The Coltons of Mustang Valley

It wasn’t just Marlowe’s knees that were shaking now—it was all of her.

With effort, she gripped the armrests of her chair and literally hauled herself up to her feet. Testing the strength of her legs for a second to make sure that she wouldn’t just fall flat on her face with the first step she took, Marlowe slowly moved her hands away from the armrests. By now her heart was pounding against her chest like a drumroll.

“I’m coming,” she told her father in what seemed like a whisper.

“What did you just say?” Payne demanded angrily. “I can’t hear you!” he declared like the marine drill sergeant that all his children, at one time or another, had felt he was.

Marlowe took a deep breath, filling her lungs with air before she repeated the words. “I said I was coming.”

“Then get here already!” Payne snapped.

The next moment, the connection was abruptly terminated. Only her father’s disapproval and anger lingered in the air around her like a dark, malevolent cloud.

This wasn’t happening, Marlowe silently insisted as she closed down her laptop.

That done, she raced out of her office. None of it, she tried to console herself. None of this terrible stuff was happening. Not this hateful email and not that positive pregnancy test.

It was all just a bad dream, and any second now, she was going to wake up, Marlowe promised herself. And when she did, all of this was just going to be an awful, fading memory.

Her high heels resounded, clicking rhythmically against the highly polished marble floor as she ran down the corridor to the Colton Oil boardroom. The staccato sound seemed to mock what she had just told herself.

Her heart fell with a thud as she reached the open boardroom door.

It didn’t look as if she was going to wake up from this one after all.

Chapter 2

It was almost surreal that after all these years of being on the opposing side of every argument, Bowie Robertson couldn’t seem to be able to get thoughts of Marlowe Colton out of his head. The simple truth of it was that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the Colton Oil president for the last six weeks.

At first, it had been because the woman was single-handedly responsible for what was admittedly the greatest night, bar none, of his thirty-two-year-old life.

Granted that, for years now, he had been very aware of the fact that Marlowe Colton, with her shoulder-length mane of whitish-blond hair and a figure that wouldn’t quit, was drop-dead gorgeous. But he had also viewed the woman as the personification of an ice queen. An ice queen with nothing but cutthroat ambition running in her pretty veins.

He had been completely blown away to find out that the total opposite was really the case.

Yes, he had had a great deal of champagne to drink that night, but even an entire river of alcohol wouldn’t have been able to drown his brain to the point that would get him to believe something that wasn’t really true. He would have to have been beyond utterly drunk to believe that what had actually been a sow’s ear had transformed into the proverbial silk purse.

No, he wasn’t suffering from some sort of delusion; that had actually happened.

But as enchanted as he’d been by the slightly vulnerable, passionate, warm, funny woman he had made love with in her oversize hotel bed, the cold reality was that it had turned out to be just another illusion, a sleight of hand with no staying power once it was viewed in the light of day.

In fact, he had discovered that Marlowe actually did care about the environment and that she had set up awards for Colton Oil employees who created sustainable technologies and were working to make the family business more eco-friendly. That notably went against her father’s narrow-minded view, but once he had left her room and was on his way back to his own world, Bowie quickly found out just how cold and vicious Marlowe Colton could really be.

A few short hours after they had spent what he had viewed at the time as an exceptionally passionate night together, Bowie found himself to be a marked man.

Marked for death.

There had been two attempts made on his life in breathtakingly short order. Right after he had left the hotel, someone driving a black SUV tried to run him over. When that attempt hadn’t been successful because he had managed to get out of the way just in time, someone tried to shoot him.

The sound of a gunshot had been so benign that at first he thought it was a car backfiring—and then he saw the hole a bullet had made right through the car window that was less than a foot away from where he’d been standing.

The two incidents, so close together, were just too much of a coincidence for Bowie to merely shrug off. It had to have been because of Marlowe—or someone acting on that she-devil’s orders. It was too much of a coincidence that, right after he’d slept with the enemy, someone tried to kill him...right?

