Her Colton P.I.

by Amelia Autin

  “Yeah.” The rasped word was accompanied by a sudden smile that split Ethan’s face. “A boy. Eight pounds, eleven ounces. Twenty-one inches.”

  “Wow, big baby. Must take after his dad.” Chris grinned and wrapped his brother in a bear hug. “Congratulations, little brother. You did good.”

  Ethan returned the hug, and when the two men finally separated, Ethan dashed a hand against his eyes, swiping away the moisture. “Got something in my eye,” he muttered, turning away.

  “Same here,” Chris said, following suit.

  But then the brothers faced each other again, smiling to beat the band. Ethan shook his head. “I can never thank you enough, Chris.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Don’t give me that BS. I should never have left Lizzie this close to her due date, especially since Joyce and Bill weren’t there. But she swore to me she’d be okay, and I was only going into town.” His eyes took on an expression Chris remembered from their childhood, when the two youngest boys—Sam and Ethan—had looked up to their older “stair steps” and wanted to emulate them. And all four of them had looked up to Trevor, the oldest. “If not for you,” Ethan continued in a grateful voice, “I don’t know what Lizzie would have done.”

  Chris flexed his right hand and joked, “That’s some woman you’ve got there. She almost broke my hand twice, so I figure she’s tough enough to have worked out some other solution.” Ethan laughed at that, and the emotional moment passed.

  The brothers collapsed into two of the waiting-room chairs. Chris dug a hand into his pocket, pulled out Ethan’s keys and handed them to him, saying, “Better give you these before I forget. Your truck’s in the visitor’s lot. Two rows down.”

  “Thanks.”

  After a moment Chris asked, “So you got a name picked out?”

  “Lizzie and I had been toying with names ahead of time, but she and I talked just now and we’re changing it. James Christopher Colton.” Chris got that choked-up feeling again and couldn’t have spoken even if he’d wanted to. “We figured a middle name would be okay. That way if you ever have a son and want to name him after yourself—” Ethan broke off as if he’d just remembered Chris’s baby that never was, and a stricken look filled his eyes. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t think... I didn’t mean to...”

  Chris tapped Ethan’s jaw with his closed fist, but lightly. “Yeah, I know you didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t sweat it. And tell Lizzie I’m purely honored.”

  The two men were silent for a few moments, then Ethan said gravely, “You know, I never wanted to marry. Never wanted to have kids. With a serial killer for a father, I...I didn’t want to pass on the Colton name, or—” repugnance was in his voice “—Matthew’s blood.”

  “I understand.” This wasn’t the time to get into what he’d planned to tell Ethan earlier, that Chris had completely severed any emotional bond to the father he’d once known.

  “But life doesn’t always work out the way you plan,” Ethan continued. “I never planned on Lizzie. I never planned on a baby. But Lizzie...well...”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Chris teased, trying to make light of another emotionally charged moment by using the same words he’d used in his truck on the way to the hospital. “You love her, you need her, you can’t live without her.”

  “Yeah.” The fervent way Ethan said the one word told Chris that—all joking aside—his brother adored his wife. And an ache speared through him. Not because he’d loved Laura and lost her, but because he hadn’t loved her as much as Ethan loved Lizzie, as if all light and hope in life emanated from her.

  “Lizzie and our baby—they’re everything to me now. And I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could. I thought I could cut myself off from life. Lizzie proved me wrong.”

  Simple words. Not particularly profound. Not even the kind of words that evoked a strong emotional reaction. And yet...there was something in those simple words that seemed to reverberate in Chris’s mind. I thought I could cut myself off from life.

  Wasn’t that what he’d done? When Laura had died, and their baby with her, hadn’t he tried to cut himself off from life, tried to build a fence around his heart? Hadn’t he retreated—like Superman—into his fortress of solitude?

  Those he already loved—his sisters and brothers, Peg and Joe and their kids—he couldn’t stop loving them. But he’d walled himself off from loving another woman, because...

