In Colton's Custody

by Dana Nussio

  Jace blew out a breath. “God, let’s hope so.”

  Jarvis might have become bored with the topic, as he took a step between them.

  “Back to our discussion. Asher said he wants to clear my idea with his siblings, but how about we try it out on you first?”

  Jace’s gaze flicked to Asher. “If you’re okay with that.”

  He considered for a few seconds and then nodded. He didn’t bother lying to himself and saying he hadn’t fully gone from proper skepticism to believing there was a possibility that Jace might be his brother, and then to hoping it was the case.

  Asher still didn’t want to be disloyal to Ace, but he couldn’t argue that Jace would be a different type of Colton from any of the others. The guy was at least interested in the ranch part of the Colton world, instead of only the oil business like half of Asher’s siblings, or emergency response and personal protection, like the other two.

  Jace might need a major ranch education, but Asher also knew of someone who would be a willing instructor.

  By the time that Asher had tuned back into the conversation, Jarvis had wrapped up his pitch, even including Asher’s suggestion of a decoy.

  “Well, what do you think?” Jarvis asked.

  Jace appeared to consider for a few seconds.

  “If it were me, I would want to guarantee that Payne was safe by having him moved from the hospital to another facility,” Jace said. “But, other than that, I think it’s a great idea.

  “Whoever hurt...Payne needs to be stopped before he comes back and finishes, you know, what he started.”

  Asher nodded. At first, he’d been cautious about the idea, but Jace was right. They had to stop the shooter instead of just having security guards to protect his father, or he would never be safe. None of the family would be.

  “Just give me a minute. Let me talk it over with my siblings.”

  He stepped away and scrolled through his contacts. Strange how he was still tempted to call Ace first as the oldest, but he resisted the impulse. Ace had enough to deal with lately. Instead, Asher started with Ainsley, and worked his way down the list by age until he reached the twins, Callum and Marlowe.

  When he was finished, he returned to Jarvis, who stood near his truck.

  “Where did Jace go?”

  “Said he had to get back to work.”

  Asher could have said the same thing about the two of them, but he didn’t mention that.

  “Well, what did they say?”

  “They all agreed with Jace. As long as we move Dad, then they’re in.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She’ll go along with us.”

  Jarvis’s skeptical look had Asher scuffing the dirt with the toe of his boot. The other man was right to question. Genevieve would be the most difficult to convince, since she had the most to lose. But she also was Payne’s next of kin and could determine whether they would be allowed to move his father.

  “I’ll talk to her tonight. I’ll make sure she’s on board.”

  “So, do you want me to wait to call Spencer until you have her approval?”

  Asher shook his head, fully aware that there would be hell to pay later that night. “No, go ahead.”

  Immediately, Jarvis pulled out his phone, clicked on a contact and tapped the speaker icon.

  “What is it, brother?” Spencer said the moment he answered. “I told you not to call me at work.”

  Jarvis rolled his eyes. “Well, Sergeant Colton, this is official business, and I am calling as a Mustang Valley citizen.”

  “Oh. What is it?”

  Asher leaned toward the phone to announce his presence before a sibling battle ensued. “Hey, Spencer. Asher Colton here. Jarvis is calling on my behalf.”

  “Our meeting wasn’t enough? Look, I know it’s taking a while, but the members of our department are doing everything we can—”

  “This isn’t just Asher,” Jarvis said, interrupting him. “I came to him with an idea.”

  Spencer didn’t respond for so long that Asher wondered if the call had been dropped, a common problem in an area with too many mountains and not enough cell-phone towers. But, finally, Spencer’s voice came through the line again.

  “What are you two up to?”

  “I just have an idea about how to flush out whoever shot Payne Colton.”

  “Is that what you do while riding the fences on the ranch? Look for ways to do my job? I already know that Asher should have been a cop. If you’re vying for my position, too, who will be left at the Triple R?”

  Finally, he let Jarvis share his idea. When he finished, Jarvis exchanged a look with Asher as they waited.

  “It could work,” Spencer said finally. “It’s a good idea, Jarvis, but then I’m not surprised that you would come up with it since you—”

  Spencer stopped himself, making Asher curious.

  “Since he what?”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” Jarvis answered for him. “With all these investigations happening at the same time, his brain has to be muddled.”

  “You’ve got that right. It’s nothing,” Spencer said. “Right about the muddled part, too. This new plan is the only thing that matters right now. We need to stop this suspect. So, talk to your mother, Asher. Believe me, I wouldn’t want to be you when you tackle that subject with her.”

  Asher lifted a brow over the abrupt change in topic, but Jarvis wasn’t looking his way. Did it have something to do with the guy’s past? Asher had always figured the guy had a right to his privacy, but now he wondered if he’d failed to ask enough questions of his employees.

  “Sure you’ll have enough staff to constantly cover the decoy?”

  “We’ll make it work.”

  The conversation suddenly awkward, they ended the call. Jarvis made the legitimate excuse that he needed to get back to the barns and strode that way.

