Colton Showdown

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Who is we?” she wanted to know, thinking he was referring to a friend of his, or perhaps a lady friend he was involved with. The prospect of his bringing along another female, possibly for her input, oddly disturbed her.

  He gestured to her and then himself. “You and me. We,” he emphasized. “Why?”

  She didn’t hear the question, just his definition. “No one else?”

  “No one else,” he told her solemnly.

  Was she asking about her brother? he wondered. It wouldn’t be safe, having Caleb come all the way out here. For all they knew, one of Maddox’s minions was watching Caleb right now, counting on the fact that the man would be coming to see his sister.

  Maddox had already demonstrated that he was desperate to eliminate Hannah. Tate was not about to drop breadcrumbs to make it easy for the bastard to carry out his murderous intent.

  Guiding Hannah through the revolving door—which she regarded with unabashed wonder and amusement—Tate ushered her with him toward the front desk.

  “My wife and I would like a suite overlooking Central Park,” he told the neatly dressed man at the reservations desk when he finally reached it.

  He was aware that standing beside him, Hannah’s mouth had dropped open in complete wonder.

  Chapter 9

  “But I am not your wife,” Hannah protested nervously in a hushed whisper as they walked away from the clerk at the reservations desk. Tate, she noted, had something that looked like a rectangular card in his hand. The clerk had given it to him and she couldn’t help wondering why.

  “I know,” he replied. “But I couldn’t very well register as Detective Tate Colton and the young woman he just rescued from a sex trafficking ring, now could I?” he pointed out, then grinned to put her at ease. “For one thing, there wasn’t enough space. Besides, the less resemblance we bear to who we really are, the better. It’s just to throw them off,” Tate assured her as they reached the bank of hotel elevators. He hit the up button. It lit up.

  Hannah didn’t have to ask who he meant by them. She knew. Maddox and his men.

  “You really think they will be looking for us?” she asked in an almost inaudible voice.

  He didn’t think, he knew. But it wouldn’t help put her at ease to belabor that point. “Better to take precautions, just in case,” he said, deliberately vague in his answer.

  The elevator arrived and he ushered her in, then stepped into the car himself. He pressed “4.” The gleaming stainless-steel doors slid shut. He noticed Hannah pressing her hand to her abdomen as they ascended, as if to keep it in place.

  She wasn’t used to this, he thought. It was, he mused, a little like exposing a flower grown in the shade to strong sunlight. Acclimation was going to take time and patience.

  The elevator reached their floor and they got out. “But you believe that they will be looking here?” she pressed again, wanting him to give her an answer one way or another.

  “They won’t find you,” he promised. “That’s why I’m not planning on letting you out of my sight.” Glancing down at the entry card the reservations clerk had given him, Tate scanned both sides of the corridor, then turned to the right, going in search of room 462.

  Reaching the room, he was about to slide the keycard to unlock the door when he sensed that she was staring at him. When he looked at her, he saw her brow furrowed in confusion.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “The man at the desk didn’t give you a key,” she pointed out. “How are we going to get in?”

  There was precious little to smile about in his job so when the opportunity arose, Tate couldn’t resist.

  “Magic,” he answered without cracking a smile. The next moment, he followed up his claim by opening the door. He gestured for her to enter.

  Hannah crossed the threshold, her eyes all but riveted to the door he had just opened. “You did it,” she murmured in awe and wonder. “You opened the door. With that thing.” She pointed to the keycard.

  “Always keep my word,” he told her.

  The moment she was inside the suite, he quickly closed the door and made sure that all the locks were secured and flipped in place.

  He was going to have to rig up something of his own before he felt truly protected, he thought. A rank amateur could most likely breach the hotel safety locks if he wanted to.

  He’d tried twice to feed her on the way here and she’d turned down the two offers—he had a feeling that her nerves were far too tangled for her to consume anything without having it make her feel sick to her stomach. “If you’re not hungry, I suggest you try to get some sleep.” As if to reinforce his suggestion, he crossed over to the queen-size bed and turned down the cover for her.

  Hannah made no move toward the bed. Instead, she knotted her fingers together and asked in a quiet voice, “Where are you going to sleep?”

  She was concerned that he was going to take advantage of the situation, Tate thought. That perhaps he even saw it as payback for rescuing her. Her opinion of the men outside her village wasn’t very high, but then, he had to admit he couldn’t blame her, seeing as how she’d been forced to deal with only the dregs of the outside world so far.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said mildly. “I can sleep anywhere.”

  And he could. He’d gotten accustomed to grabbing short catnaps whenever he could while working an assignment. But he had no intention of even doing that tonight. He wanted to remain on his guard—just in case they had been followed.

  Turning toward Hannah, he motioned her to come forward. “Go ahead,” he urged. “Get into bed.”

  This time, moving stiffly, Hannah did as he told her. Drawing the blanket up to her chin and holding on to it as if it was a protective shield, she watched him as intently as she could with eyes that were struggling to remain alert—and open.

  Pulling a chair over to the bed—and making sure he was facing the door—Tate sank down into it.

