Colton's Deep Cover

You don’t have a husband. You’re Amelia Phillips.

“Come on, little dudes, go to Julia.”

Piper’s voice jolted Chloe from her thoughts. A dark-haired woman—Julia, Chloe assumed—scooped up the toddlers, propped one on each of her hips and headed for the door.

“That’s our nanny,” Sawyer explained, tugging on Chloe’s hand.

“She’s going to watch the little terrors while we eat,” Derek added. “Violet’s nanny also has a much-deserved night off.” He shook his head in amazement. “I don’t know how Violet does it. Those two never seem to run out of energy.”

“I don’t know how Gunnar will do it,” Tate corrected with a laugh.

“Dinner’s ready, guys!” Emma called, poking her head into the living room.

As the group trudged toward the kitchen, Chloe felt a hand on her arm. She jumped in surprise, then relaxed when she realized it was Derek.

“Always so jumpy,” he murmured.

“You startled me.”

“You’re easily startled, aren’t you, Amelia?”

The contemplative note in his deep voice heightened her unease. She met his gaze and saw that his brown eyes were studying her, searching, probing, as if he were trying to bore right into her head.

She managed a faint smile. “I need to stop being so skittish, huh? I think it’s the move—new town, new job, new friends. It always takes me a while to adjust to new situations.”

After a beat, he nodded and gently squeezed her arm. “It’ll take some time, but I have a feeling you’ll fit right in. Come on, let’s have some dinner.”

Family dinners topped Derek’s list of favorite events, probably because they’d been so important to the couple who’d adopted him when he was three years old.

Charlotte and Donovan Colton had been the strongest, most loving people he’d ever met. They’d taken not just one child into their home, but six, and Derek and his siblings had grown up surrounded by so much love that his heart now boasted a big hole thanks to the loss of his parents.

Derek had insisted on keeping the tradition of weekly family dinners that had meant so much to his parents. Surrounded by his brothers and sisters, he felt a sense of peace that had been lacking in his life the past couple of years. Ever since Tess’s accident, he’d been having a tough time finding his footing again.

Professionally, he was as confident and composed as ever, but when he walked into his empty house at night, that cool and collected air he’d mastered dissolved, leaving him with a deep ache in his gut and a rush of loneliness. Despite everything they’d gone through, everything she’d put him through, he missed Tess. Or maybe he missed the woman she’d once been, the sweet girl he’d fallen in love with during college. Either way, he couldn’t deny the emptiness he felt, the sorrow that consumed him whenever he found himself alone with his thoughts.

“So your family lives in Missouri, then?” Emma asked. Derek raised his head, realizing his mind had wandered.

Emma’s question had been directed at Amelia, whose expression creased with pain.

“My mother passed away about fifteen years ago,” Amelia admitted. “But yes, my father’s in Missouri.”

Derek sensed there was more to the story, but the flicker of sorrow in Amelia’s big hazel eyes told him not to go there. His little brother, however, had yet to perfect the art of tact.

“Your dad lives alone?” Sawyer asked between mouthfuls of his meat loaf. “He didn’t get married again after your mom died?”

“Sawyer,” Tate chided. “Enough with the Twenty Questions.”

“It’s okay,” Amelia said softly. “I don’t mind.” Her fork toyed with the mashed potatoes on her plate, but she seemed to have lost her appetite. “My father didn’t remarry. He’s actually living in an assisted care facility just outside of St. Louis.”

Derek’s heart clenched as he met her eyes.

“Early-onset Alzheimer’s,” she revealed, as if she’d heard his silent question.

Derek nodded. “When was he diagnosed?”

“When he was fifty-five. That was ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Amelia,” Emma spoke up. “That must be so difficult, seeing someone you love go through something like that.”

Amelia cast her eyes downward. “It’s been very difficult.”

A lull fell over the table, until Tate cleared his throat and changed the subject. As Tate and Emma began discussing the investigation into the missing Amish girls, Derek discreetly studied Amelia from across the table. The revelation about her father was the first nugget of information he’d gleaned from her since he’d hired her three weeks ago, but it still wasn’t enough.

Amelia Phillips fascinated him like no other woman ever had. On the surface she seemed so fragile, but after working with her, he knew she had a core of steel. She was incredible with patients, met any challenge head-on and, when she let her guard down, displayed a witty sense of humor that never failed to make him smile.

But what else did he really know about her? She’d gone to college in California and worked there as a nurse for eight years, then moved back to Missouri and spent the next ten years doing God knows what before resuming her nursing career. Why such a long hiatus? Why had she moved to Pennsylvania? And why on Earth was she still single? Considering her youthful beauty and sweet demeanor, he couldn’t fathom that.

By the time dessert was served, Derek wasn’t any closer to getting the answers to those questions. And because he doubted she’d divulge any information while surrounded by his siblings, when Sawyer and Piper began to clear the table, he turned to Amelia and said, “How about a tour of the ranch?”

There it was again—that startled look in her eyes. “Oh. Sure,” she agreed awkwardly.

“Can I come?” Sawyer asked as he juggled the dishes in his hands.

“No, you can help your sisters clean up,” Tate answered for Derek.

When he met his brother’s eyes and saw the knowing gleam in them, Derek realized Tate knew he’d been hoping to get Amelia alone.

Battling a pang of discomfort, Derek averted his eyes and scraped back his chair. “You can come along next time,” he told Sawyer when he noticed the disappointment on the boy’s face.

Sawyer frowned but didn’t protest, which Derek was incredibly grateful for at the moment.

As he led Amelia out of the kitchen, he told himself that this inexplicable urge to get to know her was simply a result of his innate curiosity. Even as a kid he’d hungered for knowledge, needing to make sense of the world and the people around him. He’d never known his birth parents, and the foster families he’d lived with for the first three years of his life were nothing but a shadowy blur to him. As a result, he’d developed a need to make connections, to truly know the people in his life.

“We’ll take my car,” he said after he and Amelia put on their coats in the front hall.

She raised one dark-blond brow. “This isn’t a walking tour?”

“Trust me, you’ll thank me later. The ranch is too big to wander around on foot.”

Ten minutes later, as they drove through the sprawling compound, Amelia turned to him with a laugh. “Wow. You’re right. This place is huge.”

As he pointed out the various outbuildings and landmarks, Derek discovered that he enjoyed seeing the Double C through Amelia’s eyes. He suddenly realized he’d stopped paying attention to the scenery of the ranch he’d lived on all his life. His practice kept him so busy that he rarely ventured out of his comfortable brick home, which neighbored the big house, and he had no need to oversee the ranching operation, since their foreman, Hank, was more than capable of handling the day-to-day activities.

But as Amelia oohed and ahhed at her surroundings, Derek experienced a burst of pride. The Double C truly was spectacular, the landscape marked by rolling wooded hills, large paddocks and rustic outbuildings. Eden Falls had yet to see a heavy snow, but the layer of silver frost dusting the land hinted that winter would finally be making an appearance soon.

Pointing to the left, he turned to Amelia and said, “There’s a little stream about half a mile that way. It’s probably too cold to walk along the bank right now, but I’ll take you out there in the spring. It’s a really beautiful little spot.”

“That sounds nice,” she said in a noncommittal tone.