The Colton Marine

by Lisa Childs

  He walked toward the kitchen, toward the basement stairs where Edith had found the scrap of lace.

  “We don’t know she dropped it,” Edith said as she followed him. “The FBI searched the house again after her escape, right? They could have moved something and dropped it then.”

  That was true. And made him feel a little better. But he knew what would make him feel even better. Her.

  Even though she hadn’t shoved him away after the kiss, she hadn’t pulled him back in for another, either. She apparently wasn’t as affected as he’d been.

  “I’m going to look around again,” he said. “Make sure nobody is down there.”

  She didn’t stop him from heading down the stairs, nor did she follow him. Maybe all the talk of Livia had unnerved her, as well.

  But she’d still insisted on coming back to La Bonne Vie instead of staying at Mac’s. He didn’t understand why she was so stubborn. Neither had the others. She’d insisted she had too much work to do—as if the short commute would prevent her from inventorying more than an item or two.

  Hell. He needed to tell her about the new room he’d discovered—about all the wine. Maybe that find would make her happy enough to forgive his snooping around for secrets. Maybe it would make her boss happy enough to let a Colton keep working for him.

  Ultimately River worked for whomever Edith did. Who the hell was that?

  Everyone else had wanted to know, as well. That was why River had driven her away from the ranch. He knew how it was to be bombarded with questions you didn’t want to or couldn’t answer.

  He and Knox had thoroughly searched the basement earlier. So River’s search was more perfunctory now. He just did a quick sweep looking for intruders. But when he stepped into the room he’d discovered earlier, he lingered.

  He’d found one secret door off it. But what if there was another? He’d heard something earlier that day—something that had sounded like the telltale click of a gun cocking. Maybe it had just been his imagination.

  But he had that eerie feeling again that raised the short hairs on the nape of his neck, like he was not alone. This wasn’t just his imagination, either—because he could hear someone else breathing. He could almost feel them breathing...

  He whirled around to find a woman standing behind him.

  * * *

  “What the hell is this?” Edith asked as she glanced around the room off the wine cellar. With its racks and crates, it just appeared to be another wine cellar.

  River’s broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I found it earlier today. It’s one of my mother’s secret stashes.” Instead of sounding triumphant over the discovery, he sounded disappointed.

  Edith felt a little disappointed herself as she surveyed all the dust-covered bottles. She reached out for one, but River caught her wrist and pulled her hand away. Maybe he didn’t want the racks toppling over onto them both, like they had the last time she’d picked a bottle off a shelf.

  “You’ll get your dress dirty,” he explained with an appreciative glance at her.

  She glanced down at the dress she loved. “You’re right. I don’t want to ruin it.”

  “Then you shouldn’t even be down here,” he told her. “Why are you?”

  She held up the can of pepper spray she’d retrieved from her purse. She’d been worried about him and hadn’t wanted him confronting danger alone and unarmed.

  “That probably wouldn’t even faze my mother,” he remarked, and again there was a trace of disappointment in his voice.

  “Is she invincible?” Edith asked.

  He sighed. “Seems that way.”

  “That must be where you get it,” she said.

  He chuckled and touched the scar on the side of his handsome face. “This tells another story.”

  “You’re alive,” she said.

  He sighed again—this time heavily. “Yeah, not everyone else was as lucky...”

  Her heart lurched as she realized how close he must have come to dying. And selfishly she thought of how she might never have met him.

  That emptiness inside her stretched wider. But how could he create a hole he’d never filled?

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Wasn’t your fault.”

  But she had a feeling he had assigned blame to someone. Himself. She had no idea how to ease his guilt over not being able to save someone when she had never been able to ease her own.

  “You choose a bottle,” she said. “And meet me upstairs.”

  She left him alone then, knowing that might be what he needed to deal with the demons she’d brought up. Everyone else pushed and hovered over him, and that made him shut down, like she’d seen him do at Mac’s ranch. When it was just the two of them, he was more relaxed, more what she suspected was his true self.

  She felt that way around him as well, like she was her true self. Like he wouldn’t judge her for her failures or for her fears...

  So why hadn’t she told him everything the other night? Why had she let him believe she was worried about his sanity, when she was really worried about her own?

  Probably because she knew she wasn’t like Livia Colton. She was not invincible. The kiss he’d given her earlier had proved that; it had shaken her to her core, made her ache and pulse for him.

  Her pulse quickened just thinking about his mouth on hers. He hadn’t even touched her.

  She’d only missed two days of running but she felt winded when she reached the top of the stairwell. She walked over and leaned against the kitchen cabinets to catch her breath. River made her heart race more than any run ever had.

  “Are you okay?” River asked when he joined her seconds later.

  Edith pressed a hand against her heart.

  “Did you see something down there?” he asked anxiously with a glance back toward the stairs.

