A K-9 cop must protect a single mom as USA TODAY bestselling author Marie Ferrarella introduces the new Coltons of Red Ridge miniseries

Carson Gage has a crime to solve—the murder of his brother—and his number-one suspect is his archenemy, Serena Colton. The Coltons and Gages have feuded for generations; Carson is convinced the cowgirl is hiding his prime suspect on her ranch. But the beauty and her baby stir unwelcome yearnings in his calloused heart. After all, Carson has learned the hard way what vulnerability can cost. When Serena and her child become targets of a mysterious assailant, Carson’s protective urges take over. Can an irresistible attraction prove stronger than old family hatreds and help them capture a criminal?

Serena mentally threw up her hands.

This was hopeless. Why did she even care if something was bothering this boorish man who had come stomping into her house, disrupting everyone without even displaying an iota of remorse that he was doing it? Never mind that her brother had led this invasion into her parents’ home. She felt better blaming the detective for this than blaming Finn.

“Never mind,” she told Carson, changing topics. “I have to see to my baby—if it’s all right with you,” she said, a mild touch of sarcasm breaking through.

Rather than say anything in response, Carson just waved her back to her quarters.

Serena’s voice was fairly dripping with ice as she said, “Thank you.”

With that she turned on her bare heel to walk back into her suite.

“Let’s go, Justice,” Carson said to the dog, steering the animal toward the stairs.

Keeping a tight hold on the dog’s leash, Carson walked out of the house quickly, a man doing his best to outrun memories too painful to coexist with.

* * *

The Coltons of Red Ridge: A killer’s on the loose and love is on the line

Colton Baby Rescue

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Harlequin, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

To

Nancy Parodi Neubert

And

The Successful Return

Of

Happiness

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

He really did not have time for this.

Detective Carson Gage frowned as he drove down the darkened streets to The Pour House. He had more important things to do than attend his older brother Bo’s bachelor party at a second-rate dive bar in the sketchy part of town.

Hell, he would have rather stayed home and spent the evening talking to his K-9 unit partner, Justice. Granted it would have only been a one-way conversation, but the German shepherd was probably more intelligent than half the people who were going to be at the bachelor party anyway.

This whole thing was a joke, the Red Ridge police detective thought. Bo shouldn’t be getting married anyway, not to a woman who he’d only known for a total of three months. This was way too sudden.

The whole thing seemed rather strange to him, not to mention ironic. Bo’s bachelor party was being thrown at The Pour House, which just happened to be owned by Rusty Colton, who was the father of Bo’s last girlfriend, Demi—the woman Bo had been engaged to for one month, then dumped when he took up with Hayley Patton, his current bride-to-be.

More than likely, Carson thought dourly, given who was being invited to this party, the evening was going to end up in a huge brawl—which was why he intended to stay for just one drink, then get the hell out of there.

Besides, he had work to do. His burning obsession was to find some piece of irrefutable evidence he could use to finally put away the Larson brothers, the cold-blooded twins who fancied themselves up-and-coming crime lords intent on building up a vast criminal empire and destroying everything and everyone in their path.

The Larsons were behind at least two murders that he knew of and they were at the center of a rash of drug busts, but because the thugs who worked for the brothers were more afraid of them than they were of the police, he hadn’t been able to find anyone willing to testify against the twins.

But he would. Come hell or high water, he would, Carson swore, his hands tightening on his car’s steering wheel. All he needed was to find that one elusive piece of evidence that would start the process of nailing the Larson brothers’ coffins shut.

Carson picked his way through the streets, driving slowly. The area seemed even more unsavory at this time of night than it was during the day.

“If you have to marry this one, why couldn’t you just run off and elope like a normal guy?” Carson asked out loud, addressing the brother who wasn’t there. “Why all this need for fanfare and hoopla?”

It almost seemed, what with having the bachelor party at The Pour House, like Bo was deliberately rubbing Demi’s nose in his wedding.

Yup, fireworks were definitely going to be on the agenda tonight, Carson thought. One beer and he was out of there, he promised himself again. He had no burning desire to break up a bunch of drunken men who should know better, doing their damnedest to knock each other’s heads off. Bo had said he was inviting both Coltons and Gages to this party. Gasoline and fire, Carson thought.

He swore under his breath. No, he definitely didn’t need this.

