The Colton Bride Page 5

  “I wouldn’t put this past Trip. I don’t trust him or Tawny or Darla. We’ve got ranch hands we know little about, new hires all over the house. Any one of them could see you as a ticket to a new life. Catherine, you need to wake up. Somebody in your house is up to no good. There have already been murders committed and no suspect has been identified in those deaths.”

  Once again she twirled a strand of her hair. “Everything is happening so fast. I just learned I was pregnant yesterday and now suddenly I’m attacked.”

  “And there’s no doubt in my mind that whoever tried to take you tonight knows that you’re pregnant, which makes your kidnapping twice as valuable as taking anyone else.”

  She released a weary sigh. “Just take me back to the house. At least I know I should be safe in my own private suite.”

  Gray started the Jeep engine, deciding now wasn’t the time to tell her that with her suite on the ground floor it wasn’t exactly a tall tower to be breached with great difficulty. There was really no place in the entire house that she was safe. After all, it had only been two months ago that kitchen help Jenny Burke had been found murdered in the pantry.

  “Catherine, you’ve got to take this threat seriously. You can’t be out alone after dark. You need to keep yourself surrounded by people all the time and we should probably call the chief of police when we get back to the house.”

  “Why call him and complicate everything?” she countered. “What’s the point? The only description I have of him is that his hands were huge and in thin black gloves. He felt strong as an ox as he pulled me away.” She shivered. “But, I have no idea what he looked like and I’m assuming you couldn’t tell anything about him, either.”

  “Medium height. Medium build.” Gray sighed, knowing she was right. There was really no point in calling out the chief with nothing more to offer him. The man would be long gone from the woods by now.

  He pulled into the garage in the lower portion of the mansion and parked her Jeep in its usual spot. He turned to look at her and noted that her lower lip trembled slightly and fear still darkened her eyes.

  “You’re safe now, Catherine.” He couldn’t help but want to erase that fear.

  She nodded. “Thanks to you.” She opened her door and got out and he did the same. As he rounded the car to where she stood, as if unsure where to go or what to do, he noted that she still grasped the necklace tightly in her fingers.

  “Is it broken?” he asked.

  She looked at the clasp and released an audible sigh of relief. “No, it must have just come unfastened.”

  “Do you want me to put that back around your neck where it belongs?”

  For the first time some of the fear left her eyes. “Do you mind? I bought it today to celebrate. Eventually it will go to my daughter or my son’s wife. I’m just so grateful that you found it. I thought it was lost for sure.”

  She handed him the necklace and turned her back to him. As she swept her hair to one side, baring the back of her delicate neck, he fought the impulse to press his lips against her soft skin.

  Damn her for scaring him. Damn her for reawakening his desire for her despite all the years that had passed, in spite of all the bitterness she evoked in him.

  And damn her for his shaking fingers as he tried to clasp the delicate gold chain at the nape of her neck. “You need a husband, somebody who can watch over you through the day and be at your side at night.” He finally managed to get the necklace on.

  She turned and looked at him. “Thanks for the advice,” she said dryly. “Unfortunately I don’t seem to have any volunteers for the job at the moment.”

  “I’d volunteer.” The words left his mouth before any thought entered his brain. “You could marry me...of course it would just be a marriage in name only, but nobody else would have to know that. It would give me a reason to keep you close and safe.”

  Catherine stared at him for a stunned moment and then laughed. “Sure, that makes sense. For the past four years you’ve made it obvious you don’t even like me. A marriage between us for any reason is an absolutely ridiculous idea.”

  “You’re right, of course,” he said stiffly, wondering what on earth he’d been thinking when he’d even made the crazy offer. Obviously he hadn’t been thinking at all.

  Catherine would be more apt to marry the society-page playboy, money-grubbing father of her baby than a lowly ranch foreman. He’d learned that lesson nine years ago and he should have remembered it now.

  “Then I’ll just say good-night,” he said and turned to head toward the garage door.

  “Gray?”

  He turned back to face her.

  “Thank you,” she said and for just a split second he thought he saw a yearning in her eyes.

  Trick of the light, he told himself. “No problem,” he said curtly and then left the garage and went outside into the cool night air. He headed back to the stables, needing to process everything that had just happened, needing to lick the wounds of humiliation that stung like a swallowed wasp inside his chest.

  As he walked, he kept his gaze moving, seeking anything or anyone who might be out of place, who might signify danger. Even before the events of tonight, all the ranch hands had suffered from the knowledge that nobody could be trusted.

  Two kidnapping attempts of Cheyenne, two murders in the house and even the former chief of police in Dead, Hank Drucker, had not only been discovered to be a dirty cop who got arrested, and was now dead, his death was being investigated as either a suicide or a murder.

  Gray had the feeling of danger permeating not only the Dead River Ranch, but also the nearby small town of Dead, as well. Worse, he felt the noose of danger tightening around them all and an imminent explosion of evil about to detonate and there wasn’t anything he could do but wait for it to happen.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m so excited,” Gabby said as she and Catherine got into the backseat of the town car with Trevor at the wheel playing chauffeur for the day. “I’m hoping to raise a ton of money this afternoon. Thanks for coming with me, Cath.”