  She’d seen him. Clearly. And she was afraid she was beginning to fall for him.

  She shook her head, denying her thought and his fear. “No. I didn’t see anything.” She lifted the hem of her dress. “Stairs and heels aren’t a good combination.”

  He looked skeptical—probably because he’d watched her descend them earlier without the slightest bit of trouble. Then he turned his attention to the bottle of wine. He washed it off in the sink and wiped it down with a towel. “I have no idea what constitutes a good bottle of wine.”

  “For me,” she said, “it’s not too dry or too sweet.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Are you talking about the wine?”

  “Of course...”

  He stepped closer, trapping her between his body and the counter. Then he lowered his head until his lips nearly touched hers and murmured, “I thought you were talking about my kiss...”

  Her heart slammed against her ribs. She could taste him on her lips. But yet only his breath touched her mouth. He didn’t close the distance between them. He didn’t kiss her again.

  And she wanted him to—desperately. But it was that desperation that scared her so much. She tilted her head back, away from his and said, “Maybe the wine was a bad idea. It’s already quite late.”

  He narrowed his eye and studied her face. “I’ve done it again.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” he said. “It’s whatever I did the other night that makes you change your mind about us.”

  “There is no ‘us,’” she said. “There is you and me—separately—and only working together.”

  “Then what is this?” he asked, and he ran his fingertip along her throat where her pulse pounded so quickly that he must have been able to see it. “What’s this attraction between us?”

  “Bad judgment,” she replied.

  “You feel it, too.”

&nb
sp; She felt more than she ever had before—more than she ever wanted to feel. She shook her head, denying her feelings to him and herself. “No.”

  “Liar.” He called her on it.

  “It’s a bad idea for us to do anything other than work together,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked. “Because I’m too damaged for you?” He touched his scar.

  And Edith cursed him. “That’s not it and you know it.”

  “The other night you were worried about my PTSD,” he said.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I don’t know anything about what you went through and how you’ve handled it.”

  “My sister Leonor’s fiancé knows,” he said. “And he offered me a job in his new security firm, so he must not be too concerned.”

  “He’s not dating you,” she said, and before he could say anything more, she added, “And neither am I.”

  “Why not?” River asked. “If it isn’t because you’re worried I’m going to crack, what is it?”

  “It’s complicated,” she said.

  “Is it your boss?” he asked.

  Declan would feel betrayed that she had hired a Colton. If she dated one, she shuddered to think how he’d feel. And she didn’t want to hurt him.

  “That’s part of it,” she admitted.

  “Who is this guy to you?” River asked. “I know he’s more than your boss.”

  Was that jealousy she detected in his deep voice? In his tightly clenched jaw? He leaned closer and brushed his mouth across hers, nibbling at her lips. She was helpless to do anything but moan.

  He pulled back and remarked, “But yet he’s not important enough that you didn’t kiss me back.”

  “I...” Had. She’d kissed him. And she wanted to kiss him again. So badly. “I can’t do this.”

  He backed off and held up his hands, but they trembled slightly. “I know. I know. It’s complicated.”

  “For you, too,” she pointed out.

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “So I’ll stay here. But I’ll stay out of your bed.”

  “We both know if you stay here that won’t happen,” she said. Because she would be the one inviting him to join her, to fill that emptiness aching inside her. “You checked the house,” she reminded him. “Nobody’s here but us.”

  And “us” was a bad idea. They both knew it. He must have agreed because he didn’t argue. He just nodded and headed toward the front door. She heard him lock and close it behind himself.

  Then she felt her knees begin to shake. But that was a good thing. If they weren’t, she might have chased after him and begged him to come back. And when, moments later, she heard a clanking noise coming from the basement, she wished she had.

  “It’s nothing,” she murmured to herself. River had searched the basement. He’d found that secret room full of wine but nothing and nobody else. It had to be pipes rattling.

  She tightened her grasp on her canister of pepper spray. But she wasn’t about to go investigate again. She might not have learned anything from all those horror movies, but she’d learned a lot from the night she’d spent lying on the concrete. So she closed the basement door and propped the back of one of the kitchen chairs under the knob. Hopefully it would not turn. Whatever was down there would damn well stay down there until Edith was ready to deal with it.

  And she wasn’t ready tonight.

  Just in case that chair didn’t keep the knob from turning, she hurried upstairs to the master bedroom. Those doors had a lock, which she turned after closing them. She was safe in there.

  But she could still hear things in the house, the clanking noise echoing throughout it. She hurriedly changed from her dress to yoga pants and a sweatshirt, but she was still chilled.

  And scared...

  She could have called someone. Uncle Mac. Thorne. Then she’d have to hear them say they’d told her so. They’d told her not to stay there alone.

  However, it didn’t necessarily sound like she was alone right now. Was there someone else inside La Bonne Vie?

