Colton Family Rescue

Far from sleep, she busied herself around the small apartment, gathering dirty clothes for washing, putting her day planner—the one she clung to for several reasons, including the man who had given it to her—in a desk drawer and assembling Emma’s lunch for tomorrow. If she had the choice, the girl wouldn’t go anywhere near the day care. But Jolie didn’t want to make things worse by freaking out and have Emma sense it and become more frightened herself. And she had to work, so she had little choice.

“I wasn’t scared, Mommy. ’Cuz you locked the door. She couldn’t get me.”

A shudder went through her. She felt the crash coming and quickly put everything away. She returned to the living area, where she pulled Emma’s favorite item, the big bluebonnet-blue chair, over toward the alcove where she could hear easily. She sank down into the cushioned softness, only then letting it all wash over her.

For a long time she simply sat there, shaking. She felt as if the ceiling fan were turned on, although it wasn’t. She thought of getting up and checking the thermostat, but she knew what she’d see. It might be October, but this was Texas; it was hardly cold. The chill was in her, not the room.

Emma. Her precious baby, the only thing that really, truly mattered in her world.

She drew her feet up, curled her legs under her and settled in. She wasn’t going anywhere tonight. She would doze here. She didn’t want to go too deeply asleep in case Emma awoke, frightened.

She only wished she had a way to turn off her tumbling thoughts. But it was impossible to avoid the harsh reality; her little girl had witnessed a green-eyed woman kill another woman in cold blood, and the killer knew it. Jolie wondered if this would leave her child forever terrified of green eyes.

A vision of other green eyes, those belonging to the man she had hoped to spend her life with, drifted through her tangled mind. Funny how eyes that were so cool and dismissive in his mother, Whitney Colton, could be so different in him. His gaze had been sometimes amused, sometimes thoughtful, occasionally angry, but always powerfully male. And never, ever cold in the way his mother’s had been the day she had insisted Jolie was nowhere good enough for her son, and ordered her off Colton Valley Ranch.

She yanked her thoughts out of that well-worn track, even as she acknowledged the irony that thinking about her daughter seeing a murder was the only thing powerful enough to do it.

That, and the fact that the victim bore a distinct resemblance to herself. Although that was merely an afterthought to her. Everything was, except her little girl’s safety.

At last she slipped into fretful sleep, and it was she who had the nightmares, images of the lifeless woman whose name she didn’t even know, lying in a pool of blood, staring at the cloudless sky. In the dreamworld, she could only move in slow motion, as if she were underwater, despite her desperation to get to her daughter. When she finally got to the car and opened the door, Emma turned to look at her. She was also drenched in blood.

Emma screamed.

Jolie jolted awake. For a split second, not even a breath’s time, she thought she’d dreamed it.

Emma screamed again.

Jolie erupted out of the chair and headed for her daughter at a run, ready to soothe her child from the nightmare she’d probably had. In the next instant, something snapped in her brain and time slowed to a crawl.

There was someone there. All in black. He had Emma. Was dragging her toward the window he’d somehow gotten in through. The child was kicking wildly. Screaming when she could twist her mouth free of the hand covering it. The black-clad shape froze as light from the other room slashed across the floor. Something in the black-gloved hand glinted.

A knife.

The sight propelled Jolie into furious action. She ran, hard. Lowered her shoulder and dived at the black figure. All three went to the hardwood floor.

“Fight!” she cried out to Emma. Just as she’d taught her, the girl doubled her kicking, elbowing and clawing. She caught Jolie once by accident, but Jolie didn’t care. She was too focused on wrenching the would-be kidnapper off her little girl.

The would-be kidnapper who was, she realized with a little shock, a woman.

Simultaneously the woman pulled free, releasing Emma. Jolie had the ski mask she’d been wearing clutched in her hand. But before she could get a look at her, she was gone through the pried-open window. All Jolie could say for sure was that she’d been female, and maybe blond.

“Mommy!”

Jolie rolled over to Emma, and scooped up the terrified child. “It’s all right, baby, it’s all right.”

