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“Get down!” Annabel screamed.
She rushed at Jesse, trying to cover him with her body. She shoved him back inside the house. They toppled over each other, Jesse catching her before she hit the ground. She kicked the door closed with her foot.
Lying on top of him, she met his gaze, and her entire body shuddered with desire. “There’s a shooter,” she said, perhaps stating the obvious but feeling she needed to provide a reason she had tackled him.
He smelled good, like mint and earth. Realizing she was in an intimate position, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, she rolled to the side, moving off him.
She came to her feet and crouched by the front window to watch for movement in the distance or even catch a glimpse of the shooter. “Someone was shooting at me, bullets coming toward my car and your house.”
Jesse left the room and came back with a rifle. She felt no danger from him, despite the anger in his eyes.
“I’ll defend you,” he said. “You have my word.”
* * *
The Coltons of Texas: Finding love and buried family secrets in the Lone Star state …
Colton’s Texas Stakeout
C. J. Miller
C. J. MILLER loves to hear from her readers and can be contacted through her website: www.cj-miller.com. She lives in Maryland with her husband and three children. C. J. believes in first loves, second chances and happily ever after.
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To my friend Amanda W. I am proud of all you’ve accomplished. The future holds many wonderful things! Thank you for your friendship and your fashion advice.
Contents
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Annabel Colton’s thoughts veered off course at the sight of the handsome cowboy sauntering into the police precinct. Though he looked familiar, she couldn’t place him as a resident of Granite Gulch, Texas. She would have remembered seeing the man of her dreams strutting around town. Granite Gulch was a small town, and having lived there all her life, Annabel knew almost everyone.
Just like almost everyone knew the Coltons. Not everything said about the Coltons was good but lately, mostly positive. Annabel considered that an accomplishment.
The sexy cowboy swaggered, confidence in spades, all six foot something moving through the precinct with determination and purpose. His blue-and-white plaid shirt covered broad shoulders, the sleeves rolled to the elbows; his worn jeans hung on him in just the right way, and he wore dusty boots, carrying his brown Stetson in his hand.
Annabel checked her mouth wasn’t hanging open and averted her eyes to watch him in her peripheral vision. Her heart was hammering, and she felt dizzy. She took a deep breath. Women in Texas hadn’t swooned in a century, and she wasn’t bringing it back into style.
The sexy cowboy distraction took the edge off her frustration. She was working—rather marginally—on the biggest case to hit Granite Gulch in twenty years. A serial killer, nicknamed the Alphabet Killer, was stalking and killing women in and around Blackthorn County. The killer had taken the lives of six victims: Anna, Brittany, Celia, Daphne, Erica and Francie, in that order. The killer’s obsession with the alphabet was one of their best leads in the case.
The police had been close to finding the Alphabet Killer, using clues Annabel had pieced together from reading the letters the killer had written to Matthew Colton.
Matthew Colton was Annabel’s biological father, an incarcerated serial killer, dying of cancer with only a few months to live. His killing spree had ended in the death of Annabel’s beloved, hardworking mother. Annabel’s brother Ethan remembered seeing Saralee Colton’s dead body in their farmhouse, a bull’s-eye drawn on her forehead, but she hadn’t been found. It was a source of great pain for Annabel and her siblings. Matthew Colton was dangling information in front of his children about where Saralee’s body might be located. Like everything Matthew Colton did, he had an agenda. He did nothing for the sake of kindness, not even for his children.
The Alphabet Killer, who the police now believed was a woman named Regina Willard, was still free on the streets hunting for her next victim. If the killer stuck to her pattern, women whose names began with G were on the chopping block. The entire county was worried. This was the second time the town had been terrorized by a serial killer, and whispers and rumors about Matthew Colton and the similarities between the killers had been at an all-time high.
Annabel’s curiosity grew when the cowboy stopped at her brother Sam Colton’s desk.