Colton's Fugitive Family. Jennifer Morey
Could it be that Lucas had come here to help her? Or had seeing his nephew in the flesh confused him?
She folded her arms, feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable. Wolf was the most important thing in her life now. She’d had no way of predicting his importance before he was born. He’d been important as he’d grown inside her, but as soon as he came out into the world and gave that first cry, something had changed in her. When he’d been placed in her arms, she knew she’d never be the same. Every move he made, every twitch of his tiny arms, every shift of his head, was miraculous. When his newborn eyes met hers, she’d melted with love.
This man could take all of that from her.
When he looked up at her, she sensed he’d ask more questions.
“Let’s let him sleep.” Demi moved to the door and waited for Lucas to leave the room ahead of her.
He walked to the door and stopped, meeting her eyes as though guessing she didn’t want to talk about Wolf’s father.
“I’m going to board up the window, then I’ll sleep on the sofa.” He left the room.
Demi’s heart slammed. He’d backed off. Maybe he’d recognized the mama bear in her. Maybe he had decided to table his desire to see and hold the child of his dead brother. Demi could not trust her intuition. With Lucas, she’d been wrong too many times to give in to the primal attraction that had plagued her from the first time she met him. Okay, so she was attracted to him. That didn’t mean he was good for her.
Lucas lay on Demi’s living room sofa, his head on his folded arms, fireplace flickering, staring up at the shadows flickering on the ceiling. He had so much on his mind he couldn’t sleep. Demi’s determination to get away, her protectiveness of Wolf and, most of all, her reticence in talking about Bo. Why did she feel that way? Did she feel threatened? He could see why she’d taken such precautions in fleeing and hiding, and even securing Wolf in his nearly impenetrable room. She must fear his being taken from her and, of course, harmed in some way. Did she also fear that Lucas would take the baby after he turned her in? As a relative, Lucas could get custody of the baby if she were in jail.
What could he do to convince her he had no intention of turning her in? Maybe all she needed was time—to trust him or for him to prove that Devlin had become the prime suspect in the Groom Killer case. He felt obligated to make amends for believing her guilty for so long. He also knew how stubborn she could be.
Hearing her moving in her bedroom, he saw a light turn on. He listened to her open the secret door. How many times did she do that during the night? Maybe she hadn’t until now, when her location had been revealed and someone started shooting at her.
He heard her close and lock the door and then come into the hallway. She walked quietly, as though trying not to wake him.
“I’m not asleep.” He pushed the blanket off and stood to see her frozen in the kitchen.
He had kept his jeans on but was bare other than that. He watched her take in his chest and arms and then lift her eyes. Blinking, she turned and took out a glass from the cabinet. Lucas liked how she stretched her body to reach the upper shelf. She wore a sleeveless nightgown that fell to her knees and inched up her thighs. She was barefoot, like him. The gas fireplace kept it warm in here. The cabin had forced air heating, as well, but on such a cold night with blowing snow, the cabin would feel draftier without the extra heat.
“Nights like tonight I wish I had a television,” Demi said as she put the glass on the counter, the nightgown returning to her knees and her bare heels touching back down on the wood floor.
“I can’t sleep, either.”
Without acknowledging that, she opened the refrigerator and took out a milk container. He leaned against the island, the tree lights and fire the only sources of illumination after the refrigerator closed. He found it amazing that she’d managed to make such a welcoming home while on the run. Then again, as a bounty hunter, she knew how not to be found. Using a false name, plus her disguise, explained why it had taken so long for him to do so. She’d been on the run for a year. He should have known. He should not have underestimated her.
She glanced over at him as she finished pouring a glass of milk, her eyes going down the front of him before turning to put the milk carton away.
“Where’s Queenie?” she asked, in what must be a safe subject for her.
“She’s with Elle.” His dog was a beautiful Belgian Malinois, with a dark head faintly intermixed with chestnut brown that took over the rest of her body. She was one of the best ground and air trackers the Red Ridge Police Department’s K-9 Unit had. His sister, Elle Gage, had a dog, too, and was a rookie cop at the RRPD.
“You didn’t bring her?”
“I’ll pick her up when we’re back in Red Ridge.”
“We?” She sipped her milk and sent him a barely contained scowl as she walked into the living room.
He decided not to argue just now. Wind gusted and pelted snow against the side of the cabin. He welcomed the time he’d be stuck here with her. Trailing her, he sat at the opposite end of the sofa, listening to the storm. Demi had left the gas fireplace burning on low before going to bed. Flames flickered and added light in the small space.
“You must have been working hard to find me,” she said, putting her glass down on the side table. “You didn’t always think I was innocent.”
She said the last in a tone much more representative of her fiery spirit. She obviously did not believe he thought she was innocent, at least, not completely.
He put his feet up on the square ottoman and leaned back. “Oh, yeah. I tried very hard to find you when I thought you killed my brother.”
“But now you’ve changed your mind.”
She sounded like a smart-mouth. “With good reason.”
“With no proof,” she countered.
He again decided not to argue.
“Did everyone think I did it?” she asked.
“No, not everyone. Quite a few didn’t think you would kill anyone. Shane and Brayden drove me nuts.”
At the mention of her half brothers—Shane Colton, the ex-con turned private investigator and RRPD informant, and Brayden Colton, another RRPD K-9 officer—Demi’s face lit up. They had defended her but she likely hadn’t known that until now. He felt a little redemption inch its way into his regret.
“My brothers tried to exonerate me?” she asked.
“At first the evidence was difficult for them to ignore. After Tucker Frane was killed, Shane thought you were being framed.”
“Tucker said he saw me shoot a man in the alley between Bea’s Bridal and a French restaurant.”
“That’s why Shane began to suspect something was off.”
She angled herself on the sofa, bending her knees and looping her arms around them, settling in. For what, Lucas would wait cautiously to find out.
“And Brayden?” she asked.
“Brayden would rip my head off if he had the chance.”
She smiled big and sang a soft, “Yay.”
“Aw, come on. It wasn’t all that bad between you and me.” The Coltons and the Gages of Red Ridge traditionally didn’t get along well. Years of feuding had caused a rift, but Lucas had seen that change ever since Demi had been set up as the Groom Killer.
Her animation faded. “Yes it was. You always had to be the dominant top dog.”
“You’re freelance. I’m a bona fide Red Ridge PD K-9 cop.”
The vixen poked out her pretty head. Stormy dyed eyebrows arrowed down. He hated how he loved that. Part of the reason they’d remained enemies for so long was he could never