Colton's Lethal Reunion

DNA proving that Ace wasn’t a Colton? It made no sense. Seriously, a baby getting switched at birth? A sick one for a healthy one? No formula was going to be able to calculate that one.

And to think, even for a second, that Ace was capable of shooting Payne? Sure, he’d been pissed that Payne had removed him as CEO, but he’d also known that killing Payne wasn’t going to help his cause any. Payne had only been following Colton Oil bylaws, appointing a CEO who was a biological Colton, to protect the company. It hadn’t been about Ace, but about keeping their billions safe. He knew Ace wanted that as badly as any of them. Would have stepped down himself if he’d been given a few days to come to terms with everything. Ace lived for Colton Oil and was surely more pissed at the fact that his whole life had been stolen from him, pissed at whoever had switched him at birth, pissed at fate.

And, as far as Rafe could see, Ace adored Payne Colton, if such a thing were possible.

Rafe had never found it so, in spite of the years he’d spent trying.

So what was it about him that drove him to give himself impossible tasks? To set himself up for emotional failure? Because that was certainly what he was doing, knowingly doing, as he parked his fancy new metallic navy blue truck out in front of Kerry’s small, but nicely landscaped stucco home that afternoon before heading back to the ranch.

His own, much more opulent home was waiting for him. It was full of food brought over by one of the mansion staff and left in his refrigerator, as was procedure any night that he didn’t present himself at the family table for dinner. And whether he made it back to the ranch on time that night or not, he wasn’t going to dinner. The staff had always spoiled him. Possibly because when Tessa Ainsley Colton died, his upbringing had been largely left to those running the household.

Payne’s first wife was the only reason Rafe had become a Colton. Carter had been such a vital part of their lives for so long, had lost his wife right there on the ranch from valley fever, and Tessa Colton had insisted that the family take in Rafe. Payne had argued with her about it, which he wasn’t supposed to know, and no one knew he knew. He’d gone to see Tessa one night and had heard them. And had gone back to his room and cried himself to sleep. He’d worried about what was going to happen to him and then, suddenly, he was told he was going to be a Colton. Obviously, Payne had eventually given in. Then Tessa had died and Payne’s second wife, Selina, hadn’t given a rat’s ass about the little orphaned boy.

He wasn’t even sure how many of the siblings would be at dinner that night. They were taking shifts sitting with Payne at the hospital. He’d done his stint before going to see Kerry that morning.

A light was on in her front window, though it was only four in the afternoon. The garage door was shut. There were no vehicles in the driveway. He didn’t pull in. Leaving his parked truck at the curb, he approached the front door. She could still refuse to talk to him. He wouldn’t blame her.

She could threaten him with a restraining order if he didn’t leave her alone. It wasn’t like she’d have to call the cops. She was the cop.

And still, he lifted his hand to knock.

She’d been over the files again and again. Had a wall in her dining room covered with a huge ten-year calendar, chronicling her brother’s life from the time he’d graduated high school until his death. All of the jobs he’d had were marked with color-coded dots for the months or years he’d worked them. The bills he’d paid, banking transactions, times when she’d found nothing to account for his whereabouts. No credit card charges because he hadn’t had any cards. And she only had phone calls from logging into his account because she hadn’t had a warrant.

Next to the calendar was a smaller one, covering the two-year span before Tyler’s death. It showed what she could find of the activity of Odin Rogers, a slick local criminal who had his hands in many dirty dealings—seriously dirty, Kerry suspected, like drug running and maybe weapons, too. Yet he managed to always skate free of any charges against him. Also, in color-coded dots, she’d marked the phone calls and known meetings between her brother and the slimeball. Odin had had some kind of hold on Tyler. She figured it had to do with Tyler’s earlier, druggie days.

Those phone calls and meetings lasted several months, before Tyler had supposedly committed suicide by falling off a cliff. The calendar showed only two colored marks. One the same week that Tyler had sworn to her that he was straightening out his life, and the other one early in the morning on the day he’d died.

The day Odin Rogers had had him murdered. She was sure of the truth. Just could not find the evidence to prove it. To get justice for Tyler…

A loud rapping interrupted her focus. She’d thought she’d heard a knock, but had ignored the summons. She was on her own time now, and as much as she loved her town, her job, there were times when the well-meaning citizens of Mustang Valley needed to get along without her. After seeing Rafe earlier in the day, that evening was definitely one of those times.

While she hadn’t changed out of the jeans and oxford she’d worn to work, she’d pulled the elastic out of her hair on her way to an eventual hot soak with lavender-scented candles and bath beads before dinner. Pouring on the calm. She’d gotten distracted on her way through the dining room, though.

