The Colton Marine

by Lisa Childs

“I know you have pepper spray,” River assured her. “It’s me.”

  He heard running footsteps from within the massive suite, then the lock clicked and the doors opened. She threw her arms around his neck and clutched his shoulders. Her body trembled against his.

  “Edith,” he said, his heart slamming against his ribs. He loved her reaction to seeing him, but he doubted it had anything to do with desire.

  She seemed scared to death.

  He eased her back and looked at her face, her eyes were wide and wild with fear. “Oh, my God,” he murmured. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  She shook her head. “No, someone was in here.”

  “In here?” he asked, glancing around the room.

  “No, no,” she said. “I came up here and locked the doors. But right after you left, I heard something in the basement again.”

  “But instead of checking it out, you came up here.” He expelled a shaky breath of relief. “That’s good. But you should have called me.”

  “You had just looked around the basement. You said nobody was down there.”

  “Nobody was when I looked,” he said.

  She shivered. “So maybe it was the just pipes or some animals...”

  He hadn’t seen any animals, either. “You still should have called someone.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t want to seem like I was overreacting...” Tears glistened in her eyes.

  And he understood. She didn’t want anyone thinking she was like her mother, hearing and seeing things that weren’t there.

  He pulled her close and held her, rubbing his hand over her back to soothe her fears. “You’re not just hearing things. We both know this house has made some weird sounds.”

  She leaned back and looked up at him hopefully. “That’s right. You heard them, too—that day I found you downstairs with the crowbar. Right?”

  That was the excuse he’d given her that day. But it wasn’t the truth. He had heard an odd noise downstairs, though—that click that had sounded like a gun cocking. But he didn’t want to mention that and scare her even more.

  So he just nodded and replied, “That’s how I found that room off the wine cellar.”

  She expelled a shaky breath of relief. “That’s good. I wasn’t sure...”

  If she’d really heard the noises or if she’d only imagined them...

  “I wish you would have called me,” he said. He hated to think of how she’d spent the night, locked in the bedroom, awake and afraid.

  “I’ll look around again now.” But when he moved to step back, she clutched him, her arms winding tightly around his shoulders as her body pressed against his.

  His heart lurched in his chest. He’d never felt this way before—so protective and possessive and involved. And now he was scared.

  He didn’t even know who he was or what he was going to do once his job at La Bonne Vie was over. He had no business falling for someone when he had nothing to offer that person. He pulled back and assured her, “You’ll be okay. You have your pepper spray.”

  Her lips curved into a slight smile, and she nodded. “Thank you,” she said, and she rose up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek—right over the scar running down it.

  A sensation spread from his heart throughout his body, warming him. But still he was chilled. He wasn’t afraid of what he might find downstairs. He was afraid of what he’d found here—with Edith.

  * * *

  Edith stared at the closed doors for several moments before she moved. But she didn’t do as River had told her. She didn’t lock herself back inside the master suite. She’d spent enough time cowering in the dark.

  She was not a coward. She’d proved that to the older kids in the foster home when she’d watched those horror movies with them. Now she needed to prove it to herself. Not wanting to go downstairs barefoot, she shoved her feet into a pair of tennis shoes and tied up the laces. In case she needed to run...

  She had the can of pepper spray for protection, though. River had nothing but his bare hands. He was strong. She’d witnessed his strength with all the work he’d done around the estate. So she shouldn’t be worried about him—especially if the noises were the nothing she had spent the entire night trying to convince herself they were.

  But what if they weren’t nothing? What if someone else was inside the house? They shouldn’t be there. So what might they do to remain undetected?

  Hurt River?

  He had already been hurt so badly—the scar, the eye.

  He’d lost so much. She had to make sure she hadn’t sent him off to another battle he might lose. She hurried down the hall toward the stairwell. The sun was coming up, shining through the windows and glinting off the marble floor of the foyer.

  The house wasn’t scary now. But even with the sun shining in it, it felt cold and impersonal. She couldn’t imagine growing up here. Before her father’s death, her family had lived in a cute little house that had overflowed with warmth and laughter. But when he’d died, so had the laughter.

  Ignoring the pang in her heart, she shrugged off the memories. She certainly hadn’t been through as much as River had. She had no right to self-pity.

  The rubber soles of her shoes slapped against the marble as she hurried through the foyer to the hall leading back to the kitchen and that basement stairwell. The door stood open at the top.

  She could hear no noises now. In fact, the house had been almost eerily silent for a while. But even though it had been quiet, it hadn’t felt empty.

  She still hadn’t felt as though she were alone. And she wasn’t really alone. But as she descended the stairs, she caught no glimpse of River in the shadows.

  He was probably down the hall by the wine cellar where he’d found that secret room of vintages.

  If she hadn’t been wearing that lovely dress Claudia had designed, Edith would have checked out the room more. She had the chance now. But as she stepped through the wine cellar and into that room, she found nothing but wine.

