The Missing Colton

by Loreth Anne White

  Before she could move, he grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear. “I’m falling in love with you, Mia.”

  She froze, then swallowed slowly.

  “When you’re ready, we need to talk.”

  Her eyes caught his, and he caught a glimpse of fear. But she turned quickly and made for the door.

  Jagger stared at the vacated doorway for a moment, and a thread of fear curled into his heart, too. He’d finally found the woman of his dreams. He’d finally decided what he wanted out of life. Yet a few words could dash it all.

  Anxious, he went down the hall to meet with the police. And to find a shirt.

  * * *

  Exhausted, Mia entered the Blue Suite and flicked on the light. Her plan was to take a quick shower, find some clothes and then head back down to see how the family was faring with Jethro.

  Mia knew Jethro had told them all that he didn’t want to be admitted to hospital if he became unconscious again. This was going to be a trying time for the family. At least they had each other.

  As she entered the living room Mia’s thoughts turned to the man she’d made love to—she didn’t know if she could think of him as “Cole” now that he’d raised the specter of the two Fayes and the possibility of Dylan being the missing baby. But that just raised deeper questions, even more confounding ones, about who their John Doe was. She picked up the fallen lamp and set it straight, readjusting the lampshade before going into the kitchenette to clean up the flowers dying on the floor among shards of porcelain.

  She smiled to herself as she gathered up the wilted blooms and broken pieces of vase before mopping up the water. She could call a maid to do this, but she’d rather keep the explanations—and lovemaking—to herself.

  I’m falling in love with you, Mia...

  Her hand stilled as his words curled like dark and sensual smoke through her mind

  When you’re ready, we need to talk...

  Mia quickly dumped the pieces of vase in the trash with the dead flowers. She was afraid of what he was going to say—there’d been something ominous in his eyes, in his tone. She didn’t like the anxiety she’d glimpsed in his eyes, either.

  As Mia walked past the table with her laptop she noticed that her computer was still on. Memories slammed through her again, kissing him, wrapping her legs around him, tangling in the sheets... Her skin heated all over as she reached and moved the mouse, bringing the screen to life so she could properly close her laptop down.

  A page flickered to life on the screen as the mouse moved—the website of the Jackson P.D. Mia clicked the page shut. Behind it was another web page, an online storage site.

  Frowning, Mia leaned a little closer. On the page was a list of files with names like: “Colton Kidnapping,” “Jethro Colton—Criminal History,” “Dead River Ranch Timeline,” “Court Case Archives” and “Newspaper Archives.”

  He’d done a lot in a few hours, Mia thought as she moved her mouse to close the storage site. But a name listed on the top right of the page caught her eye. Jagger McKnight.

  Her frown deepened. Mia glanced over her shoulder then sat down and pulled her laptop closer. Clicking on the name revealed a drop-down menu that showed an email address for a Jagger McKnight.

  Mia’s pulse quickened and a strange chill crawled over her skin. Quickly she scrolled farther down the list of files on the site. There was more than one page. She clicked open the next page. On this page the files had names like: “Afghanistan,” “Bosnia,” “Sudan.”

  Her heart beat faster, nausea rising trough her chest as she clicked open a file named “New York Times.” A subfolder opened and Mia clicked on the top file.

  It was a story from the Times. The byline under the headline read, “Jagger McKnight, foreign correspondent.”

  Panic, a cold kind of madness, rushed through Mia. Quickly she pulled up a Google page and typed in the name Jagger McKnight, then clicked “images.” Hundreds of images of a man named Jagger McKnight came up, page after page.

  A buzz began in her head. Like tinnitus—a ringing in her ears. She couldn’t move. Just stared. All pictures of him. One of him standing with a cameraman against a backdrop of jungle foliage. Another of him in a flak jacket. Another where he was sitting on a tank with United States soldiers around him in a desert. In Africa. In Bosnia. Almost madly, blindly, Mia began to click, opening link after link after link. She stopped at a photo captioned “McKnight returns from Afghanistan.”

  Mia followed the links through to a story. As she read, a cold dread sank right into her bones. He’d been with a unit that had been ambushed by Afghan insurgents. They’d been trapped nineteen days. All the soldiers had been killed. Jagger McKnight, the reporter, had been the only man to make it back stateside alive.

  But he’d been badly injured. Shrapnel had cut into his skull. A bayonet had ripped open his thigh and he’d had amnesia when he returned. Almost frantically, Mia brought up more stories. There’d been official debriefings, inquiries into what had happened. After eighteen days of fighting, a small boy had approached the burned-out bunker where the unit had hunkered down against the attack. When McKnight had regained his memory of the event, he’d testified that the boy strapped with explosives had come into the bunker and blown himself up. The last soldier alive at the time—Cpl. Lance Russell, who’d been immobilized by injury—had been killed in that blast.

  Heart speeding, Mia went back to the page of files. She opened a file that said “Colton—Contracts.”

  With shock she found herself staring at a legal agreement between Jagger McKnight and U.S. Global Television—a deal for the Cole Colton story.

