Runaway Colton

Head tilted, she considered him. “You know, despite your kind memories of me, I’m not at all like you apparently think I am. I’m not a saint.”

Her words brought a rush of selfish gladness, which he wisely kept to himself. It would be a sin to be a saint with a body like hers. “I never said you were.”

“Despite that, to be honest I wasn’t planning on skipping out on court. I wouldn’t do that to T.C., Reid and Alanna.”

“That’s what I thought.” He considered her right back, suppressing the tingle of desire he felt. “My suggestion is a win for both of us. I’ll help you investigate what really happened to Eldridge, and you can help me—” He stopped, unable to believe how close he’d come to telling her about Renee.

Of course she picked up on that. “Help you what?”

Should he? Why not. Like her, he had nothing to lose by telling her. “Since my sister died two years ago, I’ve been trying to raise my niece, Renee,” he said, keeping all emotion out of his voice. “She ran away a few weeks ago. I’ve been looking for her ever since.”

Piper swallowed. One corner of her sensual mouth quirked in the beginnings of a smile. “Without success?”

“Exactly.”

He could see her thoughts written plainly on her face. “I normally have a very high success rate. But just because I’m licensed as a private investigator and fugitive recovery specialist doesn’t mean I never run into trouble.”

“Good to know.” The ghost of a smile vanished before it ever actually came into being. He found himself wishing he could have seen it.

“Why not?” she finally said, apparently coming to a quick decision. Her lack of prevaricating was another trait he admired. “Sure, I’m in. I’ll help you find your niece and you help me learn the truth about what happened to Eldridge.”

He noticed again she didn’t say murder, which made him realize she truly didn’t believe her adoptive father was dead. The flicker of interest he had at the thought was the first he’d experienced in any case since Renee had disappeared. Worry and guilt had basically consumed him, blotting out the potential for anything else.

“Sounds good,” he managed, realizing he’d gone a bit too long lost in his thoughts. He held out his hand. “Partners?”

Without hesitation she shook. Once again, he felt that sizzle along his nerve endings and the touch of her fingers in his. Weird. But he could deal with it.

“Where are you staying?” he asked, now that they’d sealed the bargain.

“The Budget Inn off I-20.”

“Let’s go gather your stuff. You’re staying with me from now on.”

Arms crossed, she shook her head. “If you think that authoritative command is going to make me fall right in line with your plans, you’re dead wrong,” she drawled. “In fact, whenever someone tries to order me around, I want to do the exact opposite.”

A laugh escaped him; he couldn’t help it. “I like you,” he said, surprised.

“I’m reserving judgment until I know you better.” There it was again, the smile sneaking onto a corner of her mouth.

He found himself holding his breath waiting for it. When she looked down instead, he pushed away his disappointment. “Fair enough,” he said. “We’re a lot alike. I think we’ll get along just fine.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound too concerned. “Now I’m going to go back to the flea market and check it out. After that, I’ll think about considering your kind offer of shelter.”

Chapter 3

As she browsed the flea market, pretending an extreme interest in just about every booth, from homemade baked goods to used tires, Piper ignored her keen awareness of the large man silently shadowing her. Due to his size and the masculinity he radiated, he drew a lot of stares from other women.

Though she couldn’t blame them, she wasn’t sure what to think of Cord Maxwell. As he’d pointed out, they’d known each other as children, but she also knew a lot could happen to a person in the years between childhood and adulthood.

Despite that, she’d kept distant track of him, the way most everyone did in a small town. She knew he’d inherited Sam Ater’s business when Sam died and had heard Cord had a good reputation as a steady, honest man. She’d planned to hire him, after all. Until she’d realized he not only knew she’d been arrested for murder, but that Fowler had beat her to him.

Did that mean she could trust him? As she examined a beautiful, amber-colored jar of local honey, she considered. Cord had told her the truth up front—that he was working for Fowler—despite the possibility that doing so might make her run. That had to count for something, right?

She’d always been a big believer in trusting her instincts. And her gut feeling told her she could trust him.

