The Colton Heir

by Colleen Thompson

  “Did I say something wrong?” he asked.

  Hope shook her head, then changed her mind and nodded. Because it was wrong, to let him and Amanda go on thinking she was innocent. “Not you. Me, if I’ve left anyone with the impression that I’m a purely blameless victim.”

  “I don’t follow. You turned your ex in when you found out, right? Divorced him and agreed to testify against him, at great personal risk to yourself—”

  “Not right away, I didn’t,” she admitted, wondering what it was about Dylan that made her want to talk. She’d heard he was an animal whisperer, that he connected with even the most troubled horses and cattle in a way others found mystifying. Did he have the same skill with people, or was she simply so desperate, after a year of isolation, that she was primed to spill her guts to the first attentive stranger she met?

  “I imagine it was tough making that decision,” he said carefully. “It must’ve been hell, giving up everyone you knew and loved, your home and your possessions.”

  “It wasn’t things, or even people, as much as I hated leaving my father and all my good friends that held me back. It was a dream.”

  “A dream?” he asked.

  She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. “You see, we’d been...trying for several years.”

  “Trying? You mean—for a child?”

  Her eyes squeezed closed, but there was no stopping the flood of memory. “For a baby, yes. I wanted...”

  Wanted. Such a tame word for the monstrous need that had taken root, only to give way to an increasing sense of desperation as she marked each monthly cycle as another failure. She’d blamed herself, though her testing had come back normal and her doctor had repeatedly reminded her that her husband was nearly twenty years her senior and had no children from his previous marriage, either. In his stiff-necked pride, Renzo had flatly refused to submit a sperm sample for analysis, no matter how she’d begged him. But whoever was to blame, it eventually grew impossible for her to watch mothers with their children, to attend one more friend’s baby shower, to shop for yet another gift—tiny, precious outfits that blurred with her own tears.

  She’d so hated being jealous, hated reducing her success or failure to her obsession with this one goal, which had been blown out of all proportion with the loss of her own mother. But no matter how she’d chided herself, she could think of little else.

  “That terrible day,” she confessed, “the day I showed up at Renzo’s office and heard his side of that awful phone call, I’d just taken a home pregnancy test—I swear I should’ve bought those things by the case, I’d used so many. But that morning, that one time, it was positive. I couldn’t believe it was finally happening for us.”

  Dylan stared at her, looking as stricken as she felt, remembering all the doomed dreams dancing through her head.

  “I was so excited, I was beside myself. I couldn’t wait to tell him,” she went on. “So even though I knew how much he hated interruptions while he was on the phone, I cracked open the door, hoping to catch his attention. But his back was to me, and he sounded so angry.... Still, when I heard him order someone to ‘take out’ the man I knew was my husband’s business rival, I convinced myself I must have misunderstood.”

  “You were in shock,” he said, “blindsided.”

  “I deliberately refused to acknowledge the truth. Now when I look back, I realize there were other signs, so many clues about the nature of the family business. I just didn’t want to see them. Didn’t want to believe the man I loved didn’t exist.”

  Dylan blinked at her, his expression contemplative. “Sometimes, it’s tough, wrapping your head around the one thing that changes everything.”

  “But people died because I couldn’t—not only the man Renzo wanted dead, but his wife, too,” she blurted. “That’s what finally snapped me out of it, when I heard about their ‘accident,’ their two little ones, both orphaned—I could’ve stopped it if only I’d gone to the Feds right away.”

  “I’m sure you would have, if you’d known for certain. You’re a good person...Aurora. Anyone can see it.”

  She answered with a shake of her head. “Please don’t call me that. And don’t make excuses for what I did. It was murder, nothing less.”

  “You’re no killer. You were just scared.”

  “Killer, coward, fool—one’s as awful as the other. I still can’t believe I was so stupid that I would pretend away the words I’d heard with my own ears.”

  “You were listening with your heart, that’s all. Because you loved your husband.”

