The question took him aback. So much so that he raised himself up on his elbow in order to look at down her. “What?”
Georgie blew out a long breath. “What just happened here?”
He grinned. The temptation to say that they’d just stood in the path of a twister was hard to resist. Instead, he teased her. “You are Emmie’s biological mother, right?”
Georgie frowned as she shook her head. “I’m not talking about the process. I know what happened here, but,” she looked up at him. “What happened here?”
She couldn’t word it any better than that. Because something had happened here. Something unsettling and overwhelming.
Nick shrugged, trying his best to regain ground, to appear nonchalant. But underneath, he was wondering the same thing. He did his best to define it. “I think we just had a moment.”
She glanced at her wristwatch. “It was a hell of a lot longer than just a moment. More like an hour,” she corrected.
He laughed then. And laughing beside her felt almost as good as making love with her.
It had been a long time since he’d laughed. Longer than the last time he’d allowed himself to make love to a woman.
His laugh was deep and rich, making her feel inherently good. Inherently happy.
“That’s a nice sound,” she told him, unconsciously curling her body into his. “You should laugh more often.”
He thought of the life he had been leading. There was satisfaction, but no humor. “Not much to laugh at in my line of work,” he responded.
“Your line of work,” she echoed thoughtfully. And then she smiled to herself at the irony. “You mean catching bad guys like me?”
He looked at her for a long moment. Again, his instincts told him she was innocent. But there was the evidence to consider. Her IP address and her computer were involved in this. Logically, that would mean that she was too. And she had hidden her last name from him. Because she was accustomed to using her stage name, or because it made her look guilty?
“Tell me about your father,” he finally said.
He felt her stiffen slightly against him, and then he saw her force herself to relax. “Is this how you conduct your second wave of interrogation? Naked?”
Nick shifted, pulling her toward him. His hand gently rested on the swell of her hip. He felt himself being aroused again. Something else out of the ordinary, he thought. Usually, when he got to this part, he’d be sated and that would be that.
Not this time.
“It does have its advantages.” Maybe it was the moment, or the aftermath of lovemaking, but he leveled with her. “My gut tells me you’re innocent—”
She didn’t bother suppressing the smile that rose to her lips. “Your ‘gut,’ or something else?”
“My gut,” he assured her. “But I need to be convinced a little more.” A wary expression came into her eyes. He could guess at what she was thinking. That he was coaxing her to make love with him again. “No, not like that. Answer my question. Tell me about your father.”
“Nothing to tell.” Rather than look at him, Georgie stared off into space, doing her best to divorce herself from her words. She’d convinced herself that it didn’t matter, that the years when she’d wanted her father were in her past. She’d gotten over that. But a part of her still hurt, still smarted from being abandoned along with her brothers and mother. And she would never forgive him for turning his back on her mother.
“He came into my mother’s life, turned her whole world upside down, gave her three babies and then left. He went back to his rich wife. I never knew him when I was growing up, although Clay said he came around for a little while.” She set her jaw hard as she continued. “Now he’s back, trying to make amends. Probably because his own kids can’t stand him from what I hear.” She told him with no little feeling, “I’ve got no use for him.”
This didn’t sound like the Joe Colton he knew. Joe Colton was an honorable man. He would have never had an affair, especially not one that extended over several years’ time. But to be thorough, he had to ask. “What’s your father’s first name?”
“Graham.” She knew where he was going with this. “Don’t worry, Secret Service Agent Sheffield, it’s not your precious Senator. Just somebody with the same last name.”
He watched her face. Unless she was one hell of an accomplished actress, he thought, she was telling the truth. “But you’re all related.”
“Maybe. But I don’t care,” she added truthfully. “I care about my immediate family. My daughter and my brothers.” Ryder might have taken a few wrong turns that had landed him in prison, but he was still her brother and she loved him. There were ties that went beyond logic. “I care about the men I ride the rodeo circuit with,” she told him. “And that’s it. Oh, and I care about who’s been impersonating me.” She could see that the addition surprised him. And then she said with feeling, “Because I’m going to strangle her.”
He laughed softly at first, then realized that there was no humor in her eyes. “You sound as if you mean that.”
“Of course I mean it.” As she spoke, her indignation at what the other woman had done grew like a flash fire. “She stole something precious from me.”
Her life savings. He could understand her anger. “The money—”
But Georgie waved her hand at that. The money represented security and was exceedingly important, but something was more important to her. “That’s secondary. She stole my good name. I don’t know about where you come from, Sheffield, but around here, your good name, your word, means something.”
A woman of integrity, he thought, nodding. But then he supposed he could expect nothing less of her, just from what he’d learned in the last twenty-four hours.
Georgie cleared her throat, feeling somewhat awkward. She was still naked, still lying beside a naked man and without her passion, which was spent, or her anger, which was slowly settling down, she felt uncomfortably vulnerable even though she couldn’t exactly explain why.
“Um, don’t you think you should get up and go to your bed in the guest room?”
