The Coltons of Mustang Valley

He looked absolutely serious, Marlowe realized, beginning to feel uncertain. But how in heaven’s name could he be? She hadn’t sent anyone to shoot at him or threaten him in any way.

Marlowe glared at the impertinent man. If anyone was going to do something to this raving lunatic, it would be her, she promised herself.

And she’d do it with her fists, Marlowe thought.

“You are insane,” she accused.

“No,” he contradicted, “I was insane to ever allow what happened between us to go as far as it did. But what’s done is done,” he snapped. “It’s in the past, and I’ll be regretting it for the rest of my natural life.

“But I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to worry. I don’t know what kind of people you’re used to dealing with, but I’m not about to take something that was told to me in confidence and spill it to anyone willing to listen. You said it was a secret when you told me, and unlike you people,” he said, encompassing her entire family, “when I make a promise, I keep it. So call off your hired guns, Marlowe, and just let me go on with my life in peace.”

She looked at him as if he were babbling in some foreign language she couldn’t begin to identify.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded, growing steadily angrier and more frustrated with every second that went by.

Bowie stared at her, incredulous. How far did she intend to carry this charade?

“So what?” he asked. “You’re telling me that you’re going to continue playing dumb?”

“I am telling you that I don’t have the faintest idea what you are carrying on about,” Marlowe informed him, exasperated. She was not buying into this act of his, and she was insulted that Bowie would even think that she would.

His eyes pinned her where she sat. “You mean to tell me that you don’t know that someone’s been trying to kill me ever since I left your hotel room at the Dales Inn six weeks ago?” Bowie questioned angrily.

Marlowe looked at him, stunned and momentarily speechless that Bowie could actually believe she was some sort of black widow, femme fatale capable of “mating” and then killing the man she’d just had sex with.

That was totally bizarre.

Of all the images she’d ever had of herself, that wasn’t one she’d even remotely ever entertained. She’d never thought herself capable of doing something like that. She knew she wasn’t glamorous enough to pull it off.

Nor would she want to. Behavior like that was vapid and empty, and completely devoid of any sort of moral scruples. None of that would ever come even close to describing her.

Pulling herself together, Marlowe found her tongue. “Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about. None,” she emphasized. “I don’t even remember what this ‘secret’ was that I was supposed to have told you.”

The second the words were out of her mouth, Marlowe’s eyes grew large as it occurred to her that she had another problem on top of the one she was already aware of. Oh God, what was this secret she’d told him, and how was this going to blow up in her face?

The suspense and anticipation threatened to eat away at her stomach lining in record time.

“You don’t remember telling me anything,” Bowie said in a mocking tone. “You honestly expect me to believe that?”

“I can’t help what you believe or don’t believe, but that’s the truth,” she insisted angrily.

“No, you’re lying,” he accused, standing firm. “It’s too much of a coincidence that right after you told me your precious secret, people started aiming their cars at me and shooting at me.” His eyes darkened. “Our families have been rivals practically since the beginning of time, and I should have had my head examined for going against everything that made sense and thinking that I could have misjudged you. I should have kept my distance from a viper like you the way I always have.”

Marlowe glared at him, furious at what Bowie was insinuating. Furious with herself for ever letting her own guard down and allowing him to get close enough to really complicate her world.

Furious with herself for ever thinking that he could be capable of being a decent human being...even though he was the father of her child.

Staring at the ruggedly good-looking man now, Marlowe couldn’t help wondering if he—or maybe someone in his family, if not the entire lot of them—could be behind that awful email that had thrown her own family into such turmoil.

“Well, you didn’t keep your damn distance, did you?” she all but spat out. “And pretty soon everyone’s going to know that.”

He stared at her, completely at a loss as to what she was saying to him. The woman certainly spent a lot of time babbling, he thought, irritated.

“Now what are you talking about?” he demanded. “I don’t speak gibberish.”

Marlowe glared at him. “Neither do I,” she shot back at this interloper.

“Then what the hell are you saying?” he asked.

He wanted it spelled out? All right, she’d spell it out for him. She was through being patient. “I’m saying that our families are going to have to find a way to tolerate one another.”

“And why, pray tell, would they want to do that?” he asked, really wishing that in the middle of all these hot words that were flying back and forth between them he didn’t find this woman so damn attractive that his toes all but curled.

Why couldn’t he find her the least little bit repulsive, or ugly or even off-putting? Hell, he’d really settle for off-putting.

Instead, while shouting at this woman he was convinced was trying to have him killed, all he could think of was the way her mouth had tasted that fateful night. How soft her skin had felt beneath his hands and how much he still wanted to make love with her.

He had to be out of his mind, Bowie thought. That was the only explanation he could come up with. Maybe she had slipped him something that night, something that was now making him behave like a mindless, lovesick loon.

