He shook his head instantly. “Like hell. You couldn’t leave Emma.”
“Yes.” She smiled, as if relieved he understood. How could she doubt that, of all things?
“Man or woman?”
“I couldn’t be sure. I only caught a glimpse before they got out of sight. Dark clothes.”
“Never saw the car?” She shook her head. He let out a breath. “Must have been a curious ranch hand. I haven’t used the place much for a while, he was probably surprised to see somebody here.”
“But why didn’t he come on in?”
“He probably saw Flash in the corral. Thought it was me in residence, so he knew better,” T.C. said.
She blinked. “That bad?”
“I come here to get away from everything. They know that. It would have to be an emergency for one of them to intrude.”
After a moment she nodded. She glanced at the weapon. “Now I feel silly.”
He reached out, brushed the back of his fingers over her cheek. “Don’t. When it comes to protecting Emma, you use what you have.”
Something shifted in her expression, and when she said, “Yes, I do,” it was a bit more fervently than the situation merited. And he knew she wasn’t talking just about now, but four years ago.
He’d spent four years alternating between hating this woman and missing her as if she were an amputated limb, always conscious of the loss, adjusting his every action and thought around her absence. Not going to this place because they had gone there, picking that place because they hadn’t.
And now she was here, and he felt helpless against this fierce, driving need for her. And helpless was not a feeling he was used to.
Except with her.
And now, for the first time, he was thinking, really thinking, what it must have been like for her then.
“How did you feel?” he asked. “What were you thinking, back then, when you decided you had to go?”
He couldn’t believe he’d said it. He wasn’t the kind of guy who pried into people’s feelings. He barely acknowledged his own.
Except with her.
She met his gaze steadily. “That I had no choice. That I had to protect Emma.” She drew in a slow, deep breath. “And I wasn’t surprised.”
He drew back slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t surprised that I was going to lose it all. It had been too good to be true anyway.”
Pain stabbed at him, setting up a tight knot in his gut. A flash of the first time he’d seen her went through his mind, a quiet girl in the corner of the kitchen, not even looking at him as he came in. She’d looked up as Bettina introduced them, and in that moment before she’d lowered her gaze he’d seen the doubt, the fear. He’d thought then it was just wariness on a new job, and who he was related to that, but now he realized it had been more. It had been fear, and anticipation, of exactly the kind of thing that had eventually happened. A young mother, finally on a straight path after an ugly childhood and adolescence when she’d probably expected the worst every day, and then having it all yanked out from under her again.
“You asked,” she said. “I’m sorry if you don’t like the answer.”
He realized that his expression must have become rather grim. “What I don’t like is other people messing in my life. I’m going to be having a little talk with my mother, sooner rather than later.”
Jolie sighed. “And what makes you think that will change anything?”
He smiled at her then. “Maybe because you’re right, you won’t be so easy to bully this time.” She blinked, then stared at him. “And,” he added, “this time I know what she did, and I’ll call her on it.”
“This time?” Her voice was tiny, almost shaky.
“I didn’t know then, Jolie. I swear to you I didn’t.”
For a moment longer she just looked up at him. Looking nothing like the fierce protector who had been ready to shoot to protect her child.
He wanted to protect her. And Emma. He wanted them both safe and able to grow and blossom as he knew they would. He’d never felt the urge this strongly in his life.
Except with her.
He couldn’t stop himself; he reached for her. She came into his arms easily, and he realized with a little jolt she was trembling.
“Jolie?”
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“They’re gone, whoever it was,” he assured her.
She leaned back again to look at him, gave a tiny shake of her head. “Not that. You.”
He went still. “You’re scared of me?”
Again the small gesture of denial. “Of how I feel about you. How you make me feel.”
Making her feel was exactly what he wanted to do right now. He wanted to make her feel everything he’d felt, he wanted to make her move in that urgent way, wanted to hear the tiny sounds she made when he touched her in all those places, wanted to hear her cry out when she shattered in his arms.
On some vague level he knew she was talking of deeper things, but that reasoning part of his brain was shutting down as need blasted along every nerve in his body.
“I think we should check on Flash,” he breathed against her ear.
He felt a shiver go through her, hoped it was for the same reason he was practically shaking in his boots.
“You think he might be getting in trouble out there?” she whispered.
“I think I already am in trouble.”
“No fun getting in trouble alone,” she whispered, and reached up to cup his face with her hand. He turned his head, pressed his lips against her palm. And read the longed-for answer in her eyes.
He grabbed a blanket from the storage chest at the foot of the bed; last time he’d been picking straw out of uncomfortable places. He supposed she had, too, but she’d never complained.
But then Jolie didn’t complain. She assessed, formulated and acted on her best plan. It struck him then that she was exactly the kind of person he preferred to deal with in business. No manipulation, no backroom maneuvering, just honest decisions made with the best information she had at the time.
