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She showered and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and took her time brushing her hair and pulling on boots, wondering how Colin was getting along with little Jessie. Isabella hadn’t heard any screams coming from the kitchen.
Finally she returned to the kitchen.
She had to smother a laugh. Jessie was in her high chair and she had oatmeal all over her face and in her fists and her hair. And Colin had oatmeal in his hair, too, on his shirt and face.
“How’s breakfast?” she asked, holding back laughter. Colin turned to look at her and narrowed his eyes.
“You come finish this. I told you I don’t know one damn thing about a baby. I think she’s had about two bites of oatmeal and you can see where the rest went. Dammit, I don’t have many changes of clothing.”
“There’s a washing machine and, as you said, clothes will wash,” she said blithely, getting a wet paper towel to clean Jessie. She turned around as Colin stood and pulled off his T-shirt. His muscled body was lean and fit, but scars covered his back and ran across his shoulders, chest and arms.
Her breath caught in her throat; the scars didn’t change his appeal one bit. They did remind her of what Colin had gone through, how the years had changed him.
“I told you they had to put me all back together,” he said when he turned around and caught her staring.
She looked up and met his gaze. “If you think I’m staring because you have scars, think again,” she whispered. The air crackled with searing heat as his eyes darkened and he inhaled deeply.
“I wouldn’t have admitted that to you except you have a very mistaken notion about your appearance,” she added.
Feeling as if her face were on fire from embarrassment over her admission, she moved to the chair to finish feeding Jessie. Colin stood in her peripheral vision and she knew he hadn’t moved, but she couldn’t face him.
“If I weren’t covered with oatmeal—” He broke off his sentence and left the room in long strides.
She closed her eyes and let out her breath. She fed Jessie, relieved the minute Jessie finished and she could clean the toddler’s face and hands and escape from the kitchen before Colin returned.
Isabella bathed and dressed Jessie in a pink jumper and shirt, carrying her to the nursery and sitting on the floor to play with her, leaving Colin to entertain himself. If she had just looked away, she wouldn’t have had to explain herself. But she hadn’t, and that was that.
“I wondered where you two had gone.”
She turned to see Colin in the doorway, dressed in clean jeans and a T-shirt, leaning one shoulder against the jamb. He held his oatmeal-covered clothing balled in his hand. “Where’s the washer?”
“Come join us,” she said while Jessie clapped her hands and held her arms out to him.
Isabella pointed. “Right through that door in the utility room. As soon as you put your clothes in to wash, come join us. Jessie likes you,” she said, and he shook his head.
“I don’t know why,” he said upon his return. “Unless she hopes to throw some more oatmeal my way.” He didn’t make a move to pick up Jessie and she lost interest in him, turning to play with a ball that was in front of her. He looked around the pink nursery and then back at Isabella.
“You look like you belong in here.”
“I should. I’ve been dealing with little brothers and sisters all my life.”
He crossed the room to pick up a picture of Mike, Savannah and Jessie. “I like this picture. Cute family.”
“Thank you for the first. I took the picture.”
His eyebrows arched and he looked back at the picture again. “You’re talented.”
“I wish you would reconsider and let me take your picture.”
He turned and shook his head. “Nope. I’d make a poor subject.”
She nodded because she could understand his reluctance. She raised her head when she heard a car. Instantly, Colin moved to the window. “What kind of car does Mike drive?”
“They’ve taken the sports car. It’s green.”
“That’s him,” Colin said.
“Want me to go break the news that you’re here? He’ll be a little shocked if you meet him at the door.”
“Mike can stand shock. You did without batting an eye.”
“Come on, sweetie,” she said to Jessie. “Mommy and Daddy are home. Let’s go see them.”
Jessie laughed, repeating Mama and Dada as Isabella carried her downstairs.
“It was interesting Isabella, seeing you again,” Colin said, falling into step beside her. “I won’t forget you.”
