“I called the detective. His name’s Novak.”
Her hands stilled. She stared at her gym bag.
“What did he say?” Still, she wouldn’t look at him.
“Mia.”
Slowly she raised her eyes, met his gaze.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m packing. I need to move back into my room.”
He came up to her and took her by the shoulders. His touch was firm, yet gentle, controlling. Panic washed through her as her skin turned red-hot. Her gaze flicked to the door, to escape.
“Mia, please, just stay the night, until the DNA test is done. Besides, I want to show you what I’ve found.” He paused, a strange look entering his smoky-blue eyes. “And I need to talk to you.”
She swallowed, emotion surging up into her throat. “Cole.” Her voice came out husky. “I...I need to step away, step back. From this— Us. Until I know...until we know what’s going on.”
He held her gaze in silence for several beats.
“Okay,” he said quietly, his hand sliding down her arm, encircling her wrist. “But first come see this.” He drew her away from her half-packed gym bag and into the living area. Pulling up a chair besides his, he said, “Take a seat.”
Mia did, slowly. He sat beside her, too close. She could feel his body heat and she wished to heaven he’d put a shirt on. He reached for the mouse and the eagle talons on his forearm stretched as his muscle moved under them, as if readying to grasp prey.
And that’s exactly what she felt like right now, prey, mesmerized by the glare of a hungry eagle.
Cole clicked on a link and the website of the Jackson P.D. opened onto her screen. Mia concentrated on inhaling a long, slow breath of air. Just listen to him, then pack your bags and go down to your room...it’ll be fine.
As he clicked a link on the web page, he said, without looking at her, “How’d it go with Dylan?”
“How do you know I spoke with him?”
“Saw you from Jethro’s window.”
Unnerved, she hesitated. “It wasn’t his truck.”
Cole met her gaze, his face so close, his lips. The memory of their kisses swelled hotly through her mind. Mia swallowed against the lump of desire building painfully in her throat.
“I... Dylan...also said that a groom confirmed Midnight was not in his stall at the time you were attacked, and that he found an unexplained cut on the stallion’s shoulder.”
His gazed dipped briefly to her mouth, and his breathing changed subtly. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t him who rode the horse, Mia. Did you see Dylan’s truck for yourself?”
“I... No.” She felt herself leaning toward him, aching for the feel of those lips against hers again. Mia pushed back her chair abruptly and launched to her feet. She went to the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the cupboard. “Want some water?”
“No. You okay, Mia?”
“Fine. I just hate you implicating Dylan like this. Tell me what the detective said.” She shoved the glass under the ice dispenser, and cubes clattered into the glass. She filled it to the top with cold water and took a deep sip. She stayed behind the counter. He watched her intently, a strange look on his face—a mix of hunger, regret, something else Mia couldn’t place.
It did nothing to quell her nerves or the edginess riding hotly through her.
“The detective, Luke Novak, is a police chief in Jackson now.” Cole stood as he spoke and came over to the counter. He drew up a stool and sat opposite Mia. She was glad for the counter between them and she remained standing.
“Novak confirmed that he found no irrefutable evidence of a child at the time, but he believed there was one.”
Mia lowered her glass slowly and set it on the counter. “Really?”
“Yes. Shortly after Cole was kidnapped, Desiree Beale arrived in Jackson and took a job at a diner. One of the waitresses who subsequently bought the diner—Marnie Sayers—drove Desiree home one day, and when Marnie dropped Desiree off, she thought she heard a baby crying inside Desiree’s room.”
Cole leaned forward, bare arms resting on the counter. Mia resisted stepping back, out of the reach of his darkly sensual aura. Again, she wished he’d put his shirt back on. Her gaze lowered to the tattoo across his chest—the dog tag and wings. Death before Dishonor.
