The Colton Bride Read online

  “There’s really nothing for you to do here,” Dylan said. “Everyone is doing their chores and it should scare you how easily the morning began without you. If you aren’t careful I’ll be taking over as foreman permanently.”

  Gray laughed, knowing that’s the last position Dylan wanted. “I’m not too worried as long as you can be my eyes and ears out here for the time being.”

  “I’ve got your back,” Dylan said. “Now get out of here and take care of those critters in the petting barn.”

  With goodbyes said, Gray and Catherine headed for the smaller outbuilding next to the huge stables. Gray scanned the area, always on the alert for something or somebody that didn’t belong, that might be a threat to the woman beside him.

  They had just reached the barn when Gray spied somebody lurking in the nearby woods, the same woods where somebody had tried to take Catherine against her will.

  “Catherine, get into the petting barn,” he said sharply. She didn’t dither or pause to ask questions. She raced inside the gate and got into the small building as he pulled his gun and advanced toward the wooded area.

  He’d had only a vague vision of a male in a dark jacket and carrying a rifle. He was relatively certain that whoever was after Catherine didn’t intend to hurt her. Still the idea of a rifle anywhere in her vicinity worried him since the deaths of the three women had already occurred.

  Tension wired Gray taut as he stalked toward the woods.

  He was halfway to the targeted area when he recognized the man who stepped out of the woods and into the clearing. Jared Hansen.

  The young wrangler raised a hand in greeting as he approached Gray, the rifle pointed safely down toward the ground. “What in the hell are you doing out here?” Gray asked, his gun still held in his hand.

  “Gray, everything okay?” Dylan hollered from the stables.

  “Fine,” Gray replied, although tension rode his shoulders as he continued to stare at Jared. Had Jared intended to shoot Gray and then grab Catherine, but had been thwarted by Dylan’s nearby presence?

  “I asked you a question,” Gray said to Jared.

  “I thought I saw a couple of wolves in the woods and I went after them. You mind pointing that gun in another direction?” Jared looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  Gray slowly lowered his gun, wondering if he had lost his mind. “Forget the wolves and get to work on the fencing in the west pasture. I noticed it needed some repair last time I was out there.”

  “Got it,” Jared said. Gray watched as the young man ambled toward the stable and the adrenaline that had raged inside him slowly dissipated.

  As he walked to the petting barn he knew that this was what his life would be as long as he was responsible for Cath’s safety. He’d be filled with paranoia and distrust of both the people who worked for him and the people he worked for and that wouldn’t change until he knew for certain that the danger to Cath had been neutralized.

  When he entered the small barn she was seated on a bale of hay in the corner, a white rabbit in her lap. Her eyes were wide as she gazed up at him. “Everything okay?” She stroked the fur softly and he remembered how her soft hands had once felt against his naked skin.

  He holstered his gun and sat next to her. “Jared Hansen was supposedly stalking some wolves in the woods. I just saw him as a figure lurking around with a rifle and got a little freaked out.” He reached over and touched the rabbit’s soft fur. “I don’t know. I might have overreacted.”

  She smiled at him. “I’d much rather you overreact than underreact, especially if you see it as a potential threat.”

  “I’m definitely a bit on edge,” he admitted. It wasn’t just the possibility of a threat that had him on edge, it was her. When he opened his eyes that morning and found himself curled around her warm feminine curves, he’d wanted nothing more than to wake her with his desire, take her drowsy warmth and turn it into an awakening fire.

  He reached out and petted the soft fur of the rabbit in her lap. “Should we get to your chores?”

  “Not until you tell me what you and Dylan were talking about in the stables.” She picked up the bunny and leaned over to place it in the fenced area where it belonged and then straightened and gazed at him expectantly.

  Gray leaned back, the scent of the hay pulling forth memories of her in his arms, gazing up at him as if he were the most important person in her life, in the entire world. He wished he didn’t remember their lovemaking. Amnesia of the time they’d been teenagers would have been a welcome relief.

