Colton Christmas Rescue

by Beth Cornelison

  Her chin jerked up, and surprise filled her face. “You think it was a woman?”

  “I didn’t say that. We have to consider all the possibilities though. You said the attacker’s face was covered with a ski mask.”

  Closing her eyes, Amanda sighed and leaned her head back against the rocking chair. “I don’t know. Maybe. I just assumed...”

  “Well, don’t assume anything. Did the attacker speak?”

  She shook her head. “No.” Thinking back to what was reported by her sisters and employees after attacks earlier in the year, Amanda sighed. “I guess it could have been a woman. When my sister Catherine was held hostage earlier this year, she said one of the people who held her was a woman. There’s even a good chance the mastermind behind everything that’s happened is a woman.”

  He grunted, digesting that information. Sliding one hand in his jeans pocket, Slade glanced toward the nursery window. “Who lives in the little cabin in the woods on the far edge of the ranch yard?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and wrinkled her nose in thought. “You mean the Blacks’ cabin?”

  “Who are the Blacks?”

  “Our laundress and handyman. They’re an older couple. They’ve lived on the property for as long as I can remember.” Amanda tilted her head. “Why?”

  Slade ran a hand through his hair, then jammed his hat back on his head. “That’s where the assailant left Midnight when he fled, but when I searched the cabin, it was empty.”

  She stared at him for several seconds, her expression bleak. Finally she ducked her head and cuddled her daughter closer. “I hate this. Feeling like I have to constantly be looking over my shoulder. Having to hire a guard to protect my baby. Not knowing who to trust.”

  “You can trust me.”

  Amanda glanced up at him, her gold eyes wary. “That remains to be seen.”

  * * *

  That night at the family dinner table, conversation centered around Jethro’s slight improvement that day and Gabriella and Trevor’s upcoming wedding. During a lull in conversation, Jethro’s ex-wife piped up.

  “I hear you had some trouble today, Amanda. Are you okay?”

  Amanda glanced up at Darla Colton, ex-wife number three for Jethro. The titillated glint in Darla’s eyes, as well as her former stepmother’s history, told Amanda that Darla was more interested in juicy gossip than her stepdaughter’s well-being.

  Across the table, Gabriella shot her a concerned look. “Trouble?”

  “I’m okay,” Amanda assured her sister. “Someone tried to snatch Cheyenne again, but our new foreman showed up in time to run the attacker off.”

  “Oh, no! Why didn’t you tell me?” Gabby divided her look between Amanda and Trevor.

  “Because I’m all right, and I didn’t want to needlessly worry you.”

  “How can you have such a blasé attitude about being attacked?” Gabby asked, her expression appalled.

  “I’m not blasé about anything regarding Cheyenne’s safety.” Amanda wiped applesauce off her daughter’s face. “But the incident is over, and I’d rather use my energy finding the creep responsible than fretting over the could-have-beens.”

  “We’ll get him,” Trevor assured her, then gave Gabriella’s hand a squeeze. He cut a small bite of potato and put it on his daughter’s high chair tray. Baby Avery pinched the bite between her chubby fingers and gave her father a slobbery grin. In the high chair next to Avery’s, Cheyenne slapped her tray and reached for Avery’s food.

  “Hey, chickpea, eat your own dinner.” Amanda spooned a few peas and carrots onto Cheyenne’s plate, and her daughter took a greedy handful with a squeal of delight. “Good to see your cold hasn’t hurt your appetite.”

  Darla’s blond-haired son breezed in and dropped into a chair. Grabbing a serving bowl, he began shoveling food onto his plate. “Hope you saved me some. I’m starved.”

