Colton's Cinderella Bride

by Lisa Childs

  And now panic struck Juliette’s heart. Pandora had already called them a family during her tea party.

  Was she setting her heart on them all being together?

  Juliette smiled back at her daughter. But as a mother, she had to caution her. “Remember that Daddy doesn’t live with us,” she told her. “Daddy doesn’t even live in Red Ridge.”

  Blake sucked in a breath. Then he forced a smile and remarked, “Would I be better-looking if I did?”

  He would be—then Juliette wouldn’t be so worried about him breaking her and Pandora’s hearts.

  “I just want to remind Pandora that we can’t have family tea parties every day. Eventually you’ll be going back to your home.”

  “Where do you live, Daddy?” the little girl asked. “In a castle?”

  “Right now I live in a hotel suite,” he said.

  And Juliette wondered about his home in other countries. Did he just live out of hotel suites in them, too?

  That was no kind of life for a child. But then, because of her, he hadn’t known he had a child.

  “What’s a hotel sweet?” asked the little girl. “Is it made of candy?”

  He chuckled and leaned forward to press his lips against her forehead. “No. Then little girls like you would eat it all up.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I would.”

  How had he gotten to know their daughter so quickly? How had they bonded already? Was it because they had always had a bond but never known about it—because of her?

  The guilt pulled heavily on Juliette again. But she pushed it aside to focus on what was best for Pandora. And she—and the life they’d built in Red Ridge—was.

  “I love our house,” Pandora told her father. “I love my room. And my toys. And Mommy tucking me in with Sasha sleeping on my bed.”

  Sasha was on the bed now. That was why she and Blake had had to kneel on the floor. While neither the beagle nor the little girl was that big, combined they took up the entire twin.

  “When can we go home, Mommy?” she asked. And finally her eyelids began to droop as she struggled to stay awake. No doubt the little smarty had figured out that once she fell asleep, Juliette left.

  “As soon as we put the bad man in jail, we’ll go home,” Juliette assured her.

  Despite the blankets and the dog covering her, the little girl shivered.

  And Juliette regretted bringing up the bad man. Pandora didn’t have imaginary monsters to fear; she had a real one.

  “It’ll be soon,” Juliette promised. She would make sure she wasn’t lying. She would keep that promise to her daughter. She had to—for all their sakes.

  As if taking her at her word, Pandora slipped into slumber. A breath sighed out between her lips.

  Juliette kissed her forehead and rose from the floor. Blake stood up, too, and reached for her across the bed. But Juliette pulled away and walked into the hall.

  “You don’t have to be the one to get him,” Blake said. “You can let someone else catch him.”

  “Like they caught the Groom Killer?” She shook her head. “We’re already spread too thin. I need to stay on the job. I need to stay focused.”

  So she couldn’t get involved any deeper with him. He was messing with her sleep and her head and her heart.

  Blake gestured toward the bedroom door she’d pulled mostly closed. “She’s the one you need to focus on,” he said.

  She sucked in a breath. “How dare you critique my parenting! I’ve been doing it alone just fine all these years.”

  “That was your choice,” he said. “Not mine.”

  “What is your choice?” she asked. “Are you going to stick around and be a real parent? Or will you be taking off once she’s no longer in danger?”

  He sucked in a breath now. But he just shook his head. “We can’t talk about that here.”

  He was right. She didn’t want Pandora or Elle to overhear their argument. And she knew they were going to argue. But that was all they were going to do.

  She couldn’t make love with him again—because she was starting to fall in love with him. And she wasn’t about to risk her heart on a man who was leaving—again.

  * * *

  The bodyguards smuggled out Juliette and Blake as carefully as they’d smuggled them into the safe house. Blake wasn’t worried that anyone would find the place where Finn had stashed their daughter. That was why he wished Juliette would stay there.

  Instead she’d insisted on coming back to her little house on that suburban street in Red Ridge. He was worried that the killer would find her here—easily.

  She was making it even easier for him when she sat down on her front steps instead of unlocking the door to go inside. The beagle, off her leash, meandered around the small front yard, sniffing the grass.

  “You should come back to my hotel suite,” he said.

  “Because it’s so safe there?” she asked with a disparaging roll of her beautiful blue eyes.

  “It will be now,” he promised. He’d brought in more bodyguards from the protection agency. “The hotel stepped up security.”

  She pointed at Sasha and in a snobbish-sounding voice remarked, “The Colton Plaza Hotel does not allow animals in their rooms.”

  Blake chuckled at her tone. “They make exceptions for service dogs and that’s what Sasha is. She does an incredible service by getting drugs off the street.”

  Juliette sighed. “That wasn’t all we got off the streets today.”

  “The girl...” Blake said. She’d looked so young. He’d overheard Juliette and the detective talking about her being the sister of the murder victim from the park. “Why do you think he wanted them both dead?”

  She shook her head. “I think someone else wanted them dead. Whoever she’d taken that suitcase of drugs from, just like her sister had. The man was just carrying out the order...”