  He shoved away these thoughts and instead focused on the promise he’d made his friend. “Dylan wants me to help him find out about his mother’s past. Questions were raised when Mia and Jagger did some digging and now Dylan isn’t sure what to believe and what not to believe about where he came from and what his mother told him about his father.”

  “I thought his father was a man Faye married and then he died in some sort of a horse accident,” Cath replied.

  “That’s what he always believed, but now in retrospect he isn’t sure that his mother told him the truth.”

  Cath gazed into the rabbit pen thoughtfully. “Faye was a beloved presence in the house from the moment she was hired by Mathilda. She was like a fill-in mother when ours wasn’t available, and then when Mom left for good, Faye was there for us girls.”

  “She was there for me, too,” he reminded her.

  She focused her gaze back at him. He could get lost in those indigo depths if he allowed himself. “I’ve seen the change in Dylan since his mother’s murder and it breaks my heart,” she said. “He’s always been so outgoing and happy and now there’s a lonely sadness that clings to him.”

  She placed her hand on Gray’s thigh and every muscle in his body tensed although she seemed unaware of what her touch did to him. “I’m glad Dylan has you, and I’m glad I have you, too.”

  At that moment time froze as they gazed at each other. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her badly. What he really wanted was to lay her back and caress her slowly, until they were both panting with their need for each other.

  She pulled her hand back from his thigh, her cheeks dusty with pink color as if she suddenly realized she was touching him. “So, how do we intend to investigate Faye Frick and get some answers for Dylan?”

  “We?” He raised an eyebrow wryly.

  “Stuck like glue,” she reminded him.

  Despite his warring emotions and the testosterone that had risen to huge proportions inside him, he smiled at her. “Stuck like glue,” he agreed, and then stood, needing to distance himself from her nearness. “And to be honest, I’m not sure how I’m going to start an investigation into Faye’s past.”

  “We’ll figure out our plan tonight.” She got up from the hay. “And now I’ve got critters to feed.”

  As they stepped outside of the barn Gray automatically took in the scenery around them. Seeing nothing to concern him, he leaned against the fence and watched Cath go about tending to her little stock.

  “You want some help?” he asked as she filled a bowl full of grain pellets.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got it,” she replied. “I’d much rather you keep an eye on other things.”

  He knew she meant he should keep his eye out for danger, but it was difficult to keep his eyes off her while she went about her routine of feeding and watering and then taking time to give each animal special loving attention.

  She had always been a gentle spirit. That was part of what Gray had fallen in love with so many years ago. She laughed easily, was delighted by the small things in life and had always made him feel bigger, better and brighter than he was.

  He’d spent a long time hating her when he’d been gone. But upon coming back to the ranch he’d found it impossible to sustain any true hatred toward her. She was simply too innocent, too sweet and vulnerable to evoke that kind of negative emotion.

  He didn’t believe she had any enemies on the ranch. Cath didn’t ma
ke enemies. The person who had tried to kidnap her twice and would probably try again probably didn’t hate Cath. Rather it might be somebody who liked her quite well yet knew she was the key to a king’s ransom.

  Greed could turn good men into thieves, honest men into liars and create killers out of thin air. It was possible that during the day the kidnapper greeted Cath with a friendly smile, that he was somebody she’d believe to be a friend, and that only made it more difficult to find the guilty party.

  What worried Gray more than anything was that he didn’t think he had to go hunting for the kidnapper. What worried him was that the kidnapper would find them once again. He touched the butt of his gun as if to assure himself.

  He just had to make sure if and when that happened he was capable of seeing that nothing bad happened to the woman who still managed to own a part of his heart.

  Chapter 11

  When he and Catherine left the dining room that evening, Gray had that deer-in-headlights look. Catherine couldn’t help but giggle as they walked down the corridor to her suite of rooms. “Welcome to the family.” It had been his first experience sitting in the family dining room for the evening meal.

