by Addison Fox
They needed to talk him down and give Archer enough time to break in.
And they also needed to keep an eye on Sally. The instability that marked Jensen was nowhere in evidence with her. In fact, the more Jensen railed, the calmer Sally got as she stood there, stoically watching the proceedings.
“Why are you so convinced I’m your brother?” Donovan asked the question, his gaze revealing nothing. “I’m a Colton.”
“A Colton discovered in the barn on Christmas morning. The whole town knows.”
“It’s not a secret I was adopted.”
“Adopted because you’re some stray they felt sorry for.”
“Does Sutton know?”
“About you?” A small corner of spittle filled the edge of Jensen’s mouth, his skin turning a ripe shade of pink around his collar. “My mother knew about you. A pithy little story, if you must know. Dear old Dad knocked up his secretary. It was my mother who orchestrated everything, convincing your simpering fool of a mother to hand you over to a family who could really take care of you.”
“But does Sutton know?” Donovan insisted.
“No. And that’s how it’s going to stay. My father has already given enough money to his illegitimate offspring. I’m not losing one more piece of my inheritance to the fact he couldn’t keep it zipped.”
“Fair point.” Donovan nodded, his face drawn in sober lines.
Bellamy watched him, fascinated as he began to subtly control the room. She could only assume he’d received some signal from the chief, because bit by bit, he maneuvered Jensen around the room, drawing the gun off of her and her sister.
“It wouldn’t do to have more of your inheritance go to anyone else.” Donovan’s voice was even and level. Reasonable. “Especially since LSP stock stands to go through the roof with the vaccine price-fixing.”
“Exactly.”
“You had it all figured out. Work the system, blame it all on Bellamy and then get rid of the evidence.”
“Yep.” Jensen nodded, the dull red of his skin fading again to a warm pink.
“What about your father?”
“Don’t you want to call him Dad?”
It was the first moment Jensen managed to get a rise and the smallest muscle ticked in Donovan’s jaw. “Where’s Dad in all this?”
“Fighting for his life across town in a quiet little facility that isn’t on anyone’s radar. He’s unknowingly been the recipient of a new drug being developed to treat certain forms of cancer. It’s a miracle drug, unless you don’t have any cancer to cure.”
Bellamy knew what Jensen spoke of and had seen the trial details a few months prior. The drug was powerful and had the potential to be a game changer, but it had to be used properly.
And there he was, poisoning his father with it?
“You’re a monster.”
“Yeah, sweetheart, I am.” Jensen shifted his attention at her outburst, his eyes now wild with whatever madness had gripped him. “But you can take solace in the fact that I’m the last one you’re ever going to see.”
“You’re mad.”
“Mad at the world, yes.” Jensen’s gaze swung toward Donovan before coming firmly to rest on her. “I’ve spent my life waiting for my turn. To run the company. To earn dear old Dad’s respect. To get my shot. Yet I was never good enough.”
The roller coaster of the past days seemed to slow in the face of Jensen’s anger. It was too simple to think of him as a crazy person to be taken down.
Far too simple.
What she saw instead was a man beyond reason. Whatever he believed was meant to be his—his father’s love, his birthright, even the Taylor name—had somehow twisted over time. And as she stared at Jensen, Bellamy had to admit that under different circumstances, that could have been her.
Hadn’t she spent the past five years resenting Maggie for choosing to live her life while poor little Bellamy stayed behind taking care of their parents?
And hadn’t she buried herself in her job, shunning relationships—heck, even shunning the chance to own a pet—because she’d crawled so far beneath the rock of self-sacrifice?
Looking into Jensen’s angry, disillusioned eyes, Bellamy saw it all so clearly. And in that moment, finally understood all she was about to lose.
Donovan and Alex had shown her the way. Even if what was building between her and Donovan still needed time to grow roots, she was grateful for what he’d given her.
For what he’d shown her.
That she had a life and it was time to get living.
How horrifying it was to realize that far too late.
* * *
DONOVAN’S FINGERS ITCHED as he held his hands by his side. Brother or not, Jensen Taylor was going down. Assuming he could get them all out of there.
“Nice speech, Jensen.”
The words were enough to pull the man’s attention off Bellamy and it gave Donovan the briefest moment of relief. If he could keep Jensen’s focus diverted, he had a chance of getting Bellamy out alive.
If.
“It’s the truth.”
“Your truth.”
“It is my truth!” Anger spilled from Taylor’s lips with a violence that shouldn’t have been surprising under the circumstances. “And now it’s yours, Colton. You think you’ve got a way out of here, but you don’t. Even with whatever backup you inevitably brought along, I’ve thought of it all. This place is wired.”
While Donovan didn’t doubt Jensen’s threats, taunting him might get the information he needed to defuse whatever lurked around the cabin.
“Like Bellamy’s car? Because you were so good at that. A half-assed explosion rigged by an amateur.”
