The Colton Marine

by Lisa Childs

  Maybe his search was. Now that he knew where the other mechanisms to open the secret doors had been hidden, it was easy to find them in the stone walls. He’d found more secret rooms. His mother had had a maze of them built into the basement.

  The FBI must have found some of them, as well, because they looked as though they’d already been searched. River picked up papers and books from the floor and thumbed through them. Nothing looked like a journal. If the FBI had found it, he doubted they would have left it behind. But maybe Livia had written it in some kind of secret code that they hadn’t understood. So he studied the pages with more interest—so much that he hadn’t heard her approach until she gasped.

  “There are more of these rooms?”

  He glanced up to find Edith standing in the doorway of the last room he’d found. She’d dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt. But he could see her as she’d been when she’d undressed, revealing her lacy underwear.

  His muscles tensed as desire overwhelmed him. Yes, making love with her had only made it worse, had only made him want her more.

  “Yes,” he said. “There are more rooms.” He suspected even more than he’d found.

  “Did you know they were here?” she asked.

  “I knew the FBI had found some,” he said. “That’s where they discovered the evidence the federal prosecutors used to convict her.”

  Edith glanced around the room and shivered, as if it were a crime scene. Knowing his mother, maybe it had been. Who knew how many people she’d killed?

  River doubted the authorities knew.

  “You don’t think they found them all?”

  He was pretty sure they hadn’t. But he just shrugged.

  “Is that why you wanted to work here?” she asked. “So you could search for these rooms?”

  “Edith...” He stepped closer to her, but she stepped back—out of that secret room and into the one before it, the one in which he’d been hit with the crowbar.

  “I suspected you had a reason for wanting to be here,” she said. “I even suspected you were looking for something, so I shouldn’t be surprised.” But it was clear that she was.

  He said nothing as he internally debated whether or not to tell her the truth. He wasn’t certain if she would understand or if she would be even angrier with him for not being honest with her from the beginning.

  “Is it money?” she asked. “Is that what you’re trying to find?”

  He gasped now. “What?”

  “Did your mother have money hidden in the house?”

  He shrugged. “Probably.”

  Knowing Livia, he would believe it. If she had returned to Shadow Creek, that might be why. He hoped like hell she wasn’t back, though. He glanced around the dimly lit room. He hadn’t found anyone in the rooms he’d just discovered, though. But if there were more, she could be hiding in one of them.

  “So that’s why you wanted to work here,” she said. “You wanted access to the house. Access to that money...”

  Her assumption stung his pride hard. But he didn’t defend himself. He wasn’t looking for money, but he had been looking for something. If he told her the truth now, she wouldn’t feel any less betrayed, though. He would only be proving to her that he had a motive for wanting to work for her.

  He didn’t want to hurt her. But he suspected it was too late for that. He should have been honest with her from the beginning. Of course, he doubted that she would have let him anywhere near the house—or her—if he had. And he couldn’t regret what had happened between them.

  He only regretted that it was unlikely to ever happen again.

  * * *

  Edith waited for River to deny what she was saying. She waited for him to explain what he was doing in the basement—in the secret rooms. But he said nothing. He just stared at her with regret.

  A pang struck her heart. Declan was right. She had been a fool to trust River. He had definitely been keeping something from her. She wasn’t sure it was about hidden money. But he had some secret he wasn’t sharing with her.

  Along with the regret, she saw the guilt on his handsome face. “So you were just using me...”

  He shook his head now and flinched. The concussion must have still been bothering him. But not enough that he hadn’t risked getting another one by coming downstairs alone. “I wasn’t using you,” he insisted.

  “Working for me was just an excuse to get access to the house.”

  “Working for you was,” he admitted. “But what else we did...” He gestured toward the ceiling, the floor joists above were exposed here. The room hadn’t been completely finished. “I wasn’t using you.”

  She might have actually been using him—to protect her from her fears. To free her from the desire she’d felt for him. But finding him down here, searching these secret rooms, that freed her. She was in no danger of falling for someone she couldn’t trust.

  “You’re not working for me anymore,” she informed him.

  “Your boss told you to fire me?” he asked.

  Declan had. But that had nothing to do with what she was doing now.

  “It doesn’t matter what he said,” she informed River. “I don’t want you working for me anymore.”

  “I understand,” he said. “You feel betrayed.”

  “Because you betrayed me,” she said.

  He stepped closer. “No, Edith, I would never purposely hurt you.”

  She stepped back. “You didn’t hurt me.” She ignored that aching pain in her chest, in her heart. “I would have had to care for you, for you to be able to hurt me.”

  He flinched. “Edith...”

  She glanced up at the ceiling now. “That wasn’t about anything but sex.”

  “Just sex?” he repeated skeptically. “That’s all that was?” He moved closer to her yet.

  This time she didn’t step back. She couldn’t betray how he affected her even now—after she knew the truth. Her pulse quickened and her skin heated, her body flushing with desire for him. How could she still want him?