With a sigh, he pulled into The Pour House’s parking lot. Because he wanted to be able to drive off the lot with a minimum of maneuvering—and make sure that his car didn’t get dented by some celebrant who had overindulged in liquid courage, Carson decided to park all the way in the back of the lot. It would be a bit of a trek to the bar’s front door, but it was between that and his peace of mind, and his peace of mind definitely made it worth it.

So he guided his vehicle all the way to the last row of the lot. The lot happened to back up against a grassy embankment.

Pulling up the hand brake, he sat there for a while, trying to get into the right frame of mind.

It wasn’t happening.

With a sigh, the police detective got out of his car and locked it. Carson was about to start walking toward the entrance of the bar when he thought he saw someone lying facedown at the very far edge of the lot.

Carson paused, squinting. That part of the parking lot was pretty dark. What streetlights there were didn’t reach that far.

“Looks like someone’s already been partying too much,” he muttered under his breath.

Some people just couldn’t pace themselves accordingly and this guy obviously couldn’t hold his liquor, Carson thought. With a resigned sigh, he changed course and headed toward the drunk instead of the bar. If he didn’t wake the guy up and get him out of the way, Carson had no doubt that during the course of the evening, someone was liable to run the drunk over.

The lot wasn’t all that full yet, he observed. This guy must have got a really early start. From what he could make out, the man was half on the edge of the lot, half on the grass at the very perimeter of the parking lot.

Drawing nearer, Carson saw that the man, whose face was obscured because it was turned toward the grass, had one arm stretched out with his index finger raised, like he was trying to draw attention to something.

That’s odd.

And then, despite the fact that it was pretty dark there, Carson saw that there was writing on the ground just above the man’s head. It looked as if he had written something—

In blood?

Taking his phone out, he hit the flashlight app, then squatted down. Using the light from his phone, Carson looked at the ground just above the man’s head more closely.

“It looks like you wrote Demi C,” Carson murmured, half to himself. The last letter was barely finished.

Demi C? Demi Colton?

Carson’s eyes widened. What was this guy doing, writing the name of his brother’s former girlfriend on the parking lot asphalt? And where had the blood come from? Had the guy hit his head?

“Hey, fella, wake up. The parking lot’s no place to take a nap.” He shook the man’s shoulder but couldn’t seem to rouse him.

Blowing out a breath, Carson rose to his feet and circled the man’s body so he could get a look at the drunk’s face.

“C’mon, fella, you can’t sleep it off here. You’ve gotta get—”

The rest of the sentence froze on Carson’s lips.

The man he was trying to wake up was his brother. Bo’s eyes were wide-open and unseeing.

There was a black cummerbund stuffed into his mouth. And he wasn’t breathing.

Chapter 2

Detective Carson Gage’s hands were shaking as he urgently turned his brother over onto his back. Any hope of trying to revive Bo disappeared the moment he saw the bullet wound.

His brother had been shot right through the heart.

Irrationally, Carson felt for a pulse anyway. There was none. Swallowing a curse, he sat back on his heels. His brother’s skin was already cold to the touch. This was January in Red Ridge, South Dakota, but death brought a different sort of cold with it and there was no mistaking it for a simple reaction to the weather.

“Damn it, Bo, I told you playing fast and loose with women would be the death of you someday. Why d’you have to prove me right?” Carson demanded angrily.

He curbed his impulse to straighten Bo’s clothing. Bo always took pride in his appearance and death had left him looking disheveled. But the crime scene investigators were going to need to see everything just the way he had found it.

Shaken to the core, Carson got back up to his feet and opened up his cell phone again. He needed to call this in.

It took him a minute to center his thoughts. He was a trained police detective, Carson silently upbraided himself. He couldn’t afford the luxury of coming apart like some hysterical civilian who had just unexpectedly witnessed death up close and personal—even if this was his half brother.

Taking a deep breath and then exhaling, he put in a call to his chief, Finn Colton. As he waited for Finn to pick up, he looked again at the name his brother had written in his own blood.

Demi C.

Demi Colton. Carson shook his head. When this got out, it was going to throw all of Red Ridge into one hell of an uproar, he thought. As if the feud between the Coltons and the Gages needed more fuel.