  Amanda generally tried to avoid her ex-stepbrother, Trip Lowden, who, along with his mother and sister, she considered a leech sucking her family’s finances. Given her druthers, she’d kick Darla and her two mooching children off the ranch, but her father allowed them to stay for reasons she and her sisters couldn’t fathom. The playboy’s face still showed evidence of the black eye Dylan had given him before leaving for Witness Protection with Aurora, and Amanda took secret satisfaction seeing the lingering bruise. How many times had she wanted to slug the smarmy jerk herself when he’d “accidentally” brush up against her or smack her on the butt? Too many to count. She bit the inside of her cheek, holding back a chuckle when she remembered a private joke she and Aurora had shared at Trip’s expense, and in the wake of the memory came the familiar ache of missing her dear friend.

  “Where have you been?” Darla asked. “You know what time dinner is served.”

  Trip gave his mother a lecherous grin. “I was...busy.”

  Trip’s sister, Tawny, snorted. “What was her name? Or did you ask?”

  Trip shrugged. “Paula or Patty or something. I don’t remember.”

  Amanda angled a look of disgust at her womanizing ex-stepbrother—then did a double take. A long fresh scratch marred his cheek.

  Her muscles tensed, and an angry heat began to simmer in her gut. “Trip, where did you get that scratch on your face?”

  Around the dinner table, all heads turned toward Amanda and Trip.

  “Why do you want to know?” Trip stabbed a bite of roast beef and sent her a blithe look.

  Amanda set her silverware down and flattened her hands on the tablecloth. “Where did you get the scratch?” she repeated, enunciating each word slowly.

  “Maybe my lady friend liked it rough.” He gave Amanda a lewd wink.

  Furious with his smug attitude, she slammed her fist on the table so hard the dishes rattled. “Answer me!”

  “Amanda?” Gabby murmured. “Why does it matter?”

  She sent her sister a brief glance before drilling Trip with an unrelenting glare. “When I was fighting off my attacker this morning, I scratched him somewhere on or near his face.”

  Trip froze with his fork suspended halfway to his mouth. His blond eyebrows puckered, and he sent a nervous glance around the table to all the eyes focused on him. “Wait...you don’t think...” His fork clattered to his plate, and he aimed a finger at Amanda. “I had nothing to do with that! How dare you accuse me!”

  “Where’d you get the scratch?” Trevor asked, his tone dark and intimidating.

  Trip balled his fists on the table. “Like I said...kinky sex. Paula was a wildcat, okay?”

  Tawny made a catty meowing noise and helped herself to another roll.

  Narrowing a haughty glower at Amanda, Trip asked, “Jealous?”

  Amanda snatched her napkin from her lap and threw it on her plate. “You’re disgusting. I’ll need this Paula’s contact information so the police can verify your story.” She shoved her chair back and pulled Cheyenne out of her high chair. “And you better hope she does corroborate your story, because if I find out you had any part of trying to kidnap my daughter, I’ll bury you.”

  * * *

  Slade sat back in the metal chair in the interrogation room and rubbed his eyes with his palms. He’d come into the Dead River police station three times since arriving in town and had read through the police file regarding his father’s murder a dozen times. The only thing clear to him was how shoddy the police work had been. Improper procedure had been followed and incomplete records had been kept, yielding little useful information in finding his father’s killer. More likely, the former chief had been covering for someone.

  He’d talked to Agnes Barlow, the head cook who’d found his father’s body, but she couldn’t remember anything more than what was already in the file from her deposition. Mathilda Perkins had also had little to add to her ten-y
ear-old statement, saying she hadn’t seen or heard anything the night of the crime. Hilda Zimmerman lived in town with her husband, who’d supported her claim to have been with him at the time his father had been shot. He couldn’t question Faye Frick, who’d raised the boy who turned out to be the lost Colton heir, Cole, since she’d been killed that past summer. And that boy, whom everyone knew as Dylan Frick, now lived in Witness Protection with his fiancée. Most of the other employees had joined the ranch after the night his father had died.

  He still wanted to follow up with the Blacks, the older couple who lived in the small cabin at the edge of the main ranch yard, former foreman Gray Stark and Amanda’s sisters, who’d have been in their teens ten years ago. But when originally questioned by the police, none of them had had any useful information, either.

  He slapped the file folder closed with a growl of frustration and shoved the chair back.