  “I could sit in the chair and you could lie down in the bed,” she offered, clearly feeling guilty that he had to spend the night sitting in a chair.

  Tate shook his head, staying exactly where he was. “Now what kind of a gentleman would that make me?” he wanted to know. “Hogging the bed and making you spend the night sitting up in a chair?”

  He saw her brow furrow again. “Hogging?” she repeated, puzzled. The word didn’t make any sense to her in its present context.

  “It’s just an expression,” he explained, trying not to laugh at the face she’d made. “In this case, it means not sharing.” He looked at her, waiting. “Anything else you want cleared up?”

  She shook her head. There wasn’t anything right now, but she knew that there would be again. And most likely soon. Living among the outsiders was almost like learning a new language.

  “You outsiders—you do not speak plainly,” she told him.

  Her voice faded away with the last word. She had lost her battle against sleep and had slipped into its confines, leaving Tate to contemplate his next move in silence.

  He put making plans on hold for a moment and allowed himself to just look at the young woman whose life he’d risked everything in order to save. For everything she’d gone through, Hannah looked amazingly unscarred—not to mention incredibly beautiful.

  And growing more so by the moment. Was that even possible?

  He shook himself free of the thought and forced his mind back to the situation at hand.

  Anyone looking at her would have speculated that the worst thing she had to contend with was selecting which ribbons to tie in her hair.

  Amish girls don’t wear adornments in their hair, he reminded himself. He and Hannah came from two completely different worlds—and she didn’t belong in his.

  Be that as it may, he couldn’t seem to draw his eyes away.

  What would it be like, he wondered, having someone like that to come home to every night? A woman who was warm and welcoming and cared whether or not he was happy? Up until no
w, he’d never thought of his life as lacking anything. Not having a wife or children was something that worked in his favor, since there was no one to consider but himself. If he was hurt, or in a dangerous situation, he wasn’t burdened by guilt, worrying about how his wife and family would carry on if something happened and he was killed. None of that ever came into play or hampered him. It left him free to be a better detective, one who didn’t hesitate to do whatever it took to get the job done.

  That was who and what he was.

  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, he told himself, falling back on the timeless adage. And his life wasn’t “broke.”

  No, it wasn’t broken by any means, but what it was, he thought, was empty. Oh, he connected with his siblings on occasion. They might not share DNA, but they shared the same values as well as love for the same pair of adoptive parents. And up until a few days ago, that had been enough.

  But it didn’t feel like enough anymore, he thought ruefully, watching Hannah’s blanket rise and fall as she breathed.

  You’re getting philosophical in your old age, Colton. Focus on the assignment, don’t get all sensitive about what you think is missing in your life. Thinking that way is liable to get you both killed.

  It was sound advice. Now all he had to do, Tate thought, was take it.

  He stopped looking at Hannah and fixed his attention on the door instead.

  * * *

  Hannah’s eyes flew open with a start.

  Heart pounding, she quickly looked around, her eyes delving into every corner, every space, trying to understand what she was seeing and what her brain was telling her was true.

  She more than half expected to be back in that awful, awful hotel room, huddled three to a bed and chained to some part of it because her kidnappers were taking no chances that she and the other girls might try to escape somehow.

  But when her panic eased and she began to actually grasp what she was seeing, Hannah realized that she was still in the same grand-looking suite Tate had brought her to in the wee hours of the morning, before the sun had had a chance to rise—right after they’d escaped from his apartment.

  Was all of this really happening to her?

  The moment she thought of Tate, she sat up, every fiber of her body acutely alert even before she managed to focus on him.

  She looked at him in surprise. He was just where he’d been when she’d closed her eyes. Sitting in an upholstered chair beside the bed.

  Had he spent the entire night—or what had been left of it—sitting in what had to be an uncomfortable position, guarding her? Her own body ached in sympathy just looking at him.

  Scrambling up to her knees, she moved closer to Tate, peering at his face. His eyes were closed.

  When they suddenly opened, she was caught off guard and, losing her balance, tumbled backward onto the bed. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I wasn’t,” he told her. “I was just resting my eyes.”

  She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Hannah scooted over, closer to him in case they had to whisper because someone might be listening. Habits learned during her harrowing imprisonment were hard to break.

  “You really spent the night in that chair,” she marveled. “Isn’t it hard to sleep that way?”

  “I wasn’t trying to sleep,” he answered.

  So he’d said when she’d offered to switch places with him, she thought. “You were standing—sitting guard,” she recalled, amending her words to fit the situation. “But aren’t you tired now?” she wanted to know. Then, before he could answer, she made him an offer. “I could stand guard now if you like, wake you if someone tries to come in,” she added.

  The sweetly selfless offer made him smile. Did she have any idea how adorable that sounded? Most likely not, he decided.

  “Thanks for the offer,” he told her, “but I’m fine. I don’t need a lot of sleep.”

  “But you need some,” she insisted, determined to pay him back somehow. “Everyone needs some.”