  There was no sign of River.

  Now her heart began to beat fast with fear. “River?” she called out for him.

  He had gone downstairs. He would have had to—or else that chair would have still been under the door handle. Unless someone else had knocked that chair aside and left the door open...

  Was that the cause of some of the noises she’d heard the night before? The sounds had been so weird and had seemed to echo throughout the central air system, like someone had been pounding on something near the furnace.

  Maybe she needed to look in the utility room. But she was so certain he’d be here that she took another look around it. And her heart jumped with fear as she noticed his hat lying in a corner of the room. Something stained the white material. Probably dirt from the concrete floor. But as she picked it up, the dirt smeared across her fingers. It was warm and sticky and red.

  It wasn’t dirt at all. It was blood.

  There was blood on his hat. He had been hurt. He was bleeding. But where the hell was he?

  * * *

  River lay lifeless on the concrete floor. Blood oozed from the wound on his forehead and trailed along the ridge of the scar on his cheek. He had survived whatever had left that scar and taken his eye.

  But would he survive the blow he’d just received?

  Livia dropped the crowbar onto the floor beside him. And he shifted and moaned at the noise.

  And beyond the stone wall, a gasp was audible. The woman was out there. She’d been frantically calling his name, concern and fear apparent in her voice.

  How far would she go to find him? Would she find the same secret room that River just had? He’d found the latch so quickly that Livia had barely had time to arm herself before he stepped through the doorway.

  Had he seen h
er?

  Maybe it would be better to end it now—for him and the Beaulieu woman—than to risk either of them finding her. But what would happen when they disappeared?

  How long would it be before someone missed them?

  Probably not long enough for Livia to accomplish what she’d returned to Shadow Creek to do.

  “Damn it,” she murmured.

  Why did River always have to play the hero? It had obviously nearly gotten him killed when he’d been a Marine. And now...

  And now, doing the same for Edith Beaulieu had nearly gotten him killed, as well. If he regained consciousness and saw her, he would die.

  Even though he was her son, Livia would have no choice. She would have to take away the life she’d given him twenty-eight years ago.

  Chapter 17

  Panic pressed on River’s lungs when he opened his left eye but couldn’t see anything. Had he lost his vision in that eye, as well? Pain reverberated inside his skull, threatening to shatter it. He flinched and blinked and finally his vision cleared.

  But the room was dark. He could see only shadows. Was he alone? Where the hell was he?

  The last thing he remembered was opening that secret door in the secret room off the wine cellar. But as he’d stepped through it, something had struck him. Hard.

  And everything had gone black.

  Rolling to his side, he reached out to press his palm against the concrete to lever himself up. But his hand hit something cold and metallic. The crowbar rattled against the floor. And he realized what had struck him.

  But who had been wielding it? He’d seen nothing. Not even the crowbar coming at him.

  He peered around the room. What was stashed in here? No person. He could discern no shadows in the corners of the small space. So who’d hit him? And where had he or she gone?

  To get Edith?

  He pushed himself up and regained his feet. But his legs wobbled, threatening to fold beneath him. And he was light-headed, black spots dancing before his still slightly blurred vision.

  He reached up to the bump on his forehead. Blood oozed from it, smearing his fingertips and trailing down his face. He straightened the patch that had slipped off his wounded eye socket. Edith didn’t need to see that.

  Edith. Where was she?

  Had the person who’d struck him gone after her now?

  Hopefully she was still locked in the master suite, armed with her canister of pepper spray. She would use it—if she had to.

  She would be safe. Wouldn’t she?

  Unless she’d come down here, looking for him, and been blindsided, as well.

  He spared the room another longing glance. He wanted to search it. But he could see no journals or papers in plain sight. He would have to look for hiding places or secret safes within the room. And he didn’t have time. He had to make sure that Edith was safe.

  If it had been his mother who’d struck him, Livia would have no qualms about killing Edith. She apparently had had none about killing him because she’d struck him nearly hard enough to do the job.

  No. If Livia was in the house, then Edith wasn’t safe no matter where she was. Livia would have keys to the master suite. Hell, she probably had a secret passageway to it. Maybe that was why Edith had heard so many noises the night before.

  Livia had been walking her secret passageways.

  But why?

  Why would she come back to La Bonne Vie?

  What the hell did she want?

  The same thing River did—her secrets?

  But while River wanted to learn the truth, Livia would do anything to keep it hidden. Even kill.

  * * *

  Edith clutched her cell phone in one hand and her canister of pepper spray in the other as she headed back down the stairwell from the second floor. The Shadow Creek dispatcher was on the line, assuring her that the sheriff was personally on his way to respond to her call for help.

  She should have called them last night, instead of lying awake and in fear of what might be in the house with her. Now she knew something was—and that something had hurt River. She blinked several times, fighting back the tears that threatened to fill her eyes.

