The Colton Bride

by Carla Cassidy

  She had no place in his life and he had none in hers. He’d learned that lesson when he’d been eighteen years old, a hard lesson that he was likely never to forget.

  Any indifference he might have felt for her fled as he rounded the corner to the petting barn and saw her slumped on the ground against the fence.

  Adrenaline roared through him as he raced to her side, his gun pulled and at the ready. Had she been attacked? He hadn’t been that far away in the stables and he hadn’t heard her cry out, hadn’t heard anything that would warrant action or warn of any danger.

  It took only a quick assessment to assure him that she didn’t appear to have any wounds anywhere. He tucked his gun back into the holster, sat next to her on the ground and pulled her into his arms.

  “Catherine?” Everyone around the ranch called her Cath, but when Gray had returned to Dead River Ranch, he’d decided he’d never call her by that affectionate nickname again. He also refused to call her Miss Catherine as all the other staff did. Cath had been a woman he loved. Catherine was just one of his bosses.

  He felt the side of her neck, where her pulse was steady and strong. “Catherine,” he said louder, as if by the sheer strength of the command in his deep voice alone he could bring her around.

  It worked. She drew a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes. For just a moment he was eighteen years old again and she was seventeen. Her indigo-blue eyes held sweet softness and her long blond hair spilled over his arm like a sheet of honey-colored silk. As if in a trance, her lush lips turned up in a smile of such pleasure it ached deep inside him.

  Like a time warp, it was as if they were both momentarily trapped in the past, in a time when they’d loved one another more than anyone else in the world, in a time when he’d been foolish enough to believe that a wealthy Colton might really choose a future with a dirt-poor ranch hand.

  The moment snapped and she bolted upright at the same time he released her and quickly rose to his feet. “What happened?” he asked. Reluctantly he held out his hand to help her up, unsure if she’d accept his aid or not. They hadn’t exactly been on friendly terms for the past few years.

  She slipped her small hand into his and he pulled her up, both of them breaking the physical contact instantly once she was on her feet.

  She looked around, as if momentarily confused. “I don’t know. I guess I fainted.” She frowned and her hand went to her stomach. “I got really light-headed and sat down and that’s the last thing I remember.”

  “Why would you faint? You’ve never been the fainting type before.” He looked at her in disbelief.

  A new tiny frown danced in the center of her forehead. “I...uh...didn’t sleep well last night and I missed lunch.”

  His disbelief deepened. A night of little sleep and a missed meal wouldn’t make somebody as healthy and strong as Catherine faint. There had to be something else going on with her.

  “I’m pregnant.” The words blurted from her lips. Her eyes widened as she slapped a hand over her mouth. She slowly raised her hand to her hair and twirled a strand of it, a remembered indication to him that she was upset. “I took a test just a little while ago and it was positive. I’m going to have a baby.”

  A whole new host of emotions flew through Gray. “I’m sure Dirk must be very happy. Is there a wedding planned for the near future?” He knew she’d been seeing society playboy Dirk Sinclair for the past six months or so. Their pictures had graced the society pages more than once in recent months.

  “There won’t be a wedding,” Catherine said as she started walking toward the house. “Dirk and I broke up two months ago when he discovered I wouldn’t get my inheritance until I turned thirty years old.”

  Gray fell into step beside her. Everyone who lived and worked at the ranch knew that Catherine’s father, Jethro, had stipulated that all heirs had to live at the ranch until they turned thirty years old and only then would they receive their inheritance, a substantial amount of money.

  “Only my sisters know about the baby and I’ve sworn them all to absolute secrecy. Dirk will never know. He made it obvious to me that he was courting my money, not me, and I don’t want him in my life for any reason.”

  “I’m sorry about you and Dirk,” Gray said, only because it was expected of him.

  “I’m not.” She raised her chin. “I’m just grateful he showed his true colors before I accepted his stupid proposal.” Her hand slid down her light blue sweatshirt and lingered on her stomach, her eyes darkening. “This is my baby and nobody else’s.”

  Gray’s stomach clenched with an unexpected tightness. He was surprised to discover that it bothered him more than a little bit that she carried another man’s baby. It was a stupid reaction that he refused to give weight. He was never meant to be the father of her children. Far better men than him were destined for that particular role in her life.

  What her information did do was make him recognize that this would make her a particularly desirable victim to any kidnapper with a brain...two Colton heirs for the price of one.

  “If you’re smart you’ll keep this a secret for as long as you possibly can. It puts a huge target on your back,” he said and then hurriedly added, “not that it’s any of my business.”

  He thought she saw a faint flinch etch across her pretty features. “You’re right, it isn’t any of your business,” she replied coolly, making him wonder if he’d seen the flinch or just imagined it. He couldn’t imagine that there was anything he could say to her that would actually hurt her.

  Whatever he’d thought they had together years ago had been nothing but an illusion and in the four years that he’d been back at the ranch she’d dated a variety of men befitting a Colton, confirming to him that she’d never really cared about him anyway.

  Still, when they reached the back door where she would enter and he would continue on around the mansion to the entryway for staff, he took her by the arm.