“Marnie apparently asked Desiree about the crying and according to her, Desiree acted weird. Then someone else saw Desiree getting into a cab with a small child wrapped in a blue blanket. According to Novak, the cab driver confirmed that he did give a woman with a baby a ride that day, but she paid cash and he couldn’t confirm that it was in fact Desiree Beale—she’d been wearing big sunglasses and a scarf over her hair.” He reached for the glass of water Mia had left on the counter, and he took a deep swallow. She watched his Adam’s apple move and she focused on taking in another deep breath, her world narrowing, logic skittering away at the edges.
“Are you saying you think Desiree took Cole with her to Jackson? And that Jethro knew about it?”
“I think he might have condoned it, Mia. And I think Jethro helped make it look like a robbery and kidnapping. He knew all the time that a ransom note would never come.”
“But why?”
“I phoned Marnie Sayers—she still owns the diner. But the woman got real cagey when I asked who had owned the diner before her. She said it was a woman named Faye Donner. And that it was Faye who had initially given both her and Desiree waitressing jobs. But I haven’t been able to come up with an address for any Faye Donner.”
“Another Faye?”
“I know, Faye Frick, Faye Donner, it’s an interesting coincidence. Come take a look at this.”
Reluctantly Mia went back to seat herself beside him at her laptop.
Cole pulled up an old photograph of Faye Donner posing with Desire Beale and Marnie Sayers at the diner. “Novak sent this pic to me—he’s keen to help. The fact that Beale’s murder was never solved has been dogging him for years.”
Mia leaned sharply forward as the picture filled the screen. The resemblance was uncanny.
She looked slowly up at Cole, her heart rushing. “It could be her—she looks like Faye Frick, the Colton nanny. I... Faye Frick’s hair was black, and she was at least forty pounds heavier than the woman in this diner photo, but add a few decades...” Words failed Mia as the possibility sunk in.
Faye Donner looked like Faye Frick. She could be Dylan’s biological mother.
Chapter 11
Mia stared at Cole. “Okay, let’s just take a step back here. You think there was a baby in Jackson with Desiree?”
“That’s what Novak believes, he just couldn’t nail the proof at the time.”
She leaned forward, studying the image of Faye Donner on her laptop screen again. A chill trickled down her spine. “All right,” she said quietly. “For argument’s sake, let’s say that Desiree Beale was the one who took baby Cole, and that Jethro knew what his sister-in-law had done. Desiree then goes to Jackson where she’s hired as a waitress in a diner owned by this Faye Donner. Next thing we know, Desiree has been shot dead, the baby goes missing, the diner is sold and a woman named Faye Frick shows up in Dead River with a seven-month-old baby boy, and she says she’s looking for work on this ranch.” Mia glanced up. “Could it be possible? Could Faye Donner have taken baby Cole after Desiree’s death and come here, claiming Cole was her own biological child?”
“Hypothetically, it’s possible.”
“Which could also explain how the piece of blue baby blanket ended up here.”
He nodded, pupils darkening as his gaze locked with hers. Sexual energy swelled like a tangible force between them.
“That...that would mean Dylan Frick could be Cole Colton.”
“Yes,” he whispered, his lids lowering slightly.
His lashes were so dense, so long. His mouth so close. Mia could hardly think straight as she met the intensity of his dark-blue eyes. He smelled so good, of shampoo, a touch of aftershave. She could feel the warmth radiating from his bare skin. And these startling revelations, the weight of them, were being clouded by something physical that was rolling so powerfully through her body that logic was blurring along the edges of her mind.
She needed to back away. That had been her plan.
But Mia was also compelled to finish hearing this out.
“If Dylan is Cole,” she said, softly, “then...who are you?”
He swallowed.
“That DNA test tomorrow—it’s not going to be a paternal match, is it?” she whispered.
He raked his hand through his still-damp hair, the movement flexing his chest muscle. Then he got up suddenly and went to fetch the remainder of her water from the kitchenette counter.
Mia turned to watch him. He stood with his powerfully muscled back to her as he drained the glass and set it down with a clunk. He stood like that for a while.
Something akin to anger, defiance, rose in Mia’s chest as she realized she wanted to think he was Cole. That was the simple truth. She was no better than the rest of the Coltons, because she was afraid of the truth now, and what it might mean to her.