But it wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. Because there was only one person that woman could be.

The killer. And she was after Emma.

Chapter 4

T.C. tapped a finger on the steering wheel. He was accustomed to Dallas traffic, and used it to work through the things on his plate for the coming day so he could hit the ground running when he finally reached the office.

But today he was spending more time pondering his restless night. He’d gone to his rooms at about ten, planning to do a little reading before bed, but hadn’t been able to focus. He’d finally given up and headed for the kitchen and some of Mrs. Morely’s incredible pecan pie, hoping the rare indulgence would soothe his scattered mind, but he had veered off when he realized just thinking about the pie and its maker made him think of Jolie, and he didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole again. Then he’d had to dodge the dining room, where his mother was apparently deep into a late-night session—because of course she couldn’t do it in the clear light of day, he thought sourly—with another one of her psychics. He didn’t know if she was foolish enough to actually believe in them, or if she just thought it might throw off suspicion that she had had something to do with her husband’s disappearance.

And that’s a hell of a thing to think about your own mother.

He had pondered just going back to his rooms. He knew it wasn’t really food he was looking for, it was peace of mind—enough to sleep. And that seemed out of reach, as it had for most of the three months now that his father had been missing.

Besides, he’d been in no mood to walk past Fowler’s room, not when he and Tiffany had been having passionate and very noisy sex when he walked past their door coming downstairs. Hearing that again was something he’d prefer to avoid. Leave it to Fowler to be as loud as possible, as if he wanted everyone to know he was getting laid. But Tiffany was just as loud, although he suspected that was her flattering Fowler as much as anything.

He wondered if the woman would ever manage to harangue Fowler into a ring. He thought his brother truly cared for her, at least as much as he was capable of caring for anyone other than himself, but he kept holding her off. However, Tiffany had a plan, and becoming a Colton was the goal. Was she determined enough, cold-blooded enough, to pull off the old man’s disappearance in the hope that Fowler would be shaken enough to take the plunge? It was hard to believe Her Whininess, as he and his sister Piper often called her, could be that clever, but maybe...

He hated feeling this way about his own family. But he hated even more thinking about his brother’s noisy sex, because it made him think of Jolie, who had always been rather quiet about it. But her heated whispers, the expression on her face, the amazement in her beautiful eyes as they made love, had been all he’d needed.

“Stop it, damn it,” he muttered under his breath as heat and need shot through him, making his entire body clench. Only Jolie had ever done that to him, only she had had the power to send him into overdrive with a mere thought. He stared at the delivery truck ahead of him as if it held all the answers.

By the time he reached the Colton building, he’d managed to force his unruly mind to stay on the things he needed to deal with today. Once at his desk, he went quickly through the plan Hannah prepped for him every morning. The format she suggested had seemed odd to him at first, but now he didn’t think he could function without it. Her method of prioritizing, and noting in advance which items could be time-shifted and which could not, had increased his productivity markedly, and he rarely disagreed with how she had weighted things.

Well, except when she slid in something like suggesting he attend a dinner function, an evening at the symphony or some other formal affair. He’d rather spend a day doing the dirtiest of work in one of their oil fields than tux up for one of those things. He’d leave that to Fowler, who could con the feathers off a peacock and leave them glad he’d done it. At least, until reality set in.

He was midway through his email inbox when Hannah appeared in his doorway.

“Mr. Colton?”

Something in her voice, an undertone of...what, he wasn’t quite sure, made him look up quickly.

“What is it?” He stood up quickly. “Something about my father?”

She looked immediately apologetic. “No, I’m sorry, nothing about that. But there’s someone here asking to see you.”

He opened his mouth to say he didn’t have time for unscheduled appointments today, then shut it again. Hannah knew this perfectly well, since she’d drawn up his agenda for the day. He also knew she would normally smoothly redirect anyone who wanted to disrupt that schedule without what she deemed a good enough reason. And he’d rarely disagreed with her on that, either. So something had made her think this was worth making an exception for.

