The Coltons of Texas
He just looked at her, in that quiet, assessing way he had. She made herself go on.
“I know it’s crazy, asking you for help. But with you, at the ranch, is the only place I’ve ever felt completely safe. And I know you loved Emma, once. So when the police asked me if there was someplace safe I could take her...”
He still said nothing as her voice trailed off. She steeled herself, and sat up a little straighter. She saw something flicker in his eyes then, as if something had shifted in his clever brain. But still he said nothing. And even knowing it was a tactic, knowing he used silence as a tool, she felt compelled to fill it. And to give him the acknowledgment he deserved.
“I know you hate me, and you have every right. Nothing, not even your mother’s threats, can change the fact that from your point of view, I took money to leave. But this is for Emma—as was that, not that it makes any difference to you—and I’d do a lot more than beg to keep her safe.”
“Would you.”
It wasn’t a question, and Jolie belatedly realized how her last words could be interpreted. She felt her cheeks heat but told herself at least he’d finally spoken. But then she had a sudden vision of him demanding sex in return for his help, of him taking out whatever anger at her remained, ruining forever the sweet memories that were all she had left of that brief, too-brief time in her life when she’d thought she’d truly found her place.
“So you really think I’d do that,” he said, his voice harsh.
She looked at him, realized she’d forgotten he read her as easily as she read him, and that he’d guessed what she’d been thinking. The sex part, anyway; she doubted he could guess at how much those memories tormented her. She made herself hold his gaze, and it was one of the hardest things she’d done since the night she’d left him.
“No. You would never use that to punish, even if you wanted to.” Her mouth twisted. “Besides, you can’t want me anymore.”
“Oh, I want you,” he said, his voice so harsh now it made the admission more a threat than anything. “But, lady, I can’t afford you.”
The words she doubted had ever been spoken by a Texas Colton in decades echoed in the space between them. But she knew how he meant it. And for the first time she had an inkling of what her departure had cost him emotionally.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, meaning it fiercely. “Sorrier than you can ever know. But I couldn’t make her live like that, under your mother’s hatred. I took the only chance I would ever have to make sure Emma would never grow up like I had to.”
“So you made your little deal with the devil.”
She blinked. “These are your parents we’re talking about.”
“Exactly.”
Her brow furrowed. He’d never been blind to his parents’ quirks, but he’d never been this critical. It struck her as especially odd now, with his father missing. But she didn’t want to go there, so she said nothing.
“Where have you been?”
He sounded as if he’d fought asking, so she considered her answer carefully. “Here.”
“You never left Dallas?”
“Only for a while. I went to school. Came back. Had a couple of jobs, worked my way to where I am now.”
He looked at her over steepled fingers. “Which is?”
She gave him a sideways look. “I work at a hotel.” She decided not to tell him at the moment that her hotel could be seen through the big windows of this office. Or that she’d hesitated taking the job for that very reason.
“Doing?”
“Sous-chef. Mainly I work in one of the restaurants, although I’m on the banquet staff, too.”
She waited, thinking silence could work in both directions, and that she could do it, now that she was a little calmer. And if answering these questions would get him to help her keep Emma safe, the cost would be little enough.
“Stayed in the kitchen, then.”
He didn’t say it the way some did, his mother in particular, who had a way of using the phrase “kitchen help” that had set her teeth on edge.
“It was what I knew.”
“Use us as a reference?”
That cut, and she knew he’d meant it to. He would never belittle her job, he respected honest work. But what she’d done...
She pulled herself together inwardly. She’d done what she’d done, she’d thought it her only option at the time, and she couldn’t change it. She’d apologized, both for coming here and for what had happened four years ago. He deserved that. And she would beg, if she had to, for Emma. But she wouldn’t grovel at his feet. She would find another way.
“If I’d been braver, and smarter—and less scared for my daughter—at the time, I would have demanded a glowing reference as part of the deal.” She got to her feet. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Colton.”
“Leaving so soon?” He didn’t even react to the formality. She realized she was getting a taste of what negotiating with him must be like.
