by Lisa Childs
Fortunately it had been his brother holding the weapon, and not the murderer. Donovan hadn’t recognized him right away, crouched in the shadows of the old grave. And the new one.
It had become Beau Lemmon’s grave. His body was gone now, though. And that was why Forrest had finally left to return to the ranch. When he drove up, he found his parents on the porch. His mother held Connor in her lap as she rocked in the swing, while his father leaned against the railing beside them, making faces at the baby.
Warmth spread through Forrest’s chest. He loved the two of them so much. “Babysitting?” he teased.
“Heard you’ve been doing some of this yourself,” his father mused with a curious glance at him.
They knew. They knew he’d fallen for the baby and his sweet single mother. He didn’t bother denying it; he just grinned at them.
“Your services might no longer be required,” his father said.
And Forrest furrowed his brow. “You threatening to take over my job?”
“We’re only watching him while Rae gathers up his stuff,” his mother said, with disappointment heavy in her voice. “She’s leaving.”
Forrest cursed and then shook his head. He had to remember not to swear in front of the baby. Eventually Connor would be repeating words. But Forrest might not be around anymore when he did—if Rae had her way, apparently. She’d been mad when he’d left last night. She was probably furious that the chief—not he—had done the notification.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
“You would know better than we would,” Hays remarked with a curious glance.
They had their suspicions about his relationship with Rae, but apparently they didn’t know if it was going to last. Neither did he.
He’d been such an idiot by fighting his feelings like he had, thinking that she was anything like Shannon. Rae wasn’t the kind who took off.
Or she hadn’t been.
When he rushed up the steps, he found her in the nursery, packing, just as his parents had warned him. “So you’re the one leaving now,” he mused.
She didn’t look up, but she tensed. “There’s no reason to stay.”
“No reason?” he asked. Didn’t she feel the same way about him that he did about her?
“My father is dead,” she said, her voice curiously flat and emotionless. But when she lifted her face to meet his gaze, her eyes were red and swollen. She’d been crying.
And he hadn’t been here to hold her, to comfort her. Guilt squeezed his heart in a tight grip. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I was too late to save him.”
“You shouldn’t have gone at all,” she said, her voice cracking now as her emotions rushed back. “You could have died with him.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” he reminded her. “I’m a good cop.” Even with his disability. The chief was giving him a chance to prove it. Now he just had to find the killer.
With so many of his family members working the case now, it was just a matter of time before the killer was caught and brought to justice for all of his crimes.
“He was tricking you,” she said.
Forrest shook his head. “No. He was trying to help me.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. Did he tell you who the killer was?”
He shook his head again. “No. But he kept that secret for you,” he told her. “He made a deal with the killer that he’d keep quiet if the guy left you and Connor alone.”
“So then Connor and I absolutely can go home,” she said. “Alone.” She drew in a deep breath. “We don’t need you anymore.”
He sucked in a breath of his own, but just to brace himself for the rejection that was probably to come. She was furious with him, and for good reason. He’d left just like her father had—when she’d begged him not to go.
And he hated himself for it. Not nearly as much as she apparently hated him, though.
“I need you,” he said. “I need you and I need Connor.”
She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “Why?”
“Because I love you,” he said. “I love you both. You’re the reasons I left last night—you and Connor. I wanted to make sure you’d be safe. You two mean everything to me. And if you give me the chance, I will prove that to you. I will never, ever leave you again.”
Rae didn’t say anything. She just turned and ran from the room. Ran away just like Shannon had.
Maybe he was just that unlovable.
* * *
Rae was too overwhelmed to speak. Emotions rushed through her—relief, fear and a love so powerful that she wasn’t sure how to handle it. If she could handle it.
And that was why she was so afraid.
But she could trust Forrest. He was nothing like her father. But if she believed what Forrest had told her, her father had come through in the end. His very last act in life had finally been a selfless one.
Tears stung her eyes, so when she turned back toward the room in which Forrest stood, she could barely see him. But his shoulders were slumped with exhaustion and maybe disappointment.
She hadn’t handled his proposal well—if that was what that had been. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked him.
He turned toward her now, his brow furrowed with confusion. And she held out her hand to him. He moved slowly, his limp more pronounced than she’d seen it since he’d been in the car accident.
