Unexpected Protector

by Justine Davis

  Biting off an oath, Carson started up his car and headed toward the police station.

  * * *

  Serena could tell that the rest of her family was still up. From the sound of the raised, angry voices wafting up the stairs, they were going on about this sudden, unexpected turn of events and how furious her father and mother were that Finn hadn’t seen his way to leaving them out of this investigation strictly on the strength of the fact that they were his family.

  Instead, Finn had actually treated them like he would anyone else, rousing them out of their beds just because he felt it was his duty to go over the entire grounds, looking for a woman her parents felt had no business being on the family ranch in the first place.

  Serena let them go on venting, having absolutely no desire to get involved by sticking up for Finn. Her parents were going to carry on like this no matter what she said.

  Besides, right now her main duty was to her daughter. The ongoing commotion had eventually agitated Lora, and she wanted to get the baby to fall back to sleep.

  The corners of her mouth curved in an ironic smile as she looked down at the infant in her arms. Funny how a little being who hadn’t even existed a short three months ago had so quickly become the very center of her universe. The very center of her heart.

  Since the very first moment Lora had drawn breath, Serena felt obliged to protect the baby and care for her, doing everything in her power to make the world around Lora as safe and inviting for the infant as was humanly possible.

  These last few months, her focus had been strictly and entirely on Lora. She had long since divorced her mind from any and all thoughts that even remotely had anything to do with Lora’s conception or the man who had so cavalierly—and unwittingly—fathered her.

  It had all been one huge mistake.

  She had met Mark, whose last name she never learned, at a horse auction. The atmosphere at the auction had been fast paced and extremely charged thanks to all the large amounts of money that were changing hands.

  Representing the Double C Ranch and caught up in the excitement, Serena had broken all her own rules that day—and that night. She had allowed the devastatingly handsome, charming stranger bidding next to her to wine and dine her and somewhere amid the champagne-filled evening, they had wound up going back to her sinfully overpriced hotel room where they had made extremely passionate love. Exhausted from the activity and the alcohol, she had fallen asleep after that.

  She had woken up suddenly in the middle of the night. When she did, Serena found herself alone, a broken condom on the floor bearing testimony to her drastically out-of-character misstep. Managing to pull herself together and taking stock of the situation, she discovered that the money in her wallet as well as her credit cards were gone, along with her lover.

  Canceling the cards immediately, she still wasn’t fast enough to get ahead of the damage. Her one-night stand had cost her several thousand dollars, racked up in the space of what she found out was an hour. The man worked fast.

  It was a very bitter pill for her to swallow, but she felt that there was an upside to it. She’d learned a valuable lesson from that one night and swore never to put herself in that sort of stupid situation again. Never to blindly trust anyone again.

  Moreover, she made herself a promise that she was through with men and that she was going to devote herself strictly to raising horses, something she was good at and understood.

  That was what she planned.

  Life, however, she discovered, had other plans for her. Her first and only one-night stand had yielded a completely unplanned by-product.

  She’d got pregnant.

  That had thrown her entire world out of kilter. It took Serena a while to gather her courage together to break the news to her parents. That turned out to be one of the worst experiences of her life. They reacted exactly as she had feared that they would. Her father had railed at her, absolutely furious that she had got herself in this sort of “situation,” while her mother, an incredible snob from the day she was born, carried on about the shame she had brought on the family.

  Joanelle accused her of being no better than her trashy relatives who hailed from the two lesser branches of the family. The only ones in the family who were there for her and gave her their support were her brothers, Finn and Anders.

  She also received support from a very unlikely quarter. Her cousin Demi Colton. She and Demi had never been really friendly, given the branches of the family they came from. But Demi had done her a favor involving one of the ranch hands about a year ago. That had earned her cousin a soft spot in Serena’s heart.

  And then, when she found herself pregnant, with her parents pushing for her to “eliminate” her “shame,” it was Demi, surprisingly enough, who had come out on her side. Demi told her that she should do whatever she felt she should as long as that decision ultimately meant that she was being true to herself.

  At that point, Serena did some very deep soul-searching. Ultimately, she had decided to have her baby. Seeing that her mind was made up, her brothers gave her their full support. However, it was Demi she found herself turning toward and talking with when times got rough.

  She wasn’t ordinarily the type who needed constant bolstering and reinforcement, but having Demi to talk to, however sporadically, wound up making a world of difference to her. Serena truly believed that it was what had kept her sane during the low points of this new experience she found herself going through.

  Because Demi had been good to her when she didn’t need to be, Serena wasn’t about to turn her back on her cousin just because a tall, good-looking detective wanted to play judge, jury and executioner when it came to her cousin. Demi had obviously fled the area without ever coming to her, but if she had, if Demi had come to her and asked for money or a place to hide, she would have never hesitated in either case.

  She believed that Demi was entitled to a fair shake. Most of all, she believed in Demi.

  “I wish you would have come to me,” she whispered into the darkness. “I wish you would have let me help you. You shouldn’t be alone like this. Not now. Especially with the police department after you.”

