The Pregnant Colton Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  Reaching his suite, he glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight. Mirabella would be asleep by now—wouldn’t she?

  When he walked in, he found Mirabella was indeed in bed and at first glance, he thought he’d lucked out. She appeared to be asleep.

  But appearances could be deceiving.

  “Hi,” she murmured as he began stripping off his clothes. “I thought maybe you’d decided to go back to the office instead of coming to bed.”

  He had entertained that idea, but there was no point in saying so. She’d only put the wrong meaning to his words. He wasn’t avoiding her so much as he was avoiding himself—or at least his reaction to her.

  Suppressing a sigh, Zane shrugged out of his shirt and sat down on the edge of their king-size bed. “No, I tried to find a book in Eldridge’s library.”

  She’d noted he had come into the bedroom empty-handed. Being careful never to assume too much when it came to Zane, she asked, “You didn’t find it?”

  Zane dragged his hand impatiently through his hair. “I found Fowler instead,” he told her.

  That didn’t sound good, she thought. “And?” she asked, urging him on.

  “And I should have come up to my bedroom instead of looking for the book. Our bedroom,” he corrected, realizing his error. He looked at her, wondering if he’d hurt her feelings.

  Mirabella didn’t want him feeling guilty about such insignificant oversights. In the three weeks she’d lived in the mansion, she had come to have somewhat of a tougher skin. She no longer saw a slight hiding behind every sentence, every look.

  She knew this was all only an interlude in her life, but while it continued, she was going to make the most of it and enjoy the shreds of happiness she came across. And she was going to enjoy being with Zane for however long that lasted.

  “At any rate, you’re here, now,” she said, pointing out the bright side of the situation.

  It was, Zane thought, typical of Mirabella. She had a tendency to gravitate to the upside of things. It was something he had come to really like about her.

  “Why don’t you come to bed and get some rest?” she suggested. “It’s almost tomorrow and you’ve got a full day scheduled.”

  Zane looked at her. He knew if he got into bed, it wouldn’t be rest he’d wind up seeking. It would be, he realized, solace.

  She was his solace.

  He began to wonder why he was fighting it—and himself—so hard. If he felt he didn’t deserve happiness, well, that was an argument for another time. Right now, he was tired of resisting.

  He wanted her.

  “You know,” he told her, “that sounds like a very good idea.”

  Stripping off the remainder of his clothes, Zane got into bed.

  And found the peace that had been eluding him all day.

  Chapter 21

  “Why haven’t they found him yet?” Whitney demanded, looking from Zane to the young woman she was just barely beginning to tolerate. “Where is my Dridgey-pooh?” she cried, her voice quavering in dramatic frustration.

  Because a part of him felt sorry for his mother, spurred on by a latent sense of filial obligation, Zane had opted to have dinner at home tonight rather than a restaurant in Dallas.

  They were alone at the table tonight, he and Mirabella, along with his mother. The others were all absent for one reason or another, having made their excuses via phone calls.

  His mother, Zane observed, scarcely seemed to notice the others were missing from the table. She was completely beside herself as yet another one of the private detectives she’d hired had returned to her with nothing to show for his efforts but empty verbiage and unsubstantiated promises that he’d locate her missing husband “very soon.”

  Exasperated, Whitney had fired the man on the spot. That made three private detectives since her husband had disappeared. Three detectives hired and fired with nothing to show for it.

  Morose, Whitney had barely touched her dinner, moving the slices of prime rib around on her plate as if they were engaged in some sort of endless race they were destined not to win.

  Her eyes growing watery, Whitney turned them toward her son. “I don’t understand. How does a man just disappear like that?” she cried.

  Zane knew better than to attempt a serious answer to her question. No logical or practical explanations would even begin to satisfy his mother.

  There was only one thing she wanted to hear, so that was what he offered her. “You’ll find him, Mother. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Grateful for the slender lifeline he had thrown her—never mind that it was unsubstantiated—Whitney covered his hand with her own, her perfectly lacquered scarlet nails clicking against the tabletop.

  “You think so?” she sobbed. Pausing to dab at the corners of her eyes, she looked every inch the concerned, grieving wife.

  Almost too much so, Zane thought. But then, the word easygoing had never been included in the same sentence as his mother’s name.

  “You really think so?” she pressed, her voice spiking up to the level of a squeak as she apparently clutched at the flash of hope Zane’s words created for her.

  “Yes, I do,” Zane assured his mother with practiced patience.

  * * *

  “You really think your stepfather will just turn up?” Mirabella asked him some thirty minutes later as they left Whitney sipping brandy in the living room.

  “Honestly?” He paused on the way up to their suite. “I don’t know,” he told her. “I was just telling her what my mother needed to hear.”

  To the outside world, Zane had presented a reserved, distant front, but in her heart, she had always known there was a softer side to him that he held in check.

  “That’s very sweet of you,” Mirabella said. “You were trying to comfort her.”

  He wasn’t about to take credit when he didn’t deserve it—at least, not all of it. “Yes and no,” he corrected. “Mainly, I was trying to give her enough rope to hang herself.”