  What had just happened? His distant cousin appeared to be running from questions Asher hadn’t even asked, scuffing up dirt as he went. What didn’t make sense was that Jarvis had come to him, offering to help. Should he trust that assistance?

  Would the man have a reason to want to see Payne dead or to have created any of the mysteries directed at his family or him individually? His gut told him no. Absolutely not. If only that could have made him less suspicious, could have eliminated his sudden distrust of Jarvis and, by extension, Spencer, who happened to be the local police sergeant.

  Just what did Jarvis have to hide?

  Chapter 23

  Willow startled as the doorbell to Tender Years triggered the buzzer in her apartment. Even knowing Asher would be dropping to settle his account that night didn’t prepare her for the sharp reality of his arrival. She’d managed to avoid him the past few days, sending Candace or Tori out during drop-off and pickup times, but this she would have to handle herself.

  How was she supposed to face him, just over a week since he’d taken back his proposal? Had he figured out the message behind her acceptance of his offer in the first place? She’d said she would never marry without love, and she’d been true to her word. Maybe she’d found her courage after Genevieve had said her son might have feelings for her, but she’d said yes for one reason alone: she was in love with him. Completely. Hopelessly.

  She’d taken a leap, blindfolded, into an empty pool. Had she ever considered what she would do if she’d gambled wrong? Had she believed her love would be enough for them both?

  She opened the door that separated her work from her home life and descended the stairs. She didn’t miss that he’d gone to the Tender Years entrance instead of climbing the exterior stairs to her apartment. Images of what had happened the night he’d visited her there were still alive in her memory. They were sharp in both the imprints they’d left on all her senses and their ability to slice her heart.

 
Was she ready for this? Her life would be easier if she didn’t have to see him every day, if only from her office window as he carried Harper up the walk, but did she want to lose even that lingering contact?

  She entered the center through the kitchen and closed the door behind her. Flipping on light switches as she went, she continued up the hall to the front of the house. The facility looked as if she was working evening hours by the time that she opened the front door.

  “Hello, Willow.”

  She cleared her throat. “Hi.”

  Her chest squeezed at the sight of him under the glow of the porch light, dressed in his uniform of jeans and a dark T-shirt, yet somehow looking different. It was more than that he’d used gel to control his hair. She refused to think about that other night when he’d stood on the landing outside her apartment. She’d let him into her home, bed and heart, not close to being in that order.

  “You were expecting me, right?”

  She nodded.

  His lips lifted slightly. “Then may I come in?”

  For a few seconds, she hesitated. Would she force him to complete their final business transactions on the porch? Couldn’t she be an adult about this?

  “Sure. Come in.”

  She pulled the door wide for him to enter and closed it behind him, but she immediately entered her office. “I have the paperwork on my desk.”

  Lingering longer than was necessary so that she could take a few deep breaths, she collected the forms and returned to where he stood in the entry.

  “I feel like I just filled those out.” He pointed to the sheets in her hands.

  “Because you did.” It didn’t seem possible that only three weeks had passed since she’d received that call from the hospital. So much had changed. She had changed.

  “You don’t have to withdraw Harper yet from the center if you don’t want to.”

  The surprise in his eyes had to have been mirrored in hers as the words seemed to have come all on their own. She shifted from one foot to the other. “I mean, she’s so happy here.”

  “It seemed like what you wanted.”

  She shrugged and licked her lips. “It’s just that you’ve already said what a difficult time you had finding good childcare.”

  “I’ll just have to search harder and offer a higher salary.”

  “Than the amount you were already paying? You can’t just create qualified candidates out of thin air. Do you know how hard I had to search for mine?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “And she and Luna are both scooting. They’ll be crawling soon. Can you imagine how much fun the two of them would have together?”

  Why was she giving him excuses not to leave? Did she want to see him every day? Was she trying to make this harder on herself? Or him?

  “Yeah, that would have been fun,” he said.

  “Luna will miss her. So will I.” She cleared her throat. “I know it will be...awkward, but this is about Harper. Not us. She deserves quality care, and you know she can have it here, where there are people who already love her.”

  He coughed several times into his T-shirt sleeve. “You don’t happen to have anything to drink do you? Water? Coffee? Anything?”

  “I have some lemonade.”

  She led the way to the kitchen, pulled a glass from the cabinet and grabbed the pitcher from the refrigerator. Did the fact that he was delaying his departure mean something? It wasn’t as if he could leave when she hadn’t given him the forms to sign or accepted his final payment.

  She handed him the glass, careful not to let their fingers touch.

  “This is great. Thanks.”

  If he decided to keep Harper at the center, she would always have to take care around the child’s father. She couldn’t extend a polite handshake whenever he visited the center. Or stare at him too long during drop-off. And never could she allow herself to remember the scent of his skin, the taste of his lips or sensation of his touch on her skin.

