Aaron their half brother, who was every bit a full brother to Damon and Nash. “I’ll try.”
“No. You commit right now. You’re going.”
Damon did want to go. The party was this Saturday. He had that night off. Besides, he needed some time away from Mercer’s men and Ruby. And Maya. That whole family-feeling he had with them.
“All right. You and Aaron pick me up, brother.” He’d be careful not to be seen leaving or coming home. It wasn’t his usual practice to mix his personal life with work—especially when he worked undercover, but he needed a break. And he wanted to know more about the cousins he had only recently learned existed.
* * *
Damon stood in Farrah Colton’s Tuscan-inspired mansion, feeling a little awkward among the cousins who were basically strangers. He also worried he’d taken an undue risk coming here while working an undercover case. He had been careful not to be followed, but there was always that chance he’d be discovered.
What Damon knew about his new cousins was limited, but they were the progeny of Damon’s grandfather Dean Colton and his wife Anna. Damon’s siblings were the children of Dean Colton and his mistress, Carin Pedersen. Damon found it ironic that Dean’s wandering lust had been passed down to his sons—all four of them, two sets of twins. What were the odds? Dean must have had a massively dominant twin gene in him. Ernest and Alfred’s mother was Anna, which made Damon’s cousins legitimate. Damon’s uncle Axel and his father Erik were the illegitimate sons of Dean’s mistress, Carin.
Damon, his brother Nash and their half brother Aaron had only recently been introduced to their legitimate cousins. They had always known their grandmother had had an affair with a prominent Colton, but that side of the family had never been part of their lives. Damon, like his brothers, had not thought much on it—until their conniving, bitter grandmother had come up with a scandal to use her sons as a tool to take an inheritance that didn’t belong to them.
“Do you think this is as weird as I do?”
Damon glanced over at Nash and held back a sudden urge to laugh. “Weird. Yes. I was just thinking there are a lot of twins in our family.”
Nash did laugh but kept it low. “We’re in the house of one twin.”
Farrah Colton’s twin was Fallon. Farrah had married Alfred, and Fallon had married Ernest. Both husbands had been murdered. From what Damon understood, it had been a random killing. A couple of nineteen-year-olds knocked off some people on a spree. It was freakish. Ernest and Alfred were leaving work late and were shot. Senseless. He had been so busy, he hadn’t had time to delve into the details. He had been more interested in the people, his extended family. Family had always been important to him. But his head spun with all the drama on top of discovering he had such a huge family.
“They’re doing very well.” Nash glanced around the elegant furnishings.
“Do all of them live like this?” Damon asked.
“I don’t know. I assume so.” The inheritance had been quite large.
Damon glanced around at the throng of people. There were many from the community in attendance, but Coltons made up the majority. He felt like he had been dropped into the middle of a Succession episode. It was so not his thing. But he never backed down in the name of doing what was right, and what was right here was not taking money that didn’t belong to him or anyone in his immediate family.
“Do you know who our cousins are?” Damon asked.
Aaron appeared to his left just then. “I just got all the introductions.” He looked across the room. “Farrah’s three daughters are over there. Simone, Tatum and January.” He searched the room and stopped his gaze on a man standing near a bar with an attendant standing behind it. “That man over there is Heath, the oldest of Fallon’s kids.”
Seeing them, Heath walked over. “You must be Damon and Nash.” He looked from Nash to Damon.
“I’m Damon.”
Heath reached out a hand, and they shook. Heath had dark blond hair and shadowy stubble. He studied Damon directly with dark blue eyes.
“Good to meet you.” He turned to Nash and shook his hand. “I already met Aaron, here.”
“Heath is president of Colton Connections,” Aaron said. “They do inventions.”
Damon had heard that. “Your family is very successful.”
“So is yours. Aaron told me he owns some gyms and Nash here is an architect. You’re a DEA agent. That’s impressive.”
Damon thought it was generous of him to say such nice things when his father and uncle were trying to clean them out of their inheritance.
“Why don’t I take you around to meet everyone?” Heath said to both Nash and Damon. Then he turned to Aaron. “You’re welcome to join us if you like.”
“I’m good. I’ll go talk to Myles and Lila. They just arrived.”
Damon saw his cousins on their side of the railroad track enter the room. “We’ll catch up with them later.” He was glad to see them. They were all very close, and their stepdad was like a father to him and his brothers, had been ever since their mother died.
Heath led the way toward an athletically built blonde and another fit body, a male with dark brown hair.
“Hey, Heath,” the woman said, giving him a hug. “Are you commandeering the room like you do at work?”
Heath chuckled. “Just being social. This is Damon and Nash Colton.” He turned to the aforementioned men. “This is my sparky sister Carly and my brother Jones. Carly is a nurse at the University of Chicago hospital. Jones owns the Lone Wolf Brewery. We were all so excited to have an opportunity to get to know our new cousins.”
“We were,” Carly said.
