Colton Nursery Hideout

by Dana Nussio

  “Are you hungry?” Without waiting for an answer, he pulled out a block of parmesan cheese and some sort of meat out of the refrigerator.

  “Famished.” Tatiana had been too nauseated most of the day to eat, so her appetite was making up for it now. She didn’t mention that she was also so exhausted that her limbs felt numb.

  “Why don’t you go downstairs and wash up while I make something? There are towels in the linen closet.”

  “You don’t need to cook for me. I’m pregnant, not bedridden. Anyway, you’re already giving me a place to stay, and—”

  He waved the hand holding the cheese as if to brush away her comment.

  “I have to eat, too.” Setting the refrigerated items on the counter, he stepped to his pantry and pulled out a box of jumbo rigatoni. “I’m used to cooking for one, and I can easily double that. Since you’re now eating for two, we need to make sure you’re getting regular meals.

  “Go on then. If you’d like something to change into, I can probably find some comfortable clothes that you—”

  She shook her head before he could finish. “Really. I’ll be fine until we pick up my things. Anyway, you and I have different definitions of ‘comfortable.’”

  He glanced down at his clothes again and then frowned at her. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “Good thing I wasn’t begging.”

  She slipped out of the kitchen before he could offer again. She’d retreated from situations more today than she ever had, but the last thing she’d needed then was to breathe in his lingering scent on some old sweatshirt, if he even owned something that casual. She didn’t need more reminders of their night together. Didn’t need to recall the rough brush of his fingers over her skin, their calluses a surprise from a man who completed most of his work on a laptop. She was already remembering too much just being in his home. His home? It would be theirs, at least for a while.

  Her weariness multiplied with each footfall on the stairs to the lower level and down the hall to the guest suite. Tatiana stepped into the bathroom, but then headed across the hall into the bedroom. Covered with a cozy-looking gray comforter and a mess of navy and white pillows, the bed was the most inviting thing she’d seen all day.

  She needed to lie down. Just for a few minutes. Then she would be ready to explain to Travis why she couldn’t stay in his condo. But as she sank back into the amazing mattress and onto the softest pillow ever made, images of the man a floor above her sneaked into her thoughts. Memories of that smile, those warm eyes and those gifted hands drew her into sleep.

  Chapter 5

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

  Tatiana awoke to the words and blinked in the darkened room, the only illumination coming from some unfamiliar hallway. Who was speaking? Where the heck was she? A click of a switch and the burst of a lamp’s light answered her questions. Travis stood in the doorway, his face partially hidden in shadow.

  “Oh. It’s you.” The rest of the details filled in quickly. She searched the table for a clock. “What time is it? I just wanted to lie down for a few minutes.”

  “That was—” he paused to glance at his watch “—about an hour ago.”

  “What?” She pushed up on her elbows and shot a glance at the open slats of the blinds. Either he was telling the truth or dusk was coming extra early for this time of year.

  “I called you when dinner was ready. Several times, in fact. Then I came down here to make sure you were okay. You were sleeping peacefully, and you’d looked so tired earlier, so I let you rest for a while.”

  Tatiana sat up quickly, immediately regretting it when Travis’s face shifted in and out of focus. After waiting a few seconds for her head to clear again, she tossed back the comforter that she’d pulled over her and shifted her feet to the floor. “Jet lag.”

  “And a baby,” he added. “Here. You’re going to need this.”

  From under his arm, he pulled out a zippered gray Detroit Lions sweatshirt and tossed it on the bed. He’d had one after all, though she would bet her first paycheck that he’d dug it out of the back of his closet and that it had never been worn.

  But as she slid her arms into the sleeves, the scents of sandalwood and musk from his cologne enveloped her. That triggered memories too pleasant for him to be standing in the bedroom doorway while she still lounged on the bed. Clearly, she would have lost that bet.

  “I know you said you didn’t need it, but it gets cold in this house, especially downstairs.”

  He pointed to the shawl-collared cardigan he’d pulled on over his “casual” dress shirt. Now that she would have expected.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.” As she slid on the sweatshirt, she glanced past him out the doorway. “Did you say ‘dinner’?”

  “I did. It’s cold now, too.”

  She pointed to the door. “Lead the way.”

  Within minutes she was seated in one of the straight-back chairs across from Travis at the kitchen table and forcing herself not to shovel in her dinner with her hands. She swallowed another bite of amazingness before pausing to take a drink from her glass of milk.

  “Dinner is great. What did you say was in it again?”

  “Prosciutto, peas, pinot grigio, mushrooms and the pasta.” He washed down his bite with a swig of milk and then wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I’ve cooked off the alcohol. Don’t worry. All those things are mixed with the healthy stuff. You know, butter and heavy cream.”

  “Are you trying to feed me or fatten me up like a Thanksgiving turkey?”

