Colton Nursery Hideout

by Dana Nussio

  Travis answered on the first ring. “Hey, Tatiana. Everything okay? Did you run out of crackers?”

  She cleared her throat, her gaze flicking back to the laptop once more. “Could you come to my office right away? We’ve—I mean, I’ve—got a problem.”

  Chapter 9

  Travis slammed down the phone and hurried from his office to hers. He would have sprinted if he hadn’t passed Gordon Littleton, the day shift foreman. Littleton was good at his job but always seemed to be lingering near the executive offices when he should have been on the production floor actually doing it.

  “Good morning, boss. What’s the rush?”

  “It wouldn’t be a day at CP if there weren’t a dozen or so mini crises for me to handle at the same time,” Travis said without bothering to stop. Rounding the corner, he rushed past the empty desk outside Tatiana’s office and through her door. He didn’t stop to knock.

  “What is it? Are you okay?” He approached the desk where she was hunched over, then bent and spoke in a low voice. “You’re not having, uh, cramping, are you?”

  She squinted her eyes as she looked up at him. “What?”

  Her gaze flicked to her belly and then lifted again. “Oh. No. It’s not that.”

  Travis puffed up his cheeks and blew out a sigh. Didn’t she realize that his thoughts would automatically go there? What she couldn’t know was how much he dreaded the possibility that she could have been experiencing a miscarriage.

  How could that be? A few days ago, the idea of having kids was nowhere on his radar, and now he was almost looking forward to lullabies and sleepless nights. What had changed, he wasn’t sure, but he had the strange suspicion that he wouldn’t have been looking forward to fatherhood at all if the mother had been anyone other than Tatiana Davison. Now that he couldn’t explain at all.

  “It’s probably nothing. Could be just a prank. I’m sure I overreacted.”

  Tatiana wrung her hands and didn’t look up at him. She’d been pale that morning from her nausea, but she looked downright ashen now.

  “Just tell me. What did you overreact about? Did a reporter manage to get inside? Did the police call again? What is it?”

  “This.” She opened her laptop, hit a few keys, probably entering her credentials, and turned the machine to face him on her desk.

  “What is that? From ‘Friends of Tatiana Davison?’”

  Then he stopped and read those chilling words. You belong with me? Daddy’s Girl? He braced his hands on her desk as spots danced before his eyes. The temptation to lift her in his arms and race from the building was so overwhelming that he had to force himself to sit in the guest chair to keep from rounding her desk.

  “Where did you get this?” he barked. Then he tried again in a lower voice. “I mean, when?”

  She closed the message and showed him its time stamp.

  “We could have been hacked, I guess, but it also could have just been an outside email making its way inside. You don’t think it’s a prank, do you?”

  “No. I don’t.” If it were just a joke, would his heart have been beating as if it were trying to break out of his chest?

  She nodded, her front teeth sinking into her lower lip.

  “It says you’re wearing blue.” He couldn’t help looking around the office as he said it, a shiver scaling his spine.

  “I know. But that doesn’t have to mean that whoever sent this is inside the building. There’s a camera in my laptop. We could have been hacked. It happens all the time. You know that.”

  She seemed to be trying to convince herself as well. It was probably easier to consider corporate espionage than to accept that whoever had sent that cruel note might be right inside the building with them.

  “Someone is watching you inside our office. The creep has hacked in or installed cameras to do the same thing.”

  “You make it sound worse when you say it like that. Do you think it’s the media?”

  She’d asked the question, but they both shook their heads to answer it.

  “That wouldn’t make sense,” she said. “They want to get the story that’s already there, not create a new one.”

  He wouldn’t give the local outlets that much credit, but he didn’t tell her that.

  “And after the murder last night, they have a bigger story to work on than anything about me.” She pulled the computer back to her. “I have two choices. I can report it, or I just take extra precautions. Obviously, someone’s having fun at my expense.”

  “How about we do both?”

  She must have noticed his emphasis on the word we because her gaze narrowed. “Are you saying you think I should call the police?”

  “Why don’t you let me do that?”

  “I can handle this myself. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.” She lifted her chin and crossed her arms.

  “I’m sure you can, and I’m sure you have.”

  Travis didn’t point out that she’d called him for backup not ten minutes before. The last thing he wanted right now was for her to spurn his help.

  “But there’s one thing I have that you don’t,” he said. “A family full of law enforcement officers.”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it. “Fine.”

  Instead of reaching for her office phone, he pulled his cell from his pocket and tapped through his contact list.

  “Who are you calling? A sibling or a cousin?”

  “Neither.” His gaze flicked to hers. “But she’s the best.”

  Travis paced to the outer office and spoke in quiet tones. He’d already messed up once, and here he was approaching a member of the GGPD a second time. Tatiana was still sitting there, gripping her hands when he returned.

  “Okay, pack your laptop in your bag, and we’ll head out again through the service entrance.”

