Colton Family Rescue

by Justine Davis

  So the path ahead seemed clear. And despite his reluctance, one thing was obvious. They would both keep Emma safe, but apparently keeping Jolie safe fell to him.

  So be it. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to do something he didn’t want to do. Not that he didn’t want to keep her safe; he’d want that for anyone, especially the mother of a young child.

  He just didn’t want the forced togetherness that was going to take. In fact, he didn’t want to spend another minute in her company now, at least not until he’d regained his equilibrium and banished this silly response to her back into the cage where he’d shoved it four years ago.

  “Do you remember how to shoot?” he asked abruptly.

  Jolie grimaced. “How, yes.” He’d taught her, on both pistols and long guns, and as women often were she’d been a naturally good shot. “If you mean have I done it recently, no.”

  She didn’t say since I left, but he heard it anyway. He ignored the jab in his gut.

  “There’s a Colt .45 in the blue box on the shelf,” he said. “But if you have time and room, go for the rifle. You were pretty good with one.”

  She was staring at him now. “Do you really think...anyone could find me here?”

  “They found your home.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it without speaking. He hoped it meant she’d realized there was no room for argument here.

  “Try not to shoot any of the hands,” he said. “As a rule they don’t hang around here, but one might come by to water his horse, and they check on the place for me now and then.”

  Mutely she nodded.

  “Anything in particular I should bring back for her?” he asked with a last look at the little girl in his chair; she was about halfway through the book, and showing signs of restlessness, skipping ahead and only stopping to look at certain photos.

  “She loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” Jolie said. “Would live on them if I let her.”

  He couldn’t help smiling at that. “I think I did, for a while. As long as Bettina would let me, anyway. There’s a little PB in the cabinet, but no jelly. I’ll bring more.”

  He left, pondering going back to the road to get to the house; it would be quicker. But he decided it would be better—and less visible—to stay on the ranch and make the rougher trip. As he drove he made a mental list of things he would bring back, and framed his apology to Bettina for raiding her stores. She would probably forgive him if he told her why. She’d always had a soft spot for Emma in particular, and had been one of the few who hadn’t outright condemned Jolie, although she’d been staunchly on his side and done her best to comfort him in her own way.

  Maybe he’d bring Flash back, he thought. If it wasn’t for the supplies, he’d just ride him back. But he could trailer him back, so Emma could meet and maybe ride the horse that looked like the one she’d drawn in that childlike way.

  And again he wondered if somehow, some hazy memory had stuck in the child’s mind. It didn’t seem possible; she’d been so very young, and she could just have easily—and more reasonably—seen pictures of a pinto when she was old enough for it to register. But it did still nudge at him a little, even knowing there was no way to ever be sure.

  Flash would be fine in the shed and corral behind the refuge. He knew it well enough, and even though it was smaller than the stalls in the stable, it provided shelter from the heat if needed. He’d have plenty of water and the straw was fresh. The horse would give the girl something to think about and maybe keep her from wondering exactly why she was here and not in her own home. Because he was sure she thought of the apartment as home. Jolie had seen to that, turning into a cozy nest for the two of them.

  He wouldn’t let himself dwell on that, either. Just focus on the logistics, he told himself. Don’t let the emotional sneak in. That’s when you get into trouble. Especially when Jolie Peters was concerned. She—

  He stopped short as he came up on where the track divided as it neared the main house. He’d intended to park in the back, but coming in from the side he couldn’t miss what was sitting out front. Nor was there any mistaking the too obviously plain vehicle for anything other than what it was.

  The sheriff was here.

  Chapter 14

  T.C. wheeled the SUV around, jammed down on the accelerator, kicking up a cloud as the tires bit into the dirt. Then he was on the curving, paved drive that took him to the front in less than fifteen seconds.

  He jumped out, glanced at the parked, unmarked unit, betrayed by the small light bar atop the dash and visible through the windshield. He looked inside as he passed, saw the radio under the dash, the microphone in its hanger.

  The old man. Had they found him? Alive, or dead? Were they finally going to get confirmation of what he’d feared and suspected?

  He hit the front steps at a run and took them three at a time. He burst in through the front door; the ornate two-story foyer with the flanking curved staircases and the crystal chandelier always made him cringe. Some ranch house, was always his thought when he came in this way, and was why he preferred the back door that came in through the much more casual den.

  No one was there, so he headed for what his mother grandly called the salon, since that was usually where they took people they wanted to impress, or to remind who they were dealing with.

  “Mr. Thomas, you’re home. Is everything all right?”

  He turned to look at Aaron Manfred, the tall, thin man who had been a fixture at the ranch for T.C.’s entire life. At seventy-five, the mustachioed butler who never left his room without his suit and tie on, never left the house without his perfectly groomed Stetson and who had been with T.C.’s father for thirty years was feeling the situation as personally as any of the Coltons.

  Probably more than a couple of them.

  “The sheriff,” T.C. said shortly, with a jerk of his thumb toward the front.