  Chief Peters was in the hallway when Slade stalked out of the interrogation room, and he sent Slade a commiserative grimace. “Sorry. I told you the file would be of little help.”

  “Unless you have any other ideas, I’ve hit a dead end.” Slade raked a hand through his hair and huffed a sigh. “Coming here was a mistake.”

  Peters scratched his chin, his expression contemplative. “No ideas. Unless...”

  Slade quirked an eyebrow, his attention drawn fully to Chief Peters. “You have something else? A lead?”

  “I don’t know what it is. Maybe nothing. Maybe just a crazy person looking for fifteen minutes of fame.”

  Slade brought his shoulders back and straightened his back. “Go on.”

  “We took a call here at the station recently from a guy claiming he had dirt on Jethro Colton. He wouldn’t give us any details. In fact, he wanted me to fly out to San Diego to talk to him in person. When we traced the call, we found the call had been placed from a hospice.”

  “A patient wanting to make a deathbed confession or a nurse who’d heard something incriminating from a patient?” Slade suggested.

  “Could be. I took the guy’s name down but told him our department didn’t have the funds to fly me to California without more to go on than the suggestion of something tawdry about Jethro Colton. Especially while we have our hands full investigating all the attacks that have been happening at the Colton ranch.” Peters hitched his head toward the front desk. “I think I filed the name out here. I’ll get it for you.”

  Slade followed the chief out to the reception area and rubbed his hands on the seat of his jeans. Could this finally be the tip that would break open the crimes at Dead River Ranch, or was this mysterious call a distraction designed to sidetrack the police’s other ongoing investigations regarding the Coltons?

  While Chief Peters was thumbing through the files in a cabinet drawer, the front door of the station opened, and Amanda breezed in, her daughter propped on her hip. She exchanged a startled look with Slade, and the officer at the desk said, “Can I help you?”

  “Here it is,” Chief Peters said, pulling a file and reading, “Scottie Breen was his name. He said he used to work for former President Joe Colton. In fact, he hinted that his information about Jethro had something to do with the former president.”

  “What does my father have to do with President Colton?” Amanda asked warily.

  Chief Peters whirled around. “Miss Colton, I didn’t see you come in.”

  “I just arrived.” She furrowed her brow, her cheeks pink from the cold outside. The impulse to wrap Amanda in his arms and warm her kicked Slade like an irate bull. He could almost feel the chill of her skin against his palms, her cold lips brushing his and heating under the persuasion of his kiss. He gave his head a little shake. His instant gut-level reaction to her didn’t surprise him. She was a desirable woman by any man’s definition. But the extent of his attraction to her worried him. He couldn’t afford to be distracted from his mission at Dead River Ranch, especially if that distraction had the last name Colton.

  Slade cleared his throat, dragging his attention back to the business at hand.

  “Are you aware of any connection Jethro would have to Joe Colton, other than the same last name?” Slade asked. “Does the shared name mean they’re related?”

  Amanda shook her head. “Not that I’ve ever heard. And you’d think if we were related to the President of the United States, that might come up.”

  “Could be nothing, then.” Peters showed Slade the note he’d jotted. “Here’s the phone number he called from if you want to follow up. Tell him I gave you his name. If you feel he’s got anything worth following up on, let me know.”

  Slade pocketed the note and jerked a nod. “Will do.”

  Amanda sent Slade a look that clearly said she wanted to grill him further about the chief’s tip. Her gold eyes lasered into him, and his body answered with a low thrum. Her determination and confidence were a turn on. He could easily imagine how all that self-assurance and passion translated between the sheets. Her fiery gaze held his a moment longer before she raised her chin and faced Chief Peters. “Trip Lowden showed up at dinner tonight with scratches on his face. I want you to question him and check his alibi.”

  Slade narrowed a curious gaze on Amanda. “Trip Lowden? I don’t know that name.”

