A huge evergreen tree dominated the great room, decorated in a rustic style that perfectly complemented the room’s decor.
Inside, she circled the huge den, making her way into the kitchen, which was also empty. From there she went down a short, carpeted hallway, thinking it might lead to a guest bedroom or office of some kind.
As she rounded the corner, she heard Darius Colton’s distinctive voice and froze, praying he wasn’t about to hurt Sharon again.
“You know, I thought trashing the Kelley girl’s place would make my son realize he needs to quit poking his nose where it doesn’t belong, but no.” Darius made a sound of disgust.
Eve crept closer. The older man stood in front of a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, phone in hand.
“I agree. Though I hate to do it, I see no alternative. I’ll have to kill him like I did Mark Walsh and that first guy, whoever he was.” He chuckled. “Yes, I did just say I’d have to take out my own son. Hell, I made sure he got sent to prison, didn’t I?”
He laughed, a malicious chuckle. “One good thing about him is that we can make it look like a suicide. Since he just got out of prison, I can claim he was having trouble making it on the outside.”
Involuntarily, Eve gasped, the sound escaping her throat in a high-pitched squeak.
Darius turned. He pinned her with his gaze.
Oh, God. Eve took one step back, then another. She didn’t hear what he said next, but he hung up the phone and moved swiftly toward her.
“Well, well.” On his way toward her, Darius snatched up a heavy ceramic-and-brass lamp from his desk, ripping the plug from the wall.
Eve turned to run, aware she was far too late.
Darius grabbed her arm, yanking her feet out from under her. As she spun to face him, the last thing she saw was his arm raised, lamp in hand, before he hit her.
Though the Christmas carol sing wasn’t slated to begin until dusk, Damien was rushing through his chores. Though the ranch hands had all been given leave to knock off work at noon, it was generally understood that all assigned chores must be completed, and Damien and one other man had driven bales of hay up into the pastures for the cattle and the horses. Each had taken a flatbed pickup with two huge round bales and spread the hay out for the animals’ daily feed.
Though snow had started falling heavily, Damien completed his task, then returned to the ranch to park the truck next to several others in back of the barn.
At least three inches of snow had fallen during the time he’d been out in the pasture, blanketing the equipment and the vehicles. Though the parking lot in front of the barn had grown rapidly more deserted as ranch hands took off for town, a few remaining vehicles were covered in white snow, making them indistinguishable from their surroundings.
Back at the ranch house, Damien whistled as he washed up in the mudroom, before heading toward the kitchen to grab a quick snack.
Behind him, the back door blew open, slamming against the outside wall. He must have not closed it right. Frowning, he turned back around and came face-to-face with Darius, disheveled and covered in snow.
“What happened to you?” he asked, curious. In the entire three-plus months he’d been home, he’d never seen his father looking like this, not even at his drunken worst.
Instead of answering, Darius grunted something unintelligible and hurried away to his office, trailing snow and leaving tracks of mud.
The back of Damien’s neck prickled. Something was wrong. Going against his better judgment, he followed his father.
Rounding the corner, he spied Darius, still wearing his coat, hurriedly picking up broken pieces of glass and china.
“What happened?” he asked, moving forward to help.
“Leave it alone,” Darius snarled. “I’ll get it. I broke my desk lamp.”
“Out in the hallway?” Struck by an even stronger sense of trepidation, Damien moved closer. “What really happened here?”
“None of your damn business,” Darius snarled. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here.”
Just then, Sharon Colton rounded the corner. Seeing her husband and her stepson, she froze, one hand to her mouth. Her left eye was swollen, raw and purple, and her mouth looked as though it had had a run-in with a fist.
“Did you hit her?” Damien asked, voice low and furious. “For the love of God, tell me you didn’t hit your wife.”
As he advanced on his father, Sharon gave a low cry.
Damien froze. Darius had produced a Smith and Wesson revolver and now had it pointed straight at him.