“Right. Sure.” And then, giving in to impulse, Nick lightly brushed his lips against her bare shoulder. Something began to stir within him again. “In a minute—or so.”
Damn, there it went again, that blaze that he seemed to be able to ignite within her. She should be sated, for heaven’s sake, and yet, she wanted more. She wanted to take another wild ride before the night was over. What had come over her?
“Are you starting up again?” she asked, turning her body to his. And then she smiled before he could answer—because another part of his body had answered her question for him. The smile entered her eyes and seemed to simply glow everywhere. “I guess so.”
Damn but she was beautiful, he thought. “Anybody ever tell you you talk too much?”
She seemed to roll his question over in her mind, her smile widening as she did so, pulling him in. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
“I didn’t think so.” But something inside of him, as he brought his mouth down to hers again, whispered that he wanted to be the last. And telling Georgie she talked too much had nothing to do with it.
Chapter 11
In order to keep his word and satisfy Emmie, who popped up like toast the next morning to remind him of his promise to “make everything right for Mama,” Nick spent the first part of his morning at Georgie’s computer, tracking down all the charges incurred on her credit cards. Just to play it safe, armed with the user names and passwords Steve had sent him, Nick decided to go back over the last five months.
One by one, he secured the information, then printed it out for her. When he had the charges in a rather overwhelming stack, he gave the pages to her and left it up to Georgie to decipher, separating the piles into charges she had run up and the ones that could be attributed to the “Georgie” doppelganger.
Having lived up to his part of the bargain, Nick got down to his real work. He decided that it might be ad
vantageous to find out as much as he could about the man who had fathered Georgie and her brothers, the mysterious and, from what he’d gathered, self-centered Graham Colton.
It took some digging at first, but once he had some key pieces of information to work with, the rest came more easily.
An hour after he’d gotten started, hopping from screen to screen and from site to site, he found himself staring at the information the winding trail had brought him to. And discovering something he would have rather not found out.
Because what he’d found out unearthed another battery of questions and, more importantly, doubts.
Away from Georgie and the attraction he experienced whenever he was within ten feet of her, Nick felt uncertainty taking root again.
Had he been played?
Or was there some outside chance that she actually didn’t know that her father, Graham Colton, was the Senator’s younger brother? After all, not even he had known that the Senator had a younger brother, much less what his name was.
But then, Graham Colton wasn’t his father. Wouldn’t Georgie have connected the dots? Or was politics something she blocked out, the way so many other people did? After all, it wasn’t as if Graham Colton had been a doting father. All the evidence he’d come across so far pointed to the fact that he’d been, probably still was, a womanizing, narcissistic, greedy scum. In Georgie’s place, he wouldn’t have wanted to have anything to do with the man either. But did not wanting contact mean ignorance of his family background?
He wasn’t sure.
With a sigh, Nick stretched out his legs beneath the table, debating his next move. What he’d just found out wasn’t something he could keep to himself.
But if he told Georgie, one of two things could happen. If she didn’t know, this would be a hell of a shock for her. And if she did know and had lied to him, he wasn’t certain how he’d deal with that particular scenario.
He supposed that he could hold off telling her. There was time enough to discover whether he’d made love with an innocent or a scheming witch. He’d just begun to entertain illusions, he didn’t want to have to risk losing them already.
There was one person he did have to tell. The one person who deserved to be apprised of anything he found out as soon as possible.
Nick shifted in his chair, sitting up straight again as he took his cell phone out of his pocket. He pressed the single button that would connect him to the Senator’s private cell.
Waiting, Nick counted off four rings before he heard the sound of a phone coming to life on the other end of the line. A dynamic, resonant voice said, “Hello?”
Even the man’s voice inspired him with confidence, Nick thought. “Senator Colton, this is Nick Sheffield.”
“Nick.” Pleasure flooded the Senator’s voice. “I was just wondering when I’d be hearing from you. I was beginning to get concerned that you decided to forget about the campaign and just settle in.” There was almost a wistful note in his tone. “Awfully pretty country down there.”
“If you like the rustic life,” Nick responded, not quite able to get himself to agree to the Senator’s assessment. He was just not the rural type. Nick was fairly certain that his voice gave him away on that count. “I’m calling because I found where the e-mails were coming from.”
The Senator immediately heard what wasn’t being said. “But not the person sending them?”
No doubt about it, Nick thought. The Senator was quick on the uptake. “Well, there seems to be some doubt about it,” he told the man. “The woman whose computer was used to send the e-mails was out of town during the period of time we’ve blocked off.”
“Is someone else in the family doing the sending, then?”
“I’m looking into that,” Nick told the man. Uncomfortable with what he was about to say, he shifted in his seat. “Senator, there’s something else.”
“Go on.”
There was no easy way to say this. Since the Senator didn’t talk about his brother, Nick assumed that there was bad blood between them. Or hard feelings. The Senator was a successful, powerful, well-liked man. Maybe his brother, who hadn’t seemed to have amounted to very much in his lifetime, was resentful of his success. “The woman’s last name’s Colton. Graham Colton’s her father.”