  Tatiana took another bite, closing her eyes to savor it. When she opened them again, she caught Travis watching her. He quickly looked away.

  “How’d you get to be such a great cook?”

  He shrugged. “I like to eat. Since I was a bachelor and determined to stay that way, I figured I needed to learn. At least until I could afford a cook.”

  “You could afford one now, couldn’t you?” She didn’t even touch on the other subject. When he’d told her six weeks before that he was a confirmed bachelor, she’d held back from asking why he’d made that decision. Now that he’d offered to trade in his bachelor card for her just that afternoon, she was more interested in what had changed.

  “I could. But somewhere along the way, I started to love to cook.” He grinned at that. “Anyway, watching you eat, I have to wonder if you’ve had a decent meal in months.”

  “I’ve been so hungry lately.” She brushed her fork back and forth through the rigatoni and peas. “That is, when I haven’t been too nauseated to eat.”

  “Sorry if I added to the problem by delivering the bad news, you know, about your dad. That could make anyone lose her appetite.” He popped up from the table and returned with a pan. At her nod, he ladled a second serving.

  “I should have known better than to believe it would just go away.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She cleared her throat. How much had she given away? Just because she recognized that the bizarre story would linger in Grave Gulch didn’t mean she’d suspected why it should.

  “I mean, big news stories like that don’t fade away in small cities like Grave Gulch. Even after suspects are exonerated.”

  He stared at her, his fork pausing on the way to his mouth, so she dipped her chin and took another bite. This one was more difficult to swallow.

  “You still don’t believe your father is guilty?” He lowered the fork to his plate again, the noodles he’d stabbed still laced through its tines.

  “Why do you care so much what I think?” Now she was the one watching him. Was she naive to think only of his generosity in proposing marriage and then offering her a place to stay, without considering his motives? She should remain on guard around Travis until she knew what was in it for him.

  “I just figured you haven’t had many people to talk with about it.”
<
br />   Her fork dropped to her plate, so she quickly reached for it. “You think I don’t have friends?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just thought you could use some support. After today.”

  He was right that she hadn’t spoken much about it with her few remaining friends in Grave Gulch. Mostly because no one bothered to ask. So, no matter how much of a risk it was to trust anyone, she couldn’t resist answering.

  “The truth is I don’t know what to believe.”

  “I get that. You heard what Troy and Bryce said though. The police have DNA evidence to place your dad at the scene. Maybe they don’t know why he did it, but they know he did.”

  “They were certain last time, too.”

  Travis pushed his plate aside, planted his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands, appearing ready to listen.

  “When my father was arrested, the idea that he could be a murderer seemed ludicrous to me. He couldn’t have killed anyone. Dad told me there had been a mistake, and he wouldn’t let me visit him in jail, so...”

  She shrugged, considering whether to share the rest. “I needed to get away. I don’t even know how I settled on Paris other than it was on the other side of the world. I took a vacation from work like I never did, hunted for a short-term apartment rental, and booked a flight. I knew I was running away, but I couldn’t help it.”

  “No one could blame you for that.”

  “If you’d met my dad, you’d understand why none of this made sense to me. A great father. A devoted husband. I couldn’t get him to leave Mom’s bedside for more than a half hour at a time during the whole week before she passed.”

  “I’m sure there were—are—good things about your father.”

  She pointed at him from across the table with her fork. “Please don’t tell me that some serial killers spoil their cats or take their kids to Sunday school.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.” At her glare, Travis added, “Not in those specific words.”

  “At least you’re being honest. I would probably tell you the same thing if our roles were reversed.”

  “And I would be declaring Frank Colton’s innocence from the nearest rooftop, whether I suspected him or not and whether he would have done the same for me or not.”

  Part of his comment would have made her squirm about her own suspicions if the second part hadn’t caught her attention. She would have asked what those words about his father had meant, but he shifted in his chair and looked away. There were no murder suspects in his family, but clearly, the Coltons had their problems, too.

  “I hate to admit it, but I was relieved when the supposed evidence disappeared.”

  “You heard what my cousins said about Randall Bowe, the forensic scientist, right? He’s accused of falsifying evidence in many cases. Like one where a woman was accused of bludgeoning her husband with a paperweight and another in which an innocent man was convicted of killing his boss. He’s also facing charges that he removed evidence, causing not one but two murderers to go free.”

  His sad look served as a reminder that her father was one of the suspects in question.

  “Now I don’t know what to think,” she admitted. “Could my dad’s case have been a setup, too? Was evidence falsified? I don’t even think my dad knew that Bowe guy. Could someone have had something against my dad? If he hadn’t said—”

  “Who said?”

  Tatiana’s shoulders tightened. What was she doing? She knew better than to let her guard down around Travis Colton. She’d done that once. Look where that had gotten her. To buy time, she took another bite of pasta, which was getting cold again.