She glanced up at him. “I won’t forget you, either, Colin. I think I remembered you better anyway, than you did me.” His gaze lowered to her mouth and her pulse jumped. Was he remembering their fiery kiss? She was and she could barely get her breath. In just minutes he would be busy with Mike and then he’d be gone forever.
Another twinge of sadness gripped her because it seemed such a waste for him to go off to some remote corner of the world to live.
He made his own choices, she reminded herself. He was no part of her life and she shouldn’t worry or care what he did. He certainly wouldn’t give a thought to anything she was going to do with her future.
“You’re certain you don’t want me to tell him?” she asked again. “After all, everyone thinks you’re dead. And you are buddies.”
She gazed into his smoky eyes. They were so striking and unforgettable. Too much about him was unforgettable.
His lips firmed while he mulled over her question. “You may be right. Go ahead and break the news. I’ll wait in the living room.”
He turned and was gone. He moved with the silence and ease of a cat. She shifted Jessie in her arms and went to the kitchen to wait.
She could see the Remingtons heading toward the house and thought they were a striking-looking couple because Savannah was as blond as Mike was dark with his tanned skin and black hair. He was loaded down with bags and boxes and Savannah carried a few boxes, as well.
Isabella hurried to hold the door open, then followed them into the kitchen.
As they walked into the room, Jessie squealed with joy and held out her arms.
Dressed in yellow slacks and a matching yellow silk blouse, Savannah had her blond hair fastened behind her head. She looked beautiful and immaculate, too much so to have a baby in her arms. Regardless she caught up Jessie to hug her, eagerly fussing over her and laughing with the baby. Tall, black-haired Mike set down his armload of boxes and packages and bags. His brown-eyed gaze was friendly as he smiled at Isabella.
“We’re here to rescue you. Bet you were counting the minutes.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Isabella said. “Jessie’s a delight and no trouble at all. Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“We had a great time,” Mike said. He flung a broad-brimmed Western hat on a hook and shed a jacket. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt and radiated vitality. Smiling, he turned to take Jessie from Savannah to hug his little girl.
“How’s my baby?” he asked, nuzzling her and making her squeal with laughter as she grabbed fistfuls of his hair. “We brought you something,” he said, looking at the pile of luggage and bags and sacks and boxes he had carried inside and dropped by the door. He picked up a present wrapped in pink paper. “Just for you, Jessie, darlin’,” he said.
Jessie grabbed the present and began to eat the paper. Laughing, Savannah took the present from Jessie. “Set her down and show her how to open it.”
“And here’s something for you, Isabella,” Savannah said, handing a gift to Isabella.
“Thank you, but you shouldn’t have,” Isabella replied, taking a beautifully wrapped box of silver paper with pink roses and tied with silver ribbons. “Before I open this, there’s something you two should know.”
Both of them looked at her with curiosity in their gazes.
“Mike, you’re in for a big surprise,” Isabella said solemnly. “There’s an old friend here to see you. I thought I should tell you before you saw him.”
“This sounds interesting,” Mike said, glancing beyond Isabella and then looking back at her again with a curious expression. “So who is he and where is he and why the fanfare before I see him?”
“Because you don’t know he’s alive. Everyone thought he was dead,” Isabella said quietly, knowing from Mike’s expression that Colin had entered the room.
“Colin!” Mike blinked and his mouth dropped open and he paled. “Colin?” The two men crossed the room in long strides and hugged each other.
They stepped apart. “I can’t believe it!” Mike exclaimed, placing his hands on his hips. “You’re alive and well. Damn! What the hell happened? Why didn’t you let us know? Where have you been?”
“Mike!” Savannah exclaimed. “Give him a chance.”
“This calls for a celebration,” Mike said. “Damn, I can’t believe it,” he repeated, clasping Colin on the shoulder. “You’re real.”
“I’m very real,” Colin replied.
“I keep expecting you to disappear and just be a figment of my imagination.”
“No vanishing act here,” Colin said.
“Let’s celebrate!” Mike exclaimed, grinning broadly. “This is fantastic! Do the others know?”
