Colton Family Rescue
Page 23
“It’s just awful,” she said to T.C. “I can’t believe it.”
She seemed beyond words and waved them inside. The moment they stepped in, they could hear raised voices from the front of the house.
“Maybe your place would be best,” T.C. muttered.
“Less drama,” she agreed.
But when they followed the voices into the foyer, the scene they found was the absolute last thing Jolie ever would have expected.
Piper, sweet, loving Piper, with her wrists handcuffed behind her back. Being led away by a uniformed officer while another man with a vest labeled CSI followed, carrying a large paper envelope. To one side stood another man, with a triumphant-looking Fowler.
Piper? Impossible, Jolie thought.
“What the hell is going on?” T.C. demanded. “Sheriff?”
“I told you it was her!” Fowler was crowing like four-year-old Emma, Jolie thought with disgust.
T.C. told his brother to shut up with an obscenity she’d never heard from him before. But he kept his gaze on the dark-haired man in the county uniform, who didn’t seem happy for a guy who had apparently just made an arrest.
“We’ve found some pretty damning evidence,” the man said, sounding reluctant.
Fowler couldn’t resist chiming in. “They found a charm from that silly bracelet she wears, with her initials on it, right outside the window.”
T.C. didn’t even look at his brother. “They found it now? Three months later?”
“It was buried, it seems,” the man said.
“The gardener found it,” Fowler said. Jolie found the glee in his voice repugnant. This was his own sister he was condemning. But then he, and Marceline, had never really considered Piper their true sister, had they?
“A bit suspect, isn’t it?” T.C. said, echoing her own thoughts. “All this time and now this conveniently turns up?”
“If it was buried, couldn’t it have been there much longer?” Jolie asked. Fowler glared at her. She ignored him. She was going to be part of this family now—not an altogether pleasant prospect—and she was never again going to be intimidated by Fowler, or his parents. If he —and T.C.—still had two of them.
“It’s not just that.” A second man joined them, younger, with blond hair and light blue eyes. He was in plainclothes, but he had the same air as the sheriff, one of cool command. She guessed this must be the investigator T.C. had referred to, Kidwell.
“They found one of the old man’s shirts wadded up in the back of her closet,” Fowler crowed again. “And it’s all bloody.”
T.C. never looked at Fowler, but he frowned. “Piper’s not that stupid.”
“The evidence will be analyzed, of course. If it’s not your father’s blood—”
“Of course it is,” Fowler interrupted.
T.C. whirled on his brother then. “You take a rather repulsive amount of joy in the thought that it’s your own father’s blood!”
Fowler looked taken aback for a moment, as if that idea had never occurred to him.
Charming brother-in-law you’re going to have, m’girl.
But right now she was noticing T.C.’s clenched fists and wondering if he was going to deck his brother right here in front of two law enforcement officers.
“He’s got it coming,” she whispered to him, “and when you deliver it I’ll hold your hat, but this might not be the best time.”
T.C. turned his head to look at her. A slow, wide smile changed his expression from anger to a pure sort of happy that vanquished any last, tiny, lingering doubt she’d had.
He looked back at the sheriff, once more ignoring his brother, who had wisely backed out of reach. “She’ll have the best attorney in Dallas, and bail as soon as it’s set.”
The man nodded. He flicked a glance at Fowler, and Jolie wondered if he was as suspicious of his motives as T.C. was. She hoped so.
“I’m so sorry,” she said when they were alone again. “I don’t believe for a moment Piper had anything to do with this.”
He put his arm around her, pulling her close. “She didn’t. Fowler’s desperate, just like he was with you.”
“Maybe you should have punched him.”
His mouth quirked. “I’m glad you stopped me. Piper needs me able to help, not locked up beside her for assault.”
“And you know Fowler would do just that.”
“I have no illusions left about how far my twisted brother would go.”
“I’m sorry about that, too.”
He turned to face her. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t matter. Nothing does, except that I have you back in my life. And Emma.”
“She already adores you.”
“I’ll be the best father I can be to her, Jolie.” His mouth quirked again. “After all, I’ve had a great example of what not to do.”
Jolie laughed, both at his words and the light tone. “Yes, you will be. I’m glad you’re not letting this drag you down.”
“I can face anything the Colton Fates throw at me, now,” he said.
“Good,” she said wryly. “Because then you can help me do the same.”
“You’ll have a lot of help, if you want it. But I don’t think you’ll need it. You stood up to Fowler in a way few do.” He lifted a hand to her cheek. “I love you.”
“I know,” she said.
“Then that’s all we need,” he said.
The slow smile that curved his mouth and lit his eyes filled her with an entirely different kind of warmth. The kind that never wavered, that filled all corners of not just her body but her life. The kind of warmth she’d only ever felt with him, the kind she knew would endure through any trial, that would matter even when nothing else did.
Together they headed for the kitchen to find their daughter.
* * * * *
Don’t miss RUNAWAY COLTON by Karen Whiddon,
the next book in THE COLTONS OF TEXAS miniseries,
coming November 2016 from
Harlequin Romantic Suspense.
If you love this story, look out for
Justine Davis’s next book
OPERATION SOLDIER NEXT DOOR,
the newest installment in the
CUTTER’S CODE series,
also available in November of 2016.