At least he was managing to cover that part up, he thought thankfully.

His question rang in Marlowe’s ears. If she had an iota of sense, she would have just let the subject drop, or answered him with some mindless bit of trivia that said nothing. She could just accuse his family for being underhanded and causing all this havoc in her own family.

She could say anything but what she knew she’d wind up saying in response to his question.

“Our families are going to have to figure things out, because in seven and a half months there’s going to be a little human being with both Colton and Robertson blood running through his or her veins,” she said from between gritted teeth.

Dumbstruck, Bowie stared at Marlowe. When he finally recovered the use of his tongue, he could only inanely echo, “What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying, Einstein,” she answered sarcastically, “is that our temporary truce that night resulted in a permanent baby. I’m pregnant, you idiot!” she shouted at him.

She felt angry that she was trapped in this situation. Angry that it had ever happened. And most of all, angry that out of all the men in the world who could have been the father of her child, it had to be this Neanderthal.

“You’re lying,” Bowie accused numbly. She had to be lying, he told himself. She couldn’t be telling him the truth.

But the expression on Marlowe’s face gave him very little hope.

“I really, really wish I was,” she told him, meaning her words from the bottom of her heart.

Bowie’s stomach twisted in a knot, coming perilously close to making him throw up.

“You’re pregnant,” he repeated.

She blew out a frustrated breath. “That’s what I just said.”

It wasn’t sinking in. He felt like a drowning man fighting like crazy to keep his head above water. “And it’s mine?”

“Yes, it’s yours, damn it.”

He didn’t remember forming the words until they finally emerged. “How can you be sure?”

There was fury in her eyes, and for a moment, he was certain she was going to really blow up. But somehow, she managed to keep herself under control.

“Count yourself lucky that the handgun my father gave me for my fourteenth birthday is in a lockbox and not in a drawer in my desk because I have a license to use it and if it was the latter, right now I would be sorely tempted to use it on you. In the long run that would be preferable to having you as the father of my baby, but there you have it. You are the father of my unborn child, and that’s a horrible fact we’re both stuck with.”

Her eyes grew very, very dark as she added, “And to answer your question as to how I know you’re the father of this child, I know because I haven’t had the time or the inclination to sleep with anyone in months, so unless this baby is the result of some sort of spontaneous generation, you, Bowie Robertson, are the father.” Her eyes narrowed as she concluded, “Deal with it!”

Chapter 4

Marlowe looked at the silent man sitting directly opposite her.

Tall, dark and handsome by anyone’s standards, Bowie Robertson’s complexion had suddenly turned very, very pale right before her eyes. If it hadn’t been for the change in his color, she would have thought she was witnessing, up close and personal, one of the finest acting performances of her life. But to her knowledge, no one could turn that pale at will. Which meant that her news had caught Bowie totally by surprise.

Well, that makes two of us, Robertson, Marlowe thought.

She almost felt sorry for him, considering what he was probably going through—the key word here being almost, Marlowe thought, because she was the one who was pregnant, not him. “Wow,” Bowie murmured, more to himself than to Marlowe. The thought of having fathered a child left him numb. He had no idea how to deal with it. He had never even thought of himself as a father. Unable to deal with it, he pushed the thought into the background for the time being.

“I believe that sums it up as good as any word.” She agreed sarcastically, then switched gears as she demanded, “Now what was that secret I told you?”

Bowie blinked, scrutinizing her more closely. She was being serious, he realized. “You mean you really don’t remember what you told me?”

Marlowe liked to think of herself as a patient woman, but after all the things that had happened today, she was utterly out of patience and dangerously close to another out-and-out display of pure, unadulterated anger.

“No, I really don’t know what I told you,” she snapped, enunciating each syllable.

Bowie continued to stare at her. If what Marlowe was saying was true—and she really didn’t know what secret she had shared with him or that she had even disclosed any company secret while in the throes of their lovemaking—then she couldn’t be the one who was trying to have him killed. She would have no reason to want to eliminate him.

So who the hell was trying to kill him?

The attacks had started shortly after he had slipped out of her room at the Dales Inn. Had someone—either there or just outside the hotel—seen him leaving the bar with her?

Or maybe these attempts on his life didn’t even have anything to do with him spending the night with Marlowe. All right, then what? Why would someone be trying to kill him?

His mind was a total blank.

Marlowe noted that Bowie’s brow was completely furrowed and he had a very strange expression on his face. So strange, in fact, that she couldn’t even begin to fathom what was behind it.

“What is it?” she asked.

Her almost melodious voice broke through the fog around his brain. For a second, he thought she sounded genuinely concerned. So much so that he forgot to keep his guard up against a woman he had been indoctrinated his entire life to regard as someone who came from the enemy camp.

His guard down, he said aloud the words that were currently buzzing around in his head. “If you’re not the one who hired someone to kill me, then who the hell did?” he said, totally exasperated.