Like she had made four years ago?
He was still going to confront his mother, armed with this new knowledge of what she had done, threatened. But the more time he spent with Jolie again, the more he remembered who she really was. And he already knew his mother would do almost anything to get her way. And that she was shrewd enough to realize Jolie’s weak spot would ever and always be Emma.
And she’d homed in on it like a heat-seeking missile, he thought sourly.
Flash whinnied at them from the corral, and the memory of Emma’s delight with the big animal made him smile. Which only stoked the inner anger that was building; his mother had a great deal to answer for. Even the old man wouldn’t stoop so low as to threaten a child.
He opened the gate and they slipped through. Jolie seemed to hesitate. She was looking at Flash. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Maybe the same thing he’d been moments ago, how happy Emma had been sitting atop the big paint. Or maybe the couple of times she’d ridden him herself; she wasn’t practiced, but she did well enough.
Something ticked in his brain, a realization that he’d never really worried much about what any other woman he wasn’t related to was thinking. But he’d always wanted to know where Jolie’s mind was, what mattered to her, how she looked at things, what her opinion was on something. Everything.
Apparently that hadn’t changed, either.
He pulled her to him and kissed her, long and deep, fearing she would change her mind. Not fair, perhaps, but his aching body didn’t care about that. It only cared about slaking this incredible need that had apparently been banked, hiding, while she was gone from his life. Not that it wasn’t her call in the end. He knew that, but
he didn’t have to encourage second thoughts.
Moments later they were in the stall, the blanket providing a bit more comfort than before. To his surprise he was in as much of a hurry as he’d been last time, and it took all of his restraint to go slowly. But he wanted her as hot for this as he was. And he wanted to revisit every beautiful, long-missed inch of her with his hands and then his mouth.
He followed that plan, although rational thinking about it fled the moment they’d shed their clothes and her luscious curves and long, lithe legs were bare to him. Every bit of evidence that she wanted this as much as he did was fuel to the fire that was soon out of control. The way she touched him, the look of wonder in her eyes, the way she whispered his name.
By the time he sank into her, and her legs wrapped around him to draw him deeper, he was on the edge of crazy out of his mind. And when she made it clear she wanted him hard and fast, he lost the last semblance of sanity and went wild in a way he never had done before. And when he heard her cry out, when he felt it begin for her, her slick, hot flesh clenching around him, he let go completely, wanting her to remember this instant forever. Wanting to be imprinted on her and in her forever.
And in those moments he didn’t even think about the time with her when he’d once before thought of forever.
* * *
Jolie checked Emma, wondering if she should wake the child so she would be better able to sleep tonight. She decided against it; after the last four days her baby needed all she could get.
She straightened, and flushed as newly tender parts of her brought back the memory of the sweet interludes spent in a hospitable horse’s stall. It was as if it were new all over again, which in a way it was, since there had been no one since T.C. anyway. Sometimes it was as if she could still feel him inside her, driving her to that peak, her every nerve firing, her body awaiting only his harsh cry of her name to leap into that inferno they created together.
Perhaps—no, probably—it was beyond foolish to have done this. Twice now. She was likely setting herself up for another heartbreak.
And she, who always tried to be honest at least with herself, refused to admit how much she was clinging to that tiny margin between probability and certainty. And almost regretted that the shower T.C. was occupying just now wasn’t big enough for both of them.
She picked up the hairbrush she’d left on the table and ran it through hair almost dry from her own shower. It wasn’t going to look its best after just air drying, but it would have to do. Emma wouldn’t care, and T.C. didn’t seem to. Especially not when he had his hands in it as he tilted her head back for a deeper kiss.
She felt that inner heat building again, and made herself stop thinking about it. Because thinking about it made her hope, and hadn’t she learned hope was a kid’s game? She—
A flicker of motion at the window over the makeshift sink caught the edge of her vision. She spun around, and for an instant found herself staring at an all-too-familiar face.
Whitney Colton.
The woman dodged away the instant she realized Jolie had seen her. Jolie was too stunned to move, and simply stood there, hairbrush in hand, staring at the now empty square of glass.
T.C.’s mother. The woman who had shattered her life. The woman who had treated her as less than dirt on her designer boots.
The woman with blond hair and from whom T.C. had gotten his green eyes.
Green eyes.
“The mean lady, Mommy.”
“Her eyes were like Liddy’s.”
The green eyes of a killer?
She sank down on the hard, wooden chair, shaking.
Chapter 26
The fact that Whitney Colton had been here, spying, bothered Jolie the least. In fact, she felt a spurt of relief that she hadn’t been here earlier, when she and T.C. were in the shed.
But the realization that she resembled the murderer...
This was crazy.
As nasty as the woman was, Jolie simply could not picture her committing murder. At least not herself, up close and personal.