Eve came to slowly, wondering why she was so cold. Dang heater must be on the blink, which meant she needed to put in an emergency call to Rusty’s Air Conditioning and Heating Service. She was trying to rise when the blinding pain in her head made everything spin.
What the…? Suddenly she remembered. Testing her arms, she found they were tied behind her back and she couldn’t move them. The same applied to her legs. Darius Colton had hit her with the lamp, knocking her out. Which meant she was…where?
Eyes adjusting to the darkness, she slowly looked around. She lay on a bale of hay, surrounded on three sides by other large rectangular bales. Since the huge round bales were used for the pastured livestock and these large squares were used to feed the barn-penned animals, she had to be close to the main barn. A hay barn, most likely.
Listening, she heard only silence, the heavy snowfall outside blanketing all sound. No livestock here, confirming her earlier guess.
She could only wonder what Darius Colton meant to do with her, especially since she’d overheard him not only confessing to a murder, but planning to have his own son killed.
Protectively cradling her stomach and the unborn life growing inside her, she began looking for a way out. Christmas Eve was a time for living, not dying. No way she would go out without a fight.
“What are you doing?” Damien asked, stopping in his tracks and eyeing the gun. Behind him, Sharon Colton began to cry, soft gasps of sound that barely drew the old man’s attention.
“What I should have done months ago,” Darius snarled. “You should have stayed in prison. Poking your nose around where you don’t belong, just like your stupid girlfriend.”
Damien’s blood turned to ice. “Eve? What has she got to do with this?”
“I asked her to come out here and fix my hair,” Sharon’s broken voice answered. “I was just looking for her now.”
Glaring at the man who’d sired him, Damien took a step forward. “What have you done with her?”
“Stay back.”
“What have you done with her?”
Darius laughed. The guttural, malevolent sound sent a chill up Damien’s spine.
He took a step closer. “Darius, what have you done to Eve?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t kill her. Yet. Though with the storm raging outside, she may freeze to death before I have to. Rest assured, I will take care of her. Just like I’m going to have to take care of you.”
Darius lifted the weapon, squinting at Damien as though he was about to fire.
“She’s pregnant,” Damien blurted, thinking fast. Back in the old days, before he’d gone to prison, his father had really cared about family and the Colton dynasty. “Eve is pregnant. You can’t kill a pregnant woman.”
This startled the older man. “Pregnant?”
“With my son,” Damien lied, wishing with all of his heart that it was so. “Your grandson. Eve is carrying the next Colton.”
For the first time a glimmer of humanity showed in Darius’s flat, cold eyes. Slowly he lowered the gun.
Now! Damien moved, knocking the gun from his father’s hands and slamming the older man into the floor.
“Where is she?”
Instead of answering, Darius struggled to free himself.
“Sharon, go call the police,” Damien ordered, tightening his grip.
Wide-eyed, the woman stood frozen, staring at her stepson who had her husban
d wrapped in a choke hold.
“You will not,” Darius rasped. “Sharon, get my gun and take this son of a bitch out.”
Slowly, as though his voice compelled her, Sharon Colton moved toward the weapon.
“Bring me the gun and go and call Wes.” Damien urged. “Do it now, Sharon, before anyone else gets hurt. We’ve got to try and find Eve. We’ve got to save her.”
Shaking her head as if coming out of a trance, Sharon nodded. Turning, she went for the revolver first, handing it to Damien, who accepted it with one hand before pushing up and off his father.
Sharon then moved toward the office. She reached for the phone and started dialing, keeping a wary eye on her husband, who remained on the floor. Her single act of rebellion appeared to knock the remaining wind from Darius’s sails.
A moment later, she returned to the hall. “Wes is on his way. And Jake Pierson is with him.”
“Good.” Damien liked Jake, who had been one of the first FBI agents to arrive in town. Since then, he’d left the Bureau and now he had a private security business and worked with Wes in the Sheriff’s Department, intently focused on solving the Mark Walsh murder. If anyone deserved to find answers, Jake did.
