The Colton Bride

At the moment, Catherine and the baby she carried lived in a crazy world, in the house that suddenly felt mad with a simmering sick energy.

“I’m serious, Catherine. You need to be careful and you should keep your pregnancy a secret.”

She pulled her arm from his grasp, as if unable to abide his touch. “I’ve been taking care of myself for years. I’m sure I can take care of myself now.” She didn’t wait for a response, but turned on her heels and went inside the door, leaving him only the whisper of her perfume lingering in the air.

He muttered a curse and headed for the employee door. He’d have just enough time to head up to his Spartan room in the male staff housing area, take a quick shower and then get down to the employee dining room for dinner.

Minutes later, he stood beneath a spray of hot water and tried to keep his thoughts away from Catherine, but it was next to impossible.

Holding her in his arms for those brief moments had picked the scabs off scars he’d thought long healed. In the five years that he had been away from Dead River Ranch and working on a ranch in Montana, he’d occasionally dated other women. But none of them had managed to evoke in him the depth of tenderness, the wealth of desire, the overwhelming rush of love that Cath had so many years ago.

Cath. She’d always been his Cath but since his return to the ranch she was Catherine in his heart and mind, the distinction necessary for him to forget what had been, what he knew would never be.

In the four years since he’d been back at the ranch, as if by mutual agreement she and he had steered clear of each other, rarely speaking to one another unless it was absolutely necessary.

She’d stopped being his problem almost nine years ago and there was no reason for anything to change now. Still, he couldn’t help the simmering anxiety that tightened in his chest as he thought of what a perfect target she would make for a kidnapping and ransom scheme.

The crime had been attempted before with the result being the wrong child kidnapped and a beloved governess dead and the second attempt had only intensified the feeling in the house that both crimes were probably inside jobs.

The family was a convoluted mess, with an ex-wife, illegitimate children and sundry other relatives living in the mansion while the patriarch, Jethro, battled leukemia and drifted in and out of consciousness depending on the day. His illegitimate son, Dr. Levi Colton, had come to do what he could for the man who was his father.

He’d not only brought a bag of medical tricks with him, but also the baggage of a child who had never been acknowledged. At least in the past month Levi had found some peace and had fallen in love with pastry chef Katie McCord.

Gray had no idea how well the staff had been vetted. Mathilda Perkins, the head housekeeper, was in charge of the hiring and firing of employees. He’d never had any reason to doubt that Mathilda did adequate background checks on the people she hired and that she had the best interests of the family at heart at all times. She’d been a devoted employee for many years.

As he pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a denim shirt, he reminded himself that Catherine and her situation weren’t his problem. All he had to worry about was ordering supplies, overseeing the other ranch hands and keeping the horses and cattle healthy and happy.

Catherine Colton wasn’t part of his job, nor was she a part of his life, and he definitely intended to keep it that way.

Chapter 2

Dinner in the Colton family dining room was always a study of pretend civility, underlying tension and slight unpleasant innuendoes. The dining table stretched from nearly one side of the plush, elegant dining room to the other and as Catherine took her seat her gaze automatically went to the empty chair at the head of the table.

Her father had been a stern man with little time for his daughters, but Catherine loved him in spite of all his flaws and she always missed his presence at the evening meal.

When she’d been little he’d command the conversation, talking about how he’d built Dead River Ranch to be the most prosperous ranch in the entire state of Wyoming. He loved his ranch, his money and women and he occasionally remembered that he had three little daughters who were totally dependent on him since their mother had run out on them.

Now his chair was empty because of his illness. At the opposite end of the table was another empty chair, one that stood ready for Cole Colton, Jethro’s son who had been kidnapped as a baby thirty years ago.

When their father had first become ill, Catherine, Gabriella and Amanda had hired a private investigator in an attempt to find their missing half brother, hoping that a reunion would buoy Jethro’s spirits and give him a reason to fight his illness. There was also a possibility that Cole could be a bone marrow donor and save Jethro’s life.