“All right,” he said, not even asking who it was.

He saw a glint in her eyes that told him she knew exactly what thought process he’d just gone through. “Thank you,” she said, and he knew it was for trusting her.

“You’ve never made me sorry.”

She smiled. “I’ll bring them in.”

Them? he wondered as she turned to go. He reached down and closed out his email program, because he’d had a confidential communication open. He looked up when he heard footsteps in the doorway. Didn’t even hear Hannah quietly close the door. Could look at nothing else but the woman with the little girl in her arms.

Jolie.

He only realized how long it had been, and that he’d forgotten to breathe, when he at last had to suck in a long, audible gulp of air. Crazily he could hear Fowler’s voice in his head, chanting as he always did, “Never let ’em see you sweat.”

In this case a cold sweat, rising not out of exertion but pure, emotional reaction. Fowler had forewarned him, and yet he was still stunned.

Jolie.

And Emma? Could that girl with the tousled blond hair and the finger caught between white, even teeth as she stared at him really be her? Could this be the baby he’d held, made laugh, thought would be his daughter?

Of course it was. Look at her eyes—they were Jolie’s eyes, wide and thickly lashed and that gray shade that could go from silver to stormy in the space of a moment. She was wearing jeans embroidered with a cartoon character he didn’t recognize—not his forte at all—and a T-shirt that matched the bright green thread in the design. She had a small Band-Aid on her neck, and he nearly smiled when he saw it had the same cartoon character on it.

“I’m sorry,” Jolie whispered.

His gaze snapped back to the woman. God, her voice. That same husky, low voice that always sent a shiver down his spine and had once had the power to stir him no matter how distracted or tired he was.

Judging by his body’s instant response, it still did.

“What?” Oh, brilliant, Colton.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated quietly. “We didn’t have any place else to go.”

His brow furrowed. She’d managed to stay completely gone for four years, but now she showed up saying she —and Emma—had nowhere else to go? This made no sense.

“I would never have dared to come to you, but it’s for Emma.”

His gaze shifted to the child, who was staring at him with what appeared to be fascination. He knew she couldn’t possibly remember him. She’d been barely six months old when Jolie vanished out of his life, but she was looking at him now much as she had done then, although with more awareness.

“What?” he said again, almost blankly, aware no one who’d ever dealt with him in the business world would ever believe this was really T. C. Colton, the man with the reputation for quick, incisive thinking.

He saw her glance at Emma, then back at him, without speaking. It took him a moment, but then he realized she didn’t want to talk in front of the girl. He felt an odd reluctance to do anything about that, but finally he reached for the office intercom. “Hannah? Do you feel up to a little babysitting?”

“That cutie? I’ll be right in.”

Jolie hesitated, looked doubtful. He guessed she was reluctant to let the child out of her sight with a stranger. He said the only thing he could think of to reassure her of Hannah’s utter reliability. “She has three grandsons. I think time with a girl would delight her.”

Somehow they were the right words. Jolie nodded. Hannah came in, and Emma went to her willingly enough, after an encouraging nod from her mother.

“We’ll be right outside, not a step beyond my desk,” his assistant assured Jolie. “And in that desk,” she said to Emma, “there are some very interesting things. Would you like to see?”

When the door closed after them, T.C. looked at Jolie again. “Afraid you’ll have a sugar high to deal with. Hannah has quite the candy stash.”

“She deserves a treat. It’s been a horrible couple of days.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, but she didn’t go on. For a moment, he was torn between wanting to know why she was here now and why she’d left then. He scoffed inwardly at himself, still a fool, wishing there was a valid reason beyond a check with a lot of zeros on it.

He waited, letting the silence pressure her. And finally, without the diversion of the little girl, he was able to look at her more carefully.

She looked exhausted. Her eyes were reddened, whether from a sleepless night or tears or both, he couldn’t know. She looked thinner than she had, the sweet curves he’d so lusted for slightly lessened, and he felt a sudden urge to feed her to get them back.

