Colton Countdown Page 2

  Why him? What quality did he possess that had performed this small miracle for her daughters?

  “And I’m sorry for eavesdropping, Mr. Colton.”

  “You know me?” the man asked, frowning. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember us ever meeting. Did we know each other in school?”

  She shook her head. “No. Your mom talks about all of you, has shown me, and others, pictures of all of you...” But nothing had prepared her for this Colton in the flesh. If her girls hadn’t been on the other side of that door, she’d have turned tail and run.

  Or walked away as quickly as proper protocol and manners would allow.

  “And...I know you’re Ezra because you told the girls your triplet brothers are Dom and Oliver.” There, could that be enough baring of her soul, please?

  He was sorry. She was sorry.

  And there they stood, with Claire pronouncing every single word, slowly and distinctly.

  “I’ve not had much experience with kids, but they’re a delight.” Ezra Colton warmed her mother’s heart that time. The woman heart, the mother’s heart—what was the man trying to do to her?

  “Thank you.”

  He looked at her. Back into the room. “They’re yours?”

  She’d taken for granted he’d known that. When he’d had no way of knowing. “They are,” she told him. And then, with her heart so discombobulated, more came pouring out. “And I don’t know what kind of magic you came bearing, but what you’re seeing, well, not the reading, that’s how it is every week, every visit. But the way the girls were talking to you, so open and friendly... It’s just kind of sent me into a state of flux here.”

  He shook his head. Probably thinking her a blubbering person incapable of maintaining responsibility for an entire care home.

  Not wanting to hear what he was thinking, she hurried forward with, “They’ve been... They haven’t been comfortable around strangers since their dad died.”

  And you want to know my slightly-larger-since-I-gave-birth pant size, too?

  “Their dad...your husband?”

  Looking at the girls, not him, she nodded, embarrassed. “I can’t believe I just laid that on you... I’m just...” Her chin trembled. That meant tears were imminent. Stiffening her shoulders, she continued, “I’m just glad to see them happy.”

  They were talking softly, standing so that Ezra Colton was the only one immediately visible to those in the room. She blamed her wayward tongue—and emotions—on the false intimacy their little tête-à-tête created.

  “I’m...sorry. I had no idea.” Ezra’s soft tones seemed to carry a rare brand of tenderness, coming from such a muscled, imposing figure. “I’ve lost comrades, who were family to me. And—” he glanced toward the girls, who were nearing the end of their story “—like them, I lost my father at a young age.”

  She knew the story, of course. She’d been too young to remember much more than hearing Ben Colton’s name in the news, but pretty much everyone who’d been in Blue Larkspur for any length of time knew the story. And eventually heard how the revered justice had been taking bribes and sending wrongfully convicted individuals to prison. She’d even heard it said by an old-timer at the home that the car accident that took Ben’s life had been a blessing...

  She’d never figured a wife and children would find the loss of their loved one a good thing, though. No matter the wrong choices he’d made, Ben Colton had loved his wife and kids. Or so she’d heard.

  “How old were you when he died?” she asked.

  “Just turning sixteen.”

  Which made him, what, thirty-six? “You were ten years older than my girls are,” she said aloud. “They were five when Mark died, but he’d been sick for a while before that.”

  They’d been through a lot, her twins, strong, sweet, and compassionate beyond their age.

  Too much. She would not have any more of their childhood robbed from them—no matter what Mark’s parents said or tried to do to her.

  Claire’s voice faded away. Neve slid her fingers under Charlie’s collar. Ezra’s great-aunt was dozing off, and he straightened, moving back into the room.

  As always, Flow, against all odds, had won the race.

  Stepping away from the wall, Theresa rounded the corner into the room, showing herself to her recalcitrant daughters with a smile, not a frown, and silently promised them that they were going to be winners, too.

  Just like Flow.

  Chapter 2

  As soon as the twins saw their mother, they immediately made a beeline in her direction, Charlie and Flow book in tow. They were leaving. Shocked at the sudden onset of disappointment the realization begot within him, most particularly since he much preferred order to the chaos of kids, Ezra blurted out without forethought, “There’s a big Colton summer barbecue coming up this weekend, on Saturday, at the Gemini Ranch. You all could come as my guests, and the girls could see the horses.”

  After one look at the shock on Theresa’s face, followed by a frown, he saw his misstep. The twins jumped up and down and said, “Yay! Can we, Mom?” First Neve and then Claire, followed by a chorus of “Can we?” He’d never been a man to speak without thought. What had the visit to Sunshine Senior Home done to him?

  “I’m sorry,” he quickly backtracked. He’d never meant to put her in a precarious position, period, and most particularly not with her daughters. Possibly forcing her to disappoint them. “I should have checked with you first, asked whether or not you were working,” he stumbled, words over thoughts, hoping he’d given her an easy out. She could say she had to work.

  Who could argue with that?

  Glancing from her daughters’ expectant faces back to him, she smiled. And Ezra had to take a physical step back. The woman...the way her gaze, her grief, and probably recovery from grief, too, seemed to resonate with him... It was like he’d known her his whole life but just hadn’t met her until now.