  “Who said?” he repeated.

  “I meant they. Your cousins. They said, you know, that there’s more evidence.”

  He pinched his brows together, as if he didn’t believe her, but then his forehead smoothed again. Had he bought it? She needed to be more careful in what she said to Travis. It didn’t matter that he was easy to talk to. Yes, he seemed to be concerned with her safety as the mother of his child, even if he didn’t technically care about her.

  “I wouldn’t lead with that when you meet with the police again.”

  “With what?”

  “That you were glad the evidence went missing. You might not want to tell them that if you expect them to believe the rest of your statement.” He sank back into the chair, grinning, but then he sat up again. “I won’t be there to help you next time.”

  “I doubt your cousins will be sad that you’ll miss it. I’m definitely not looking forward to another meeting with your family.”

  “Then there’s something you should know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  As if to answer his question, the doorbell rang to the tune of the song “Reveille.” She turned in the direction of the entry.

  “You told the police to come here? Why’d you bother sending them away the first time? Did you just want to get them out of the office?” She clenched her jaw. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

  A flash of hurt appeared in his eyes before he turned away and started toward the door.

  “It’s not what you think. Really.” He flipped the switches for the interior and exterior lights, tapped the code on the security system, and opened the front door.

  A woman in a heavy coat stood on the porch, an equally bundled child in her arms.

  “Hey, Desiree,” Travis said. “Good to see you.”

  “I really appreciate this.”

  “No problem at all.”

  As Desiree stepped inside her hood fell back to reveal a mass of long, brown curly hair, falling loose around her stunning face and accenting her light-brown complexion. Something about the shape of her deep brown eyes struck Tatiana as familiar, but she didn’t think they’d met before.

  “Hey, little man.” Travis stepped closer and brushed his fingertips over the boy’s beanie.

  The child’s hazel eyes stared out at them both before he buried his face against the woman’s coat.

  “Someone’s being shy tonight,” he said.

  “You remember Travis, don’t you, Danny?”

  But even as Desiree reassured the child, twin lines of worry appeared between her delicate brows. She shifted the boy’s weight on her hip, the diaper bag slipping off her opposite shoulder and catching on her elbow.

  Clearly, the woman wasn’t an on-duty police officer, but who was she, and what was she to Travis? For that matter, what was his relationship to the child? Was Tatiana’s baby the only one Travis had fathered? Danny didn’t seem to know him too well, but that didn’t mean the boy couldn’t be his.

  After Travis relieved her of the items she carried, Desiree pulled off Danny’s hat and unzipped his coat.

  “You know, I wouldn’t have asked if, well, I wasn’t—”

  “Desperate?” he finished for Desiree. “Don’t worry. My feelings won’t be hurt if I wasn’t the first person you called. Or the second or...”

  He paused, as if waiting for her to fill in the blank.

  “The sixth,” Desiree admitted.

  “Ouch.”

  “But I also didn’t expect you to say yes. The others told me not to bother asking you. Usually, you wouldn’t even be home at this time of night.”

  As the two of them spoke, Tatiana couldn’t help watching the boy, with his crop of messy brown hair. Would her own child have a lot of hair at birth? Would he or she be shy like Danny or outgoing?

  Desiree glanced at Tatiana, who leaned against the wall, as if only then noticing she was there.

  “You didn’t tell me I was interrupting something.”

  “You’re not,” he said.

  Tatiana gestured toward Desiree. “You haven’t told me what’s going on here, either.”

  Travis gestured toward his guest. “I’d like you to
meet Desiree Colton and her son, Danny. He’s a big boy. Twenty months.”

  “Sister or cousin?” Tatiana asked, her cheeks heating. Had she really been jealous of one of his relatives? They weren’t in a relationship, anyway. She had no claim over him at all.

  “Cousin,” Desiree said.

  No wonder she’d looked familiar. “Troy’s sister?”

  “You know my little brother? I take no responsibility for any boneheaded thing he said.”

  Tatiana turned back to Travis. She should have known better. What had she told him about her dad? Was there anything that he could relay to the police to help them find him?

  “Does she work at the police department, too?”

  Desiree answered for herself. “Just part-time, so I can be home with this little guy. I’m a sketch artist.”

  Tatiana pinned Travis with her stare. “It wasn’t enough that you let those two guys ambush me at work today. Now you’re distracting me with delicious food so you can have another law enforcement agent show up to do a sketch of my dad? They have his mug shot on file.”

  Desiree stared wide-eyed at her. Her son’s bottom lip trembled.

  “No.” Travis shook his head several times. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “What is she talking about?” his cousin wanted to know.

  “Desiree, this is Tatiana Davison, my co-CEO at Colton Plastics. And current houseguest.”

  “Davison? Houseguest?” She spoke both words as though they were equally shocking. “Maybe I should just call the station and say I can’t come in, after all.”