  “And I got what I needed.” There’d been a moment or two during the night when he had caught a few winks. He’d learned how to sleep with one eye open at all times. And how to stretch a few winks into making do. The job had trained him to get by on very little. And, conversely, how to make a little go a long way.

  Right now, he had something far more important than sleep to attend to. He was hungry and he had a feeling that so was she. There was finally color in her face, and a tiny bit of sparkle in her eyes. He had no doubt that Hannah had a strong personality and was already working at putting what happened to her earlier—the kidnapping, the brutish behavior—behind her.

  “Tell you what,” he proposed, “why don’t you and I get some breakfast and then go shopping?”

  “Shopping?” she echoed. Why would he want to go shopping with her? And exactly what sort of shopping was he referring to? “You mean like buying some food for later?”

  “No,” he corrected, puzzled why she would even think that. “Like buying clothes—for now,” Tate emphasized.

  She still wasn’t completely clear on what he was saying he wanted. “You wish to purchase clothing for yourself?”

  He grinned. He knew half a dozen women, his sisters included, who would have instantly jumped at the chance to go shopping before he could have even finished saying the word. This dewy-faced young woman was certainly in a class by herself.

  “No,” he corrected patiently, “I ‘wish to purchase’ clothing for you. Not that the waif look you’re currently wearing isn’t very appealing in its own way...” His voice trailed off deliberately.

  It was meant as a teasing remark rather than a revealing one. But the truth was that despite the fact that his clothes—even the smallest ones he had outgrown—were way too big for her, there was something incredibly stirring and enormously appealing about the way Hannah looked when she put them on.

  Tate cleared his throat and forced himself to focus on what he was trying to convey to her. So far, he wasn’t having much luck—in either focusing or in making himself clear. “Anyway, I thought you might be more comfortable wearing something that actually fit you and belonged to you.”

  Hannah flushed. She was already in his debt. This would just increase that debt by heaven only knew how much.

  “I don’t wish to be any trouble,” she told him, demurring the offer. “And I have no money to spend on clothing.” The fact of it was, she didn’t have a penny to her name.

  “Let me worry about the money,” he told her, then added firmly, “And it won’t be any trouble. Besides,” he continued with a whimsical smile, “it might be fun.” When he said that, he was thinking of her. As far as he was concerned, just being with her, observing how she took everything in—as if she had crossed the threshold into Wonderland—was definitely fun for him. “The store windows are all decorated for the holidays and the city is at its best this time of year.”

  He wasn’t all that partial to New York City, frankly preferring several other cities to the Big Apple. But he had to admit that when it came to celebrating the holidays, the citizens of Manhattan took second place to no one. Store merchants went all out decorating their windows both in tribute to the holidays and in a not-so-subtle attempt to attract customers to shop in their stores.

  “We can even stop to look at the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.” The suggestion drew a blank look from Hannah and he quickly made his assumptions from that. “You’ve never seen the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, have you?”

  Her eyes on his, Hannah slowly moved her head from side to side.

  This, Tate thought, promised to be a great deal of fun. “Then you have a real treat in store for you,” he told her. “Why don’t you freshen up and we’ll get started?” When she looked at him blankly for a second time, he nodded toward the opened door that was in the rear of the suite. “The bathroom’s right in there,” he told her. “There are fresh towels and everything else you might need in there. You can
take a shower—or a bath if you prefer,” he added, thinking that she might not have showers where she came from. He really should have studied up on the basic elements that comprised her Amish lifestyle, he thought. But then, he hadn’t known he was going to have this sort of up-close-and-personal contact with the woman he rescued.

  “And you will be where while I am in there, ‘freshening up’?” she asked him haltingly, a bit of color creeping up her cheeks.

  “Right where I am now,” he told her. “Out here. Waiting.” He smiled at her. “You can lock the door from the inside, you know.”

  The expression of surprise on her face told him that she didn’t know. And then that expression softened into a smile of gratitude.

  Hannah rose to her feet. “I’ll hurry,” she promised, already striding toward the rear of the suite.

  “You can take your time,” he called after her. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  Hannah looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. She wouldn’t have been able to explain to her brother, or to anyone else for that matter who might ask her why, but Tate’s assurance was immensely comforting to her. More than she would have thought it should be.

  “I will still hurry,” she told him. She had been taught never to take advantage of someone’s kindness to her, and there was no reason in the world for her to change her behavior now.

  * * *

  Tate couldn’t truthfully say that he didn’t allow his mind to wander, or that he tried to restrain it from conjuring up fantasies of Hannah slowly easing her nude, firm young body into the tub filled with warm water and soapy bubbles, as he listened to the sound of running water.

  His fantasies increased threefold when he realized that the melodic sound coming from the bathroom was not someone singing on the radio.

  There was no radio in the bathroom and Hannah certainly didn’t have one with her. Things like that were forbidden in her simple community. No radios, no TVs. What he was listening to was Hannah, singing softly to herself.

  Or maybe she was singing to him.

  Heaven knew it certainly felt that way as the melody corkscrewed itself into his belly, causing one hell of an earthquake in his gut.