by Addison Fox
Claudia heard the light sniffle and hugged her sister-in-law a bit tighter before pulling back. “Things have a wonderful way of working out.”
“They do, don’t they?”
Before she could reply, Leonor and Maggie came into the kitchen, both arguing about a call in the game. “The shortstop has had his head so far up his butt it’s amazing we’re even still in this.”
Claudia went to Maggie first, giving her a hug. “Salty language for a bride and a mother-to-be. I like it.”
Maggie hugged as tightly as Allison before pulling back and laying a protective hand over her belly. “Much as I want to be a good role model, I don’t think there’s any motherhood gene that’ll knock out my loathing for a bad sports call.”
“Note to self,” Leonor added before snagging her own hug, “buy the baby some tiny earmuffs.”
“Already on my list,” Allison added and grabbed some pot holders on the stove. “Also on my list, digging into this lasagna.”
“It needs to cool off.” Leonor pulled out a seat for Maggie, then gestured to another one for Claudia. “Which gives us enough time to bug little sister here about her new, sexy-as-sin boyfriend.”
“Hey!” Claudia protested as Leonor shoved her into a seat. “I thought you were madly in love with Joshua.”
“I am madly in love with Joshua. I also still have a working pair of eyes. The man sitting in Mac’s living room is gorgeous. He’s also kind, sweet and a natural with Cody. So spill.”
Spill that I met him yesterday? Or that I might not really be your sister? Or that I’m beginning to think he’s the best thing to ever walk into my life?
Claudia discarded each and every question, unwilling to dwell too hard on any of them.
Or the implications of her answers.
“He’s a great guy.”
Maggie reached for a carrot on the table and smothered it in a heap of spinach dip. “I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”
“It’s new.”
“And there is that delicious feeling when it’s new. Like you want to shout it from the rooftops but you also don’t want to risk spoiling it by telling everyone.” Leonor sighed. “I love that part.”
Maggie waved her half-eaten carrot at her. “You love all the parts.”
“I do.” Leonor got up to poke at the lasagna. “I really do.”
Allison turned from the stove, giving Leonor room to poke at dinner. “So, Claudia. Which parts have you gotten to?”
“Allison!” Leonor swatted at her arm with a pot holder which their sister-in-law neatly sidestepped.
“I’m the objective outsider, able to ask the questions everyone else is dying to know.”
Leonor rolled her eyes from behind Allison’s back. “You’re nosy and you know it.”
Claudia decided it was time to step in before the collective estrogen in the kitchen had her walking down the aisle to meet her fake boyfriend. “I’m going to agree with Leonor and say that things are still new and fun and I’m not ready to share all the details. I will also say that he’s a wonderful man and I’m happy he’s here tonight to meet everyone.”
“Cop-out. But fair.” Maggie leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “We’ve all been there. Recently, too.”
They had all been there recently. It was what made it so hard to sit there and lie to all of them. But how much worse would it be to tell them the real reason Hawk was in her life?
That she wasn’t really their sister. That she was, instead, the child of just one more victim of Livia Colton.
The happy, buoyant spirit that had carried her into the kitchen and into the arms of her family dimmed, replaced with the sorry reality of what her life might become.
A lie.
One that grew bigger by the moment.
* * *
Hawk filed into the kitchen with Mac, his son, Thorne, and Claudia’s brother Knox. His earlier meeting with Knox at the liquor store had given them a shared bond to talk about and they’d taken a ribbing from Leonor’s fiancé, ex–FBI agent Joshua Howard, about their ineptitude in selecting a cabernet over a merlot. Hawk was familiar with Howard by reputation only and the guy was solid. He was also building his own private security firm and it gave them a ready area of discussion.
They’d spent a good hour getting acquainted over baseball, shared case stories and a dancing Cody, whose excitement about the horse was infectious.
Which made the wall of anxiety wrapped around Claudia that much more jarring the moment he cleared the entryway.
“Hey there.” He waited until everyone had lined up to make their plates at the kitchen counter to carry into the dining room before he moved in behind her. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” She reached for two plates, handing him one with a bright smile painted on her face that fooled no one. “Nothing’s wrong.”
He took the plate, quickly taking her hand before she could snatch it back. “What’s really wrong? I can tell you’re upset.”
“Come on, Hawk. It’s nothing. I mean it.”
He was about to drop it when she pulled her hand away and put her plate on the counter, then headed for the front door. The kitchen had cleared, with only Joshua and Knox still there fixing their plates, and he was able to escape with minimal fuss or notice from the men as he followed her.
The evening sun was still high as he sat beside her on the big bench swing that hung from the ceiling of Mac’s wide front porch. Sounds from inside were dim but he could hear the laughter as it filtered through the windows.
“Did something happen before? In the kitchen?” he asked.
“Not really.”