  Reaching the landing, Mirabella stared at him. She was officially lost and confused. “Then you don’t believe your mother’s innocent,” Mirabella guessed, trying to get a handle on his thinking.

  Was he supportive of his mother, or did he suspect her? She couldn’t tell from his tone.

  He paused by their suite’s door. Ordinarily, he didn’t talk about what went on in his family, not out of any sense of misplaced loyalty, but because it wasn’t anyone else’s business. He didn’t look at Mirabella in the same way he looked at everyone else. In the last three weeks, almost without his knowledge, she had come to mean a great deal to him. He’d gotten close to her without meaning to.

  “She’s my mother but that doesn’t mean I think that makes her above suspicion. The way she’s carrying on, it’s like watching a performance of the poor man’s Macbeth.” He smiled and quoted one of the play’s key lines. “The lady doth protest too much.”

  “Then you do think she’s guilty,” Mirabella concluded as she walked into what she regarded as their sanctuary.

  “I think she’s playing the wounded queen and, being my mother, she’s playing it up to the hilt.” When Mirabella looked at him quizzically, he elaborated. “My mother has always loved being the center of everything and she’s always loved drama. Very honestly,” he confessed, “I don’t know what to believe. Is she doing this for show, because she’s really concerned about my stepfather, or is she doing it to throw suspicion off herself? With my mother, you just never know.”

  “She could just be a very good actress,” Mirabella pointed out.

  There was always that, Zane thought. “Quite possibly,” he agreed out loud.

  “Or,” Mirabella continued to theorize, “she could actually love your stepfather and be sincerely worried about him. These dramatic displays might just be the only way she has of coping with things.”

  Zane suppressed an amused laugh. He looked at Mirabella, shaking his head. “You always see the good in everyone, don’t you?” he
marveled.

  She shrugged and an almost shy smile slipped over her lips. “It’s too depressing any other way.”

  Mirabella was, he thought, too good to be true. And while there was a part of him that had always viewed such occasions—and such people—with a very jaundice eye, Zane found himself believing in this woman who always found something positive to say about everyone.

  For just a split second, he really wished he could be like her. But that wasn’t possible in the world he lived in where being suspicious was the only way to survive.

  “How about your baby’s father?” he asked suddenly, thinking of how they had wound up together. Mirabella had stirred his curiosity. “What’s his upside?”

  She only hesitated for a moment before answering. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be waiting to give birth and all births are minor miracles.”

  He laughed drily. “I know some people who would disagree with that.”

  He was right, of course, but that wasn’t her way. “Then those people are destined to be very sad people,” she told him.

  “What if he comes back?” Zane asked as the thought occurred to him.

  He was aware he should be leaving this alone, that it was her business and he had no right to pry. If the tables were turned, he wouldn’t have appreciated her asking him questions. But there was something within him that just wouldn’t let this go.

  “After you have the baby,” Zane pressed, “what if he turns up again and says he wants to be part of the baby’s life?”

  Mirabella avoided making any eye contact. “That’s not going to happen.”

  She seemed fairly sure of that, Zane thought. But he wasn’t.

  “But what if it does?” he insisted. “What then?” She had to consider the possibility. Consider it and have a plan.

  Mirabella sighed. She hadn’t wanted to talk about this, but she sensed Zane wasn’t about to drop the subject.

  He was leaving her no choice.

  “It’s not going to happen,” she repeated in a tight, stoic vice, “because he’s dead.”

  It wasn’t an answer Zane had expected. For a second, he thought he’d misheard her. “What?”

  Mirabella braced herself inwardly before beginning. Her voice was very still and devoid of all emotion.

  “After I told him that I was pregnant, he told me if I thought he was going to, as he put it, ‘ante up’ with money to raise the baby, then I was even dumber than he thought I was.”

  Fury spiked suddenly within Zane. “Are you sure he’s dead, because if he isn’t—”

  “Three weeks later, he died in a car accident,” she said, completing her narrative. And then she looked up at him and asked quietly, “Does that answer all of your questions?”

  Rather than say yes or no, Zane took her into his arms and just held her.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he whispered against her hair.

  I’m not, because for however long it lasts, it brought you into my life, she thought.

  But she knew if she alluded to anything of the kind, she would cause Zane to back away immediately, so instead, she merely shrugged in response.

  “People go through worse things,” she told him.

  “Still doesn’t make it right,” he insisted, holding her.

  And he found himself really wanting to make it right for her. Against all common sense, he went with his gut instincts and lowered his mouth to hers.

  The rest evolved naturally.

  * * *

  “I think this might be your man, boss,” Meyer announced several days later as the IT expert walked into his office to give him an update.

  Ordinarily, if he had nothing or had merely eliminated another name on Zane’s list, Meyer would send him an email or make a phone call. But this time, he wanted to give Zane the news in person.

  Zane looked up sharply, instantly alert. “You mean the one who’s been sending out those degrading emails?”

  Meyer didn’t smile very often. But now he was grinning ear to ear. The name on the piece of paper he was holding represented the culmination of a great deal of work.

  “One and the same,” Meyer replied proudly. There was grudging admiration in his voice as he said, “And he really is damn good.”