  Because what you don’t love you can’t lose.

  It sounded like a quotation from something. If it was, he couldn’t place it, but it seemed singularly appropriate.

  Only...he hadn’t really been able to do it. Holly’s boys had crept into his heart in just three short days. Identical twins be damned—he could tell them apart, and not by their tiny physical disparities. Ian, the outgoing one, with his “damn the torpedoes” outlook on life. Jamie, the shy one, with that “don’t hurt me” look in his eyes. Holly’s eyes.

  That was when it hit him. Ian and Jamie weren’t the only ones who’d slipped beneath his emotional fences. Holly had, too.

  * * *

  Chris stayed to keep his brother company at the hospital until Ethan went up to visit Lizzie again, in her room this time with the baby, dragging Chris along. Lizzie looked a thousand times better than the last time Chris had seen her, and baby James looked so much like Ethan it was almost comical. Chris knew you couldn’t tell what color a newborn’s eyes were going to be, but between Lizzie’s green eyes and Ethan’s hazel ones, he figured the odds were good his nephew’s eyes would at least be hazel.

  He kissed his sister-in-law’s cheek and told her he’d back her in an arm wrestling competition anytime—making both Lizzie and Ethan laugh. He admired the baby, marveling that something so tiny could have such powerful lungs. “Just like you, Lizzie,” he said, again making them laugh. Then he left the three of them to have some family time alone together and headed out.

  * * *

  It was after dark by the time Chris finally reached the Merrill house. His stomach was rumbling—he’d skipped lunch, and breakfast was a distant memory, but even if Peg asked him to stay for dinner he couldn’t. He’d left Wally at his house, not realizing he’d be gone all day. Although Wally was outside in the fenced yard with a food bowl and a water dish, the food was probably long gone, and maybe the water, too.

  Peg answered the door, Susan at her heels, and the minute he walked in Susan grabbed his knee. “Pick me up, Unca Chris.” He obliged, heading for the family room with her propped on his left shoulder.

  “Everything okay?” Peg asked, trailing behind him.

  Chris waited until he reached the family room to make the announcement. “A boy,” he told Joe and Peg. “James Christopher Colton. Mother and baby are doing great. Ethan I’m not so sure about—he looked pretty shaky to me.”

  The Merrills laughed. “Yeah, Peg wanted me in the delivery room when that one was born,” Joe said, pointing at his daughter cuddled in Chris’s arms. “But I nearly passed out. Remember, Peg?”

  She snorted. “Yes, but I wasn’t about to let you off the hook when Bobby was born.” She didn’t say it—little pitchers have big ears, he thought with an inward smile—but he knew Peg well enough to know what she was thinking. If you’re there for the conception, you damn well better be there for the delivery.

  Joe said something in reply, but Chris wasn’t really listening because just then Holly walked into the room and took a seat near the twins. This was the first time he’d seen her since that morning, and now, after his startling revelation in the hospital...now he couldn’t seem to look away. Her long blond hair was clipped neatly away from her face on one side—she’d ditched the dark-haired wig, and Chris couldn’t be sorry. Not when she looked like this. He remembered the corn-silk feel of her hair between his fingers last night when he’d—

&n
bsp; He put a clamp on that memory. But then he heard Holly saying in his mind, It’s going to happen, Chris. Not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow night. But it’s going to happen.

  Which was why he’d stopped off at the pharmacy in the hospital before he left. That package was hidden in the armrest of his truck, tucked there so Holly wouldn’t see it and think he was assuming...well...what he was assuming.

  “Staying for dinner?” Peg asked.

  “What? Oh. No, we can’t,” Chris replied. “Wally’s been home alone since this morning. Outside,” he clarified. “But I’m sure he’s as hungry as I am.” He looked at Holly again. “You about ready to go?”

  A stricken expression fleetingly crossed her face, then she pasted a smile in its place. She knelt between Ian and Jamie, who were arguing over who deserved the bigger truck, and tugged them into one last embrace. “Mommy has to go now. You be good for Ms. Peg and Mr. Joe, okay?”