She’d slipped out of her heels and tucked her legs up beneath her on the swing. Her position gave him the opportunity to put them in motion and he slowly pushed them back and forth with his foot. “Then what didn’t happen?”
“It’s silly.”
Hawk kept up the steady back and forth of the swing. “It’s not if it upset you.”
“That’s just the problem. I have no reason to be upset. It’s just—” She exhaled a hard breath before beginning once more. “The girls were asking me about you. And it got silly, the way that women do.”
“What way?”
“We tease and poke a bit about a new guy. And then we give off a whole lot of innuendo. At first it was okay. I mean, they think we’re dating and they’re excited for me.” She darted a glance at him. “For us. But after a while it just felt like I was lying to them.”
“Lying about what?”
“About being a Colton. About being your girlfriend. About faking my way through the day when all I really want to do is bury my head under the covers and come out once they’ve caught Livia.”
“There’s a lot in there. I’m going to take it point by point.” When she only stared off into the distance, he took her silence for acceptance and continued on. “First, you are a Colton.”
That was enough to pull her attention away from the head of cattle that grazed in Mac’s western field. “How can you say that? I’m likely Annalise Krupid’s daughter, which makes me very much not a Colton.”
“Biology can’t change who you are, Claudia. If anything, it will add to your life because Annalise’s parents are anxious to be reunited with their granddaughter, but it won’t change the bonds you have with your siblings. With their spouses. With Mac or Cody, either. You don’t stop being their sister. You don’t stop being Cody’s aunt Claudia. And you certainly don’t stop being the daughter Mac loves deeply, just because of something Livia Colton did over a quarter century ago.”
“I don’t want to lie, but it feels pointless to say anything until we know.”
“I agree. So does Mac.”
“And even though I know that, I don’t want t
o feel like I’m hiding it.”
She wasn’t hiding anything—she was dealing with it—but there seemed to be no convincing her of that.
“But if it’s true—” She stilled, that gray gaze drifting back toward the field. “If it’s true, then I need to decide how to tell them. And a week before Thorne and Maggie get married is not the time or the place.”
“So stop beating yourself up over it. You’re not deliberately lying. You’re waiting to get more information on a situation you’re still processing yourself.”
“Okay.” She brushed a few strands of silky blond hair away before she turned to face him. “So I’m not lying about the DNA test, only omitting. I am lying about you.”
“How so?”
“You’re not my boyfriend, Hawk. Forty-eight hours ago we didn’t even know each other. Now I’m parading you around to meet my entire family.”
“For the record, I don’t parade.” When she didn’t smile at his lame joke, he kept on. “And you might not have known me, but I knew you. I knew you the first moment I saw your picture.”
“How can you say that? And how could you possibly know me from a photo?”
How did he explain it without sounding like an absolute nut job? Even as he questioned himself, he couldn’t stop the words that rushed into his throat.
“I know it doesn’t make sense, but I knew you, Claudia. It was that damned blog. I read the article. I scoured it for details of your mother and her actions, seeking a clue to Annalise’s disappearance. And then I saw you. Read about your background and your history as the daring Colton daughter who struck off for New York and I was captivated.”
How did he explain the way that photo had seemed to supercharge his emotions?
That it had brought him back to life.
Working cold cases had helped him deal with the pain of losing Jennifer, the hunt for answers for others a type of penance for the answers she’d never get. But none of them had affected him like the Krupid case.
None of them had felt personal.
His reasons for handling them had been personal, but the work—the research and interviews and effort—that had all been straight down the line investigative work.
Until Annalise.
Only the moment he’d seen Claudia’s image, the urgency to find answers—the sheer need that coursed through him every time he thought about the case—finally made sense.
He wanted answers for the Krupids but he wanted Claudia Colton for...himself?
“I got an alert on the article because of the references in it to sex trafficking, and I expected one more dismal walk through human depravity. And then I saw your photo and it woke something in me. And the more I looked into you and your background the more I wanted to know you. Your work. The way you’ve contributed to the fashion industry. Even in your short time back here in Shadow Creek, you’ve made an impact.”
He watched her face for any sign he was scaring the heck out of her, but all he saw was that continued bleakness, her eyes the color of an impending winter storm.
“You’ve made an impact on me.”
“But we didn’t know each other. A person isn’t a photograph. They’re flesh and blood, full of creativity and ideas and soul. A photo doesn’t have any of that.”
“Yours did.”
Again, he knew he veered dangerously close to weirdo territory, but it was the truth. And the more time he spent with her—the more time that flesh and blood and creative soul became tangibly real—he was hooked.
And utterly captivated.
“Before I completely embarrass myself, let’s take the last point.”
She arched one delicate eyebrow. “The one where Livia Colton is on the lam, out to do as much damage as she can for the first time in a decade.”
“That one.”
“She’s a problem, Hawk. Even today. I know you think Ben had something to do with that incident outside my shop, but I don’t know. The more I think about it and the more distance I get away from the shock of it all, it doesn’t smack of Ben.”
