbing out of the vehicle.

  “Be careful, Reid.”

  He jerked a tight nod. “When this is over,” he said, his expression grim, “we need to talk.”

  The car door slammed shut as he rushed off, sending a shudder of dread to her core. Not only was Reid headed toward a confrontation with her father, but the look in his eyes as he’d issued his parting comment boded ill. We need to talk. Had anything good ever followed that statement?

  While she agreed they had things to discuss, she feared the track his conversation would go down would be much different than hers.

  * * *

  Reid pulled his handgun from his waistband at the small of his back and ran around the side of the airport office to the hangar. He spotted Hugh at the side of a small twin-engine plane talking loudly to a man in coveralls and gesturing with his hands.

  The plane’s propellers were already spinning, and the engines idled with a rumbling purr.

  “Barrington!” Reid leveled his weapon at the lawyer who’d done so much to hurt Pen through the years. Coldness, distance...conspiring to murder Andrew. If he hadn’t once sworn an oath to uphold the law, he might have put a bullet in Hugh then and there. But murdering her father in cold blood was hardly the start to the life he hoped to build with Pen. Instead he worked to keep the calm professionalism he’d need to bring the man in.

  Hugh spun to face him, and Reid saw Pen’s father grimace. Reach in his coat pocket. Extract a gun.

  Reid stopped in his tracks, holding his weapon still poised toward Hugh with one hand and raising his other hand palm out. “Easy, man. No one has to die today.”

  “I shot Fowler. Don’t think I won’t shoot you if I have to!” Hugh shouted.

  The man in the coveralls scuttled away, pulling out a phone as he hurried to safety.

  Reid sidestepped behind a pickup truck parked on the tarmac for protection in case Hugh opened fire.

  “Fowler survived.” At least he hoped his half brother was still alive. “If you surrender now, maybe you can still work out a plea. But if you kill me, my family will see you put away for life.”

  Hugh shook his head, and Reid could see him perspiring, despite the December chill. “I can’t go to jail. I won’t. I’m getting in that plane and getting out of here. Don’t try to stop me!”

  “Too much has happened, Hugh,” Reid said evenly, despite the fury that churned inside him. “I can’t let you walk away.”

  “I didn’t kill Eldridge! I swear to you I don’t know where he is!” A tenor of panic and desperation filled Barrington’s voice.

  “I know that. I found Eldridge today. Alive. He’s been living in downtown Dallas the whole time.”

  Hugh stiffened. “He what?”

  “It was a ploy to see who in the family he could trust. To see Whitney’s true colors. And to root out any traitors in his inner circle.” Reid paused, watching Barrington’s body wilt, though the lawyer still held the gun aimed with a trembling hand.

  “Did you tell him...what you found in my office?”

  Reid drew a slow breath. “Yes.”

  Hugh’s jaw tightened. “I wanted only what I’d earned. I helped make your father what he became. I saved his ass over and again. I deserved my fair share of his company!”

  Reid wasn’t going to haggle the right and wrong of what Hugh had done, but he did need one point clarified. For closure. “And Andrew? Did you put the potassium in his insulin vial?”

  Hugh hiked up his chin and his face grew florid. “Yes, damn it! I knew he was trying to build a case against me. I didn’t mean for you to be the one who gave him the fatal dose. I thought he’d do it to himself one day. But even that was a last-ditch effort, when framing him for stealing drugs from the evidence room didn’t get him to back off. I told him I’d clear his name if he’d abandon his witch hunt against me, but he refused.”

  “Wait...you framed him for taking the stolen evidence? I thought he—” Reid’s gut pitched. Andrew was innocent. He’d never been a crooked cop. Andrew had tried to defend his honor and reputation when they’d argued that last morning, but all Reid had seen was the circumstantial evidence...

  Hugh took a backward step toward the steps of the small plane, and Reid yanked himself from his reflection. “Hugh, stop!”

  “No! I’m leaving. I’d die in prison. I refuse to suffer the humiliation of a trial and a jail cell and...”

  Reid darted from behind the truck to the door of the hangar, staying behind the wall, but nearer to Hugh. He could almost reach him. Could almost dash out and tackle him during a distraction... “Barrington, I will shoot you to keep you from getting on that plane. Don’t put me in that position. I love Penelope, and I don’t want to be responsible for shooting her father.”

  That made him stop. He regarded Reid with a sadness in his eyes. “Penelope.” He heaved a deep sigh. “She hates me. She’d be better off without me.”

  “You’ve hurt her. You ignored her for years. Her and her mother. Then you took Andrew from her. Can you blame her for being angry?”

  “No.” Hugh’s gun arm faltered, his hand drooping, and his gaze grew bleary, unfocused. “You...you’ll take care of her? And the boy?”

  Reid narrowed his gaze, his heart thundering. “If she’ll have me, I... I want to marry her. I want to be Nicholas’s father.”

  Hugh took another step backward toward the plane. “Yes, you do that.”

  Reid tightened his grip on his weapon, his finger curled around the trigger. “Now, you put gun down and step away from it.”

  Hugh scoffed. “No, Reid. I told you I can’t go to jail. I won’t...”

  Then Barrington raised the gun to his own chin...and fired.

  Chapter 21

  The next day, Penelope stood in the door to Andrew’s man cave/office and stared numbly at the half-packed boxes she’d abandoned close to three weeks earlier. Before...

  She choked back tears thinking of all that had changed in those weeks, all the ways she’d lost her father. First when she’d learned of his crimes, then when she’d learned of her adoption and finally when she’d learned of his death.

  With a deep breath to steel herself, she walked in and sat behind Andrew’s desk. Lucky was curled up asleep in one of the boxes, and
the evidence of the kitten’s last escapade, a scattered and partially shredded stack of magazines lay next to the box.

  Penelope swept her gaze around the rest of the clutter. Finishing the cleanup of Andrew’s things would keep her busy, her hands occupied if not her mind. She grieved the loss of Hugh Barrington, but in a much different way than she’d have imagined. She mourned the loss of what he could have been. The relationship they’d never repair, the brilliant career he’d ruined for greed, the potential he’d squandered on jealousy. Her chest ached with a hollowness she knew might never be whole again. A gaping wound of disappointment and unfinished business.

  Reid Colton was another case of unfinished business. She hadn’t seen much of Reid in the last twenty-four hours. After her father killed himself, Reid had stayed to work with the police while she took Nicholas to the doctor. When she’d heard the gunshot from the Range Rover, her heart had stilled, fearing Reid had been the one killed. Even now, thinking back on that moment, her insides seesawed and bile collected in her throat.

  A deputy from the sheriff’s department had stopped by to quiz her about all of the events of the past several days, starting with the day she’d found Andrew’s cubbyhole in the wall. The day she and Reid had launched their investigation of her father, been shot at, and gone into hiding at Reid’s lake house. The day her feelings for Reid Colton had turned the corner from bitterness to gratitude. The beginning of her journey to falling in love with him.

  But where would that road lead?

  We need to talk. That conversation still hadn’t happened. He’d been busy with police matters, crime scenes, his family’s reactions to the news of Hugh’s death...while she’d been busy with Nicholas. Already, only three doses into his antibiotic, her boy was clearly feeling better. She had to keep a sterile earplug in his ear for a few more days, a challenge with a toddler, but Nicholas would make a full recovery.

  And wasn’t that just the story of their lives? Reid, the skilled crime fighter, the protector and defender, the billionaire playboy with the large blended family to contend with. Her, the single mother, whose sole focus was her son. They were so different. They’d always been different. Why did she think they could possibly make a life together work?