  “If we’re going to the police department, right in the center of town, why are you bothering to use the van again? Someone will see us, and our photo will be on page one tomorrow. So why don’t we just skip it and give my stomach a break?”

  “First, you might not be front-page news tomorrow because of the new murder.” He shrugged. “Maybe only page two. And, second, we’re not meeting her at the police department.”

  “Meeting whom?”

  “Ellie Bloomberg.”

  “Who?” She squinted and then shook her head. “Wait. I remember her from school. She was a year behind me. Is she a police officer now?”

  He shook his head. “The department’s tech guru.”

  “Where are we meeting her? This city’s too small. Not everyone will recognize my face, but they’ll know yours. If we show up at Mae’s Diner or Paola’s Pizza or, heck, even the Grave Gulch Public Library, they’ll put two and two together.”

  “That’s why we’re not meeting nearby,” he told her.

  “You convinced Ellie to meet outside town, you’ll be sending me in that awful van again, and you talked Miles into carting me all over Oceana County in the middle of the afternoon?”

  “Yes, yes and no.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Yes, Ellie is meeting us, and you’ll be a passenger in the van. But Miles won’t be involved this time. You know your driver, though. Me.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Tatiana sat in the passenger seat of a Colton Plastics delivery van, eating French fries right out of the bag, as they traveled on US 31 toward Muskegon. Every few minutes, she would sneak a peek at the driver, but her timing must have been off, as Travis kept catching her doing it. At least she hadn’t been forced this time to stay in the back where the molds and manufactured products were usually transported, so she hadn’t required a bucket and a mop. As soon as they’d reached the outskirts of Grave Gulch, he’d pulled off the road so she could move to the front and buckle in.

  �
�Have you killed everything in there now? I wanted to warn you that the bag isn’t edible.”

  “Funny.” She frowned, though he had a point. She’d eaten her hamburger, the last few bites of his and both of their fries already. She took a swig from her bottled water, the only concession she’d made for a pregnancy diet during their drive-through stop on the way out of town. At least while she was eating, she didn’t have to worry about why they’d taken off on this midday road trip in the first place.

  “Hope you enjoyed your lunch. There won’t be anything left to eat when we get to the rest stop. Your OB is going to frown on you eating fast food, anyway.”

  “Good thing I don’t have my appointment until tomorrow. Technically, no one has confirmed that I’m even pregnant yet.”

  He shook his head. “I was impressed by how much you were putting away.”

  “I’m probably eating for two, you know.”

  “And you’ve probably just given both of you indigestion.”

  He returned her frown with a grin.

  “You never told me how you convinced Ellie to come all the way out here to meet us,” she said.

  “It wasn’t that difficult. The GGPD will do almost anything to get information from you. Didn’t you figure that out after talking to Melissa the other night?”

  “You’re sure that’s all it is?” She waggled her index finger at him. “Did you and Ellie date or something?”

  “No, we didn’t date.”

  Though Tatiana had been kidding him about it, her discomfort over the idea that Travis could have had a history with Ellie unsettled her.

  For a few minutes, they drove in silence, and then Travis pointed to the computer bag between the bucket seats.

  “You doing okay?”

  Tatiana swallowed, surprised she’d been thinking of anything other than that email. As she stared down at the bag, the message replayed. You belong with me. Who would write something so possessive? Who would want to play with her mind, using the tragedy of her father’s fugitive status to get to her? She turned toward the side window so that Travis wouldn’t see her face.

  “I guess so.”

  “You don’t sound convincing.”

  She didn’t bother responding since they both knew he was right.

  “You’ve been hit with a lot in the past few days. It already had to be overwhelming. And now that.” He gestured toward the bag again.

  “Definitely not the way I’d planned to start my new job.”

  “We’re going to find out who sent it. I won’t stop looking until we do.”

  “I know.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Why did she continue to feel safe with Travis in the swirl of everything that had happened this week? Why was he the first person she’d called after receiving the creepy email? Letting her guard down around him was too much of a risk.

  She shifted in her seat, causing the shoulder strap to tighten over her chest. “Can we talk about something else for a while?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  She pointed to his hands on the steering wheel. “You’re doing a far better job of driving the van than I would have expected. Do you even have a commercial driver’s license?”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  “You don’t have to be a great driver, though. Your sister could fix a ticket if you ever got one.”

  At that, Travis chuckled. “Melissa would never do that for me. In fact, she told my brothers and me on the day she made chief that if we had traffic citations or got our butts thrown in jail, we needed to forget her phone number. Not as if I would have taken her help, anyway.”

  Now that claim Tatiana had no trouble buying. Travis didn’t seem to be the kind of man who easily accepted assistance from anyone, so it made no sense that he’d sought it on her behalf twice this week.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I do have my CDL. In the early years of the company, I had to fill a lot of roles. Marketing. Mold contracting. You name it. I even emptied trash cans and scrubbed toilets when it needed to be done.”