He speculated that the reason for the attempts on his life—the failed attempts, he gratefully amended—were twofold. One, the woman had obviously let her guard down that night, and since he was the one who had witnessed this drop and been on the receiving end of the consequences of that action, she undoubtedly didn’t want him telling anyone about it. The only way to ensure that didn’t happen was to have him eliminated.

Why had she gone to such drastic lengths? She had also shared something with him that, in hindsight, would probably be considered a company secret. She was going behind her father’s back and looking into ways to make Colton Oil more eco-friendly. She hadn’t told Payne yet because she had nothing tangible to present to him, but it wouldn’t be long. All this was told to Bowie in strictest confidence. And even though he had promised to take that to his grave, Marlowe had obviously decided to hasten that scenario along and kill him. While he didn’t think her so-called “secret” was a big deal, she obviously did.

Maybe, given time, he might have just chalked up these feelings as unnecessarily paranoid. After the second failed attempt on his life, he had deliberately kept his distance from Marlowe, avoiding all forms of contact and definitely not calling her. He even made sure to have a security detail around him at all times.

But now, six weeks after their one wildly insatiable night of passion—as well as the two subsequent attempts on his life that had occurred—a third attempt had been made just that morning.

This attempt had borne fruit. It hadn’t wounded him, but the bullet that had been fired killed his security guard.

A second bullet had narrowly missed hitting Bowie himself.

It was now painfully obvious to Bowie that lying low and avoiding contact with Marlowe wasn’t working. And ignoring the source of the problem was not making the problem go away.

So, focusing on that, he decided that it was time for him to confront Marlowe before another attempt was made on his life. Or before anyone else wound up paying the ultimate price by being on the receiving end of a bullet that was meant for him.

Out of respect for the night they had shared, he’d wound up behaving like a coward, not confronting Marlowe about their time together and the subsequent attempts on his life. That in itself was something that, to Bowie, was even worse than death.

Death was quick and final, but the label of being a coward carried with it a stigma that could haunt him until the end of his days. He was not about to allow that to happen.

It was time, Bowie decided, to confront the lioness in her den and get this whole thing out in the open.

Marlowe entered the boardroom, crossing the threshold on legs that still didn’t quite feel as if they belonged to her.

She was no longer clinging to the hope that this was all just a bad dream, but she had to admit that the scenario still didn’t feel as if it was real.

Marlowe took in the immediate scene within the room. Her father was right. The rest of board was already there, and they were obviously waiting for her.

Looking around, she quickly scanned all their faces. Her father; Ace; her half sister, company attorney Ainsley; and CFO Rafe all looked to be stricken to varying degrees. The only member of the board who did not look stricken was Selina Barnes Colton, the company VP and director of public relations, and coincidentally, her father’s second—and mercifully ex—wife.

Not only was Selina not stricken looking, but if Marlowe hadn’t known any better, the auburn-haired viper seemed to be almost gleeful about this potentially dire situation threatening to unravel right before them.

Marlowe had never liked Selina. None of her siblings ever really had, she’d discovered years ago. But truthfully she had never disliked the snide, smug woman more than she did right at this very moment. Why her father insisted on keeping his ex-wife not just with the company but actually serving on the board, giving her an equal voice when it came to decisions, was totally beyond her.

The air in the boardroom was exceedingly tense. Out of the corner of her eye, Marlowe could see that her father was waiting for her to take her seat, so she did.

Only then did Payne speak. The anger vibrating in his voice was impossible to miss.

“Now that we’re all here, let me take this opportunity to say that this email, sent by a quivering coward who didn’t even have the nerve to sign his own name, is a complete and utter fabricated lie. It’s obviously a pathetic stunt pulled by some spineless, sniveling jackass who is trying to derail our company in any possible way that he can.”

Listening, Rafe could clearly barely contain himself. “Of course it’s a lie,” he cried, agreeing. “But how can it possibly be able to derail a billion-dollar company? Even if what this jerk is claiming was true—which it isn’t—who cares?” he demanded. Rafe glanced at the man who was the center of this ridiculous email. “Ace is a Colton, blood or not. Right?” he said, looking at Payne.