  She nodded. “Of course. I don’t have time for anything else. I don’t have time for relationships. And I don’t have time for you. You need to leave.”

  He leaned down, putting his face close to hers—as if he intended to kiss her. She held her breath, waiting to see if he’d try it.

  She wasn’t sure what she would do. She was afraid that she actually might kiss him back. He was so handsome, so sexy. She could almost taste his breath, taste the rich, distinctive flavor that was River. Her pulse quickened even more, and her skin tingled.

  But he stepped away from her this time. “I’ll leave,” he said. “But you need to leave, as well. You can’t stay here alone.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “Are you going to sneak inside the minute I turn my back?”

  Maybe that had been him she’d heard the night she hadn’t been able to sleep because of all the noises. The noises she’d heard again tonight when he’d been opening up all these secret rooms.

  He flinched again as if she’d struck him. “You’re not safe here. I don’t believe those racks accidentally fell over on you that night. And I don’t think you do, either.”

  She remembered the shadow against the stone wall she’d seen just before the racks had toppled. And her blood chilled with fear and dread.

  “And I didn’t hit myself with that crowbar,” he said.

  That was true. Even if he’d been searching the rooms, someone else must have been inside one of them—someone who’d struck him.

  “Did you really not see anything?” she asked.

  Or did he have an accomplice who’d turned on him? Someone also searching for money or whatever else Livia might have left in the house.

  “Do you think I’m protecting someone?” he asked.r />
  “Are you?”

  “You,” he replied. “You’re the only one I want to protect.”

  But he couldn’t save her from the person who could hurt her the most—because he was that person. Despite her best efforts to fight her feelings for him, she had begun to fall. That was why it hurt so much to realize he’d only been using her.

  She blinked back the tears that had started to well in her eyes. She had never cried in front of the bigger kids in the foster home; she hadn’t wanted to give them the satisfaction or reveal her weakness. But their teasing and their tricks had never affected her like this. And then she’d had Declan to defend and support her.

  He would have no sympathy for her now. He’d warned her about the Coltons and she hadn’t listened to him.

  “Promise me you won’t stay here alone,” River implored her.

  For a moment her heart warmed, as she allowed herself to believe that he might actually care about her.

  Then he added, “Stay at your uncle’s.”

  And she didn’t know if he cared or if he just wanted her out of the house and out of his way so he could search without her interrupting him.

  “It’s none of your business what I do,” she informed him. “And you no longer have any business being here. You’re fired, so now you’re trespassing.”

  “Edith—”

  “Leave now or I will call Sheriff Jeffries,” she threatened him. “I have a feeling he would be happy to lock you up.” Maybe any Colton would suffice with the Shadow Creek lawman.

  Maybe it was the threat of jail that got to him. But River sighed with resignation and walked past her. He stopped only a few steps behind her, though, because she could almost feel the heat of his body yet—like she’d felt it while she’d slept in his arms. She’d felt so satiated and safe then. But then, she had been foolish enough to trust him.

  “I’m sorry, Edith,” he said, his voice gruff with regret and something else. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  She’d already denied that he had. But he must have known she was lying. Maybe he’d seen her fighting back the tears. She waited until she heard him walk away before she allowed one to spill over and slide down her cheek.

  * * *

  He had gotten too damn close. Livia tightened her grasp on the gun she’d been holding. If he’d found this room, she would have had to shoot him. It didn’t matter that he was her son. Hell, she should have finished him off the other day. But the one blow hadn’t roused much suspicion. That fool Jeffries had believed River had just stumbled into something or tripped and fallen.

  She suspected even Knox had been willing to believe that, rather than entertain the notion that Mommy Dearest had returned to Shadow Creek. Her sons had nothing to worry about, though—at least not now that River had been fired and would no longer be poking around the basement of La Bonne Vie. But now someone else was poking.

  She heard footsteps on the other side of the fake stone walls. Then someone began to scrape at it. That damn woman...

  Edith Beaulieu had been a problem since she’d first started working on La Bonne Vie. It was past time that Livia deal with that problem—once and for all.

  Chapter 21

  Maybe Edith would stay at Mac’s if he was gone. But River had no place else to go. Yet.

  So he made a call.

  “Howard Security Services,” a male voice answered.

  “Not all that inventive,” River remarked. “I figured Leonor would make you come up with something more prosaic than just your last name.”

  Joshua Howard chuckled. “I was actually just trying that out. And yes, of course, my lovely fiancée is trying to come up with something more creative.”

  As a museum curator, Leonor had a flare for the dramatic. “I’m sure she’ll come up with something awesome.” He had confidence in his oldest sister.

  “The name isn’t the only thing I need,” Josh said. “I need employees.”

  “So the job offer’s still open?”

  “Of course,” Josh said. “You interested now?”

  River drew in a deep breath. “Yes. I’ll take it.” Because of his injury, he could no longer be the kind of Marine he’d once been. But he could still protect people—just not the person he most wanted to protect. Edith.