She had no idea, nor the will, at this moment, to figure it out. Maybe she hadn’t even told him anything of importance that night and he was just yanking her chain.

“Well, it’s not that I wouldn’t love to help you find an answer as to why someone is supposedly using you for target practice,” she said flippantly, “but I’m kind of in the middle of a crisis of my own right now.”

“You mean something else besides suddenly finding yourself pregnant with the enemy’s child?” he asked her cryptically.

Marlowe raised her chin defiantly. “Yes, other than finding myself pregnant.” She bit off the words, skipping the rest of his description. The fact that it was his baby only added to her feelings of being overwhelmed.

“So what’s this other big crisis of yours?” It seemed to be the right question to ask, Bowie thought, given the situation.

“I can’t tell you,” Marlowe said. When she saw him raise a quizzical eyebrow, she did offer one piece of information. “It’s not just a company crisis...it’s a family crisis, as well.”

The moment she said the last words, she suddenly covered her mouth with her hands, horrified, as she rolled her eyes. That was too much. Annoyed with herself, she dropped her hands from her face and blew out a ragged breath.

“What is it about you that keeps making me blurt things out like that?” she demanded accusingly, glaring at Bowie.

“Then you do remember what you said to me?” he asked her.

“No, I don’t,” she answered, frustrated, “but apparently you seem to have that kind of effect on me.” Marlowe was angrier with herself than she was with him. She should have never had that champagne that night at the inn. Then none of this would be happening.

Belatedly, she thought of where she had been about to go when Bowie had suddenly come storming into her office. Nothing had changed. She still needed to see Daniel and talk to him about trying to track down the person who had sent this email that was causing such shock waves to go ripping through her family’s lives.

“Look,” she told Bowie as she rose to her feet, “I really have to go right now—”

Bowie followed suit, standing up, as well. He followed her to the door. “To handle that company-slash-family crisis, right?” he assumed.

“Something like that,” she replied noncommittally. “But I’ll be in touch later to arrange a meeting between us. Somewhere private,” she added, “so then we’ll be able to talk.”

“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll wait for your call.” His tone made it clear that if it didn’t come, he would be back to see her.

By now they had walked out of her inner office. Karen looked apprehensively at the heads of the two most influential energy companies in Arizona. “Is everything all right, Ms. Colton?” she asked nervously, her eyes darting toward Bowie and then back again.

Marlowe wasn’t in the habit of wearing her emotions on her sleeve, but just for a second, she was tempted to say “No, Karen, it’s not. It’s so far from being all right, it might never be right again.” But she managed to suppress the urge as well as the words. Instead, she said, “Yes, Karen, everything’s fine. Thank you for your concern.” She swept past her and headed toward the elevator.

Because his legs were longer, Bowie easily matched her quick stride step for step until they reached the elevator. He was going out while she was going up, so he paused for a moment before leaving the building.

Whispering into her ear, he told her, “You lie like a pro.”

Stunned, she demanded, “Excuse me?”

“Just now,” Bowie explained, nodding his head toward the office she’d just vacated. “When you answered your assistant’s inquiry, you told her that everything was all right, but you told me that you were in the middle of a crisis.”

“There’s no reason for Karen to know about that.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him just as the elevator arrived. “There’s no reason for you to know that, either, but you seem to have this strange power to make me lower my defenses and say all manner of things to you that I shouldn’t.”

“I’ll do my best to use that power wisely,” he told Marlowe with just the faintest hint of a smile curving his lips. “Don’t forget to call and tell me the time and place that we’ll be meeting,” he reminded her as the elevator doors shut, removing her from his view. “Or I’ll be back,” he called out, raising his voice, although he doubted that she could hear.

Marlowe uttered a few choice words in response to his parting ones, but the doors had closed by then, sealing her off from him.

It was just as well, she thought. Why had she ever even bothered to talk to the man at the conference? Yes, what came afterward could easily be described as the best, the most remarkable night she had ever spent in her life. But at what price? Marlowe asked herself. And could she really say that it had been worth it?

In view of the present situation, she couldn’t honestly say yes. But then, she couldn’t really say no, either.

With all these diametrically opposed thoughts going on in her mind, Marlowe felt as if her head was liable to explode at any moment.

She knew she was dangerously close to being on overload, with just too many shocking pieces of unsettling information bouncing around in her brain, all accumulated in such a short amount of time. She didn’t feel able to sort them all out without drowning in words and feelings.

C’mon, Marlowe, get a grip. If you fall to pieces, everyone else will, too. You have got to get it together! For everyone’s sake, she admonished herself.

Marlowe realized as she quickly walked down the long corridor that she was consciously or unconsciously pinning all her hopes on Daniel, fervently trusting that somehow he would come up with something, preferably the name of the person who had sent them that unnerving email. She was convinced that he had it in him to save the day.

