Colton 911: Secret Defender

by Marie Ferrarella

  Still, Aaron didn’t lose a beat as he smiled at the woman who had given him life. “Hi, Mom. How are you doing?” he asked cheerfully.

  Nicole gestured for Aaron to come on in. “I’m fine, dear. I must say that I haven’t seen this much of you since you were in elementary school. Give it to me honestly, Aaron,” she said, pretending to be serious as she closed the door behind her and turned around to confront him. “Am I dying?”

  The question caught him completely off guard. “What? No,” he denied with verve. “Why would you even ask that?”

  “Well, like I said. I haven’t seen this much of you—and so often—since you were a little guy and hanging around your mother was acceptable. When you got a little older, you were always more interested in going your own way. And now you’ve been stopping by the house more times than I have fingers. I was just wondering if something dire was motivating you.”

  She wasn’t really wondering. She was fairly certain that she knew why her son had become such a frequent visitor, but she wanted to hear Aaron admit it. They both knew he wasn’t coming by just to check on her. Although Aaron was a loving son, that was only a secondary excuse he was using. The real reason he kept coming by was because of Felicia, and Nicole couldn’t have been more thrilled about it.

  The only thing that would make this whole situation better in her book was to hear Aaron come out and actually admit it.

  But she wasn’t greedy, Nicole told herself. She felt that would all come in good time. Just as Aaron had come around when it came to giving up boxing for a living and had turned to training contenders instead.

  Aaron eyed his mother and said seriously, “Maybe finding you on the floor on your hands and knees made me aware that I shouldn’t take having you around for granted.”

  He sounded so sincere that Nicole could feel her heart responding. “Oh, Aaron, don’t make me cry now.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Mom. So—” he looked around the area “—where is everyone?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

  Nicole’s eyes narrowed slightly. Aaron could all but hear his mother declaring, “Aha.” Wanting to avoid discussing the obvious, he quickly followed up his question by saying, “I thought I saw Aunt Vita’s car in front of the house. I thought she might be down here with you.”

  “As a matter of fact, she is here,” his mother told him with a pleased smile. “And your aunt Vita brought someone with her.”

  “Uncle Rick?” he asked. It seemed like the logical choice.

  Unlike his father’s twin brother, the amoral Uncle Axel, who had been Vita’s first husband and the father of his cousins Myles and Lila, Vita’s second husband was adored by everyone in the family. Right from the beginning, Rick had made a real effort to be a father not just to his wife’s children, but also to him and his two brothers. Aaron and his brothers all knew that if they had a problem or needed help dealing with anything at all, Rick would always be there for them. Rick was a true family man in every sense of the word.

  And just as Aaron asked his mother if Rick was the one who had come with his aunt, it occurred to him that he hadn’t seen the man for a while. He realized that he was allowing the management of his four gyms to take up all of his time. It had taken his mother’s accident to finally wake him up to the fact that he wasn’t interacting with the rest of the family—and this newest addition, he thought, his thoughts straying toward Felicia again.

  Things definitely needed to change, he decided.

  “Actually, no, dear,” his mother said, answering his question. “It’s not Rick. Your uncle Rick is stuck at the nursery, insisting, since he is one man down, on overseeing all the details—something that doesn’t exactly make Vita very happy. She swears she’s going to force Rick to hire some extra help for the office so that he can get out a little more,” she said. And then she smiled brightly. “No, this is an actual surprise.”

  Aaron studied her for a moment. “Is this your attempt at being mysterious, Mom?”

  “Not at all,” she replied innocently. “This is my way of getting you to follow me to the family room,” Nicole said, leading the way into that room.

  The next moment, he no longer had to ask any more questions as to just who the surprise visitor was. He saw Vita’s daughter, his cousin Lila, sitting on the sofa between his aunt and Felicia. All three women were laughing.

  Aaron quickly walked over to the sofa and gave his cousin a warm, welcoming hug.

  “Lila, when did you get back?” he asked as he released her.

  “Late yesterday,” the pretty, dark-haired twenty-nine-year-old answered. “The minute I got past my jet lag I went right over to see my mom,” she said, glancing at Vita, “only to find out that she was over here, so here I am.”

  And then she turned to look at Nicole. “You have no idea how upset I was to find out about Aunt Nikki and her broken hip,” she told her cousin. There was compassion in her eyes as she looked at Aaron’s mother.

  “My hip isn’t broken anymore,” Nicole pointed out. “It’s better than new—thanks to Felicia here.” Lila’s aunt put her arm around Felicia’s shoulders and gave the young woman a quick, warm hug.

  Felicia had no intentions of taking what she considered undue credit. “The doctor put you together, Nicole,” she told the woman. “I just did my part to help get you back in working order.”

  “See?” Nicole asked, looking over at her niece. “What did I tell you? Not only is she great when it comes to physical therapy, but the woman is also pathologically modest.”

  “Accurate,” Felicia corrected. “The word is accurate, not pathologically modest.”

  Nicole sighed. “Have it your way if it makes you happy, dear,” she said, patting Felicia’s hand. “The rest of us know the truth. Don’t we, Aaron?” She turned toward her son.

