The Coltons of Red Ridge

“We’re spread a little thin,” he reluctantly admitted. “But we protect our own. Nothing will happen to Juliette or her daughter.” He would make damn sure of that.

Blake shook his head again, and there was a slightly wild look in his green eyes. Fear. He was really afraid for Juliette and Pandora. But why did a woman he’d barely known years ago matter so much to him?

“I’m hiring a private security company out of Michigan,” he said. “I want to have bodyguards backing up the police at the safe house and the car following Juliette around.”

Finn groaned. He didn’t need outsiders getting in his way any more than he needed billionaire Coltons. He already had Blake’s father breathing down his neck to find Demi; he didn’t need Blake breathing down his neck, too. At least his father had a reason; he was worried about his business. Apparently his daughter was supposed to marry a zillionaire to save Colton Energy in a merger. But because of the Groom Killer, Layla Colton’s fiancé had called off the necessary wedding.

What was Blake’s reason?

So Finn asked, “Why do you care so damn much about a woman you must not have seen in five years?”

Blake’s jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle twitched in his cheek—in his left cheek with the deep dimple in it. The same one Juliette’s little girl had.

“She’s yours,” Finn said with sudden realization. “Juliette’s daughter is yours.”

Blake nodded.

“I didn’t know...” Finn murmured. How had the Red Ridge rumor mill missed that juicy bit of gossip? Hell, how had the media?

“Neither did I,” Blake replied.

And Finn flinched for him. Obviously, his cousin had just learned that he was a father—as his daughter was in danger. He reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “I don’t know what to say, man...”

“Say that you’ll accept my help,” Blake said. “These bodyguards are the best.”

Finn sighed.

“And along with the bodyguards, I intend to protect Juliette myself,” Blake said.

Finn snorted.

Blake tensed, looking offended.

“Come on,” Finn said. “You’re no bodyguard.” He was a billionaire.

“The bodyguards will be there, too,” Blake pointed out. “So will your officers.”

“Yeah, so you don’t need to be,” Finn said.

“Yes, I do.”

And from the determination in his cousin’s voice, Finn knew there would be no arguing him out of it. Even if he flat-out told him not to, he suspected Blake would follow her around anyway.

“Why?” he asked again. Blake’s revelation explained why he wanted the extra protection on Pandora but not on Juliette. “Why would you put your life in danger for someone who didn’t even tell you that you had a kid?”

Blake sighed. “This isn’t about me. It’s about that little girl. She can’t lose the only parent she knows.”

Finn echoed Blake’s sigh in agreement. But he had to point out, “She might lose both of you since you’re putting your life in danger, too.”

Chapter 5

“Why can’t you come tuck me in, Mommy?” The question emanated from the speakers in Juliette’s personal vehicle since her cell had connected via Bluetooth.

She wanted more than anything to be with her daughter, to hold her in her arms. She had only missed that first night of tucking Pandora into bed, but Elle had assured Juliette that the little girl had been so exhausted she’d fallen immediately to sleep. That was not the case tonight. Tonight, she was so upset that Elle had had to call Juliette to settle her down.

Pandora seemed to be getting more and more upset. She wanted to be with Juliette as badly as Juliette wanted to be with her. They were all each other had ever had. And it was killing Juliette to be away from her.

Last night Juliette had had a distraction—that meeting with Blake. It had gone better than she’d expected it would. While he had been angry with her, he hadn’t been as furious as he could have been with her, as he probably should have been with her.

But he’d been too concerned about the danger she and Pandora were in to focus too much on what she’d done. On how she’d betrayed him. She had no doubt that, despite her apologies, he hadn’t forgiven her, though.

He had just made keeping Pandora safe his top priority. But what would happen once the killer was caught? What would Blake do then?

He would want to meet his daughter. He deserved to meet his daughter. Yet right now that would be putting her at risk—just like Juliette visiting her would. That was why the chief had insisted that if she was determined to keep working, she couldn’t go to the safe house. They couldn’t risk the killer following Juliette to her daughter.

But when that soft voice emanated from the car speakers, breaking with sobs as she pleaded, “Mommy, come tuck me in...” Juliette worried that she’d made the wrong choice. Her heart ached with missing her little girl.

She’d thought that if she stayed on the job, she would be able to find the killer faster than her coworkers. After all, she’d seen him; they hadn’t. Hell, she’d even hoped to draw him out, so that this would all be over soon. So that she and Pandora could go back to their everyday, perfect life together.

But even after the killer was caught, they wouldn’t be able to do that—because of Blake Colton. No matter what, he would be part of their daughter’s life now. And that would make him part of Juliette’s. He wouldn’t be just a nearly five-year-old memory. Juliette focused on her daughter again. “Sweetheart, I wish I could be with you right now...”

But she loved her too much to put her in any more danger than she already was.

“I’m working right now, though, baby...”

A little hiccupping sob echoed throughout the car. “Did you get the bad man, Mommy?”

“Not yet, honey,” she said. “But I will find him pretty soon. Then we can go home.”

