She hesitated, then said, “Maybe that’s a sign she’s really concerned about your father.”
“I’ve thought that,” he agreed. “But it could be a cover, too. Her idea of what a grieving spouse would do.”
“Did they have a prenup?” He gave her a sideways look. She shrugged. “She was a lot younger. And your father always struck me as a very...experienced man.”
A brief but potent grin flashed across his face. “If that’s your way of saying he suspects everyone of ulterior motives because he usually has them himself, you’re right.”
She smiled back. He was still, she noted, referring to his father in present tense. So he had not given him up for dead, at least not yet. And she suddenly realized what hell it must be, to suspect your own family. But it could be worse; at least he wasn’t suspicious of any of the “good Coltons,” as Piper had called them.
“They did have a prenup agreement,” he said, but he didn’t sound as if it helped much. “I don’t know how much he settled on her. It was incremental, I think, starting at five years.”
His expression changed, all traces of lightness vanishing.
“But?”
“It had a thirty-year expiration. Which they just passed.”
Jolie’s breath stopped in her throat. He’d just admitted his mother had a very powerful motive to have done away with his father.
Chapter 27
At family dinners, T.C. often wished himself anywhere else. But tonight his wish was much more specific; he wanted to be at the refuge with Jolie and Emma. They only gathered like this because the old man had demanded it. T.C. suspected he liked to exercise his power over the family. And stopping now would be tantamount to admitting he was dead, which he at least wasn’t willing to do.
But it didn’t stop him from wondering if there was one of them sitting at this table who knew perfectly well Eldridge Colton was dead, and was only here to hide that fact. Only his mother was absent tonight, and he wondered if she was off consulting another psychic.
Or if she wasn’t here because she was the one who knew he was dead.
Fowler had been on a tear all through his usual predinner drink, ranting about his usual favorite subjects. Marceline, who had arrived only just before they sat down, didn’t even listen before starting to nod in agreement. It was, as Jolie had said, an odd coalition. Now he surreptitiously studied his half sister, wondering yet again if her urging to have his father declared dead lay in something more than simply wanting the inheritance that had also been in the prenup. He’d forgotten to tell Jolie about that part, that Marceline also had a powerful motive, although her take would be considerably less than their mother’s.
She had straw in her hair.
T.C. blinked, leaned slightly to confirm what he’d seen. But there was no doubting the piece of dried hay clinging to Marceline’s hair in the back.
If he hadn’t been indulging of late himself, he never would have thought of it. But the memory of picking straw out of his own hair and various other places was too fresh—and too hot—in his mind to ignore. He fought down the instant response of his body to the memory of those precious times with Jolie, and looked away before Marceline caught him staring. And probably gaping.
He’d heard a vehicle on the gravel just before she came in. Marceline, coming up from the barns—and the bunkhouse?
Was it true? Had his snooty, imperious and usually immaculate stepsister unbent enough for a tumble in the hay with ranch hand Dylan Harlow? And what the hell was Dylan thinking? He’d been here long enough to see what she was, what he was risking. All it would take was one wrong thing said to set her off, and—
“—see that little bitch tossed in prison for the rest of her life. T.C. can go visit her. It’ll be a nice payback for what she did to him.”
T.C.’s attention snapped back to his half brother. “What?”
“I said you can go visit that tramp in prison. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, after she dumped you for all that cash that was as cold and hard as she is?”
T.C. fought down the fierce denial that rose to his lips. He couldn’t let his brother see, or even suspect, where Jolie was. It didn’t matter now as far as their father was concerned, but Fowler couldn’t and wouldn’t keep his mouth shut and anything he said could get back to the killer.
Especially if the killer was their mother.
His stomach churned as he tried to think.
So Fowler didn’t know yet that Jolie had been cleared in his father’s disappearance. And whoever the hand was who’d been at the refuge hadn’t seen anything or said anything. Unless it had been his mother that time, too. But she would hardly hold back, would she? She would have been bursting with the news that Jolie was here and unable to stop herself from blurting it out, no doubt in over the top outrage, the moment the family was gathered. In fact, she would have waited until he was here to do it, for maximum effect, and—
Waited until he was here.
He leaped to his feet, shoving his chair back heedlessly. God, he was an idiot. He should have realized instantly why his mother wasn’t here. That vehicle he’d heard minutes ago wasn’t Marceline arriving; it was his mother leaving. She’d waited until she knew he wouldn’t be at the refuge.
He left the room without a word, hit the back door at a run and was in the SUV in seconds. He didn’t care about kicking up gravel and dust as he roared off. He covered the distance to the refuge at twice his usual pace, even once leaving the big loop of the track and cutting across a small rise and down the other side so fast the wheels lost traction for an instant as he went over the top before grabbing again.