“I thought about going to the ranch,” she finally said, “but I know your mother would try to throw me out under the best of circumstances, and this is hardly that. I’m sorry about your father.”

As a Colton, he was used to everything about the family being general knowledge, and something like the disappearance of the family patriarch was still headline news, even after three months.

“Try to?” He gave himself an inward shake; why, of all things, had he fastened on that?

Jolie’s mouth—that wonderful, soft mouth—curved up at one end in a soft, almost pleased smile. “She might not find it quite so easy to bully me and send me packing this time.”

His eyebrows shot downward. And suddenly his brain kicked into gear.

She’s back for more money, of course.

He’d barely heard his brother’s gleeful words. He’d been too startled by his news that Jolie was here. But he would have discounted them anyway; Fowler was desperate to get the spotlight off Tiffany, and if doing so meant throwing someone else—anyone else—to the wolves, then so be it.

“She’s a gold digger, Thomas. All she wants is Colton money.”

His mother’s words echoed in his head.

Maybe it takes one to know one?

Yes, she had stuck it out, but that didn’t necessarily mean it hadn’t started as a strictly mercenary arrangement. He had few illusions left about his mother.

“I would hardly call a payoff in six figures bullying,” he finally said.

Her gaze shot to his face, and he saw some of the old fire in her eyes. “What would you call threatening a baby?”

“What?” She’d startled it out of him this time.

She started to pace the office, and when she spoke it came out as if rehearsed. Or as if she’d been thinking what she would say to him for a very long time.

“It wasn’t enough for your parents to tell me I was ruining your life, that I had no place in it, that I would never, ever be good enough to be a Colton. I already knew that anyway. And I knew you knew that, and you wanted me anyway.”

“I never thought that.” The words came out sharply, because they were true. He’d known that because of her past Jolie carried around some pretty strong feelings of worthlessness. He’d had it all figured out, how he would help her get past that, that one day she would really, truly believe how crazy in love with her he was. But she vanished before he ever had the chance.

She kept pacing, the words coming out in a rush. “I’m not talking about what you believed. I’m talking about what I believed. And deep down I believed every word they said was true. But I still said no. I told them I loved you, and I was staying.”

He drew back slightly. “You did?”

“Yes.” Her mouth tightened. She stopped, turned, looked at him. “That’s when your mother brought out the big guns.”

“She has them,” he said neutrally, although it was difficult under the steady gaze of those gray eyes. But he knew well enough, his mother used her weapons on him often enough, imperiously wielding her power as the Colton matriarch to get her way.

“She told me if I stayed, she would make my life a living hell. With a few potent examples.”

He hadn’t actually thought about that. He’d known his mother didn’t approve, didn’t think Jolie was good enough—although he’d never been certain if she’d meant good enough for him, or good enough to be a Colton—but he hadn’t thought it through to how she might express that disapproval had Jolie stayed. He knew too much of his mother’s ways to take that lightly now.

“And then,” Jolie said, stopping in front of him, a mere two feet away, meeting his gaze levelly, “she promised to do the same to Emma. To make her life hell, to make sure she always knew she didn’t belong, she wasn’t welcome, she was unworthy and despised.”

T.C. went very still.

“And to top it all off, she dropped some very pointed hints about children having accidents on ranches all the time.”

He couldn’t imagine even his mother threatening that. Emma had been a baby, helpless, innocent.

And your father’s a frail old man, and you’re wondering if she killed him.

“She wouldn’t have done it,” he said, but there was enough uncertainty in him to make the words less than convincing.

“I couldn’t take that risk. Not with Emma.”

He was shaken, he couldn’t deny that. Told this way, what his parents had done seemed much more nefarious. And the threat to Emma, then only months old, was more than a little disturbing. And made him wonder again, just how far would his mother go to get what she wanted?

“And the money?” Jolie said, her voice fierce now. “I took it so Emma would have chances I never did. It’s in a trust fund, for her. I’ve never touched a penny of it, and I never will.”