  “’Kay,” Ian said, and Jamie echoed, “’Kay.”

  She kissed them both, then stood, stony-eyed, as if she refused to let herself cry in front of her sons. “Say goodbye to Uncle Chris.”

  Chris handed Susan to her father, then picked his way through the toys scattered across the rug. He leaned over, curled an arm around each boy and lifted them simultaneously, tickling their tummies with his fingers. “You be good for Ms. Peg and Mr. Joe,” he reiterated and was rewarded with the same chorus of ’kays, giggling ones this time.

  He didn’t know what made him do it—well, yes, he did—but he popped a kiss on Jamie’s nose, then on Ian’s, before he set them down. Then he grabbed Holly’s hand and tugged her toward the doorway. “Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s get out of here before the waterworks begin.”

  They were already out the door before Holly gulped air and said, “I didn’t think Ian and Jamie were going to cry. I’ve left them with Peg before, and they—”

  “I wasn’t talking about the twins. I was talking about you.”

  Chapter 12

  “I wasn’t going to cry,” Holly insisted as Chris held the passenger door of his truck for her.

  “Weren’t you?” His voice held tenderness and understanding.

  “Well...” She gave a little huff of semitearful laughter as she buckled her seat belt. “Not where the boys could see me anyway.” Then she realized something. “Wait. My SUV is here.”

  “Yeah, I know. Give me the keys.” When she did, he closed the door and left, but was back a minute later, climbing into the driver’s seat. “I gave Joe your keys. I think it’s best for now we leave your SUV here, rather than at my house.”

  He was already putting the truck into gear as he said it, and Holly asked, “Why?” Wanting an answer before they got too far away.

  “Because I don’t want the McCays to know you’re at my house, not until we’re ready to spring the trap. Do I think they suspect anything yet? No. Am I willing to risk it? No. I told Joe to park your SUV in their garage so no one can see the license plates.” He glanced at her. “We’re not that far away. If we need it, we can get it. But I don’t think we will.”

  She didn’t know why a little dart of panic went through her. She was so used to having the freedom of her own wheels—was that it?

  “Besides,” Chris said drily, breaking into her thoughts, “this way you can’t sneak off to visit the twins when my back is turned.”

  That made her laugh for some reason. “I wouldn’t do that,” she protested. “I already agreed it would be safer—”

  He reached across the seat and clasped her hand for a moment. “I know you did. But this way you won’t be tempted.” Then he let her hand go so he could shift gears, saying softly, “You’re a good mother, Holly.”

  “I try to be.”

  “You remind me of my own mother.”

  When he said that, she remembered Chris had been eleven when his mother died. Old enough to have vivid memories of her. “What was she like?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Then he said slowly, “Beautiful...to me. Now when I look at old photos, I realize she wasn’t really beautiful. Not classically beautiful. But if ever a woman’s heart reflected in her face, hers did.”

  She gathered her courage and asked, “Why did your father kill her?”

  At first she thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. Then he said, “No one can really answer that except him. She loved him through everything—the loss of his ranch, financial hardship, seven children. And for the longest time no one had a clue why he did it, because he refused to say. Not even when he was convicted of her murder. He finally told Ethan back in February—Ethan was the one who found her dead—that she figured out he was the bull’s-eye serial killer.

  “That’s how my father used to mark all his victims,” he explained, “with a red bull’s-eye drawn on their foreheads.” She heard him breathe deeply in the darkness. “She caught him in bloody clothes one day, which he tried to explain away. But then she found the permanent red marker in his pocket. And she saw something on the news the next day that made her put all the pieces together. She confronted him, told him what she knew and insisted he turn himself in. In a—I guess you could say a fit of rage...or fear...or both—he killed her. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d marked her forehead the way he’d marked his other victims.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered helplessly, her heart aching for him.

  “Then he panicked,” Chris continued, still in that deliberate way. “He realized he had to get rid of her body somehow, so he went to the garage...for a big trash bag.”