  Serena sighed, feeling helpless and desperately wanting to do something to negate that.

  Lora began making a noise, her little lips suddenly moving against her shoulder. She was clearly hunting for something.

  Three months “on the job” as a mother had taught Serena exactly what her daughter was after.

  “You want to eat, don’t you?” she said.

  Walking over to the rocking chair that Anders had made for her with his own hands, she sat down. Holding Lora against her with one arm, she shrugged out of the top of her nightclothes and pressed the infant to her breast. Lora began feeding instantly.

  “Last time, little one,” Serena promised, stroking the infant’s silky hair. “I’m starting you on a bottle first thing tomorrow morning. Mama’s got to get back to doing her job, sweetheart. Nobody’s going to do it for her,” she told the little person in her arms.

  Rocking slowly, Serena smiled to herself. She was looking forward to tomorrow, to getting back to feeling productive. But for now, she savored this very possibly last intimate moment of bonding with her infant daughter.

  Chapter 5

  As he’d predicted, Carson didn’t get very much sleep that night. His brain was too wired, too consumed with reviewing all the details surrounding his brother’s murder. There was more than a little bit of guilt involved, as well. He hadn’t wanted to go to Bo’s bachelor party to begin with, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that if he had only got to it a little earlier, he might have been there in time to prevent his brother’s murder from ever happening.

  Carson finally wound up dozing off somewhere between two thirty and three in the morning. At least he assumed he’d dozed off because the next thing he knew, he felt hot air on his f
ace. The sensation blended in with a fragment of a dream he was having, something to do with walking through the desert, trying to make his way home with the hot sun beating down on him. Except that he’d lost his way and didn’t know just where home actually was.

  Waking up with a start, he found Justice looming right over him. The hot wind turned out to be the dog’s hot breath. Justice’s face was just inches away from his.

  Scrambling up into a sitting position, Carson dragged a hand through the unruly thatch of dark hair that was falling into his eyes.

  “What is it, boy?” he asked groggily. “Did you solve the crime and couldn’t wait to let me know?” Blinking, he looked at the clock on his nightstand. It was a little past six in the morning. How had that happened? “Or are you hungry, and you’re trying to wake me up to get you breakfast?”

  In response, the four-footed black-and-tan active member of the K-9 police department nudged him with his nose.

  “I guessed it, huh?” Carson asked, swinging his legs off his rumpled double bed.

  Except for the fact that he had pulled off his boots last night, he was still dressed in the same clothes he’d had on yesterday. He really hadn’t thought he was going to be able to fall asleep at all so in his estimation there had been no point in changing out of them and getting ready for bed.

  Carson didn’t remember collapsing, facedown, on his bed. He supposed the nonstop pace of the last two days, ever since he’d come across Bo’s body in The Pour House parking lot had finally caught up with him.

  He blinked several times to get the sleep out of his eyes and focus as he made his way through the condo into his utilitarian kitchen.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Carson said to the furry shadow behind him. “This whole place could fit into a corner of Serena Colton’s suite.”

  Now, why had that even come up in his haze-filled mind, he asked himself.

  Just then another piece of his fragmented dream came back to him. He realized that he’d been trying to cross that desert in order to get back home to Serena.

  Home to Serena?

  Where the hell had that come from?

  He hardly knew the woman. What was his subconscious trying to tell him? It wasn’t as if he was in the habit of dreaming about women. When he came right down to it, he hardly ever dreamed at all.

  He came to the conclusion that something had to be bothering him about his less than successful interview with Serena last night. At the moment, he just couldn’t put his finger on what.

  Forget about it for now, he ordered himself. He had something more immediate demanding his attention—and it weighed a little over eighty pounds.

  “Okay, Justice. What’ll it be? Filet mignon? Lobster? Dog food?” Carson asked, holding the pantry doors open and peering inside at the items on the shelves. “Dog food, it is,” he agreed, mentally answering for the dog beside him.

  As he took out a large can, Justice came to attention. The canine was watching closely where the can’s contents would wind up.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to poach your breakfast,” Carson told the dog. “I’m not that hungry.”

  To be honest, he wasn’t hungry at all. But given his present state, he desperately needed a cup of coffee. His brain felt as if it had been wrapped up in cotton and he needed that jolt that his first cup of coffee in the morning brought in order to launch him into his day.

  Emptying the dog food into Justice’s oversize dish, Carson stepped out of the dog’s way as his K-9 partner immediately began to inhale his food. Carson tossed the empty can into the garbage pail in the cabinet beneath his sink and turned his attention to the coffee maker.

  He bit off a few choice words. He’d forgotten to program the coffee maker to have coffee waiting for him this morning. Moving over to the refrigerator, he took out the half-empty can of ground coffee and proceeded to make his usual cup of coffee. The end product, thick and rich, was always something that could have easily doubled for the material that was used to repave asphalt. It was just the way he liked it.