“No. I wanted to see you first,” Colin replied solemnly.
“I’m glad you did.” Isabella could see Mike studying Colin and she could see some of the sparkle go out of Mike’s eyes and concern replace it. Then Mike smiled and brightened.
“We’re going to celebrate right now!”
“It’s early in the day,” Colin remarked. “We might wait—”
“Let’s break out the champagne now,” Mike decided. He looked at Savannah and put his arm around her. “Savannah, this is Colin Garrick. Colin meet Savannah.”
“I’m so happy to meet you,” Savannah said, extending her hand to shake hands with Colin. “Mike has told me a lot about you and about the times the two of you had together when you were growing up.”
“This is our baby, Jessie, whom you’ve already met,” Mike added.
“She’s cute, Mike, but I can’t imagine you a daddy.”
“I’ll get the champagne,” Savannah offered.
When she left the room, Mike looked at Colin again. Impulsively, Mike stepped close and hugged Colin. “Damn. What happened, Colin?” He stepped away and placed his hands on his hips. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you. I’m glad to see you alive—but when that bomb went off we thought you were done for. I want to hear all about it, but let’s get the champagne. Should I call the others now or later?”
“A little later. Let’s talk first, Mike.”
Mike seemed to remember Isabella and he glanced at her. “You remember Izzie. This is great! When did you get here?”
“Last night,” Colin answered.
Mike’s gaze ran over him. “What happened to you? You look like you were in a cat fight.”
“Sort of. I surprised Isabella.”
When Mike threw back his head and laughed, Colin merely shook his head and shrugged. Mike’s eyes twinkled. “So all those tricks Boone taught you really work?”
“They seemed to,” she said.
“Have you gotten out of practice!” Mike exclaimed.
“Don’t underestimate her. Boone taught her well.”
Mike laughed. “I know Boone did. I’ve watched the workouts.”
Savannah returned with a bottle of champagne and handed it to Mike to open. As Savannah picked up Jessie to hold her, Mike poured glasses of champagne and passed each person one. “Let’s take these drinks to the family room where we can sit and talk.”
As soon as they were in the family room, Mike turned and raised his glass in a toast. “Here’s to Colin. Our survivor,” he said.
“To Colin,” Savannah added.
“To Colin,” Isabella said quietly, and Colin looked at her before they all clinked their glasses together lightly.
“Thank you all,” Colin replied gruffly, a muscle working in his jaw.
Isabella could see that he was struggling with his emotions. She sipped the pale liquid, feeling bubbles tickle her nose.
“To life and Colin being back in the land of the living,” Mike said, giving another toast.
They all touched glasses again and everyone sipped the champagne before setting down glasses.
“Sit, so we can talk,” Mike suggested.
“I’ll be right back. We need a little change here,” Savannah said, taking Jessie and leaving the room.
“I’ll leave you two,” Isabella started to say, but Mike motioned to her.
“Sit down and join us. Savannah will be back. Come on, Izzie, we’re all family.”
She sat on a straight-backed chair as Mike sat on the sofa and Colin on a brown leather chair.
“Before you start, should I call the guys so you only have to tell this once?”
“No,” Colin replied solemnly. “I wanted to talk to you first, but whatever we do, you can’t phone them and tell them. These phones could be tapped and cell phones can be easily monitored. You’ll have to get them over here for another reason. Besides, your lines are cut. I disengaged the alarm system and came in through a window. I just wanted to make certain I wasn’t being followed and I could watch my back better by sneaking around late at night.”
“So that’s when you encountered Izzie.”
“Right. I’m in hiding, Mike. I’m on the run and there’s a killer after me,” Colin explained.
“Go ahead and tell me about it,” Mike said, crossing one long leg over the other.
Isabella listened again, watching Colin and still amazed that he was alive, just as shocked by her reaction to him. She wished she could go back and see him as she had that afternoon at the fair, just as one of her brother’s friends, pleasant to be with, but just another man—who looked old to her at the time. She couldn’t view him with that casual response now. He was ruggedly handsome and something in him made her want to try to reach him, to find the carefree man he once had been.