And don’t miss previous books in the
CUTTER’S CODE series:
OPERATION UNLEASHED
OPERATION POWER PLAY
OPERATION HOMECOMING
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Keep reading for an excerpt from GUARDING THE SOLDIER’S SECRET by Kathleen Creighton
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Guarding the Soldier's Secret
by Kathleen Creighton
Introduction
From the Memoirs of Sierra Sam Malone:
The day the railroad bulls beat me to a pulp and threw me off the train in the middle of a California desert, I wouldn’t have bet a wooden nickel on my chances of living to see another sunrise. Who would have thought I’d live to become one of the richest men in the country and make movies and hobnob with the biggest and brightest stars in Hollywood. Hobnob, hell, I bought and sold ’em.
Married one, too.
Barbara Chase wasn’t the first beautiful woman fool enough to marry me, but after she left her baby girl with a sitter and her clothes on a Malibu beach and walked into the sunset, I swore she’d be the last. The way I’d treated my first wife, Elizabeth, causing her to want no part of me in her life or our son’s, and now Barbara taking the way out she did, made it pretty clear to me I was not fit husband material. Or father material, either, for that matter. Which is why I sent my baby daughter off to be raised by Barbara’s folks in Nebraska.
Which turned out to be another mistake, but that’s another story.
So, I had sworn off love, after Barbara, though not off women. No...never off women. Of those there was always a plentiful supply, easily available and more than willing to please me. Mine for the taking. And I took without conscience or regrets.
When Katherine came to me with a sensible business proposition, I thought it seemed like a good idea at the time. Power and prestige, in exchange for the thing that mattered the least to me—money. The funny thing was, we were a good match, Kate and I, and we lasted longer than either of us expected.
But when tragedy struck, we lacked the one thing that might have seen us through the storm. And that was love.
Prologue
Somewhere in eastern Afghanistan
Three years previous
Laila loved puppies. She was sure there wasn’t anything in the whole world cuter than puppies. Except maybe baby goats. And lambs, of course. She liked the way the lambs sucked on her fingers when they were just born and hadn’t figured out there wasn’t any milk there for them to drink.
Laila’s mother said she liked puppies, too, but not in the house. She said the puppies and their mother had to stay outside, but she made them a nice bed from one of her old tshaaderis, behind the storage house where part of the neighbor’s wall had fallen down and made a sort of cave. It was just big enough for Laila to squeeze inside when she wanted to visit the puppies. It was nice and warm in there, but it was also cool when the sun got too hot. The mother dog liked it, too, because she could see what was outside but nobody could see her or her puppies.
It was a good place. A safe place.
On that day, Laila went one last time to say good-night to the puppies. She knew it was time to go inside for supper and to learn the lessons her mother was teaching her. Someday she would go to school—her mother had told her so—and she must be ready so the other children wouldn’t think she was stupid. But it was so much fun to hold the puppies under her chin and feel them tickle her neck with their little wet noses and hear the cute grunting sounds puppies make, while the mother dog watched, not minding at all. Laila’s mother had already called her once, but...oh, just a few more minutes, she told herself, and then she would go.
She heard a new sound and caught a breath and held it so she could listen. Yes—it was a truck coming along the dirt road, coming to their house! Not very many people came this way, especially not in a truck. Laila’s heart gave a little bump. Maybe it was Akaa Hunt! It had been such a long time since he had come to visit.
Carefully she put the puppy she was holding back beside its mother. She was about to crawl out of her hiding place when something stopped her.
The mother dog was growling. It was a scary sound, one Laila had never heard her make before. The yellow hair on the back of the mother dog’s neck was sticking up, and her teeth were showing. They were very big teeth. Slowly Laila backed up and shrank into the shadows, and the mother dog stopped growling and licked her muzzle and whimpered softly, almost, Laila thought, as if she was saying I’m sorry.
Now Laila couldn’t see the truck because it had stopped in front of the house. She wanted to go and find out who had come to visit, but when she started to crawl out of her hiding place, the mother dog put her paw on Laila’s leg and growled even more loudly than before. Laila didn’t want to see those big teeth again, so she crept back farther into the shadows. She stayed very still and quiet, and the mother dog and even the puppies were quiet, too.
Then she heard a new sound. It wasn’t like anything she had ever heard, but it made her more frightened than she’d ever been in her life before. It was high and sharp and terrible, and it made her feel cold inside, like she was going to throw up. It came again and again and again, and Laila put her hands over her ears to shut out the noise.
The worst thing was it sounded like her mother’s voice. But how could that be? Why would her mother make such a terrible sound?
She whimpered, “Ammi, Ammi!” and curled up in a ball and huddled close to the mother dog and the puppies. The mother dog growled softly, way down in her throat. Laila shivered and shivered and couldn’t stop, and after a while she heard the truck doors slam and the truck drive away.
Laila waited for her mother to come and tell her it was time for lessons and supper. But her mother didn’t come.
Laila didn’t want to be a baby, but she couldn’t help it. She cried and whimpered, “Ammi... Ammi...”
The mother dog whined and licked the tears from her face, and after a long, long time, Laila slept.
Copyright © 2016 by Kathleen Creighton-Fuchs
ISBN-13: 9781488005176
Colton Family Rescue
Copyright © 2016 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Justine Davis
for her contribution to The Coltons of Texas miniseries.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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