by Addison Fox
“I think we’d have known if my mother stole a baby.”
The words were pointed fact, but Hawk didn’t miss the thread of understanding beneath them. Nor did he miss the light quaver in her voice that ensured whatever he said next wasn’t going to be a complete surprise.
“You’re the baby, Ms. Colton. Your mother is Annalise Krupid.”
* * *
“I’m what?”
Claudia had seen her mother pull a fainting spell several times throughout her life. Always dramatic, it was an act sure to bring several people running toward the delicate-boned woman with the features of an angel. She’d marveled at each occurrence, always surprised by the effectiveness of her mother’s show.
And up until now, she’d never had the urge to do the same.
But if there was ever a time to get a case of the vapors, this would have to be it.
“If my suspicions are correct, you’re Annalise Krupid’s daughter, Ms. Colton.”
“That’s impossible.”
Was it impossible? The question whispered over her senses, even as she caught sight of herself in the framed mirror that took up space behind the checkout counter. She was a big woman—her five-foot-ten frame and solid bone structure at decided odds with the delicate frame of her mother.
Claudia loved her body, but that hadn’t come easy. She’d spent far too many of her teenage years comparing herself to her mother’s small, willowy frame. A frame that good, old-fashioned biology had embedded in the genes of her sisters, Leonor and Jade. Claudia had always been the outlier. And it hadn’t been until she’d discovered fashion, and all the ways to find clothes and makeup, shoes and accessories to highlight every body type, that she’d come to love who she was.
No, she’d never be a waif like her sisters. But she could strut herself with the best of them and she had come to adore the way clothing clung to her hips and rear like a lover’s caress.
It had been at the heart of her focus for Honeysuckle Road and the core sensibility of her designs while living in New York. Every woman was beautiful. True fashion and all its artistry was about making every woman shine.
“Is it really impossible, Ms. Colton?”
The tantalizing belief that she might be someone else—that all the times growing up she’d questioned if she fit into her family might have been for a reason—were thoughts she needed to shut down.
She was a Colton. She’d been one for twenty-six years and in a matter of moments she was ready to throw that all away?
“Of course it is. I’ve lived here my whole life. I have a family—brothers and sisters—and—” She broke off, suddenly aware those things had very little bearing on how she came to actually be a Colton.
“Look, Mr. Huntley, it’s just not possible. For all my mother was, or is,” she quickly corrected herself, “she’s not a kidnapper of infants. Besides, why kidnap one to then raise it on your own? My mother had four children before me and never had a problem carrying a baby to term.”
“Maybe she saw something in you?”
“Another mouth to feed?”
“She’s a wealthy woman,” Hawk shot back, smooth and easy. “I hardly think that would have been a deterrent, do you?”
Nothing was a deterrent to Livia Colton when the woman set her mind on something. Claudia had seen that enough times in her life to know it as fact. More the point, she’d always sensed her mother had led multiple lives, anyway. There was the mother who raised them all, rarely present. On the occasions when she had been around, she’d exhibited a showy, over-the-top affection for her children.
Then there was the Livia Colton who’d contributed so much to Shadow Creek, from building a hospital to running the annual Christmas benefit for the widows and orphans fund, to even ensuring they had top-notch Little League ball fields. She’d set herself up well with the town leaders, and whether it was from a sense of benevolence or an attempt to buy off everyone in close proximity, it hadn’t changed the outcome.
Her mother had made the town a better place.
And then there was the third Livia. The one who’d helped run an enormous crime ring, who managed several nodes on the central Texas drug trade and who had no compunction about killing to get what she wanted.
Her brother Knox had already lived with that reality earlier this year when an associate of her mother’s kidnapped his son. Livia had returned from hiding to kill the man, saving her grandson. While Claudia had wanted to ascribe pure motives to Livia’s actions, Knox had sworn saving his son was a side benefit to killing the man.
Was it possible that Livia—the one who took whatever she wanted without remorse—had stolen a baby, too?
Claudia cast a glance toward the back of the store. While she trusted Evelyn implicitly and knew she’d tell her most everything later, it felt wrong, somehow, to be discussing this there, with an audience. Huntley’s accusations against her mother had far-reaching implications and at the end of the day, this was a family matter.
“Perhaps we can take this up somewhere else over a cup of coffee? You seem well-intentioned, but I hardly think this the right venue for a serious conversation. Especially when foot traffic picks up later this morning.”
She’d gotten a new shipment in the day before and she and Evelyn had spent several hours the prior evening setting up the new stock. They’d already braced themselves for a busy day when the suddenly hungry-for-fashion women of Shadow Creek wended their way into Honeysuckle Road.
A hot man with electric-blue eyes would only add to the excitement. It would also earn her a spot on the week’s hottest gossip list.
“I’m happy to discuss this somewhere else.”
“Let’s go, then. I have an errand I need to run a few towns over in Whisperwood. There’s a coffeehouse on their main street that makes a mean latte.”