But, while some clues had come to light, there had been nothing so far that pointed them to Jethro’s missing son. It was a thirty-year-old cold case that wasn’t going to be suddenly solved.

Next to Catherine at the table were Gabby and her fiancé, Trevor Garth, who also served as head of security for the ranch. Amanda sat at the end of the table with six-month-old Cheyenne in a bouncy seat on the floor next to her.

On the opposite side of the table were Levi and Katie, Jethro’s third ex-wife, Darla Colton, and her two grown children, Tawny and Trip.

Without Jethro at the table, meals had become noisy, chaotic affairs where people talked over one another while the air shimmered with distrust. Darla, the Botox bottled-blond bitch, as the sisters referred to her, loved the sound of her own voice and if it wasn’t her doing the talking, then it was her son, Trip, who often smelled of booze or pot, depending on the day and the time.

A headache began at Catherine’s left temple as she declined the traditional glass of wine that was always served with the evening meal.

The conversation that swirled around the table throughout the meal was much like it had been for the past couple of weeks. It revolved around the latest attempted kidnapping of Cheyenne, the intervention by Jagger McKnight, an investigative reporter who had been attacked and left for dead on the ranch property. For a while everyone had believed that Jagger was the long-lost Cole, especially when it was discovered he had a piece of an old blue blanket with distinctive embroidery on it in his pocket, a piece of blanket that had once belonged to the missing Cole.

The truth had come out, that Jagger was a reporter, that the blanket bit had been planted on him while he’d been unconscious and everyone had been left with more questions than answers.

Halfway through the meal Catherine wished she had decided to eat in her room. Gabby touched her arm lightly, her green eyes filled with concern. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

“I’m fine. I just have a touch of a headache,” Catherine replied.

“Gee, I wonder why?” Gabby inclined her head toward Trip, who was on his fourth glass of wine and getting louder and louder with each minute that passed. His favorite topic was his prowess with the staff and how every maid who worked in the house had the hots for him.

The sisters had speculated for a long time why Darla and her children were allowed residency in the house. Jethro and Darla had been divorced for years and he’d never shown any interest in her or her two children by a previous marriage, and yet they had their own suite in one of the wings of the house.

They had all decided that Darla knew something about her ex-husband, that she had some piece of information so damning that she’d managed to blackmail herself into a cushy place in the mansion for herself and her children.

Catherine wasn’t close to Darla or her two spoiled adult children and with everything that had happened recently, she couldn’t help but be suspicious of them.

Everyone was suspicious of everyone else, and the recent months of murder, deceit and chaos had taken a toll on each and every resident in the huge mansion. The only people Catherine truly trusted were her sisters.

When the meal was finished, head housekeeper Mathilda Perkins slid into the room and stood next to the wall as two young women carried silver trays of after-dinner coffee.

Mathilda looked like something from a gothic movie with her silver-blond hair pulled into a severe knot at the nape of her neck. Narrowed blue-gray eyes and a starched gray dress added to the aura of a gothic servant. The only difference was she watched the two new kitchen hires, Lucinda Garcia and Kyla Winters, with benevolent eyes, the same way she gazed at each and every person at the table with a hint of fondness.

Catherine’s headache had blossomed from her left temple to chase all the way across her forehead. Caffeine. There was nothing she loved more than her after-dinner shot of leaded coffee.

As Kyla was about to pour her a cup, Catherine suddenly thought about the new life inside her and quickly stopped her. “I’d rather have decaf,” she said.

From across the table Darla arched a blond perfectly tweezed brow. “Interesting. No wine before dinner, no caffeine in your coffee. Why one would think that you might have a little secret.”

“She’s pregnant,” Tawny exclaimed with excitement, as if she’d suddenly cured cancer.

It was obviously just a guess on her part, but the expression on Catherine’s face must have given her away. Suddenly the conversation ratcheted up in volume as everyone talked about the prospect of a new Colton heir.

Escape! With her head pounding, Catherine needed to escape the table, escape this room and these people. She excused herself and ran for the door, leaving the rest of them to speculate on who the father might be, when the due date would come and whether it would be a boy or a girl.

