Colton's Lethal Reunion

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  It had been more than that. He’d caught a glimpse of her face over Ace’s shoulder when his brother had hugged him. Funny how, now that Ace wasn’t a biological Colton either, he suddenly felt closer to the guy.

  Another outsider on the inside.

  Kerry wasn’t on the inside. Never would be. And that hug had shown her how opposite their worlds really were. Their circumstances hadn’t changed any from that moment, at the hospital, or the night before, or twenty-three years ago.

  They were who they were.

  “I’ve noticed, you don’t always call Payne ‘Dad.’ Or mention him as ‘my father.’ Why is that?”

  She glanced over at him, and then went back to eating.

  He’d never really felt like a true Colton. Not completely. And Payne had acted more like a guardian than a father to him.

  “I had a father,” he said. “I have great memories of him. I still miss him. Payne never tried to take his place.” And that was all he was going to say about that.

  Chapter 12

  “I looked my mother up.” Kerry didn’t think it was a good idea to say the words. She just wanted to. She’d asked about Payne because she was being kind of mean. Trying to point out that Rafe had chosen to stay with a family that wasn’t really family to him all those years ago.

  But the hug she’d witnessed between him and Ace had shown her that they were family.

  She wasn’t proud of herself.

  Or happy about the fact that she’d deliberately tried to hurt him. That wasn’t her way, never had been, and it wasn’t going to start now.

  Rafe had swallowed his bite of lasagna and was looking at her.

  “Your mother? You found her? When?”

  His eyes lit up like the Rafe she’d known, the boy who’d worn his heart on his sleeve, at least when he was with her.

  The one she’d have sworn would love her forever. Be by her side forever.

  Part of her wanted to clam up. But she was still feeling the smack of what she’d just done, asking a question just to be able to point out that he wasn’t really a Colton. Didn’t like the look she’d seen of herself. She would not be that bitter woman who lived alone and pushed everyone away, and then felt sorry for herself because she was alone. Not any part of that woman—except flying solo. She was okay with that. Used to that.

  Knew how to do that and be happy—and be good to others.

  “After you...weren’t coming around anymore...my father told me that there was a whole world of men out there, that I didn’t have to settle for being on a ranch in the middle of nowhere...”

  His lips tightened. So maybe her reasoning for bringing up her mom hadn’t been completely altruistic. Maybe she was still digging at him a little. But he had to know the one to understand the other. Had to know why, after all his years of silence, her father had finally opened up about the mother she barely remembered.

  “That’s when he told me that my mom had left him for a city man. Because he had so much more to offer her. A whole life of exciting experiences. I think he was trying to comfort me,” she said. And knew that what she was really doing was telling Rafe something that she’d yearned to tell him long ago.

  Something she’d needed to run to him with; only he hadn’t been there.

  She still wanted him to know. Not to hurt him. But just to be able to tell him.

  “What I figured out, though, was that she gave up custody of her kids for the allure of bright lights.”

  Like Rafe had given her up for the chance at finer things. She looked over at him, having completely lost what little appetite she had.

  He studied her, his blue eyes shadowed, and put down his fork. “Like I did. That’s what you’re thinking.” She didn’t say a word. “It wasn’t like that, Kerry.”

  “How do you know? You don’t know my mother.”

  “I didn’t leave you because I wanted what the Coltons could give me.”

  “Sure you did. I don’t blame you, Rafe. Seriously. You were five when your father died. You had no say in what happened then. And later...you were only thirteen. Where were you going to go? Who’d support you? I get it.”

  Right up until he’d become an adult. They’d both returned to Mustang Valley—he had to have known that he was part of the reason she’d come back—and yet he’d never contacted her.

  He looked like he had more to say, lifted a hand, palm up, and then let it fall. “Anyway, you looked her up. When? Did you find her?”

  “I did,” she said, letting the rest go. Because there was no point in not doing so. They’d both made their choices. “I went to college at Arizona State University, in Phoenix, and during one of my criminal justice classes, we were doing investigations... I looked her up. It didn’t take much to find her. She wasn’t hiding. All I had to do, really was look up her name online...”

  “So...” His gaze intent, he leaned toward her and he was that boy again, or she wished she was that girl, telling her best friend one of the most important things about her. And knowing he really cared and wanted to share it with her.

  “I called her. She sounded happy to hear from me. Agreed to meet me...”

  She could feel the moisture start to seep in at the sides of her eyes, but smiled, looked him straight in the eye.

  “I knew the second I saw her she was an addict. She had the scabs on her face. Was skinny and sunken in. Her skin...” She shook her head. “All she wanted from me was money to feed her habit.”

  Head shaking, Rafe reached for her hand. “I’m so sorry, Ker. So, so sorry. It’s so incredible that you’ve managed to make such a great life for yourself, in spite of having both parents as addicts.”