  Time seemed to move at an incredibly lethargic pace as Carson waited for the coffee to brew and the coffee maker to give off the three high-pitched beeps, signaling that the job was done.

  The timer barely finished sounding off before he poured the incredibly thick, sludge-like liquid into his mug. Holding the mug with two hands like a child who had just learned how to drink out of a cup for the first time, Carson quickly consumed the product of his efforts. He drank nonstop until he had managed to drain the mug of its very last drop.

  Putting the mug down, Carson sighed as he sat back in his chair. He could almost feel the coffee working its way through his veins, waking up every single blood vessel it passed through with a start.

  The fuzziness was definitely gone.

  Getting up to his feet, he looked in Justice’s direction. The German shepherd had inhaled every last bit of what he’d put into the dog’s dish. Carson credited the dog with having the same frame of mind that he did. Justice had needed something to jump-start his day.

  “Okay, give me five minutes to shower and change so we can hit the road and get started,” he told his furry partner.

  As if concurring with what Carson had just said, Justice barked.

  Once.

  True to his word, Carson was in and out of the shower in less time than it took to think about it. Going to his closet, he found Justice lying on the bedroom floor, waiting for him.

  “Don’t start nagging me,” he told the dog. “I’m almost ready.” When the dog barked at him a couple of times in response, Carson said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn’t shave.” As if in acknowledgement, he ran his hand over what was now beyond a dark five-o’clock shadow. It could have doubled as the inside of an abyss at midnight. “I’ll do it tomorrow. There’s nobody I’m trying to impress anyway,” he added, pulling on a pair of jeans, followed by his boots.

  He paired the jeans with a black pullover then put on his go-to navy sports jacket. As a detective, he was supposed to make an effort to dress in more subdued, businesslike attire. This was his effort, he thought drolly.

  Adjusting his weapon in its holster, he said, “Okay, Justice, let’s roll.”

  * * *

  He stopped by the precinct first to see if any headway had been made in the investigation into his brother’s murder. Specifically, if there had been any sightings of Demi Colton overnight.

  There hadn’t been.

  When he walked into the squad room, he found that Finn was in the process of handing out the names of people he wanted interviewed in connection with Bo’s murder. Names from the list he had compiled for the chief, Carson thought.

  “Just in time,” Finn said when he saw Carson coming in. “I was beginning to think that maybe you’d decided to take a couple of days off like I suggested.”

  The chief knew him better than that, Carson thought. “Not until we catch Demi.”

  When he saw the chief shifting, as if he was uncomfortable, it made him wonder what was up.

  “Yeah, well, on the outside chance that it turns out Demi didn’t kill Bo, we do need to look into other possibilities. Like whether there might be anyone else out there with a grudge against your brother strong enough to want to kill him.”

  The way he saw it, even thought he had compiled the list for Finn, shifting attention away from Demi would be a waste of time and manpower.

  “Bo didn’t write anyone else’s name in his own blood,” Carson pointed out in a steely voice. “He wrote Demi’s.”

  Finn threw another theory out there. “Maybe there was something else he was trying to tell us other than the name of his killer.”

  Carson frowned. Finn was stonewalling. Everyone knew that things between the Colton and Gage families weren’t exactly warm and toasty. There was a feud between the two families that went back a long w
ays, and it flared up often.

  Was that why Finn seemed so intent on running down so-called “other” leads rather than going after a member of his own extended family? Finn was a good police chief, but his behavior seemed very suspicious to Carson.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Finn said in response to the look he saw descending over Carson’s face. “You think I’m trying to protect Demi. I’m not. I’m the police chief of this county. I don’t put family above the law. Hell, you were there. I roused my own family out of bed to conduct a search for Demi.

  “But I’m not about to bend over backward and behave like someone’s puppet just to prove to everyone that I won’t let my sense of family get in the way of my doing my job. However, just because half the force is out for blood, doesn’t mean I’m going to put blinders on and pretend there might not be anyone else out there who stood to gain something from your brother’s death.”

  “Like what?” Carson wanted to know.

  “Well, we won’t know unless we look into it, will we?” Finn answered. “Now, aside from all those girlfriends your brother was always accumulating before he got engaged to Hayley, he was married once before, wasn’t he?”

  Carson nodded. “Yeah, to Darby Gage,” he told the chief, adding, “They’ve been divorced for over two years.”

  “Which one of them asked for the divorce?” Finn wanted to know.

  He didn’t have to try to remember in order to answer. “Darby did.”

  Finn was all ears. “Why?”

  A half, rather mirthless smile curved Carson’s mouth. Just because he wanted to find Bo’s killer didn’t mean that he had approved of his brother’s fast-and-loose lifestyle.

  “Seems that Darby didn’t care for the fact that Bo couldn’t stop seeing other women even though they were married.” He knew how that had to sound to Finn. “I’m not making any excuses for Bo,” Carson told the chief. “He was an alley cat. Always had been. And personally, in the end, I think that Darby was glad to be rid of him.”