  Where was he?

  River. Not the sheriff—although she needed him, too. She needed him to help her find River.

  “I think you should send an ambulance, too,” she told the woman, remembering how she’d found the hat with his blood smeared on it.

  “You said you weren’t hurt,” the dispatcher reminded her. Like a kindly grandmother, that had been her first question. Are you hurt, honey? Then, Do you need an ambulance?

  And Edith had replied with No and No. She was fine. She didn’t need an ambulance. She wasn’t certain what River needed, though.

  “But my...”

  What?

  What was River to her?

  Employee? Friend? Not her lover. She kept sending him away, and maybe that was another mistake, like the one she had made when she’d let River go alone into the basement to investigate. She should have been there with him. Then she’d know where the hell he was and how badly he was hurt.

  “Friend,” she concluded. “My friend went to check out the noises I heard, and now I can’t find him. He must be hurt.”

  “You said someone’s in the house and someone else is missing,” the dispatcher recited as if she was reading back notes she’d taken during the call. “Who is missing? What is your friend’s name?”

  Just as she’d struggled to label what he was to her, she struggled to reveal his name. She knew he valued his privacy. But this was the sheriff’s office. Surely, they wouldn’t say anything to the reporters swarming around town.

  “River Colton,” she replied.

  “River Colton?” the woman repeated, and her voice had dropped to a salacious whisper, like she was gossiping in church and didn’t want the preacher catching her. “He’s your friend?” she asked. “He hasn’t been back in Shadow Creek very long.”

  Those didn’t seem like questions the dispatcher needed to ask to assess the situation at the estate.

  “My uncle is Mac Mackenzie,” Edith said.

  “Oh,” the woman replied as if that answered all of her questions. But then she started in with more. “What are you doing at La Bonne Vie?”

  What were the privacy laws regarding 9-1-1 calls? So many were released every day because of the Freedom of Information Act. Maybe calling the Shadow Creek Sheriff’s Department hadn’t been a good idea.

  She should have called Uncle Mac instead. Or Thorne. But she hadn’t wanted them getting hurt—like River.

  A scraping noise emanated from the basement. And Edith trembled in fear. “Where’s the sheriff?” she asked.

  It seemed like she’d been on the phone an awfully long time.

  “He was down at the Cozy Diner when you called, honey,” the woman said. “But I’m sure he’s on his way to La Bonne Vie right now.”

  Edith doubted he would get there in time. Someone was definitely moving around downstairs again. “I—I have to go,” she told the woman.

  “But you’re supposed to stay on the line until—”

  Edith disconnected. She needed to call someone she knew would actually help her. But when she pressed the contact for Uncle Mac, the call went immediately to his voice mail. Her fingers trembling, she pressed Thorne’s next but got his voice mail, as well.

  What about Maggie? Did she have her number? She didn’t have time to scroll through her phone and find out, though. The noises below had grown louder.

  She probably should have run outside—to her car. But she could think only of River. If there was some way to help him, then she had to try. So she shoved her phone into her pocket and started down the steps with both hands on her canister of pepper spray
so she wouldn’t drop it this time. So she would be able to use it if she needed to...

  Something moved in the shadows, lurching forward, then stumbling over to lean against the wall. A groan emanated from the shadows.

  A groan she recognized.

  “River!” Her feet barely touched the last few steps as she ran to him. “Are you okay?”

  He levered himself away from the wall. “Yeah, yeah...” But he seemed distracted, groggy. Then he focused on her, studying her face. “You’re okay? You’re not hurt?”

  “No.” Her heart warmed that he had been concerned about her—even as he was obviously in pain himself. She reached out and gently touched the bump on his head. The blood was beginning to dry, so only a few drops smeared her fingertips. “This looks bad.” Worse than the wound she’d gotten from the wine bottle. “You must have a concussion.”

  “I’ve got a hell of a headache,” he murmured.

  She was right. The dispatcher should have sent an ambulance. Edith wouldn’t be able to carry River up the stairs like he had so effortlessly carried her.

  “Help’s coming,” she assured him—and herself.

  He shook his head now. “I don’t need it. I’m fine.”

  She skimmed her fingertips from his wound down the side of his face. Blood had dried along his scar. “You’re not fine. You’re hurt. What happened?”

  His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t know...”

  “Where were you?” she asked. “I was just down here and I couldn’t find you. But I found your hat with blood on it. I looked everywhere for you.”

  “I—”

  Before he could reply, the doorbell rang. Then someone pounded on the door.

  “Who’s that?” River asked as his body tensed. He was immediately alert, stepping between her and the stairs leading down from the kitchen.

  “It’s probably the—”

  “Sheriff Jeffries,” a voice called out from above. “You reported a break-in.”

  And if they’d been the intruders, they would have had a chance to escape him.

  River groaned again.

  “Are you okay?” she asked as she slid under his arm.