Carla Cassidy - The Colton Bride

Catherine wasn’t close to Darla or her two spoiled adult children and with everything that had happened recently, she couldn’t help but be suspicious of them.

Everyone was suspicious of everyone else, and the recent months of murder, deceit and chaos had taken a toll on each and every resident in the huge mansion. The only people Catherine truly trusted were her sisters.

When the meal was finished, head housekeeper Mathilda Perkins slid into the room and stood next to the wall as two young women carried silver trays of after-dinner coffee.

Mathilda looked like something from a gothic movie with her silver-blond hair pulled into a severe knot at the nape of her neck. Narrowed blue-gray eyes and a starched gray dress added to the aura of a gothic servant. The only difference was she watched the two new kitchen hires, Lucinda Garcia and Kyla Winters, with benevolent eyes, the same way she gazed at each and every person at the table with a hint of fondness.

Catherine’s headache had blossomed from her left temple to chase all the way across her forehead. Caffeine. There was nothing she loved more than her after-dinner shot of leaded coffee.

As Kyla was about to pour her a cup, Catherine suddenly thought about the new life inside her and quickly stopped her. “I’d rather have decaf,” she said.

From across the table Darla arched a blond perfectly tweezed brow. “Interesting. No wine before dinner, no caffeine in your coffee. Why one would think that you might have a little secret.”

“She’s pregnant,” Tawny exclaimed with excitement, as if she’d suddenly cured cancer.

It was obviously just a guess on her part, but the expression on Catherine’s face must have given her away. Suddenly the conversation ratcheted up in volume as everyone talked about the prospect of a new Colton heir.

Escape! With her head pounding, Catherine needed to escape the table, escape this room and these people. She excused herself and ran for the door, leaving the rest of them to speculate on who the father might be, when the due date would come and whether it would be a boy or a girl.

She’d scarcely found out about her condition herself and already it was gossip fodder around the dining room table. How had Tawny guessed so easily? Drat it all, Catherine should have taken the pregnancy test and buried it in the pasture instead of throwing it into her bathroom trash can. For all she knew Tawny went through everyone’s trash to learn whatever secrets somebody might have.

There were only three places where Catherine found peace, the first was her bedroom suite, the second was the petting barn and the third was in her father’s suite where she often sat next to his bed and talked to him.

She knew he was in a coma at the moment, but as terrible as it sounded, that was the time she found it easiest to sit with him, to talk to him, to simply love him.

It took her some time to walk the long corridors that led to his suite of rooms. She entered his sitting room, a pleasant area filled with a stone fireplace, bookshelves and decorated in rich greens and golds. The fireplace stood cold and empty, but it wouldn’t be long before it would be filled with burning wood to keep the winter chill from invading the area.

To her left was her father’s bedroom and as she entered, she nodded to the middle-aged woman in the white uniform. Nurse Linetta Wheeling had been hired several weeks ago to sit with Jethro during the evenings and overnight.

“Good evening, Miss Catherine,” she said as she rose from the straight-backed chair near Jethro’s bed.

Catherine nodded and then looked at her father, her heart squeezing tight as she took in the sight. Jethro had once been a robust, imposing figure, but now his face was gaunt and he looked tiny beneath the heavy green spread that covered him.

“Any changes?” Catherine asked.

“None.” Linetta offered a sympathetic smile. “I’ll just step outside and give you a little time alone with him.” As quiet as a mouse, Linetta slid out of the room and into the sitting room.

Catherine pulled a green-and-gold patterned chair closer to the side of the bed, ignoring the IV and medical equipment hooked up to the sick man in the bed.

“Hi, Daddy. It’s me, Cath.” For a moment she merely sat quietly. Jethro Colton was a complicated man and he’d been a difficult man to love, as a man and as a father. He’d always loved the women and women loved him back, a reality that usually placed his daughters on the back burner of his life.

Still, there had been moments in her childhood when she’d seen him be the kind of father she yearned for, the daddy she could love with all her heart, and it was the memory of those rare moments that kept her loving him now.

“I’ve gone and done something stupid, Daddy,” she finally said. “I was hoodwinked by a man I thought I could love but I discovered all he was after was my inheritance. When he found out I wouldn’t get it for another four years, he dropped me like a hot potato. Unfortunately, he left a little something of himself behind. I’m pregnant, Daddy. You’re going to be a grandfather again and you need to wake up and get well.”

Her eyes blurred with tears as she realized the futility of the conversation. The cancer was draining the very life from Jethro. He’d probably never live to see his new grandchild.

If only they could find Cole. Surely being reunited with his firstborn son who’d been kidnapped so many years ago would rally Jethro to aggressively fight the disease that was eating away at him.

Her mind drifted from her father and his missing son to Gray Stark and that moment in front of the petting barn fence when she’d opened her eyes and had been in his strong arms.

His sandy blond hair had gleamed in the dusk light of day creating a halo effect around his head. In the depths of his brown eyes she’d imagined the soft, sweet emotions she’d believed he’d once felt for her.

Reality had slapped her in the face as he’d quickly released her and she realized his eyes were dark, assessing. No illusion of evening sunshine could turn Gray Stark into a loving, caring angel of a man.

The few times they encountered each other all she got from him was dark eyes, fathomless stares and few words. The boy she’d loved was gone, replaced by a man she didn’t know, a man who made no pretense that he didn’t want to know anything about the woman she had become.

She wondered if he’d loved somebody in the five years he’d been gone from Dead River Ranch. She wondered even more why she cared. In the four years he’d been back she’d never heard any gossip about him and any woman.

What little gossip she had heard about him was that he was all work and little play, a tough but fair taskmaster who kept a keen eye on the wranglers who worked beneath him.

She returned her gaze to the man on the bed. “Daddy, you need to fight this.” She gently picked up one of his hands that lay on top of the bedspread. Calloused from hard work, yet thin and cold, it lay lifeless in hers. She rubbed his hand with both of hers, trying to warm his, but it didn’t work.

She returned his hand to the top of the spread and then stood, unsure what she was hoping to gain from being here, but knowing she’d gained nothing.

* * *

Dinner had just finished up in the employee dining room when kitchen helper Lucinda Garcia reentered the room, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. “Looks like there is going to be another Colton heir,” she announced.

“Miss Gabby going to give the little princess a baby brother or sister?” George Jeffries, one of the ranch hands, asked.

“Nope, it’s Miss Catherine,” Lucinda replied.

Gray’s blood turned cold as he shoved back from the large, rough-hewn wooden table. What in the hell had she done? Made an official announcement over dinner?