The Colton Marine Read online

  She shuddered at the thought of coming upon more rodents or wildlife. She’d found enough living and dead carcasses to last her a lifetime.

  Maybe it was time she asked Declan for a raise. Or combat pay. Yeah, she needed a raise. She thought about taking her phone out of her pocket to call Declan. Or someone else—someone who could help her. But what would she tell them? That she heard some clanging noise, which was probably just old pipes rattling? She continued down the corridor leading away from the stairs. The light was dim, coming only from sconces on the stone walls.

  She didn’t hear any more clanging, but she continued to the room where she’d found River that day with the crowbar. It was a wine cellar—full yet of racks and crates. But only a few dust-covered bottles remained. She had yet to inventory down here. But maybe she would find something of value, something vintage collectors sought.

  She moved between the racks and lifted a bottle. After slipping her pepper spray into her pocket, she brushed off the label. She was no expert on wine, but she did prefer reds. And this was a Beaujolais.

  A smile played across her mouth. Would Declan miss this one bottle?

  Or would he agree that she deserved it for all the hard work she’d already done? Her mouth began to water, like it had the day River had walked shirtless into the house.

  Damn that man...

  She couldn’t get him off her mind even after sending him away. Would she be able to stop thinking about him if she fired him? Or would she continue fantasizing about him?

  Hell, maybe Thorne had been right to worry about her. Maybe she was losing her mind. For the first time in her life she couldn’t stop thinking about a man.

  And she kept hearing things.

  Then she heard it again, but it was a softer clang now. And she saw something, just a shadow moving across the stones behind the racks.

  She fumbled for her pepper spray, but before she could pull it out, the racks tipped forward, tumbling onto each other like dominoes. Edith had no time to move—no time to escape—before they fell on her, knocking her to the concrete floor. Something struck her head, maybe a rack, maybe a bottle.

  She didn’t see it. She only heard the sharp crack and felt the flash of pain before everything—blessedly—went numb and dark.

  Chapter 8

  River squinted against the morning sun as he slid the key in the lock of the front door. Despite Edith sending him home early the day before, he should have come back last night—when Thorne had informed him she intended to stay at La Bonne Vie. It wasn’t like he’d been able to relax like she’d told him to—not once he’d learned she was alone in the house.

  But he knew how independent she was and that she would probably get angry if he acted as if she needed protecting.

  After unlocking the door, he pushed it open and sunlight poured in. He glanced toward the curved stairwell, almost expecting to see his mother there. She used to love making an entrance, descending from the second floor on those steps. But she wasn’t there. She was hiding out somewhere. Florida? He doubted it.

  Maybe Paris or Rome or some private island...

  He didn’t care. He wasn’t looking for her.

  “Edith!” he called out. He’d showed up early, but he still expected her to be up and bustling about—taking pictures, cataloging personal property. “Edith?” He peered around the house but saw no movement beyond the dust particles dancing in the sunlight.

  So he bounded up those stairs to the second floor. She’d had him get the master suite ready first. He’d thought she’d wanted it inhabitable for her boss. But when he headed down the hall and looked through the open double doors, it was her suitcase he saw on the bed. At least he assumed the purple paisley suitcase belonged to her.

  He was pretty sure, from the conversation he’d overheard, that her boss was a man. But maybe that was sexist of him to think so and to assume the suitcase was hers.

  It wasn’t open but it didn’t look as though it had been unpacked. The closet doors stood open, the hangers empty. The bed hadn’t been slept in, either. In fact, the sheets she must have brought for the new mattress were still in the packages next to the suitcase.

  His heart began to pound faster as a frisson of concern chased down his spine. “Edith?” he called out again.

  Her car was in the driveway. And Thorne had seen her checking out of the B and B in town well before bedtime. She would’ve had to sleep here, and this was the only room that was ready for occupation.

  “Edith?”

  He hurried down the back stairwell that came out in the kitchen. Like the bedroom, it was empty, too. But a bag of groceries sat on the counter, the bottom of the cloth bag damp with whatever had melted inside it. She hadn’t even put them away. Her purse sat next to the bag.

  “Edith?” he shouted. Then he noticed the basement door standing open, and his heart slammed against his ribs. Of course she would have gone down there again.

  What the hell had she heard or seen now?

  He hesitated before stepping forward or looking down. What if he found her there, sprawled at the bottom of the steps? Bracing himself, he peered down, but there was no body lying on the concrete floor—nothing but his own shadow.

  “Edith?” he yelled as he rushed down the stairs. He glanced into the mechanical room. Maybe she’d had to check the breakers again or something. But the room was empty. So he turned the other way and headed down the hallway.

  The farther he went with no sign of her, the more anxious he felt. Where the hell had she gone?

  Then he remembered where she’d found him that day he’d been certain he’d discovered another secret room. The wine cellar. He hurried past the stone walls to the arch that opened into that corner of the basement. And his breath left his lungs as shock overwhelmed him. The racks had fallen over—along with a pile of crates.

  What the hell had happened down there?