  She shook her head, too, and took her hand back, using it to feed herself another bite she didn’t want. She didn’t want his admiration. She wanted him to know her well enough to just assume that of course she would have made something of herself. “I tried to help her,” she said. “Got her into rehab, gave her what little money I had.” Then she shrugged. “But you know how that goes. I finally had to admit that I was nothing to her, not emotionally. I meant no more to her than anyone else from whom she might get a handout. She was prostituting herself for drugs the last time I saw her. She’d been making her choices her whole life and I wasn’t going to change them.”

  “Did you tell your dad?”

  “No.” What point would there have been in that? He’d died never knowing what his wife had become in her effort to get away from him and his life on a ranch.

  Her parents probably loved each other once. And the pain of loving had brought out the worst in both of them. Maybe her father had already been drinking too much. Or her mother had been using. All she knew was that the failed relationship had been the final nail in two coffins.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen to her. Wasn’t going to let romantic love, partnering, matter that much to her.

  Especially not with her genes. Her mother, her father, brother...

  “I’m not going to be like them, Rafe.” She couldn’t help the fear in her voice. Was pretty sure he could see it in her eyes, too.

  “Of course you aren’t.” He sat back, sounding all Colton, and completely sure of himself. “If you were, you’d have been there long ago,” he added. “Look at all you’ve been through, and here you are, completely sober, spending your life finding justice for people you don’t even know because that’s who you are.”

  He made her sound...admirable.

  Like some kind of celebrity.

  And that was a dangerous road for her to get on. Because, as far as the Coltons were concerned, she was, and always would be “the help.”

  * * *

  He slept on the couch, waking every two hours to walk down the hall and peek into Kerry’s open door and make sure that she’d awoken with her alarm. It was probably overkill. He didn’t care. He wasn’t
taking any chances.

  His world without Kerry in it was one thing. The entire world without her... That was just wrong. Funny how he’d never realized that before. Had never acknowledged how good he felt, knowing that Kerry was only a few miles away from him.

  Just like, as a kid, he’d liked knowing she was just a couple of acres away.

  At the 3:00 a.m. alarm he was already awake. They’d gone over the aerial photos. Had a plan of search for the next day, assuming Kerry woke without a headache. She also wanted to head back to the hospital to talk to employees—find out if any of them knew of anyone who’d worked in the maternity ward forty years before. Or if they knew anything about the fire that had destroyed all of the nursery records.

  He’d told her he’d already been planning to talk to people at the hospital in the hopes of finding some information on the ob-gyn who’d been working the night Ace was born, on behalf of the Colton Oil board, and she’d agreed that they could do so together. Payne’s shooting had happened at the same time that the family had been reeling from the email that had outed Ace Colton. The timing was too coincidental for Kerry. She needed to know if the two incidents were connected somehow. They knew, from Callum and Marlowe’s search that the records had all been destroyed, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t remember a doctor or nurse who’d worked there.

  All the unanswered questions in his life had him awake. Making mental columns. Figuring.

  Financial wizardry was easy compared to life. Numbers always followed a pattern. There were no exceptions. But all this—babies switched at birth, bodies thrown over mountains, attempted murder—just didn’t compute.

  How did he solve it all?

  Kerry was sitting up in bed when he made it down the hall to check on her. The top half of the T-shirt she’d had on all night was visible above the covers. Even in the dark shadows he could see the unfettered mounds of her breasts. The shapes of her nipples...

  She’d taken off her bra. What else had she removed?

  “Let’s take Odin Rogers out of the mix for a minute,” she said. “It’s telling that I’ve had two attempts on my life on that mountain, but in town, I just get a brick thrown through my window. A warning to stay off the mountain...”

  He could see her frown in the darkness, moved forward to sit on the end corner of the bed. Clearly, her mind was working just fine. And keeping her awake, just like his was.

  “What does that tell you?” he asked. He had his own theories, but wanted to hear hers.

  “That they think I don’t know anything, yet,” she said. “I’m only a threat to them up on that mountain. Which means, as we thought, there’s still something up there they don’t want me to find. But it also tells me that the mountain is the only place they think we’ll find anything. And that maybe who’s doing whatever they’re doing up there isn’t from Mustang Valley, or hanging out here. When Dane and I talked to Rogers yesterday morning, he was almost laughing at us, he was so pleasant. He didn’t care at all that we were looking at him. Because he was confident we wouldn’t find anything.”

  “So what if Rogers isn’t involved?” He had to put the thought out there, regardless of what she thought she knew. Because the possibility existed. “Could be both deaths up there, Tyler’s and the rangers, had nothing to do with Rogers. Maybe your thought about guns and drugs is right, but maybe Odin isn’t involved.”

  She shrugged. “Could be. I don’t really care if it’s him or not. I just want to get whoever it is.”

  Because she wasn’t carrying a vendetta. She truly wanted justice. That’s all she’d ever wanted out of life, he knew. Things to be done right. Fairly.

  And when had that ever happened for her? Certainly not in her personal life. He’d suffered, as well. He’d lost her, his only true friend in the world. His deepest love. But he’d gained one hell of a lot, too.