  If he had not grown up with the man, he might have missed the slight shift in expression that told him whatever was going on, Manfred didn’t approve.

  “Sheriff Watkins is in with Mr. Fowler.” He didn’t sniff, but it was in his tone.

  “Did they find...?”

  “Oh!” Manfred’s tone became immediately apologetic. “No, no, not that. I’m so sorry, I should have said right away.”

  T.C. breathed again. “Then what?”

  “Your brother called them.” As T.C. turned to head toward the salon, the older man added, a gentle note in his voice, “You might not wish to go in there, Mr. Thomas. You might find this...theory personally uncomfortable.”

  T.C.’s brow furrowed. Then it hit him. Fowler’s earlier wild speculation. “He’s blaming Jolie.”

  “I believe so.”

  “Son of a—” He had his hand on the ornate door handle before he caught himself. Was he really going to go in there and defend her? Fowler would be shocked, after what she’d done, that he would even speak up for her. And Fowler being Fowler, he would begin to wonder why. If he found out Jolie was here, on the ranch, who knew what he might do?

  But at least if she was right here on the ranch, and stayed unnoticed, the sheriff wouldn’t find her. And in the meantime they could figure out how to clear her. Bursting in there now and defending her to probably the sheriff himself in front of Fowler could end up causing the very thing he wanted to avoid. His other siblings, Piper in particular, would understand that regardless of his feelings about Jolie, Emma was innocent. And she was in real danger, as well as her mother.

  Maybe if I just thought of her as Emma’s mother, I could stop...remembering.

  Because he was remembering. The good times, those blissful days when all had been beautiful between them, when the sunrises were more colorful, the stars sparkled more, his entire world was brightened by her presence in it. The days when he’d brist
led at any hint of condescension or amazement that he could be genuinely interested in the kitchen help. The days when Fowler’s congratulations, because he assumed T.C. was simply screwing her since she was there and willing, resulted in him decking his half brother with one swing.

  He let go of the door handle. He backed away a couple of steps, thinking. He glanced around. Manfred had gone about his duties; he and Moira seemed determined the house would run as if Eldridge Colton were still here, holding the reins.

  And for the first time he questioned himself. Did he really believe Jolie had had nothing to do with this? After all, she’d taken money once. How could he be sure she wouldn’t do just what Fowler had said, come back for more?

  Instead of going into the salon to stop whatever tale Fowler was telling, he headed for the stairs. Moments later he was in his suite, digging through the bottom right drawer of the desk that sat by the window that looked out toward the working ranch. He’d moved from his old rooms to here precisely for that view. He enjoyed looking out in the mornings and evenings, seeing that all was well in his part of the Colton domain.

  Well, and to get a bit farther from Fowler and Tiffany, and all that that entailed.

  In the back of the drawer, crumpled and ripped almost in half, he found what he’d been looking for. The canceled check his mother had waved in front of him when she triumphantly proclaimed she’d known all along Jolie Peters was a gold digger. He’d grabbed at it in disbelief, hence the tear. But there had been no denying it was Jolie’s signature on the back.

  But that wasn’t what he was looking for now. Now he was looking at the faint printing on the back, from the institution where she had deposited the six-figure check.

  He pulled out his phone and called Hannah. She answered before the first ring completed.

  “I need some information, as discreetly as possible.”

  “Of course.”

  He told her what he wanted. She promised to get back to him as soon as she had it. He had no doubts she would manage it as efficiently as she did everything else.

  He realized he’d been pacing while on the phone. He stopped, in front of the window that looked out to the west. Toward the refuge, that small place that had saved his sanity more than once. He was wondering if, with his impulsive action, he’d destroyed that sanctuary. It had been a place free of memories, of might-have-beens. Not that he was ever truly free of them, not when he carried them around inside him all the time. And more than once he’d spent a long night in that reading chair where Emma had sat, questioning his instincts and judgment, for having been so totally, utterly wrong about Jolie and her feelings for him.

  When this was over, when she and Emma could safely go back home again, would that quiet place now forever be haunted with images and sounds of her? Of both of them? Would he ever sit in that chair again without the sight of little Emma poring over that book coming to mind?

  Probably not, he admitted. He’d done a lot more than just make a quick, perhaps rash decision; he’d possibly trashed his hard-won equilibrium in the process.

  His work had been his salvation, in the days after Jolie had gone. He’d wondered, on occasion, if his father hadn’t turned the ranch over to him at the young age of twenty-four to distract him, although it had always been the plan that he would take over the ranch operations. When he was younger he’d never realized that meant he would end up spending more time in his office in the Colton building than here on the ranch. If he had, he wouldn’t have been so eager to take over.

  He had been trying, again, to talk his father into letting him set up an office here, had even had plans drawn up for an addition to the main barn, so he wouldn’t have to take up any space already in use by the ranch hands or the livestock. But the old man had resisted; the downtown Colton building was his nose-thumbing to the world that had looked down on him in the old days, and he didn’t like that his own son preferred not to spend his days there.