  He wanted to ask her what in hell was she thinking? There was danger all around them. This was the worst time to let people know a new Colton heir was on the way. It had only been three months since somebody had tried to kidnap the youngest Colton heir, Cheyenne, the first time. A second attempt had been made less than a month before, thankfully both unsuccessful, but the first attempt had left his best friend’s mother dead.

  At the moment, Catherine and the baby she carried lived in a crazy world, in the house that suddenly felt mad with a simmering sick energy.

  “I’m serious, Catherine. You need to be careful and you should keep your pregnancy a secret.”

  She pulled her arm from his grasp, as if unable to abide his touch. “I’ve been taking care of myself for years. I’m sure I can take care of myself now.” She didn’t wait for a response, but turned on her heels and went inside the door, leaving him only the whisper of her perfume lingering in the air.

  He muttered a curse and headed for the employee door. He’d have just enough time to head up to his Spartan room in the male staff housing area, take a quick shower and then get down to the employee dining room for dinner.

  Minutes later, he stood beneath a spray of hot water and tried to keep his thoughts away from Catherine, but it was next to impossible.

  Holding her in his arms for those brief moments had picked the scabs off scars he’d thought long healed. In the five years that he had been away from Dead River Ranch and working on a ranch in Montana, he’d occasionally dated other women. But none of them had managed to evoke in him the depth of tenderness, the wealth of desire, the overwhelming rush of love that Cath had so many years ago.

  Cath. She’d always been his Cath but since his return to the ranch she was Catherine in his heart and mind, the distinction necessary for him to forget what had been, what he knew would never be.

  In the four years since he’d been back at the ranch, as if by mutual agreement she and he had steered clear of each other, rarely speaking to one another unless it was absolutely necessary.

  She’d
stopped being his problem almost nine years ago and there was no reason for anything to change now. Still, he couldn’t help the simmering anxiety that tightened in his chest as he thought of what a perfect target she would make for a kidnapping and ransom scheme.

  The crime had been attempted before with the result being the wrong child kidnapped and a beloved governess dead and the second attempt had only intensified the feeling in the house that both crimes were probably inside jobs.

  The family was a convoluted mess, with an ex-wife, illegitimate children and sundry other relatives living in the mansion while the patriarch, Jethro, battled leukemia and drifted in and out of consciousness depending on the day. His illegitimate son, Dr. Levi Colton, had come to do what he could for the man who was his father.

  He’d not only brought a bag of medical tricks with him, but also the baggage of a child who had never been acknowledged. At least in the past month Levi had found some peace and had fallen in love with pastry chef Katie McCord.

  Gray had no idea how well the staff had been vetted. Mathilda Perkins, the head housekeeper, was in charge of the hiring and firing of employees. He’d never had any reason to doubt that Mathilda did adequate background checks on the people she hired and that she had the best interests of the family at heart at all times. She’d been a devoted employee for many years.

  As he pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a denim shirt, he reminded himself that Catherine and her situation weren’t his problem. All he had to worry about was ordering supplies, overseeing the other ranch hands and keeping the horses and cattle healthy and happy.

  Catherine Colton wasn’t part of his job, nor was she a part of his life, and he definitely intended to keep it that way.

  Chapter 2

  Dinner in the Colton family dining room was always a study of pretend civility, underlying tension and slight unpleasant innuendoes. The dining table stretched from nearly one side of the plush, elegant dining room to the other and as Catherine took her seat her gaze automatically went to the empty chair at the head of the table.

  Her father had been a stern man with little time for his daughters, but Catherine loved him in spite of all his flaws and she always missed his presence at the evening meal.

  When she’d been little he’d command the conversation, talking about how he’d built Dead River Ranch to be the most prosperous ranch in the entire state of Wyoming. He loved his ranch, his money and women and he occasionally remembered that he had three little daughters who were totally dependent on him since their mother had run out on them.

  Now his chair was empty because of his illness. At the opposite end of the table was another empty chair, one that stood ready for Cole Colton, Jethro’s son who had been kidnapped as a baby thirty years ago.

  When their father had first become ill, Catherine, Gabriella and Amanda had hired a private investigator in an attempt to find their missing half brother, hoping that a reunion would buoy Jethro’s spirits and give him a reason to fight his illness. There was also a possibility that Cole could be a bone marrow donor and save Jethro’s life.

  But, while some clues had come to light, there had been nothing so far that pointed them to Jethro’s missing son. It was a thirty-year-old cold case that wasn’t going to be suddenly solved.

  Next to Catherine at the table were Gabby and her fiancé, Trevor Garth, who also served as head of security for the ranch. Amanda sat at the end of the table with six-month-old Cheyenne in a bouncy seat on the floor next to her.

  On the opposite side of the table were Levi and Katie, Jethro’s third ex-wife, Darla Colton, and her two grown children, Tawny and Trip.

  Without Jethro at the table, meals had become noisy, chaotic affairs where people talked over one another while the air shimmered with distrust. Darla, the Botox bottled-blond bitch, as the sisters referred to her, loved the sound of her own voice and if it wasn’t her doing the talking, then it was her son, Trip, who often smelled of booze or pot, depending on the day and the time.