She’d scarcely found out about her condition herself and already it was gossip fodder around the dining room table. How had Tawny guessed so easily? Drat it all, Catherine should have taken the pregnancy test and buried it in the pasture instead of throwing it into her bathroom trash can. For all she knew Tawny went through everyone’s trash to learn whatever secrets somebody might have.

There were only three places where Catherine found peace, the first was her bedroom suite, the second was the petting barn and the third was in her father’s suite where she often sat next to his bed and talked to him.

She knew he was in a coma at the moment, but as terrible as it sounded, that was the time she found it easiest to sit with him, to talk to him, to simply love him.

It took her some time to walk the long corridors that led to his suite of rooms. She entered his sitting room, a pleasant area filled with a stone fireplace, bookshelves and decorated in rich greens and golds. The fireplace stood cold and empty, but it wouldn’t be long before it would be filled with burning wood to keep the winter chill from invading the area.

To her left was her father’s bedroom and as she entered, she nodded to the middle-aged woman in the white uniform. Nurse Linetta Wheeling had been hired several weeks ago to sit with Jethro during the evenings and overnight.

“Good evening, Miss Catherine,” she said as she rose from the straight-backed chair near Jethro’s bed.

Catherine nodded and then looked at her father, her heart squeezing tight as she took in the sight. Jethro had once been a robust, imposing figure, but now his face was gaunt and he looked tiny beneath the heavy green spread that covered him.

“Any changes?” Catherine asked.

“None.” Linetta offered a sympathetic smile. “I’ll just step outside and give you a little time alone with him.” As quiet as a mouse, Linetta slid out of the room and into the sitting room.

Catherine pulled a green-and-gold patterned chair closer to the side of the bed, ignoring the IV and medical equipment hooked up to the sick man in the bed.

“Hi, Daddy. It’s me, Cath.” For a moment she merely sat quietly. Jethro Colton was a complicated man and he’d been a difficult man to love, as a man and as a father. He’d always loved the women and women loved him back, a reality that usually placed his daughters on the back burner of his life.

Still, there had been moments in her childhood when she’d seen him be the kind of father she yearned for, the daddy she could love with all her heart, and it was the memory of those rare moments that kept her loving him now.

“I’ve gone and done something stupid, Daddy,” she finally said. “I was hoodwinked by a man I thought I could love but I discovered all he was after was my inheritance. When he found out I wouldn’t get it for another four years, he dropped me like a hot potato. Unfortunately, he left a little something of himself behind. I’m pregnant, Daddy. You’re going to be a grandfather again and you need to wake up and get well.”

Her eyes blurred with tears as she realized the futility of the conversation. The cancer was draining the very life from Jethro. He’d probably never live to see his new grandchild.

If only they could find Cole. Surely being reunited with his firstborn son who’d been kidnapped so many years ago would rally Jethro to aggressively fight the disease that was eating away at him.

Her mind drifted from her father and his missing son to Gray Stark and that moment in front of the petting barn fence when she’d opened her eyes and had been in his strong arms.

His sandy blond hair had gleamed in the dusk light of day creating a halo effect around his head. In the depths of his brown eyes she’d imagined the soft, sweet emotions she’d believed he’d once felt for her.

Reality had slapped her in the face as he’d quickly released her and she realized his eyes were dark, assessing. No illusion of evening sunshine could turn Gray Stark into a loving, caring angel of a man.

The few times they encountered each other all she got from him was dark eyes, fathomless stares and few words. The boy she’d loved was gone, replaced by a man she didn’t know, a man who made no pretense that he didn’t want to know anything about the woman she had become.

She wondered if he’d loved somebody in the five years he’d been gone from Dead River Ranch. She wondered even more why she cared. In the four years he’d been back she’d never heard any gossip about him and any woman.

What little gossip she had heard about him was that he was all work and little play, a tough but fair taskmaster who kept a keen eye on the wranglers who worked beneath him.