  * * *

  Thorne waited in the dark. He had hoped he was waiting for nothing. But then he heard the truck and saw the headlights coming down the driveway. He leaned back against the ranch house so the high beams wouldn’t blind him.

  Then he flinched, thinking of how his brother was blinded now. In one eye.

  But it didn’t affect his vision that much. River must have glimpsed him in the shadows. Because the minute he shut off the truck and stepped out of it, he headed toward Mac’s front porch. “Hey, Thorne.”

  “You came back,” Thorne said. And even though he’d been waiting for him, he was disappointed to see him.

  “You did, too,” River said.

  Thorne had left when River had with Edith. He’d taken his pregnant wife home where she could rest. She was exhausted. But he was too restless to stay with her. He would have only kept her awake. He paced his father’s front porch instead, while he’d been waiting for River. “I hoped you were going to stay up there to protect her.”

  But yet, knowing his fiercely independent cousin, he had also been pretty certain that Edith wouldn’t let River stay.

  “You think that would have been a good thing?” he asked his brother with an arched brow.

  River was apparently not going to get over what he’d overheard Thorne and Mac saying about him the other night, about how he could be damaged from whatever had happened to him. Thorne could have kicked himself for being an insensitive ass.

  “I think it’s better for you to be there,” Thorne said, “than for her to be alone if our mother is hiding out in that house.”

  “I checked it out,” River said. “I couldn’t find any evidence of her being there.”

  “The handkerchief—”

  “Proves nothing,” River said.

  But Thorne wondered if his brother was trying to convince him of that or himself.

  “She could have dropped that anytime,” River said.

  Thorne nodded. “I hope she dropped it ten years ago, but that’s not what Claudia thinks. And she knows all about fabrics and perfume and stuff.” And according to Maggie, she’d been scared when that handkerchief had fallen out of Edith’s purse.

  “She could have gone into the house when she was in town before,” River said.

  River hadn’t been back in town yet when their mother had killed the man who’d kidnapped her only grandchild. He must have been on that last mission—the one that had nearly killed him. But of course River had heard about what their mother had done—if not from family, then from the media. Livia was infamous for exacting her own form of justice while eluding it for the crimes she’d committed.

  Thorne expelled a shaky sigh. “That’s true. She might not be anywhere near Shadow Creek.”

  “Let’s hope that’s the case,” River said.

  “What about Edith?” Thorne asked.

  “What about her?” River said, and he sounded unnerved now.

  Did he think Thorne was asking about his intentions toward his cousin? He suppressed a grin of amusement. There was nothing funny about the current situation.

  “Do you really think she’s safe up there by herself?” Thorne clarified his question.

  River shrugged and murmured a heartfelt, “I hope so...”

  But he didn’t know so.

  But then, with Livia on the loose, how could anyone know what would happen?

  Chapter 16

  The sun wasn’t even up when River headed out to his truck. Hell, he should have just slept in it last night—in the driveway of La Bonne Vie. The gurgling fountain might have lulled him to sleep. Then he would have actually gotten some. He’d lain awake the entire ni
ght, worrying about Edith being alone in the house.

  But had she really been alone?

  Despite him and Knox searching it, nobody knew how many secret rooms Livia had had built in the basement.

  For some reason all of the tradesmen and architects who’d worked on the house for Livia had died under mysterious circumstances. No one was safe from the woman. Not even her own kids.

  And certainly not Edith.

  He’d pressed so hard on the accelerator that he arrived at the gates within minutes of leaving the ranch. He touched the remote clipped to his visor. But the gates barely opened before he drove through them and up to the house. Since it was so early, he didn’t ring the bell. He just let himself inside and peered around the shadows in the foyer.

  Was it just the trees outside blocking out that first light of dawn? Or was someone inside?

  “Edith?” he called out for her. But there was no flurry of movement. If she was up, she would have been working on something. Edith Beaulieu was probably physically incapable of doing nothing. He headed up the stairwell and took the hallway that led down to the double doors of the master suite.

  The doors were closed.

  She must have been asleep yet. He could have gone back downstairs and started working. But instead he headed toward those doors, taking slow, measured steps to muffle the noise of his boots against the worn Oriental runner. He needed to check on her, make sure she was all right.

  He’d spent the entire night worrying about her being alone in this house. Even after he’d checked it out, he wasn’t certain there wasn’t someplace someone could hide in La Bonne Vie. In fact, he was pretty certain there were a lot of places someone could hide, especially someone who’d had those secret spots built.

  He stopped outside the doors and listened. But he could hear nothing from within the room. He reached for the knob and tried to turn it, but the doors were locked.

  “Who’s there?” a shaky voice asked. Then it rose and became stronger, “I have pepper spray. Don’t try to come in here!”