Cindy Dees - Colton Under Fire

Fury bubbled up in his gut. When he caught whoever was behind the surveillance, he was going to—

Slow down, there, buddy. He was going to hand the bastard over to the district attorney with an ironclad file of evidence so the perpetrator got put away for a good long time. He was a law enforcement professional and didn’t indulge in gratuitous violence, no matter how angry he might be.

Still. This case was personal. Sloane was his best friend’s little sister. They’d grown up together, for crying out loud.

On his way out, Liam left on lights and turned on the TV. He doubted whoever had been lurking behind her house would come back tonight, but on the off chance that the guy was a burglar, Liam might as well make the house look occupied.

He didn’t recall seeing Sloane carry a coat in the hospital, so he stopped at the cast iron coat tree just inside the front door. He grabbed a neon-pink ski jacket, pink mittens and a matching hat with a jaunty pompom. There. That should keep her warm.

He might not have noticed whether she had makeup on or not, but he’d noticed that she’d been wearing flannel pajamas without much on underneath when she’d banged into him at the hospital. Her body had been soft in all the right places with more curves than he remembered from back in the day, although she was still not much bigger than a whisper.

Of course, he’d put on about forty pounds of muscle when he took up lacrosse in college. It was the universe’s karmic joke that he finally became a buff athlete type after having to go all the way through high school as a beanpole.

He took a hard look up and down the street as he pulled out of the driveway but didn’t spot any movement. He made a mental note to ask police cruisers to roll past her house for the next few weeks.

* * *

When he got back to the hospital, he headed for the nurses’ station outside Chloe’s room to drop off the duffel. As he turned to leave, Sloane stepped out into the hallway.

“What are you doing awake?” he asked, startled.

“You obviously aren’t a parent, or you wouldn’t have to ask. I’m too worried about Chloe to sleep.”

A nurse piped up from behind him, “That and we’re going in and out of Chloe’s room every ten minutes to check her temperature, and naturally mommy wants to know how it’s doing every time we take it.”

“How is it doing?” Liam echoed.

Sloane glanced over her shoulder toward her daughter. “High but steady at 104 degrees. They’ve wrapped her head in refrigerated blankets to cool her down.”

That didn’t sound good. But he wasn’t about to voice the concern aloud. Sloane already had dark shadows under her eyes and looked on the verge of losing control. As much as he wanted to ask about the cameras in her house, that could wait until tomorrow.

“You should sleep,” he suggested.

“Not happening.”

“Maybe you should take a walk, then,” the nurse suggested. “Movement helps burn stress. Your boyfriend brought you clothes, too.”

Liam opened his mouth to correct her, but Sloane beat him to it. “I’m single. He’s—”

He glanced at her, one eyebrow cocked with interest to see just how she classified him.

“—an old family friend.”

He could live with that. Although handfuls of sexy red lace and her chest mashed against his flashed through his head.

Get a grip, man. She’s your best friend’s little sister . How much more cliché could that be? The friend code was clear on the subject: sisters were strictly off-limits. Of course, Liam didn’t have any siblings, so he’d had nothing to worry about over the years. But Fox had always been fiercely protective of his sister. It probably hadn’t helped matters that Fox and Sloane had lost their parents in a car accident when they were little kids. Had their aunt, Mara Colton, and her husband, Russ, not taken them in, they’d have been alone in the world.

“Would you like to finish our hospital tour from earlier?” he offered.

Sloane frowned. “It’s 2:00 a.m. Surely you’d rather be home in bed.”

Yeah. With her—

Strike that. Old. Family. Friend . He added for good measure, Worried mom with sick kid.

“I’m not tired. Do you want to get dressed or go for a walk like that?”

She glanced down at her flannel pajamas. “What? Don’t you like my granny jammies?”

He grinned. “My grandmother had much less frumpy taste than that.”

Sloane stuck her tongue out at him briefly and then whirled and disappeared into Chloe’s room. She still moved like a gazelle, quick and graceful. He watched her through the window until she ducked into the bathroom and closed the door.

He was not thinking about that sassy red underwear. Nope. It would not look smoking hot against her pale skin and dark brown hair. Nothing to imagine there. Move along, you old horndog .

He turned to the nurse. “How sick is Sloane’s daughter?”

“I’m not authorized to release any information to a non-family member—”

“I’m asking as a police officer. I have some news to share with the mother that may be upsetting. If the child is gravely ill, I can hold off telling it for a while.”

The nurse met his gaze candidly and said grimly, “Hold off.”

His stomach dropped with a sickening thud.

“How bad is it?” he murmured low.

“Children’s Hospital in Denver has treated a dozen kids with this virus. Two of them didn’t make it.”

His jaw sagged. “As in they died?”

The nurse nodded soberly.

He whirled and stared through the window at the toddler curled up in the stainless steel crib. He hadn’t been in touch with Sloane since high school, but it didn’t take more than two seconds of being in the same room with her to see that she adored her daughter. If anything happened to Chloe, it would kill Sloane.

The nurse added, “It gets worse before it gets better. And she’s a very young child. This little girl’s got a fight ahead of her. Several dozen children have died around the country from it.”

Sweet baby Jesus .

Sloane stepped out into the hallway, fully dressed, and smiled hopefully at him. Undoubtedly she didn’t know how bad Chloe’s illness was, or she wouldn’t be able to smile at all. His belly felt like glass that had been hit by a stone and shattered into a million razor-sharp shards.

It was hard as hell to do, but he forced a fake smile for Sloane’s sake and held out his forearm gallantly. “Shall we take a stroll along the promenade, madam?”

“You really don’t have to do this, Liam.”

“I’m working the night shift tonight.”

“Then shouldn’t you be out solving crimes?”

He was. He wanted to know why someone was watching her and had been lurking around her house. Were the two related?

“Tell me about where you live here in town,” he said casually.

“You saw it. Pretty street. Quiet. Lots of young families. Chloe will have plenty of kids her age to play with.”

“Fox was disappointed when you left the Crooked C. He liked having you and Chloe out there.”

She shrugged. “It was sweet of the gang out there to let us crash with them while I got my bearings and made some decisions. But Fox is a bachelor. He didn’t need Chloe and me hanging around getting in the way.”

“Why did you choose not to live with your parents? Goodness knows, they’ve got plenty of room in that house of theirs.”

“You mean the mausoleum?”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You didn’t live there,” she retorted.

“I spent a lot of time there with Fox.”

“Then you know that Russ and Mara were never at home.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear they had an ongoing contest going to see who could be more of a workaholic.”