The next moment, he heard Finn’s deep voice as the chief answered his phone. “Hey, Gage, aren’t you supposed to be at your brother’s bachelor party right now, getting drunk and toasting Bo’s last few hours of freedom? What are you doing calling me?”

Carson enunciated the words carefully, afraid that if he spoke any faster, his voice was going to break. He and Bo weren’t close, but they were still family. “There’s been a murder, Chief.”

“Damn,” Finn cursed. Instantly, the voice on the other end became serious. “Whose?”

Carson paused before answering. “Bo’s.”

“This your idea of a joke, Gage?” Finn demanded impatiently. “’Cause if it is, it’s not funny.”

“I only wish it was, Chief,” Carson answered.

“You’re serious,” Finn responded, stunned. When no contradiction came, Finn asked, “Where and when?”

Carson looked down at his brother’s body. The whole scene seemed utterly surreal to him. “I just found him two minutes ago, lying facedown at the edge of The Pour House’s parking lot.”

“The Pour House,” Finn repeated. “Isn’t that where his bachelor party is supposed to be taking place tonight?”

“One and the same,” Carson answered his superior numbly. He realized he was leaving the most important part out. “And, Chief?”

“Yeah?”

“Looks like Bo wrote a name in his own blood. Maybe his killer’s name.”

Carson heard a noise on the other end as the other man said something unintelligible before going on to ask, “Whose name did he write?”

“Demi C.”

This time there was total silence on the other end for approximately thirty seconds as the information sank in.

The city of thirty-five thousand citizens had more than its share of Coltons. There were three branches in total, as different from one another as the seasons were. The chief liked to say that he belonged to the middle branch, the one that was neither rich nor poor and rough around the edges.

But whatever section he gravitated to, the chief was still a Colton and Carson couldn’t help wondering how Finn Colton would deal with having to bring in one of his own as a suspect for first-degree murder.

Finally, the chief broke the silence and asked, “You think Bo wrote that?”

“It’s in his own blood, Chief,” Carson answered. Then, in case there was any further question as to whether or not Bo was the one who wrote the name, he added, “There’s blood underneath Bo’s fingernail. Looks like he wrote it.”

Finn sighed as if the weight of the world had suddenly been dropped on his shoulders.

“Good enough for me,” he replied. “I’ll have Demi brought in for questioning. Meanwhile, I’ll send some of the team to bring in your brother’s body.” His voice softened, as if he was feeling sympathetic about what Carson was going through. “You can give your statement in the morning if you need some time, Gage.”

Finn was cutting him some slack, Carson thought. He didn’t want any slack, he wanted to get his brother’s killer.

Now.

“I don’t need any time, Chief.” Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. Carson would have been hard-pressed to name a lonelier sound. “I’ll stay here with Bo until the detail gets here,” he told his boss. “And then I’m coming down to the station. I want to be there when you interrogate Demi.”

“Gage, you can’t—”

Carson felt the walls going up. He cut Finn off before the chief could officially exclude him. “I need to be there when you question her, Finn. You owe this to me, Chief.”

There was silence again. An annoyed silence if he was any judge, Carson thought. He fully expected the chief to argue with him, but he wasn’t about to back down.

However, Finn surprised him by saying, “All right, you can be there, but I’ll be the one handling the interrogation. I don’t want to hear a word out of you, understood?”

Even though Finn couldn’t see him, Carson nodded his head grimly. “Understood.”

Terminating the call, Carson put his phone into his pocket. Silence enshrouded him although the distant sound of music and raised voices coming from the bar sliced through the air, disrupting the night.

“Sounds like your bachelor party’s getting underway without you,” Carson said to the prone figure near his feet. “Not exactly the way you expected the night to go, is it?” he asked ironically. He squared his shoulders. No, he and Bo hadn’t been close, but Bo was still his brother and he didn’t deserve this. “Don’t worry, Bo. If Demi did this, she’ll pay. I don’t know what happened, but I promise she’ll pay. I’ll see to it.”

It was getting colder. Carson pulled his sheepskin jacket tighter around him and turned up the collar. But he remained where he was, a guard at his post. He wasn’t about to go anywhere until the unit came to pick up Bo’s body.

* * *

“I know my rights. I’m a bounty hunter, damn it, and I know my rights better than you do,” twenty-seven-year-old Demetria Colton shouted angrily at the two police officers who brought her into the small, windowless room within the Red Ridge police station. “Why am I here?” she wanted to know.