  “Don’t thank me. You’re doing me a favor by letting me get out of the house and come along and keep my mind off things,” Catherine replied.

  They were headed to an afternoon tea and silent auction event that Gabby had put together as a fund-raiser for her red barn project for troubled teens. She’d invited all the movers and shakers of Laramie to the posh hotel where the event would take place.

  “Are you doing okay?” Gabby asked as Trevor started the engine and headed away from the mansion. She reached over and grabbed Catherine’s hand.

  “I’m fine.” Catherine gave her sister’s hand a reassuring squeeze and then released it.

  She had told her sister about the attack at the petting barn the night before and how Gray had saved her from being dragged away to parts known. She hadn’t told her sister about Gray’s ridiculous idea that he marry her to keep her safe.

  And it was a ridiculous idea...wasn’t it? She gazed out the passenger window and gave herself a mental shake. Of course it was a stupid idea. He’d made it obvious in a million little ways that he didn’t like her and she wasn’t at all sure that she liked the man he’d grown up to be.

  He’d once laughed so easily, his brown eyes always with a special light and a hint of mischief. There had been a spring to his step, as if he couldn’t wait to get wherever he was going. He’d possessed a vitality that had drawn her, an energy that had excited her, but that was all gone now.

  Physically the grown-up version of Gray Stark was breathtaking. There was no man on the ranch who wore a pair of worn jeans or filled out the shoulders of a shirt quite so well. More than once she’d found herself watching as he worked shirtless during the summer months, showcasing killer abs as his brown hair bleached with strands of blond.

  Still, this adult Gray Stark was a man who rarely smiled...at least not at her. He appeared a loner who needed nobody by his side...and yet he’d offered to play h
usband to her in an effort to keep her safe.

  It had to have been some sort of stupid joke on his part, or a crazy brain snafu. Besides, she’d learned her lesson with him when he’d disappeared from her life without a backward glance. She’d also learned another lesson and had no intention of being outside after dark all alone again. As long as she was smart, she’d be safe. She didn’t need a man to protect her.

  “You know I invited the Sinclairs,” Gabby said with a worried glance at Catherine. She touched a strand of her red hair. “Cath, I don’t know if Dirk will show up or not.”

  “Who cares?” Catherine replied. She gave her sister a forced smile. “Trust me, seeing Dirk isn’t going to bother me a bit.” Dirk had basically broken up with her when he found out he’d have to wait to get his hands on her money, but even though she’d been offended on so many levels, she’s also felt a surprising relief when he’d walked away from their relationship. Now she felt nothing toward him but disdain.

  She would be much more unsettled to see Gray, whom she hadn’t seen since their awkward goodbye in the garage the night before.

  “I’d like to smack Dirk upside the head for hurting you,” Gabby said fervently.

  Catherine couldn’t stop the giggle that bubbled to her lips. Clad in an elegant emerald-green dress that matched the color of her eyes and with her hair impeccably done in an upsweep, she looked every ounce the society queen and yet she was talking like some street fighter defending her home girl.

  “Actually, I’m not hurt at all over Dirk. I mean, there’s no question he’s a jerk, but honestly since we broke up I’ve realized how much I wasn’t in love with him.”

  “But you seemed so good together,” Gabby replied.

  Catherine sighed and thought about the man she’d considered marrying. “We were comfortable together. We came from the same kind of background. We knew the same people, attended the same events. It felt easy being with him, but it was never fireworks and heart thuds.”

  “You definitely deserve fireworks.” Gabby cast a loving smile at the man driving the car. “Trust me, when it is right there should be all kinds of fireworks.” Her cheeks filled with a hint of a blush, as if she were remembering special intimate moments with Trevor.

  Catherine looked out the window at the passing scenery. There had once been fireworks with Gray. It had been when they were young and crazy about each other, and obviously unrealistic about life and enduring love. Each time they’d come together it had been magic and exciting and heart-stopping.

  When Catherine had finally had sex with Dirk and all those things had been missing, she’d just assumed that first love was magic for everyone, that the utter splendor of first love and experiencing the act of making love with that person was never repeated again for the rest of your life. But as she saw her sister with Trevor. she wondered if her thinking was all wrong.

  Was it possible to have what she’d once had with Gray again? Of course it would be with a different man. She shook her head as if to tumble out all these thoughts. She was a single woman who was pregnant and potentially a target for kidnapping.

  Now wasn’t the time to think about romance or falling in love with anyone. It certainly wasn’t the time to be thinking about lovemaking. It had only been yesterday that she’d convinced herself she didn’t want a man in her life, that she’d be fine alone with just her baby.

  By the time they reached the ballroom of the luxury hotel, Catherine sat in an elegantly tufted gold chair and watched as her sister took care of last-minute details.

  The room was lovely, the round tables decorated with gold linen cloths and matching cutlery and each boasting a floral arrangement in the center that was an explosion of the red and orange and gold colors of autumn.

  Three long tables were set along one side of the room, holding the items that were to be auctioned off. Catherine got up from the chair and wandered over to the table to see what kind of goodies Gabby had managed to talk business owners into donating.

