Colton 911: Secret Defender

by Marie Ferrarella

  No way in hell was she going to drop this suit. She was going to get what she felt she deserved, no matter what it cost the rest of the family emotionally. Dead or not, Dean owed it to her, and she intended to collect, whatever it took. And she wasn’t about to leave this up to Erik and Axel to handle, because they wouldn’t. She loved her boys as much as she was capable of loving anyone, but she knew that there wasn’t a viable brain between the two of them.

  No, this was up to her—the way everything had always been, she thought, her lips curving in a malevolent smile. And she intended to do whatever was necessary to see this through and get what was coming to her, the other Coltons be damned.

  * * *

  Because he had neglected his main establishment, Southpaw Gym, Aaron wasn’t able to come by and check on his mother for a couple of days. Southpaw Gym, located on the outskirts of the North Loop, was where he trained boxers who were actually looking to make their way up the ladder. His other three gyms, which were scattered throughout the Chicago suburbs, needed to be managed, too, but they were geared toward the millennials who regarded boxing as a form of exercise.

  The gyms were his pride and joy, especially the first one, which he had purchased with the prize money he’d won from the bouts. Because of the injuries he had sustained, and to spare his mother her mounting concern that he would sustain a life-altering injury, he had quit boxing.

  But because he loved the sport—he always had—Aaron had turned his attention to training professional fighters instead of being one.

  Not long after opening his main gym, he had begun working with at-risk teens. He wanted to show them how to properly channel their aggression in positive ways, and thereby save them from wrong choices.

  Aaron was very proud of all of his work, training fighters and working with those teens. He would have been content living at the gym, not just above it. But at the present moment, he needed to come by and check on his mother’s progress.

  He still wasn’t 100 percent sure that he had not made a mistake in allowing his mother to hire this Felicia woman. Because he had so much to catch up on at the gyms, he had yet to check out the woman’s qualifications, or get in contact with Damon to ask him to do that.

  Because his mother was so set on Felicia, he had admittedly taken the easy way out and gone along with her choice.

  Aaron sincerely hoped he hadn’t made a mistake doing that.

  Pulling up in front of the house, he got out and walked up to the old, imposing building’s front door. He had a key to his mother’s house, as did his brothers. Since they had all grown up here, Nicole had insisted on it. But given the circumstances, he didn’t want to just walk in unless he really had to.

  He felt that if he did use his key, it might give Felicia the impression that he was trying to spy on her. That, in turn, might create an uncomfortable situation for his mother, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

  No, if this Felicia woman was not right for the job, he felt pretty certain that he would pick up on that fact fast enough.

  Ringing the doorbell, he found himself standing there longer than he had anticipated or was happy about.

  Where is everyone? he wondered. Aaron had just slipped his hand into his pocket to fish out the house key when the door suddenly opened.

  He was about to comment on the amount of time he’d had to wait, but the words died in his throat. His jaw went slack and his mouth dropped open at the sight he saw, which he was totally unprepared for.

  Felicia was indeed in the doorway, but a completely different Felicia than the woman he had met. She was dressed in a workout halter top and very trim black shorts. For just a moment, as he took in her slim figure and the legs that looked as if they could go on forever, Aaron found himself utterly tongue-tied.

  The sound of his mother’s laughter in the background snapped him out of his momentary reverie. Knowing he had to say something to cover up staring so hard, he said the first thing that came to his mind.

  “Um, are you going to the gym?”

  His question, coming out of the blue, caught Felicia off guard. “What?” The next second, she realized that he had to be referring to what she was wearing. “Oh, no. I was just helping your mother with her physical therapy.”

  That conjured up all sorts of images that he had to fight back. In addition, he was doing his best not to stare at Felicia, but it certainly was not easy. Clearing his throat, he murmured, “I guess you really get into your work.”

  “Actually, she does,” Nicole told her son, coming into the room to join them. She was wearing workout clothes, as well, although hers fit into the sweatpants-and-sweatshirt category. She flashed a smile at her new friend. “And she thinks nothing of making me work up a sweat.”

  Felicia laughed as she took the towel she had slung over her shoulder and handed it to the older woman. “You think that’s hard?” she teased, with a fleeting sparkle in her eyes. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  Nicole looked at her son, feigning concern. “Maybe I was wrong in hiring this tyrant.”

  Felicia took the comment with a grain of salt. “The next time you go dancing and can kick up your heels, I want you to remember this conversation,” she told her patient.

  Coming closer, Nicole impulsively hugged the young woman as she looked at her son. “Didn’t I tell you she was great?”

  Aaron’s eyes met Felicia’s. For a moment, it felt as if there was some sort of private communication taking place between them.

  “Not in so many words,” Aaron allowed, tearing his eyes away from Felicia. “But you did manage to get the idea across,” he told his mother.

  Seeing his mother happy and almost back to her old self was extremely gratifying as far as he was concerned. He had to admit that he was glad she had overridden his initial doubts.