  “Is it always like that?” he asked.

  “Sometimes it’s much worse,” she replied. “Tonight you just got Trip talking and Tawny whining. Most nights you can add in Darla sniping and you get a trifecta of unpleasantness to go along with Agnes’s excellent meals.”

  As they reached her suite, Gray pulled his gun and shoved her behind him and then opened the door. This had become routine every time they had entered the suite that day. He cleared the three rooms and she followed close behind him. Once he tucked his gun back into his holster, they relaxed.

  The day had been a strange one. They had spent some of the morning in the stables where the two of them worked oiling saddles. After a quick early lunch of just the two of them, they had spent most of the afternoon in the suite playing cards and then had dusted off an old chess game Catherine had tucked away in her closet. They’d matched wits for three games. Unfortunately he had won two of those games, crowing with his victory until she laughed helplessly at his mock arrogance.

  This had been the Gray she remembered, the young man with the sparkling golden-brown eyes and laughter spilling from his lips. This was the man she’d once loved with all her heart, the man who’d made her laugh, who’d made her feel so safe, so loved.

  But that was then and this was now and while the afternoon had been pleasant the evening brought with it the rising tension of sharing the bed.

  At least they had arranged for Dylan to come to the suite to talk about how they intended to go forward with the investigation into his mother’s past.

  As she sat in her favorite chair, Gray flopped down on the chaise. She could feel a restless energy wafting from him. It kept one of his feet tapping absently against the floor for several minutes. Then he got up to stalk back and forth across the sitting-room area and finally landed at the window to stare outside.

  “Maybe you should fill me in on some things that have happened around the ranch in the past couple of months,” she finally said, hoping to get him to settle down.

  He turned and looked at her. “You’ve been living in this house. You should know more about what’s been happening around here than I do.”

  “I should, but I’ve tried not to listen. I’ve been hiding out from the bad stuff as much as possible and now it suddenly feels like I need to catch up in order to help myself, and maybe in going through it all we can figure out some things about Faye. I mean, it seems like everything bad started with Cheyenne’s attempted kidnapping and Faye’s murder.”

  He moved away from the window and once again sat on the chaise. “Maybe we should wait for Dylan to talk about it.” He looked at the clock on the nightstand. “He’ll be here in about a half an hour. I told him to come as soon as he finished eating dinner.” He hesitated a moment. “Did you ask Levi if there was anything new with your father?”

  She released a deep sigh and nodded. “I was disappointed that he said there was still no change in Daddy. I wish he’d find the strength to somehow fight his way out of the coma.”

  “He’s tough,” Gray replied. “That could still happen.”

  “I wish we could find Cole so that he’d be here when Daddy regains consciousness.” She rubbed her hand over her tummy. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a baby kidnapped and never, ever find out what happened to him.”

  “Your father didn’t talk about Cole?”

  “Never. What little I know about his kidnapping I know from staff rumor and gossip. He was stolen right out of his crib in Daddy’s suite. The police at the time thought it was a robbery and that the kidnapping was a crime of opportunity. The bedroom was ransacked and some things were missing from a safe and Cole was gone.”

  She rubbed her stomach again, thinking of the baby she’d already give her life for, do anything to protect. To love a baby for three months and then have him disappear without a trace would destroy her. “After Cole was kidnapped, everyone waited for a ransom note to come. But one never did. Eventually the case went cold.”

  “And then Levi found out that Jethro’s sister-in-law, Desiree Beal, was seen with a baby weeks after Cole’s kidnapping. But she was murdered and there was no baby ever found,” Gray said, adding to the story.

  “And that’s all we really know for sure.” Catherine frowned thoughtfully. “Even the private investigator that Gabby, Amanda and I hired to find Cole couldn’t come up with information as to what happened to him and where he might be now.”