  “A hired assassin? That’s what this guy is who’s after you and Pandora?” He shuddered. But of course, it all made sense. That was why he was so good that last night he’d slipped past even the renowned security agency Blake had hired.

  Maybe he was too good...

  “You’re not safe here,” he persisted. “You and Sasha need to come back to the hotel with me.”

  “No,” she said. “I need to sleep tonight.”

  “You’ll sleep better when you know you’re safe,” he insisted. And so would he.

  She shook her head again. “You and I both know we won’t sleep if I go back to your suite.”

  His body tensed thinking about it—about being inside her again. He fit so perfectly, as if they’d been made for each other.

  “And that’s a problem?”

  Now she nodded. “Yes. It’s bad enough that I’m worried you’re going to break my daughter’s—”

  “Our daughter’s,” he interrupted her as a fierce possessiveness overcame him.

  “Pandora,” she said instead. “I think you’re going to break her heart. I don’t want you breaking mine, too.”

  Frustration nagged at him. “I don’t understand you. Last night you were mad at me for not going to see Pandora. And now you’re mad that I did.”

  She uttered a weary sigh. “I just don’t want her getting hurt.”

  “Neither do I.” But he was very afraid that he might—inadvertently—hurt her just because he had no damn idea how to be a father.

  “If you’re going to leave soon and not come back very often, it might be best if you don’t see her now,” Juliette said. “If you just let her go...”

  The thought gripped his heart in a tight vise, painfully squeezing. He shook his head. “No.”

  Now that he knew he had a daughter, he couldn’t just walk away. He could never return to the life he’d had before he’d learned the truth. So what the hell was he going to do? Not about just Pan
dora but also about his business?

  He needed time to think, and that was impossible to do around Juliette. She was too beautiful, too sexy, too damn distracting...

  She was smart not to come back to his hotel suite. But he didn’t think she should stay here, either.

  She stared up at him through eyes that were heavy with exhaustion. “Please,” she implored him. “Think about what’s best for her.”

  “I don’t have to think about that,” Blake said. “You are. She can’t lose her mother, so you need to stop putting yourself in danger.”

  He grimaced as he remembered watching her fall in the parking lot today and then running up to see that blood spattered across her face. For a long, horrifying moment, he’d thought she’d been hit. Then she’d moved, and relief had rushed through him.

  “I have the training and experience to handle the dangers of my job,” she said. “You don’t. You have no business following me around all day.”

  “You don’t want Pandora to get hurt,” he said. “Neither do I. You getting hurt will hurt her.” Far worse than if he left Red Ridge.

  “It would hurt her to lose you, too,” Juliette said. “And that’s more likely to happen if you insist on sticking so close to me. You saw what happened to that girl today.”

  He flinched. “Yes, but that was because of the drugs she was carrying.”

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Juliette said. “The bullet could have been meant for me—not her.”

  True. And that was what he’d thought when it had happened. “You need to go into that safe house with Pandora,” he said.

  “What I need to do is sleep,” she said. And she rose from the porch steps.

  He couldn’t argue with her. Being exhausted was not going to help her find the gunman—or survive his next attempt on her life.

  And Blake knew there would be another attempt. This assassin was obviously determined to get rid of her.

  He glanced around, but it was so dark beyond the circle of light from the streetlamp in front of her house. While there was no patrol car yet, the bodyguards were out there—somewhere. They would make certain nothing happened to her.

  He hesitated before turning away from her, though. Maybe it was because he wanted to kiss her good-night. But this wasn’t a date. And he knew if he kissed her, that the night would not be over—or at least, he wouldn’t want it to be over. He would want to make love to her again and again like he had the night before and that night five years ago when Pandora had been conceived.

  “Sasha,” Juliette called to the beagle. The dog immediately headed up the porch steps with her.

  She had the bodyguards and her canine partner. She didn’t need Blake.

  But he was beginning to feel as if he needed her.

  “Good night, Blake,” she said.

  She was dismissing him. He knew that. But he wondered if it was just for the night or for always. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want him following her anymore, and he didn’t think it was just because that girl had died today.

  She was determined to protect her life herself. Now she was also determined to protect her heart. From him...

  “Good night,” he murmured back, but she was already unlocking her door to step inside the house. The dog rushed through before Juliette could enter. She followed Sasha inside and closed the door without so much as a glance back in Blake’s direction.

  He stayed on the front walk for another long moment, staring up at the house. So he noticed the flash even before he heard the shot.

  Someone had fired a gun inside the house.

  Chapter 17

  The way Sasha had hurried inside the house had forewarned Juliette that it was not empty. That was why she hadn’t looked back at Blake. She hadn’t wanted him to interfere and get caught in the middle as she drew her weapon and returned the fire of whomever had started shooting the minute she’d closed her door.

  Glass shattered behind her as bullets struck the picture window. She hoped Blake was no longer standing out there, that he’d turned and walked away. Far away...

  “Put down your weapon!” she shouted—even though she couldn’t see the intruder. “You’re under arrest!”