  “Probably because I usually refer to him as my former stepmother’s worthless, mooching spawn.” Amanda tugged a notepad from her purse. “He claims he got the scratch from a woman during sex. And while that would be completely in character for the reprobate, I find it interesting, incriminating even, that he showed up with a scratch the same day I scratched my attacker.”

  “So do I.” Slade gritted his back teeth, adding Trip Lowden to the list of people he needed to interrogate.

  “Here’s the woman’s name. Supposedly she works nights at the hospital.”

  Chief Peters stepped to the counter and held his hand out for the paper Amanda ripped from her pad. “We’ll follow up.” The policeman’s serious expression softened as he turned his attention to Cheyenne. “Hey, cutie. How are you?”

  Amanda’s daughter gurgled, and a beatific baby smile spread across her face. While the officers chuckled and teased their chief about hitting on a younger woman, Slade’s gut knotted.

  By assuming responsibility for keeping Amanda and her daughter safe, he’d put himself in a position to be near Cheyenne. As cute as the little girl was, all of her sweet smiles and baby babbles were like glass shards on an open wound in his soul. He’d thought he had his grief better in hand when he’d moved onto the ranch, but Cheyenne, and his powerful attraction to Amanda, had brought memories to the surface—along with emotions that had no place in his investigation of the Colton family.

  * * *

  Having followed Amanda back home, Slade parked the ranch truck beside Amanda’s small SUV and circled the tailgate to help her unload Cheyenne from her baby seat.

  “Thanks, I got her.” Amanda took her daughter from him and fell in step beside him as they entered the house. “So...care to share why you were at the police station? Other than digging up weirdo callers who claim to have dirt on my father.”

  “I told you earlier. I want to know who killed my father. Chief Peters has given me access to the files...for all the good they’ve done.”

  Slade placed his hand under Amanda’s elbow, steadying her as they climbed the icy steps to the back door to the employee wing, and even through her thick coat, his hand stirred a tingling warmth at her core. Growing up around the ranch hands, Amanda had always been “one of the guys,” more likely to get a playful slug in the arm than a gentlemanly gesture. That Slade showed her the courtesy, coupled with the way his gaze lingered on her when they talked, made her feel feminine and attractive in a way she hadn’t felt in years.

  “Then you haven’t learned anything new?” she asked. While she wanted Slade to find the p
eace and closure he was searching for regarding his father’s murder, she was a little scared of what he might find. Bad enough that someone on the ranch was gunning for her and Cheyenne. What would she do if she discovered someone she loved and trusted had killed Slade’s father all those years ago?

  “No. Nothing helpful.” He held the door open and stood back to let her enter first. “This caller in California may not pan out, either. But I have nothing else at this point, so I’ll check it out.”

  “You’ll let me know what this Breen person says?” She started unzipping Cheyenne’s coat and her own.

  “If I feel it’s relevant.”

  Amanda raised her chin and shot him a hard look. “If it’s about my family, then it is relevant to me. You promised to be honest with me.”

  “I did. But he could prove to be a crackpot.” Slade hung his coat on the hooks by the door. “Tell me something. Why do you always use the employee door instead of the family entrance?”

  She shrugged, Cheyenne propped on her hip. “It’s closer to the stable. And I’ve never paid much heed to the family-versus-employee distinction.”

  “I bet that drives Mathilda nuts.” His hand grazed her shoulder as he helped her remove her coat, and the casual contact shot sizzling sparks through her. In the tight quarters of the entryway, she felt his nearness on a primal level, hyperaware of the scent of hay and wood smoke that clung to him, the low rumble of his voice and the heat behind his bedroom gaze.

  Amanda chuckled, working to keep the flutter he caused in her chest out of her voice. “Absolutely.”

  Slade’s cheek twitched in the semblance of a grin, and tiny crinkles framed his eyes. Just that hint of a grin sent a shockwave through Amanda that stole her breath. Damn, he was sexy!

  He jerked a nod. “Well, good night.”

  As he strode through the door to the employee living quarters, the scent of outdoors that surrounded him lingered. She inhaled the sexy aroma and held it in her nose, savoring...and found herself smiling.