He fought the urge to growl at the mention of her douche-bag ex and instead listened to what she said. He’d spent enough of his life on investigative work to know instinct mattered. “Okay. Walk me through it, then. Why don’t you think it’s Ben?”
“I’ll admit, it’s one of the first places my head went. Ben found me. He’s here. But as I keep thinking about it, it seems less and less possible.”
“Because?”
“The rats, for one. That was a nasty heap of animals and there’s no way the man I know would get his hands dirty with that.”
“You don’t have to touch them to create that pile if you use tools.”
“Oh, come on, of course you do. A pile that neat? It’s gross. And it’s the sign of someone who’s gone really far around the bend. Ben was violent, but I used to be the one to kill spiders in his apartment.”
As arguments went, it had some merit. While he wouldn’t put any act past anyone, her thought process was fair.
“Is that all?”
“It’s also the way it happened. Whatever else he was, he was an in-your-face sort of abuser.” She laid a hand over his clenched fist. “I know those are harsh words, but hear me out.”
“Yeah. Right.”
The words were harsh—the image of the man laying a hand on her even worse—and he took comfort when her fingers slowly pried his open, her hand slipping into his.
“Ben was never secretive. Other than the fact that his behavior came on some months after we were dating and fully in the relationship, he was deliberate about it. I just feel that if it was really him today, he’d have made sure I knew it. Would have gleefully let me know he’d found me in Texas.”
“And you can’t think of anyone else who’d leave such a violent calling card?”
“None. Whoever was responsible ran off like the coward they are.”
“So who can it be?”
The heavy tread of boots on the edge of the porch stilled his feet, the swing coming to a halt at a deep voice saying, “That’s exactly what I’d like to know.”
* * *
“River!” Claudia flew off the still-quivering bench swing, her bare feet slapping on the porch as she ran to her brother. He’d only been back a few weeks, his return from the marines fraught with an air of danger and menace that hadn’t faded the longer he was home. In fact, it seemed to work the opposite way, eating at him as he tried to readjust to civilian life.
She knew he struggled with the loss of an eye and whatever hell had caused it, but other than the outward scars that marked the incident and grooved deep into his face, he refused to discuss it.
Heck, he was barely willing to acknowledge it.
Claudia knew it bothered Knox and Thorne, Mac, as well. She’d attempted to get them to open up about it and share their thoughts, but they’d blocked her with a wall of solidarity and stubborn male pride.
And silence.
Which had left her, Leonor and Jade to do their level best to prod and poke their brother, all to no avail.
His hug was extra tight before he pulled away, holding her at arm’s length. “You’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m talking about what happened today,” River said.
“About what that happened today?” Since the last couple days had included the arrival of Hawk Huntley, the news she might not be a Colton and the incident on her back driveway, she mentally figured she had a right to ask for clarification.
“A pile of rodents? One with a hole shot clean through it.”
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah, little sister. That.” River’s good eye darted from her face toward Hawk and back again. “Who’s this?”
Hawk had crossed the porch beh
ind her and now moved up to wrap an arm around her shoulders. She swallowed back the guilt and turned into him, placing her hand on his stomach. The move was more comfortable than it should be and she nearly snatched her hand back, but Hawk must have sensed her move because he captured her hand beneath his, holding her still.
“Hawk Huntley. I’d like you to meet my brother River Colton. River, my boyfriend, Hawk Huntley.”
“Your boyfriend?” River’s disbelief was palpable. The first genuine surprise she’d seen in him since his return, even as he extended his hand to shake.
“You have a problem with that?” she asked before she moved aside so the two men could shake hands.
“No.” Seeming to catch himself, he added, “Of course not.”
“He’s also my date to Maggie and Thorne’s wedding. Leonor thought it would be fun to have a family dinner tonight so we could all get to know each other before the wedding.”
“How...familial.”
“We are all Coltons.” The words slipped out of their own accord and Claudia fought the deep urge to wince.
Where had that come from?
Since she needed to cut bait while she was ahead, she gestured to the kitchen. “Leonor made her famous lasagna and Cody’s been dancing around with news. Let’s go back inside.”
“Sure.”
“And maybe you can skip the part about the incident at my shop.”
“Keep dreaming, little sister.” River’s chuckle was long and low. “Keep dreaming.”
Dreaming? Yeah, right. More like a nightmare.
But she kept the thought to herself as she headed back into the house to fix their plates. True to his word, they’d barely cleared the entrance to the dining room when River started in on the events of the day. “Claudia had an incident at the shop earlier.”
Knox attempted to speak first but it was Mac who stood, his quiet presence shutting them all up fast. “What sort of incident?”
Claudia set her plate on the table, meeting Mac’s direct gaze head-on before shooting a pointed stare at Cody. “It was really nothing.”
