Czytaj książkę: «The Coltons of Shadow Creek»

Chapter 1

The random bark of a dog and a puttering truck with a rusted out muffler battled each other for prominence in the early morning air. Claudia Colton juggled a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and her keys in the other as she fumbled with the door of her boutique, Honeysuckle Road. Dog and truck faded away as she closed the door, satisfied to simply stop and stare for a moment.

On a soft sigh, she smiled at the racks that spread out before her in welcoming arcs. Bright, vivid silks and bold prints swirled among the racks, offsetting more timeless pieces in soft pastels and classic solids. Her racks spanned all sizes, hidden among them a match for every woman in Shadow Creek, from the petite to the curvaceous and every iteration in between.

“It may be a long way from Fifth Avenue, but it’s mine.”

Shadow Creek, Texas, was a far cry from New York City, but she was determined to make it feel like home.

Bound and determined.

All the work that had gone into renovating the store and the grand opening preparations had diverted her mind for the past few months, and there was something deeply gratifying to see the fruits of her hard work.

Fruits that bore sashes, sequins and the occasional well-placed bow.

And if the life she’d attempted to divert herself from was still a raging mess, well, at least she had a few pretty things to look at while she dealt with it all.

She flipped the lock behind her back and headed for her workroom. Many of the designs at Honeysuckle Road were her own and she’d taken great joy in bringing her visions to life, but no vision quite compared with the wedding dress that had come to life on her dressmakers’ form over the past few weeks.

Claudia had been equally touched and excited when her brother Thorne’s fiancée, Maggie, asked her to make her wedding dress. And she was fast becoming a nervous wreck that the small details she’d envisioned for the dress wouldn’t be completed in time for the wedding.

Wasn’t that a twist?

Maggie was an easygoing bride with an exacting, seamstress-zilla.

Which meant Claudia’s days were filled with quite a few early hours as she worked to finish up the dress.

That also gave her a chance to collect her thoughts. While getting Honeysuckle Road up and running had been a pleasant diversion, it couldn’t change the realities of what she’d run from in New York, or her current situation here in Shadow Creek.

An ex-boyfriend who’d increasingly made the city she loved a nightmare of dark streets, threatening messages and late-night harassments.

And the small town she’d grown up in that seemed to exist in a perpetual state of fear of her mother. Livia’s recent escape, ten years after being put away for multiple lifetimes, had once again gripped the town in her thrall.

Neither situation was tenable.

But what to do about it?

Claudia had innately understood her mother was different. It wasn’t just the unique characteristics that made up her family, from a series of relationships that had produced Livia Colton’s six children. Nor was it simply the large estate that had provided the backdrop to her childhood. No, it was the odd, nearly reverent way the entire town of Shadow Creek treated her mother.

Livia Colton was the town’s patron saint and their resident demon, and everyone treated her with the softest of kid gloves. Livia could do no wrong, even when others suspected her of the worst sorts of crimes.

Theft. Human trafficking. Murder.

Which had left her children to puzzle through the realities of their mother. Was Livia Colton some misunderstood, benevolent benefactor or some demon temptress who used kindness as one more tool in her psychopathic arsenal?

Claudia had spent much of her childhood wondering, only to have the truth finally come out the year she turned sixteen. Her mother’s crimes—all she’d been suspected of and more—had been exposed and she’d been soundly convicted by the State of Texas, sentenced to spend the rest of her life—as well as four more—in prison.

At the time and in all the years since, Claudia had tried desperately to feel some sense of sadness, or remorse or even relief that she and her siblings finally had some answers.

But none came.

Instead, she continued to struggle with this odd sense of indifference that kept her mother at an emotional distance. Separate, somehow, as if they’d never really had a mother-daughter bond at all. Claudia lived with the shame of that—that strange, unapologetic apathy—and used the guilt as a way to push herself forward.

She didn’t feel it for her siblings. Nor did she feel it for Mac, the man who’d practically raised her. So maybe there was hope for her, after all.

Claudia ran a hand over the slender, gathered shoulder strap of the dress. Her brother would marry the woman who wore this dress. The wedding would be hosted on Mac’s ranch. In addition to Thorne, the groom, all her siblings would be there.

Joy filled her at the thought of them all being together and in that, Claudia knew there was strength. Bonds that were forged in truth and honesty and love.

And in that joy, she felt no guilt. No empty ties. Not even a trace of sadness. Instead, she knew she was home.

It couldn’t come at a better time, she thought as she fiddled with the ruching on the shoulder strap, seeking to match its folds to its twin. After nearly ten years in a Texas prison, Livia had found a way to escape.

