Carla Cassidy - The Colton Bride

At the moment, Catherine and the baby she carried lived in a crazy world, in the house that suddenly felt mad with a simmering sick energy.

“I’m serious, Catherine. You need to be careful and you should keep your pregnancy a secret.”

She pulled her arm from his grasp, as if unable to abide his touch. “I’ve been taking care of myself for years. I’m sure I can take care of myself now.” She didn’t wait for a response, but turned on her heels and went inside the door, leaving him only the whisper of her perfume lingering in the air.

He muttered a curse and headed for the employee door. He’d have just enough time to head up to his Spartan room in the male staff housing area, take a quick shower and then get down to the employee dining room for dinner.

Minutes later, he stood beneath a spray of hot water and tried to keep his thoughts away from Catherine, but it was next to impossible.

Holding her in his arms for those brief moments had picked the scabs off scars he’d thought long healed. In the five years that he had been away from Dead River Ranch and working on a ranch in Montana, he’d occasionally dated other women. But none of them had managed to evoke in him the depth of tenderness, the wealth of desire, the overwhelming rush of love that Cath had so many years ago.

Cath. She’d always been his Cath but since his return to the ranch she was Catherine in his heart and mind, the distinction necessary for him to forget what had been, what he knew would never be.

In the four years since he’d been back at the ranch, as if by mutual agreement she and he had steered clear of each other, rarely speaking to one another unless it was absolutely necessary.

She’d stopped being his problem almost nine years ago and there was no reason for anything to change now. Still, he couldn’t help the simmering anxiety that tightened in his chest as he thought of what a perfect target she would make for a kidnapping and ransom scheme.

The crime had been attempted before with the result being the wrong child kidnapped and a beloved governess dead and the second attempt had only intensified the feeling in the house that both crimes were probably inside jobs.

The family was a convoluted mess, with an ex-wife, illegitimate children and sundry other relatives living in the mansion while the patriarch, Jethro, battled leukemia and drifted in and out of consciousness depending on the day. His illegitimate son, Dr. Levi Colton, had come to do what he could for the man who was his father.

He’d not only brought a bag of medical tricks with him, but also the baggage of a child who had never been acknowledged. At least in the past month Levi had found some peace and had fallen in love with pastry chef Katie McCord.

Gray had no idea how well the staff had been vetted. Mathilda Perkins, the head housekeeper, was in charge of the hiring and firing of employees. He’d never had any reason to doubt that Mathilda did adequate background checks on the people she hired and that she had the best interests of the family at heart at all times. She’d been a devoted employee for many years.

As he pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a denim shirt, he reminded himself that Catherine and her situation weren’t his problem. All he had to worry about was ordering supplies, overseeing the other ranch hands and keeping the horses and cattle healthy and happy.

Catherine Colton wasn’t part of his job, nor was she a part of his life, and he definitely intended to keep it that way.

Chapter 2

Dinner in the Colton family dining room was always a study of pretend civility, underlying tension and slight unpleasant innuendoes. The dining table stretched from nearly one side of the plush, elegant dining room to the other and as Catherine took her seat her gaze automatically went to the empty chair at the head of the table.

Her father had been a stern man with little time for his daughters, but Catherine loved him in spite of all his flaws and she always missed his presence at the evening meal.

When she’d been little he’d command the conversation, talking about how he’d built Dead River Ranch to be the most prosperous ranch in the entire state of Wyoming. He loved his ranch, his money and women and he occasionally remembered that he had three little daughters who were totally dependent on him since their mother had run out on them.

Now his chair was empty because of his illness. At the opposite end of the table was another empty chair, one that stood ready for Cole Colton, Jethro’s son who had been kidnapped as a baby thirty years ago.

When their father had first become ill, Catherine, Gabriella and Amanda had hired a private investigator in an attempt to find their missing half brother, hoping that a reunion would buoy Jethro’s spirits and give him a reason to fight his illness. There was also a possibility that Cole could be a bone marrow donor and save Jethro’s life.

But, while some clues had come to light, there had been nothing so far that pointed them to Jethro’s missing son. It was a thirty-year-old cold case that wasn’t going to be suddenly solved.

Next to Catherine at the table were Gabby and her fiancé, Trevor Garth, who also served as head of security for the ranch. Amanda sat at the end of the table with six-month-old Cheyenne in a bouncy seat on the floor next to her.

On the opposite side of the table were Levi and Katie, Jethro’s third ex-wife, Darla Colton, and her two grown children, Tawny and Trip.

Without Jethro at the table, meals had become noisy, chaotic affairs where people talked over one another while the air shimmered with distrust. Darla, the Botox bottled-blond bitch, as the sisters referred to her, loved the sound of her own voice and if it wasn’t her doing the talking, then it was her son, Trip, who often smelled of booze or pot, depending on the day and the time.

A headache began at Catherine’s left temple as she declined the traditional glass of wine that was always served with the evening meal.

The conversation that swirled around the table throughout the meal was much like it had been for the past couple of weeks. It revolved around the latest attempted kidnapping of Cheyenne, the intervention by Jagger McKnight, an investigative reporter who had been attacked and left for dead on the ranch property. For a while everyone had believed that Jagger was the long-lost Cole, especially when it was discovered he had a piece of an old blue blanket with distinctive embroidery on it in his pocket, a piece of blanket that had once belonged to the missing Cole.

The truth had come out, that Jagger was a reporter, that the blanket bit had been planted on him while he’d been unconscious and everyone had been left with more questions than answers.

Halfway through the meal Catherine wished she had decided to eat in her room. Gabby touched her arm lightly, her green eyes filled with concern. “Are you all right?” she whispered.

“I’m fine. I just have a touch of a headache,” Catherine replied.

“Gee, I wonder why?” Gabby inclined her head toward Trip, who was on his fourth glass of wine and getting louder and louder with each minute that passed. His favorite topic was his prowess with the staff and how every maid who worked in the house had the hots for him.

The sisters had speculated for a long time why Darla and her children were allowed residency in the house. Jethro and Darla had been divorced for years and he’d never shown any interest in her or her two children by a previous marriage, and yet they had their own suite in one of the wings of the house.

They had all decided that Darla knew something about her ex-husband, that she had some piece of information so damning that she’d managed to blackmail herself into a cushy place in the mansion for herself and her children.