Mia got up and went to him. She placed her palm flat against the back of his shoulder. He tensed. His skin was hot. “You could still be him,” she said. “This is all just conjecture.”
He didn’t answer, did not turn to face her.
“Why?” she whispered, lowering her hand to his waist. “Why would Jethro let go of his own son?”
“Perhaps he struck some kind of Faustian bargain with Desiree,” he said, his voice thick, husky. Still, he wouldn’t turn to face her. “Maybe Desiree knew something and she wanted her sister’s baby in return for secrecy.”
“And when you arrived in Dead River with that photo of Brittany and her baby, asking questions about the Coltons, and you looked so much like Jethro himself in his younger days—someone thought to frame you as Cole, and kill you?”
Slowly, he turned. His gaze lowered to her lips. Mia’s mouth went bone dry and her heart started to jackhammer against her ribs. She fiddled with her empty ring finger and that gaping hole in her stomach began to pound with an almost painful need to be filled, with him, all of him. Mia ached to open herself to him fully, wrap her legs around him, take him into her, hold him tight against her body. Before it was all shattered. Before she found out who he really was.
“I still don’t understand why someone would want it to appear that Cole had returned, and then been killed.”
“To stop all the questions, maybe.” He put his hand on her arm. Electricity sparked through her. He moved his palm slowly up to her shoulder. Mia tried to swallow, tried to breathe.
“Mia—” His hand crested her shoulder and slowly he slid it up to the bare skin of her neck. He cupped the back of her neck with his fingers, so strong yet gentle. Her vision began to narrow. “I need to tell you something. I—”
But she quickly pressed two fingers against his lips. She didn’t want to hear. Whatever it was. Not now, not yet. By tomorrow night this could all be changed, over. And this thing between them that felt so secret and intimate and precious would be forever shattered. This might be the last time she’d be with him like this, have an opportunity. And right now she wanted sex—with this mysterious dark stranger. She wanted sex, hot and fast and hard.
She wanted to feel deliciously female and wicked. She wanted to claw back all those things she’d lost, or been fighting against, since Brad abandoned her. Since she’d allowed shame to claim and inhibit her. She thought about the condoms she’d seen in the bathroom cabinet and her lower body turned hot.
With his thumb, he tilted her face up. A muscle pulsed fast at his jaw. The urge to kiss him was fierce. Consuming. Overwhelming
Panic surged hot and sudden in Mia, riding on the back of her lust. Would she be able to do this and walk away tomorrow if it all went to hell in a handbasket? Her eyes began to burn, and inside she began to tremble. But her body had already overtaken her mind.
Reaching up, Mia curved her hand behind his neck and drew him down to her. She pressed her mouth over his lips. Warm. Salty. A wave of molten desire swamped Mia’s brain wholly as she moved her mouth over his, her tongue flicking, licking, teasing, seeking the crevice between his lips.
Something cracked in him, and he yanked her up against his bare chest, opening his mouth under hers, kissing her back hard, furious, his tongue running along her teeth.
Mia met his fury, desperate to obliterate the wasted years, to push away the past. To be woman. To be Mia again. She ran her hand down his flat stomach, feeling the ridges of muscle, the delicious coarseness of the line of hair that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. The memory of him naked on the cot in the infirmary flashed in her mind, the flare of hair between his thighs. The size of him. She moved her hand lower, cupping the hard bulge in his jeans. He groaned against her mouth, then pulled back suddenly. He looked unfocused, dangerous.
“Mia...” His voice was hoarse. “Are...you sure...”
She silenced him by aggressively pressing her mouth back over his while she used both hands to undo his belt buckle, then his zipper. She pushed down the front of his briefs, sliding her hand in. His erection swelled hot and hard into her hand and she could barely breathe. She began to stroke, caress, milk the quivering length of him, as a wild kind of fury built dangerously in her chest.
