The Colton Heir

by Colleen Thompson

  She laughed, admitting, “I guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I? And thanks. I think.”

  He flashed a row of even, white teeth. “How ’bout something to drink, then?”

  “Any water?” she asked. “I don’t do bubbles, unless it’s champagne.”

  “What a diva,” he teased before handing her bottled water and a wrapped sandwich.

  They turned their attention to the food next, beginning with sliced roast turkey, Brie and some kind of cranberry-nut relish with baby greens, all on a thick, dark multigrain bread. Kate had also included raw, cut veggies with a tangy dip, along with iced pumpkin cookies for dessert.

  “Wow,” said Hope when she had eaten far more than she’d meant to, “your friend should open her own restaurant. This is all amazing.”

  “She’s a great cook, though it probably doesn’t hurt that it’s the first real meal you’ve eaten since you came here, either,” he said. “Now that you know what you’ve been missing, aren’t you sorry?”

  “Kinda. Except the turkey and cranberry and the pumpkin remind me way too much that Thanksgiving’s coming.”

  He slanted a look her way. “You have something against Thanksgiving?”

  “It’s not like that. It’s just—it was always my favorite holiday, that’s all. My mother used to...”

  “Used to what?” he asked, an invitation in the curve of his lips.

  She took a deep breath. “She always invited every ‘stray’ she met—friends, neighbors, anyone who didn’t have a family to share the day with. It always started small, then blew up into this huge feast. Took almost a week of preparation, and she insisted on doing every bit of it herself. At least until that last year... That year, we cooked together. We laughed so much that week. It was crazy—we even had a flour fight. You should’ve seen the kitchen afterward. But it was so worth it.”

  “Sounds like some great memories.”

  “They’re very special,” she said, though her eyes were welling. “I didn’t know it at the time, you see, but she was finally letting me help, making sure I copied down the recipes to make everybody’s favorites, because she knew it would be her last Thanksgiving, and she wanted me—wanted the whole tradition—to go on in the years to come.”

  “Did it?” he asked carefully.

  She shook her head, thinking of how much had changed, how swiftly. How her little family had shattered like dropped crystal, leaving nothing but the shards embedded in her heart.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching toward her.

  With a shake of her head, she turned away, pretending that she didn’t see him. As she snatched up another of the pumpkin cookies, she tried to joke. “Might as well quit moping and enjoy my dessert. On the bright side, with the trial coming up, there’s no point in worrying over all those nasty calories.”

  Normally, he moved so carefully around her that she was shocked by his speed when his hand shot out to grasp her wrist. “If you’re talking about suicide, you need to put it out of your mind.”

  Reflexively, she let go of the cookie, then watched it bounce off of the tailgate’s rim and break into pieces on the hard ground. “Oh, relax,” she told him. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be suicide, just murder.”

  Though she’d meant to sound lighthearted, she knew Dylan was right. There was nothing remotely funny about her situation.

  Releasing her, he snarled, “The hell it will. You’re not going back East. Not to be killed. You’re not sacrificing yourself out of guilt about your father.”

  “I’m not sacrificing myself. Not willingly, at any rate. I intend to listen this time, to do everything the U.S. Marshals tell me. And if I do survive my testimony, no one from my old life will ever hear from me again.”

  Their gazes locked, the gazes of two people realizing on which side of the dividing line Dylan would stand from her. And in his eyes, she saw the pain, the same pain she felt at the thought of their fragile, new connection being severed.

  A connection that, for all its immediacy, felt more real and right and natural than any she had known before.

  “What if I told you,” he asked, “that I didn’t want you to leave? That I believe your life is worth more than it would cost to stop him.”

  “How can you,” she asked, her still-raspy voice strained to the point of breaking, “when people have died because I stuck my head in the sand instead of going to the authorities? When two babies were orphaned because I—”

  “Because you were thinking of your own child?”

  She shuddered, looking away, the words your own child sparking off bitter memories. Pushing off the tailgate, she stalked a few feet farther. Her stomach pitched so violently she was afraid she might be sick.

  Dylan’s boot heels crunched the gravel as he strode up behind her. “And once you realized what your husband had done, you gathered up your courage and you went to the authorities.”

  She wheeled around to face him, her vision blurred with tears. “And people still died—others who came forward, that poor young grocery manager. M-my own father, too, because no matter what I do, people won’t stop dying!”

  “Your husband and his thugs are the killers, not you.” He took another step before reaching out to cup her cheek in his hand. “Never you.”

  When his rough thumb stroked her flesh, her eyes slid closed. Because she didn’t want to feel what she was feeling, didn’t deserve the waves of pleasure sparking through her at his touch. Not a woman who had chosen a monster for a husband. A woman who no longer knew who she was anymore.

  His fingers touched her eyelids. “Open them for me,” he whispered, his voice rough as his hands were gentle. “I want you to look into my face, Aurora. This time, I want you watching when I kiss you.”

  * * *

  Before Dylan could lean in closer, her eyes flashed open, those deep brown contacts that made him miss the hidden light beneath. But there was no hiding her resistance, especially when she planted her splayed fingers in the center of his chest.

