Tara Quinn - Colton's Lethal Reunion

Long ago, he broke her heart.

Now he’d do anything to save her life.

Rafe Colton and Kerry Wilder were inseparable as kids—until Rafe cut Kerry out of his life without explanation. Now a detective, Kerry unexpectedly crosses paths with Rafe again while investigating a deadly shooting. When Rafe discovers she’s also investigating a cold case that puts her in harm’s way, he vows to work overtime to protect her. But can Rafe redeem his betrayal…and keep her safe?

Having written over eighty-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINNis a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America and is a seven-time RWA RITA® Award finalist. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning . She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you need help, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

Also by Tara Taylor Quinn

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Lost and Found Baby

An Unexpected Christmas Baby

The Baby Arrangement Fortune’s

Christmas Baby

Child by Chance

Mother by Fate

The Good Father

Love by Association

His First Choice

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Colton’s Lethal Reunion

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90486-9

COLTON’S LETHAL REUNION

© 2020 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.

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For Rachel Marie. I think of you in all I do and have

been reminded through this book that family is

forever—the tie that binds is too strong to break.

I love you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

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

About the Publisher

He had to see her. This wasn’t news. Rafe Colton had known for years that he owed Kerry Wilder an explanation for the way he’d cut out on her—on them—abandoning her and their budding love with no warning. Leaving her to face life alone after they’d been friends, best friends, even secret friends, since they’d been old enough to walk and talk.

For years he’d known. And for years, he’d been avoiding her.

For so many reasons. Not the least of which was that he suspected, maybe even feared, that he was still in love with her. He couldn’t be, of course. There was no way the pubescent feelings of youth would carry unrequited into adulthood. And certainly wouldn’t still be incubating in a grown man of thirty-six.

And yet, he’d procrastinated. Which made him not real fond of himself—deep down in the places he rarely visited, at least.

And then, in the middle of the shock that had rocked his whole adoptive family—the Coltons—she’d walked in the room. And in the two days since, he’d been able to think of little else. Payne, his adoptive father, had been shot—was still lying comatose, unchanged since he’d been admitted to the hospital—his oldest brother was the prime suspect in the murder, and Kerry was the detective assigned to the case.

How could that possibly be?

Okay, he knew how. At eighteen, Kerry had left the ranch where they’d both grown up, but she’d returned to Mustang Valley after college. Had joined the police force in the small Arizona town that was home to Colton Oil. As far as he knew, she hadn’t been near Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch since. Probably didn’t know that, unlike the biological Colton heirs, he’d moved out of the family mansion he’d moved into at five, when he’d been orphaned and subsequently adopted by Payne and his first wife, Tessa.

Kerry also wouldn’t know that, instead of moving back into the old foreman’s house he’d lived in until his father had died—which, as a Colton, and CFO of Colton Oil, would have been completely inappropriate—he’d built his own home. The adopted, nonbiological Colton house. Sitting on a stretch of land out of view of the mansion, a flat piece on the other side of a hill close by the barns—the place where he and Kerry used to go play until he was no longer just the foreman’s son and they weren’t allowed to be seen together anymore. Then it was the place where they hid out, just to be able to see each other.

None of which mattered as the long stretch of two-lane road he’d been traveling through the barren and stark Arizona land gave way to signs of the town ahead. What mattered was that he had to see Kerry.

It wasn’t a mistake that she’d been assigned to investigate his adopted father’s attempted murder. It was fate. Forcing him to do what he should have done long ago. Especially since his adoptive brother Ace, who’d recently been outed as a non-Colton by blood, appeared to be a person of interest to her.