She returned her gaze to the man on the bed. “Daddy, you need to fight this.” She gently picked up one of his hands that lay on top of the bedspread. Calloused from hard work, yet thin and cold, it lay lifeless in hers. She rubbed his hand with both of hers, trying to warm his, but it didn’t work.

She returned his hand to the top of the spread and then stood, unsure what she was hoping to gain from being here, but knowing she’d gained nothing.

* * *

Dinner had just finished up in the employee dining room when kitchen helper Lucinda Garcia reentered the room, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. “Looks like there is going to be another Colton heir,” she announced.

“Miss Gabby going to give the little princess a baby brother or sister?” George Jeffries, one of the ranch hands, asked.

“Nope, it’s Miss Catherine,” Lucinda replied.

Gray’s blood turned cold as he shoved back from the large, rough-hewn wooden table. What in the hell had she done? Made an official announcement over dinner?

Hadn’t he warned her to keep the information about her pregnancy to herself for her own safety? Now everyone in the entire house would know...all the family...all the staff and Gray was positive that the evil that had created such havoc in the past couple of months had come from within, not from some outside source.

It was with a head full of steam that he left the employee dining room and went in search of Catherine. He knew her habit was often to visit Jethro’s suite right after dinner and that was where he headed.

He stalked the long hallways toward the master suite, unsure what he intended to say to Catherine, even more uncertain why he felt the need to discuss the matter with her at all.

What he wanted to do was take her by her slender shoulders and shake her for telling everyone. What he wanted to do was forget that for just a moment at the petting barn as he’d held her in his arms and she’d smiled up at him he’d wanted to lower his lips to hers and plant a kiss that would possess her completely. He’d wanted to brand her as his own in a way he’d obviously been unable to do as a teenager.

He clenched his hands into fists at his side. The fact that he’d entertained any notion of kissing her ticked him off. He was now ranch foreman, but that didn’t mean he would ever be good enough for Catherine Colton.

This simmering old anger mixed with the aggravation he felt for her over spilling her secret. When he reached Jethro’s suite he stood just outside the door, able to hear Catherine’s soft voice murmuring from the bedroom.

He leaned against the wall, unwilling to interrupt her time with her dying father, but determined to have his say to her. In the distance he could hear others in the house moving around, going to their own suites or gathering in the great room for some conversation before heading their separate ways. He easily imagined he could hear the whispering of deadly secrets, the plotting of evil, the suppressed air of danger ready to spring at any moment.

The problem was he wasn’t sure where the danger might come from or who it might be directed at, he only knew that Catherine, with her surprising news, had just placed herself in a potential place of extreme vulnerability and she had absolutely nobody to watch her back.

It didn’t take long for Catherine to leave the suite and as she turned in the opposite direction of where he’d been waiting for her, he took two long steps forward and reached out to grab her by the arm.

She gasped in alarm and only relaxed a bit when she turned to see him. “Gray, what are you doing lurking around in the shadows of the hallway?” She pulled her arm from his grasp. “What do you want?”

He was momentarily speechless as he gazed at her in the semidarkness of the corridor. She’d changed for dinner from the sweatshirt and jeans into a blue dress cinched at her slender waist, fitted across the bodice and then flaring out in a short fall of silk to her knees, exposing her long, shapely legs.

She looked stunning and the fact that he noticed only raised the level of his anger. “I want to ask you if you have a death wish,” he replied, his words clipped, terse with his displeasure.

“What are you talking about?” She frowned.

“I thought we’d agreed that you would keep your pregnancy a secret for as long as possible.”

“I don’t recall agreeing to anything with you,” she replied. Her cheeks dusted with color. “Besides, I didn’t actually tell anyone. I just refused wine at dinner and asked for decaffeinated coffee afterward. Darla and Tawny noticed and made a big deal out of it and before I knew it everyone had guessed my secret.”

“I told you that this ‘secret’ puts you at a higher risk for something bad happening to you,” he replied.

Her frown deepened. “You’re making this into too big a deal.”