To Rafe, it was a rhetorical question that didn’t even need or expect an answer.

But the opportunity was far too good to waste, so Selina was more than happy to offer an answer to her former stepson’s question.

“Not to throw water on your theory,” Payne’s ex-wife murmured in a just barely audible voice. “But you, Rafe, of all people, being adopted the way you were by Payne and his kind late first wife,” Selina continued, her voice fairly dripping with a false sweetness as she circled back to her point, “should know that blood is everything when it comes to being a Colton.”

Although there was a smile on the woman’s face, her eyes were cruel and ice-cold, looking not unlike those belonging to a cobra just before its fatal strike.

“What are you talking about?” Rafe asked. “What is she talking about?” he repeated, turning toward the other people on the board for an answer.

When his gaze landed on Ainsley, the woman shifted uncomfortably. Marlowe knew the last thing Ainsley would want to do was side with Selina, especially against someone she actually considered family. In this particular case, however, as odious as it seemed, apparently the law was on the woman’s side.

Clearing her throat and avoiding looking at either Ace or Selina, Ainsley told the others, “The reason it would derail the company is because on page one, paragraph two of the Colton Oil bylaws, it clearly states that the company CEO must be a Colton by blood only.”

Okay, enough was enough. Incensed, Ace shot to his feet.

“This is crazy,” he declared, using, Marlowe thought, the exact same phrasing she had when she’d seen the results of her pregnancy test.

This was crazy. They couldn’t oust Ace from the board, Marlowe thought. He belonged on it.

And yet...

“This ridiculous email is a lie,” Ace was saying. “A total fabrication meant to send shock waves through our entire company and undermine its very structure. I’m a Colton! I was born a Colton and I’ll always be a Colton.” He looked at his father. Though it wasn’t in his nature to ask for any sort of help or backup, this one time he made an exception. “Tell them, Dad.”

It wasn’t a plea, it was a request for the older man’s verification about his birthright.

Payne nodded so hard, his thick silver-gray hair shook and fell into his eyes.

“Of course it’s a lie!” he declared with a fierceness that defied opposition. “Ace is my son. I was right there, in the delivery room, the day that he was born,” Payne said, looking directly at his oldest son. “Of course, he wasn’t quite this big at the time,” he added with a small, dry chuckle. “As a matter of fact,” Payne recalled, “he was pretty frail. Everyone in the hospital, myself included, thought it was a Christmas miracle that he even survived. But he did survive. Not just survive—he managed to thrive almost overnight,” Payne recalled with a nearly tangible wave of nostalgia. “And now just look at him!” the family patriarch cried.

It took Marlowe a moment to realize that his small trip down memory lane had been received with surprise by the others around the conference table.

This was part of the narrative that hadn’t been previously broadcast. This was the first she’d heard that Payne and Tessa’s big, robust firstborn had been born a sickly infant whose chances of making it through the night had been regarded as slim to none.

Despite their obvious surprise, only Selina picked up the thread that had been dropped.

“A Christmas miracle?” she asked in a slightly mocking tone. “Really? Or did you or your first wife at the time deliberately decide to switch that sickly, frail baby with a healthy newborn?”

Payne’s face immediately turned a vivid shade of red.

“How dare you insinuate,” Payne screeched, “that either I or Ace’s mother could do something so reprehensible as—”

He couldn’t even bring himself to finish his sentence, he was so incensed.

Everyone suddenly started talking at once, their raised voices drowning one another out as each tried to make his or her point.

Despite the turmoil going on in her head and her life, Marlowe’s inner instincts took hold. Before she even realized what she was doing, she was on her feet, her raised voice louder than anyone else’s as she attempted to calm them down.