  “Loved the idea of him maybe. I never knew the real man.”

  A silence stretched between them, like the fragile new ice of a first frost. Too delicate to support much weight, but too solid to deny.

  “You said—you said you were pregnant,” he asked quietly. “What happened? Where’s the— Did you have the—”

  “Please,” she said, her voice breaking. “Let’s talk about the weather, Dylan, or you can tell me about what you do with the cows and horses. Or maybe, do you follow sports? What do you think about the Giants—or whatever team you watch—this season?”

  The raspiness of her voice gave way to a squeak, but it didn’t matter—nothing mattered except finding some way to change the subject. Because having come this far, opened herself up to more of the truth than she had ever before admitted, she couldn’t lie to him now.

  But she knew instinctively that sharing the remainder of her story would shatter her completely. And she couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t stop until she’d made sure her ex-husband’s ruthlessness would never break another heart....

  Even if the effort stopped hers in the end.

  * * *

  In a single glance, Dylan read the light flush in her face, the gleam of moisture in her eyes. Whatever had happened to Hope, and to the child she had so desperately wanted, she couldn’t speak of it now....

  And anyway, he warned himself, it’s none of your damned business. But try as he might not to care about this woman, the sight of her bandaged forehead and her bruised neck, along with the emotion in her still-raw voice, all conspired against him.

  “If you’d rather not,” he told her, “we don’t have to talk at all.”

  It didn’t take empathic abilities to hear her exhalation or see the tension flowing from her body when she nodded. Still, he felt her pain, her grief and her fear as keenly as he did his own.

  And heaven help him if he didn’t want to find a way to ease it, want it as badly as he’d ever wanted anything, no matter that she still loved the bastard who had hurt her. No matter that, in the end, a woman born to the life she’d known would only break his heart.

  “I think it’s safe to go,” he said before chancing to look up at the rearview mirror. There, he saw a flash of red that drove every other thought from his mind.

  “Get down, now,” he said, pulling Hope’s revolver from his pocket and giving her a light shove to push her down.

  “Who is it?” came her frightened voice as she ducked beneath the level of the dashboard.

  Too focused on the approaching SUV to respond, Dylan cranked down the driver’s-side window. Gravel crunched beneath the tires of the shiny new Land Rover as it stopped beside them and a tinted window lowered with a soft, electric hum.

  “Everything okay there?” Trip Lowden asked, his eyes hidden by dark glasses. “That piece of junk finally break down on you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Dylan answered, irritated as ever that this spoiled man-child, who traded in his ride for a new car every year on Jethro’s dime, would disparage the perfectly serviceable vehicle he’d worked so hard to buy in cash. “Just stopped to take a call.”

  “Really? ’Cause I heard that you were taking Hope Woods to the bus station. Did I hear wrong? ’Cause I wanted to check on her, make sure she’s okay. You know how concerned I’ve been about her.”

  Whatever Trip had wanted with Hope these past few days, it was inconceivable to think
he only meant to offer his sympathies. Just as Dylan was about to tell him an old friend of hers had shown up earlier to give her a ride, she popped up beside him, her cheeks flaming.

  “I’m right here,” she said. “There’s no need to worry about me, Mr. Lowden.”

  “Whoa.” From inside the gleaming red SUV, Trip leered. “And here I thought you were a lesbian. Sorry if I, um...interrupted.”

  As his passenger-side window closed, he saluted Dylan and drove off smirking.

  “Ugh.” Hope sounded as disgusted as she did embarrassed. “He actually thinks that I was down there—that we were...”

  Dylan couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “He thought you were a lesbian? What’s up with that?”

  She shot him a withering look, clearly furious that he would find the situation funny. “He’s just an idiot, that’s all, and you know as well as I do, he’ll never keep his mouth shut. I don’t want people thinking...”

  Sobering, he promised, “I’ll tell them you were resting, that’s all. You were nearly killed just hours ago, for crying out loud.”

