High-Stakes Colton

As he approached, the aroma of beef and other delectable scents hit him as he entered the apartments. Ellen was at the stove and she waved to him as he climbed the stairs, his stomach grumbling.

In his newly appointed apartment, he stripped, opened the linen closet and discovered there were no towels. There was a knock at the door and he hastily pulled on his jeans, zipping them but in his hurry forgot to button them.

When he pulled open the door, Alanna Colton burst into the apartment toting a stack of fluffy brown towels with her tail on fire.

She came to a stop and bemused, he followed her. She was a combination of edgy sweet and bossy princess. She turned and that direct gaze slammed into him. Hoo-boy, she was riled. “I understand you had a run-in with my brother. What happened?”

“He wanted me to hurry up and fix the horse. I left my fairy wand in my other jeans.”

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. “You didn’t actually say that.”

“I did.”

A soft laugh escaped and she shook her head, a gleam of admiration there. “And, you’re still here?”

“Left my fairy dust at home, too.”

That made her laugh out loud as if she was picturing him as Tinker Bell. “You had a full day pissing off the Coltons, huh?”

“Setting my boundaries is all.”

“I’d say they’re set. Not many men can or are willing to cross swords with my brother. That sets you apart, Jake.” His body leaped in response to her softly spoken compliment, urging him to do something—anything—about it. Hard to keep telling himself this was supposed to be a fake wooing when the sexual tension between them was clouding up his mind in a thick fog.

He nodded, taking a breath, shifting to accommodate the sudden lack of room in his jeans, deciding they needed a benign topic. “The towels are welcome,” he said in the sudden silence. Alanna had just realized he was bare-chested. The way her startled green eyes drifted over him set his teeth on edge, the very air vibrating with tension. On undercover operations where he had to get close to a suspect, he hadn’t worked this hard to stay detached. But she intrigued him.

He stepped over and slid his hand on top of and under the stack, and their fingers accidentally brushed across one another. She pulled her hand away, and stepped back. Her sudden uncertainty was so at odds with her bold nature. They were still standing close and something tightened in his chest. She was so innocent-looking, angelic even with her honey skin and tawny hair now loose and free, cut into tapered layers. But it was her face that did him in, every time. As a man he was acutely aware of her body, but he was a fool for that face, the innocence and the beauty of it never failing to turn him inside out.

“I saw the maid with them and I wanted to talk to you about Fowler. Let you know he’s...particular. He’s also out of his element and that makes him—”

“Confrontational?”

“He’s that on a good day. I was going to say nasty. But he’s handling the situation the best he can.”

“With your father’s disappearance,” he asked, not having to feign the slight roughness to his voice. Did she have any idea the effect she was having on him? Probably not. He didn’t fully understand it. But tell that to the rest of him, which was having no problem at all responding to her. Why he felt protective of her was anybody’s guess.

Think about why you’re here, boy, and rein in that hunger.

She blanched a bit and looked down, then nodded. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was true pain and worry in her eyes before he lost her gaze. If he was to go by what he’d just seen and felt, he would swear on a stack of Bibles that Alanna Colton had nothing to do with her father’s alleged kidnapping. But he wasn’t here to make snap judgments. He was here for facts.

Her bowed head and the glimpse of this angel’s pain worked against his cynicism. He leaned in, reacting on instinct, breathing her scent. Which was dangerous, given his current state of mind—and his tight jeans—but an impulse he seemed helpless to curb. She had been training horses all day and by rights she should smell like a barn. Only she didn’t. And standing this close, he noticed how smooth and soft-looking her skin was. For someone working such a physical job, exposed to the sun and wind, he’d expect her to look a bit more...worn.

Then it was that slight overbite. It was cute, and she wasn’t the cute type. She was no-nonsense and wore her confidence as easily as she did her shotgun chaps. What she was, drilling it into his head, was off-limits at least for where his male brain automatically took him. Give her what he suspected she was lacking...a shoulder to lean on. There wasn’t anyone in her family she could turn to for comfort and that made for a lonely existence. He knew that too well. It was something he was here to exploit.

He’d started this and now Alanna Colton was going to make this much too real.

But he would do his job, regardless of how the Colton princess was getting under his skin.

Chapter 3 (#ulink_db262f6a-2cf9-558f-9f37-57fecd87b91d)

Alanna had always used physical work as a means to keep her own ghosts at bay. If she kept busy, she wouldn’t think about how totally worried and upset she was about what had happened to her father.