He spotted the Jeep, the silver one with the CVR logo on the door his mother drove on the rare occasions she went anywhere on the ranch, just coming to a halt about fifteen feet from the cabin. He floored it; he wanted to stop this before it started. Not for anything did he want Jolie to have to deal with this right now. Nor, he thought, his stomach seeming to turn over, did he want Emma to see it.
He skidded to a halt between his mother and the cabin. He was out before she had finished shrieking at him for spraying dust all over her. He figured he’d start with the biggest gun. Maybe he’d catch her off guard.
“Why did you kill that woman?”
His mother’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“You heard me. You were seen, described.”
There was no mistaking her utterly blank expression. He knew his mother well enough to know she had no idea what he was talking about, not even enough to formulate a denial.
She wasn’t the killer Emma had seen.
He should feel relieved, he supposed. But he didn’t. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking on you. I’m worried. Everyone is talking about you. You left work, just vanished, for days now. They think you killed Eldridge and are hiding! And to find you with her, that scheming little money grubber—”
“Get out.” He cut her off sharply. “This place is off-limits to you.”
Her nose went up immediately. “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m your mother.”
“Much to my dismay.”
“How dare you!”
“How dare I?” He was barely able to keep his rage on a leash now that she was here. Something about her intruding here, spying, skulking about, brought it all to the surface. “I dare because I finally know the truth.”
“The truth? Whatever that little tramp has been telling you—”
“Stop. I’ve had enough of your manipulations.”
“That gold digger in there likely killed your father! As if what we paid her to stop ruining your life wasn’t enough, she came back for more and when Eldridge wouldn’t cave she killed him!”
“Cork it, Mother. Jolie has an unassailable alibi. Not that I needed it.”
“My God, y
ou’ve fallen for her lies again, haven’t you? Just like you did four years ago.”
The leash snapped.
“Oh, yes,” he said, his voice going low, lethal. “Let’s talk about four years ago. Let’s talk about you bullying an innocent woman whose only crime was falling in love with me. Let’s talk about you threatening to make her life a living hell if she didn’t leave. Let’s especially talk about you threatening a helpless baby!”
She backed up a half step. “I never—”
He told her in crude terms what she could do with her denial.
“Thomas Eldridge Colton, you mind your manners.”
He knew he’d gotten to her. She only dragged out his full name when she was out of other ammo.
“I’ll take no crap about manners from a woman who has less class than Jolie has in her little finger. What you did was unforgivable. A tiny baby, and you used her as a weapon. You’re disgusting.”
His mother went pale. “Thomas—”
“Shut up. I love Jolie. I always have. So get used to her being around. If I ever hear you’ve been anything less than kind to her, then I will make your life a living hell. And so help me, if you ever threaten Emma again, you will pay a higher price than you can afford. I’ll see you out on the street before I’ll let that happen.”
She was staring at him, appearing dumbstruck. Then her gaze shifted slightly, to look past him.
“It won’t matter.” Jolie’s quiet, steady voice came from behind him. He kept his eyes on his mother. Saw her nose wrinkle with distaste.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” he said to his mother. “If I see so much as a sneer on your manufactured face, I will come at you with both barrels until nothing’s left. Do you understand?”
She was looking shaken now. This was his mother. He supposed he should feel some twinge about that, but he thought again of the baby he’d once held in his arms and there was no room for feeling sorry for the woman who had sworn to terrorize her.
“You won’t have to,” Jolie said as she came down the porch steps, still in that same steady voice. “If she dares to try she’ll find I’m not the frightened pushover I once was. I will defend myself, and my child.”
She came to a halt beside him. A glance told him her head was up, her gaze as level as her voice as she faced the woman who had ruined her life, threatened her child. Pride filled him. She was one hell of a woman, Jolie Peters.
He reached out and put his arm around her, pulling her close. Then he looked back at his mother, who for the first time he could remember looked at a loss. There was no bluster, no haughtiness in her now. T.C. had never seen her like this. He didn’t relish it, but welcomed it nevertheless. She needed to know he meant every word.
“It’s up to Jolie to decide if there will ever be a relationship between you and me. As long as she doesn’t feel safe, as long as Emma isn’t safe around you, you’re out of our lives. Forever, if need be.”
Whitney Colton was apparently speechless, which was an accomplishment not to be taken lightly. Her gaze flicked to Jolie, then back to him. And in the moment before she turned on her heel and got back in the Jeep, he thought he saw fear in her eyes. Of what, he wasn’t sure, but perhaps she’d finally realized she might have lost this son forever.
And then she was gone. He hugged Jolie, smiled at her. “You did good. Faced her down good and proper.”
“I had all the strength in the world,” Jolie said quietly, “after hearing what you said to her.”
He’d been hoping she’d heard. Most of what he’d said had been for her as much as his mother. “I meant it. All of it.”
“I know. I don’t know why, how you could forgive what I did—”
“Knowing what she did makes all the difference.”
“You didn’t have to believe me. She is your mother.”