The boyish, studious-looking IT director was only six years older than she was, but in her opinion, he looked younger. Despite his looks, however, he possessed a razor-sharp mind, and if there was anyone who could unearth the name of the person sending them this awful email, it was Daniel.

His door was wide-open, and she knocked on the door frame as she crossed the threshold into the office. It looked like the other two people who were part of his department had already left for the night and that Daniel was just about to leave the office himself.

“Daniel?” she said, walking toward his desk. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

Whatever humorous retort he was about to offer instantly faded without a single syllable even partially emerging when he saw who was approaching him.

“For you, always,” the tall, thin man told her. Rather than just paying lip service for the effect it had, she knew Daniel truly meant what he had just said. He felt boundless loyalty to the family that had taken a wet-behind-the-ears computer science graduate and placed him in a department where he worked in positions of respect and power, something he had never experienced before.

In return, Daniel had gone to great lengths to show them that he was worthy of the faith and trust they had placed in him. Even so, he never took anything for granted. She knew for a fact that there were a lot of other people in his graduating class who were still struggling to pay off their school loans, while he was able to move around completely debt free because the Coltons had been willing to take a chance on him.

“Something’s come up,” Marlowe began, trying to find just the right words to use in order to present and explain the dilemma that they all—especially Ace—found themselves currently facing.

“Please, have a seat,” Daniel said, gesturing toward a chair that was facing his desk.

At first, Marlowe looked almost hesitant to sit down. But then she finally did, sinking into the chair almost in slow motion.

“Go on,” he urged.

After a beat, Marlowe took a deep breath. “Maybe it would be easier if I just showed you, Daniel,” she said, because saying the words just might have made her choke, she thought.

“Whatever works for you,” Daniel responded amicably. He waited for Marlowe to make the next move or say the next thing.

He watched in silence as Marlowe dug into her skirt pocket and pulled out her phone.

Marlowe forwarded the anonymous email and looked at the explosive piece on the screen in front of Daniel.

“This was sent to all six board members a few hours ago,” she told the IT director. At least she assumed that was the timeline, although for all she knew, her father had been aware of this email’s contents longer than that. She had no idea how she knew, but she just had a feeling.

She fell silent as she allowed Daniel several seconds to read the words.

Once he had finished reading and then rereading the email, Daniel raised his eyes to meet hers. “Is this on the level?”

“Whoever sent it seems to think so,” she answered grimly.

“Do you know who sent it?” Daniel asked next.

Marlowe shook her head. “No. That’s where you come in, Daniel,” she told him. “I was hoping that you could track down whoever sent this to the board and find him for me.”

“You said him—we’re sure it’s a he?” Daniel questioned.

Sighing, she shook her head again. “Daniel, at this point we’re not sure of anything.”

“Okay,” Daniel said, taking the information in stride. He approached the problem from another direction. “You said this just came in?”

This time Marlowe nodded. “From all indications, late this afternoon. My father was the one who notified me,” she added. “Do you think you’ll be able to track this email back to its source and find out who sent this abomination out?”

“And you have no idea who might have sent it?” he questioned.

“Not even a clue,” she answered him flatly. “Daniel, it’s extremely important that you get us a name as fast as possible. This needs to be nipped in the bud before it somehow gets leaked to the press.” She caught herself gripping the armrests and forced herself to make her hands go lax. “I don’t have to tell you that we don’t need that sort of publicity getting out.”

Daniel nodded, his unruly dark brown hair falling into his eyes. He combed his fingers through it, absently brushing it aside from his black-framed glasses. His attention was completely focused on his boss. “Understood,” he replied.

She was struggling to project the picture of confidence, but at the moment, given everything that had toppled down onto her shoulders, that was definitely not easy.

“Do you think you can do it, Daniel?” she pressed.

“I can certainly try,” he answered cautiously. She knew he didn’t like making promises unless he was 100 percent certain that he could successfully deliver.

“But can you do it?” Marlowe asked again, needing an affirmative promise from him. “You’re the best in the business, Daniel, and if you can’t do this...” A note of hopelessness filtered through her voice as it trailed off.

“Ms. Colton, you have to understand that a search for something this heinous could very well involve the dark web, and that’s a great deal trickier to navigate than the regular web. They don’t call it the dark web just to create an aura of mystery. The transactions carried out on this part of the internet are way more difficult to pin down. I would be remiss if I wasn’t being honest with you, Ms. Colton,” he confided. “The truth of it is that you might never find out who sent this email.”

“But you will try to, right?” She was aware that she was practically imploring Daniel at this point.

“That goes without saying, Ms. Colton,” he told her. “I will use every trick in the book and lean on everyone I know to help me uncover just who sent out this piece of unfounded propaganda.”