Justine Davis - Colton's Twin Secrets

A K-9 cop and Colton nanny come under fire

A Coltons of Red Ridge romance

Officer Dante Mancuso pursues justice with only the company of his K-9 partner. But when tragedy strikes, the bewildered bachelor winds up with custody of his infant nieces. Desperate for help, Dante hires heiress Gemma Colton to help him care for the little girls. As they grow closer caring for the babies, shadows from their respective pasts threaten their growing bond.

JUSTINE DAVISlives on Puget Sound in Washington State, watching big ships and the occasional submarine go by and sharing the neighbourhood with assorted wildlife, including a pair of bald eagles, deer, a bear or two and a tailless raccoon. In the few hours when she’s not planning, plotting or writing her next book, her favorite things are photography, knitting her way through a huge yarn stash and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

Connect with Justine at her website, justinedavis.com, at Twitter.com/justine_d_davis, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/justinedaredavis.

Also by Justine Davis

Operation Midnight

Operation Reunion

Operation Blind Date

Operation Unleashed

Operation Power Play

Operation Homecoming

Operation Soldier Next Door

Operation Alpha

Operation Notorious

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Colton’s Twin Secrets

Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07930-3

COLTON’S TWIN SECRETS

© 2018 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2018

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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This one’s for readers in one of my favorite states,

South Dakota. Don’t go looking for Red Ridge,

for it’s entirely from imagination. But you’ll know that.

Enjoy the ride anyway. And here’s to SD,

indeed Great Faces, Great Places!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Hope.

What a fool’s game.

K9 officer Dante Mancuso stood in the doorway of the small apartment, wondering why on earth he felt the slightest twinge of hope that this time it might be different, this time they might actually find something. Anything. Trying to link the Teflon Twins, Evan and Noel Larson, to their multitude of crimes had so far been like trying to break Flash of sniffing.

As if the big dog had heard the thought, he looked up, leaned his head against Dante’s leg and gave him that mournful look out of the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. His heart and gut reacted for a moment before his brain kicked in to remind him he was being played.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Dante muttered to the bloodhound.

With a long, pained sigh that matched the expression on his wrinkled face, the dog plopped down on the floor.

“You’ll get your turn when they’re done,” Dante told him. The black-and-tan dog gave him what in a person would be a distinct side-eye look. “What? You don’t like Mondays or you can’t sort out a few extra smells?”

With a distinct huff, the dog settled his head onto his front paws.

A man in uniform stepped through the door, pulling off his shoe covers and latex gloves. Al Collins was fairly new, a lateral transfer from down in Custer, still in training here, and Dante didn’t quite have his measure yet.

“I swear, Mancuso, you talk to that dog more than I talk to my human partner.”

“Human?” Dante shot a grinning glance at Collins’s training officer, Duke Carnahan, a large, muscled man with a forehead and brow line that looked a bit simian, and often served to fool people into thinking him stupid, when in fact he was one of the sharpest cops around. He was also one of Dante’s closest friends in the department.

“Keep it up, pretty boy, and I’ll have to rip your arm off,” Duke shot back.

Dante knew the man was joking, but Duke also looked quite capable of carrying out the threat. “Flash might not like that.”

The cop’s gaze shifted to the dog, who now looked half-asleep. “You trying to tell me that lazybones would actually bite me?”

“That lazybones could run you into the ground over any kind of terrain. But when he caught you, he’d just lick you to death. Maybe drown you in slobber.”

Duke grimaced. “Ugh. Drown in dog drool? No, thanks. You can keep the arm.”

They both laughed.

“Don’t see you down here much, Mancuso,” Collins said. “Don’t like us?”