  “Please don’t,” she told him. “Just don’t, Dylan. There’s nothing you can say that’s going to change my mind, and it’s already going to be hard enough, doing what I have to.”

  “But that’s just it. You don’t have to. We can find another way,” he said, “a way to keep you safe.”

  He knew how ludicrous it must sound, when she’d been attacked and nearly killed this very morning. He knew, too, that even if the mastermind were apprehended and her ex-husband’s men never again came calling, a gorgeous, cultivated woman like her would never be content living out her life stuck in some remote corner of Wyoming masquerading as a housemaid.

  No more than she’d be content with a man who wrangled livestock for a living. For a moment, he wondered if he would stand a chance with her if he really turned out to be the missing Colton heir, with all the money and the prestige that would certainly come with that discovery. But the thought brought with it a rush of shame, not only the idea that he’d wish away his blood connection to the mother who had loved him, but the knowledge that Hope was certainly no Misty Mayhew, out looking for the chance to enrich herself.

  “If you get half a chance to put away your mother’s killer,” she said, “you and I both know you’ll never let cowardice—or anything else—stop you from doing it. Especially not after everything you’ve done to paint a target on your own back with this trip.”

  “These are professional hit men you’re talking about going up against,” he insisted, ignoring the similarities in what both of them were doing. Because this was different; she was different, and he didn’t give a damn if that made him some kind of chauvinist or not. “Hit men who won’t give up until you’re dead.”

  “If I go back, I’ll have the support of the U.S. Marshals, who assured me early on that they’ve never lost a single witness who followed their instructions to the letter. And trust me, I’ve learned one heck of a harsh lesson about bending the rules for any reason.” She sighed, her expression
so weighed down by grief, so vulnerable that all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and keep her safe forever.

  But she’d made it clear she couldn’t bear it, so he swallowed back the desire and said, “Guess we’d better pack up and get going. At this rate, we’ll be lucky to make Jackson by eight.”

  She nodded, and very soon, they were on the road again. But other than a few words exchanged during a fuel and restroom pit stop in a small town along the way, there was little conversation, each of them too tormented by his or her own thoughts to reach out to the other.

  By the time they reached the town of Jackson it was too dark to point out the nearby mountains the town was perched against—craggy, snowcapped peaks whose beauty stuck out in Dylan’s memory from a visit years before. Since his appointment with Marnie Sayers, the former waitress who had bought his mother’s diner, wasn’t scheduled until morning, he headed toward the room he had reserved.

  “Getting hungry?” he asked Hope, who was looking out the window at the businesses and restaurants along the town’s main drag. “As soon as we’re checked in, we can head out to grab something.”

  “Something light, I hope. I’m still pretty full from that delicious lu— Wait. You made a motel reservation here in town? Under your real name, after telling everyone where you were going?”

  “I’ve already told you—I’m not hiding.”

  “Not hiding at all.” Her look was pointed. “You’re hoping. Hoping that this mastermind will show up to try to stop you. And you accused me of being the suicidal person in this outfit?”

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “If this killer comes for me, I’ll be ready.”

  “And what exactly am I doing, in this O.K. Corral scenario you’ve dreamed up?”

  “Staying in another room—as far from mine as I can swing. And crawling under the bed if you hear any gunfire.”

  “You have to be kidding. No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” In his mind, her refusal wasn’t an option.

  “I mean, you’re giving me my gun back—you brought it, didn’t you?”

  “There’s no need for you to—”

  “Didn’t you?” she repeated, sounding surprisingly stubborn for a woman as battered as she looked.

  “Yes, I brought it,” he admitted, irritated and impressed at the same time with the way she’d dug in her heels. “And a shotgun, too.”

  “Well, I’m more familiar with my pistol, so I’ll take that one, and we’ll take turns sleeping. Both of us, in your room. Unless you’re scared to be alone with me,” she added with a wink.

  “The only thing I’m scared about is how I’d ever explain it to Amanda if anything happened to you— Hell, Hope. You know it’s more than that. I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

  “Same here,” she assured him. “I’ve already got too many corpses on my conscience to handle even a cocksure cowboy like you.”

  Snorting, he flashed a grin in her direction. “Cocksure, huh? I think I like the sound of that.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” she said, lips quirking as she fought the impulse to smile back. “You know that?”

  “I like the sound of that, too,” he said, relieved that they had finally found their way past the awkwardness that had plagued them throughout the afternoon. Or maybe it was the promise of spending the night alone with a partner watching his back that cheered him.

  Or a night alone with the beautiful, brave woman who was distracting his thoughts—and invading his dreams—far too often.

  He had chosen a small locally run lodge not far outside of town rather than one of the chains that catered to the annual flood of visitors that descended on both Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks and the surrounding ski resorts. Known for its scrupulously clean but rustic side-by-side log-cabin-style rooms as much as the staff’s hospitality, the Mountain View was the perfect spot, dark and quiet enough that the mastermind might well feel safe approaching.

