Cindy Dees: Colton Under Fire

Single mom under siege

A thrilling Coltons of Roaring Springs romance

Detective Liam Kastor assumed he’d never see gorgeous Sloane Colton again after high school...right? So when the lovely lawyer suddenly shows up in town years later, Liam is floored. Newly divorced, Sloane is determined to make a life for herself and her toddler daughter. But when deadly threats show up on Sloane’s doorstep, Liam is determined to find out who’s after her—and why.

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author CINDY DEESis the author of more than fifty novels. She draws upon her experience as a US Air Force pilot to write romantic suspense. She’s a two-time winner of the prestigious RITA® Award for romance fiction, a two-time winner of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award for Romantic Suspense and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Best Author Award nominee. She loves to hear from readers at www.cindydees.com.

Also by Cindy Dees

Undercover with a SEAL

Her Secret Spy

Her Mission with a SEAL

Navy SEAL Cop

Soldier’s Last Stand

The Spy’s Secret Family

Captain’s Call of Duty

Soldier’s Rescue Mission

Her Hero After Dark

Breathless Encounter

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Colton Under Fire

Cindy Dees

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09363-7

COLTON UNDER FIRE

© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

About the Publisher

Her cell phone flashed.

Incoming text for Sloane Colton Durant from Ivan Durant.

She scowled at the screen. Ivan could keep his last name. She would rather go back to being a Colton, even with all of its notorious implications in Roaring Springs.

This isn’t over.

The cell phone flashed another incoming message. Irritated at being disturbed at dinnertime by her ex-husband, she nonetheless touched the screen to see the next message.

She gulped.

I WILL expose what you did and get her back.

A frisson of terror skittered down Sloane’s spine. Her ex, a high-powered corporate attorney, didn’t make threats idly in court and he wasn’t making any now. The custody battle over their daughter had been a bloodbath, and she’d had to resort to blackmailing Ivan with his infidelities and gambling to get him to back off. Her own divorce lawyer had warned her that Ivan probably wasn’t done trying to take Chloe from her.

Sloane’s gaze hardened. Her ex would get custody of Chloe over her dead body. He didn’t care about their daughter at all. Ivan merely saw her as a trophy. The spoils of war.

Sloane winced as two-year-old Chloe let out a piercing squeal, and heads across the dining room turned to glare. It hadn’t been her idea to bring a toddler to a family supper at the upscale Del Aggio steak house at Roaring Springs, or The Lodge, as locals called it. She’d tried to talk her adoptive father, Russ Colton, out of this particular restaurant, but the man was a born-again bull in a china shop.

He didn’t listen to anyone.

“Is Chloe all right?” Sloane’s biological brother, Fox, asked in concern. “She looks flushed.”

“Kids always turn red in the face when they’re winding up for a tactical nuclear meltdown,” she muttered.

“That sounds serious,” Fox responded, eyeing his niece warily.

She and Chloe had spent a few weeks at the Crooked C Ranch while she looked for a permanent place to live. Her adoptive brother, Wyatt Colton, owned the ranch and lived there with his fiancée, Bailey. Fox also had a house on the property and helped manage the spread. They all had a healthy respect for the temper of a tired, hungry two-year-old.

Sloane scooped Chloe out of the wooden high chair, which was probably half the problem. The log contraption might be considered rustic chic, but it looked uncomfortable.

Of course, the other half of the problem was that Little Bug’s bedtime had come and gone, and still, there was no sign of dinner.

“Let’s go for a walk, sweetie, and look at the skiers.”

Chloe felt warm in her arms. And her cheeks were rosier than usual. Poor thing had really had a time of it, getting ripped out of the only home she’d ever known and being dragged to this new town full of strangers who thought they could walk right up to a baby and get in her face or pick her up because they shared the same last name.

Sloane almost hadn’t come back to Roaring Springs, Colorado for that exact same reason. She didn’t need her entire loud, nosy, raucous family getting in her face, either. It had been hard enough getting through the divorce without the interference of the whole Colton clan.