  Mia sat back, staring, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She moved her hands up to her face and pushed her hair back. She held on to the top of her head, as if trying to grasp what was staring her in the face.

  He was a lie.

  I’m falling in love with you Mia...we need to talk.

  Damn him! He’d faked his way into this family, right into this house, into her bloody heart...for a story?

  Mia lurched up to her feet, marched to her bedroom, then spun back. No.

  No, no no...it couldn’t be.

  There had to be another explanation. She felt in her gut that he wasn’t the sort of person to do this, to brazenly lie and deceive like this. He was a top-notch foreign correspondent by all appearances. Why on earth would he be interested a remote Wyoming ranching family and the mystery of Cole Colton, anyway?

  And surely he wouldn’t have slept with her if he was deceiving them all, especially not after she’d confided her deepest relationship issues, her fears over rejection. Or was she a flat-out stupid female?

  You never were a good judge of men, Mia....

  Mia jerked forward and, leaning over the chair, she typed into the Google search bar the words Jagger McKnight kidnapping.

  Shock stabbed through her as another list of links came up—much older links to newspaper digital archives.

  Jagger McKnight had been a kidnap victim himself. He’d been the same age as Cole Colton and had gone missing in the same year. All of a sudden the unanswered questions, the pieces of information came flying together and slotted into a bigger picture—like the explosion of a glass vase being played in reverse.

  His nightmares, his scars, his brain injury. His interest in the abduction of Cole. His talk of justice. But there were holes. Plenty of little unexplained holes.

  What did he want here? To put to bed some ghosts that haunted him about his own kidnapping?

  Okay, Mia thought, so he’d come here for a story he’d already sold to a television network. According to the people who’d seen him in the diner, he was looking for work at the ranch. So maybe that was to be his cover.

  Then he’d been attacked on his way to the ranch. Maybe he really did lose his memory. Maybe he had
n’t been blatantly playing her, using her emotions, conning everyone else in this house. Maybe he’d forgotten why he’d come.

  Dr. Singh had said that the attack in the field could have been an emotional straw that broke the back of his mind—a mind that Afghanistan had already wrought damage upon. But he’d been looking at his own online storage page, his own files. That would mean...

  Mia froze at a sound behind her. She heard the suite door open.

  “Mia?” His voice was rough.

  She tried to swallow, breathe. Her heart pounded against her eardrums. She was afraid to turn around, to see his face. To face what must be faced.

  She felt him coming up behind her and her eyes began to burn. He stopped as he saw what she had up on the screen. Silence swelled thick and dangerous in the room.

  Mia waited, heart kicking so hard against her chest that she thought she might faint.

  “Mia,” he said hoarsely. “I was going to tell you.”

  Her heart sunk and her stomach felt as though a cold hard stone had dropped right through it.

  He was going to tell her. He did know who he was. Very quietly, without turning around, she said, “You never did have amnesia, did you?”

  Chapter 12

  “Mia, I can explain. Please, look at me.”

  She turned slowly and lifted her eyes. He’d found a shirt in blue flannel and he looked so good it made her hurt. But his eyes were dark with shadows.

  “A story,” she whispered. “You came to profit from this family’s misfortune, so you could broadcast it all over television—tell me this can’t be true.”

  “I came to find out what happened to a three-month-old baby boy, Mia. I came to find out why his family stopped looking for him. I came because I want justice for Cole. I didn’t count on being attacked.” His eyes bored deep into hers. “I didn’t count on meeting you or on what happened so fast between us. By then I was already in too deep. And I was about to tell you everything, the whole truth when—”

  “When you’d already slept with me?”

  He swallowed.

  Mia lurched to her feet, her hands fisting at her sides as she fought back the raw desire to punch him, hurt him, beat her fists against his chest, kill the hurt ripping through her chest.

  “How could you? How could you abuse my compassion like that, make me care for...for a lie? For someone who didn’t exist? While at the same time you kept pressing me for information on the Coltons.” Her voice caught as nausea surged through her stomach. “I can’t believe I was so stupid, that I didn’t see the signs—”

  “Mia—” He took a step forward, raising his hands to touch her, the need in his eyes ragged and real, and it just cut her even more.

  “Don’t.” She held her palm out. “Do not come near me. I know what you’re going to say—I took my own risks. I made the move on you. I could have waited for the DNA test first, I should have listened to my own logic.” Emotion balled low and thick in her throat and her eyes filled. “Instead, my heart wanted to believe you really needed me. That you were lost and hurt and I wanted to help, and it’s my own goddamn fault because it doesn’t make me any better that the rest of the Colton family who needed to believe you were Cole for their own purposes!”

  Tears slid down her face and Mia hated the fact she couldn’t control herself now. Or ever. She was a wretched judge of character, of men. Especially men who looked like him—big and dark and dangerous with hints of hidden pain and wounds. Damn him to hell. All of them.

  She spun round and made for her room.

  “Mia!” he yelled after her. “I was going to tell you I’d made a choice. That—”

  “You told me you were falling in love with me,” she said as she stopped in the doorway, her back to him. Her voice caught and she struggled to get the next words out. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I am falling in love with you, Mia.” He came up behind her, his voice low, urgent. She could feel his warmth, his aura of kinetic energy, and inside she began to shake all over again.