But that hadn’t been an accident.
“Were you hurt last night?” she asked with concern.
“Not last night,” he replied as he joined her in the hallway.
She’d hurt him just now. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just so hard for me to believe.”
“What is?” he asked.
“That you love me.”
He moved faster now, across the hall. He pushed open his bedroom door, then reached back and pulled her inside with him. “Why is that hard to believe? Don’t you know how amazing you are?”
A smile tugged at her lips.
“You’re beautiful and smart and so damn loyal and generous and—”
She rose on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his, shutting off his words. She kissed him with all of the desperation she’d felt the night before, with all of the fear and the love she hadn’t let herself express.
He pulled back, panting for breath, and murmured, “Do you believe me? Do you believe that I love you?”
She could see it in his face now, in his warm gaze and in the tentative smile that curved his lips. “Yes,” she said. “And I love you, too. So much.” The emotion overwhelmed her. “I wanted to tell you last night. I should have told you. If something had happened to you...” Tears stung her eyes, making her nose wrinkle.
He leaned down and kissed it. “Nothing happened to me. And I don’t think anything will happen to you or Connor now either. But I still want us to be careful. To stay here.”
“Will your parents be okay with that?” she asked. “We’re not imposing?” She’d felt guilty for having them watch Connor while she’d packed up his stuff.
He chuckled. “Are you kidding? They’re both doting on their new grandson right now.”
“New grandson?”
“That’s how they see Connor already,” Forrest said. “That’s how I see him, too—as my son. I hope you’ll let me adopt him and make it official.”
Her heart felt as if it would burst, it swelled with so much love. She’d wanted Connor to have a father someday—a father like Forrest, whom he could count on. But grandparents...?
She hadn’t even thought about everything her son hadn’t had—until he had it now. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for being the most amazing man.”
He shook his head. “I’m not the best bet, you know,” he warned her. And she could see the seriousness in his eyes now, the doubt and fear. “I may not
be able to get another job because of my disability. I may not be able to play with Connor like I’d want—”
She pressed her lips to his again to stop his words and to show her love. But then she pulled back and assured him, “You’re a hero, Forrest Colton. You’ve saved us so many times, and not just physically. You’ve saved me emotionally. I was scared to open up my heart, to trust anyone. I’m not a gambler like my father. But you’re not a bet. You’re a sure thing.”
He smiled again. “We’re a sure thing.”
“Yes, we are.”
He lifted her then and carried her the few steps to his bed. It might have been his old room, but thankfully it wasn’t a twin-size bed but a four-poster king-size one. The mattress dipped beneath their weight as he joined her. Clothes were tugged off or pushed aside until they were together again, their bodies joined like their hearts and souls.
Rae had never felt anything as right—as perfect—as making love with Forrest Colton. They knew instinctively how to move, where to touch, where to kiss...
He drove her crazy with his lips and his fingertips. And she returned the favor with hers. They moved faster and faster, with perspiration wetting their skin and tension building inside them. Then finally it broke within Rae—pleasure shuddering through her. She cried out his name before burying her face in his neck. His body tensed beneath hers. He gripped her hips and drove a little deeper into her before his pleasure filled her. He groaned and released a cry of his own. Her name.
“I love you,” he said. “So damn much.”
She smiled. “You don’t sound too thrilled about it.”
“I’m kicking myself for the weeks I wasted,” he said. “I should have said yes when you asked me to dance at the wedding.”
“Why didn’t you?” she wondered.
“I thought you were just feeling sorry for me.”
And his pride wouldn’t have been able to handle that.
“Not at all,” she assured him. “I thought you were handsome and so alone...” And she’d been so alone then, too, despite having just given birth to Connor the month before.
“We’re not going to be alone ever again,” he promised her. “We will always have each other.”
She hadn’t believed she’d ever find a love like that for herself. A love like the Coltons had. But now she knew it was possible—because she’d fallen for a Colton, and soon she and Connor would become Coltons, too.
* * *
A promise was a promise.
Usually he wouldn’t have worried about keeping one. But Beau Lemmon had died without revealing his identity. So maybe laying off the guy’s kid and grandkid was the right thing to do—to hold up his side of that promise.