  She shook her head and shot him a look. “Yeah, right. Like anybody’ll believe the truth when they can have a nice, hot helping of nasty gossip instead.”

  He put the truck in gear and pulled back onto the road. “Listen, Hope, I know he’s been harassing you. It’s why you told him you like women, right?”

  “I didn’t! All I wanted was for him to stop bugging me while I was working.”

  “Don’t you worry about him anymore. I’ll be more than happy to have a talk with Trip. Or more, if that’s what it takes to make him lay off.” Dylan almost hoped the jerk would give him an excuse to deck him, even if it cost his job.

  “Forget about him. He’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” Dylan said, gesturing toward Trip’s flashing brake lights as he turned right far ahead. “But that’s the road toward Cheyenne he took, where I’m guessing he’ll just so happen to show up at the bus station looking for you. Probably plans to offer you a chance to ride in style,” Dylan added with a grimace.

  She shuddered visibly. “Sounds exactly like something that piece of slime would do. Only he’d be thinking of ways I could repay his ‘kindness’ before we made it a half mile down the road.”

  “Fortunately—” Dylan slowed, then waited until Trip’s vehicle was well out of sight before driving past the turnoff “—we’re not heading anywhere near Cheyenne. If anybody asks about it later, I’ll say they must’ve misunderstood. I dropped you off at the bus station in Dead, the closest town.”

  “Good,” she said before adding, “I still can’t believe I came to a place called Dead for my own safety. What a gruesome name.”

  Glad that she had hit upon a safer topic of conversation, he said, “Pretty sure it wasn’t chosen for its tourist appeal.”

  “Why was it, then? Do you know?”

  “Local legend has it that one of the original ranchers in this area was found floating facedown and full of arrows in what came to be called Dead River—that’s what the ranch is named for.”

  “Tough history.”

  “It’s a tough land, but rumor has it, those arrows were all for show, shot through him as a distraction after the bullet that struck him down.”

  “Whose bullet?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Some say it was a neighboring rancher whose pretty wife was receiving overnight visits whenever he went out of town on business. Others figure it was a man he’d crossed in business or maybe even one of his own sons, who were tired of waiting to inherit.”

  She shook her head. “People never really change, do they? Whether you’re looking in the history books or all around you, they’re sneaky and self-centered.”

  “Not all of them, Hope.”

  “You’re right, of course,” she answered. “I wouldn’t want you to think for a moment I don’t appreciate Amanda, and you, too, especially considering everything else you have going on in your life right now.”

  “There’s no need to thank me. That’s not what I was after.”

  “Then what is it, Dylan?” she asked. “Why’d you really bring me?”

  He thought for a minute before pointing out some elk ahead off in the distance. A herd of about thirty, grazing on a hillside beneath a crisp, blue sky.

  “Beautiful,” she murmured, her voice filled with awe.

  In answer to her question, he admitted, “Maybe I brought you along for company. It’s going to be a tough thing for me, talking to a woman who knew my mom when she was young. Who maybe knew me, too, back before I was me, if it really turns out I’m...him. You know, Cole Colton.”

  Around Hope, it was easier admitting his fears, maybe because she understood how it took a person time to admit he’d been living a lie for the better part of his life. Because she understood how high the cost was of giving up cherished illusion.

  “I know, Dylan,” she said, reaching out to cover his free hand with hers.

  As he turned his wrist to squeeze her fingers, he made out the huge bull elk raising his shaggy head, his rack silhouetted against the clearing sky. Watching over his herd, even if it put him in a hunter’s sights...

  Watching over those his instincts claimed.

  Chapter 11

  As the truck bounced over a rut sometime later, Hope jerked fully awake, tensing with the memory of the attack that began her day.

  “Sorry about that last pothole,” Dylan told her, his familiar voice easing the knot of nerves in her throat. “I’m afraid the bumps are part of these back roads.”