Every time she thought about him going into seclusion in some wilderness and shutting himself off from people and real living, it saddened her.
Forget it. He’s doing what he wants and you can’t save him, she told herself.
He glanced at her and then back to Mike. “The military asked five of us—and, with one exception, we don’t know each other’s identities—to work in a stealthy, covert group to try to catch the spy. I know one because at one point I worked with him. Brett Hamilton.”
Mike shook his head. “Not anyone I ever knew.”
“When I insisted on getting out of the military, my superior asked me to continue in the operation awhile longer,” Colin explained. “They gave me a contract,” Colin revealed, telling Mike something that he had not told her.
Isabella was shocked by this new information because she hadn’t expected to hear that the military had wanted to keep him on in that manner.
“There is someone in the military who knows where I am now.”
“Adam Kowalski?” Mike guessed.
Colin nodded. “Adam—you’re on the mark.”
“Kowalski is a reliable man. I can imagine either Adam or perhaps Mason VanDoren, one of the other officers we’ve worked with, on this case. What about Peter Fremont?”
“Our old friend with the agency,” Colin replied.
Isabella remembered meeting the friendly, tall blond Fremont when he had been in Special Forces with Boone. She also recalled meeting Mason VanDoren years ago.
“I report to Adam. And I’ve worked closely with Peter—he’s the one who pushed to get me to join the agency when I got out of the military. Even he doesn’t know that I’m going through Stallion Pass.”
Mike stood. “I think it’s time for the next step in this operation.”
Isabella watched him and wondered if another change was about to come into her life.
Chapter 4
“Let’s get Boone and Jonah over here,” Mike said. “I can call them on my cell phone. I think they might as well hear this now.”
“I can call my brother if it would help,” Isabella offered.
Mike nodded.
“Tell him to bring Erin and I’ll tell Jonah to bring his family—we’ll throw steaks on and have a party. You can tell them I want to celebrate an investigation that I just closed.”
“Did you close one?” Colin asked.
“Yep. I did, so if anyone checks out my story, it’ll hold.”
Isabella left the room to get her cell phone to call Boone. She went back to thrust her head into the family room. Mike and Colin were talking in low voices. “Boone and Erin are coming,” she said and left to find Savannah who was in the kitchen, feeding Jessie.
“Did they run you off?” Savannah asked.
“No. I just thought they ought to be alone. Do you know you’re going to have a houseful of company soon?”
“I’m not surprised. I’m sure the guys want to get together.
“Right,” Isabella replied. “Mike said to ask the families, so Erin and Kate and Henry are coming.”
“Great! That’ll be fun,” Savannah said. “I’ll get Jessie fed and cleaned up and then I can enjoy everyone.”
“I can feed her if you want to do anything else.”
“Sure. If you don’t mind,” Savannah said, giving the small spoon to Isabella who took Savannah’s seat.
Over two hours later, after they had finished eating, they all sat in the family room while Henry played a game and Jessie dozed in Mike’s arms. All through dinner the men had reminisced about good times. While most events they discussed had been comical, Isabella knew they were avoiding the scary and painful memories.
Mike stood. “We enjoy the wonderful company, I think it’s time that Jonah, Boone and I have a chat with Colin. So if y’all will excuse us, we’ll adjourn to the library.”
With jokes about happy to be rid of the men, the four friends left. At the door Colin glanced over his shoulder to meet Isabella’s gaze. Taking a deep breath, he turned and followed Mike to the library.
As soon as all four men entered the room, Mike closed the door. Colin looked at titles of books on the shelves, seeing many familiar ones, having buried himself in books and reading a lot of the time when he had been recuperating from his wounds.
They sat and Mike gazed expectantly at him. “Okay, Colin, level with us. What’s up and what kind of danger are we in?”
Colin spent the next thirty minutes covering the time since the blast during the aborted mission until the current moment. When he finished, he looked somberly at his friends.