  A chuckle rang out of the darkness. And she fired in its direction. Glass broke. She hadn’t shot in the direction of a window, so it must have been a picture frame or a mirror. She hoped the former. The last thing she needed was any more bad luck.

  “Put down your weapon!” she shouted again.

  There was no chuckle this time. No response at all. Had she hit him?

  Sasha’s barking, which had been incessant since she’d pushed ahead of Juliette through the door, finally stopped. Had the beagle been hit?

  Juliette could see nothing in the darkness. But before she could fumble around for a light switch or a lamp, she heard a noise behind her.

  Had he circled around her?

  Her finger twitched on the trigger as she prepared to pull and fire again. But then a deep voice called out, “Juliette! Are you okay?”

  And she cursed and lowered the barrel.

  But more shots rang out.

  She fell from the heavy weight on top of her as she lay back on the hardwood floor. But the shots weren’t close. Someone was firing outside her house. Blake was the one who’d knocked her to the ground.

  The killer and the bodyguards must have been exchanging gunfire. And she could hear Sasha barking, too.

  “Are you all right?” Blake asked.

  “No, thanks to you,” she murmured as she struggled to get up. She needed to get outside—to handle Sasha and to find the killer.

  And maybe that was why Blake remained on top of her, his hard body heavy on hers—because he didn’t want her confronting the killer again.

  She shoved his shoulders, trying to push him back. “Get off me! I need to get out there!”

  “You need to stay here,” Blake said.

  The gunfire had stopped. But she heard sirens now, wailing in the distance. And she felt like wailing in frustration. He’d been right here.

  So close...

  And yet he’d escaped her once again. She had no doubt that he had escaped the bodyguards, too—because she could hear Sasha’s barking grow fainter and fainter. She was still pursuing the intruder.

  She shoved harder. “Blake, let me up. I need to back up Sasha.” So many canines were injured or killed just doing their jobs—because they wouldn’t stop until their handlers told them to.

  Sasha wasn’t as big as some of the other breeds in the K9 unit, but she was every bit as fearless.

  Finally Blake budged, and Juliette squirmed out from beneath him. Then she rushed out the back door. The killer must have left it open when he’d run out.

  “Sasha!” she called out, her heart pounding with fear for her partner. “Sasha! Heel!”

  She could hear the dog whimpering somewhere in the dark. Had she been hurt?

  She started across the backyard, but she wasn’t alone. Blake had followed her from the house, and he kept reaching for her arm, trying to pull her back.

  “Juliette, it isn’t safe.”

  “He’s gone,” one of the bodyguards remarked as the burly man rushed up to join them. “He fired off a couple of rounds as he came out of the house, but he kept running.”

  So Juliette had not hit him inside the house. He wasn’t injured other than his previous shoulder wound. And that hadn’t slowed him down at all yet.

  The guy just kept coming.

  She sighed with frustration and tugged away from Blake’s hand on her arm. “I need to find Sasha.” She met the beagle halfway across the backyard. The dog whimpered when Juliette touched her side. Had she been shot?

  “I need to get her to the vet!” Juliette said as concern gripped her. “She’s hurt.”

  B
efore she could lift the animal, Blake was there, gently picking up the dog.

  “Be careful with her,” Juliette implored him as she blinked against the tears stinging her eyes. “Please, be careful!”

  “I will,” he said.

  And he was, because the dog didn’t whimper again even as he loaded her into Juliette’s car. They were just backing out of the driveway when the first patrol car arrived. Where had it been?

  Had there been another murder tonight? Was that why her coworkers hadn’t been watching her? Of course, the bodyguards were the ones who’d been getting her in and out of the safe house, and they did their job so well that they must have lost the patrol car, too.

  Maybe her coworkers had thought she would return to the Colton Plaza Hotel after seeing Pandora.

  “Sasha’s hurt,” she told the dark-haired officer when Dante Mancuso rushed up to her car. “We need to get her to the vet.”

  “Go! Go,” he urged her.

  “The bodyguards can tell you what happened,” she said as she eased her foot off the brake and started backing into the street.

  Mancuso murmured something as she drove away. Something that sounded like, “I can guess...”

  Everybody could—because it seemed as though anyone close to Juliette got hurt. She glanced across the console at Blake. He’d nearly been shot the night before. It was only a matter of time before he got hurt again.

  Or worse...

  * * *

  Patience Colton had no life. At least no social life. Her life was her job, and the top priority of her job was to take care of Red Ridge’s canine force. She rushed around her office, making sure she had everything ready.

  She hoped it wasn’t a bullet that had injured the dog. If it was, she would be prepared. But she wasn’t prepared to turn around and see her brother carrying in the wounded beagle. She stared, stunned, at his sudden appearance. “Blake, what the hell...”

  “Where do you want her, Patience?” he asked.

  She gestured to the stainless-steel examination table. “There. What happened?” And what did her brother have to do with it?

  A blond-haired woman followed him into the office. It took Patience a few seconds to recognize her without her uniform. But then she glanced at the dog again. “Sasha...” And Juliette Walsh was her handler.