But neither of the two police officers, one young, one old, answered her, other than one of them telling her, “The chief’ll be here shortly.”

“The ‘chief’?” Demi repeated in a mocking tone. “You mean Cousin Finn? Is he still pretending to be in charge?”

The two officers left the small eight-by-ten room without answering her. An angry, guttural noise escaped the redhead’s lips. Frustrated, she would have thrown something if she’d had something to throw.

“Why am I here?” she demanded again, more loudly this time. Furious, she began to pound on the locked door. “I know you’re out there! I demand to be released. You can’t hold me here like this, you hear me?” she cried. “I haven’t done anything, damn it! You let me out of here! Now!”

When the door suddenly opened just as she was about to start pounding on it again, Demi was caught off guard and stumbled backward. Had the table not been right there behind her to block her fall, she would have unceremoniously landed on the floor.

“You’re here,” her cousin calmly told her as he and Carson walked into the room, acting as if they were about to have a run-of-the-mill, normal conversation, “to answer some questions.”

Demi tossed her head, her red hair flying over her shoulder.

“What kind of questions?” she asked defiantly, her dark brown gaze pinning him down.

“Like where were you tonight?” Finn wanted to know, gesturing toward the lone chair on the opposite side of the table and indicating that she should sit.

“Home,” Demi bit off, grudgingly sitting down. “I was in my home—since 5:00 p.m.” she added for good measure.

Finn gave no indication whether or not the answer satisfied him. He waited until Carson sat down next to him, then asked, “Alone?”

“Yes,” she bit off, then followed that up with a question of her own. “Why?” she demanded. Squaring her shoulders, she drew herself up and raised her chin, always ready to do battle with the world—and her cousin. “Is that a crime now?”

Hearing Carson’s chair scrape along the floor as he started to rise, Finn shot him a warning look before answering Demi’s question. “No, but murder is.”

“Murder,” the redhead repeated, growing more furious by the second. She made the only logical conclusion. “You think I murdered someone?” she cried, stunned. “And just who is it I was supposed to have murdered?” When Finn didn’t answer her immediately, she pounced on him. “C’mon, you can’t just throw something like that out and then leave me hanging in suspense, Finn. Just who was it that you think I murdered?”

Unable to remain silent any longer, his hands fisted at his sides, Carson pinned her with a damning look as he answered her question. “Bo. You murdered Bo and then you stuffed a cummerbund into his mouth.”

“Bo,” she repeated in noncomprehension. And then, for a moment, Demi turned very pale. Her eyes flicked from Bo’s brother to her cousin. “Bo’s dead?” she asked hoarsely.

It was half a question, half a statement uttered in total disbelief.

Then, not waiting for an answer, what had become known in the county as Demi’s famous temper flared, and she jumped up to her feet, her fists banging down on the tabletop.

“You think I killed Bo?” she demanded incredulously, fury flashing in her eyes. “Sure,” she said mockingly. “Makes perfect sense to me. The man’s dead so let’s blame it on the woman he dumped—EXCEPT I DIDN’T DO IT!” she yelled, her angry gaze sweeping over her cousin and her former fiancé’s brother.

“Sit down, Demi,” Finn ordered sternly. “And calm down.”

Instead of listening to her cousin and taking her seat again, Demi Colton remained standing, a firecracker very close to going off in a flash of fireworks.

“No, I will not calm down,” she cried. “And unless you have some kind of concrete evidence against me—” she said, staring straight at her cousin.

“How about Bo writing your name on the asphalt in his own blood?” Finn said. “Demi C.”

Demi paled for a moment. “The killer is framing me?”

Finn raised an eyebrow.

Demi gave him a smug look. “Just as I thought. You don’t have any sort of actual evidence against me. Okay, I’m out of here,” Demi declared.

“You’ll leave when I tell you to leave,” Finn told her sternly. Rising from his chair on the opposite side of the table, he loomed over her.

“Do you have any evidence against me, other than my name written in Bo’s blood and the fact that I had the bad judgment to have been engaged to the jerk for a month?” she asked, looking from her cousin to the other man in the room.