  “How did you find him?” Zane asked. He knew he had given Meyer a list of possible culprits, but the distance between being a name on a list and zeroing in on the one person who was responsible was huge.

  Meyer was only too happy to explain. “The thing about computer experts who are damn good, they get too cocky, think no one’s as smart as they are and they eventually make a mistake. This guy was no different.” Because he knew Zane didn’t appreciate dramatics, he filled in the rest of it quickly. “I cracked his code and hacked into his computer. You were right to think it was a former employee,” Meyer told him. “‘Anonymous’ was an IT expert VP you had to fire last year for multiple breeches of ethics.

  “From what I hear, the sheriff was supposed to bring him up on charges, but the guy conveniently gave him the slip. The good sheriff is more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy,” Meyer continued. “To him real crimes punishable by the law fall under the categories of homicides and stealing property. The sheriff defines property as something you can hold in your hand. Bottom line, this guy you fired got off scot-free. And he obviously held a grudge.”

  “Who is this supreme pain in my butt?” Zane wanted to know.

  “Howard Kurtz,” Meyer said, proudly placing the report he’d written up in front of Zane. “Name ring a bell?”

  “Not offhand.” Zane was trying to picture the man when he heard a sharp intake of breath coming from his doorway.

  Turning, he saw Mirabella standing there. She’d just walked in to drop off several pages for him to sign and stood frozen in the doorway.

  She looked white as a sheet.

  Zane was on his feet instantly. “Belle, what’s wrong? Is it the baby?”

  But she shook her head from side to side, unable to speak for a minute. And then she found her voice just as Zane reached her.

  “I know him,” she said, looking from Zane to the IT expert who had brought Zane the news.

  “You know Howard Kurtz?” Zane asked, still trying to summon a picture of the man in his mind. “How do you know him?”

  It was hard for her to believe the rather unremarkable man was capable of something so hateful. “He asked me out on a date a few times and became very indignant when I turned him down. He called me a few choice names—and then he asked me out again. He wouldn’t let up no matter how many times I said no—and then he just disappeared. I was so relieved, I never asked anyone what happened to him. I just assumed he was promoted to another department—and found someone who agreed to go out with him,” she added. She’d been in time to overhear what Meyer had said just before he revealed Kurtz’s name. “You fired him?”

  Zane finally remembered what the man looked like—as well as the circumstances behind Kurtz’s dismissal. “Had to. He didn’t steal from the company—although I had a feeling it would only be a matter of time until he did—but he had bent more than his share of rules and committed several breeches of ethics.

  “When I confronted him with what I’d found, he apologized, swore he’d never do it again. I’m willing to give someone a second chance, but I just didn’t trust him. There was something about—”

  “His eyes,” Mirabella said, vigorously nodding her head as she guessed what Zane was going to say. “They were flat when they looked at you, like he didn’t have a soul.”

  Zane laughed drily. “Well, that’s one way to put it.” He was going to say the man appeared to be shifty. Turning his attention to Meyer, he asked the IT expert, “You’re sure about this?”

  Meyer nodded. “Initially, it was a process of elimination. When I finally zeroed in on his name, I made it my business to hack into his computer. For a clever guy, he was really sloppy. I found copies of the emails that went out about you and M
rs. Colton—except she wasn’t Mrs. Colton then,” Meyer amended, sparing an apologetic glance in Mirabella’s direction.

  “You don’t have to be that exact,” Zane told him, waving away Meyer’s correction. “As long as you’re on target with this Kurtz character—”

  “I am,” Meyer assured him with the enthusiasm of a man who was confident he had achieved his goal.

  That was all Zane needed to hear. “Then we’re good. Get me a current address on this guy, Meyer. Apparently I was too easy on him last time. I should have followed up, made sure the sheriff went after him when he slipped away. It’s time Kurtz found out there are definite consequences for his actions.” He glanced toward Mirabella, his expression hardening. “He needs to know he can’t just try to ruin people’s lives and get away with it.”

  Meyer’s grin became wider as he took out a second sheet from his pocket and placed Kurtz’s address in front of Zane. “That’s his current address. He’s been playing musical motels, but that’s the one he’s staying in right now.”

  “Knew I could count on you,” Zane said, picking up the paper and rising to his feet.

  “What are you planning to do?” Mirabella asked.

  What he wanted to do was draw and quarter the man. “I’m not sure, yet. I’ll know when I get there,” he told her.

  What Kurtz had done was despicable, but she didn’t want Zane retaliating by doing something he’d regret later. “Shouldn’t you go to the sheriff with this?” It was more of a veiled suggestion than a question.

  “And say what? That Kurtz sent some damaging emails? I doubt the sheriff will do anything about that—even after he stops laughing. No, I think my best option is to go confront ‘Anonymous’ in person—and make it very clear to Mr. Kurtz that if he ever even thinks about doing something like it again, he’s going to have to figure out how to type emails without any fingers.”

  She looked at Zane uncertainly. “You’re not planning on breaking all his fingers, are you?”

  In his present frame of mind, he would have loved to vent his anger actionably, but he knew he couldn’t. “No, but for men like Kurtz, just the threat of being subjected to some sort of bodily harm is enough to get them to back off.”