  In this case, “mother really did know best,” he thought. But then, she had always been a sharp woman. He had only to reflect on his own earlier life to know that. She had stood by him even when he had given her nothing but grief over taking in his semiorphaned half brothers when their mother died and his father carelessly went back to his old life. It was a life that didn’t include two little boys dragging him down, his father had loudly insisted.

  At the time, Aaron had felt cheated and put-upon. It was his mother’s kindness and patience that finally made him take in the bigger picture and see that what she was doing was decent and kind.

  Looking back, Aaron realized that probably the only misjudgment his mother had ever been guilty of was marrying his father in the first place. But she had been young and in love and he knew he really couldn’t fault her.

  Because Aaron knew that his mother was still waiting for him to say something about the current situation, he looked at Felicia and forced himself to say, “I’m glad I didn’t scare you off and you took the job. I can see that you’re very good for my mother.” And he meant that.

  Felicia felt that Aaron Colton wasn’t the type to just toss around empty flattery. She felt heat rising to her cheeks, coloring them.

  “Thank you.” Gesturing toward Nicole, she told Aaron, “Your mother’s made a good deal of progress in the last couple of days. She’s pushed herself more than I would have.”

  “Can’t make any progress if I don’t push,” Nicole said simply.

  “We all know that, Nic,” Vita said, walking into the room and joining them.

  Aaron looked at his aunt in surprise. “Aunt Vita, you’re still here?” he asked, pausing to kiss the woman’s cheek.

  “Of course I’m still here,” she answered as if there had been no other choice. “Someone has to rein in this woman if she gets out of control. I don’t want her running right over Felicia. Besides, Rick can take care of the nursery for a few days,” she said, referring to her husband and the plant nursery they owned and oversaw.

  Built directly in front of
their own home, Yates Yards housed six acres of plants, flowers and a variety of trees. The nursery offered just about everything anyone could have wanted for the home garden, as well as landscaping services. Over the years the Yateses had cultivated an extremely loyal clientele thanks to their excellent work ethic.

  “And before you start to feel sorry for my husband, he’s not going to be overworked,” Vita told her nephew. “We have really great people working for us.”

  “Well, so do I,” Nicole said as she smiled at Felicia.

  “I know,” Vita responded. “And for the record, I wasn’t worried about you. I was worried about Felicia here.” She nodded at the physical therapist. “You have to admit that you do have a habit of going full steam ahead when you want something, and heaven help the person who might get in your way.”

  Felicia looked at her employer. “I believe that was how all of this happened in the first place,” she said drolly, referring to the fall Nicole had taken that had brought them to this juncture.

  Witnessing this three-way exchange, Aaron couldn’t help smiling. “I don’t think I have anything to worry about—from either side.”

  Aaron still intended to check out Felicia’s credentials, but it was no longer as pressing a matter as he had initially felt it to be. Since, like his mother, he considered himself a pretty good judge of character, and to his way of thinking, Felicia seemed like a decent, capable sort. Moreover, he could see that she and his mother genuinely liked one another and that sort of rapport, he felt, could not be faked.

  Since he dealt with all sorts of people, he was confident that he could spot a phony or a con artist. Certainly he could pick up on someone out to bilk his mother. Not that his mother was rich by any stretch of imagination, except when it came to the people who loved her. But in his experience, con artists were just out to take what they could get and never mind how impoverished that left their mark when it was all over.

  But Felicia didn’t have any of those signs about her. As a matter of fact, the more he observed her, the more Aaron felt that she inspired the same sort of protective instincts in him that his mother always had.

  Maybe that came from dealing with men almost exclusively. On the rare occasions that he did interact with women, more likely than not he found himself leaning toward feeling protective. Even his aunt Vita inspired that and Vita, he had always felt, was tough as nails. But nails could break under the right circumstances and that was what he was concerned about.

  “Well, now that you’re here,” his mother was saying to him, “maybe you’d like to watch your ol’ mom in action. That way you can see for yourself what kind of hoops Felicia has me jumping through.”

  Aaron took exception to her phrasing. “You’re not old, Mom,” he protested, partially because he knew that was what she wanted to hear and partially because he honestly felt that his mother was someone who would be able to go on forever.

  While it was true that he wasn’t able to come by as often as he—or his mother—would have liked, the idea of a world without his mother in it wasn’t a world he wanted to know—not for a very, very long time.

  Nicole seemed pleased by her son’s response. “And don’t you forget it,” she told him with a playful wink. “Now, enough talking. Come on up to my gym.”

  He looked at her, surprised by this new turn of events. “You have a gym?” he questioned. “When did all this happen?”

  “It’s not a real gym,” his mother was forced to admit. “Felicia told me about this place that rents equipment for physical therapy, so we had them ship a few things here so I could get started.”

  “I’ve got equipment, Mom,” he pointed out. “You should have told me what you needed,” he said, turning to address Felicia. “I could have brought it over.”

  “I have no need for a punching bag, dear,” his mother told him, patting his cheek.

  “I do have other things in my gyms,” Aaron pointed out.

  “I know, but this way turned out to be simpler,” his mother informed Aaron as she began to head toward the staircase.