“It was meant to be. It wasn’t time to kill her. And if it gave the cops time to wonder why someone suspected of stealing company secrets would make herself look like an accident victim, it was that much better.”
“And the bomb at her house?”
“Same. How does it look if the poor little woman peddling company secrets escaped death twice? It would be like a red flag—she’s setting herself up.”
“So killing her here? All of us here? How’s that going to go down?”
“Ah, that’s where Sally comes in. She’s the one with Bellamy’s personnel folder and she’s the one who let her go. It stood to reason the stress of getting discovered and fired was the last thing Bellamy Reeves needed before going around the bend.”
“All figured out.”
“Except for you,” Jensen sneered.
And the backup waiting outside the cabin.
Donovan calculated the odds—and the acknowledgment that Jensen Taylor had to have walked in here with a plan B.
“What are you going to do about me?”
“Same thing I’m going to do about all of you. I came out here to counsel a distressed former employee. And I’m going to get out barely alive from the bomb she’s planted to blow me to smithereens.”
Cold. Impersonal. Distant.
The very reason a bomb made an effective weapon for cowards stood before him.
And in that moment, Donovan knew there was no time to wait.
As he leaped forward, Donovan’s momentum was enough to knock Jensen off balance. Donovan slammed Jensen’s gun hand on the ground, a harsh cry in his ear proof he’d damaged bone, as well. As soon as the man went still, Donovan was on his feet, moving toward Bellamy.
Jensen’s fall must have been what Archer was waiting for. The room erupted in gunfire and smoke, a series of officers rushing the room from outside. Donovan had a split second to register it all before Bellamy’s scream had his gaze shifting back toward his half brother. The man lifted a small square no bigger than a lighter from his pocket, his hand flipping the top open.
“Donova
n!” Bellamy screamed his name once more, just as Donovan leaped into motion. His hand closed over Jensen’s, effectively stopping his brother from taking the final step of blowing up the cottage with all of them in it. Archer was the closest, and he twisted Jensen’s wrist to retrieve the device that would no doubt blow them all sky-high.
All noise ceased, everyone in the room going quiet as Archer stepped back, the detonation device in hand.
“Tell me you know what you’re doing with that, Thompson.” Donovan gritted out the words.
“Underestimating me again, Colton?”
“Never.”
“Good.” Chief Thompson nodded, his hands calm and still. “Then I can swallow my pride and ask you to come handle this.”
“Deal.”
* * *
DONOVAN TAPPED THE back of the EMT vehicle in a signal that the crew could move on. Sally and Jensen had already been transported in handcuffs and the other EMT team had worked on Maggie, treating her for lingering effects of the chloroform and taking her in for an overnight of observation. The bomb beneath the cabin had already been removed, detonated on the far edge of the property where it couldn’t hurt anyone. Archer and his men still worked the scene and they’d already called into the facility where Sutton was to get the doctors diagnosing him with the correct meds to get well.
“I had no idea it was Jensen. I never even considered him.” That thought had kept her steady company since Archer’s team had cuffed Jensen and even an hour later, she still couldn’t believe it was true.
Everything that had happened had been engineered by Sutton’s greedy—and clearly unstable—son.
“Archer asked me what I thought the motive was in all that was happening.”
Bellamy took in his bedraggled form and the spot of blood that had dried on his cheek where Jensen had nicked him in their fight. “What motive did you give?”
“I went with the old standby. Money and power.”
“I’d say you pegged them both.”
Donovan pulled her close, folding her up against his chest. “I don’t know what I’d have done if something happened to you.”
He’d said the same thing off and on since Jensen had been taken away, and each time she’d stood patiently, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding him tight. “I’m okay. We all are.”
“I never should have let you come.”
“You didn’t get much choice in the matter.”
He shook his head at that, his warm brown gaze still bleak from the events of the evening. “I shouldn’t have let that matter.”
“Is that how it’s going to be, Donovan Colton?”
“Be?”
He looked crestfallen as she pulled from his arms, her own hands fisting at her hips. “You tell me what to do and I just do it. I’m not Alex, you know.”
“A fact I’m glad about.”
“I have my own mind and I make my own decisions. It’s why I stopped and told you what was happening instead of harking off on my own. That was big for me.” She moved in and pressed a kiss to his chin. “Don’t make me regret my decision.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
Bellamy knew there were a lot of reasons she’d chosen to go to Donovan instead of heading out on her own, but one had stood out beyond all the rest. “Because it’s time to stick.”
“To stick?”
“I’ve been doing everything on my own for far too long. It’s time to depend on people. To let people in and to depend on them and the support they can provide.”
“Does this mean you want me to stick around?”
So much had happened in such a short time, it seemed nearly impossible to be having this conversation.
Yet here they were.
She’d spent too much time unwilling to voice what she wanted, now that the moment was here, Bellamy was determined not to fumble it. “Yes, I do.”
“I’m not in a position to walk away from my job in Austin.”
“I’d never ask you to.”