“Let’s go.”
He nodded, his smile easy and simple. The small dents of his dimples were contagious and Claudia found herself smiling back before she could check herself. How she’d missed this. That simple connection with a man, fraught with nothing more than basic appreciation and a subtle sense of flirtation.
Ben had taken that from her. He’d second-guessed every kind word she said to someone of the opposite sex, whether it was a waiter, the postman or the old gentleman who’d lived in the apartment two floors above her. No one had been off-limits and over time she’d lost that sense of basic kindness and easy conversation with others.
He’d taken it all away and replaced it with fear and domination and she was so grateful she’d gotten away.
“Let me just tell Evelyn I’m running out.”
“I’ll wait by the door.”
Claudia hesitated a moment as Hawk drifted through the store, his hands by his sides as he navigated through the circular racks of clothing. A lean man, he was still big and there were several places where he turned sideways to avoid brushing along the clothes.
That simple show of respect—for her work and her store—went a long way toward calming the nerves that leaped in her stomach.
But it did nothing to drown out the dread of having one more mess, courtesy of Livia Colton, land on her front doorstep.
* * *
The SUV rumbled to life beneath them, the gentle purr of its engine humming as Claudia settled herself in the driver’s seat. Hawk had quickly acquiesced to her desire to drive and had held the door for her before moving around to the passenger side.
Evelyn had been concerned when Claudia had let her know she was making a quick trip to Whisperwood but hadn’t tried to stop her. Claudia suspected the fact Evelyn had all of the Colton men on speed dial, in addition to Mac, was what kept her from making too big a fuss. Claudia also made a point of leaving Hawk’s card behind so Evelyn had a record of who she’d gone off with.
Even as she qu
estioned herself, Claudia couldn’t deny just how safe she felt in his presence. But it had been impulse that had her offering to drive when he’d headed out of Honeysuckle Road and beelined for his car to follow behind her. She knew she needed to be careful, but nothing about Hawk set off alarms.
Besides, she was curious about him. And while he’d had the element of surprise on his side, she gained significant home court advantage being in her car with her as driver. So she’d offered to drive, pleased when he’d accepted.
The man was a mystery—tall and lean, stoic and enigmatic—yet for all that he wasn’t threatening. She suspected he could be if he tried hard enough, but so far nothing had set off her flight response. In fact, if she were honest, all that enigmatic masculinity had her the tiniest bit captivated.
Okay, a lot captivated.
The ordeal with Ben, followed by the move, had made her swear off men for the better part of the past year. When she then added on the additional year they’d been dating, she hadn’t been actively on the market for quite a while. It was heady to feel that small spark of awareness; to look over and see a man filling her passenger seat, his long, strong fingers working the buckle of his seat belt.
Claudia waved at Evelyn where she stood inside the back doorway of the shop, her lips set in a firm line.
“She seems to have lost her fondness for me.”
“Excuse me?” Claudia put the car into gear, navigating the small lot behind the store she and Evelyn used for parking and where her deliveries came in.
“Evelyn liked me when I walked in. I think she’s changed her mind.”
“The jury’s still out on you, but I’m not worried you’re going to hurt me.” She decided to push a bit. “I’m not wrong about that, am I?”
“Of course not!” The answer flew back across the car with all the force of a rocket. “I may not be in law enforcement, but I collaborate in tandem with them for my work. I’m one of the good guys.”
She couldn’t hold back the small smile. “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, let’s hear more about my supposed past. While I’ll admit it’s an enticing thought to imagine myself not actually Livia’s daughter, I left those fantasies behind when I grew up. The imagined princess just waiting until the time is right to receive her title or the Little Orphan Annie, hanging on until her real parents can come back to find her. Both were a kid’s fantasy, nothing more.”
“You’re awfully easy about this.” His voice was low, whispering between them like smoke.
Was that a small shot of remorse in his tone?
Or was it what she wanted to hear as she tried to process the feminine awareness of him that wasn’t fading? She wanted to ignore the sensual tug but couldn’t quite hold back the subtle awareness that had her nerves on edge.
Delicious nerves, she admitted to herself before coming to a stop at the four-way that led out of town. Willing away the quick flash of desire, she turned fully to face him. “I’ve had a lot of years to come to terms with my mother and her behavior. It’s a hard thing, to think so ill of the woman who raised you, but it doesn’t make the feelings any less true. My mother hurt a lot of people.”
“It’s different, Claudia, when the person she hurt was you.”
“That’s assuming you’re right about all this.”
“I am right.”
His words hung there, stubborn and considerably more solid than whispers of smoke. Hawk Huntley wasn’t a man who liked to be wrong. Most men didn’t, and she had three brothers and a surrogate father who proved that fact each and every day.
But she sensed Hawk’s determination came from somewhere else. That it ran far deeper than stubborn male pride or a desire to be right.