  He could see that all this extra attention was making Felicia look very uncomfortable, so he decided to change the subject. He asked his cousin, “So how did your trip to meet up with that recluse Homer Tinsley go? Did you get him to part with any of his paintings to put them on exhibit at the gallery?”

  Lila knew her cousin was just being polite. Paintings held absolutely no interest for him. But she obliged with an answer anyway. It was actually her way of blowing off steam after what she had just been put through.

  “Well, Tinsley continues to be a mystery man,” she said. She knew artists were a breed unto themselves, but she definitely didn’t appreciate this artist’s hide-and-seek personality.

  “You mean he didn’t meet with you?” Felicia asked, surprised that a renowned artist would behave in this fashion.

  “That’s what I mean,” Lila said wearily, doing her best to hold on to her irritation. After all, she had gone out of her way to meet with the man the way she had been directed, and then, after all that, he’d made himself unavailable. “Homer Tinsley usually communicates through his agent, Walter Fox, but this time Fox was a no-show, too.”

  Vita took umbrage at the treatment her daughter had received at the so-called artist’s hands.

  “How extremely rude,” she declared. “If you have an address where to get in contact with this impolite man, I’ll pass it on to your stepfather. Rick can teach that barbarian some manners if anyone can.”

  “No need, Mom, although I appreciate the offer,” Lila told her mother. “Just when I got back to my new town house last night, there was a message waiting for me that Mr. Tinsley will be sending several of his pieces for exhibition at the Weston Street Gallery next month,” she said, referring to the gallery that she managed. Lila shrugged and shook her head at the way things had turned out. “I guess I could have saved myself the trip.”

  “Don’t you think that his behavior was a little odd?” Felicia asked, referring to the way things had played out. “To have the artist say he was going to meet with you, then not show up, but still send word t
hat he would lend out his works to be put on exhibition?”

  To Felicia, that had all the earmarks of someone who was trying to hide from the public at large. She should know, Felicia thought, being an expert when it came to hiding behind another identity.

  Further questions came to mind regarding the artist’s behavior, but for now, she decided to leave the matter alone. Especially since Aaron’s cousin seemed to be content with the way things had ultimately turned out. Besides, if she did raise further questions based on her own experiences, they might just pique Aaron’s curiosity, something she definitely didn’t want.

  No, this was a case she should leave well enough alone, Felicia silently lectured herself.

  Meanwhile, Lila was telling the others how surprised she’d been that Walter Fox, Tinsley’s agent, hadn’t shown up, as well. She would have expected, especially after the note about the exhibition had arrived, that at the very least Fox would have contacted her in person. But he hadn’t.

  Something was definitely up, Lila thought. But what?

  “I’m beginning to think that not only are artists strange creatures, but that evaluation goes for their agents, too,” Lila said. “But I guess when you have all that talent going for you, something else has to perforce be out of whack in another area.” She looked at her mother. “Being completely normal requires being ordinary, I suppose.”

  “I disagree, Lila,” Nicole told her niece, speaking up. “I happen to know very talented people who are perfectly normal. Well, maybe not ‘perfectly,’” she amended with a wide grin, “but very close to it. I think people like Tinsley just use their talent like a shield to cover up their odd behavior.” She shook her head in disapproval.

  Aaron agreed with his mother. There was no excuse for that sort of behavior. “You know, you might be right, Mom.”

  “Of course I’m right,” she stated flatly. “Talent doesn’t give anyone the right to be rude like that.”

  Vita clapped her hands together in approval. “Hear! Hear!” she declared. Resting her hands in her lap, she looked at Nicole’s son and Felicia. “And this is why I really like this woman. Your mother makes a great deal of sense.”

  Lila turned toward Aaron. “So, how’s everything going with you, cousin? Turn out any boxing champions since I left town on my fruitless expedition?”

  “Off the top of my head, there’re a couple of guys at the gym who look like they have a lot of potential,” he answered. “But you have to remember, training potential champion boxers is not my primary focus. I’m training fighters so I can put that money into my charitable programs. I want to help keep at-risk teens off the streets and out of trouble. If I can teach them to channel the energy that’s building up inside them into something productive, then that will be my main contribution to society.”

  “Lord, if anything,” Lila declared, pretending to roll her eyes, “I see you’ve gotten even more noble-sounding than the last time we talked.”

  Aaron merely smiled at her assessment. “Fish got to swim, birds got to fly,” he said with a wink.

  Lila laughed. “You know, I think I’ll have that made into a sign and hung up on a wall at the gallery,” she teased.

  “If it was mine to give away, you’d be the one I’d give it to,” Aaron told her. Then he turned toward Felicia. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Fee?”

  The request, coming out of the blue the way it did just now, took Felicia by surprise. He sounded almost serious, she thought, immediately wondering if there was anything wrong.

  “Sure,” she agreed after a beat.

  Aaron nodded. However, he didn’t want to talk to Felicia here, in front of his mother, his aunt and his cousin. He knew that would just give them ammunition to tease one or both of them later.