Decision made, she turned to tell him, only to catch him regarding her with such intensity that his eyes had darkened. Unbidden, she felt an answering shiver of awareness before squashing it right back into nothing.

“We have a deal,” she told him, about to offer him a handshake but thinking better of it at the last moment.

“I’m not nuts about staying in the same place as you,” she admitted, swallowing hard as she brazened it out. “It’s too intimate.”

He stared at her for a second before a slow grin spread across his rugged face. “Intimate? Only if you make it so. You’ll have your own room and bathroom. The only common areas will be the kitchen and living room. More like a roommate scenario. There’s nothing remotely intimate about that.”

His expression and voice said one thing, but the heat in his eyes said another. Her face warmed and she knew her skin had turned the color of a ripe tomato. She considered herself a strong, self-sufficient woman. Surely she could resist this tug of sexual attraction she felt whenever she so much as looked at him.

“You’re probably right.” Squaring her shoulders, she didn’t let a single trace of regret sound in her voice. “All right. Let me pick up my gear and I’ll follow you there in my car.”

Though he nodded, he stared at her like he thought if he granted her access to her vehicle, she’d jump in and speed away. Irritated, she glared back at him. “My word’s as good as yours, you know.”

“That obvious, huh?”

“Yes. I guess you might have to deal with a lot of lowlifes in your profession, but I’m not one of them.”

This clearly surprised him. One brow raised, he studied her. “I wasn’t thinking you were a lowlife. I can see you’re not. But you are a survivor. And I can tell you’ll do whatever you have to in order to continue to survive.”

Surprised and secretly pleased, she nodded. “Good read. We truly are two of a kind, because I can tell you’re the same way. And from what little you’ve told me, I think your niece is a survivor, as well. I’m sure we’ll find her soon.”

The mention of his niece caused his expression to darken. “Maybe what I need is a feminine perspective. Once we get to my place, I’ll tell you everything about her. Then maybe you’ll have some thoughts about where she might have gone.”

Though she doubted he was aware of it, he sounded so lost, so worried, that her heart went out to him. She truly hoped she actually could help him bring his niece home.

She drove back to her motel with him right behind her. For the first time since she’d left the ranch, she didn’t stress so much over the possibility of anyone following her. At least now that she’d teamed up with Cord, she’d have one other person on her side. Sometimes that alone could make a huge difference.

He waited in his truck while she went into her room and gathered up her meager belongings. She checked out, paying cash, and strode back outside. Once in her car, she gestured to Cord to lead the way, and off they went. At least he didn’t live in town proper or anywhere near the Colton Valley Ranch. Though he didn’t have a place on the outside of town like her family, his home on the southern fringes near the county line ensured she wouldn’t run into any of the Coltons or their friends.

As they turned into a long, winding drive, the sight of his house sitting beneath tall trees caused something to shift inside her. “Perfect,” she exclaimed out loud, even though no one could hear her. His home on the outside, all perfectly fit logs hewn from rugged timber, suited him perfectly. If the situation had been different—no, she wouldn’t let herself go there.

She’d keep things friendly, but professional. After all, this was a business partnership, sort of.

“What are you going to tell Fowler?” she asked the instant she got out of the car.

To give him credit, he simply shrugged. “Nothing, yet. I’m not going to lie, but he doesn’t need to know I’ve found you until closer to the court date. Since notice will be mailed to your home, we’re either going to have to rely on Fowler to tell me, or you’ll need to contact one of your siblings. Is that all right with you?”

Once again she appreciated his honesty. “Sounds good.” Keeping her tone light, she followed him into his house.

Inside, she stopped and stared. The same log walls, with matching polished pine floors, gave the interior a rustic, welcoming feel. His oversize leather furniture, along with the still life painting of wildlife, gave the room a masculine feel. The only thing lacking was a woman’s touch.

He laughed, making her realize she’d spoken out loud. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sometimes my thoughts travel from my mind to my mouth before I can think.”

“It’s okay.” At least he continued to smile, so she knew she hadn’t offended him. “I actually remember that about you.”

“Seriously?” She frowned, trying to decide if her bad habit had been around even in childhood. Guessing it probably had, she let it go.