“Too big a deal?” he asked incredulously. “Have you forgotten that three months ago somebody tried to kidnap Cheyenne and in the process Faye Frick was killed? Have you forgotten that Jenny Burke was found dead in the kitchen pantry? Only a month ago another attempt was made to take Cheyenne?”

“Okay, stop!” Catherine placed her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear anything more. She knew awful things were happening all around her, but she didn’t want to hear them listed out loud. She didn’t even like to think about them. “I know what’s been going on,” she said as she lowered her hands to her sides.

“You don’t seem to be taking all of it seriously enough,” Gray retorted, some of his anger seeping out of him as concern took over. “You need to hire yourself a bodyguard or something.”

Catherine looked at him in disbelief. “This is my home, my family. I shouldn’t need a bodyguard here. Besides, Gabby doesn’t have a bodyguard.”

“True, but she’s living and sleeping with Trevor, the head of security.”

“What about Amanda? She comes and goes as she pleases.”

“And also has an ex-marine tough guy playing bodyguard to Cheyenne.” He leaned against the wall. “In fact, you’ve probably done him a favor by taking the target off Cheyenne and putting it right on your back. Maybe he’ll be able to sleep a little better at night now knowing there’s a new target to take the heat off him.”

“You’re just being hateful,” Catherine replied, her tone of voice slightly higher than usual.

“I’m being realistic,” he countered and pushed himself off the wall as she continued down the hallway. “If you were smart you’d marry that kid’s father and move him in here where he could keep an eye on you.”

“That’s never, ever going to happen.” She stopped walking and turned to face him once again. “I wasn’t sure I was in love with Dirk before he broke up with me and since then I’m positive that marrying him would have been the absolute worst mistake of my life.”

Her eyes flashed with the certainty, with the fury of her emotions and words. She looked absolutely magnificent. Gray was oddly pleased by those words, although they certainly didn’t help her situation at all.

“I don’t need him and I don’t need your help, Gray. I’ve done just fine without your advice, without your presence in my life for the past nine years. Since you’ve been back at the ranch for the past four years we’ve scarcely exchanged ten words with each other, so don’t go pretending that you care about my well-being now.”

She raised her enchanting delicate pointed chin. “I don’t need Dirk. I don’t need a bodyguard and I certainly don’t need you.”

She whirled around and stalked down the hallway as Gray gazed after her, wondering why in the hell after all these years he felt that an obstinate part of his heart was still invested in her.

Chapter 3

Dreams of Gray haunted her sleep, erotic, hot dreams of the time when they were teenagers and meeting secretly in the stables after dark. She’d loved him since she was fifteen and he’d been sixteen, but he’d refused to make love to her for two years, although there had been plenty of snuggling and making out and almost lovemaking in those two years.

When they’d finally allowed themselves the pleasure of going all the way, Gray had been tender and so sweet and after that first time they had shared a passion for each other that had been explosive, magic and insatiable.

There had also been a lot of planning in those teenage years. They’d talked about owning a little ranch not far from here, having a couple of kids to raise and a lifetime of love and happiness together.

Catherine awakened and in that brief limbo between dreams and complete consciousness, her heart was filled with love for Gray. The scent of him lingered in her brain, reminding her of how it had felt to be held in his arms, how his lips had plied hers with such fire. In her vision his whiskey-brown eyes gazed at her with such want, such need, it burned deep inside her soul.

Then full awake slammed into her and the fantasy shattered into a million pieces, leaving her heart aching and empty. She clutched her pillow to her chest and lingered for a few minutes, the dream still far too fresh in her head.

Oh, what fantasies they had spun so many years ago and then one morning she’d gotten up and discovered he was gone. She now released her hold on the pillow and got out of bed. And he’d remain gone from her heart, she told herself as she headed into the adjoining bathroom for her morning shower.

He had some nerve, anyway, acting like he was concerned about her, acting like he cared about her safety. After four years of pretending she didn’t even exist, he had no right to be concerned about her now.