“Where’re Maisie and Jeremy?”
“At church. She volunteered to head up the organization for the Christmas carol sing this year.”
“Good. I don’t really want them to see this.”
Keeping the gun trained on Darius, Damien backed away. “We’ve got to find Eve,” he told his father’s wife.
“If he left her somewhere outside, she won’t last long in this weather.”
“She’s probably already dead.” Darius sounded gleeful. “You may have won this round, but in the end, I’ve won the battle.”
“What battle, Darius?” Sharon rounded on her husband. “You’ve alienated and injured your entire family, all in the pursuit of your business. I’ve lied long enough for you. I know where you keep the second set of books. Heck, I helped you set them up. I’m ashamed of that now. I’m going to turn in my CPA license, as soon as I turn those books over to the FBI.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Damien snarled. “Or I’ll kill you, too.”
Shaking her head, Sharon ignored him. “I’ll go see if I can rustle up a search party. Don’t worry, Damien, we’ll find your girl.”
With all his heart, Damien had to believe that. A moment later, Sharon returned.
“I got hold of Duke,” she announced. “He’s gathered up the ranch hands who were still here and they’ve split up into search groups.”
“Good.” He felt a sliver of the tension ease. He wouldn’t feel anywhere near normal again until he held Eve in his arms. “I’ll join them as soon as reinforcements show up.”
In what seemed like an hour but was really only ten minutes, Wes and Jake arrived. Turning over the gun and Darius to his brother, Damien watched while Jake handcuffed the patriarch of the Colton Clan.
“How far the mighty have fallen,” Jake muttered. “I’ve contacted several of my old coworkers in the Bureau. Most of them have gone home for Christmas, but they’ll be back on the twenty-sixth to wrap part of this investigation up. Sharon’s willingness to share the books and testify will help tremendously.”
Damien nodded, barely hearing the other man. He ran for his parka, cramming his hat onto his head and shoving his fingers into gloves. “I’ll be out searching. If you can get together more men to help search, I’d be grateful.”
“They’re already on their way.” Wes clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Jake can keep an eye on Darius. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Darius cried as they turned to go. “I’ll tell you where she is in exchange for my freedom.”
“No.” The two brothers spoke in unison. “No deals.”
“Wes, Damien, you’re my sons,” Darius pleaded. “Let me go. I promise I’ll disappear quietly. I’ll sign over all this to you and you’ll never hear from me again.”
“Tempting as the offer is, we’ll pass.” Damien spoke through clenched teeth, knowing without asking that Wes felt the same way. Darius had bullied the family long enough.
Together, he and Wes headed out. At the doorway, Wes stopped.
“Are you sure you want to add murder to your list of crimes?” Wes asked quietly, turning to look at his father. “You have a choice here. You can tell us where Eve is and save her life, or you can let us search. If she dies, I’ll make sure you’re brought up on murder charges, do you understand?”
Instead of answering, Darius turned his face away.
“Come on, man.” Damien took off, no longer caring if Wes was behind him. He barreled outside, into the midst of a blizzard.
“Damn.” Wes came up beside him. “This got worse fast. On the way here, we had some visibility. Now it’s whiteout conditions.”
“I don’t care.” Damien started blindly in the direction of the cattle pens. “We’ve got to find Eve.”
“I’ll take the cattle pens,” Wes told him. “You go check the machinery barn and the hay sheds.”
Without another word, Damien turned and went the other way.
The angels of Christmas Eve must have been with him that night. Barely five minutes into his search, he pushed open the door of the hay barn and found Eve, trussed up and freezing, but alive and drifting in and out of consciousness.
Gathering her close, he freed her arms and legs, massaging them to bring circulation back, hoping she wouldn’t have frostbite. She cried out in pain as feeling returned, violently shivering.