  She knew how tightly her hands were clasped hinted just how tough those rules would be to follow. When she forced herself to release her grip and looked up, she found Asher watching her. She braced herself for the words she should have wanted to hear but suddenly dreaded. It’s for the best.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  Her breath caught, and her pulse pounded in her temples.

  “What do you mean?” she couldn’t help but ask when he didn’t immediately explain himself. “About the girls?”

  He shook his head and chewed his lip, appearing nervous. It didn’t fit. This was Asher Colton, who usually exuded confidence through his pores.

  “No,” he said finally. “Us.”

  There was an “us”? Had something changed from the other day when he’d humiliated her more than she’d believed possible? If he made that same, sad proposal a third time, would she be able to bear the mortification?

  “The two of us together, it didn’t mean anything, right?” Was she asking for more pain? Like an idiot in a bar, daring all the drunks to punch her in the gut as hard as they could?

  “I tried to tell myself that.”

  She swallowed. “What are you saying? Because if this is just another—”

  “I want you,” he blurted and then shook his head.

  The right and left slide of her chin had to mirror his. Though her body still craved him like a pitcher as part of a fountain, filling but never full, it still wasn’t enough. Anything less than all of him never would be.

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I don’t want your body. Don’t get me wrong. Your body’s great. Fantastic. It’s just that...”

  His struggle tore at her heart and pulled her lips up at the same time.

  He cleared his throat and stared so deeply into her eyes that he must have been able to see straight to her soul.

  “I...want—”

  Then he stopped, his head jerking to stare at the closed door that hid the stairway to her apartment. You. The word ricocheted in her head, booming in its absence. Please say it, she wanted to beg. Just that one syllable and then three words more and everything would change for them. The impossible would become possible. A lie could be a foundation for truth.

  “Do you smell smoke?”

  Her gaze swept to that door. She shook her head, and then she stopped. Because she did smell it.

  “Oh my God! Luna’s up there! My baby!”

  She barreled for the door, but he gripped her shoulder from behind.

  “I’ll go.”

  “No! I have to get to her!”

  “What you need to do is call 911 and let me do this.” He pressed his cell into her hand.

  She shook her head and moved forward again.

  “Please!”

  The desperation in his voice cut through her panic, and she hesitated long enough to look back at him.

  He shook his head. “I can’t risk losing you both. Now you’ve got to get out.”

  Without waiting for her to answer, he hurried across the kitchen, collecting items as he went. He rested a pair of silicone oven mitts on the counter and tossed a white tablecloth into the sink and turned on the faucet. After wringing it slightly, he wrapped it around his head to cover his nose and mouth, shoved on the mitts and rushed for the door.

  “Please bring back my Luna.”

  “I will.”

  He didn’t look back as he opened the door and barreled up the stairs. At the top, he pushed open the second door. Willow gasped as smoke poured out, but Asher didn’t hesitate as he crouched low and slipped inside.

  “I love you,” she called after him.

  Her heart squeezed with the knowledge that he couldn’t hear her. Maybe would never hear the truth that she’d known all along. Her vision smeared with welling tears, she jogged down the sam
e hall she’d followed so recently to meet him. Once outside, she hurried all the way past the decorative blond brick barrier that bordered the street and marked the edge of her property. Then she dialed for emergency assistance.

  A sob escaped her just as a loud click came on the line.

  “911 operator, what is your emergency?” the woman said.

  “Fire” was all she could manage.

  The emergency worker spoke calming words as she extracted information and then assured Willow that assistance was on the way. Willow clicked off the call and stared down at the phone in her hands. His phone. She glanced up at the house again. Smoke was already billowing from the upstairs window. Were those flames climbing the pretty curtains next to her dinette? Asher had promised he would bring her baby to her. What if he couldn’t keep his promise? What if he couldn’t get out?

  Sirens already blared in the distance. In minutes, the fire trucks would arrive, but would they be soon enough? She couldn’t just stand there and wring her hands while two of the people she loved most in the world were inside that building. Maybe hurting. Maybe—no, she couldn’t let that happen.

  She rushed up the walk again. She had to get to them. Had to save them. Or she would die with them.

  “Willow, stop!”

  She felt more than heard his words as they slowed her at the bottom step. Had she imagined the sound that seemed to have come from the west side of the house, the section with no access to the second floor? The shrill whirr of the approaching emergency vehicles crowded her brain, forcing out the sound she longed for. With it, her hope.

  Her world swam in and out of focus as she was suddenly enveloped in a mob of firefighters in heavy yellow jackets. One of them guided her outside the low brick wall.

  “Miss, you have to stay back.”

  “But my...baby. My—”

  “Your what?”

  Where Asher had come from, she wasn’t sure, but he was there, sweat and soot painting his face, a filthy tablecloth-covered bundle in his oven mitt–covered arms. She could only stare at the lump, her hands covering her mouth to hold in a scream. Her knees buckled, her legs no longer having the strength to hold her upright. Someone behind her, probably an EMT, caught her.