“People. People!” she cried even louder. “Calm down!” she ordered in a semi friendly, albeit very authoritative, voice. “Of course this is all a huge mistake. My big brother is a Colton. He always has been—in his heart as well as in his blood. You know that,” she insisted. “And, like this awful email said, one simple DNA test will prove that.”

“You’re right,” Ainsley said, adding her voice to back up her younger half sister. She glanced at Ace. “I’ll go with Ace to make sure he gets a test fast and have that test expedited as quickly as humanly possible. It’ll cost a fortune,” she said before Selina had the opportunity to raise an objection concerning the cost of having the test results delivered so quickly, “but it will definitely be worth it. Especially when you think of it how it will prevent certain chaos if the press ever got hold of this.”

Selina raised and lowered her shoulders in a careless, dismissive shrug. “It’s only money, right?” the woman said scornfully.

“Yes, it is,” Marlowe replied. “And it’s not your money,” she deliberately added, knowing that was the sort of thing that would really irritate the hateful woman.

Selina’s eyes narrowed, her pupils like two laser pointers as she glared at Marlowe. “To prevent anyone from contesting the results and saying that they were deliberately manipulated to give the results we were all after—” her tone placed quotation marks around the word we “—shouldn’t there be a disinterested third party present to act as a witness—just to keep everything honest?” she concluded sweetly.

“You’re absolutely right,” Payne said. It was obvious that agreeing with his ex-wife was costing him. “Any suggestions?” he asked the others, deliberately ignoring Selina as he looked around the table.

But Selina refused to be ignored. “How about—” the woman began, only to be drowned out by Ainsley, who spoke over her.

“I can ask Chief Barco to come along and serve as a witness to the whole procedure, from the initial taking of Ace’s blood to every single step taken in order to get to the end result.” Only then did Ainsley look at Selina. “Will that satisfy you, Selina?” she asked the woman.

“Absolutely,” Selina replied smugly. “I’m just trying to make sure that everything’s aboveboard so that no one can say the results were manipulated or doctored,” she told the rest of the board.

Marlowe kept her expression neutral even as she glared at Selina. They all knew that the only one who would claim that the results were “doctored” was Selina. Selina was clearly the enemy in their midst, but they were going to have to deal with that if the company was going to continue to survive the way it had all along.

Marlowe made a silent pledge that it would, if she had anything to say about it.

For the time being, focused on fighting for the company—and her brother—all thoughts of the earthshaking test in her office were temporarily pushed into the background.

Chapter 3

Marlowe quickly made her way back to her office. She was a woman with a mission. The crisis surrounding Ace and whether or not he was truly a Colton—a ridiculous question at best—had, however temporarily, displaced her own personal drama. After all, it wasn’t as if that problem was going anywhere, at least not without some sort of intervention on her part.

And besides, there was still a chance, albeit an increasingly slim one, that it was some sort of mistake, or glitch, and she really was not pregnant. But pregnant or not, she would tackle that problem later. Right now, she had to join the rest of her family and do something about this terrible, unfounded rumor before it made the rounds. It needed to be disproved and stopped at its source.

Which meant finding out just who this so-called “anonymous” sender was who had emailed that hateful message to all six of them. Getting to the bottom of this was going to require some expert online sleuthing by someone who was far savvier than she was when it came to technology.

And Marlowe knew just whom to turn to. The reigning expert, as far as she was concerned, was an IT specialist who was already employed by Colton Oil and was currently working right here in the company’s headquarters.

If anyone could get to the bottom of all this and track down just where this heinous email had originated, it was Daniel Okowski. Not only was Daniel good at his job, but he was also decent and loyal. Marlowe knew that she could trust the IT director to keep the subject matter he was going to be investigating quiet, just as she was confident that once he did find out who was responsible for sending this email, he wouldn’t make that information public, either.

Picking up the telephone receiver, Marlowe was about to call Daniel when the cell phone that she’d left on the side of her desk beeped, informing her that she had a text.

Her first inclination was to ignore it. She just didn’t have time to handle yet another new crisis. One more thing and she was in danger of having a real breakdown.

