The Colton Marine

The person picked up the knife and gripped it tightly. Yes, it would have to be the knife.

It would be quick and quiet. And there were other rooms where a body could be hidden...where it might never be found.

Chapter 5 (#uc4f71e6a-1e93-580d-849c-83f28c2e0100)

Excitement coursed through River. He was so glad he’d rushed over to the estate while Edith had been in the shower at Mac’s, so he’d had time to investigate before she showed up. This had to be one of them—one of Livia’s secret rooms. The wall wasn’t thick enough to be an exterior one. It wouldn’t have been installed to support anything, either. He’d found it at the back of the wine cellar. Maybe it was just a place to store more expensive bottles.

But Livia wouldn’t have hidden those. If she had anything of value or beauty, she had put it on display. She’d only hidden her dirty money and her secrets and the evidence that had eventually put her away.

His paternity was one of those. Who was his father that Livia had hidden his identity? One of the drug dealers or human traffickers with whom she’d associated?

The thought turned River’s stomach. He pulled the crowbar back from the wall. He’d been shoving its end between the bricks of the cement wall, trying to get them to budge. He hadn’t wanted to knock them down; he suspected instead that one of the cracks between the blocks hid a lever—something that would open the entire wall.

He could see where the dust on the ground had been disturbed around it. Maybe the FBI had done it when they’d searched the house again. But that had been a few months ago, long enough for the dust to have settled again.

Unless it kept getting disturbed.

Edith might have seen something—someone—the night before. If she hadn’t screamed...

If he hadn’t rushed in when he had...

Would that person have done something to her? Hurt her?

His stomach flipped again at the thought of her being in danger or worse yet, hurt. He had to make certain that didn’t happen. And the best way to do that would be to find that person wherever he was hiding.

Whatever he was hiding...

River had had enough of secrets. It was time to learn the truth—no matter how horrible that might be. He lifted the crowbar to the wall again. Just as he began to swing the tip toward what looked to be a bit of metal sticking out between the blocks, he heard it.

The scrape of shoes against the concrete and a soft gasp. He dropped the crowbar and whirled around to face Edith. She had her can of pepper spray grasped tightly in one hand and a frying pan in the other.

“Are you going to blind me or cook me?” he asked.

“You’re lucky I didn’t spray you or hit you,” she said with a snort of disgust. “What the hell are you doing down here again?”

Feigning surprise, he lifted a brow. “I’m checking out the house like I told you I would last night.”

“And I told you that wasn’t necessary,” she said.

“I promised Mac that I’d make sure you’d be safe here,” he said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. They’d all talked about his coming back the next morning to check the place out. “I wanted to make sure there really wasn’t anyone else in here.”

Her big, dark eyes narrowed as she studied his face. “Seems funny the only person I ever actually find inside is you. Why do you keep showing up here?”

If he told her the truth, that he was looking for information, she’d probably toss him out and never allow him back inside. So despite how much he hated them, he’d actually have to keep a secret of his own.

It wasn’t the only one he was keeping, though. There were things that had happened while he’d been deployed that he couldn’t talk about—even if he’d wanted to. He was honor bound to his country and his fellow soldiers. He wasn’t honor bound to Edith.

Something else bound him to her, though—a desire that quickened his pulse and heated his blood every time he was near her. And he wasn’t near enough. He stepped closer to her and lowered his voice as he finally answered her question. “You,” he said. “You’re the reason I keep showing up here.”

Her full lips parted on a soft gasp, and her eyes widened again. “Are you flirting with me?” she asked.

Like her uncle, she was straightforward. He appreciated that. Hell, he appreciated entirely too much about her—like her body and her face and her voice and her sexy-as-sin scent.

He laughed and touched the scars on the right side of his face. “Like you’d be interested in me...”

She gasped again, but it was his name that slipped out between her lush lips. “River!”

“It’s fine,” he assured her. “I’m not looking for pity.” That would be a hell of a lot easier to find, though. He’d just have to go into town or to a family function. They all looked at him like that.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

And he tensed. She wasn’t just straightforward. She was smart, too.

She gestured at the crowbar he’d dropped. “I heard you scraping at something.”

He shrugged. “I was just killing some spiders.”

Her eyes were still narrowed. “With a crowbar? What do you swat a fly with? A shovel?”

“The crowbar was handy,” he said. “And the spiders were big.”

She shuddered in revulsion. She wore more clothes than she had last night or this morning. Now she had on jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt—probably because of the bugs and spiders she’d known would be in the house. She glanced around the basement. “That’s all you found down here?”

“I found some rats and a squirrel.” But he knew he’d been close to finding something else. If he’d hit that latch in the wall, he might have opened one of his mother’s secret rooms. He might have found some of her secrets. “Oh, and a snake, too.”

She shuddered again. “Let’s go upstairs, then,” she said. And she hurried down the hall toward the stairs.

He appreciated following her, appreciated the curve of her hips in her jeans, and appreciated how her butt moved as she climbed the steps. Her legs were long and toned—probably from the running. She was slender but not so slender that she didn’t have lush curves.

When she reached the top, she glanced back at him—as if she’d been aware of his staring. As if she’d felt it.

He wanted to touch her, so badly that he curled his fingers into his palms. She was already leery of him. He had to be careful.

But he found himself admitting, “I am looking for something...”

She tensed now. “What?”

“A job,” he said.

“I thought you’ve been working with Uncle Mac on the ranch,” she said.

He nodded. “But like I told you, I’m not looking for pity. And I think that’s the only reason he’s made work for me. Thorne really runs the place. They don’t need me.”

That was true. They didn’t. Nobody did. He’d been gone ten years and they’d all functioned just fine without him. He really had no reason to stay in Shadow Creek—except that he had no place else to go.

He wasn’t about to feel sorry for himself, though. He hadn’t lost nearly as much as some people had. “But I need to do something...” Like find out who the hell his father was. “And it looks like you need a lot done around here.”

Her dark eyes widened, and she blinked her long, thick lashes. “You want to work here? For me?”