  “I’m wondering if maybe the ranger, this Grant Alvin, stumbled onto whatever it is no one wants us to find. Maybe he was afraid we’d suspect him because he hadn’t notified anyone. Or maybe he wanted us out of there because he was up there trying to cash in for himself. Robbing from the robbers,” she said. “That would explain why he was threatening us, but then ended up dead.

  “We know Odin runs a drug gang in the county,” she continued. “We just can’t pin anything on him. I’m not sure about weapons, but with the amount of money he has, it makes sense. And if it was just drugs they were hiding up there, they could move them pretty easily. Ammunition, not so much.”

  When she said it like that, building a mental picture of a stockpile of explosives, he wanted her nowhere near the place.

  And he knew there was nothing he could or would do to stop her. The reality was, her work was dangerous. Her life was in potential jeopardy every time she went out to question someone.

  Any day could be her last.

  And he was sitting on the end of her bed, wasting perfectly good hours, when he could be soaking up the essence of her.

  And hopefully bringing her pleasure. Maybe even making her happy.

  They’d both stopped talking about the case. Had been studying each other for a good minute.

  “I want to make love with you.”

  She continued to stare at him.

  “I’m here.” He shrugged. “Who knows if I’ll ever be here again? Twenty-four hours ago, we were doing it. What’s one more time going to hurt?”

  Maybe plenty. He had no calculator for such a thing. He also had to ask. Something was telling him she needed him as badly as he needed her.

  “We’ve got a few more hours until dawn,” he said. “Let’s not waste them.”

  His heart dropped when she nodded and pulled back the covers.

  * * *

  She’d let herself down by spending the night with Rafe again. She wasn’t going to make it worse by beating herself up over it. So she blamed it on emotional residue that was the result of having allowed herself to be carried by her hero down the mountain to safety.

  She didn’t have a hero. Didn’t need one.

  And would have kept herself safe up there. She’d been ready to pull her gun if she had to. Would probably have suffered worse injuries in the scuffle, might have been off her shot. Getting down the mountain in her condition would have been challenging.

  But facing challenges was what she did.

  Daylight saw her feeling fine, injury wise, in the shower, and ready to put sex with Rafe Colton behind her. Though, if anything, that second night of lovemaking had been better than the first. Slow and tender, they’d peaked together and then had fallen asleep with their bodies still joined.

  It happened. And was done.

  Now she had to get to work. It was the only choice before her.

  As had happened the day before, he’d been out of bed by the time she’d fully woken. As soon as she heard him close the door to the hall bath, she’d scurried into her own ablutions. Planned to beat him to the coffeepot.

  She liked her brew her way—a combination of medium and dark roast, French and Italian. She was high maintenance, so sue her. As long as she was the only one being called upon to maintain herself, there’d be no problem.

  Cup in hand, half-empty already, she faced the hall as he came down it.

  “No more sex,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “I only do that when I’m in a committed relationship,” she told him. “The first night...well maybe we owed that to the past...but no more. We can work together. I recognize that I have a better chance of finding Tyler’s killer if I have help, and I understand your need to help. Just like having you with me at the hospital gives me quicker access to whatever we might be offered, and also might help people open up to us, as it makes our questions more personal. Our minds always seemed to meld well and solve problems, even as kids, but that’s it, Rafe. Don’t think you’re going to insinuate yourself into my invest
igation of Ace, to sway me in his favor. And do not ask me for sex again.”

  His blue-eyed gaze seemed to be pleading with her.

  “If I don’t say no again, I’ll start to hate myself. So I’m asking you not to put me in that position.”

  His nod told her she’d won.

  So how come she felt like such a loser?

  * * *

  For all the excitement they’d found on Mustang Mountain the past couple of days, that day they only ran into a couple of hikers, tourists who were on their way from Tombstone to Bisbee and were spending the night in Mustang Valley. Kerry filled them in on eating choices, spending more time selling them on Bubba’s Diner than on Rafe’s two preferences: Lucia’s and the steak and seafood house. He didn’t intervene. What did he know about being on a tourist budget?

  Or about Bubba’s, for that matter? He hadn’t eaten there since his biological father died.

  They stopped at the lay-by where Kerry had seen the car the day before. Climbed back up to where Rafe had run into the thug who’d hurt her. As the chief had said, there was no sign of anyone having been there. And no indications of human life anywhere around the trail Kerry had been on, following the guy. If there was a cave out there, it was either much farther in, a hike that would require supplies and more time than they currently had, or it was so well hidden they were walking right by it.

  “Maybe the ranger’s death spooked them,” she said as they turned around. “Could be the guy I followed yesterday was out here on Odin’s orders to move their stash. For all we know it could be safely relocated by now, on foot, after dark. It’s not like there’s a shortage of mountains out here.”

  He knew she was frustrated all over again, but he was relieved that they’d made it off the mountain without further trouble. Maybe she’d be done with the whole Odin Rogers thing for a day or two, while Dane continued to investigate Grant Alvin’s murder, going over the autopsy report, doing what cops did during potential murder investigations.