  “I thought you had a job,” Josh said. “At La Bonne Vie...”

  “Not anymore.” She had fired him a few days ago. But he’d hoped she would change her mind, so he’d stayed at the ranch, working for Mac and Thorne and working with Shadow. And all the while, he’d waited for her to realize that she would need him to help her finish up the house for her boss’s visit and that he hadn’t been using her.

  But he had been. He’d wanted to get into those secret rooms. He’d wanted to search for those secrets.

  Now he didn’t even care who the hell his father was. He’d lost something much more important to him than his identity; he’d lost Edith.

  Not that he’d ever really had her. For every step she’d taken toward him and what they could have together, she had taken three steps back. And after that night they’d shared such incredible passion, he should have known she would push him far away.

  Not that he hadn’t given her a reason.

  “I heard you got hurt on the job,” Josh said. “You okay now?”

  His head no longer throbbed and the swelling on his forehead had gone down. But he was hurting like hell—in his chest. He felt like he had a gaping hole where his heart had once been.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he assured his new boss. Or potential new boss. “So am I hired?”

  “Yes, of course,” Josh replied. “How soon can you move to Austin?”

  “Right away,” River said. “There’s nothing keeping me here in Shadow Creek.” Not anymore.

  * * *

  Edith had that same eerie sensation she always had at La Bonne Vie. That she wasn’t alone.

  Of course now she had a reason. Every time she glanced up from her inventory, she found either her uncle or her cousin watching over her. Sometimes they both showed up—like today—under the guise of bringing her lunch.

  Her stomach roiled at the smell of the pizza they’d brought. She hadn’t been eating. Not since she’d fired River. She hadn’t been sleeping, either.

  The last good rest she’d gotten had been in his arms, with her head on his chest, because she’d felt safe then. She’d been such a fool.

  And because she hadn’t wanted to be reminded of that night, of what they’d done in that bed, she had taken a room in town again. But it didn’t matter. Even when she wasn’t at La Bonne Vie, she couldn’t escape the memories of River.

  The way he’d looked, bare chested, sun gleaming on his sweat-slick skin and glinting off the dog tags he wore around his neck. The way he’d tasted, his lips moving over hers. The way he’d touched her...

  She shivered.

  “Are you cold?” Uncle Mac asked. Of course he wouldn’t have missed her shiver—not with as closely as he’d been watching her.

  Did he and Thorne think she was going to get sick, just like her mother had?

  Did they know how she felt about River?

  It wasn’t as if Edith had actually fallen for him. At least not completely...

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. She turned toward her cousin, who watched her just as intently. “You two don’t need to keep checking up on me.”

  Thorne nodded as if he agreed with her. “It wasn’t my idea.”

  She turned toward Uncle Mac, who shook his head. “Not mine, either.”

  “Then who?” Declan certainly wouldn’t have asked them. He didn’t want any Coltons in La Bonne Vie again. He had hired a security guard to be with her whenever she was at the estate. But the guy’s silent presence had unnerved
her. So she’d fired him and when Declan had protested, she’d admitted that she hadn’t heard or seen anything suspicious around the estate since she’d fired River. He’d refrained from saying “I told you so” and from sending another security guard.

  “River asked us to check on you,” Thorne replied. “He doesn’t want you to be alone up here. He doesn’t think it’s safe.”

  Then where was he? She wanted to ask. But she didn’t want to betray how much she cared and how badly she missed him. She snorted. “I’m perfectly safe now.”

  Now that she had fired him. That he couldn’t use her anymore. Use her for what, though?

  She hadn’t found any more secret rooms in addition to the ones he’d already found. And the only one that had contained anything of value had been that first one, with vintage wine bottles. He’d only touched one of those—the one he’d brought upstairs for them to share.

  And when she’d thrown him out of La Bonne Vie, he hadn’t appeared to have stuffed any money or valuables in his pockets. Whatever he’d been looking for, she doubted he’d found it. So why hadn’t he been back?

  “And if he’s so worried,” she continued, as her temper flared, “why hasn’t he checked on me himself?” Because he knew there was no actual threat in the house. The only real threat had been her falling for him.

  Mac chuckled. “Because he doesn’t think it would be safe, not with you being as angry as you are with him.”

  Thorne grinned. “I believe there was some mention of your threatening to call Sheriff Jeffries on him.”

  Heat rushed to her face. “It wasn’t an idle threat,” she admitted.

  “Why are you so angry with him?” Thorne asked.

  Edith doubted River had told his brother and Mac everything. “He wasn’t working for me because he really wanted to work on this house.”

  “I didn’t think he had a sudden desire to become a handyman, either,” Thorne said.

  “Then you know he was searching the place?”

  Thorne narrowed his pale brown eyes. “Searching the place for what?”

  She shrugged. “Something your mother must have hidden here—in one of her secret rooms.”