“I wanna go home now, Mommy!” Pandora said, and now her sobs became wails of frustration and anxiety.

Juliette’s already aching heart threatened to break. She hated when her daughter cried, which, until the day before in the park, had been very rarely.

“Shh, shh,” she tried to soothe the child. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. We will be together again soon.” They had to be. It was hurting Juliette as much as it was Pandora for them to be apart.

However, she didn’t know if putting the killer behind bars would guarantee that they would never be separated again. What if Blake wanted visitation? What if he would be the one putting their daughter to bed on some nights? But his life wasn’t here in Red Ridge; it was overseas, in various other countries, according to the tabloids. The same tabloids that had published photos of him with models and actresses and foreign royalty.

If not for Pandora, Juliette wouldn’t have believed that night had happened, because guys like Blake never noticed women like her. She wasn’t famous or rich or well connected.

“You gotta catch the bad man, Mommy,” the little girl pleaded. “You have to make sure that he doesn’t make us dead like he said...”

“You are safe,” Juliette promised her. “Nothing will happen to you.”

“Are you safe, Mommy?”

Juliette had thought she was. She’d had a very uneventful day despite spending it on the streets, talking to informants, trying to find out if anyone knew anything about the man Pandora had witnessed committing a murder or at least about the purple-haired woman he’d killed. Since Pandora had seen her with a suitcase of drugs, she must have been a dealer. But nobody had been talking.

Yet. She would keep at them until they did.

But while she’d felt safe during the day, she had an odd sensation now. And Sasha, sitting in her harness in the back seat, must have felt it, too, because the beagle suddenly sat up and strained against the pet safety belt.

“Yes, of course I’m safe,” Juliette assured her daughter. But then she noticed the glimmer of lights in the rearview mirror. She’d been driving for a while as she’d internally debated whether or not she should go to Pandora. So the routes she’d taken had been circuitous, leading toward neither her house nor the safe house. She’d just turned onto random roads until she found herself on the outskirts of Red Ridge in an area of greenhouses for one of the bigger plant nurseries. In July the greenhouses would be empty—too hot to use for the summer. So why were there lights behind her?

Who would be heading out this way? She didn’t think the road led to any housing developments.

A knot of apprehension tightened in her stomach as she faced the likelihood that the vehicle was out there only because it had followed her.

Who? Was it the shooter? Or one of those people Juliette had questioned today? Maybe one of them was ready to talk to her.

She hoped that was the case, but she had to be prepared that it was the former. The killer carrying out the threat he’d made on the playground.

Her pulse quickened. While she was afraid, she was also—oddly—hopeful. Maybe she wouldn’t have to search any longer to find him. Maybe he had found her.

The challenge was going to be taking him out before he could take out her. She couldn’t leave her daughter alone. But then, Pandora wouldn’t be alone. She had a father—a man she had never officially met, though.

“I have to go for now, honey,” Juliette told her daughter as she flipped off the headlights and made a sharp turn around one of the empty greenhouses. “But I will see you soon.”

As the vehicle following her also made the turn, she swallowed the fear that had rushed up on her. She hoped she would be able to keep that promise to her daughter. She hoped she would be able to see her again.

* * *

“Where the hell did she go?” Blake asked himself.

She’d suddenly shut off her lights. But despite that, with the moon shining brightly, he’d been able to see her vehicle turn into the plant nursery. He’d followed it between two greenhouses. But her car was gone.

At least, he couldn’t see it.

She couldn’t have gone far. His lights shone onto the fields behind the greenhouse. The trees in it were seedlings—not big enough to hide a vehicle, even one as small as her economy sedan.

He drove a little farther—to the end of the greenhouse. Then he rolled down his window to peer around the back of the long building. He felt a sudden presence. From the corner of his eye, he caught the glint of moonlight shining off the barrel of a gun—the one pointed right at his head.

Maybe his cousin Finn had been right. Maybe he should have left the security detail to the professionals. But he hadn’t even seen them following Juliette. He’d worried that she’d been left all alone.

“What the hell are you doing?” a female voice asked.

And now he kind of wished he’d left her alone. Juliette sounded furious with him. She pulled her gun back, sliding it into the holster on the belt of her uniform. She hadn’t changed even though her shift had ended a couple of hours ago. But with the threat against her and her daughter, she would always be on duty.

Until the killer was caught.

“I’m following you,” he said. He’d followed her all day as she’d gone from drug house to drug house. He knew she’d been looking for the killer or for information that would lead to him.

He was stunned that Red Ridge had areas like the ones where she’d gone. Had things changed that much in the past five years? Or had he been so sheltered and self-involved all those years ago that he hadn’t known those areas existed?

She uttered a sigh of pure exasperation. “I know you’re following me. But why?”

“To protect you.” His face heated now with embarrassment that he’d thought he could keep her safe. She was the one with a gun. His only weapon was his cell phone to call for help. For backup from the bodyguards and the police who were supposed to be following her. Where had they all gone?

She snorted. “How? By distracting me so I’ll miss seeing the killer if he finds me?”