Her mother’s extensive network of contacts had helped engineer the escape, but it was the events that came after—including the kidnappings of Claudia’s nephew and then Mac just last month—that had proven just what sort of people her mother had surrounded herself with.

Her brother Knox had spent a tense time in an emotional standoff that started with Cody’s kidnapping and ended in the death of one of Livia’s minions. Although her nephew was back, safe and unharmed, neither Claudia nor her siblings had fully rested easy since. The fact that the kidnapping had been the byproduct of an old enemy of her mother’s, using the boy as a pawn to get money Livia would never have paid, had only added to the horror of the situation.

And Mac. Her heart still leaped into her throat at the thought they’d nearly lost him. Livia’s cruelty—and the pain she’d exacted on her third husband—had contributed to the man’s plot against Mac. Thank God they had him back, safe and sound. And through it all, Maggie and Thorne had found each other, as well. A challenging way to begin any relationship, but one that was firm and solid all the same.

One that had also reinforced another truth. Her family needed her and she needed them. And with her mother’s disappearance going on nearly four months, she couldn’t deny her fervent hope the woman would never come back. Livia’s disappearance would finally give them all much-needed peace.

The prison break had proven her mother had established her influence far and wide. But the one thing, if she knew her mother at all, was that there was little Livia Colton wouldn’t do to avoid going back to prison.

Life was calmer without her mother’s presence. That had been as true ten years ago as it was now. And in the months she’d been back in Shadow Creek, she’d had the opportunity to reforge bonds with her siblings. To build an even closer one with Mac. He was still the most wonderful father figure and her time away hadn’t changed their relationship.

Claudia ran a hand down the pale silk of Maggie’s gown, the subtle fall of material plunging from the bodice in a dramatic, almost Grecian sweep. The suggestion of a goddess fit Maggie to a T and her future sister-in-law had been in love with the design from the start.

Now to stop woolgathering and finish it.

She settled her coffee on the edge of her station, far away from any material, and focused on today’s work.

The bustle.

Claudia ran her fingertips over the silk, gathering large folds and pinning them to the areas she’d premarked with small pins. Fold by fold, the bustle came together, the elegant weight forming and reshaping the gown in her hands.

What felt like only moments later Claudia heard a different sort of bustling behind her. “Oh. Oh, wow.”

She turned to find Evelyn Reed, employee number two of Honeysuckle Road and the woman Claudia fondly thought of as her partner in crime.

“What do you think?” She took a few steps back and reached for her coffee, frowning when she realized it had gone cold.

Evelyn already had a fresh cup out of a holder, extended in Claudia’s direction. “I think Thorne’s eyes are going to pop out of his head. We haven’t had a bride this bedecked in Shadow Creek since the Thompson wedding of 2001.”

“Sugar Thompson?”

“One and the same.” Evelyn nodded, walking around the dress, her gaze sharp as she took in the gown from head to toe.

As Claudia recalled, Sugar Thompson’s marriage hadn’t lasted long, nor had union two and three. Last she’d heard the woman was off to California to make her name in Hollywood and Claudia hoped Sugar found what she was looking for.

Shadow Creek wasn’t for everyone. Hell, she’d believed herself well and gone, so it was a surprise to realize how the town was growing on her as an adult.

“Claudia?”

“Hmm?” Claudia looked up from her musings, unwilling to even mention Sugar’s failed marriages in front of the dress. “You see anything I missed, Eagle Eye?”

“Not a single thing. This dress is amazing. The only worry is that Thorne’s not going to make it through the ceremony once he sees his bride coming toward him in this. Between the wedding and Maggie’s pregnancy, Thorne has been floating about five feet off the ground.”

“I could say the same about his daddy and the dress you’re going to wear.”

Evelyn’s dark skin flashed with a decided blush as she busied herself once again around the dressmaker form. Claudia had recently settled in on the idea that Evelyn needed to make a move on Mac—or at least show her interest—but Evelyn had remained steadfast in her reticence.

“My dress is age and station appropriate.” Evelyn’s voice was muffled behind the dress, where she bent over to inspect the bustle.

“What station is that?”

“A widow in her fifties with two grown children, two grandchildren and one more on the way.”

Claudia tapped her friend on the shoulder and waited until Evelyn stood, her petite frame still only reaching Claudia’s shoulder. Waited another moment until Evelyn looked her in the eye.

“You’re a beautiful, vibrant woman who deserves to be happy. Joseph Mackenzie is an amazing man. He practically raised me.”

Evelyn rested a gentle hand against Claudia’s cheek. “A ringing testament to just how amazing he is.”

“Amazing.” Claudia laid her hand over Evelyn’s before going in for the kill. “And as stubborn and shy as you. I swear, the sparks practically erupt when you two get within ten feet of each other.”