  “In the next room,” he prompted, nodding toward the doorway.

  These days, uneasiness was always Felicia’s first reaction. So much had happened to her in the last four years that she hadn’t been able to anticipate or foresee. It felt as if her mind always went to the worst-possibility scenario first.

  But she saw no way around going along with his request.

  “Of course,” Felicia agreed the way a prisoner agreed to having the warden take them aside for a private word that was far from welcome.

  Aaron caught the way his mother was watching him as well as the smile on her face. Nicole Colton looked a little like the proverbial cat that had swallowed the canary. It took everything he had to refrain from commenting on his mother’s expression. But he was grateful that at least she didn’t either egg him on or say anything about the situation as she saw it.

  “Right over here,” Aaron told Felicia, leading the way into the next room.

  “Take your time, dear,” his mother said, raising her voice, unable to keep her peace any longer.

  “Mom,” Lila began, turning toward Vita, “is there something going on here that I don’t know about?”

  “That, my dear daughter,” Vita replied, glancing at her sister-in-law before answering Lila, “remains to be seen.”

  For her part, Nicole put a finger to her lips and shushed Vita. When Vita looked at her, somewhat offended, Nicole told her, “Don’t jinx it, Vita.”

  “Jinx what?” Lila asked, now thoroughly curious and feeling totally left out of the loop, a situation she found irritating, especially coming on the heels of previous events.

  “Your cousin finally seeing what’s right in front of his nose and acting on it,” Nicole replied vaguely.

  “Okay, that settles it,” Lila declared. “I am never going out of town ever again. Too much seems to happen when I’m not around.”

  “Don’t feel bad, dear,” her mother told her, placing her hand over Lila’s. “If anything worthwhile had happened, I would have called you and let you know about it.”

  “In plain English,” Nicole said, lowering her voice as she addressed her niece, “what your mother is trying to say is that we believe Aaron has opened his eyes to some very real possibilities when it comes to Felicia.” She added with a beatific smile, “You fill in the blanks. It shouldn’t be all that hard.”

  Chapter 16

  Felicia looked back toward the family room. She could hear the voices of the others as they talked.

  “I think your aunt might think we’re being rude,” she told Aaron, not completely comfortable about walking away from the others like this.

  “Don’t worry, this won’t take long,” Aaron promised. Damn, but he felt as if he was lighting up inside just because he was standing so close to Felicia. Why hadn’t he noticed this before? “Besides,” he went on, trying to keep his mind on the conversation and not the woman in front of him who was stirring his blood, “Aunt Vita is crazy about me. As far as she’s concerned, I walk on water.”

  Felicia couldn’t help smiling at the imagery he had just projected. “I think that you’re overselling it a tiny bit.”

  “Okay, she thinks I walk on puddles,” he amended. “Deep ones.” He grinned. “Anyway—” he got down to the main reason he had drawn her away from the others “—I wanted to run something by you.”

  Felicia could feel herself bracing, not knowing what to expect. Was he going to talk to her about his mother’s physical therapy program? Or was he going to bring up the fact that his aunt had noticed she seemed jumpy at times, and he wanted to ask her what was causing it?

  Or was this about something entirely different? Felicia was at a complete loss as to what to anticipate.

  All she knew was that she had let her guard down yesterday and allowed herself to experience what had to be the most exciting kiss of her life.

  A kiss she had no right to experience because she wasn’t here for a romantic interlude, she reminded herself. This was all strictly business and just for a while, and she had allowed herself to forget that.

  “Go ahead,” Felicia heard herself
saying even as she felt her throat tightening. Not only that, but it felt as if air was having a great deal of difficulty going in and out of her chest.

  “It has come to my attention, thanks to my mother, that I’ve been working almost nonstop lately and I really need to slow down a bit and take some time to—how did my mother put it?” And then it came to him. “Smell the carnations.”

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be as bad as she had imagined, Felicia thought. “Don’t you mean roses, not carnations?”

  “No, carnations. My mother is partial to carnations, not roses. One of the reasons for that is because they last a lot longer. She’s practical that way,” he said with a grin.

  Felicia laughed. “If she’s interested in longevity, she should look into chrysanthemums. Those things seem to last forever,” she emphasized. “You can wind up getting sick of them and they’re still hanging on, still alive.” Felicia shrugged. “I suppose another way to look at it is that you really get your money’s worth with chrysanthemums.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I send flowers,” he said, smiling. And then he looked at her. “I’m getting off the point I was trying to make.”

  Felicia glanced over her shoulder toward the room they had just left. Apparently, the others were still talking and no one looked as if they were going to come out looking for them.

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to distract you. What were you going to say?” she asked him, bracing herself again.

  “I was going to ask you if you wanted to go on a picnic with me,” Aaron told her.

  Felicia blinked. She had definitely not seen that one coming. “A picnic,” she repeated uncertainly, not really sure what to make of his request or just how to respond. Was he being serious?

  “Yes, you know, one of those things where you spread out a tablecloth on the grass and eat food that was packed up in a basket—hopefully before the insects can get to it. Does any of that sound as if it might be appealing to you?”