Gray was just about to enter the fracas when head cook Agnes Barlow stepped into the dining room, her plump face squashed into an expression of deep displeasure.
“Gossip? Is that what I hear going on?” Her voice was strident, her green eyes narrowed as they glared first at Allison and then at Lucinda. Short and rotund, with her blazing fury she looked like a ticked-off troll. “You all know we have a zero tolerance for gossip around here, especially when it involves the family.”
She waved the spatula she held in one hand as if she wanted to pop somebody over the head. “Lucinda, work, don’t talk. Allison, eat and don’t talk.” With these final words she whirled around and disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Never a dull moment,” Stewie Runyon muttered under his breath as Gray slid onto the bench next to him. “Who cares who the daddy is? It’s still a Colton heir.” He clamped his mouth shut and Gray guessed that was probably the last he’d hear from Stewie for the remainder of the meal.
Stewie wasn’t a talker and despite the fact that he’d worked as a ranch hand for the past eight months Gray knew very little about the young man. He didn’t talk about his past, and he didn’t mention any family. He was competent at what he did, but remained a loner who had made no real friends in the months he’d been working at the ranch.
Stewie wasn’t the only ranch hand that Gray didn’t know well. Cal Clark was another one who kept to himself and had rarely appeared to want the company of others. He worked hard, ate hearty and then disappeared, sometimes off the ranch and sometimes into his room.
Gray had mentioned a distrust of Jared Hansen to Dylan, as well. At the moment the twenty-two-year-old sat across from him on the bench on the opposite side of the table, his features wearing that overeager smile that made Gray want to yell at him to stop trying so hard.
Within minutes the table was full and the din grew as conversations swirled and silverware clinked against plates. Gray nodded to Dylan, who sank down on the bench next to him and although Gray tried to focus on the talk going around the table he found his head filled again and again with thoughts of Catherine.
The walk from the petting barn to the house with her had been pleasant, until he’d thought of the child she carried, the Colton heir, and once again he was reminded that he hadn’t been good enough, that he would never be good enough for a Colton.
His father had done the right thing years ago, basically sending him away from temptation, stopping him from humiliating himself where Catherine was concerned. Coltons didn’t marry ranch hands.
He thought it would be nice to get to know her, but the problem was he feared he’d like the woman she’d become, that somehow the aching need he’d once felt for her would reappear and that would be devastating. He didn’t want to go through heartache again where she was concerned.
It wasn’t just Catherine or everything that had happened recently that had him unsettled. For the past few months there had been a vague dissatisfaction in his life, a knowledge that somewhere along the line he’d lost his passion not just for bull riding, but for ranching itself.
He did his job here and he knew he did it well, but somehow the love of it all had paled. The problem was he didn’t know where to find a new job to love, a new mission that would be exciting and fulfilling.
Maybe it was time for him to head to another ranch, find work away from Dead. Working on a ranch in southern Texas would be a good place to spend the winter months and would once again give him some distance from Catherine and all the drama going on with the Coltons.
Even as he thought about it, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. In that moment that he’d walked out of the stables and had seen Catherine being dragged away from her Jeep by an unknown assailant, he’d somehow claimed responsibility for her safety. He was reluctant to walk away from that responsibility now, whether she wanted it or not—whether he wanted it or not.
By the time dinner was over, a mental exhaustion plagued Gray and he decided to head up to his room. As he walked up the back set of stairs that led to the male employee rooms, he withdrew his key ring from his pocket. Other than the men who lived in these Spartan rooms only head housekeeper Mathilda had a master set of keys that could open these doors.
Gray used his key and entered the small room that had been his home for the past four years. Each of the staff rooms were pretty much the same, a single bed, a dresser and a small closet.
Over the past four years Gray had added a compact fridge, a nightstand and a small bookcase that held an array of Western and mystery novels he often read in his spare time.
The walls were decorated with the silver and gold buckles he’d won over the years for bull riding, as the dresser top held trophies for the same thing.
The first thing he did was unfasten his holster and place it with his gun in the single drawer in the nightstand. He then reached down into the small fridge, grabbed a cold beer and sat on the bed with his back against the wall.
He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to think about his conflicting emotions where Catherine was concerned, or the fact that he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He was twenty-seven years old and felt as if he were suffering some sort of midlife crisis.
He’d been a ranch hand because that’s all he’d known. He’d been a ranch hand because it was what his father had expected of him. Gray had never thought about doing anything else until lately.
He hadn’t been sitting on the bed long when a knock fell on his door. “Come in,” he said, unsurprised to see Dylan enter the room and close the door behind him.
Gray motioned toward the fridge. “Grab a cold one.”
“Thanks.” Dylan grabbed a beer and then sat on the opposite end of the bed. “You were quiet at dinner,” he said as he twisted off the top of the bottle and tossed it into a nearby trash can at the foot of the bed.
“Seemed to me like there was enough noise going around the table without me adding to it,” Gray replied. “Besides, I could say the same about you. I didn’t notice you starting any stimulating conversations.”