“This was obviously a mistake.” She grimaced. “I thought I was past making them this big, but obviously I was too scared by last night to think straight.”
His jaw tightened. She wondered if it was in outrage that she’d had the nerve to even begin to think he might help her. She wouldn’t blame him if it was.
“I can’t change what happened, but I am glad to have had the chance to apologize and explain. I know it makes no difference to you, but it does to me.”
She turned and walked toward the door. Her heart was sinking, and she felt panic hovering anew. Mrs. Amaro, she thought desperately. Perhaps she would watch Emma tonight while Jolie went back to the apartment and gathered some things. She didn’t want the girl to go back there, wondered if she would ever feel safe there again, even if the killer was found.
And then they would go...somewhere. She didn’t know where, but somewhere safe. She would think of something.
She had to.
Chapter 6
T.C. watched her go. He was so angry at himself he said nothing. Well, angry at his body, anyway, for the instant, fierce response to her. If he’d had half that response to anyone else, he’d likely be married and have produced the precious grandkids his father kept nagging him about.
Had kept nagging him about.
And that unwelcome thought made him realize that after that first moment, he’d never once thought of Fowler’s accusations.
“Jolie.”
She stopped, half turned back to look at him. He steeled himself and ignored the flash of hope he saw in her eyes.
“Have you seen my father?”
Her brow furrowed. She seemed genuinely bewildered by the question. “Of course not. I would have told you, first thing. And the police. I wouldn’t have forgotten that, no matter what that woman did last night.”
Out of what he told himself was idle curiosity, he asked, “I thought it was too dark to see?”
“It was. That’s why I can’t say for sure she was blond. It could have been the light.”
“Then how are you so sure it was a woman at all?”
“I could tell when I tackled her.”
He drew back slightly. “Tackled her? You tackled an armed assailant?”
“Of course,” she said with a frown. “She had my little girl.”
And a knife, T.C. thought. Jolie might not have had the strength of will to stand up to his mother and father four years ago, but as a mother, she was clearly a tigress.
He wondered, only briefly because the images the thought caused were beyond disturbing, if the would-be abductor was indeed this killer, why she hadn’t simply killed the child—the witness—in her bed? Why try to take her? Had she intended to just kill the girl, but panicked when she was caught in the act? Had Jolie interrupted a murder?
And why was he even wondering, when he was not involved? He was so not involved, he insisted to himself.
When he said nothing more, she turned back and opened the door to the outer office.
“Mommy, look!”
The little girl’s voice was excited, happy. She appeared in the doorway, a large piece of paper in her hand. It appeared to be a drawing of some kind.
“The nice lady gave me markers. An’ a big piece of paper. So I could draw a picture.”
“Bless her for putting a smile back on your face,” Jolie said softly.
“It was a dog,” the child said, pointing. “But it got too big. So it’s a horse.”
“I can see that.”
T.C. watched this exchange with every effort at detachment. He failed miserably. Memories of the baby he’d held—rather inexpertly—who had smiled up at him and cooed, reached out and touched his cheek with seeming fascination, threatened to swamp him. And then he again noticed the Band-Aid on her neck, finally connected it with the story Jolie had told him, and nausea roiled his gut.
“Can I show your friend?” the little girl asked.
“Emma, no, I—”
It was too late; the child was already running toward him, confident, happy, the nightmares behind her for the moment. His first thought was what a good job Jolie had done with her daughter. His second was utter panic.
“See?” Emma plopped her slightly crooked drawing down on his desk. He saw the bits of red, black and green on her hands, which he guessed corresponded to a couple of smudged spots he noticed on the drawing.
“I...yes.”
“He’s eating grass. ’Cuz that’s what horses do.”
“Yes, they do,” he said, wondering if he sounded as awkward as he felt. The girl was busy explaining all the features of her drawing, and he caught himself just watching her rather than the paper she was pointing to. He could see traces of the baby he’d known, in the round cheeks, the sunny blond hair, the gray eyes. Her mother’s eyes...
“And he’s got big spots.”