  He hadn’t expected her to just walk away in the middle of the discussion. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “Why, to the gym,” she repeated. “We converted one of the spare bedrooms into a temporary gym. Keep up with the conversation, dear,” his mother teased.

  Aaron quickly moved right in front of his mother, blocking her way. “Upstairs?” he questioned uneasily. “Are you sure you should be using the stairs?”

  “Well, that’s where the gym is located, dear,” his mother answered patiently.

  “But you just had a hip replacement,” he protested. He glanced over his shoulder at Felicia for some backup.

  But it was his mother who deflected his protest.

  “I know that, dear. And in case it has escaped your attention, I am doing beautifully. Aren’t I, Felicia?” she asked, turning toward the young woman.

  “Your mother is an incredible woman,” Felicia told Aaron.

  “I know that, but—” Obviously, Felicia was pushing the matter, and he wasn’t happy about that.

  “No buts, dear,” Nicole told her son. “Now, do you want to watch Felicia put me through my paces, or do you want to stand here and argue about it like some old fuddy-duddy?”

  Vita leaned in and pretended to whisper to her nephew, “I’d go with choice one if I were you.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Felicia’s broad smile as she stood to the side, taking this all in. It was the first time he had seen his mother’s aide relax. It was a nice look on her, he couldn’t help thinking.

  Rather than answer either one of his relatives, he decided to ask Felicia for her opinion. “What do you think? Is my mother pushing herself too hard?”

  “She’s doing fine,” she told him. “Really.”

  Maybe he was being overprotective, he thought. He supposed it was possible. He decided to back off for now. “All right, then let’s go and watch my mother sweat.”

  Nicole sniffed. “I don’t sweat, dear. I perspire. You above all people should know that.”

  Aaron inclined his head, a smile playing on his lips—a smile that was not lost on Felicia, although she tried to look unaffected. “I stand corrected,” he said. “Let’s go and watch you perspire.”

  “That’s better, dear,” Nicole said just before she took the stairs, deliberately moving up the steps at a good clip.

  Chapter 7

  Aaron had to admit that he was impressed.

  He had expected Felicia to just have his mother go through a few random, light exercises and then declare that the therapy session was concluded. He had not expected to see anything this extensive or thorough. But observing her, he could see that Felicia had put together a whole collection of exercises, none of them lasting longer than several minutes each. But they were all-inclusive.

  They ranged from what appeared to be simple exercises to slightly more challenging ones.

  Felicia had made certain that none of them put any undue strain on his mother. Nicole didn’t complain, and for the most part, went along with all of them.

  However, she did express dissatisfaction with one of the exercises, which involved standing up and raising and lowering her legs as if she was marching.

  “I really feel silly doing this one,” she told Felicia as she went through the exercises.

  Felicia was marching right alongside of Nicole, setting the pace. “Don’t. It’s to strengthen your leg and thigh muscles. Remember, everything starts out small and you build on that. Before you know it, you’ll be ready to go hiking.”

  “I don’t care about hiking. All I want to do is be able to get back to my catering business full-time,” Nicole said.

  Aaron told himself he would stay out of it. However, physical therapy was partially in his field of expertise. Besides, he did worry that his mother, in h
er zeal to get back to her life, might wind up overdoing things.

  “Mom, don’t push it,” Aaron warned from the sidelines. “You’re already doing more than Mrs. Abernathy did at this stage—or even further down the line, now that I think about it. So just take it slow, all right?”

  “Mrs. Abernathy?” Felicia asked, glancing between Nicole and Aaron. The name meant nothing to her.

  “Mrs. Abernathy was an old neighbor. She fell off a ladder and broke her hip when we were kids. It took the poor woman forever to heal. Even when she did finally get better,” he continued, “she wound up with a permanent limp.”

  “Well, that’s not going to be your mother’s problem,” Felicia told him. “She’s progressing very well. In addition, I’ve found that it’s good to have goals to shoot for. Your mother is the definition of a perfect patient. She’s eager to get better and she listens to instructions.” She recalled several other cases she had handled. “I’ve worked with patients who moan and complain about each and every exercise. With any luck, your mother won’t even need me in a couple of weeks, which will be good for her,” she told Aaron. “But bad for me.”

  Now that he was more than satisfied with her efforts, Aaron hadn’t even thought about her leaving. In light of the way his mother was responding to Felicia, he considered what the young woman had just said.

  “Oh, I’d rather have you work with my mother a while longer,” Aaron told her.

  His mother smiled at him, pleased by the comment. This was definitely a nice change, inasmuch as he had initially grilled Felicia and seemed almost bent on catching her in a contradiction.

  “Well, I’d be very happy to stay on,” Felicia told him. “As long as you feel that I’m doing some good.”

  Much as she liked being here, working with Nicole, she didn’t want to feel as if she was taking advantage of the situation. That said, she found that this present position was perfect for her, as was the woman she was working with, not to mention her living conditions. Felicia had gone through so much in the last six years that part of her fully expected to wake up and discover that this had all been a wonderful dream and she was back, trapped in an extremely cruel existence.