Dylan gave him a dry grin. The smile quickly faded from his face and instead his features became serious, his eyes dark. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like a lot of questions Mia and Jagger raised before they blew out of town.” Dylan paused to take a long pull on his beer and then lowered the bottle and stared at a spot just over Gray’s head.
Gray waited for his friend to go on. Not only had Mia and Jagger uncovered the fact that the Dead chief of police was a dirty cop, but they’d also uncovered some troubling inconsistencies in how Faye Frick and her son, Dylan, had come to live at the ranch.
Dylan refocused on Gray. “I don’t have a single photo of my mother pregnant with me and none of me as a baby. I don’t know who my father was because I’m not sure I really believe the story my mom told me about a brief marriage to a man she barely knew who died from a fall from a horse and had no family. She told me she had no family but as I got older and starting asking more questions, I got the feeling she wasn’t telling me the truth about things. Mia and Jagger just made me more curious about my mom and her background and where I really came from.”
He tipped the bottle to his lips and took a drink, then released a deep sigh and once again looked at Gray. “I’d like you to do me a favor.”
“What?” Gray asked curiously.
“I want you to help me investigate my past...my mother’s past. Things just don’t add up and I keep wondering how we wound up here at Dead River Ranch. I need to know if my mother told me the truth about my father and where I came from.”
Gray sat up and set his empty beer bottle on the nightstand. An edge of excitement fired off inside him as he considered Dylan’s words. The idea stimulated him, not just because it might give Dylan some peace, but because the idea of conducting an investigation of sorts intrigued him like nothing had in a long time.
“You know I’ll do whatever I can to help you find out the truth,” Gray said.
Dylan nodded. “I knew I could count on you, but I’d like this to stay just between you and me and I think we need to go slow and as quietly as possible in finding out answers. It seems that whenever anyone asks questions about anything around here they wind up threatened or dead.”
“Don’t worry, I have no intention of being dead,” Gray replied. “I can be discreet. You take care of the foreman chores and I’ll take care of trying to find out what I can about you and your mother.”
Minutes later, after Dylan had left his room, Gray once again leaned back against the wall, his thoughts spinning around in his head.
Definitely Mia and Jagger had brought up some interesting questions about Dylan and his mother before they’d left town, but Gray hadn’t realized that those questions were apparently eating away at Dylan.
A half an hour ago he’d been considering taking off for Texas and now he’d committed himself to helping Dylan in discovering the truth about his and his mother’s past.
Besides, even without the promise to help Dylan Gray had known deep in his heart that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
No matter how badly he wanted to maintain a healthy distance from Catherine, he knew he couldn’t leave her here alone and vulnerable until the evil that had a thumb on the house, on the family, was cut off.
Chapter 7
“Miss Catherine?” Mathilda stopped Catherine before she entered the family dining room. As always the head housekeeper was impeccably groomed and warmed Catherine with a beatific smile. “I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I was wondering if perhaps you’d like Allison to start bringing you a cup of hot tea and some toast or crackers in the mornings for when you first wake up.”
“Oh, Mathilda, that’s so thoughtful of you, but it isn’t necessary. At least for right now I’m not suffering from any morning sickness.”
Mathilda nodded and placed a hand on Catherine’s shoulder. “That’s good to hear. Now, if you start getting any, you let me know and we’ll arrange for some hot tea and morning crackers to start off your day.”
“Thanks, I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” Catherine replied.
Mathilda nodded and moved away as Catherine continued on into the dining room. Most of the family was already seated at the table and Catherine slid into her seat with a nod to everyone.
“Any change in Dad?” she asked Levi, who sat across the table next to Katie, who had begun taking the evening meal with the family when Levi had proposed to her.
He shook his head. “He’s still in the coma. It’s hard to tell if he’s going to pull out of this one or not.”
“He’s a tough old bastard. He’ll come around,” Trip replied airily as he picked up his wineglass.
There were few people who had passed through Catherine’s relatively short life whom she could say she truly disliked, but the glib, fake-tanned, newly bleached blond male across the table fell into that category. He had no specific job on the ranch, didn’t appear to be interested in doing anything worthwhile, except attend the parties and events that the Coltons were often invited to.
Half the time he smelled of booze and more than once Catherine was certain the scent of pot clung to him. He bothered the young maids, verging on sexual harassment. He was a waste of air as far as she was concerned.
“I’m thinking about getting a boob job,” Tawny exclaimed.
“Really? This is appropriate dinner conversation?” Amanda asked dryly.
“I just thought it would be a good time to get everyone’s opinion on the subject,” Tawny replied.
“Just shut up, Tawny,” Darla said sharply, as if embarrassed by the daughter who was a mini-me to her.
Tawny stiffened at her mother’s curt order and instead focused on the plate kitchen server Kyla Winters had just set before her.
As all of them were served Catherine silently bemoaned how different family dinners were now that Jethro didn’t sit at the head of the table.
If Jethro were here, there would be no talk of boob jobs or such nonsense. The conversation would revolve around the ranch, the stock and old stories of how he had built his empire. Sometimes he would mention in passing one of his ex-wives.
