Colton's Secret Son
Page 24
“You’re losing it, Lars,” Dane said, shaking his head. They’d been friends so long that he knew when not to argue with Lars. So he said nothing more.
But because they’d been friends so long, Lars owed him an explanation. “I have no proof,” he said. “I’m not even sure my sister is still in River City.”
He had told her that if she got in trouble and needed help while he was deployed, that she should come to River City—to Cooper. She hadn’t met with Cooper, though. In her last letter, she’d told him that she’d come here but she was going to meet with a lawyer instead of his friend.
That lawyer wouldn’t even take Lars’s calls. Anger tightened his stomach muscles into knots. He had to have something to do with Emilia’s disappearance. He had to know where she was.
Because he was a lawyer, he knew his rights. Even if Lars called the police, they wouldn’t have enough cause to be granted a search warrant. So Lars wouldn’t be able to legally get inside that estate. That was why he and Dane had resorted to illegal methods.
Methods that could have gotten them in prison or a casket. Cooper had too much going for him right now with his new family and his new business. Lars wouldn’t let his friend risk his life on his hunch.
The same went for Manny and Cole, too. If he told them, they wouldn’t give him a choice—just like Dane hadn’t. He shouldn’t have told Dane, but his friend had caught him in a weak moment, when the fear for Emilia had been overwhelming him.
Not being able to find her...
Not knowing where she was...
He hated it—hated feeling helpless—just like he’d felt when they’d lost their mom to her disease. He hadn’t been able to help her, either, hadn’t been able to save her.
He had to save Emilia.
“You don’t need proof for your friends,” Dane said.
He hadn’t needed proof to offer to help. He had trusted Lars’s instincts that something was wrong. During their deployments, they’d had to trust each other, or they wouldn’t have survived.
“No,” Lars agreed. “But I need proof to keep my friends out of trouble. We can’t go storming in on a hunch.”
Dane grinned. “Again?”
“We barely got out of there alive,” Lars reminded him.
The gates had scraped along the sides of the pickup as Dane had backed out, but he had made it onto the street. And they had escaped the gunfire with only the truck getting hit, not them.
This time.
He had no idea what might happen next time. The lawyer had already taken measures to increase security at the estate. Myron Webber was determined to make sure nobody got in.
Or out?
“We need a better plan before we try again,” Lars said.
And taking the bodyguard job was the biggest part of that plan. Since he’d been following the lawyer, he knew how the guy intended to increase security. He’d overheard a conversation the guy had had with a pretty blonde woman Lars had recognized from the picture Cooper had carried in his wallet since boot camp. And now he knew: Myron Webber intended to hire the Payne Protection Agency.
Lars felt a flash of guilt for taking advantage of his friend. That was why Cooper couldn’t know. This way he had plausible deniability for whatever Lars had to do in order to find his sister.
And Lars would do whatever was necessary for Emilia. He had promised their dying mother that he would always keep his sister safe, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He had to find Emilia; he had to keep that promise.
He didn’t care if he wound up in prison or a casket.
Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Childs
ISBN-13: 9781488016318
Colton’s Secret Son
Copyright © 2017 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Carla Cassidy for her contribution to The Coltons of Shadow Creek miniseries.
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