“None of us knew anything about you,” Jones said, reaching out a hand to shake Damon’s and Nash’s hands.
Carly didn’t do the same, but her welcoming smile said all that needed to be said. Again, Damon was overwhelmed with how friendly these people were. Could it be they had loving parents who cared more about their well-being than money?
“You are all being very gracious given the circumstances,” Damon said.
“From what I’ve seen, you aren’t the ones on the offensive,” Heath said. “It’s your fathers, Erik and Axel.”
“The one to truly blame would be our grandmother,” Nash said. “We’re kind of the bastard sons of a bastard son.”
Nothing like putting it bluntly...
“I’d rather think of it like we’re all family here,” Carly said, this time without a smile. She meant it.
For the first time since arriving, Damon felt relaxed. Like he and his brothers belonged.
“Thank you for saying that,” Damon said.
“You better be careful with this one. He’s a DEA agent.”
“A real badass,” Jones said.
“I’m not a badass. I just think doing what’s right and protecting people is important,” he said.
“He was raised by someone who taught him what was wrong,” Nash said. “As was I.”
The three others laughed good-naturedly.
“We figured you had that attitude, and we can’t say we’re glad, because it’s your dad and grandmother,” Heath said. “They are family. Just know that we have felt similar conflict in our family.”
“You had a good father,” Nash said.
“Yes, but not so much for a grandfather,” Heath said. “Our dads were definitely good. Innovative and inspirational.”
Damon didn’t say he wished he could say the same. Now wasn’t the time or place to have that kind of discussion. Maybe later as he felt out the rest of the cousins.
Heath’s fiancée came over to join them, and Nash got into a discussion with the two of them. Damon excused himself and headed over to where Farrah’s three daughters stood talking and laughing, holding champagne flutes.
All three smiled as he approached.
&
nbsp; He introduced himself.
“This is Simone and Tatum, and I’m January.”
“Nice to meet you. I might have trouble remembering who is who after this.”
The three laughed, and he smiled. “I do know you’re all Farrah’s children.” And they were all attractive just like their mother. Simone had chin-length brown hair and blue eyes, Tatum had long, gorgeous blond hair and blue eyes like her sister, and January had long wavy blond hair and green eyes. She looked like a model, despite being around six or seven months pregnant.
“We’ve heard so much about all of you,” January said. “It was so shocking to realize we had so many cousins.”
“It was shocking for us, too,” Damon said. “I was flattered to be invited here tonight.” They certainly didn’t have to do that. It was a nice gesture.
“We all wanted to get to know you.”
Despite the circumstances? “We wanted the same.” He glanced around at all the other Coltons. “You all must be like siblings rather than cousins, being born from twins.”
“Yes.” January’s eyes brightened. “We are all very close.”
“I’m close with my brothers. We also have a really awesome uncle. Rick Yates. He was like a father to us.”
“Oh, that’s great,” January said. “Well, it’s all of our wish to get to know you all and have a family relationship if that’s possible.”
“After meeting you, I think it is,” Damon said. “And on that note, I wanted to tell you in person how sorry I was to hear about your father and his brother.”
“Thank you,” January said. “It’s been very difficult.”
“I get the impression your father and his brother were much better men than my father and uncle,” he said.
“Well, it is true our father and uncle were respected men. We don’t want you to feel bad about how your father and uncle behave. One could argue it isn’t their fault, given the way they were raised,” Tatum said.
“Yes, and our grandfather isn’t exempt from blame here,” Simone said.
He had cheated on his wife, yes. And his sons hadn’t. Not the story on Damon’s side of the family.
“My brothers and I have talked, and we intend to try and stop Carin from railroading you. We all know it isn’t fair, and none of us want or need the money. We are all financially comfortable. We aren’t those types of men.” There: he had said what he’d planned to say.
All three women bestowed him with adoring, appreciative smiles.
“Why aren’t you married yet?” January asked.
He thought of Ruby and wondered why she had popped into his head at that moment with the mention of marriage. He pushed it out of his head. He did not wish to go there yet.
“I am. Soon to be divorced.”
“Oh, well...whoever ends up with you is one lucky lady,” Simone said.
“I could say the same about you, except it would be one lucky man.”
“Try three. They’re all taken.”
Damon turned to see a man with light brown hair approach. He leaned in and kissed January.
“This is my fiancé, Sean Stafford,” January said, beaming as Sean put his arm around her. “He’s a detective for Chicago PD.”
She also sounded proud. Damon didn’t see that kind of love very often, but it radiated off this couple.
“I take it you are married?” Damon asked the other two women.
Tatum smiled. “Not yet.” She pointed a few feet away where a group of men stood talking. “The one in the middle is my boyfriend. He also works at Chicago PD, but he’s in Narcotics. The slightly taller one is Simone’s. He’s an FBI agent. So you see, you’ll fit right in as a DEA agent.”
Nice. Lots of law-enforcement types in the family.
“What do you ladies do for a living?” They didn’t strike him as the kind of women who would settle for letting a man take care of them. They were too stong and confident.