  He’d been working the angle that the ranch was also part of that show-the-world attitude, in fact, the part that had made the rest possible, when the kidnapping happened. And now, three months later with still no word, it occasionally struck him that if his half sister Marceline got her way, and got the old man declared dead, he could do exactly what he wanted. It gave him no pleasure to contemplate. He didn’t want to go over or around his father. He wanted his father to agree with him.

  It wasn’t impossible to achieve, despite Eldridge’s reputation for being irascible. He’d agreed to the purchase of the small herd of longhorns, to preserve the huge animals as part of their Texas heritage, and now it was a bustling sideline of the ranch business, between leasing the herd out for filmmakers and schoolkids and tourists wanting to see the living bits of history. The old man had also agreed to starting their own quarter horse breeding program, which was still in the early stages, but its first colt, Colton Destiny, was already making a name in halter classes across the state.

  Of course, he’d turned stubborn on Piper’s plan. She’d wanted to set up a foster care group home at the ranch, a cause dear to her heart because of her own near escape from that kind of life. Eldridge had turned her down flat, saying he didn’t want a bunch of rug rats running around the ranch, and had forbidden T.C. to contravene him. That had brought on one of the biggest fights they’d ever had.

  “You’d better decide, am I in charge of the ranch or not?”

  Those were the last words, angry and spoken as he turned his back and walked out, that he’d said to his father.

  Maybe the last words ever.

  He couldn’t just wait. And he did have things to do. He left his rooms, went down the back stairs and into the kitchen. It was deserted—today was shopping day—but soon Bettina would be here to begin dinner preparations for those who would be at home. Most of them were considerate enough to stick to the system Piper had started years ago of signing in on the whiteboard by the back door everyone but Fowler used regularly, indicating whether or not they’d be home for the evening meal. As with most things that helped others, Fowler didn’t bother.

  He tried not to think about the fact that the sign-in system had been Jolie’s idea, to help Bettina. She’d been too uncertain of her position to suggest it, but she was friendly enough with Piper to mention it, and his sister had thought it brilliant and run with it.

  He began gathering items into a box he found in the utility room, cereal, fruit, a loaf of bread, some cookies he thought Emma might like, then grabbed the cooler he used to bring perishables when he knew he was going to hole up for a while. He emptied the ice maker into it, then added milk, some cold cuts, cheese and anything that looked appetizing. He was going to have to leave an apologetic note to Bettina; she was used to this happening now and then, but not on this scale.

  He moved quickly, using the motion to tamp down unruly emotions. Things had been chaotic enough with his father vanishing, but Jolie’s sudden reappearance was the icing on that messy cake.

  And Emma.

  When he’d thought about what she’d be like, back in the days when he was so confident he would be witnessing every stage of this precious girl’s life, he never quite imagined how amazing she would be. Even in this short time he could see she was as smart as her mother, and seeing her look at him with Jolie’s big gray eyes was disconcerting. He—

  The sound of his phone jolted him out of his reverie. Hannah’s name was on the screen. He glanced at the time before he answered, startled to see nearly forty minutes had passed.

  As usual, she wasted no time with niceties but got right to what he’d asked for.

  “It’s all there,” she said. “In a trust for the child. Some of the generated income was pulled out in the first couple of years, all in checks made out to a day-care center, but the principal was never touched.”

  “And the withdrawals stopped?”

  “Yes, a
fter the last one over two years ago.”

  “Thank you, Hannah.”

  “What I’m here for. Anything else?”

  “No. Not now. Except... I’ll need my schedule trimmed for the next few days.”

  “All right.”

  He heard some clicking, guessed she was pulling up his calendar.

  “The only anvil is the auction.”

  He smiled despite it all; anvil was what she called the immovable objects, the meetings that couldn’t be moved or appointments that simply must be kept. It was so appropriate he’d adopted it himself.

  “I’ll take care of that.” He’d send someone with a good eye for horseflesh, he thought. Harlow, maybe. “And I’ll keep that appointment with Cyrus Wainwright.”

  “I’ll clear the rest.”

  “You’re a treasure, Hannah.”

  “Don’t you forget it,” she said, leaving him feeling rather wistful as they disconnected. As he lugged the box and cooler out front to his SUV, he pondered his indispensable assistant. It was funny how such a razor-sharp, amazingly efficient person was hidden inside that motherly looking woman. And impressive that she was actually both, depending on what was called for. He had no doubts she had been the warm, loving, generous kind of mother, but he also guessed she’d been a fierce protector when necessary.

  While his own mother, he thought wryly as he headed across the foyer on his way back to the kitchen to write the note, would simply manipulate someone else to solve the problem. She—

  “Mr. Colton!”

  He halted at the commanding call. Turned to see Sheriff Troy Watkins, who had the bad luck to be the only one Fowler would talk with regarding their father’s disappearance. Deputy and investigator Charlie Kidwell was ostensibly in charge of the investigation, but Fowler was Fowler and only the top law enforcement official in the county was good enough for him to deal with.