  She couldn’t help her soft gasp of dismay. “Oh, Chris, no.”

  “Yeah...a trash bag. He killed her, and then he— Like she was garbage.” This time she reached across the distance and touched his arm in empathy. He downshifted and turned a corner before adding, “He didn’t know that in the few minutes he was gone, Ethan had come home from school—I told you Ethan found her. He was terrified. Imagine, you’re seven years old and you find your mother’s bloody, lifeless body.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He ran to a neighbor’s for help. But when they got back, the body was gone. Only the blood remained. But even though they never found Mama’s body, Ethan’s story of seeing her with the bull’s-eye on her forehead led the police to finally arrest my—to finally arrest Matthew Colton, one of the most infamous serial killers in Texas history. Arrested. Tried. Convicted.”

  Holly hadn’t missed the slight catch in Chris’s voice or the way he’d changed my father to Matthew Colton. This morning he’d said he needed to visit his father in prison. What happened between this morning and now? she wondered. But she wasn’t going to ask. If Chris wanted to tell her...that was a different story. If Chris wanted to tell her...he would.

  * * *

  Wally leaped to his feet and let out one bark of welcome when Chris pulled his truck into the driveway and parked. Chris grabbed the pharmacy bag from the armrest once Holly exited, and shoved it into his front pocket so she couldn’t see it. Wally was eagerly wagging his tail and standing right by the front gate when Chris unlatched it and held the gate open for Holly, then closed it behind him so Wally couldn’t escape. “Down, boy,” he said when Wally threatened to jump on Holly in his exuberance at seeing them, but he wasn’t surprised when Holly merely ruffled Wally’s fur and let him shadow her footsteps to the front door.

  Chris paused and picked up Wally’s food bowl and water dish. “Empty. Just what I was afraid of.” He unlocked the door, reached in and punched in the alarm code, then turned on the hall light before he let Holly enter.

  “Are you really worried someone might have broken in?”

  “No, but I couldn’t take my gun to the prison with me today, so...” He caught the expression on her face. “I’m careful about gun safety, Holly,” he said levelly. “I would ne
ver leave my gun where the twins could reach it, I promise. But in my line of work...a gun is practically a necessity.” He flashed a grin at her. “Besides, this is Texas.”

  He didn’t wait for her answer, just trod down the hallway toward the kitchen, flicking on the lights as he went. He filled the water dish, then he found the scoop in the dog food bag, filled the bowl and placed it beside the water Wally was already furiously lapping at. “Sorry, boy,” he murmured, patting the dog’s side. “Didn’t expect to be gone this long.”

  Holly had followed Chris into the kitchen, and now she said, “You never explained what happened. What I mean is, Peg told me you were taking your sister-in-law to the hospital because she was having a baby, but...”

  “Let me get dinner started,” he replied, “and then I’ll tell you.”

  A guilty expression crossed Holly’s face. “No, it’s my turn to make dinner,” she said. “I can’t let you do all the cooking—that wouldn’t be fair.” She bustled toward the fridge. “You talk while I cook.”

  “Whatever it is, make it quick, okay? I missed lunch and I’m starved.”

  * * *

  Twenty-five minutes later Chris sat back at the kitchen table, replete. Holly’s omelet and toast hadn’t been fancy, but it had been good. Best of all it had been quick.

  “I was terrified Lizzie was going to have that baby right there in the front seat of my truck,” he confessed, finishing up his story. “But it all worked out.”

  Holly shook her head, a smile curving her lips. “I doubt you were terrified.” Her admiring eyes conveyed her conviction that whatever happened, Chris would deal with it competently. And his male ego responded. So maybe you did okay, his ego seemed to be saying, puffing out its chest a little. Maybe you deserved to have baby James named for you after all.

  But his ego wasn’t the only male part of him responding to Holly. And it wasn’t only food he’d been hungering for. Now that one appetite had been satisfied...