  “But I can’t imagine Cole’s kidnapping so many years ago being tied to all the crimes that have happened here over the past couple of months,” Gray said.

  “I can’t, either. Still, I would have liked to have had the chance to know Cole, to have him as a big brother in the house,” she said wistfully.

  “You going to give the bean a little brother or sister?” he asked, gesturing toward her stomach.

  She smiled at his nickname for the baby, but shook her head negatively. “I doubt it. When I found out I was pregnant I’d pretty much decided that it was just going to be me and the baby.”

  “And now there’s me,” he said. “Temporarily,” he added, and she wasn’t sure if he was reminding her of their situation or reminding himself.

  At that moment a knock sounded on the suite door. Gray got up to open it and Dylan stepped in. He took in the pink-and-black décor and then grinned at Gray. “Sweet,” he said.

  Gray shrugged. “What can I tell you...the lady likes pink.”

  “I do, indeed,” Catherine said.

  He gestured Dylan toward the chaise and Catherine smiled at the handsome cowboy who carried with him a tin box. “Evening, Miss Catherine,” Dylan said.

  “Hi, Dylan. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  As the two men sat on the chaise, shoulders battled for space. Catherine fought the smile that threatened to erupt into laughter. They were both far too masculine, bigger-than-life men to share the dainty chaise, but it was the only place for the two to sit in the sitting room.

  “So, how are things around the ranch? You keeping an eye on everyone for me?” Gray asked.

  “Work is going on as usual, although I’ve heard several of the men speculating what your marriage to Catherine means as far as you remaining ranch foreman.”

  “You can tell them I’m taking a little honeymoon period but that my marriage has changed nothing as far as my work on the ranch,” Gray replied.

  A honeymoon period. If this had been a real marriage would she and Gray have enjoyed a honeymoon at some romantic, secluded place? She was surprised by the wistful yearning that momentarily swept through her. A real marriage, a real relationship that would include more babies and Gray—she was foolish for even allowing the thought to enter her mind.

  “So, what have you got?” Gray gestured to the tin box that Dylan held on his lap.
r />   “This holds pretty much everything I’ve got from my mother.” Sadness lowered his voice as he opened the box lid. “There are pictures of me, but none are of me as a baby or an infant. Most of them are of me around eight years old, then some of me as a teenager, but that’s it. There aren’t any pictures of her.” He pulled out a handful of photos and spread them out on the coffee table in front of them.

  Catherine leaned forward and grabbed one, her heart aching as she saw Dylan smiling widely for the camera. There was no question that Faye had adored her son. “She always spoke of you with such love, such pride,” she said to Dylan. “You were her entire world.”

  He nodded and fumbled in the box to withdraw a piece of paper. “Here’s her marriage certificate to a man named John Frick. She told me he was a ranch hand who died in a fall from a horse only a few weeks before I was born. There are no pictures of him, either. She was always pretty vague about him whenever I asked about him.”

  “Did she ever mention what ranch he worked for?” Catherine asked.

  Dylan frowned once again, as if searching all the memories he had in his brain. “I think I remember her mentioning some kind of a dude guest ranch called the Bar None.” He laid the marriage certificate on the table with the pictures.

  He withdrew another piece of paper that looked old and slightly fragile. “My birth certificate,” he said. “It shows I was born in Cody, Wyoming, at the Cody Memorial Hospital.”

  “Cody?” Catherine hadn’t even heard of the town.

  “It’s a tiny town in northeast Wyoming.” Dylan frowned. “I asked her how long she had lived in Cody and she said she was just passing through there when she met my dad and was only there long enough for my birth and then moved on.” He snapped the document down on the table.

  “I should have pushed her harder for more details about her past, about my father and the time before we got here to the Dead River Ranch.” Frustration was obvious in his deep voice.

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Dylan. You couldn’t have guessed that your mother would be murdered and these questions would suddenly become so important to you,” Gray said sympathetically.