  After referring a time or two to the directions he had printed using a Dead River Ranch computer that was accessible to all employees, he pulled up to the lodge’s office.

  “You’d better wait out in the truck while I check in,” he told Hope. “Otherwise, I’m betting I won’t get a friendly reception.”

  “Why not?” she started before answering her own question. “My bruises, right. I get it. I saw that death-laser look the clerk gave you when I went into the gas station to get the restroom key.”

  Dylan winced. “The moment you left, she gave me a piece of her mind to go with it. Told me I ought to get down on my knees and beg forgiveness to the Lord and you both for leaving a pretty thing like you in that condition.”

  “Ouch,” Hope said.

  Reluctantly, Dylan returned her revolver. “I’m not expecting any trouble yet, but just in case, you keep this. Just try not to wave it around and scare any random guest that walks by.”

  “Or moose, maybe, from the looks of this place,” she said, peering into a darkness broken only by a few security lights.

  “You shoot one of those,” he joked, “you be sure to field dress it for our dinner before I get back. Driving makes me hungry.”

  “I’m beginning to think that everything makes you hungry.”

  “Guilty,” he allowed, then went inside to take care of the registration, a part of him braced for the sharp crack of a gunshot just outside.

  * * *

  Nervous as Hope felt about Dylan setting himself up as a target, she grew at least as worried about the prospect of spending the night together in the same room. Because no matter how she warned herself against growing too attached, she was finding it more and more difficult to resist his strength, his kindness, even the protectiveness that she found so maddening.

  She told herself it was all wrong, that she was only lonely. And that if she didn’t learn to stand on her own, she would never survive the coming months. With this in mind, she did her best to keep her distance over dinner at a candlelit corner table in a little café where Dylan ordered a massive rib eye while she dived into the crispest, most delicious salad she’d eaten in months. Before the meal was halfway over, though, he lured her from her quiet mood with stories of his life on the rodeo circuit that soon had them laughing and teasing as if they’d known each other for years.

  When the meal was finished, he did his best to coax her into dessert. “Be a shame to pass up this cherry pie. Says right here on the menu it’s ‘world famous.’”

  “Really, Dylan, I’m full.”

  “You aren’t one of those women who’re scared of food, now, are you?”

  “You funny, funny man,” she said. “You’re talking to a person who threw an ice-cream-sundae party the day she retired from the pageant circuit. When I’m feeling more like myself, I could eat you under the table any day.”

  His gaze deepened, locking onto hers with an intensity that made her mouth go dry and her heartbeat speed up. For there was no mistaking the raw sexual attraction. “So who are you feeling like now?” he asked quietly.

  She shivered, imagining him peeling back the layers, layers that would lead from Hope Woods back to Dena Miller, the name she’d used in Iowa, and straight past Aurora Worthington-Calabretta. Would lead him finally to the innocent girl she’d been so long ago she’d lost touch with that self.

  She only knew it was the part of her that ached for him, that young girl who had loved her weekly riding lessons so much, she had dreamed of running away aboard the old schooling mount she favored and heading to the wide-open spaces of the West. There, of course, she’d imagined she would meet a handsome cowboy who would win her heart.

  But Dylan was more than the embodiment of a childish fantasy, and he deserved more than a woman who could only bring him pain.

  “I don’t know who I am anymore,” she answered. “I only know I want to be a better person.”

  “I’m beginning to realize,” he told her, “that I don’t know a better person. Not a braver one, at a
ny rate.”

  “If that’s what you’re thinking,” she said, her voice strained to the point of breaking, “I’m afraid that I’ve misled you. Because you don’t really know anything about me. You don’t know the worst.”

  * * *

  After Hope’s admission, Dylan didn’t bring up dessert again or even after-dinner coffee. Instead, he called for the check, which he insisted on paying in spite of her offer, and they returned to the room.

  On check-in, he’d requested a room change, moving the two of them to a unit with a pair of double beds so she would feel more comfortable and he would be less tempted. Because whether she felt he knew her or not, there was no way he would be able to hide what she did to him if they tried to sleep in the same bed...or keep his hands from exploring that lush body.

  He watched her all too intently as she sat on the edge of the bed she’d claimed and checked the load on the revolver, a stark reminder that they weren’t here to act out his fantasies.

  “So you really know about guns?” he asked, still holding the shotgun he had brought in from the truck.

  The cylinder clicked shut, and she tucked the weapon into the waist of her jeans. “Don’t be so surprised. My father wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “My grandfather patented some kind of industrial fastener that was a huge breakthrough at the time. Made him a fortune...nothing like Jethro Colton’s, but let’s say he was more than comfortable. Then someone—a couple of disgruntled employees, it turned out—kidnapped his son.”

  “Your uncle?” he asked, reminded once again that the rich had no immunity from grief.

  She nodded. “My father’s older brother. A ransom was paid, but...the body was found a few weeks later, in The Meadowlands. My grandparents never got over it, and neither did my father.”

  “So he did his best to keep you safe.”

  “Always.” She blinked hard and looked away. “Until my problems got so big, they swallowed him up, too.”