T.C. focused suddenly on the drawing. His first thought was that it wasn’t actually too bad, even if it consisted mostly of squares and circles cobbled together over four stick legs, the animal was recognizable as a horse, although crooked and out of proportion. But she’d caught details that surprised him, like the slope of the pasterns and the presence of hooves. Wasn’t that a bit advanced for a kid not yet five years old? Maybe Hannah had helped her a bit, he thought. She’d been quite the horsewoman in her day, and still rode regularly.
He looked back at Emma. The child’s brow was furrowed in concentration. “I saw a horse like that.”
He smiled despite himself, and looked back at the drawing. And belatedly it hit him.
Flash.
He stared. Coincidence, surely? The green highlighter grass and the lopsided red pen square he guessed was a barn, that could have come from anywhere, but a piebald paint horse? She’d only had markers to use, so a black-and-white horse wasn’t unexpected, was it? He doubted Hannah’s collection ran to shades of brown.
But that didn’t change the fact that his own personal mount, the horse he rode most often at the ranch—and had ridden when Jolie and Emma had lived there—was a black-and-white pinto.
“It does look like Flash, doesn’t it?” He hadn’t even realized Jolie had returned until she spoke, from barely two feet away. “I don’t think she could really remember, she was so young, but who knows? She’s a very bright girl.”
Could she really still read him so easily? With an effort he managed to say evenly, “And not a half-bad artist. I was expecting stick figures.”
“The lady helped a little,” Emma said honestly. “How their feet go.”
Oddly T.C. felt relieved at this confirmation of his guess. “Not quite a child prodigy, then.”
“Thank goodness,” Jolie said, echoing his relief, rattling him yet again. “Bright I can handle. Genius would be something else altogether.”
“She’s...” He didn’t know what to say. Polite? Charming? Enchanting?
“Yes,” Jolie said, proudly. “She is.”
Emma picked up her drawing and looked at it with childlike satisfaction. “I was gonna draw the mean lady. Like the policeman wanted. But I don’t want to.”
And just like that the elephant in the room trumpeted, and T.C.’s stomach knotted at the thought of this child in danger. He’d been able to dodge this when the child wasn’t right here in front of him, had been able to focus instead on her mother, and how much pain she’d caused. But now, with that sweet, innocent face right here, with those wide eyes, still trusting despite what had happened, the thought of something happening to her was more than he could take. Helplessness was not a feeling he was used to or tolerated well, and he’d had more than enough of it in the last few months.
He might have lost his father and been unable to do anything about it, but he could do something about this.
Telling himself he simply couldn’t leave a child—any child—in danger when he could help, he made a rare, snap decision.
He stood up. “Come with me.”
Jolie blinked, probably at the edge in his voice. “What?”
“You asked for help.”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t quibble now.”
“Mommy?” Emma asked, very clearly uncertain.
T.C. moderated his tone as he looked down at the girl, who was clutching the drawing in one hand, the other firmly in her mother’s grasp.
“It’s all right, Emma,” he said gently; whatever his feelings about her mother were, no reason to frighten the child any more than she already was. “Would you like to see a real horse that looks like that?”
He heard Jolie’s quick intake of breath but kept his eyes on the little girl, who suddenly smiled at him, a wide, dimpled smile that made him a different kind of helpless. And there she was for an instant, that tiny being who had once giggled at him with delight, filling him with emotions he hadn’t even had names for. The memories, the hopes, the plans for a future that included this child flooded his brain, and even the pain and anger of Jolie’s desertion couldn’t overwhelm it.
Emma nodded enthusiastically, then looked at her mother. “Can we, Mommy? Please?”
He lifted his gaze to Jolie. Found her staring at him.
“It’s what you came for, isn’t it?” he asked.
Slowly she nodded. “But I thought you...”
Her voice trailed away, but not before he heard the doubt, and an echo of the fear he’d heard before. She’d known that five minutes ago his answer was no, that he would have let her go without a second thought, after what she’d done.
All that had changed the moment a sunny, innocent little girl had plopped a childish drawing on the desk where he did work that helped shape this city.
And he gave Jolie the one answer that trumped all the others.
“For her,” he said softly.
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