  “If you’re serious, then thank you. We’d very much like to be your guests. Can we bring anything?”

  Had he just asked her out on a date?

  Had she just accepted an invitation to go out with him?

  Or were they just treating two young kids, who’d already lost a lot, to an outing that would bring great joy to them?

  He had no answer to any of the three questions.

  But as he arranged to pick her up Saturday afternoon, and actually thought about showing up to a Colton family function with a gorgeous widow and her two fatherless daughters in tow, he knew his family would assume he was on a date.

  He didn’t hate the idea as much as he’d assumed he would have, either.

  * * *

  Theresa listened to her girls chatter on about Ezra Colton as they walked back to her office, holding on to Charlie while she shut down for the day. They walked with her and the leashed dog out to the parking lot and climbed into their booster seats and belts in the back seat, while she got Charlie settled in the passenger seat beside her. The twins were calling him Mr. Giant, though Theresa told them he was Mr. Colton, and they wanted to know if someone as big as him could ride a horse without hurting it.

  She wondered if the man had some kind of potency potion. As much as the girls were talking about him, she’d been in her own thoughts thinking about the man. She’d never met any of the Coltons other than their mom, Isa, face-to-face—

  Never met any men of the family, period.

  The experience had her way hotter—in that way a woman got when she was near a guy who did it for her—than she had any business being. Hotter than she’d been since Mark had gotten sick.

  She’d loved her husband. And even when he’d made her promise that she’d love again, she’d half wondered if she’d ever be able to feel sexual feelings for any other man.

  Well, there were no more doubts on that score.

  And now she had a date w
ith him.

  Of sorts.

  Maybe.

  She was less than a block from the senior home when she had a feeling that she was being followed. Not wanting to alarm the girls, she tried her best to act natural, while constantly checking both side and rearview mirrors for sign of a twenty-year-old, overlarge, four-door blue pickup truck. In mint condition.

  Just because she couldn’t see it towering behind her didn’t mean it wasn’t there, though. Lurking at corners, waiting to see her pass, moving on to another intersection where her progress could be tracked.

  Mark’s parents, who’d never even met the children before his death, were determined to have rights to their grandchildren, to indoctrinate them, by any means necessary. Mark had been estranged from the doomsday preppers—children during the Cold War who still, decades later, felt that a nuclear blast was imminent—since before he’d met Theresa. He’d told her about the guns they’d been stockpiling since he was young, about the apocalyptic bunker they’d built out in the middle of nowhere in preparation for the nuclear attack they were sure was coming from somewhere. But after he’d died, they’d contacted her for visitation, talking about their grandparental rights to know their flesh and blood.

  About Claire and Neve’s right to know their father’s family.

  So many years had passed since Mark had first told her about their tendencies.

  And they’d been shocked by their son’s death, even though Mark had kept them at a distance while he was alive. Grieving as only parents could.

  She’d insisted on mediation first. To make sure outside sources found them suitable to visit with the girls. And had eventually allowed a couple of playdates. Their first visit had been like a dream come true. Eric and Jennifer Fitzgerald had been overwhelmed with emotion—and devotion—for Mark’s children. Had mourned their son’s death. And been so utterly grateful to her.

  To think she’d let them take the girls for even one afternoon playdate... She shuddered.

  The night after that one and only unsupervised visit, little Claire had come to her, asking about their plans if the blast came that night, wondering if she’d be safe to sleep in her bed through the night or could the end happen before morning. Neve had come home talking about the gases that were going to kill people and Claire had asked, the next time they’d filled up their car with gasoline, if they were all going to die...

  No truck in sight at the next intersection, but having to keep her gaze on the road meant that she couldn’t peruse every parking lot of every strip mall and store they passed. The truck could be lurking in any of them.

  The Fitzgeralds had told her point-blank that they weren’t going away.

  Would they wait for just the right moment and T-bone her front end with just enough force to disable her, maybe denting her door shut, but leaving the girls unharmed behind her so that they could snatch them and run?

  They’d been...upset...when she told them they couldn’t see the twins again. She hadn’t expected the threats that had followed. Nor had she ever in a million years thought that that old blue pickup would show up outside the elementary school. But the week before, it had been there. Had she not beat them to the pickup lane, would they have taken Claire and Neve and run with them?

  Theresa shook her head.

  She’d actually tried to talk to the Fitzgeralds, to get them to see that they were scaring the girls, but when they’d grown belligerent with her, calling her a horrible mother who wasn’t preparing her children properly...

  She’d had to cut them off. There’d been no other choice.

  And they weren’t respecting her wishes. Seeing them parked outside the girls’ school...

  Still, maybe she was being a bit paranoid, she acknowledged silently as she pulled onto their street and into the driveway of their little three-bedroom house that needed some work—including a new coat of paint. There was no sign of a big blue pickup anywhere around. The couple had said they’d been at the school, at a completely safe distance, just to get a glimpse of the twins. They loved them and missed them so much.

