The Colton Bride. Carla Cassidy
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heard any gossip about him and any woman.
What little gossip she had heard about him was that he was all work and little play, a tough but fair taskmaster who kept a keen eye on the wranglers who worked beneath him.
She returned her gaze to the man on the bed. “Daddy, you need to fight this.” She gently picked up one of his hands that lay on top of the bedspread. Calloused from hard work, yet thin and cold, it lay lifeless in hers. She rubbed his hand with both of hers, trying to warm his, but it didn’t work.
She returned his hand to the top of the spread and then stood, unsure what she was hoping to gain from being here, but knowing she’d gained nothing.
* * *
Dinner had just finished up in the employee dining room when kitchen helper Lucinda Garcia reentered the room, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement. “Looks like there is going to be another Colton heir,” she announced.
“Miss Gabby going to give the little princess a baby brother or sister?” George Jeffries, one of the ranch hands, asked.
“Nope, it’s Miss Catherine,” Lucinda replied.
Gray’s blood turned cold as he shoved back from the large, rough-hewn wooden table. What in the hell had she done? Made an official announcement over dinner?
Hadn’t he warned her to keep the information about her pregnancy to herself for her own safety? Now everyone in the entire house would know...all the family...all the staff and Gray was positive that the evil that had created such havoc in the past couple of months had come from within, not from some outside source.
It was with a head full of steam that he left the employee dining room and went in search of Catherine. He knew her habit was often to visit Jethro’s suite right after dinner and that was where he headed.
He stalked the long hallways toward the master suite, unsure what he intended to say to Catherine, even more uncertain why he felt the need to discuss the matter with her at all.
What he wanted to do was take her by her slender shoulders and shake her for telling everyone. What he wanted to do was forget that for just a moment at the petting barn as he’d held her in his arms and she’d smiled up at him he’d wanted to lower his lips to hers and plant a kiss that would possess her completely. He’d wanted to brand her as his own in a way he’d obviously been unable to do as a teenager.
He clenched his hands into fists at his side. The fact that he’d entertained any notion of kissing her ticked him off. He was now ranch foreman, but that didn’t mean he would ever be good enough for Catherine Colton.
This simmering old anger mixed with the aggravation he felt for her over spilling her secret. When he reached Jethro’s suite he stood just outside the door, able to hear Catherine’s soft voice murmuring from the bedroom.
He leaned against the wall, unwilling to interrupt her time with her dying father, but determined to have his say to her. In the distance he could hear others in the house moving around, going to their own suites or gathering in the great room for some conversation before heading their separate ways. He easily imagined he could hear the whispering of deadly secrets, the plotting of evil, the suppressed air of danger ready to spring at any moment.
The problem was he wasn’t sure where the danger might come from or who it might be directed at, he only knew that Catherine, with her surprising news, had just placed herself in a potential place of extreme vulnerability and she had absolutely nobody to watch her back.
It didn’t take long for Catherine to leave the suite and as she turned in the opposite direction of where he’d been waiting for her, he took two long steps forward and reached out to grab her by the arm.
She gasped in alarm and only relaxed a bit when she turned to see him. “Gray, what are you doing lurking around in the shadows of the hallway?” She pulled her arm from his grasp. “What do you want?”
He was momentarily speechless as he gazed at her in the semidarkness of the corridor. She’d changed for dinner from the sweatshirt and jeans into a blue dress cinched at her slender waist, fitted across the bodice and then flaring out in a short fall of silk to her knees, exposing her long, shapely legs.
She looked stunning and the fact that he noticed only raised the level of his anger. “I want to ask you if you have a death wish,” he replied, his words clipped, terse with his displeasure.
“What are you talking about?” She frowned.
“I thought we’d agreed that you would keep your pregnancy a secret for as long as possible.”
“I don’t recall agreeing to anything with you,” she replied. Her cheeks dusted with color. “Besides, I didn’t actually tell anyone. I just refused wine at dinner and asked for decaffeinated coffee afterward. Darla and Tawny noticed and made a big deal out of it and before I knew it everyone had guessed my secret.”
“I told you that this ‘secret’ puts you at a higher risk for something bad happening to you,” he replied.
Her frown deepened. “You’re making this into too big a deal.”
“Too big a deal?” he asked incredulously. “Have you forgotten that three months ago somebody tried to kidnap Cheyenne and in the process Faye Frick was killed? Have you forgotten that Jenny Burke was found dead in the kitchen pantry? Only a month ago another attempt was made to take Cheyenne?”
“Okay, stop!” Catherine placed her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear anything more. She knew awful things were happening all around her, but she didn’t want to hear them listed out loud. She didn’t even like to think about them. “I know what’s been going on,” she said as she lowered her hands to her sides.
“You don’t seem to be taking all of it seriously enough,” Gray retorted, some of his anger seeping out of him as concern took over. “You need to hire yourself a bodyguard or something.”
Catherine looked at him in disbelief. “This is my home, my family. I shouldn’t need a bodyguard here. Besides, Gabby doesn’t have a bodyguard.”
“True, but she’s living and sleeping with Trevor, the head of security.”
“What about Amanda? She comes and goes as she pleases.”
“And also has an ex-marine tough guy playing bodyguard to Cheyenne.” He leaned against the wall. “In fact, you’ve probably done him a favor by taking the target off Cheyenne and putting it right on your back. Maybe he’ll be able to sleep a little better at night now knowing there’s a new target to take the heat off him.”
“You’re just being hateful,” Catherine replied, her tone of voice slightly higher than usual.
“I’m being realistic,” he countered and pushed himself off the wall as she continued down the hallway. “If you were smart you’d marry that kid’s father and move him in here where he could keep an eye on you.”
“That’s never, ever going to happen.” She stopped walking and turned to face him once again. “I wasn’t sure I was in love with Dirk before he broke up with me and since then I’m positive that marrying him would have been the absolute worst mistake of my life.”
Her eyes flashed with the certainty, with the fury of her emotions and words. She looked absolutely magnificent. Gray was oddly pleased by those words, although they certainly didn’t help her situation at all.
“I don’t need him and I don’t need your help, Gray. I’ve done just fine without your advice, without your presence in my life for the past nine years. Since you’ve been back at the ranch for the past four years we’ve scarcely exchanged ten words with each other, so don’t go pretending that you care about my well-being now.”
She raised her enchanting delicate pointed chin. “I don’t need Dirk. I don’t need a bodyguard and I certainly don’t need you.”
She whirled around and stalked down the hallway as Gray gazed after her,