Her deeply imbedded work ethic trumped her survival instinct, and Marlowe looked down at her phone screen, bracing herself.

The text was from her administrative assistant, Karen. Marlowe didn’t even bother reading it. Karen was not the type to bother her unless it involved something important.

Taking a deep breath, Marlowe pressed the number that directly connected her to Karen. The second her assistant picked up, she told the woman, “I’m kind of busy right now, Karen. Can this wait?”

“I don’t think he wants to wait, Ms. Colton,” the assistant whispered nervously into her phone.

“He?” Marlowe questioned. But even as she asked, her sixth sense, ever alert for the next pending disaster, caused her stomach to suddenly plummet to her knees.

Still, she told herself that she could be wrong, which was why she asked, “Just what ‘he’ are you referring to, Karen?”

The next second, rather than hearing Karen’s voice giving her an answer, Marlowe saw her door being slammed open. Bowie Robertson came barging into her office, loaded for bear. He had no sooner entered than the door banged shut behind him, the sound reverberating throughout the office and echoing menacingly in her head.

“Me, Marlowe. Your assistant is referring to me,” Bowie declared angrily.

A beat behind, Karen appeared directly behind the man who was currently behaving like a raging bull. Her normally efficient assistant looked extremely fearful and was all but quaking in her shoes.

“Do you want me to call Security, Ms. Colton?” she asked, her eyes furtively glancing in Bowie’s direction, then looking away again.

Yes, I want you to call Security, Marlowe silently answered her assistant. But saying that out loud would make Bowie think that she was afraid of him, and she would rather die than have him believe that. She wasn’t afraid of anyone, she thought fiercely.

So instead Marlowe tossed back her head, sending her blond hair flying over her shoulder. Her brown eyes, shooting daggers, met Bowie’s green gaze dead-on.

“No, not yet, Karen,” she told her assistant. “You can go. But stay close to your phone,” she cautioned the young woman.

Looking somewhat uneasy, Karen never took her eyes off the back of the intruder’s dark head as she slipped out Marlowe’s office. She eased the door closed behind her.

The second her assistant had left, Marlowe turned her attention back to the man she regarded as a detestable, unwanted invader. She was now all but shooting bullets at him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, barging into my office like this? Who the hell do you think you are?” Marlowe demanded hotly of the man she held responsible for the personal minidrama she was going through.

Bowie clearly was in absolutely no mood to back away, no matter how much she yelled. “I’m a man who’s done hiding!” he shouted right back at her.

Marlowe stared at him. That made absolutely no sense to her. Bowie was just tossing about meaningless words. Why would he be in hiding?

“Hiding?” she repeated. “Hiding from what?” Marlowe demanded, both confused and enraged.

Bowie’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t play dumb with me, Marlowe. It doesn’t suit you,” he said bitingly. Then, because she continued to look like she didn’t understand what he was saying, he snapped, “Hiding from your goons.” Like she didn’t know that, he thought.

“Goons?” she repeated, still just as lost as she had been a moment ago. “What goons? Did you fall on your head, Robertson? What are you talking about?” she asked, growing angrier by the second.

So she was going to play it dumb, was she? Okay, he’d spell it out for her, even though he was certain that she wasn’t ignorant of the reason that he had come looking for her.

“The goons that tried to run me over and who shot at me—twice,” he emphasized. “The second time they went target shooting, they killed my bodyguard and, incidentally, just narrowly missed me. Now do you know what I’m talking about?”

This had to be an act, Marlowe thought. Nothing more than an attempt to throw up a smoke screen for some unknown reason. The man was crazy.

Furious, she shouted at him, “You are totally delusional!”

“Yeah, well, there’s a body lying on a slab at the morgue who begs to differ with you,” Bowie told her in disgust. “Why don’t you have one of your minions call up the medical examiner at the morgue and ask if he just did an autopsy on a Miles Patterson?” he suggested. “I bet the answer’s going to be yes.”