“Again, to my dismay,” he said wryly. Then he looked at her, considering. “Now the only question is, can you forgive me?”
“Forgive you? For what?”
“For believing her side. For letting you and Emma go without a real fight.”
“Maybe we were both too young then.”
She was letting him off easy, he thought. But then, Jolie always did. Giving in to the urge that was nearly undeniable anyway, he kissed her. Long, and slow and deep, until only lack of air made him break it off.
He stared down at her as a sudden realization hit him. “Look... I made a big assumption tonight.”
She blinked, looking as if she, too, was a bit dazed by how quickly the heat flared between them. “What?”
“That you...feel the same way.”
She smiled, in a way he hadn’t seen in four years. “Not an assumption. Fact.”
Relief blasted through him, telling him just how worried he’d been that he might have jumped the gun. He kissed her again, gently this time, sweetly.
“Are you gonna keep doing that? I’m hungry.” Emma’s chipper voice came from the doorway.
T.C. could see she held a small, inexpensive music player with a set of earphones attached. He guessed that was how Jolie had kept her from hearing the confrontation that was occurring just outside the door. He admired her presence of mind. As he admired so many other things.
“You know,” he said, walking up the steps and sweeping the child up in his arms, “so am I.”
“There’s one last jar of chili,” Jolie said.
“Sounds perfect.”
And a few minutes later he sat down to a meal that wasn’t nearly as fancy as the one he’d left, consisting of one course of chili with crackers, but it tasted better than anything he’d ever eaten.
Chapter 28
“She’ll talk, won’t she?” Jolie asked. “Back at the house?”
T.C. finished rinsing his chili bowl before speaking. “She will.”
“So they’ll know we’re here.”
“Yes.” He looked at her. “You want to leave? Go somewhere else?”
Jolie felt her stomach lurch. She felt safe here. After all, it had been his mother, not the killer—at least, not the killer she was most worried about—who had found them. And she was sure of that now; Whitney Colton wasn’t a good enough actress to have faked that blank look.
“Should we?”
“You could get lost easier in the city, but it would also be easier to sneak up on you amid the crowds. We could go to the house. You’d both be safe there—”
“But under the same roof as the person who accused me.”
“Even Fowler will shut up now.”
“And the one who still thinks I’m a money-grubbing gold digger?”
“I think they call that projection.”
She had to look away from him for fear she’d smile. T.C. really did have few illusions left about his charming mother. But she wasn’t sure that was enough to make being in the same house tolerable.
“That first person I saw out here,” she began.
“I know. We can’t be positive it was a hand, but it makes sense that it was, that he mentioned in passing that he’d seen Flash here, and that got back to my mother.”
She nodded; it did make sense. But she’d long ago learned that what made sense wasn’t always what happened. In the end, she gave him her truthful answer. “I like it here.”
For a moment T.C. just smiled at her. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“With no refrigerator, TV, cell phone, not even a radio and having to pump water and dump it outside?”
“A roof, peace, quiet, books, a place to sit and sleep, a working bathroom,” she countered.
He shook his head, as if in wonder. “You’ve hung on to it, haven’t you? That knack for looking at the bright side.”
“If I lost it, I’d have given up long ago.”
He reached out and took her hand. She saw him glance at Emma, who seemed remarkably unperturbed by the new closeness between them.
“You’re an amazing woman.”
Only this man had ever made her believe that. She’d always thought of herself as scrambling from one crisis to the next her entire life. She’d bounced from one foster home to another, her grief over the death of her parents coming out in unpleasant ways. When she’d finally landed in an understanding place, that, too, was yanked out from under her with her foster father’s death. Once out of the system, she’d dug herself into a gradually deeper hole, going from one scrape to another. Then she’d fallen for a smooth-talking pretty boy who’d turned out to be a petty criminal who’d not only vanished the moment he’d learned she was pregnant, but landed himself in jail, so there was never any question of him being there for her.
T.C. knew he’d never been in the picture; she’d told him long ago.
That you’re here now, that you’ve turned your life around, is proof you’re amazing.
His words had been salve to her battered soul, and she’d clung to them, allowing herself for a brief moment to believe. To believe in herself, and in this man, and the future unfolding before them.
And two months later it was all over, and she was skulking away in the middle of the night with her meager belongings in a worn suitcase and her most precious thing wrapped in the worn blanket she’d come to the Colton Valley Ranch with. She’d left behind the things T.C. had given her, with some idea of Eldridge or Whitney accusing her of theft. He’d had a habit of picking up things he said made him think of her: a scarf the exact color of her eyes, a colorful mobile for Emma’s crib, with brightly painted horses dancing. It had hurt to leave that more than her own things.
The only thing she’d taken was the leather planner he’d given her, because that had been before they were actually together, and she’d already put it into full use anyway.
And now it had helped save her from Fowler’s viciousness.
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