  “I never planned on running with this amnesia thing. I never planned on being knocked unconscious, or on someone trying to kill me. All I knew when I came around after the attack was that someone had tried to kill me, and I couldn’t trust anyone, not even you. I didn’t know who you were, or whether you could have planted that blanket on me. So I did what I do when I land in any foreign territory or war zone. I used what was handed to me and improvised. That just happened to be amnesia, and the belief that I was Cole.”

  “I am not a foreign territory. This is not a goddamn war zone. This is my heart.”

  He reached for her shoulders, and he turned her to face him.

  “Mia, you said yourself that you believe in retribution. You believe justice was never done for this abducted child. You thought this family was mercenary—”

  “Until this,” she said, holding his gaze, the power of their attraction shimmering with regret between them. “What you have done here takes mercenary to a whole new level...Jagger McKnight.”

  He flinched at the sound of his own name on her lips, the way she’d said it.

  “What was this to you?” She waved her hand between them. “You and me—the sex. A private joke? A bit on the side? Did you think you could get more out of me by saying you loved me?”

  His eyes flickered and his features turned dark. He took her by the shoulders again but she shook him free.

  “Just...get out.”

  Tears burned into her eyes again, but this time she held them in. She would not let him see her cry again. Would not let him see how badly he’d hurt her.

  “Mia, you’re going to hear me out, whether you like it or not.” He pointed at her laptop. “Do you think I would’ve left my online filing page open on your computer if I was so desperate to hide things? I was busy showing you what I had found, so you would understand what I—”

  “I said get out. I don’t want to see you again.”

  “Mia.” He came up to her. “I made a decision. I’m going to drop—”

  She held up her hands. “Don’t, please.” Her voice cracked. “Please just get out. Leave me alone.”

  His features twisted with anguish, his eyes pleading with her. But she backed into the small bedroom, blindly groping for the door handle at her side. “If you’re still here when I come out, I’m going to call security, the cops, whatever it takes. Just get out of my life.”

  She slammed the door shut.

  Mia turned and slumped backward against the door. She could feel him on the other side. A man she’d started to fall in love with. What a goddamn fool—she hadn’t even known who he was.

  He was a journalist.

  He’d used them all. When he was finished with this it would be all over national television. The story of Cole Colton and his notorious billionaire rancher father...told by an ex-kidnap victim himself. Way to milk your own tragedy.

  Shaking like leaf, her skin going hot and cold, Mia clutched her arms tightly across her stomach and sank slowly down the length of the door to the floor. Hugging her knees up to her chest, she thought of Jagger’s screams in the night.

  The realness of his pain.

  How she’d fallen for something fundamental in him that was still there. That hadn’t changed. But Mia had done it again.

  He was wrong for her. Even if she could get beyond this, Jagger McKnight was exactly the kind of man she desperately needed to avoid. It felt like a double betrayal, and it pulled up every hurt from her past.

  Somewhere she heard a door shut. And she knew he was gone.

  Putting her head to her knees, Mia let it all out—everything that was bottled inside—her body wracked by huge, wrenching sobs.

  * * *

  Jagger found an empty suite down the hall. He lay on the b
ed inside, staring at the ceiling as night worked its way toward dawn and a pale violet light began to push into the sky. There’d been no use pressing Mia further. He’d forced himself not to bang on her door, harass her. It would backfire.

  She needed time to absorb the shock of all this—Jagger understood that.

  He understood, too, the reasons for her pain and her anger at him. He was also furious with himself that he’d gotten so entangled so fast he’d been unable to disengage himself before it had come to this.

  By the time he’d realized what was happening, that he was falling for Mia, he’d been twisted into a Gordian knot of lies.

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive....

  He cursed out loud. It might have been different if he’d been able to finish what he’d been saying to her after making love, if she’d heard the truth come from his own lips as they’d lain naked in bed together, open to possibilities. If he’d had a chance to tell that he was going to drop the story, tell her that he could never, ever profit from, or abuse, the compassion and care and help she’d shown him, it might be different.

  Emotion pricked hot and wet in his eyes.

  Instead, some bastard had tried to kidnap little Cheyenne.

  When the sky turned a pearly gray, Jagger got up and went quietly to the Blue Suite. He knocked gently on the door.

  There was no answer.

  He pushed open the door, and went inside. There was no sight of Mia. She’d packed her bags and gone.

  She must have returned to her room in the employee wing.

  Jagger showered quickly and changed, then he headed down to the infirmary. But it was early and there was no one there.

  He made his way to the dining room where he found a pale Amanda conversing quietly at one end of the long dark-wood table with her sister Gabby and Gabby’s fiancé, Trevor Garth. Beside Amanda’s chair was a baby stroller and in it Cheyenne was a pink-faced cherub, sound asleep with her fuzzy bear blanket tucked up to her chin. A giant and rather grim-looking oil painting of Jethro lorded over the room.