Though it obviously killed him, Finn was forced to say, “No, but—”

Triumph filled her eyes. “There is no ‘but’ here,” Demi retorted. “You have nothing to hold me on, that means I’m free to go. So I’m going.” Her eyes swept over her cousin and Carson. “Gentlemen, it has definitely not been a pleasure.”

And with that, she swept past them to the interrogation room door like a queen taking leave of a pair of disloyal subjects.

Finn shook his head as his cousin stormed out. “Hell of a lot of nerve,” he muttered under his breath.

“As I recall, Demi was never the sweet, retiring type. If she was, she would have never become a bounty hunter,” Carson told him.

Finn blew out a breath. “You have a point.” He walked out of the interrogation room with Carson directly behind him. “Well, check out her alibi, talk to anyone who might have seen her,” the chief said, addressing the victim’s brother. “I’m open to any further suggestions.”

Carson looked at his boss in mild surprise. “I thought you made it clear that I wasn’t allowed to work on my brother’s case.” Although, he thought, since Finn could work on the case in which his cousin was a suspect, he should be allowed to investigate his brother’s murder.

“Technically, you’re not,” Finn said as they walked out into the main squad room. “But I’m not an idiot, Gage. You’re going to work this whether I give you my blessing or not.” He stopped just before his office. “So you have any ideas where to start?”

He’d been thinking about this ever since he’d found Bo’s body. The fact that Bo had written Demi’s name seemed pretty damning to him, but he didn’t want to discount the slim possibility that someone else had killed his brother.

It didn’t warm his heart to have to admit this, but in all fairness, he had to. “Well, it’s common knowledge that Demi wasn’t the only woman Bo romanced and then dumped. I’d say that there were a whole lot of women who’d love to have seen Bo get what was coming to him. And that includes a number of disgruntled husbands and boyfriends, as well. Why don’t we start talking to them?”

That Bo was a playboy wasn’t exactly news to anyone. Finn frowned. “But would any of them actually resort to murder?”

Carson shrugged. Nothing jumped out at him, but this needed closer examination. “Only one way to find out,” he told his boss.

“I agree,” Finn responded. “Make up a list. Meanwhile, I’m going to have some of the boys go over the crime scene with a fine-tooth comb, see if someone missed anything just in case. Although the ground’s undoubtedly been trampled on,” he commented.

Carson nodded grimly. “Nobody ever said that solving crimes was easy. I can swing by my place, pick up Justice,” he said, referring to his K-9 partner. “See if maybe he can pick up a scent.”

“After you put that list together,” Finn told the detective.

Carson headed over to his desk. Given the hour, the squad room was practically empty. “Will do,” he told the chief.

“Oh, and, Gage?” Finn called after him.

Carson turned around, expecting further orders. “Yeah, Chief?”

“I’m really sorry for your loss.”

The words were standard-issue, said over and over again in so many instances that they sounded numbingly routine, yet he felt that Finn really meant them.

“Yeah, me, too,” Carson answered stoically, then added, “Thanks.”

* * *

Carson had just finished making a preliminary list of all the women he could remember Bo having had any romantic encounters with over the last several years when J.D. Edwards, one of the crime scene investigators, came into the squad room. J.D. looked excited.

Temporarily forgetting about the list he’d just compiled, Carson crossed over to the man. J.D., in turn, had just cornered Finn.

“You’re going to want to hear this,” the investigator was saying to Finn.

The chief, seeing Carson, nodded at him, indicating that he join them. Carson was all ears.

“What have you got?” Finn asked.

“Lots,” J.D. answered. “First off, I found this under a wheel near where the body was found.” He held up a sealed plastic evidence bag. The bag contained a necklace with a gold heart charm.

Finn squinted as he looked at the necklace. “That looks familiar.”

“It should be,” the investigator said. “It belongs to—”

“Demi,” Carson said, recognizing the gold heart. “That’s her necklace.”

“And that’s not all,” J.D. informed them. The investigator paused for effect before announcing, “We’ve got a witness who says he saw Demi Colton running in the shadows around 6:45 p.m. near The Pour House.”

“Six forty-five,” Carson repeated. He looked at Finn. “I found Bo’s body at seven.”

J.D. looked rather smug as he said, “Exactly.”

“Who’s the witness?” Finn wanted to know.

“Paulie Gains,” J.D. answered.

Carson frowned. He would have preferred having someone a little more reliable. “Gains is a small-time drug dealer.”