T.C. stared at her, a little awed at that ferocity, of the depth of her love for her daughter. He’d known it before, or thought he had, but at this moment she took his breath away.

But then Jolie Peters had always taken his breath away.

His own reaction, the swiftness of his response to her, as if the last four years had never happened, unsettled him. And that made his voice sharp when he grasped at something—anything—as distraction. “Why are you here now?”

Something flashed in her eyes, and her expression went from fierce to frightened in the space of a split second. He saw her take in a deep breath, as if she needed it to steady herself.

“Someone’s trying to kill Emma.”

Chapter 5

She’d never put it in words until this moment. And now that she had, Jolie felt an icy chill go down to her bones.

Someone was trying to kill her precious girl.

And, she realized as T.C. stared at her, he didn’t believe her. As easily as if they’d never been apart, she read him. “Have I ever been prone to hysteria?”

“You weren’t, no.” The implication that things could have changed in the past four years was clear.

“Still not.” She took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “Emma witnessed a murder.”

She saw his eyes widen. Those vivid green eyes that had melted her with a glance.

“I think you’d better sit down,” he said after a moment, gesturing toward the leather couch in the sitting area of his office. It had changed, she realized belatedly. The entire office had been redone since she was last here. Even the desk had been replaced. She wondered at that; he’d always cared little about the trappings, it seemed unlike him to just redecorate on a whim.

“New couch,” she said as she sat, wondering if it sounded as inane to him as it did to her. “Among other things.”

He didn’t sit beside her. He sat in the big, matching chair positioned at a right angle to the couch. The chair was a subtle statement of who had the right to private real estate in this setting, the reminder of who was in charge in this domain. As if anyone could ever forget.

But he’d never done it to her before, in the few times she’d been here.

He stared at her, his expression almost grim. It hit her then, a memory so hot and strong it nearly sucked the air out of her lungs; the day she’d tried to tease him out of here, to get him to take a break from preparing for some upcoming high-powered negotiation with an Angus breeder in Kansas. They’d ended up making love on his desk, urgently, and then again on the couch, long and slow and sweet.

No wonder he’d gutted the place.

And she guessed she knew now how he’d handled her abrupt departure.

“Talk,” he commanded.

She didn’t quibble over his tone, or the sharp order. He had every right. It took her a moment to get started, although she’d thought of nothing but how she would explain all the way here; it had helped keep her mind off the terrifying knowledge that someone had actually tried to grab Emma. But once she had begun, it came pouring out in a rush.

And rather confused. But he didn’t stop her, or ask questions, and she knew he was more than capable of taking her rather scattered account and putting it in order. It was one of the things that made him so good at what he did, better even than his half brother Fowler, who was the more famous—and infamous—Colton of the two. As president of Colton Inc., Fowler loved all the trappings and used them to aid in his wheeling and dealing, while executive vice president Thomas simply did what needed to be done to keep things rolling. She had little doubt which of them Colton Inc. would miss more.

“She tried to do a sketch with the police artist,” she said when the story was finally out, “but she’s only four. She couldn’t describe much more than her eyes. Then last night it was dark and she was terrified.” Her fingers were knotted together and resting on her knees, the only way she could stop them from shaking. “But it was a woman. It has to be the killer.”

He just looked at her, in that quiet, assessing way he had. She made herself go on.

“I know it’s crazy, asking you for help. But with you, at the ranch, is the only place I’ve ever felt completely safe. And I know you loved Emma, once. So when the police asked me if there was someplace safe I could take her...”

He still said nothing as her voice trailed off. She steeled herself, and sat up a little straighter. She saw something flicker in his eyes then, as if something had shifted in his clever brain. But still he said nothing. And even knowing it was a tactic, knowing he used silence as a tool, she felt compelled to fill it. And to give him the acknowledgment he deserved.

“I know you hate me, and you have every right. Nothing, not even your mother’s threats, can change the fact that from your point of view, I took money to leave. But this is for Emma—as was that, not that it makes any difference to you—and I’d do a lot more than beg to keep her safe.”