“Yep.” He squeezed her shoulder, his expression friendly. “It’s one of the things I always liked about you. No subterfuge.”

Apparently he remembered more about her than she did him. Mostly she remembered feeling sorry for him, a young kid like her, left so often to his own devices by a father who stayed drunk more than sober.

“Thanks.” Taking one more look around, she eyed him. “Where am I staying?”

“This way.” A short, L-shaped hallway branched out from the living room. They passed one doorway, which at a quick glance appeared to be an office-combination-workout room, and stopped at the second. “My guest bedroom, now yours. Feel free to add any womanly touches you feel it needs for as long as you’re here.”

Gazing up at his smiling face, something shifted inside her. “I will,” she said, her tone brisk. “I’m going to unpack first. I don’t like things wrinkled.”

“Of course. When you’re done, meet me in the kitchen. We have a lot to discuss, not just about Renee, but about Eldridge, too.”

She nodded, heart still up in her throat, and quietly closed the door. Then stood there like a fool and listened to the sound of his footsteps as he went down the hall.

Sighing, she went over to her backpack, unzipped it and emptied it onto the bed. Hanging up her meager collection of clothes—kudos to Cord for providing hangers in the closet—she checked out the hall bathroom before heading out to the kitchen. It would do. It all would do for the short time she intended to stay here.

Cord stood as she approached, drawing her gaze to his broad shoulders, muscular chest and arms. With his shaggy head of dark hair, he looked primitive and dangerous and, if she was honest, sexy as hell.

It dawned on her that maybe she’d made a mistake agreeing to stay with him. Then, as he met her gaze and flashed that half smile, she took a deep breath and told herself to quit being an idiot.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked. “I have coffee, tea, bottled water and Coke.”

“Water, please.” Taking a seat, she gazed up at him, refusing to be overwhelmed by his blatant sex appeal.

Handing her bottled water, he straddled the chair across from her. “Let’s start at the beginning. What evidence do the police have on you that made them arrest you?”

“A bloodstained shirt was found in my closet.”

“Eldridge’s?”

She nodded. “I gave him that shirt for Christmas several years ago. He rarely wore it.”

“What else?” Watching her closely, he took a long drink of his water. She almost lost her train of thought, watching the movement of his throat as he swallowed.

“That’s it, as far as I know.”

“A shirt alone isn’t enough. Do they have some sort of confession?”

A humorless laugh escaped her. “No. But not for lack of trying. Two officers badgered me for hours. At one point I considered agreeing to what they wanted me to say, just to get them to stop. But I knew that’s what they wanted. And, since I didn’t kill Eldridge, there was no way I was about to claim I did. They need to get off their lazy rear ends and find the real killer.”

His grin floored her, making her chest ache. She couldn’t figure out how this man could distract her so easily, at a time when distraction was the last thing she needed.

“I agree.” He sounded almost cheerful. “And there has to be more, or the DA won’t let them charge you. I’ve got a friend who works in the sheriff’s department. Let me do some digging.”

Relieved, she nodded. “Okay. My brother Reid used to be a detective and he promised to check around, too.” She took a deep breath. “Now that we’ve discussed my situation, why don’t you tell me about your niece?”

“Renee?” A shadow darkened his features as he spoke the name. “Do you remember my older sister, Denice?”

“Vaguely. She wasn’t around a lot. Wasn’t she tall, and really pretty? I think she liked to party.”

“She did. And with a father like ours, I couldn’t blame her. At least, not at first. But once she got pregnant, she cleaned up her act. I really thought she’d be a great mother...” His voice trailed off.

As the silence stretched out, she exhaled and prompted. “But? There’s always a but.”

He shrugged, clearly pretending to be unaffected, though the pain in his eyes told another story. “She wasn’t. She and Renee’s father married. Joshua was an addict and in a band. She started traveling with him. I’m sure you can guess the rest.”

She nodded. “What happened to them?”

“Denice was driving drunk. Her husband and Renee were in the car. She drove onto I-635 going the wrong way. The head-on collision killed Denice and him instantly. Renee was asleep in the backseat. She was lucky. She had numerous broken bones and had to be hospitalized for a couple of weeks while they tried to get the swelling around her brain to go down. When she finally healed enough to be released, I brought her home with me. She was sixteen.”