“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have seen her,” Finn pointed out. He looked at J.D. “How did he know it was Demi? It’s dark at that hour.”

J.D. laughed. “Not that many people around here have her color hair, Chief.”

Finn nodded. J.D. was right. “Okay, that puts her at the scene. Looks like we’ve got that evidence Demi kept going on about,” he told Carson, adding, “Time for that bounty hunter to do some heavy-duty explaining if she intends to walk out of here a second time. Let’s go wrestle up an arrest warrant.”

Carson didn’t have to be told twice. He led the way out the door.

Chapter 3

It took a little time, but Carson and his boss finally found a judge who was willing to issue an arrest warrant at that time of night.

“Do me a favor, lose my number,” Judge David Winkler told Finn, closing his front door and going back to his poker game.

Tucking the warrant into his pocket, the chief turned toward Carson. “Let’s go. We’re not waiting until morning,” Finn told the detective as he got back into his vehicle.

Armed with the warrant, for the second time in less than five hours police detectives hurried back to Demi Colton’s small ranch house on the outskirts of town, this time to arrest her.

The house was dark when they arrived.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Carson murmured as he and Finn approached.

Carson knocked on the door. When there was no response, he knocked again, harder this time. Rather than knock a third time, he tried the doorknob. He was surprised to find that the door was unlocked.

Guns drawn, they entered and conducted a quick room-to-room search of the one-story dwelling. There was no one home.

“Damn it.” Finn fumed. “My gut told me to keep her in a holding cell and not let her just walk out of the police station like that.”

“Looks like some of her clothes are gone,” Carson called out to the chief, looking at a cluster of empty hangers in the bounty hunter’s bedroom closet.

“Yeah, well, so is she,” Finn answered from the kitchen. When Carson joined him, Finn held up the note he’d found on the kitchen table.

“What’s that, a confession?” Carson asked, coming around to look at the piece of notepaper.

“Just the opposite,” Finn told him in disgust. “It says ‘I’m innocent.’”

Carson said what he assumed they were both thinking. “Innocent people don’t run.”

The chief surprised him when Finn said, “They might if they think the deck is stacked against them.”

“Is that what you think? That she’s innocent?” Carson questioned, frowning. He supposed that there was a small outside chance that the chief might be right, but as far as he was concerned, he was going to need a lot of convincing.

“I think I want to talk to her again and find out just how her necklace wound up under the wheel of that car,” Finn answered.

In order to talk to the woman again they were going to have to find her. Carson blew out a long breath, thinking.

“Maybe her father knows where she is,” he said, speculating. “Won’t hurt to talk to him. Man might be able to tell us something.”

Although, from what Bo had told him about Demi’s contentious relationship with her father, Carson highly doubted that Rusty Colton would be able to give them any viable insight into his daughter’s whereabouts.

But, Carson speculated, the old man might know something he didn’t know he knew. They had nothing to lose by questioning Rusty Colton.

At least they would be no worse off than they were now, Carson reasoned as they drove over to The Pour House.

* * *

The bar’s door was closed when they got there, but the lights were still on. Carson banged on it with his fist until Rusty Colton came to unlock it. The tall, skinny man had his ever-present mug of beer in his hand as he opened the door.

Bleary brown eyes quickly assessed the situation from beneath unruly reddish-brown hair.

“Sorry, boys, I’m just about to close up for the night,” Rusty said just before Carson pushed his way in. Taking a step back, the bar owner regrouped. “Okay then, I’ll have to limit you to just one round—although I just might see my way clear to staying open a little longer if you two boys are willing to pay extra.”

Small, beady eyes shifted from the chief to the detective. Rusty waited in anticipation to have his palm greased.

He waited in vain.

“We’re not here to drink, Mr. Colton,” Carson told the man coldly.

He’d never cared for the owner of The Pour House. There was something palatably unsavory about Rusty Colton. Carson had no doubt that the man would sell his own mother if he needed the money.

Annoyed, Rusty gestured toward the door. “Well then, ‘gentlemen,’ I need to get back to closing up my establishment,” he told them.

Neither of the men moved toward the door.

“We were wondering if you could tell us where your daughter is, Rusty,” Finn asked in a voice that said he wasn’t about to be trifled with. “Demi.”