How was Blake a distraction to her? Was it just his presence? Or was it because of their past? Because of what they’d shared that night and what they had, unbeknownst to him, created? A child...

“I didn’t mean to distract you,” he said.

“Well, you did...” Then she muttered something else, something that suspiciously sounded like, “You’ve been doing it for years...”

But he hadn’t been around for years. Had she thought of him as often as he’d thought of her? Probably not—because he’d thought about her all the time.

He pushed open the driver’s door to step out of his car. But she caught and held it.

“Get back inside,” she told. “Turn this car around and leave me alone.”

He sucked in a breath, not at her rejecting him—or at least not entirely because of that—but because of the thought of her being alone. Physically he was stronger than she was, so he managed to open the door. But he was careful that he didn’t hit her with it; he did propel her back a bit, though. Then he stepped out and shut the door—so there was nothing between them but a few feet of night air. He wanted to wrap his arms around her to protect her, but he was also furious with her.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked her. “Why are you out here alone?”

Where were the bodyguards and the patrol car? he wondered again. They were supposed to be following her, too, and because of that, they were all aware of the make, model and license plate number of his rental vehicle.

He glanced around and noticed a faint glow of lights on the other side of one of the green houses. The tightness in his chest eased a little. They were here. She had backup.

She hadn’t answered him. Had she noticed the glow of lights, too? Maybe those were from her car, though. He still couldn’t see where she’d parked it. But it must have been close because he heard the low growl of her dog.

She must have, too, because she cocked her head and listened. And in the moonlight her brow furrowed.

“You aren’t meeting someone out here, are you?” he persisted. “I thought your shift ended hours ago.”

“It did,” she said. “But I didn’t want to go home...”

To an empty house. He could hear the pain in her voice, the ache of missing her daughter.

He felt both a twinge of sympathy and one of resentment. She knew their daughter enough to miss her. He didn’t even know the child.

“And Elle called me for Pandora,” she continued. “She wants to see me.”

“Finn thinks it’s too dangerous,” Blake said, “that someone could follow you.”

She sighed. “I guess he’s right. You followed me.”

“But you noticed me,” he pointed out.

Her lips curved into a slight smile as the moonlight bathed her face with a golden glow. “You’re not a professional,” she said. “You shouldn’t be trying to protect me. You’re only going to get hurt.”

“Too late,” he murmured. He already was—hurt over all the years he’d missed with his daughter.

The smile slipped away, and she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry...”

She knew what he was talking about—what he would probably never get over—because no matter what, he couldn’t get back those years he’d lost. He just had to make sure he didn’t lose any more with her.

“Do you think Finn would let me see her?” Blake asked.

Juliette gasped. “The chief knows? You told him?”

That twinge of resentment spread to an ache. “I’m not keeping a secret that never should have been one in the first place.”

Juliette’s teeth sank into her bottom lip as if she was physically holding back a protest.

“What are you worried about?” he asked. “What people will think of you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t care what people think. I didn’t grow up like you. I grew up in the poor area of Red Ridge. People always thought I was trash. So they can’t think any worse of me than that.”

Trash? He could not reconcile that impression with the one he’d carried of her the past nearly five years—of her in that glittery gown with those high heels and dangling earrings. She’d looked like a movie star. Or a princess...

Cinderella. That was who she’d been. His Cinderella...

But he hadn’t been able to find her. Until now...

“I’m worried about Pandora,” she said. “I don’t want her in any more danger than she already is.”

“So you want to keep me away from my daughter even longer?” he asked.

“I want to keep the killer away from her,” Juliette said. “If he learns that you’re her father—and once word gets out it will be all over the news—then he could follow you to her if you try to see her.”

And he couldn’t deny that he could probably be easily followed. But Juliette wasn’t the only one missing their daughter. She was missing her after just one day. He was missing five years.

But could he take the risk that he might put her in more danger than she already was? No.

* * *

This was a hell of a risk. But he had to take it; he had no choice. The longer the K9 cop and her little kid lived, the greater the chance they would identify him. He needed to get rid of her now.

She wasn’t alone, though.

He wasn’t the only one who’d followed her to the plant nursery. She’d led a damn parade here. So he had to be very careful when he took the shot. He had to make sure it counted—that it killed her—and that he had time to get away before anyone saw him.

Like those other guys, he’d been following her the whole damn day from the time she’d left the Red Ridge Police Department that morning. She’d spent the day shaking things up—talking to informants, visiting drug houses.

He knew why.

She was trying to find him, or at least someone who would tell her who he was. Hopefully all those people were too scared, not just of him but of the people who’d hired him, to talk. But they were drug users, and so they were unpredictable.

He couldn’t risk that someone might talk to her. He had to get rid of her. Now.

He stared through the scope of the long gun, trying to center her in the middle of it. But that damn guy kept getting in the way...

Who the hell was he? And why was he following her?

Beyond some mild curiosity, it didn’t really matter to him who the guy was, though. If he got in the way of the shot, he was going to be dead—like the beautiful K9 cop. And soon her cute little kid would be dead, too.

He put his finger on the trigger.

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