  The crowbar he’d been using that day lay beside the first overturned rack. But it was near the wall he’d been prying at, so maybe that was where he’d left it.

  “Edith?”

  The pile of debris shifted, and a wine bottle rolled out from beneath the overturned racks. As it rolled, it left a trail of red wine and a smear of something thicker, maybe blood, across the concrete.

  His heart slammed against his ribs as realization dawned on him. Edith was beneath that pile. Heedless of their weight, he pulled the racks aside, tossing them against the stone walls as he sought to uncover her. She lay sprawled across the concrete, her arm raised over her face as if to protect herself. But a small pool of blood had formed beneath her head, sticking her thick black hair to the cement.

  He dropped to his knees beside her. His hand trembled as he reached out and felt her throat, looking for a pulse. Her smooth skin was cold—so cold—but her pulse fluttered beneath his fingertips. Then her lashes fluttered as her eyes opened. She stared up at him, her brow furrowing with confusion. As the skin pulled at the wound on her forehead, she flinched.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice thick and gruff as concern overwhelmed him.

  She reached up and touched the wound. It had stopped bleeding, but it looked swollen. And she must have been unconscious a long time. Or maybe she just hadn’t been strong enough to get the racks off her.

  “Does anything else hurt?” he asked. He skimmed his hands over her arms and legs, looking for broken bones.

  She sucked in a breath. But he couldn’t tell if she was in pain or shock. Probably both...

  “I need to call 9-1-1,” he said. But as he reached for his cell phone, she grabbed his wrist.

  “No,” she murmured. “I don’t need an ambulance.” As if to prove her point, she struggled to sit up.

  River grasped her shoulders to steady her. “Take it easy. You could have some broken bo
nes. That’s why you need to get to the ER.” He knew what it was like to have injuries you weren’t even aware of. He’d had no idea he’d lost his eye...until he’d seen the horror on the faces of the medics who’d rushed to his aid.

  “I don’t need to go,” she insisted, and she sounded a little stronger now. She even seemed steadier as she braced herself on his shoulders and stood up. But then she swayed and fell against his chest.

  He swung her up in his arms. She didn’t protest now. She just laid her head on his shoulder and he felt the stickiness of her blood-soaked hair against his neck.

  Emotion constricted his lungs, making it hard for him to draw a deep breath. What if she’d had no pulse? What if he’d found her too late to help her? Like he had been too late to help Henry...

  Images flashed through his mind of that horrific day, of the horrific things that had happened. And sweat beaded on his lip and his brow as his body began to tremble. But he forced himself to breathe, to focus on the present and forget the past. The might-have-beens...

  He couldn’t think about the horror. He had to focus instead on getting her help and then on making sure she stayed safe. As he carried her from the wine cellar, he glanced back through the arched doorway at the racks and crates strewn across the floor where she’d lain. A few wine bottles and her canister of pepper spray littered the floor, along with something else—something that looked like her cell phone. She must have dropped it when the racks knocked her down. How had they fallen?

  What the hell had happened?

  * * *

  Warmth spread through Edith. Maybe it was the IV the nurse had given her to replenish whatever fluids she might have lost after spending the night on the floor of the wine cellar. Or maybe it was embarrassment over River carrying her into Shadow Creek Memorial Hospital.

  If it was the IV, she welcomed it. Her skin was so chilled she thought she’d never get warm again. But if it was embarrassment...

  She had every reason for it. She hated how weak and helpless she must have looked when River carried her into the ER. He had drawn the attention of not only the hospital staff but also of everyone else in the place. Unfortunately, that had included a reporter who’d used his phone to snap pictures of them, until a security guard had escorted him out.

  But his phone hadn’t been taken, so those photos were bound to be posted somewhere. She needed to call Declan—to warn him—but she didn’t have her phone, either. It must have fallen out of her pocket when the racks had knocked her down. But River had been so hell-bent on getting her medical attention that he would have refused to stop to look for it or anything else.

  He must have run three red lights on his way to the hospital. And Shadow Creek probably only had those three traffic signals. But for as anxious as he’d been to get her there, he hadn’t been anxious to stay. As soon as he’d laid her on the gurney a nurse had brought, he’d stepped back.

  She’d thought he’d only done that so the doctor could treat her. But when the medical staff had moved away to order tests and retrieve IVs, she hadn’t seen him. He’d disappeared. Maybe he’d only gone to the waiting room, though.

  Or had that reporter scared him off? He was even more averse to the media than Declan was and that was saying something. She could understand River’s reasons, given his injuries and his family history.

  But what was Declan’s reason for hating media attention? She’d known him a long time—ever since Child Protective Services had brought her to the foster home where he’d been living. He was like a brother to her, but an older brother who didn’t share as much with her as she shared with him. Like he’d said, it was hard for him to trust, and he probably trusted her more than anyone else.

  But she didn’t even know what he wanted with La Bonne Vie—despite risking her life for the damn place. What the hell had happened the night before?

  Everything was hazy now. She’d gone down to check out a noise. But she hadn’t seen anything. Or had she? Had there been a shadow against the stone wall just before the racks had fallen?

