Justine Davis - Colton Family Rescue

His eyebrows shot downward. And suddenly his brain kicked into gear.

She’s back for more money, of course.

He’d barely heard his brother’s gleeful words. He’d been too startled by his news that Jolie was here. But he would have discounted them anyway; Fowler was desperate to get the spotlight off Tiffany, and if doing so meant throwing someone else—anyone else—to the wolves, then so be it.

“She’s a gold digger, Thomas. All she wants is Colton money.”

His mother’s words echoed in his head.

Maybe it takes one to know one?

Yes, she had stuck it out, but that didn’t necessarily mean it hadn’t started as a strictly mercenary arrangement. He had few illusions left about his mother.

“I would hardly call a payoff in six figures bullying,” he finally said.

Her gaze shot to his face, and he saw some of the old fire in her eyes. “What would you call threatening a baby?”

“What?” She’d startled it out of him this time.

She started to pace the office, and when she spoke it came out as if rehearsed. Or as if she’d been thinking what she would say to him for a very long time.

“It wasn’t enough for your parents to tell me I was ruining your life, that I had no place in it, that I would never, ever be good enough to be a Colton. I already knew that anyway. And I knew you knew that, and you wanted me anyway.”

“I never thought that.” The words came out sharply, because they were true. He’d known that because of her past Jolie carried around some pretty strong feelings of worthlessness. He’d had it all figured out, how he would help her get past that, that one day she would really, truly believe how crazy in love with her he was. But she vanished before he ever had the chance.

She kept pacing, the words coming out in a rush. “I’m not talking about what you believed. I’m talking about what I believed. And deep down I believed every word they said was true. But I still said no. I told them I loved you, and I was staying.”

He drew back slightly. “You did?”

“Yes.” Her mouth tightened. She stopped, turned, looked at him. “That’s when your mother brought out the big guns.”

“She has them,” he said neutrally, although it was difficult under the steady gaze of those gray eyes. But he knew well enough, his mother used her weapons on him often enough, imperiously wielding her power as the Colton matriarch to get her way.

“She told me if I stayed, she would make my life a living hell. With a few potent examples.”

He hadn’t actually thought about that. He’d known his mother didn’t approve, didn’t think Jolie was good enough—although he’d never been certain if she’d meant good enough for him, or good enough to be a Colton—but he hadn’t thought it through to how she might express that disapproval had Jolie stayed. He knew too much of his mother’s ways to take that lightly now.

“And then,” Jolie said, stopping in front of him, a mere two feet away, meeting his gaze levelly, “she promised to do the same to Emma. To make her life hell, to make sure she always knew she didn’t belong, she wasn’t welcome, she was unworthy and despised.”

T.C. went very still.

“And to top it all off, she dropped some very pointed hints about children having accidents on ranches all the time.”

He couldn’t imagine even his mother threatening that. Emma had been a baby, helpless, innocent.

And your father’s a frail old man, and you’re wondering if she killed him.

“She wouldn’t have done it,” he said, but there was enough uncertainty in him to make the words less than convincing.

“I couldn’t take that risk. Not with Emma.”

He was shaken, he couldn’t deny that. Told this way, what his parents had done seemed much more nefarious. And the threat to Emma, then only months old, was more than a little disturbing. And made him wonder again, just how far would his mother go to get what she wanted?

“And the money?” Jolie said, her voice fierce now. “I took it so Emma would have chances I never did. It’s in a trust fund, for her. I’ve never touched a penny of it, and I never will.”

T.C. stared at her, a little awed at that ferocity, of the depth of her love for her daughter. He’d known it before, or thought he had, but at this moment she took his breath away.

But then Jolie Peters had always taken his breath away.

His own reaction, the swiftness of his response to her, as if the last four years had never happened, unsettled him. And that made his voice sharp when he grasped at something—anything—as distraction. “Why are you here now?”

Something flashed in her eyes, and her expression went from fierce to frightened in the space of a split second. He saw her take in a deep breath, as if she needed it to steady herself.

“Someone’s trying to kill Emma.”

Chapter 5

She’d never put it in words until this moment. And now that she had, Jolie felt an icy chill go down to her bones.

Someone was trying to kill her precious girl.

And, she realized as T.C. stared at her, he didn’t believe her. As easily as if they’d never been apart, she read him. “Have I ever been prone to hysteria?”

“You weren’t, no.” The implication that things could have changed in the past four years was clear.

“Still not.” She took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “Emma witnessed a murder.”

She saw his eyes widen. Those vivid green eyes that had melted her with a glance.

“I think you’d better sit down,” he said after a moment, gesturing toward the leather couch in the sitting area of his office. It had changed, she realized belatedly. The entire office had been redone since she was last here. Even the desk had been replaced. She wondered at that; he’d always cared little about the trappings, it seemed unlike him to just redecorate on a whim.

“New couch,” she said as she sat, wondering if it sounded as inane to him as it did to her. “Among other things.”

He didn’t sit beside her. He sat in the big, matching chair positioned at a right angle to the couch. The chair was a subtle statement of who had the right to private real estate in this setting, the reminder of who was in charge in this domain. As if anyone could ever forget.

But he’d never done it to her before, in the few times she’d been here.

He stared at her, his expression almost grim. It hit her then, a memory so hot and strong it nearly sucked the air out of her lungs; the day she’d tried to tease him out of here, to get him to take a break from preparing for some upcoming high-powered negotiation with an Angus breeder in Kansas. They’d ended up making love on his desk, urgently, and then again on the couch, long and slow and sweet.

No wonder he’d gutted the place.

And she guessed she knew now how he’d handled her abrupt departure.

“Talk,” he commanded.

She didn’t quibble over his tone, or the sharp order. He had every right. It took her a moment to get started, although she’d thought of nothing but how she would explain all the way here; it had helped keep her mind off the terrifying knowledge that someone had actually tried to grab Emma. But once she had begun, it came pouring out in a rush.

And rather confused. But he didn’t stop her, or ask questions, and she knew he was more than capable of taking her rather scattered account and putting it in order. It was one of the things that made him so good at what he did, better even than his half brother Fowler, who was the more famous—and infamous—Colton of the two. As president of Colton Inc., Fowler loved all the trappings and used them to aid in his wheeling and dealing, while executive vice president Thomas simply did what needed to be done to keep things rolling. She had little doubt which of them Colton Inc. would miss more.