Still, whoever was out there was being persistent, so of course she had to take a peek. The chief would have called her if there was anything urgent. As would anyone else from the department. An intruder wouldn’t announce themselves so boldly…

Rafe. Still in the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d descended upon her that morning.

Shaking, hating the sudden feeling of being afraid of herself, she froze there by the window, able to see him without him knowing she was looking. If she waited long enough, he’d go away. He’d have no other option. And no way of knowing for sure that she was in the house.

He frowned. Shook his head. Glanced at his watch. Stared at her front door. Then looked toward the sky.

No. It had to be coincidence. Or something that had just become habit without any correlation to anything that had once meant something.

He did not just implore their mothers to help them.

He’d looked up. That was all. Had certainly long forgotten the ritual they’d made up together when they were six or seven and meeting on the other side of the hill that backed up to the RRR barns. They and Tyler—who was five years younger, still a baby when Kerry’s mom had taken off—were the only motherless kids on the ranch. They were best friends. And a year or two earlier, Payne and Tessa had adopted Rafe. Since the day he was adopted at five, Payne had forbidden Rafe to have anything to do with Kerry. But they’d sneaked away anyway. Knowing that if their birth moms were still alive, like the rest of the kids, the mothers would have made sure they still got to play together. They’d look to the sky and ask their moms to not let them get caught by Payne. And for eight years, their pleas had been answered.

Of course, that was back before Rafe knew the value of the Colton dollar. And before she’d known that her mom was in Phoenix, more interested in drugs and men than any children she’d birthed.

When Rafe’s chin lowered, he glanced at the window. For a second she was afraid he saw her. And then saw herself. Saw how ridiculous she was being.

She was a thirty-six-year-old police detective, not a thirteen-year-old virgin having her first kiss. And had long since rid her heart of Rafe Colton. She had nothing to hide. Not even from herself.

With that thought in mind, she pulled open the front door.

Kerry didn’t look happy to see him. He didn’t blame her. Hadn’t expected any different.

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

He nodded. “I’m more ashamed than I can say that it took Payne’s attempted murder to bring me to the point of seeking you out,” he said. She wasn’t likely to give him a second chance to explain. Or much time, either. “I’ve known for years, ever since you got back, that I had to speak to you, to explain…”

Her brows rose, her long, auburn hair trailing down around her shoulders, just as he remembered it. When he was twelve, he’d worked up the guts to tell her he liked it that way. That had been a tough year for him—noticing her as a girl, not just a friend. Wanting to be more than just friends, but having no clue what that even meant in any practical sense.

“I didn’t expect you’d have noticed,” she said. He paid close attention to the words. They didn’t say a whole lot—and yet, they said so much more than he deserved.

There were chinks in her armor. He’d hoped, for a second that morning, that he’d witnessed one of those chinks, but she’d recovered so quickly he hadn’t been sure.

“I have always noticed everything about you,” he said. Like the fact that she’d just looked past his shoulder toward the street. He’d heard a car go by. Someone she knew?

“You shouldn’t have parked that fancy truck of yours out front,” she said. “People will talk.”

“More so if we’re standing out here on your porch,” he told her, a weak attempt to get into her house. To see her space, to be able to picture it, to have a real conversation with her.

Nodding, she stood back, held open the door. “But you aren’t staying, Rafe,” she told him. “You can say whatever it is you feel compelled to say, but then you go. And you don’t come back.”

“You’re the one with the weapon, Detective,” he said. “I left my rifle in its case on the floor of my truck…” He was pretty sure there’d been some pithy follow-up on the tip of his tongue, but all thought vanished as he caught his first scent of her space. His first view.

And felt like he’d come home.

“I’d apologize for furniture that comes from a discount home store, and rugs that are polyester blend, instead of the real wool you’re used to,” Kerry said, standing on the four-by-six area of tile that led from the front door into her living room. “But I’m sure you knew what to expect when you came slumming.” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

She felt like a gutter rat, standing there with him consuming her house just by stepping in the door.

“And hey, I give you credit…you didn’t waste much time seeking me out once Payne was safely in a coma and so unlikely to catch you mixing with the help.”

The Help. She imagined it with a capital H. Like it was a name. God, she hated those words. The Help. Had heard it far too many times, in her own head, as she’d cried herself to sleep, night after night. Year after year. Not every night. Not all year. But far too often.

She’d hadn’t been on the ranch to help anyone. She’d been a kid. Growing up, like any other kid had a right to do.

She hated him for abiding by those social rules, letting those words destroy the most valuable thing in her life.

“If I was going to stop hanging out with you because I thought you were beneath me, I’d have done it when I was five,” he said. “Or six, or seven, or eight.”

Did he think she hadn’t already tried to give him that benefit of the doubt? That she hadn’t spent years trying to understand?

“You didn’t yet know what Colton money could buy you.”