Besides, why would the woman murder someone with no apparent connection to the Coltons?
But she could easily have been there. They hadn’t been too far from the headquarters of the family business.
But why would she have been in an alley, blocks away, following a stranger?
Unless she didn’t think it was a stranger.
T.C.’s words came back to her in a rush. “The woman who was murdered looked just like you.”
Could Whitney have thought she was killing her? Fowler could certainly have told her he’d seen her, just as he’d told T.C.
But the thought of Whitney Colton hunting her down was ridiculous. She’d never even attempted to contact T.C. again, just as ordered, so Whitney would have no reason. Besides, Whitney knew perfectly well what she looked like. She wouldn’t mistake a total stranger for her. She hadn’t changed that much in four years.
Then again, Whitney wasn’t the type to pay much mind to those she considered beneath her.
Or perhaps all this with her husband had unhinged her completely?
Her mind made a giant leap to wondering if the woman in the alley hadn’t been her first. Maybe she’d killed T.C.’s father and gotten away with it, and that made it easier for her to go for it a second time?
She heard the bathroom door open, realized T.C. was done with his shower and was coming out. She reined in her careening brain fiercely. And welcomed the sight of him wearing only jeans slung low on his lean hips, baring his chest and taut abdomen to her gaze. An echo of the heat they created together skittered along her nerves. Even now, she thought, this man had a hold on her unlike anyone in her life except the child who was likely going to be waking up at any moment.
“Jolie?”
She realized what her expression must be as she looked at him.
She wondered if she could discover if Whitney had been in the city the day of the murder without betraying why she needed to know. She discarded that idea quickly; T.C. was too smart to be fooled by whatever convoluted way she might try to find out.
She saw him glance toward Emma, realized that had been his first thought, to make sure she was all right. And in that instant she realized with a little shock that she trusted him to do the right thing, even if his mother was somehow involved. Because that was who he was.
At that moment Emma stirred, then sat up, rubbing at her eyes after her long nap. It would likely be a late night, Jolie thought, but guaranteed sound sleep was a good trade off. She immediately wanted to go see Flash, and Jolie had to remind her to put her boots on first. Jolie saw T.C. check the area outside for anything that might spook the usually calm horse before he lifted the girl up onto his back, where she crowed with delight. His care made her even more certain he would do the right thing, no matter what. Even though she had destroyed his love for her—she wasn’t foolish enough to mistake his need for her for love, at least she hoped not—nothing could change his feelings for Emma.
So when he walked back to the fence where she was sitting and joined her on the top rail, she told him what she’d seen.
“My mother?” T.C.’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “She never comes out here. She thinks I’m crazy to spend time without all the mod cons.”
“It was her. Do you think I’ve forgotten what she looks like?” She knew she sounded a bit combative, but her mind was in complete turmoil as it wrestled with the possibilities.
“I never said I doubted you, only that I have no idea why she’d be out here.”
She drew in a deep breath, steadied herself. “Your mother has green eyes.”
He blinked his own eyes of the same color. “Yes.”
“She’s blond.”
“With help, yes.”
It sounded hesitant, puzzled,
as if she’d only stated the obvious. She waited. He got there much quicker than she would have expected.
“You think it was her? The killer?”
He didn’t sound nearly as shocked as she would have expected, either.
“I’m only saying she fits the description. And Emma’s day care isn’t too far from the Colton building.”
He let out an audible breath. Shifted on the top fence rail. She watched him intently.
“Worse,” he muttered. “The place she gets her hair done is on the same street.”
Jolie stifled a gasp, not just at the admission but at the miracle that she hadn’t encountered his mother at some point before. But then she belatedly realized something else. “You’re not surprised.”
“No.”
“Did this already occur to you?”
“Not exactly.”
She waited. Silently.
His mouth tightened; then he turned to face her head-on. “I’ve been wondering for two and a half months, starting as soon as the shock wore off, if she had something to do with my father’s disappearance.”
Her own eyes widened. Despite everything she knew of Whitney, this hadn’t occurred to her. “Do you think she did?”
He let out a disgusted sounding sigh. “I don’t know. I’ve suspected by turns her, Fowler and Marceline.”
“That’s...understandable,” she said carefully. She knew what he thought of those particular siblings, and for that matter his mother, but going from unpleasantness and conniving to this was a huge jump.
“I’ve been tracking them.” His mouth twisted upward at one corner. “Spying a bit. But all I’ve learned is that Fowler spends all his spare time with Tiffany, Marceline has uncharacteristically taken to spending hers with her horse—or one of the hands, which is even harder to believe—and my mother has developed a weakness for phony psychics.”
Jolie processed this. While the idea of Marceline hanging out with a ranch hand was preposterous, so was the thought of determinedly sophisticated, social-climbing Whitney Colton consulting psychics.
Colton Family Rescue Page 18