Evelyn dropped her hand and busied herself with putting her keys into her purse. “We saw each other once.”

“Twice, including the day Mac stopped in here to drop off lunch.” Claudia popped the lid on the fresh cup of coffee. “There were sparks, I tell you.”

“Old people don’t shoot off anything but gas.” Evelyn wagged a finger as if to emphasize her point before she beelined toward the front counter. “Sparks are for the young.”

Claudia wasn’t so sure about that but she was a woman who knew when and how to pick her battles. Even better, she knew how to bide her time.

She might be stuck in the middle of her own personal dry spell, but there was no way she was giving up on making Evelyn and Mac see just how perfect they were for each other.

* * *

Hawk Huntley tossed a six-dollar tip down on his nine-dollar breakfast at the Cozy Diner and figured he’d still gotten a damn fine deal. The hearty steak and eggs would hold him nearly all day, but it was the side of gossip that had proven even more filling than the prime Texas beef.

He’d arrived in Shadow Creek the night before last and was surprised by how quickly the town gossips were willing to bend his ear. In his experience, most small towns protected their own, but one mention of the Colton family and he got an earful.

He had to play things carefully, but a well-placed question about how he was looking for an old military buddy, River Colton, had done the trick. Hawk knew he needed to work fast because if word found its way back to River that a man he didn’t know was using him to pump the local gossip mill, he’d have hell to pay.

But he needed a sense of things before he could put his plan into motion.

He needed all the information he could find on Livia Colton and her children.

“Now, don’t you go forgetting about our meatloaf special tonight.” The waitress who’d proven so attentive throughout breakfast winked at him from the other side of the counter. “I’ll see to it you get an extra slice.”

“That’s awfully kind of you.”

Based out of Houston, Hawk wasn’t a native Texan but he’d learned early how to adopt the local lingo and attitude. He was a chameleon, his wife had always told him. A man who could fit in and adapt to any situation.

All but one situation, Hawk knew. Losing her wasn’t something a man adapted to. And widower was a suit that even after four years refused to fit.

His waitress picked up the check. “I’ll get you some change.”

“None needed.”

The woman’s eyes lit up at that, brighter than when she was flirting, and Hawk figured he’d best get to his plans for the day. There was no way Patty Sue was keeping her morning conversation with the stranger who’d rolled into Shadow Creek quiet for long.

He headed out of the diner and walked down Main Street. His B&B was at one end of town but it hadn’t taken him more than a few minutes to traverse the town square to reach the diner and, by his calculations, it would be about two more minutes to arrive at his final destination. The Honeysuckle Road boutique.

All the work of the past few months led straight to that front door.

Although he prided himself on being a good PI, Hawk had found his calling working cold cases. To give a family closure—something he’d never been fortunate enough to receive—had gone a long way toward making Jennifer’s death a situation he could live with.

Nothing could erase her memory and no case could bring her back, but if he could give other families the blessed relief that came from knowledge, he could take some solace from the endless questions that still filled his own mind.

“Honeysuckle Road.” He whispered the words as he walked toward the small storefront. Two large windows flanked the front door, but unlike the other businesses that lined Main Street, from the diner, to the drugstore, to a feed store that looked to do a brisk business, these windows were full of vibrant jewel tones and items that screamed “haven for women.”

He might have only been married for three years, but he’d dated Jennifer for two before that and had grown up with two sisters. Women loved color and shape and texture and design and if he wasn’t mistaken, Honeysuckle Road offered all those things and a little something else.

A big, warm welcome that said everyone belonged.

While Patty Sue might have been a bit hesitant to speak about Livia Colton in anything but a hushed whisper, she’d been practically gleeful as she described the new boutique opened by Livia’s daughter Claudia.

A bona fide New Yorker, Patty Sue had said reverently as she described Claudia, who’d left Shadow Creek to go to fashion school in Manhattan. The woman knew how to design clothes, match accessories and put together an outfit any woman would be proud to wear. But the clincher, to Hawk’s mind, was Patty Sue’s description of Claudia’s designs. Claudia Colton made clothes for real women.

Hawk had no idea at the time what that could possibly mean, but now as he looked at the clothing in the window, he suspected it had something to do with a palette of designs that fit women of all shapes and sizes.

And as a man who appreciated women in all shapes and sizes, Hawk decided to like Claudia Colton on the spot.

Pushing through the door, he let his eyes accustom to the darker interior, lit by a wall of soft lights that gave the boutique a warm glow.

He should feel awkward. Or at least ready to turn in his man card, but somehow he felt neither of those things. Instead, all he had was a deep-seated curiosity of how a person could make a room feel so simple yet so rich at the same time.