  Gabby had done very well. There was a trip for two for four days in a five-star hotel in Hawaii, a beautiful painting from a fairly well-known local artist who Catherine knew personally, extravagant meals at restaurants, designer shoes and a hand-beaded shawl in a copper tone that was positively stunning.

  Catherine paused at a lovely diamond necklace and matching earrings set and reached up and touched the necklace with the aquamarine stone that hung beneath her collarbone. Hers was definitely less expensive, but far more valuable to her.

  Thank God Gray had found it in the grass after the attack. In the brief time she’d owned it, it had come to represent life and hope and love to her. She would have been sick if the attacker had managed to take that away from her along with her sense of safety.

  She returned to her chair and tried not to think about the horror of the night before. She wanted to believe that Gray was wrong, that it hadn’t been a kidnapping attempt at all, but maybe just some drifter looking to rob her or some creep wanting to get her into the woods to rape her.

  It was easier to believe those scenarios, as horrible as they were, than what he believed, that it had been a kidnapping scheme created by the fact that she now carried the next Colton heir.

  She was relatively certain that nobody outside of the family, household staff and perhaps some wranglers who worked for the Colton family knew about her pregnancy. And that meant that either a family member or somebody who worked for them was probably behind the attempt.

  That meant she had no idea who could be trusted in the house that she called home.

  * * *

  Gray stood just outside the stable, brushing down the thickening hair on a mare named Molly. His thoughts were far away from the horse, instead inwardly focused on the vision of Catherine he had seen just before she’d stepped into the backseat of the town car an hour earlier.

  She’d looked lovely in what was probably a designer blue tea-length dress and black-and-blue high heels. Her hair fell soft and silky down her back, glistening in the overhead sunshine. She’d looked every inch a wealthy socialite on her way to a charity event.

  A wealth of humiliation accompanied each stroke of the brush as he thought about his impromptu offer to marry her. Obviously his fear for her safety had driven all rational thought out of his brain. He wasn’t sure who’d been more surprised by his suggestion, himself or her.

  He’d take it back if he could, but the words had been spoken and now lingered in the universe, along with her small laugh of disdain at the very idea.

  “She knows you’re just not that into her.” The deep voice came from behind him and Gray whirled around, wondering if his best friend, Dylan Frick, had actually read his thoughts.

  Dylan smiled and pointed at Molly. “She knows your attention isn’t really on her.”

  Gray dropped the brush into a nearby empty bucket and allowed Molly to amble away toward the rest of the horses in the paddock. He grinned at the man who was like a brother to him.

  The two had grown up together on the ranch, Gray the foreman’s son and Dylan the child of Faye Frick, the governess who had been murdered in the first kidnapping attempt of Cheyenne only three months before.

  Dylan was not only an unofficial animal whisperer, he’d always been good with people and well liked at the ranch. Since his mother’s murder, he’d changed. The light in his blue eyes was less bright and he preferred to be out someplace alone on the ranch rather than surrounded by people. The one thing that hadn’t changed was the bond that he and Gray shared, a bond forged in childhood that had never wavered through the years.

  The past couple of months had been particularly difficult for Dylan, who had not only lost his mother, but most recently had been forced to examine everything his mother had ever told him about her and their past.

  “Heard there was some excitement out here last night,” Dylan said. “From the gossip I’ve heard around the ranch this morning thank God you were at the right place at the right time.”

&n
bsp; A cold knot clenched in Gray’s stomach as he thought of that moment when he’d seen Catherine being dragged away by the assailant. “You’ve got that right. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to the man and there was no way for me to even guess who it might have been.”

  He frowned. “I have a feeling if I’d managed to grab him maybe we’d have some answers about what the hell has been going on around here.” He grabbed the bucket and motioned for Dylan to walk with him into the stables.

  “You think it was the same person who tried to take Cheyenne the second time?” Dylan asked.

  “Who knows? I can only guess that somebody is desperate to get a Colton heir and hopes for a major payday. I can’t help but think everything bad that’s happened is tied to somebody in the house.”

  “I’ll second that,” Dylan agreed. “I can hardly stand to eat in the employee dining room because of the sick energy that fills the air, and that sick energy seems to be in every nook and cranny in the house.”

  “You’re about the only person I trust in this whole place,” Gray said.

  Dylan’s blue eyes darkened. “Lately I have so many questions about my mother and her life before we landed here on the ranch, maybe you shouldn’t be so trusting of me.”

  Gray slapped Dylan on one of his broad shoulders. “Nothing that comes out about your mother or whatever happened before she got here to Dead River Ranch could ever change my feelings about you. Hell, you and I explored every inch of this ranch together when we were kids. We skinny-dipped in the pond together....”

  “And we know each other’s secrets,” Dylan added with a wry grin. “And speaking of secrets, how did it go last night between you and Cath? You were her hero for the night. Surely that broke some of the ice that has existed between the two of you since you’ve been back here.”

  Dylan was the only person who knew the depth of love Gray had once had for Catherine and the only person who knew that it was his love for her that had been the reason he’d left the ranch at the break of dawn nine years ago.