  Of course that could have been her own damn shadow. The light was dim down in the cellar, making it hard to see anything clearly. And now her head pounded as she tried to remember...

  She closed her eyes to focus on the elusive memory.

  “Oh, my God,” a deep voice exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

  She opened her eyes to see her uncle leaning over the gurney, his face taut with concern. And she knew where River had gone—to call Mac. All the Colton kids were used to going to Mac for help. She felt a flash of resentment that they had been able to while he was her uncle and she couldn’t call him.

  But that was because her mother had made her promise. The visions, the voices—that had been their secret. And Edith’s nightmare. She shivered.

  “River said he found you on the basement floor,” Mac said. “Did you spend the entire night down there?”

  She must have—because the sun had been shining when River had carried her out to his truck. Morning had arrived. And when she’d gone downstairs, it had been night. “Yes.”

  He dragged the blanket up over her shoulders. “You must be completely chilled from lying on that cold concrete floor.” He reached out toward the wound on her forehead but drew his fingers back before he touched it. “And you were hurt. Did you lose consciousness?”

  “I don’t remember...” And the doctor hadn’t told her anything yet, not until she had more tests.

  “Then you must have,” Uncle Mac said. “You shouldn’t have been at the house by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”

  She couldn’t argue that now. She couldn’t argue at all with how violently her head pounded. “I don’t know exactly what happened...”

  But the pounding in her head reminded her of the clanging noise that had drawn her downstairs. It had sounded like it had the day she’d found River in the wine cellar. Could he have been down there last night? But his concern when he’d found her had seemed so genuine, like he really cared about her. So how could he have hurt her? But if he cared, where was he now?

  “I don’t know...”

  An orderly stepped up behind Uncle Mac. “I need to bring you to Radiology now.”

  “For a CT scan?” Mac asked.

  That was one of the tests the doctor had rattled off when he’d examined her. “It’s not necessary,” Edith said. “I’m fine now.” Except for a persistent throbbing headache.

  Mac squeezed her hand. “Let them thoroughly check you out,” he urged her. “And make sure that you’re really going to be okay.”

  She was fine but she wasn’t certain she was going to be okay—not if that reporter posted the photo of River carrying her anywhere that Declan would see it. She could have asked to use her uncle’s phone to call and warn her boss. But she knew that Declan wouldn’t answer unless he recognized the number. And he wouldn’t recognize Mac’s.

  She uttered a sigh of resignation. “Okay.”

  “Are you afraid of confined spaces?” the orderly asked as he wheeled her away.

  “No...” But she trailed off as she realized that was a lie now. A memory flashed through her mind, of lying beneath that pile of racks and crates—being confined, being trapped. Helpless.

  She shuddered. She had bigger fears now than of what Declan might think if he saw those photos. She had fears of being trapped...in La Bonne Vie.

  * * *

  Declan Sinclair hated Everything’s Blogger in Texas. They were probably the slimiest of the internet tabloids. But while they might not get many other stories right, when it came to the Coltons they were surprisingly accurate and informed. So he clicked through to their site as he did at least once a day. And he gasped as he saw the photo dominating their front page.

  “Edith!”

  What the hell had happened to her? Blood matted the hair to
one side of her forehead where she had a cut and a bruise. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she was being carried—by River Colton.

  The ex-Marine was easily recognizable, with the scars on the side of his face where the black patch covered his eye.

  The headline read “Hero” Marine Carries Mysterious Woman into Shadow Creek Memorial’s ER.

  Edith wasn’t the mystery. River Colton carrying her was. And the reporter must have had Declan’s same doubts about how heroic the ex-Marine was, or he wouldn’t have used the quotation marks. Had River hurt her?

  Declan grabbed his phone from his desk and tapped on the contact for Edith. His call went directly to her voice mail. Was she still at the hospital?

  He tried the number for Shadow Creek Memorial next, but they refused to release any information on patients to non–family members. Edith was his family, though. The only family he had—thanks to a Colton. Had another Colton taken her away from him?

  He looked at the photo again, studying Edith’s face. She didn’t look frightened. In fact, she clung to River, her arms wrapped around his neck while her head nearly rested against his shoulder.

  A sick feeling overwhelmed Declan.

  “No...”

  He would have understood had it been Thorne to whom she was clinging. Thorne was her cousin. But this Colton? River was nothing to Edith—nothing but trouble.

  Guilt rushed over Declan next. He shouldn’t have sent Edith to La Bonne Vie. He should have known—even with Livia sightings in Florida—that it was still too dangerous. Too many other Coltons lived around La Bonne Vie. Too many other Coltons posed a threat.

  And somehow he suspected that this Colton, with his scars and his eye patch, proved the greatest threat to Edith of any of them.

  Chapter 9

  “So what do you think?” River asked as he watched his brother Knox move around the wine cellar. The former Texas Ranger leaned over the crowbar before returning to examine the racks and crates. “Did someone purposely knock these over onto Edith?”