But work wasn’t going to help here...now. Not with Jake’s voice so soft and deep. Not when he was so enticing, half-naked, with those sinfully tight jeans, unsnapped and showing off all that muscle in his hips.

The waning afternoon light angled over him, defining the solid ridge of muscles across his shoulders and up his torso, thick and hard across his chest, casting his deeply tanned skin in a patina of bronze. The strong angle of his jaw was highlighted by a stubble of beard, the burnished skin across his cheekbones drawn smooth. He looked like a heavy weighted anchor, not even an earthquake could shake him. The kind of anchor she craved in the deepest part of her where that little girl who had grown up so alone lurked.

It was an unspoken rule that Coltons did not talk to outsiders about family matters. Alanna had grown up an heiress, stood to inherit a large sum of money from all of the Colton holdings, it naturally made her wary of anyone who got too close.

And Jake was too close.

Not only in proximity.

But when Fowler had growled and said Jake’s last name like it was a swear word, she couldn’t get over here fast enough to find out what had happened. Now she was standing here with a loaded question regarding her father’s violent and mystifying disappearance. She lived in an environment where she always had to watch her back, even from her family members. The police seemed to be at a dead end after first clearing Fowler, then Zane. The turmoil the family had been through the last couple of months would rival a soap opera. Then who could trust Marceline? She hated Eldridge and had been acting so secretive and...well...guilty. Did she have something to do with his disappearance? Then there was her stepmother, Whitney. Her insistence and dedication to finding her Dridgey-pooh seemed real, but was she a good actress, really worried and upset, or did she hire someone to murder her husband? But if her dad was dead, where was his body? A painful contraction clutched at Alanna’s heart.

The need to talk to someone was an aching pressure against her breastbone, holding in the worry and the despair as each day passed. The fact that there was no news wore on her, tearing at her armor.

But Jake was an outsider, an unknown. His reputation aside, she couldn’t trust anyone, not inside her family circle or outside it. Not to mention, he’d also undermined her this morning with his refusal to take her seriously over Zorro.

“I suspect your brother isn’t the only one struggling with it.”

His voice was quiet and full of understanding as if he knew all about the kind of suffering that took chunks out of her. He tested her sense of balance. This bond they seemed to share was as unexpected as it was unwanted. At least on her end. The fear of giving in to that need for comfort was just as strong as her attraction for him. The problem was she hadn’t determined if he was friend or foe. But even if he was the former, she couldn’t risk it. At this point, she had no control, nor did Fowler believe she had what it took to be the decision maker for the stables. He’d told that to her face once it was clear he was now in charge. He and her father were one in the same mind about her abilities.

Jake would probably be just the same and letting an alpha get closer to her would be tantamount to jumping off the side of a cliff. She might as well give up. Besides, his time was limited. Once he realized Zorro was a lost cause, he would quit. All she had to do was resist temptation. Very potent temptation.

“We’re doing the best that we can,” she said, her response flat. It was time to turn tail and run.

She wasn’t too worried about him being inappropriate. Her worry was all about her misbehaving. Jake was potent enough and with his face and body and the sense that he was carrying the kind of pain she was made it all the more enticing to unburden herself to someone who would understand it. The pull of that was magnetic.

Either she wasn’t quick enough or he had the instincts of a predator as he blocked her attempt to leave by simply stepping into her path and setting the towels down on the coffee table.

“That’s all we can do,” he murmured. “The best we can.”

There was something in his voice that resonated with her big-time, like he knew what it was like to fight against something, as if constantly climbing a hill. She didn’t want this...connection with him. But against her will, it was there.

“I should get going,” she said, thinking to get out of his presence would be a good thing. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.” She should have curbed her impulse to come dashing over here after she’d seen the result of her brother and Jake meeting for the first time.

“You do work hard here.”

“You say that as if it surprised you.”

“Maybe it did. I expected you to be the queen, I guess. Not the worker bee.”

“You really can’t believe everything you read in the media, Mr. McCord.”

“How about I open my mind and you start calling me Jake?”

Did he want to be friends? Or more? She was getting the vibe that he wanted more, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe she was just projecting her own wishful thinking.

Curious about his background was an understatement. “How did you get into...horse whispering?”