Rusty snorted. “She’s a grown woman, Finn. She comes and goes as she pleases. Ungrateful whelp never did mind me,” he said, banging down his empty mug on the counter. “I can’t be expected to keep track of her.”

Carson moved in a little closer to the man. He wasn’t that much taller than Rusty, but he was a great deal more muscular and therefore more intimidating. “You keep track of everything when it suits you. Now, let’s try this again,” he said evenly. “Where’s Demi?”

“Well, if you must know,” Rusty said, smugly drawing out each word, “she’s gone. Long gone. I think you two apes probably scared her and she hightailed it out of here.”

That wasn’t good enough for him. “What makes you so sure?” Carson wanted to know. “Did she tell you?”

“Didn’t have to,” Rusty answered, pushing together several glasses on the counter in a half-hearted attempt to clean up. “I stopped by her place during my evening break—I leave Amos in charge then. He’s dumb, but nobody’s going to try to skip out on paying that big ox,” he informed the two men at the bar proudly.

“Get back to the point,” Finn ordered. “You stopped by Demi’s place and then what?”

“Well, she wasn’t home so I decided to dip into that big wad of cash she keeps under her mattress like I do every now and then—only when I need a little something to get me through to the end of the month,” Rusty admitted without a drop of embarrassment.

“Except that I couldn’t this time,” he complained. “It was gone. Guess the little witch must have taken it and hightailed it out of here.” He looked quite put out by his youngest daughter’s action. “Didn’t even think to leave me any, my own daughter,” he complained.

Carson exchanged looks with his boss. They weren’t going to get anything more out of Rusty.

“Let us know if she comes back,” Finn told the man as he walked out.

Rusty grunted something in response, but it was unintelligible and they’d already lost too much time, Carson reasoned, following the chief out.

“Warrant’s not going to do us any good right now,” Carson bit out, handing the paper back to Finn.

“I’ll put out an APB on her,” Finn said, striding back to his vehicle. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. In the meantime, have the team look into those people whose names you wrote down.”

Frustrated, Carson nodded as he got into the car. For now, at least it was a place to start.

* * *

Early the following morning, Carson stood by as the chief called a staff meeting of all the K-9 cops and gave them instructions. Articles of Demi’s clothing, got from her house, were handed out in order to give the dogs a scent to track.

Others on the force got busy looking into Bo’s past. The latter included interviewing women Bo had seen, exploring the various gambling debts he ran up and, since Bo had been an in-demand dog breeder who’d trained and sold dogs to people and organizations besides the police department, Carson started conducting a second background check on those people. Maybe there was a disgruntled client out for revenge and the situation had got out of hand for some reason.

It was time-consuming and grueling and it all ultimately led nowhere.

* * *

Serena Colton absolutely refused to buy into all the lurid hype surrounding her cousin Demi.

Here, tucked away in her private wing of her parents’ vast, prosperous Double C Ranch, the story of Bo Gage’s murder and how Demi C was found written in Gage’s own blood beside his body sounded like the fanciful imaginings of a second-rate scriptwriter. Except that Bo Gage was found murdered and Demi’s name did appear to be written next to his body.

“I don’t believe it,” Serena said to her three-month-old daughter, who was dozing in her arms. “There’s got to be another explanation for this, Lora. Sure, Demi has her shortcomings,” she readily admitted, “but she’s not a murderer.”

Serena sighed, gently rocking her daughter as she restlessly paced around the very large bedroom. “You take all the time in the world growing up, Lora, you hear me? Stay little for as long as you can. And I’ll do my part. I won’t let anything like this ever touch you,” she whispered to the sleeping child. “I’ll keep you safe, little one. I promise.”

As if to challenge the promise she had just made to her daughter, the sound of approaching sirens pierced the night air.

The sirens grew progressively louder, coming closer.

Worried, Serena moved to the window facing the front of the house and looked out. She was just in time to see the headlights from two police vehicles approaching the house—mansion, really—where she lived with her parents and younger sister, Valeria.

“What could the police possibly want here, and at this hour?” Serena murmured under her breath. Her brother Finn was the police chief and he wouldn’t be coming here like this unless there was something very, very wrong—would he? She couldn’t help wondering.

As if in response, Lora stirred in her arms. But mercifully, the baby went on sleeping. Although how she didn’t wake up with all this noise was a complete mystery to Serena. The sirens had gone silent, but in their wake came the loud, urgent pounding of a fist against the front door.