Her heart wrenched. “Poor girl. That had to be hard.”

Gazing off into the distance, he nodded. “It was. The worst part was the screaming. She kept reliving the moment when she woke up in the wrecked car. Luckily, she had her seat belt on, but she was hanging upside down. Her mother was dead in the front seat and her father...”

Dragging a hand across his mouth, he swallowed. “Needless to say, I’ve been sending her to therapy. I really thought it was beginning to help.” His grimace told her what he thought about that.

“Enough about the past,” he finally said. “I need to find her. I couldn’t save my sister, but I refuse to give up on her daughter.”

Despite barely knowing him, Piper battled the strongest urge to go to him and wrap her arms around him. For comfort, nothing more. Or so she told herself, trying to ignore the way her mouth went dry at the thought of touching him.

Instead, she forced herself to focus on his statement. “Tell me about her. What does she like to do for fun? Does she have any hobbies?”

His blank look told her he truly didn’t know.

Briefly, she closed her eyes. “How involved in her life were you, exactly?”

He swore. Under his breath, but still loud enough for her to hear. “I tried.” His grim voice contained both bewilderment and guilt. “She pushed me away at every turn. Renee couldn’t come to grips with the thought of living with me, an uncle she barely knew. She constantly tried to re-create her parents’ lifestyle. I guess she believed she could find comfort in the familiar.”

Unable to find the right words, Piper said nothing. She actually had to curl her fingers into her palms, nails digging into her skin, to keep from reaching out to him.

“Hey, I’m sorry.” Pushing to his feet, he shook himself, like a dog shaking off water. “I don’t mean to sound so pitiful.”

“You don’t. I get what you’re telling me. It was a lot more difficult than you expected, trying to raise a teenager.”

“Yes.” Sounding relieved, he sat back down. “I probably was overprotective. I didn’t want her to make the same mistakes her mother made.”

“I bet the more you pushed, the worse she pulled in the other direction. Poor kid just wanted love and acceptance. She didn’t understand you were loving her the only way you knew how.”

“Exactly.”

She thought for a second. “Okay, let’s start with the basics. Did she graduate high school?”

“Yes.”

“Good. What were her plans for after graduation? College? Junior college?”

He snorted, then looked ashamed. “She had no plans that I know of. I figured she liked to party. At least she had a job.”

“Aha.” Finally something concrete. “Where did she work?”

“Several places. All waitressing jobs. She liked waitressing. And she did well, until she got fired.”

“Why? What’d she do to make them let her go?”

“Actually, I’m not sure. I figured partying, but for all I know she could have stolen something.”

Shocked, Piper struggled with the idea that Cord hadn’t bothered to find out. “Getting fired is a direct hit on anyone’s self-confidence. You never asked her why?”

“Hey.” He spread his hands in a defensive gesture. “Every time I tried to talk to her about anything, whether it was about the weather or something more personal, like school or her job, she’d shut down and refuse to answer.”

“What about after graduation?”

“The only time I ever heard her mention any sort of aspiration was that she wanted to tend bar. She said she was tired of waitressing. I told her she wasn’t old enough to be a bartender. She looked at me and told me there were ways around her age.”

With a sigh, she tried to keep her tone light. “Her last job—did she quit or get fired?”

He took another swig of water before answering. “I guess you could say both. She stopped showing up for work and they fired her.”

“I assume since you appear to have covered all the bases that you’ve already talked to her friends.”

To her surprise, he grimaced. “I tried. But she never brought anyone to the house and her coworkers couldn’t think of any friends—male or female—either.”

Her heart squeezed. “Poor kid. She was trying to cope all on her own.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “But the more realistic possibility is that she does have friends. Friends that are the type to stay hidden. The kind she knew I wouldn’t approve of. Drug dealers and addicts. People like the ones she must have grown up around, since her parents no doubt brought them home.”