“I hope none of you is in any danger. I had also hoped seeing you might trigger my memory, but so far, it hasn’t. That doesn’t mean it won’t.”
“So you’re leaving here to go to some remote spot and stay in isolation?” Boone asked with a frown.
“Don’t tell me it’s no way to live. I’ve heard that enough from your sister. I can slip out of here in the dark and be far away before dawn. You guys, just take care of yourselves and be aware there may be danger.”
“I have a better idea,” Mike said and all turned to him. “Stay here. Let’s see if your presence draws our enemy to Texas. There are four—”
“No way!” Colin exclaimed. “I won’t deliberately put y’all in danger.”
“We may be in a lot of danger anyway whether you go and we never see you again or if you remain in Texas. Just listen, Colin,” Mike urged. “You may draw your enemy here. None of us will be absolutely safe until he’s caught, so let’s flush him out. If we do, you won’t have to turn into a hermit and never see any of us again or any of us ever see you.”
“Yeah, that’s a hell of a lot better,” Jonah said.
“I agree,” Boone added quickly. “I’m all for drawing him into the open.”
“No damn way!” Colin snapped, standing and glaring at his friends. “You have a baby,” he said to Mike. “You have Henry and another one on the way,” he reminded Jonah. “Erin is expecting. No, no and double-damn no! I’m not putting little babies and kids into any extra jeopardy.”
“Calm down. You can stay with Izzie,” Boone suggested.
“And put her in danger?” Colin snapped, jamming his hands into his pockets.
Mike and Boone laughed. “Look at you!” Boone exclaimed. “Izzie isn’t afraid, and she can take care of herself. She’ll agree with our plan to use you as bait.”
“Izzie’ll protect you,” Mike said with laughter in his voice.
“You won’t have to be scared of a thing with her around,” Boone added quickly, his eyes twinkling with amusement that Colin couldn’t share.
“Y’all are hopeless! Listen, she can protect herself fairly well, but you know and I know that this is someone deadly and in earnest. And if I hadn’t minded hurting a woman, you also know that I would have won the fight with Isabella.”
“Well, you did a damn poor job of protecting yourself,” Boone teased. “Why didn’t you just draw your gun and stop her before she made hamburger of you?”
Colin glared at Boone. “You guys get on out of here.”
“Why didn’t you draw your gun?” Mike asked, studying Colin as he slapped his knee and guffawed. “She got your pistol, didn’t she?”
“Go to hell, Mike,” Colin said, shaking his head while Mike and Boone laughed. Sitting down again, Colin looked at Jonah, who was staring solemnly at him. “You’re not laughing with them. You think I should go, don’t you?”
“Not at all,” Jonah answered quietly and the laughter died. “I think Mike’s right. You should stay. Hopefully, we can entice our enemy to Texas and end this. I’m just thinking about the danger. In all fairness to Isabella, I think we should get her in here and ask her. She may not want him to be with her,” Jonah said to the others.
“You’re right,” Mike said. “Boone, get your sister in here.”
“I can answer for her—”
“No, you can’t,” Colin insisted, crossing the room and yanking open the door to the hall.
The moment he was gone Jonah crossed the room in long strides and closed the door. “I don’t think she’ll want him.”
“She’s not going to be afraid,” Boone said. “But Izzie is full of life. She may not want to put up with Colin’s gloom. He’s pretty down right now, although she’s a sucker for lost kittens and stray dogs.”
“Look again,” Jonah remarked dryly. “She’s your sister and you probably can’t see anything, but sparks fly every time they look at each other.”
Boone’s eyebrows arched. “Izzie? I don’t think so.”
While the men talked, Colin strode down the hall to the family room and paused in the doorway. Isabella and the other women were laughing at something Jessie was doing. His heart clenched at the sight of Isabella. Her joy was infectious.
“Isabella, will you please join us for a few minutes?”
She stood and Colin forced himself to turn away instead of watching her and waiting to walk with her. In long strides, he went back to the library. When he entered the room, everyone turned to look quizzically at him.
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