Brittany Beal had been his first wife and had died in a car crash three months before her son, Cole, was kidnapped. Jethro’s second wife had been the sisters’ mother, Mandy Brown, who had taken off to parts unknown with a rodeo wrangler over ten years ago.
Darla had been his third wife, but there had been other women during and between his marriages, including Levi’s mother. The one thing Jethro never spoke about was his kidnapped son and Catherine knew it was probably because the pain of that loss was simply too great for words.
This meal was eaten in relative silence, Tawny obviously pouting, Trip with a glib half smile on his lips as if he were enjoying a private joke and the rest of them simply attempting to get to the end of the meal.
Catherine was definitely eager to finish eating and get to her suite. For the first time since she’d found out she was pregnant, an unusual tiredness filled her.
She didn’t know if the exhaustion was due to her pregnancy, the tension in the house or her encounter with Gray. She just knew she was mentally and physically tapped out. All she wanted was a long, hot bath, her silky pink nightgown and the comfort of her big bed.
Finally the meal was over, but instead of heading directly to her suite, she went to the nursery to spend a few minutes with her niece and think about the time when little Cheyenne would have her baby as a playmate.
As she entered the beautifully decorated nursery, Tom Brooks, the burly ex-marine bodyguard, stood from a rocking chair to greet her.
“Good evening, Miss Catherine,” he said.
“Hi, Tom. I just thought I’d stop in and grab a little loving from Cheyenne.” Six-month-old Cheyenne lay on a blanket in the middle of the floor, surrounded by toys. She squeaked a happy greeting at the sight of her Aunt Cath.
He smiled at the little girl fondly. “The little princess is always ready for some loving.”
Catherine got down on the floor on the blanket with Cheyenne and for the next few minutes she played with the baby and visited with the man who was responsible for Cheyenne’s safety.
The second time that somebody had tried to kidnap Cheyenne, Tom had taken a heck of a beating from the intruder. Ultimately it had been Jagger McKnight who had rushed into the room and not only saved Cheyenne, but had also probably saved Tom’s life.
As far as Catherine was concerned, Tom was one of the good guys in the house. He’d been willing to give his life to save Cheyenne.
“I hear there’s going to be a new little princess or prince in the family,” Tom said as Catherine gave Cheyenne a kiss on her sweet cheek and then rose to her feet.
“You hear right, and I’m hoping you’re still around to do double-duty protection with both Cheyenne and my baby.”
“It would be my honor,” he replied.
With a final goodbye, Catherine left the nursery and headed to her suite. My baby. The words rang in her ears and, as always, filled her with a sense of wonder, a sense of joy.
Minutes later she entered her suite to find Allison there doing the turn down on the bed. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Catherine?” Allison asked.
“That’s fine, Allison. I’m just going to have a nice hot soak in the tub and then get into bed and read for a while.”
“Would you like me to start your bath water?”
“No, thanks, I can take care of it,” Catherine replied. Although there were many times Allison had prepared a bath for Catherine, tonight Catherine just wanted to take care of herself and be alone.
“I’ll check in on you later and make sure that there’s nothing you need before bedtime,” Allison replied.
Catherine smiled at the young pretty maid. “That would be fine.”
Once Allison had left, Cath
erine went into the bathroom and started the water running in the deep luxurious jetted tub. It didn’t take long for the hot water to steam up the mirrors.
She undressed and when she was completely naked she used a washcloth to wipe the fog off the mirror so she could see her reflection.
Did her breasts look just a little bit bigger? Maybe...maybe not. She turned sidewalks and gasped. She’d always been slender, but there was definitely the beginning of a tiny pooch in her lower abdomen, a pooch that she couldn’t suck in no matter how hard she tried.
She laughed out loud at the sight and then ran her hand lightly...lovingly over the area. “My baby,” she whispered to her reflection. She smiled as she imagined that bump blowing up into a full nine-month pregnancy. She was going to enjoy each and every day of the next six and a half months.
Her smile faded as she thought of Gray’s warnings. She eased down into the warm bath water. While she intended to be smart, she refused to allow fear to rule her life.
She couldn’t dwell on the fact that she was a particularly tasty treat for a kidnapper looking for a big ransom. If she did so, she’d make herself a nervous wreck and that wouldn’t be healthy for the little one she carried inside her. She needed to stay calm, with as few horrible thoughts drifting around in her head as possible.
Despite the fact that she didn’t turn on the jets in the tub, the bath relaxed each and every muscle so that when she finally stood and grabbed a fluffy white towel, she felt almost boneless with exhaustion. After drying off she pulled on the long silky dark pink nightgown and then stepped out of the bathroom.
He grabbed her immediately, his hand firm against her mouth as his other arm wrapped her tight against his body. For an instant her brain refused to work. This shouldn’t be happening...not in the house...not in her private suite. This couldn’t be happening again. It was like a déjà vu only Gray wasn’t right around the corner to rush to her rescue.
The scent of fresh air made her realize one of the windows was open and that’s where he was taking her...to the window to drag her outside...to take her someplace where nobody would be able to find her.
The Colton Bride Page 7