“Damien,” she croaked, nearly unintelligible because of the shudders racking her body. “Darius killed Mark Walsh and the first guy, a homeless man that everyone thought was Mark Walsh. He let you go to prison knowing you were innocent. And now he was going to have you killed, I heard him.”
“Shhh.” Hushing her by placing one gloved finger against her mouth, he tried to determine the extent of her injuries. “We’ll deal with that later, once we get you inside.”
Then, lifting her, he carried her out into the snowstorm. When they reached the house, he carried her into the den, where he gently lowered her to the rug in front of the roaring fire.
Seeing her, Sharon wept with relief, heading into the kitchen and putting on a pot of hot water for tea. When she returned, Damien put her in charge of calling in all the searchers and letting them know Eve was safe.
With the Christmas tree shining brightly in the background, Damien crouched by the fire, helping Eve sip her tea and rubbing her legs, feet and hands, watching as her color slowly returned and her trembling subsided.
“You’re safe now, sweetheart,” he whispered, kissing her cheek. “I’ll tell Wes what you heard.”
Her beautiful blue gaze searched his face. “Are you all right? It must be a shock, knowing your own father wanted to kill you?”
“No worse than knowing he let me go to prison for a crime he committed. But you’re safe and that's all that matters.”
Drowsily, she snuggled against him. Contentment filled his heart. He felt complete and at peace for the first time since he’d stood in that courtroom, fifteen years ago, and watched a prison sentence being handed down, sending him away for a crime he hadn’t committed.
“I told them you were pregnant,” he whispered into her hair.
“That’s okay.” Smiling, she kissed him. “It’s about time I stopped worrying about tarnishing the family name.”
“I, er, told them the baby was mine.”
She froze, then turned in his arms to gaze up at him. “Why’d you go and do something like that?” she whispered softly. “It’ll only make it worse when they find out the truth.”
“Maybe they don’t have to find out the truth.” He kissed her lightly on the lips, then the nose, then the curve of her neck.
“What are you saying?”
Tightening his arms around her, he closed his eyes, inhaled her scent and took the leap. “Because I’d like that baby to be mine. He can be
the first of our children, Eve. That is, if you’d like more.”
“Damien?”
To his dismay her gorgeous eyes filled with tears, spilling over and trailing silver down her cheeks. Despair filled him as he realized he’d made her cry, which could mean only one thing.
She didn’t want him.
“I’m sorry, I—” he began stiffly. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t you dare apologize, cowboy.” Putting her arms around him, she kissed him full on the mouth. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. But I need to know, are you suggesting we live together, or are you wanting to make an honest woman out of me?”
Hope slammed into him, hard, nearly making him gasp.
“You mean you’d marry me?”
Cocking her head, she gave a soft chuckle. “If you ask me right, I just might.”
Slowly, he grinned. “How do you think your sister would feel about a double wedding? Her and Duke and me and you.”
Eve’s answering smile warmed his heart. “I guess we’ll just have to ask her, now won’t we?”
Epilogue
Valentine’s Day dawned clear and cold, without a single cloud to mar the bright blue perfection of the sky.
The entire town of Honey Creek gathered at the town square, cameras in hand, ready to record the historical day.
Coltons and Kelleys, wed in a double ceremony. A joyous occasion which they hoped would go a long way toward erasing the shadow that had hung over their town for so long.
Though clearly ill, Darius Colton had gone to jail and was awaiting trial for the murder of Mark Walsh, as well as for the murder of the unknown drifter fifteen years ago. The twists and turns of this soap opera-like story had finally drawn the attention of the popular television show, Dr. Sophie, and they’d actually sent a camera crew to do an exposé on the scandal, much to Maisie Colton’s delight. She’d even managed a cameo appearance. “The Scandal at Honey Creek,” as their episode had been named, would air in the spring.
Eve Kelley’s pregnancy had been announced, and though she’d refused to let Damien take responsibility for the baby, he made it clear to her that he’d be raising the child as his own.
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