The Colton Marine. Lisa Childs
A troubled hero returns home to a family nightmare in this thrilling Coltons of Shadow Creek tale!
Hired to renovate his family’s former mansion, River Colton hopes to find answers to his deepest questions. Plagued by memories of his fugitive mother, the ex-marine finds danger to his life in the estate’s secret chambers—and danger to his heart in Edith Beaulieu, its beautiful new guardian.
But someone doesn’t want Edith or River in the seemingly haunted house. When Edith falls victim to too many “accidents”—and falls hard for River—the Texas loner risks everything to protect her. If the ghosts of Coltons past lurk in the shadows, it’s up to Edith and River to hunt them down...
River’s broad shoulders moved up and down in a quick shrug. “It’s fine. I get it. You’re not interested.”
But Edith was. She was more interested than she’d ever been before. But she couldn’t admit that now. He might reach for her again. He might kiss her.
Then she opened her mouth because she wanted him to touch her, to kiss her...
But he reached for a broom instead and began sweeping up the shards of the vase she’d dropped. “You seem a little rattled,” he remarked. “Had you been hearing anything else before I showed up?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Any of those weird noises again?” he asked. “Like the clanging or the footsteps on the stairs?”
She shook her head. She almost wished she would have; it would have distracted her from thinking about him, from obsessing about him, about how passionately he’d kissed her, about how he’d carried her up those stairs...
* * *
The Coltons of Shadow Creek: Only family can keep you safe...
The Colton Marine
Lisa Childs
Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Mills & Boon story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Mills & Boon, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.
A special thank-you to Melissa Jeglinski
for being a fabulous agent and friend.
Contents
The darkness was all-encompassing. All-concealing. Night was the only time River liked to come out now—like the other nocturnal creatures that rustled around in the brush. The noises made his horse uneasy, and it shifted beneath him.
“It’s okay, Shadow.” He soothed the skittish stallion with a pat along his silky mane.
Maybe he should have chosen another horse from Mac’s barn—one less temperamental. But there was something about the formerly