  “Given the stock numbers, and that fancy ladies’ room in my office, you’ve come a long way in growing the company.”

  “Too fast, some would say.”

  “Who says that?”

  He lifted his shoulder and dropped it but kept his gaze on the road. “My dad, I guess. Let’s just say that Frank Colton wasn’t entirely on board when I decided to do something crazy like start a plastics company. He didn’t want me to use Colton in the name, either, in case the business didn’t make it.”

  “Nothing like having your family in your corner.”

  “Even now he pops in with a warning whenever I take any growth risks. Or any risks at all. It didn’t help that he was right about Aubrey.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “My ex-fiancée.”

  “You were engaged?”

  He nodded. “Seven years ago. For about a month.”

  She considered that for a few seconds, surprised again by how uneasy it made her feel. What was she doing? Travis had already rejected her once. She only risked more pain if she allowed herself to believe there could be more between them than the child she carried.

  “Then what was all that about the confirmed bachelor?” she asked after a long pause.

  “Aubrey helped with that confirmation.”

  “How was your dad right about her?”

  His jaw tightened briefly, then relaxed. “He said to watch out. I thought I’d finally found someone who got me, and he was convinced she was just out to get my money since CP was starting to take off. Guess which one of us was right?”

  She swallowed. It didn’t matter that Travis had humiliated her on their one night together. She still couldn’t believe that Aubrey had hurt him that way. “I’m sorry. That stinks.”

  “Thanks. Everything she’d told me was lies, too. Her past. Her job. And then there was a friend who wasn’t just a friend.” He shrugged. “You get the rest.”

  She also understood more about Travis Colton now. Why he avoided relationships. Why he’d told her he didn’t lie. Even why he had such a complicated relationship with his father. But what it didn’t explain was why he’d proposed to her when one fiancée had already burned him. Did he feel safer in knowing that the marriage would be only a business transaction to give a Colton heir his name?

  “Then your dad’s probably blowing up your phone with messages this week. My presence at Colton Plastics is definitely a risk. And then if your sister told him you’d invited me to stay at your place, you’re lucky he didn’t show up on your doorstep before breakfast the next morning.”

  “I can handle him.”

  What he hadn’t said spoke as loudly as his words. He’d faced off with his cousins and his sister on her behalf. Now he was promising to do the same with his own father. Or he already had. Why was Travis going to all that trouble? Sure, it might have involved the baby, but he’d tried to insulate her from his cousins in law enforcement before he knew she was pregnant. She could continue to tell herself that he was trying to help them capture her father, but that theory was full of holes and starting to drip like a cheap umbrella.

  Tatiana knew she should let the subject go, but she couldn’t help wanting to know more about the enigmatic Travis Colton.

  “You said you were a maverick—well, before.” This wouldn’t go well if she brought up things that he’d said on the night they weren’t supposed to discuss. “Was that because your dad wanted you to go into law enforcement or personal protection like your siblings and your cousins?”

  “You have to understand that some in my family consider police work a higher calling. It has to do with my Uncle Geoff’s first wife, Amanda. She was killed during a home invasion when Desiree and Troy were just toddlers. That crime was never solved.”

  �
�That’s terrible. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks.”

  She might have been pushing too far, but she needed to know the rest. “Was your dad disappointed that you didn’t have that higher calling, too?”

  The side of Travis’s mouth lifted. “He didn’t exactly say that, but since I didn’t have the same career aspirations as my siblings did, and I was the first son, he expected that I would be the one to follow him into the shipping business. Antiquated, I know. Also, though he’d worked his way up to become an executive, he wanted to make things easy for me, helping me to make the right contacts.”

  “He didn’t want to give you the chance to earn your own success and deserve it?”

  “Guess he didn’t see it that way.”

  But the side glance he gave her showed his surprise that she did. Why would it shock him so much that she understood him? Travis, who’d been so determined to protect her, had his own tender spot. He was a full-grown man, still chasing and not quite receiving his father’s approval. She’d appreciated him sharing his strength with her, and certainly his kindness, but that he’d let her see his vulnerability touched her in a way she couldn’t explain.

  He didn’t say more as he took the exit for the rest stop and parked. Though there were plenty of semis filling the longer spaces in the back, only a few cars dotted the spots closest to the picnic areas.

  “It doesn’t look like she’s here yet.” He opened the door and climbed out, anyway.

  Tatiana had just finished buttoning her coat to the top and pulling on her hat and gloves when he rounded the van and opened the door for her. “You’re sure this was a good idea?”

  “Got a better one?”

  She shrugged and reached for her laptop bag. “Glad I ate in the van. No way I could hold on to a French fry with my gloves.”

  They’d just reached the first picnic table two hundred feet from the rest stop facility and had sat on the facing benches when a dark-colored SUV pulled into the spot next to the van. The woman Tatiana immediately recognized as Ellie hopped out of her vehicle, yanked her hood over her blowing dark hair and stomped over to them.