Colton Cowboy Hideout. Carla Cassidy
Colton children had never had in their lives. He and Jocelyn had a beautiful future before them and Josie couldn’t be happier for her oldest brother.
Her smile fell away. Although Trevor had told her to be smart and play it safe, he’d also told her that Matthew’s health was deteriorating a little more each day, adding a small ticking time bomb to the job of getting the watch to their father before he passed away.
She checked her watch and saw it was just a little before three. Tanner had told her before she’d begun to unpack that dinner was at five thirty and served in the staff dining room.
She kicked off her sandals, stretched out on the sun-kissed bedspread and closed her eyes. She’d gotten up early to make the drive here, and with the traumatic morning events a quick catnap sounded like a great idea.
Closing her eyes, she became aware of the high-pitched giggles of the little girls and Tanner’s deeper, intensely pleasurable voice drifting back from the living room.
A nanny. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever considered a job taking care of children. The truth was she hadn’t thought much about what kind of a job she wanted to get, although she needed to get one pretty quick.
Her nanny job was temporary, she reminded herself. Hopefully this new reality would exist for only a couple of days or so. She’d get the watch and then go back to Granite Gulch and figure out what she intended to do for the rest of her life.
* * *
Blood. There was so much blood. Mommy? Mommy, why is your dress so bloody? The shovel made funny noises as it bit into the hard Texas ground and Josie’s mother stared up unseeing into the late afternoon sun.
Mommy? Mommy, wake up. Look, Mommy, there’s a blue sky on the fence. Why is that funny writing on your forehead? Mommy? Please wake up and smile at me...
Josie came awake with a sharp gasp, for a moment disoriented as to where she was and what was happening. Her breath hitched in her chest as the horror of the nightmare completed its hold on her.
She remained still, allowing the gruesome visions from her sleep to fade as her breathing finally returned to normal. It hadn’t been a crazy nightmare of strange images that made no sense, but it had been memories of the day her mother had been killed and buried by her father.
He’d shot her in the chest and then marked her forehead with a red bull’s-eye. Josie had been with her father when he’d buried her next to a fence near the barn on the old family homestead.
Josie had often played by the old fence, and one day her mother had given her some paint. Josie had splashed blue color on it to make a pretty sky, and it had been that particular reclaimed memory that had solved the mystery as to where her father had buried her mother.
Matthew Colton had played a game with his children, forcing each one of them to visit him in prison, where he gave them clues as to where he’d buried his wife. His final clue had been “blue,” and that had finally jolted loose the old memory in Josie.
It had taken her twenty years to access the memories and now they wouldn’t leave her alone. She was haunted far too often by a three-year-old’s perspective of that terrible day, when her father had dug a shallow grave for her mother near a fence with a splash of blue paint.
Her stomach growled and she sat up and looked at her watch. Almost five. Her catnap had been far longer than she had intended. Her tummy growled again to remind her that she’d missed lunch and had eaten only half an apple that morning for breakfast before she’d hit the road.
She got up from the bed and grabbed her toiletries and her purse, then headed out of the bedroom. She heard no noise from anyplace else in the suite as she went into the guest bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Her upper arm held a dull ache she hoped would be gone by morning. She didn’t even want to think about the close call they’d had.
Sluicing cool water on her face in an effort to fully awaken and leave the dreams behind, she hoped the staff didn’t dress up for dinner. She’d packed only a couple pairs of shorts and a few T-shirts along with a short, sleeveless nightgown.
“It is what it is,” she muttered to her reflection in the mirror. A quick brush through her hair and a dab of lip gloss later, she left the bathroom and frowned at the silence. Had Tanner and the girls left?
She tossed her purse on her bed, then went back through the nursery, walked up the short hall and stepped into the living room. Tanner sat on the sofa thumbing through a magazine. He looked up at her.
“It’s so quiet I thought maybe I was here by myself,” she said and sat in the chair opposite him. “Where are the girls?”
“Peggy, one of the maids, is doing me a favor. She took them for a walk and then she’ll bring them back here and feed them dinner,” he replied. “By that time we should be back from eating.”
“Is she walking them outside?” Josie asked with a touch of alarm.
“No, she’s just taking them down some hallways to give them a little bit of time out of the nursery.”
“Do the girls eat dinner here rather than in the staff dining area?” she asked. “If I’m going on duty tomorrow, then I need to know what their usual schedule is.”
He nodded, his blond hair glinting attractively in a shaft of sunlight that danced through the nearby window. “They get up in the mornings around six thirty and eat breakfast here in the suite. They usually go down for a short morning nap around ten or so. Brianna always took them to the staff dining room for lunch and then they go down for an afternoon nap around two thirty. They eat dinner here in the suite and then it’s bath-and bedtime around seven thirty.”
“And what about your schedule as ranch foreman?” she asked.
“Up and out by six thirty or seven in the mornings and I’m usually back here in time to play with the girls for a little while before their bedtime. On Saturday and Sundays my days are considerably shorter.” He cocked his head, his gaze curious. “What about you? What kind of work do you do back in Granite Gulch?”
“I’m between jobs at the moment,” she replied. She wasn’t prepared to tell him that she’d been out of witness protection for only a month and had yet to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She’d worked as a waitress in Missouri while she’d finished up high school and then taken some college courses, but waitressing wasn’t something she wanted to go back to. “Has there been any word on Eldridge while I was napping?”
“No, nothing that I’ve heard. If there is anything new we’ll probably hear it at dinner.” He glanced at his watch and stood. “We can head for the staff dining room. I know you didn’t have a chance to eat lunch. You must be starving.”
As she stood her stomach growled loud enough for him to hear. He grinned, a wonderful flash of straight white teeth and warmth. “Ah, yes. You are starving.”
“Excuse me.” She placed a hand over her rumbling belly as a wave of heat filled her cheeks.
“Come on. Let’s get that noisy animal fed.”
They exited the suite and once again wound through a labyrinth of hallways. “I don’t suppose you want to leave bread crumbs for me so that I can find the staff dining room again,” she asked ruefully. “This place is huge.”
“All you have to remember is to take two rights and two lefts and you’ll wind up in the kitchen area, where the staff dining room is located,” he explained.
Josie’s stomach rumbled yet again as the scent of tangy barbecue filled the air. “At least you won’t starve while you’re here,” Tanner continued. “Bettina Morely, the head cook, makes magic when it comes to all kinds of food.”
Tanner led her through double doors into a room with two long tables. There were already three women and two men seated at one of the tables and they were helping themselves to fill plates from the platters and bowls of food