  She’d had no concrete reason to call the police, in spite of her threat to get a restraining order taken out on them. Keeping weapons in a private bunker for personal safety in the event of a doomsday event was perfectly legal.

  Their threats, to that point, had all been veiled enough that they could just seem like the result of grief and lonely desperation. And the mediator who’d interviewed the Fitzgeralds separately and together had found them to be sane and rational. They were both retired, but had held regular jobs, paid their bills on time.

  Maybe she wasn’t being followed at all.

  Maybe she was feeling guilty—having the hots for a man who wasn’t Mark. Feeling like she was being unfaithful to Mark’s memory, and to any regard his parents held for her because their son had loved and married her—the fact that they’d never met her before his death had been his choice, not theirs.

  Maybe she was overreacting to the entire day, she allowed. She watched the girls race each other to the door to see who could get inside first, never minding that neither of them could enter the premises until she was there with the key.

  “Charlie, my boy, what did you get us into?” she asked the dog as, holding his leash, she waited for him to jump down from the car. “Of all the rooms to seek solace in, you had to choose the one bearing a gorgeous man?”

  She’d just unlocked the door, hadn’t even had a chance to follow the girls inside, when her phone rang.

  Ezra Colton? Calling to cancel?

  Or...just to further their acquaintance?

  Heart pounding, she pulled the phone out of her pocket, checking the screen, wondering if she’d actually answer or not.

  If she didn’t, would he leave a message?

  Did she want him to?

  Her heart rate sped up even more when she read the number. Sped up and pounded harder, too.

  She’d deleted the contact.

  But knew the number.

  It belonged to Eric Fitzgerald.

  Theresa didn’t pick up.

  * * *

  Ezra found his mom in the kitchen Wednesday morning. He’d looked for her when he’d come in the night before, but she’d either been out or already in bed. Isa out at night, without telling her visiting son where she’d be, brought questions to mind.

  She’d been looking more than just polite, dancing with chief of police Theodore Lawson at his big brother Caleb’s wedding. The eighty-one-year-old lawman might have some age on him, but Ezra had heard Naomi—his TV producer baby sister—call the chief a silver fox, and he couldn’t deny the tall, charismatic man had the kind of aura that attracted attention from anyone around him.

  Pouring himself a cup of coffee and landing his butt on one of the white square bar stools at the kitchen island, Ezra didn’t ask any of the questions he wanted to ask his mother about her personal life. He didn’t want to scare her off from having one.

  Pushing aside the tablet she’d been focused on, her finger moving with precision and flair as she chose virtual tools and colors to design on-screen, she smiled at him. Told him there was leftover breakfast casserole in the refrigerator.

  He’d had it a couple of times already, appreciative of her effort, if not as fond of the result, and went for it again, while she continued to watch him, her mature, beautiful face beaming.

  He could crash with siblings, or even get a hotel room when he came to town—which wasn’t often—but Isa wanted him there. And so there he was.

  The wedding and all...

  “I met Theresa Fitzgerald yesterday,” he said. “She seems quite fond of you.”

  “She’s a sweet woman,” his mother responded with a long look at him that put him a bit on edge. But she continued with, “She’s been through some rough times...and those two little ones of hers. We’ve talked a few tim
es about raising twins.”

  “You’d be the supreme authority on that one,” he said and smiled at her. “If anyone could give tips, you could.”

  Isa shrugged. “I just told her to honor their individuality,” she said, as though her contribution had been nothing, but Ezra figured there’d been more than that.

  “I met the girls, too,” he said.

  She frowned, briefly, and then nodded. “Right, it was Tuesday. They’re always there with the dog on Tuesday.”

  “Have they come in to see Aunt Alice before, then?” Just because it had been a first for him, one that was still holding center court in his head, didn’t mean the unexpected encounter had been all that much out of the ordinary for Theresa or her daughters.

  “No. Didn’t seem much point, since Aunt Alice is so unresponsive. Better that the residents who get true joy out of the visits be given the time slots.”

  He glanced up, midchew, swallowed and blurted, “But she did enjoy it, Mom! She smiled. Put her hand on Charlie’s head. I saw her fingers moving like she was trying to pet him. She continued that way for most of the time little Claire read her story...”

  Maybe the occasion had been momentous after all. And he wasn’t merely losing his perspective on reality.

  “Seriously?” Isa sat forward, her gaze intent. “She smiled?”

  He nodded, thinking he should have pulled out a phone and snagged a picture. Wishing he’d had the mental wherewithal to do so.

  The girls, and then their mother...their instant effect on him...was bothersome.

  “And she reached her hand to touch him,” he told her. “It wasn’t like Charlie headbutted her for attention. He just had a paw on her chair and she touched that first.”

  Isa’s teary but clearly happy smile was worth the monthlong visit home to a town he’d been happy to escape.

  * * *

  Knowing she was being overly cautious but bothered by Eric Fitzgerald’s number showing up on her phone, Theresa took Wednesday as a work-from-home day. Her employer allowed her two days a week at home, but she mostly preferred to be on campus.