“And Alex and I are a package deal.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“And I’m sort of surly and grumpy in the morning.”
She smiled. “Believe it or not, I figured that one out all by myself.”
“What else have you figured out?”
“That I want to spend time with you. I like having a surly, grumpy man and his furry best friend in my life. I’m tired of my own company and I’m tired of ignoring all the life going on all around me.”
“If you’re sure?”
She thought about those scary moments, when she stared at Jensen Taylor and saw the faintest outline of herself.
“I’m absolutely positive.”
Donovan bent his head and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was full of passion and promise and abundant joy. As she wrapped her arms around him and sunk into his kiss, Bellamy knew she’d finally found the partner to share her life with.
Two partners, she silently acknowledged to herself as she added Alex. And she couldn’t be happier.
Epilogue
Six weeks later
Bellamy juggled the plate of cake and pot of coffee and headed for the living room. She’d come to look forward to these Saturday afternoons with her sister and was excited to share the recently discovered recipe with Maggie.
“Is that Mom’s pound cake?” The words were said in a reverent tone as Maggie leaped off the couch to help her with the plate.
“I found the recipe back in the fall. She had it hoarded in the bottom of her jewelry box.”
“Who knew?” Maggie’s musical laughter was a balm and Bellamy couldn’t deny how nice it was to share something funny about her parents.
“She was so proud of that cake. She preened every time someone commented on it at town events.”
Maggie reached for a slice. “Then I’m glad it’s not lost to us.”
Her sister took a bite, her eyes closing as she chewed, and Bellamy screwed up her courage. She’d wanted to say something for a while now, but had struggled with how to express all she felt. “I’m sorry for all that’s happened.”
Maggie’s eyes popped open. “What do you mean?”
“Mom. Dad. All of it. I was stubborn and unfair to you and I’m sorry. I’m sorrier it took a kidnapping and an attempt on both our lives to realize it.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“Yes, actually, I do.” Maggie settled her plate back on the coffee table. “I thought I could fix everything. That marrying James would give me the financial tools to fix what was happening. I’m not proud of myself, nor was I fair to James.”
“But you loved him first.”
“Yes. Maybe.” Maggie swiped at a small tear that trailed down her cheek. “It’s the ‘maybe’ that’s the problem. For a long time, I enjoyed being with him. And I liked being a Corgan. But I liked those things too much. My husband should have come first.”
Since coming back into each other’s lives, she and Maggie had danced around the subject of her sister’s marriage. It was humbling to realize all that had gone on beneath the surface. “But you did care for each other.”
“We did. And I’m glad we finally remembered that, there at the end. But James has moved on and in time, I will, too. And in the meantime, he helped me make sure you’ve got this great house.”
“He... You what?”
A mischievous light filled Maggie’s eyes. “You belong here, Bell. And I know it’s what Mom and Dad would have wanted.”
“But the will. The insurance. The house came from there—” Bellamy broke off. “Didn’t it?”
“They actually came courtesy of the Corgan fortune.”
A sinking feeling
gripped her, and Bellamy felt the coffee she’d sipped curdling in her stomach. “I can’t accept that. I mean, it’s not my place.”
Maggie reached over, her gentle touch stopping the torrent of words. “It’s what James and I both wanted. He understood it was important to me and in a lot of ways, it was the final act of kindness that allowed us to let each other go. And we both decided to keep it a secret so you wouldn’t say no.”
“But I can’t take it.”
“Actually, you can. We both knew how much you sacrificed for Mom and Dad. More, you deserved something to cement your future. This is your home.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I know you love playing the big-sister card, but on this one, I win. It’s what I wanted. James, too.”
The generosity was nearly overwhelming, but in her sister’s words, Bellamy sensed healing, as well. “You’re okay with the divorce?”
“It’s best for both of us.” Maggie reached for her plate again. “Speaking of best, how are things with Donovan Colton?”
She knew her sister, and Bellamy suspected the rapid change in topic was deliberate. But she also understood how important it was to Maggie to stand on her own two feet. Vowing to take the issue of the house up with her later, she let the joy of being with Donovan wash over her.
“Things are good. He’s good.”
“You’re spending a lot of time running back and forth to Austin.”
“We’re enjoying each other’s company.”
“First you make her pound cake and now you’re using euphemisms like Mom?”
Bellamy swatted at her sister’s leg. “I like being with him.”
“Then tell me what you’re doing for Valentine’s Day.”
* * *
LATER THAT DAY, her earlier conversation with Maggie still lingered in her mind as Bellamy cleaned up the plates and mugs. The time they’d spent together since the holidays was helping to mend their relationship and it was wonderful to have her sister back.
She heard the bark moments before a nose pressed into her hip, a large, wiggly body prancing at her side. Donovan followed behind Alex into the kitchen and Bellamy fought the urge to lay a hand against her heart at the sight of him. She bent to lavish praise on Alex instead, willing her pulse to slow down.