“It was Georgie’s computer that was being used to send the e-mails?” Joe asked, surprised.
So much for catching the man off guard. But then, that was part of what he admired about the Senator. The man was as savvy as they came and literally seemed to be on top of everything. No one had ever managed to catch him sleeping.
“You know about her, sir?”
“Yes. And about her brothers, Clay and Ryder, as well. I know all about my brother’s other family, Nick.” Nick thought he heard a stifled sigh on the other end. “Proud woman, Mary Lynn. After Graham had deserted her, I tried to give her money but she refused to accept my help.”
Nick wondered if the Senator had kept tabs on the family through the years. “She’s dead, sir, according to the daughter.”
“Yes, I know. Terrible shame. Graham loved her in his own way. Probably the one actual love of his life,” he speculated. “Unfortunately, he loved his wife’s money more.” Nick heard the Senator sigh on the other end. “Don’t waste your time with Georgie. She wouldn’t have sent the letters or the e-mails. She’s just like her mother, proud and filled to the brim with integrity.”
He’d had no personal dealings with the young woman, but nonetheless, he had kept tabs on her. After all, she was family. It wasn’t her fault that her father had turned out to be so shallow.
The Senator’s tone changed. “Listen, since you’re down there, I was wondering if you might do me a favor and look in on a Jewel Mayfair. She runs a branch of the Hopechest Ranch. A foundation that, as you know,” he added quickly, “is near and dear to Meredith’s heart. My wife’s afraid that Jewel might not be quite up to all the challenges running something of that nature entails. Let me give you Jewel’s number,” Joe offered.
“That’ll make it simpler,” Nick commented, flipping over a piece of paper he pilfered from the printer.
As the Senator read off the phone number, followed by the address where the foundation was located, Nick quickly wrote down everything. “Got it,” he told the Senator, then added, “I’ll call her later this afternoon if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course. No real hurry. Just keep me in the loop,” the Senator requested just before he terminated the call.
Slipping the cell phone back into his pocket, he looked up and realized that his wife had been standing in the doorway to his office, listening. He smiled at the woman who had won his heart so many years ago.
“I’ve got him looking in on Jewel.”
Meredith strode in on those long legs of hers that he had always admired. Her legs had been the first thing to catch his attention. The trim, but curvy figure—a figure she still maintained—had been a very close second. “I heard.”
Joe gave her a long, knowing look. “Now maybe you can stop worrying about her.”
“Maybe.”
He laughed then, seeing right through her. “Your problem, Meredith, is that your heart’s just too big,” he told her. “You can’t keep worrying about the immediate world.”
“Not the immediate world,” she protested, even though she had always been a soft touch. “Just the part that’s related to me.”
Coming up behind him, she lightly feathered her long fingers along his forearm. He wore his sleeves folded up, a symbol of his getting down to work. She’d always loved the way that looked. Loved the way he just got better looking with age, keeping his physique muscular and fit by working out and riding whenever he got the opportunity. There were telltale sprinkles of gray in his dark brown hair, but they only succeeded in making him look more distinguished.
He’d get the female vote without even trying, she thought.
Joe turned around to face her. “You know, things might be a littl
e easier for you if you told Jewel that you’re her aunt.”
But Meredith shook her head, her short, golden-brown bob swaying from side to side. “That would mean that I’d have to tell her that Patsy was my sister. I’ve gotten Jewel to like and trust me. If she knew that I was the sister of the crazy birth mother who stabbed her father to death on the day she was born because he’d stolen Jewel and given her to a doctor who promised to place her in a good home, she might look at me differently. She certainly wouldn’t trust me anymore. I can’t risk that. She’s been through too much already. On top of not getting any closure from Patsy because Patsy was in a mental institution when she tracked her down, don’t forget Jewel also lost her fiancé and her unborn baby in that car crash they were all in. That’s more than any one person should have to put up with. I just barely got her out of that depression she’d spiraled down into.”
He tucked his arms around her waist. “I’d say finding out that she had such a terrific aunt might just begin to make up for the rest of it. At the very least, that should help her start to heal.”
She smiled up at him, stealing a moment as she wrapped her arms about his neck. “Think you’re smart, don’t you ‘Dr.’ Colton?” she teased.
There were times he wished he was just like everyone else, that he didn’t feel as if he had a mission to fulfill, a cause to champion in order to pay society back for all the good fortune he’d had during his lifetime. That if he wanted to take some time with his wife, a score of responsibilities wouldn’t get in his way.
Compromising, Joe stole a quick kiss. “Yes, I do. But only because I hung out with this really terrific, smart woman. Some of that had to rub off.”
She laughed softly. “That silver tongue of yours is definitely going to get you elected.” With a reluctant sigh, she disengaged her arms from around his neck. “I’d better leave you to your work.”
“Promise me you’ll stop worrying,” he said, running his forefinger down along the furrow that had formed just above her nose, smoothing it.
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