“I don’t know.” Piper shook her head. “Have you ever considered the possibility that she might want the opposite lifestyle? She’s new here. Maybe she’s shy. It’s really hard on teenagers moving to a new place and school.”

“She’s been here two years. Even the biggest wallflower in the world would have made a friend or two after all that time. Remember, she liked to party. No one does that alone.”

Since she hadn’t actually met his niece, Piper figured he’d be more equipped to know. “Okay. Did you talk to her school? The teachers, her guidance counselor, anyone like that?”

“Yes.” Cord’s expression might have been carved from stone. “Most of them barely remembered her. Except the art teacher. That woman couldn’t stop talking about how talented Renee is.”

“Art?” Now they were getting somewhere. Most likely, Renee had used her art to help her cope with her loneliness, the same way Piper did with her refinishing old furniture. “What kind of art? Does she paint or sculpt or...?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. But the art teacher seemed surprised to hear she’d run away. She said before graduation, she and Renee had been looking at art schools so Renee could apply.”

“Did she? Apply to any schools?” Though Piper had often been accused of wearing rose-colored glasses, she felt a strange sort of kinship with this girl, despite never meeting her.

“Again, I don’t know.” A slight edge had crept into his voice, as if he realized this was the sort of information he should have been privy to.

She didn’t know him well enough to take him to task for his lack of knowledge about someone he’d shared his home with for twenty-four months.

* * *

Cord knew what Piper thought. Truth be told, he couldn’t actually blame her. He’d done a crappy job of trying to raise Renee for the past two years. Part of that was due to his complete and utter unpreparedness and lack of experience.

The other part, the one he had trouble admitting even to himself, was from the instant he’d met the troubled sixteen-year-old, she’d reminded him of his sister, Denice. If Renee went down the same path as Denice had, Cord knew it would kill him.

He’d tried. By all that was holy, he’d tried. Every mistake he’d made—and there’d been plenty—he’d tried to rectify.

While he knew Piper wasn’t judging him, hearing his own answers to her innocuous questions had made him inwardly cringe.

“Let’s focus on you now,” he said, aware changing the subject wouldn’t make his errors go away. “You say you were framed?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have many enemies?”

Startled, she considered. “I never thought about that before. It’s possible. I do tend to be outspoken about what I feel is right. Not everyone agrees with me.”

“Let’s narrow that down. Anyone get angry with you recently?”

“Fowler and Marceline, but that’s nothing unusual, I can barely breathe without annoying one or the other, Marceline especially. She likes to harp on the fact that I’m not a real Colton.” She spoke matter-of-factly, simply because that’s the way it had always been for as long as she could remember.

“I remember,” he said, his expression inscrutable. “She did that even when we were all kids. What I never could figure out is why. It’s not like she was born a Colton, either.”

Secretly pleased, Piper looked down at her hands to hide her smile. “Yeah, the logic she used never failed to amaze me.”

“Anyone else?” he pressed. “Figuring out who tried to frame you would be a step in making sure you’re acquitted.”

“I’ll think about it and make you a list.” Though she’d only been half-serious, he nodded.

“You do that. Knowing who to investigate will put us that much closer to finding out who’s trying to frame you.”

The simple statement, made in such a matter-of-fact tone, floored her. Probably because after Fowler and Marceline’s accusations, the idea that this man, whom she barely knew, actually believed her, made her feel weepy and joyful all at once.

“Thank you,” she told him. “I’ll get busy on that right away.”

“Here.” Handing her a pad of paper and a pen, he smiled. The masculine sensuality of that smile made her heart skip. “While you do that, I’ve got some chores to complete.”

“It shouldn’t take too long. I don’t think I have too many enemies.”

He laughed. “Once you get to thinking about it, it might surprise you.”

And he left. Leaving her staring at a blank piece of paper trying to figure out who might hate her enough to frame her.

* * *

Piper Colton had no idea of the power of her own beauty, Cord thought as he trudged out to the barn. He’d known other beautiful women before and without exception, every move, every smile or glance, had been carefully and artfully calculated to show their attributes off to the best advantage. Piper, on the other hand, appeared genuine. Sweet and kind. And sexy as hell.