“Simone is a professor of psychology, and Tatum is a chef who owns True.”
“I’ve heard of that restaurant,” Damon said. It was a good one.
“I’m just a lowly social worker,” January said.
“She’s being too humble,” Sean said. “January cares a great deal about the children she helps.”
The more Damon learned about his new cousins, the more he realized what good people they were. He considered it his lucky day and was glad he had taken the risk in coming here tonight.
Seeing his brothers together with their cousins from the so-called other side, Damon said, “Will you excuse me?”
“Of course,” January said. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other from here on out.”
“I’d like that.” He left feeling good about his future and gaining an extended family. More than ever that seemed important. Tantamount, actually. He wore a closemouthed smile that could burst into a full-out, white-toothed happy thing.
Lila and Myles were together now. Not talking to others at the gathering. Damon had a backward thought that his instincts as an agent, working undercover cases, had allowed him to see they were as out of sorts as him. Even with his absolute fascination with his other cousins, he was still in covert mode. That could be good or bad. He voted for the good, since that would give him the best leverage with Ruby once she discovered his true identity. And she would. That was inevitable.
He closed off those thoughts. He needed to gather around the family right now.
Lila hugged him, and Myles next.
“How are you doing?” Lila asked.
“Good, actually. What do you think of all this?”
Nash and Aaron walked up, standing next to Lila. It felt like a wrong-side-of-the-tracks communion.
Damon looked out through the throng of people in the rich environment. He knew his brothers and cousins did the same, picking out their privileged cousins. Damon had no ill feelings. No instincts that told him these people were bad—like his father and uncle.
“I think we should fight the suit,” Aaron said.
Damon looked at him, and Aaron met his gaze.
“And I mean really fight it.”
“With them,” Nash said, giving a nod to the groups of cousins targeted by Carin.
Damon chuckled, feeling good about all of this and connected in ways he had never been before. He only wished Ruby could be here with him.
With that thought, he was reminded of his duplicity and how impossible it would be for them to be together if she ever found out who he really was.
He inwardly corrected himself.
When she found out who he really was. His only hope was controlling how and when she did.
Chapter 5
Ruby was on cloud nine. No. Ten, eleven or twelve. Whatever number could be assigned to how astronomically good she felt. She walked up the beautifully lighted path toward Farrah Colton’s front entry, two white pillars supporting a gabled roof. The Tuscan-style house was a mansion to Ruby. She had never been here before, nor had she met Farrah. January was her daughter, who had invited Ruby to this epic, if not iconic, postholiday party.
January had cousins she never knew, and they’d all be here tonight, but the Coltons had invited many others. The main objective, as January had told her, was to get to know her long-lost cousins. This was a party to break the ultimate ice. Christmas in August!
Ruby was in the perfect mood for a celebration. Her spirits couldn’t be higher, and Damon was responsible. He was a good and strong and honorable man. Nothing like Kid Mercer. Ugh. That was such a horrible time in her life. Damon had turned that all around in the months she had known him.
And Maya adored him.
Her heart soared with joy over that. Her mother–daughter bond was finally intact, and she believed she had found a man who could fill the final void. A real father for her daughter.
And a real husband for her...
She stopped those thoughts. She had to be cautious. A good marriage to a handsome and loving man seemed like a fairy tale. Could it be she’d have that with Damon?
Walking toward the front entry, Ruby felt like a princess in her best dress, which would pale in comparison to probably most of the other women at the party tonight. A white flowing sleeveless, it was a good replica of something expensive. Her heels were soundless against the crafted concrete pathway, thanks to good soles.
A butler let her in. She entered the party, a little late in getting there. Maya hadn’t wanted her to go, and she had to do some comforting first. Her mother had gotten her set up with a cartoon, and she would be going to bed soon.
Arriving by herself was disconcerting. She didn’t recognize anyone. She only knew January and Sean. Searching for them, she didn’t see them through the crowd of people. As she expected, most were dressed elegantly. There was a lot of money here tonight. She had never been to a party like this. Kid had thrown some elaborate ones, but they had all been odd, at least to her. That was the word she had for those events. Odd. The people had a nice facade, but the vibes had always been...dangerous. From their body language, which had always been on the tough side to the way they dressed, some in leather, some with body piercings and tattoos on their faces, and nearly everywhere else visible, and men with bold jewelry. She had always been uncomfortable, even apprehensive.
Sean was the kind of detective who truly cared about not only the victims of crime but the families affected by it. He had done her a big favor when he had gone after Kid and tried to arrest him. Kid had been shot and killed in the altercation. Ruby wasn’t upset at all. With Kid gone, she could have her daughter back. Both Sean and January had developed a close relationship with Maya. They cared about her a great deal and would have adopted her until they learned the girl had a mother who was alive. They had not only helped her get her daughter back, they had given a heavenly hand. They had gently reunited Maya with her mother.
Colton 911: Temptation Undercover Page 6