Colton Baby Conspiracy

He nodded, clearly glad she wasn’t fighting him on this. Seemingly as an afterthought, he told her, “Call me if you hear anything.”

“You, too,” she told him.

Ace grinned at her, that same warm grin that he usually flashed. She knew he was doing it for her benefit, and she appreciated it.

“Count on it,” he said.

Somewhat heartened, Marlowe left the building and got into her car. But instead of going home—a home she shared with all of her siblings as well as her parents, as the house was large enough to accommodate all of them without having any of them running into the other members—she made the decision to go to her other dwelling.

She had purchased a condominium in downtown Mustang Valley. It was located at the very base of the mountain. She used it only whenever she found herself working late and didn’t feel up to undertaking the drive home.

No one would bother Bowie and her there, Marlowe thought. That meant they could talk in private, although very honestly, aside from asking him a few questions about the allegations he had initially made, she didn’t know what she was going to say to the man who had turned her entire world upside down by impregnating her.

She wasn’t even sure at this point just what she planned to do about that pregnancy.

Turning on the car’s overhead light, she took out her phone and sent a text to Bowie.

If you still want to talk, I’ll be at my condo in half an hour. She then texted Bowie the address. Finished, she tucked away her phone and started up her car.

She’d lied about when she expected to arrive home. The condo was only ten minutes away from Colton Oil’s headquarters. But she wanted the extra time to change her clothes and try to unwind from this overly stressful day before she had to face Bowie again.

The traffic was light. She arrived at the condo in eight minutes rather than ten.

Parking her car in the underground parking structure, she took the elevator up to her condo. The moment she walked inside, she stepped out of her high heels. The entire trip from her door to her bedroom, she shed one article of clothing after another.

By the time she had slipped into her jeans and her oversize, baggy sweater, Marlowe felt like an entirely different person.

Her stylish high heels were replaced by fuzzy socks with corgis pictured on the front of each. She did not look like the high-powered president of a major oil company. Instead, with her perfectly styled hair now pulled back into a jaunty ponytail and all of her carefully applied makeup completely wiped away, she knew she looked more like a teenage version of herself.

Marlowe looked into the mirror, doing a quick survey of herself. For at least the rest of the evening, she had effectively gotten rid of “corporate Marlowe.” Or at least the aura of that persona. She had transformed into just a young woman who had unfortunately made a very bad misstep in the heat of passion.

She’d completed her transformation just in time. The condo doorbell rang.

Habit had Marlowe glancing at her watch. Apparently Bowie Robertson had a thing about punctuality. She had said thirty minutes, and damn if he wasn’t here exactly thirty minutes after she’d sent her text to him.

Leaving her bedroom, she went to answer her door. She supposed there was something to be said about punctuality, Marlowe thought.

Still, mindful of the fact that she was home alone and there was someone out there sending an anonymous email meant to throw her family’s life into total chaos, Marlowe took her small, unloaded handgun out of its lockbox and brought it with her as she went to answer the door.

“Who is it?” she asked a second before she looked through the peephole.

Bowie Robertson was standing on the other side of the door, suddenly feeling tenser than he could remember feeling in a very long time. He had no idea what he was going to say to Marlowe, or even why he was actually here. Everything seemed as if it was completely jumbled up.

“Guess.”

Marlowe couldn’t decide whether or not the voice she heard was friendly or ominous. Had Bowie come here to talk to her or to threaten her? She wasn’t sure, but she squared her shoulders, determined to meet this challenge head-on. She was a Colton, and Coltons were never afraid.

Her hand closed over the small weapon in her pocket.

“Well, it’s too damn early for Santa Claus, so I’m guessing that this is not the answer to my prayer,” she said, flipping the two locks on her door and pulling it open with her free hand.

She saw Bowie’s gaze land on the handgun she had removed from her pocket.

“Did you invite me over to shoot me?” he asked her, staying exactly where he was.

“No,” she answered. After a beat, she lowered the weapon in her hand. “After what you said about someone trying to shoot you, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to keep my gun handy when I opened the door to my condo.” She nodded over her shoulder, silently inviting him in before telling him, “Come on in, Robertson.”

Bowie stepped over the threshold cautiously. “You know how to use that thing?” he asked, nodding at her lowered weapon.

“My father took me to the shooting range the day he gave me this gun for my fourteenth birthday. I can shoot the top feathers off the head of a turkey at twenty paces,” she informed him proudly. “I could give you a demonstration if you’d like,” she offered.

“Sorry,” he quipped, “I left the turkey at home.”

“You could do in a pinch,” she told him. “All you’d have to do is hold up a few feathers in your hand and I can shoot those.”

“Tempting, but I’ll pass,” Bowie told her. “My luck can only hold out for so long,” he added, doing a quick survey of her immediate living space. “I don’t intend to push it.”

Once inside her condo, and with her weapon tucked away back in its place, Bowie sighed audibly.

“You look different,” he told her.

“Nothing gets by you, does it?” Marlowe quipped. “Do you want something to drink?” she asked. “I’ve got a fully stocked bar.”

Marlowe was still waiting for him to answer her. “Robertson, you’re staring,” she said.

“Sorry. I’ve never seen you look like a civilian before,” he told her. His face softened a little. “You look nice.”

That surprised her. She had never been complimented before when she looked like this, and she had no idea how to respond, so she didn’t. Instead, she went back to her original question.

“I asked you if you wanted something to drink.”

He shrugged. “Sure. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“I’m not having anything,” she told him. “I’m pregnant, remember?”

And the reason he was here, the attempts on his life and all that entailed—including an unknown source, now that Marlowe denied having anything to do with it—instantly came crowding back into his brain.

“Oh, right,” Bowie murmured. “For a second, I just forgot.” And was trying to forget, despite everything, just how much he still wanted her.

Chapter 6 (#ua627d5e6-522e-5b4f-a8bc-d367e2d547ea)

“All right, let’s get down to business,” Marlowe said, sitting down on her sofa and approaching this new problem logically. “Who would want you dead?”

Her blunt question threw Bowie. He’d thought that she had asked him here to talk about what they were going to do about the condition she suddenly found herself in. That and perhaps even touch on the night they had spent together, when he had gotten to see a completely different Marlowe Colton than the one the rest of the world—including him, up until then—was acquainted with.

But since she was asking about the attempts on his life, he was willing to address that first. Bowie sat down on the other end of the sofa. He had been giving his own dilemma a great deal of thought since he had confronted Marlowe in her office earlier. As a result, he had come to a new conclusion about it, a totally different one from the one that Marlowe was suggesting.

He started out treading lightly. “While it’s true that I have made some enemies in my energy dealings, so have you,” he pointed out.