Quickly, Mia crouched, drawing his jeans over his calves, and her lips met his erection. She teased him with her tongue as his jeans pooled on the floor. Taking him into her mouth completely, she traced the rigid scar that ran up the inside of his thigh, up to his groin.
He moaned, his voice low and feral in his chest as he dug his hands tightly into her hair, guiding her motion.
As she worked him, Mia could feel him beginning to vibrate, the muscles in his legs shaking. Suddenly, his hands fisted in her hair and he stopped her, pulling her head back. And in a sudden powerful movement he swung her up onto the kitchen counter and fumbled wildly to undo her jeans. He yanked her jeans down her hips and slid his hand into the front of her panties, cupping her hard. Mia gasped, throwing her head back as his fingers pushed up into her.
He found her sensitive nub, scoring, caressing, twisting his fingers inside her. Mia opened her legs wider, drawing her knees up. With his free hand he yanked off her boots. They clattered to the floor. Raising her up off the counter, he pulled off her jeans. Kissing her deeply, he unbuttoned her shirt, unclasped her bra. He moved his mouth down her neck, taking her nipple between his teeth, encircling it with his tongue as he moved his fingers inside her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard the delicate lace of her panties ripping.
“The bathroom,” she whispered. “Protection, in the bathroom cabinet.”
She sat naked on the counter, her body shaking with need while he walked buck naked toward the bathroom. Her heart jackhammered. She could—should—stop right here. Get off this counter, pull on her clothes, leave this room.
But it was too late. He came out of the bathroom, walking toward her, his eyes consuming her, his erection sheathed and gleaming between his massive thighs. His face was etched with hunger, his lids low. Mia tried to swallow as he neared.
Next thing, his hands were under her buttocks and he yanked her up off the counter and down onto the length of his erection. It went in hard, deep. Mia gasped, throwing her head back. Her stomach swooped and her vision swirled into shades of scarlet and black.
Hooking her ankles behind his waist, her arms around his neck, Mia rocked her hips against his, every nerve in her body singing, raw, screaming for release at the feel of him inside her. Her muscles began to tremble, her hand fisted in his
hair. A vase of flowers went crashing down from the kitchen counter, scattering water and blooms across the floor.
Holding her tightly, skin to skin, he carried her through to his bedroom while still kissing her aggressively. Her foot connected with a lampshade and the lamp fell off the table. In the bedroom the drapes were open. Outside the light had grown dim as twilight crawled in from the shadows of the mountains.
He dropped her onto the bed, and Mia flung backward, hair splaying out over his pillow as she spread-eagled across the sheets.
He stood there, staring down at her, naked as the day he was born, his erection powerful. His eyes looked black, dangerous. A dark thrill arrowed down through Mia’s chest into her belly.
He leaned over her, bracing his hands on either side of her body. Kneeing her thighs open wide he bent his head down, kissed her mouth again, thrusting his tongue. She arched her pelvis up, desperate, screaming inside for more of him. But he didn’t give, not yet. Instead, he moved his mouth slowly down the column of her neck, flicking his tongue softly into the hollow at the base of her throat, trailing his lips down so achingly slowly and gently she felt a scream of desperation building in her chest.
He teased her belly button with his tongue—wet, warm. Mia thrust up her hips, quivering as his lips moved lower, lower until he found her folds, and his tongue entered her. She sucked air in sharply at the sensation, her fists balling the sheets at her side as he moved his tongue rhythmically inside her, his teeth scoring her swollen, sensitive nub. Mia’s eyes began to burn, filling with tears as her body began to shudder.
“No...” she whispered. “No...not yet...please....”
He stopped, brought his body over hers, holding up his weight. Then even more slowly, he pressed just the tip of his erection against her folds. Mia was unable to breathe.
He teased her, pushing just the tip into her, before sliding it out. With the next thrust he gave her just a bit more, then a tiny bit more. Mia went almost blind with need. She lifted her hips high, desperate for all of him, and with a sudden thrust he was inside her to the hilt, the weight of his body pressing her back down into the bed. He ground his hips urgently against hers.
The Missing Colton Page 20