Since taking this case and narrowing in on the daughter of Livia Colton, Hawk had imagined a cold, calculating woman, much in the same vein as her mother. But the deep colors and rich fabrics and warm, welcoming environment flew in the face of all that.

A pretty, petite woman came out from behind the counter. He got a sense of competence and feminine grace, along with a subtle curiosity as to what he was doing in a fashion boutique at ten in the morning. “You look lost.”

Funny words since he’d felt lost for the past four years. Lost until this case involving Claudia Colton had fallen right into his lap.

The mystery—a child stolen from her birth mother over a quarter century ago—had gripped him for some reason. Those icy fingers of awareness that always ran up and down his spine when he caught a case that moved him had been in full evidence with this one, yet there’d been something more.

Maybe it was the awareness he and Jennifer had been cheated out of their own family and happy-ever-after. Or maybe it was the feeling that she was pushing him toward this case.

He’d always loved the mystery of a cold case, but mystery had turned to mission when he lost his wife. If he was able to help others find answers, in some small way he believed it helped find one for Jennifer, too.

“Sir?” The woman came out from behind the main counter, her smile gentle. “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry. Good morning, ma’am. And yes, I think you just might be able to.”

“What can I do, then?”

“I’d like to speak with Claudia Colton.”

Raw curiosity replaced the gentle smile, but she asked no further questions. Instead, she simply nodded. “I’ll just go get her.”

* * *

Claudia reached for the cup of coffee Evelyn had brought in earlier, surprised to realize it had gone cold as she’d once again wrapped herself up in Maggie’s dress. The bustle was coming along nicely, the hidden hooks she’d begun to sew in matching to the precise places she’d pinned up earlier.

Standing, Claudia scrutinized the lines of the dress and the way the gathered material arced into precise folds, neatly pulled up in those small hooks. She hadn’t designed many wedding gowns all the way to completion, but had always loved the process of sketching out all the different ways a woman could attire herself to walk down the aisle. Maggie’s trust in her was both humbling and satisfying, but it was actually seeing the design come to life before her eyes that gave her a strong sense of pride.

Mac had been the one to suggest New York first. He knew her love of fashion and had freely indulged her madness for magazine subscriptions and sketch pads. But it had been the sewing machine he’d bought her shortly after she’d moved into his home that had clinched it.

A fashion mind needs to go where the fashion-minded are, he’d said to her. Just before he pulled one of the thick warm blankets that perpetually lay over the family room couch off the large box that housed her Singer Studio model. The machine had brought endless hours of bliss and madness, frustration and a special sort of creative delight that nothing else in life could quite compare to. She and her Singer were one, the machine an extension of her vision and her dreams.

And Mac had understood that, better than anyone else she’d ever met.

She tossed a fond glance toward the machine’s place of honor in her workroom, right near the window that flooded her studio with light. The best gift she’d ever received.

The knock had her glancing up, breaking through the weight of memories that had seemed to haunt her all morning.

“Yes?”

Evelyn’s breath caught as she took in the dress. “You’ve been busy. And it looks even more amazing than it did a few hours ago.”

“It’s not done yet.”

“Maybe not, but you’re well on your way.” Evelyn waved her hand in a forward motion. “Which means it’s a good time for a quick break and a moment with the gorgeous man standing out front.”

The smile suffusing Evelyn’s face faded almost instantly, a match for the immediate sinkhole that opened in Claudia’s stomach. “Who’s here?”

“A man’s here. What’s wrong?”

He found me. He found me. He found me. The words beat a rapid tattoo in her brain, freezing her breath in her throat.

“Claudia?”

She forced herself to take a breath, her words a whisper when she finally spoke. “What does he look like?”

Even as she asked the question, all she could picture in her mind’s eye was the suave cut of a suit jacket, the artful wave of mahogany hair and dark brown eyes that could go nearly black in anger. Manicured hands and Italian loafers were simply fashionable window dressing when the package underneath was jealous, vengeful and, as of the past six months, increasingly dangerous.

“Tall. Dark blond hair that was likely all-the-way-blond when he was a boy. Sexy blue eyes.”

It was the blond and blue reference that finally penetrated, tugging at the twisted knots of her stomach. “Blue eyes?”

“Blue eyes like a Texas sky, I might add.” Evelyn’s own eyes narrowed. “But that has no bearing on the ghost that just walked over your grave. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Claudia willed her galloping pulse to calm, breathing in and out of her nose. She’d seen Mac gentle his horses with the soft tones of his voice, never sure if they could understand him yet always fascinated when they seemed to. She willed that soft voice into her own mind, trying desperately to find the equilibrium that had just been snatched away.

Trying even more desperately to erase the haunting image of Ben Witherspoon from her mind.