  A headache began at Catherine’s left temple as she declined the traditional glass of wine that was always served with the evening meal.

  The conversation that swirled around the table throughout the meal was much like it had been for the past couple of weeks. It revolved around the latest attempted kidnapping of Cheyenne, the intervention by Jagger McKnight, an investigative reporter who had been attacked and left for dead on the ranch property. For a while everyone had believed that Jagger was the long-lost Cole, especially when it was discovered he had a piece of an old blue blanket with distinctive embroidery on it in his pocket, a piece of blanket that had once belonged to the missing Cole.

  The truth had come out, that Jagger was a reporter, that the blanket bit had been planted on him while he’d been unconscious and everyone had been left with more questions than answers.

  Halfway through the meal Catherine wished she had decided to eat in her room. Gabby touched her arm lightly, her green eyes filled with concern. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  “I’m fine. I just have a touch of a headache,” Catherine replied.

  “Gee, I wonder why?” Gabby inclined her head toward Trip, who was on his fourth glass of wine and getting louder and louder with each minute that passed. His favorite topic was his prowess with the staff and how every maid who worked in the house had the hots for him.

  The sisters had speculated for a long time why Darla and her children were allowed residency in the house. Jethro and Darla had been divorced for years and he’d never shown any interest in her or her two children by a previous marriage, and yet they had their own suite in one of the wings of the house.

  They had all decided that Darla knew something about her ex-husband, that she had some piece of information so damning that she’d managed to blackmail herself into a cushy place in the mansion for herself and her children.

  Catherine wasn’t close to Darla or her two spoiled adult children and with everything that had happened recently, she couldn’t help but be suspicious of them.

  Everyone was suspicious of everyone else, and the recent months of murder, deceit and chaos had taken a toll on each and every resident in the huge mansion. The only people Catherine truly trusted were her sisters.

  When the meal was finished, head housekeeper Mathilda Perkins slid into the room and stood next to the wall as two young women carried silver trays of after-dinner coffee.

  Mathilda looked like something from a gothic movie with her silver-blond hair pulled into a severe knot at the nape of her neck. Narrowed blue-gray eyes and a starched gray dress added to the aura of a gothic servant. The only difference was she watched the two new kitchen hires, Lucinda Garcia and Kyla Winters, with benevolent eyes, the same way she gazed at each and every person at the table with a hint of fondness.

  Catherine’s headache had blossomed from her left temple to chase all the way across her forehead. Caffeine. There was nothing she loved more than her after-dinner shot of leaded coffee.

  As Kyla was about to pour her a cup, Catherine suddenly thought about the new life inside her and quickly stopped her. “I’d rather have decaf,” she said.

  From across the table Darla arched a blond perfectly tweezed brow. “Interesting. No wine before dinner, no caffeine in your coffee. Why one would think that you might have a little secret.”

  “She’s pregnant,” Tawny exclaimed with excitement, as if she’d suddenly cured cancer.

  It was obviously just a guess on her part, but the expression on Catherine’s face must have given her away. Suddenly the conversation ratcheted up in volume as everyone talked about the prospect of a new Colton heir.

  Escape! With her head pounding, Catherine needed to escape the table, escape this room and these people. She excused herself and ran for the door, leaving the rest of them to speculate on who the father might be, when the due date would come and whether it would be a boy or a girl.

  She’d scarcely found out about her condition herself and already it was gossip fod
der around the dining room table. How had Tawny guessed so easily? Drat it all, Catherine should have taken the pregnancy test and buried it in the pasture instead of throwing it into her bathroom trash can. For all she knew Tawny went through everyone’s trash to learn whatever secrets somebody might have.

  There were only three places where Catherine found peace, the first was her bedroom suite, the second was the petting barn and the third was in her father’s suite where she often sat next to his bed and talked to him.

  She knew he was in a coma at the moment, but as terrible as it sounded, that was the time she found it easiest to sit with him, to talk to him, to simply love him.

  It took her some time to walk the long corridors that led to his suite of rooms. She entered his sitting room, a pleasant area filled with a stone fireplace, bookshelves and decorated in rich greens and golds. The fireplace stood cold and empty, but it wouldn’t be long before it would be filled with burning wood to keep the winter chill from invading the area.

  To her left was her father’s bedroom and as she entered, she nodded to the middle-aged woman in the white uniform. Nurse Linetta Wheeling had been hired several weeks ago to sit with Jethro during the evenings and overnight.

  “Good evening, Miss Catherine,” she said as she rose from the straight-backed chair near Jethro’s bed.

  Catherine nodded and then looked at her father, her heart squeezing tight as she took in the sight. Jethro had once been a robust, imposing figure, but now his face was gaunt and he looked tiny beneath the heavy green spread that covered him.

  “Any changes?” Catherine asked.

  “None.” Linetta offered a sympathetic smile. “I’ll just step outside and give you a little time alone with him.” As quiet as a mouse, Linetta slid out of the room and into the sitting room.