“Okay, then. Convince me. Give me all your reasons why.”
“It all started with your mother’s recent escape from prison.”
The welcome sign for Shadow Creek faded from her rearview mirror as Claudia fought the grimace that threatened at Hawk’s comment. “As good a place to start as any, I suppose.”
“It’s put her back in the spotlight. I remember her case a decade ago—few who lived in Texas at the time have forgotten it—but like anything else in the 24/7 news cycle, life moves on.”
It had moved on. Wasn’t that why she’d gone to New York in the first place? To follow a dream, yes, but it had been something more.
It was a chance to start fresh. New. Unnoticed. An opportunity to start out as a nobody. In the competitive world of fashion, no one cared who you were, they just cared where you were going.
And she’d been going places.
Places that were hell and gone away from Shadow Creek, Texas.
Funny how she’d found her way back anyway.
The thought had dogged her for the past few months. She knew why she was there. Her family needed her. More, she belonged there. But she still hadn’t figured out how the one place on earth she’d believed she’d never return to had been the first place she’d run.
Home?
Or was it something more?
Her entire life people had whispered secrets about her mother. For a long time she’d managed to shut them out, simply pretending they didn’t exist. Then her world had crumbled with Ben’s increasingly menacing behavior and her brother Knox had dealt with the kidnapping of his son.
All of it had combined to pull her home.
“Your mother’s always been big news in Texas—the entire Colton family is—but it was when I saw the blog article about her that I sensed a connection.”
“What blog article? What connection?”
“The Everything’s Blogger in Texas article that came out a few months ago.”
Claudia’s mouth soured at the mention. That article had nearly destroyed her sister Leonor. The betrayal—at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, who’d run to the press with every detail she’d ever shared—had made its way on to one of the biggest gossip blogs in Texas. Although the pain of the blog had oddly been the pathway for Leonor to find her fiancé, Joshua, the article had done sufficient damage to their family.
Worse, it had destroyed Leonor’s self-confidence and sense of security.
“You mean the website that took private information obtained from my sister and broadcast it like it was some sort of fluffy infusion of cotton candy.”
Hawk nodded. “That’s the one.”
“Just wanted to make sure.”
“Even if their ethics should be questioned to the hills and back, it didn’t diminish the information. Or the connection to the Krupid family.”
Claudia came to another four-way stop. The sign for Whisperwood indicated downtown was two miles away. “And this family thinks my mother is involved?”
“The Krupids think nothing other than the fact that their pregnant daughter went missing nearly twenty-seven years ago. I’ve not yet shared this lead as I don’t want to get their hopes up.”
There it was again. That subtle thread of remorse that was layered beneath his words. She genuinely believed he didn’t want to hurt that family.
And why did that streak of compassion strike her as so important? Deeply important, somehow.
“So walk me through this connection.”
“The Krupids tried to leave Russia for many years. During that process, their teenage daughter, Annalise, became familiar with a shady group who’d offered to spirit them out through less legal means, pretending she was a mail-order bride. She’d encouraged her parents to consider the offer, but they were wise to the scam and told her to ignore the vague promises.”
“So how did she end up here?”
“Based on the timing it looks like she got pregnant during that same time and the opportunity to come to the US through shady means suddenly seemed like a way out.”
Despite her skepticism, Claudia could see
it. A young woman scared at being discovered, desperate to take the promise of a new life far away. Hadn’t she sought out the same by going to New York? Sure, her reasons were different, but she understood the desire to leave.
To escape.
“Did her parents know she was pregnant?”
“Her mother suspected, but it wasn’t until the days after Annalise vanished that her boyfriend came around looking for her. He shared the news of her pregnancy.”
“It’s a sad story, but I still don’t see what it has to do with my mother. Or me, for that matter.”
“The trail for Annalise goes cold after she was spirited out of Russia and into Mexico. She was one of your mother’s.”
“How’s that even possible?” Although she had no doubt he believed what he said, Claudia knew there were holes in Hawk’s timeline. “My mother was convicted of prostitution here in the States.”
“But she had to have a pipeline of women.”
“A pipeline?” The tantalizing whisper that she might not actually be Livia Colton’s daughter faded at the reality of what Hawk suggested.
“One of your mother’s lines of business was human trafficking. It provided her ready supply of prostitutes. And her ring is known to have associated with the mail-order bride scammers, among others.”
“And you think this girl was one of hers?”
“Yes.”
“And you think she was in the early stages of pregnancy when she was enslaved into service to my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I can wrap my head around all of this, how would my mother steal her baby? Why would she even bother?”
“That’s for your mother to know.”
Claudia pulled into the parking lot of the small coffee shop that was their destination. While she couldn’t deny the sincerity of his story, or even the possibility that this young woman had come into her mother’s orbit, the leap to actually being this woman’s child was still shockingly large.
“Annalise gave birth twenty-six years ago. You’re twenty-six, aren’t you?”