And hell, they were the best distraction to keep the Austin detective from working his cases. He’d fallen so hard for them that he was going to stick close, even if they were no longer in danger.
But that didn’t mean they’d stay safe. Promise be damned, nobody was safe...if they got too close to figuring out who he was...
* * *
Don’t miss the next story in the exciting
Colton 911 series:
Colton 911: Target in Jeopardy
by Carla Cassidy
Available September 2019 from
Harlequin Romantic Suspense!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Cavanaugh’s Missing Person by Marie Ferrarella.
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Cavanaugh’s Missing Person
by Marie Ferrarella
Prologue
She knew this location like the back of her hand. She brought them all here—while they were still alive—certain that they would view this as an intimate, secluded hideaway.
She was just as confident as they were about it, but to her it also meant that she and the person she brought here would be isolated and that there would be no unwanted interruptions.
Or any unforeseen last-minute rescues.
There never were this far out from civilization. After all, no one had ever heard her cries when she had screamed for help all those years ago.
She had chosen this place carefully, deliberately.
It had to be this place for the purge to be effective.
Despite that and all the precautions she took, she never failed to remain vigilant and alert. While she had always been confident, it had never been to the point that she became careless. Because carelessness would usher in error and error—any error—could wind up, in the long run, being fatal.
For her.
She had worked too hard to lose everything she had amassed because of an error.
The door to this little “hideaway” was closed and there were no windows, at least none that allowed anyone to look inside. But even so, an unseasonable evening breeze had somehow managed to squeeze in through the cracks, causing the plastic that hung everywhere to move just the slightest bit.
She didn’t see it. She heard it.
Her pulse sped up.
Instantly, her eyes went to the man who was at the center of it all. There was no way he could move and disturb the plastic that had been draped all around him, the plastic that was literally covering every square inch of the space. She’d seen to that.
Even so, she had to reassure herself that he wouldn’t suddenly rise up and overpower her.
There was enough ketamine in her would-be lover to put down an oversize water buffalo, but still she watched him, watched his chest to see if it would rise and fall, signaling a man who was coming to.
It didn’t.
The injection had done its trick.
She had done her trick, she thought with a small, tight smile.
“And now it’s time for you to do your part,” she whispered to the inert form.
With the precision of a surgeon, imitating the movements that Joel had shown her when the poor fool had tried to impress her all those years ago, she drove the thin boning knife in at just the right angle, just the right spot to end the life of this latest contributor to her thriving and ever expanding lifestyle.
Taking their money was only part of it. Avenging herself was far more important to her.
Blood spurted from the incision she had made onto the plastic that surrounded the man. She waited until it pooled around him, heralding the fact that his life had officially, and without fanfare, slipped away.
When she was satisfied that he was dead, she turned toward her knapsack where she kept the rest of her tools. It was time to separate John Kurtz from the
parts of him that would facilitate his identification.
She had always liked tools, even as a child. They fascinated her. They could be used for so many things. People liked to build things with tools.
She liked to dismantle them.
Taking out the battery-powered saw, she switched it on. For a moment, she just listened to the high-pitched sound the saw made. The quiet, reassuring sound that promised to do its job and not fail her.
So many things had failed her. But the saw wouldn’t.
She could feel the vibrations going through her arms.
She watched, almost mesmerized, as the gleaming, freshly polished blade sliced through the air like the sharp teeth of a tiger, straining to devour its prey. She always took care of her tools.
A person’s work was only as good as the tools she used, she thought with a cynical smile.
Feeling almost giddy, she hummed a little song under her breath, a song from her childhood before horror had swallowed her up. It was a tune that kept haunting her.
She slowly lowered the saw blade and began to work.
One more down.
And tomorrow, tomorrow the hunt for a new, unwitting victim would begin all over again. Because this feeling, this satisfaction, lasted for only so long before it vanished.
Like her innocence.
But for now, she savored this part of her quest, savored it because she was victorious.
And that was all that counted.
Copyright © 2019 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
ISBN-13: 9781488041402
Colton 911: Baby’s Bodyguard
Copyright © 2019 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Lisa Childs for her contribution to the Colton 911 miniseries.
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada.