  She looked around, taking in the hills on either side of them, clothed in tawny grasses with a few bare trees here and there. In the distance, a purplish ridge of mountains held up an endless sky, but nowhere beneath them did she spot a single sign of human habitation: not a car or house or building, not even a fence or power line.

  The last of her tension gusted away on an exhalation. Out here, there was no need to fear lurking assassins or murderous masterminds. With Dylan, she could let down her hair as well as her guard, could let go of the strain of pretending she was someone she was not.

  “How’s the head?” he asked.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine. Sorry if I haven’t been very good company these last few minutes.”

  He shot her an easy grin. “These last few hours, you mean, but it’s okay. We still have plenty more to go.”

  Her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her she’d been too upset to eat anything this morning.

  “How ’bout a little break?” he suggested. “I need to stretch my legs, and you’re sounding like you’re ready for a little lunch.”

  “You know of a café or something not too far ahead?”

  He laughed. “Not unless it’s run by pronghorn antelopes or mule deer. But it’s warmed up enough that I thought maybe we could enjoy a little picnic on the tailgate.”

  “You brought along food?”

  “My friend Kate insisted on packing us a gourmet lunch.”

  “The pastry chef, right?” Hope asked, remembering a young woman with long, brown curls and big, kind eyes.

  He nodded. “Sure is. And Levi Colton’s girlfriend, too.”

  “Dr. Colton’s girlfriend? Really?”

  Smiling, Dylan nodded. “It’s so great to see her happy again. They seem really great together.”

  “I’ll never get all these people straight.” Hope laughed before a pang of realization struck her. “But then, I’ll never really have to. I’m leaving, Dylan. Leaving soon. I’ve decided I’m going back to testify after all. I have to, to finally put an end to it, provided I make it that long.”

  “You’ll make it,” he vowed, heat sparking in his blue eyes. “We’re going to find this mastermind, and until we do, Amanda says she’s hiring another bodyguard, one specifically assigned to you. And I’ll be watching, too.”

  Hope sighed. “Maybe I should just contact my WITSEC liaison again as soon as we get b
ack to the ranch.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t trust them.”

  “It’s tough admitting this, but I doubt it was ever really them,” she said, the grief of it a throbbing wound in her chest. “I was the one who dared to use a public-access computer at the town library to let my father know I was all right. I thought I was being so smart, funneling my email through a proxy server, but more than likely, I led them straight to me in Iowa—and sealed my father’s fate, too.”

  “Oh, Hope. I’m so sorry.” He laid his big hand on her shoulder.

  “And I was the one who sought shelter at the Colton ranch, knowing full well that anyone who dug too deeply into my background might find my connection with Amanda.” She shook her head, setting it to aching. “How could I have been so damned stupid, so self-centered, to forget that no one on the planet’s more motivated to track me down than a criminal organization with everything to lose?”

  Releasing her seat belt, she climbed down out of the truck, her energy too wild to be contained another moment. She slammed the door behind her, then paced along the roadside and stared out across the burnished, frost-dried grasses to the mountains far beyond.

  Gradually, she became aware that it was still cool enough for her to be glad she’d worn a jacket with her jeans and boots and a light sweater. Still, the sunshine felt good on her face, and it was a relief to stretch her legs.

  In her peripheral vision, she caught glimpses of Dylan pulling out a plaid blanket and an ice chest, then lowering the truck’s tailgate and covering it with a folded layer of warm wool for them to sit on. He popped the top on a can of cola and took a leisurely drink while leaning against the gate’s lip, but he didn’t try to rush her. He didn’t try to talk.

  Instead, he eventually opened the cooler and started taking things out, allowing her however long it took to settle before she came to him.

  When she finally approached, she said, “I’m beginning to see why you’re so good with the animals. Although I’m not sure I’m flattered, knowing you’re applying the same principles to me.”

  He patted the tailgate beside him and waited for her to plant her hands and swing her rear onto the blanket. Once she had, he smiled at her. “If it makes you feel any better, I think of you more as a filly than a heifer.”