Her heart was instantly in her throat. The next second, she heard her parents and Valeria all rushing down the stairs to answer the door.

Still holding her daughter in her arms, Serena left her room and went to the landing, hoping to find what was going on from the shelter of the second floor.

She was just in time to see her father throw open the front door. Not surprisingly, Judson Colton looked furious. The tall, strapping ranch owner wasn’t accustomed to being treated in this sort of manner.

“Just what is the meaning of all this noise?” Judson Colton demanded even before he had the door opened all the way. When he saw that his own son was responsible for all this uproar, he only became angrier. “Finn! How dare you come pounding on our door in the middle of the night and wake us up like this?” he shouted. “You’re not only disturbing me, you’re disturbing your stepmother and your sisters as well, not to mention that you’re doing the unforgivable and spooking the horses!”

Lightning all but flashed from the man’s eyes as he glared at his son and the three men Finn had brought with him. Especially since one of them was holding on to a large German shepherd.

Judson eyed the dog warily. “We raised you better than this, boy,” he snapped at Finn indignantly.

“I’m sorry if you’re offended,” Finn told his father formally. “But this is police business. Murder isn’t polite,” he added grimly. He and his men had been at this all day. It was nighttime now and he was too tired to treat his father and stepmother with kid gloves.

“Murder?” Joanelle Colton cried, pressing her well-manicured hand against her chest as if trying to hold a heart attack at bay. “This isn’t about that man who was found dead outside of that horrid bar, is it?” Finn’s stepmother looked from him to Carson. “What does any of that awful business have to do with us, Finn?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Finn answered patiently.

Serena had a feeling she knew exactly why they were here.

* * *

Carson glanced at the chief. Because this was Finn’s family, he needed to absent himself from the immediate search of the house. If there was anything—or anyone—to be found, the chief wouldn’t want that to be compromised in a court of law.

“Dan, Jack and I’ll search the property,” Finn told his father and stepmother. “Detective Gage is going to search the house.” He nodded at Carson.

“Search the house?” Joanelle echoed in stunned disbelief. “Search the house for what?” she added indignantly.

But Finn and the two officers he had brought with him had already left the house to start their search.

Taking his cue, Carson, warrant in hand, quickly hurried up the stairs with Justice leading the way.

“Search the house for what?” Judson repeated more forcefully as he followed Carson and his K-9.

“Demi Colton or any sign of her, sir,” Carson answered just as he and Justice came to the landing.

He stopped dead when he saw Serena standing there, holding her baby in her arms. At that moment, totally against his will, he was transported to another time and place in his life. He was back in the hospital hallway where a solemn-faced doctor was telling him that he had done everything he could to save her, but Lisa, his girlfriend, had just died giving birth to their daughter. A daughter who wound up dying the following day.

Carson felt an ache form in the pit of his stomach, threatening to consume him even as it undid him.

He struggled to bury the memory again and regain control over himself, just as he had done when his loss had occurred. He’d learned that 99 percent of surviving was just remembering to breathe and put one foot in front of the other.

His voice was gruff and cold as he told the woman standing there, “If you’re hiding Demi Colton, now is the time for you to speak up.”

On the stairs behind him, Judson cried, “Demi Colton?” He almost laughed out loud at the detective who worked for his son. “You’re looking for Demi here? Hell, you look all you want, but I can tell you that you’re wasting your time. You won’t find that woman here.”

“If you don’t mind, sir,” Carson answered stiffly, “I’d like to check for myself.”

“Then go ahead and do it, but do it quickly,” Finn’s father warned. “And see that you don’t disturb my daughters any more than you already have. Do I make myself clear, boy?”

“I’d prefer ‘Detective,’” Carson replied. Judson Colton merely glared, then turned and went back downstairs.

Finn’s stepmother had another sort of complaint to register with him. “Must you bring that mangy creature into my house?” She looked disdainfully at Justice. The canine was straining at his leash.

“Justice is part of the police department, ma’am, same as the rest of us,” Carson informed the woman without missing a step.

Rather than cringing or stepping aside, he saw a slight smile grace Serena Colton’s lips as she looked down at Justice.

“My father’s right, you know. You’re wasting your time,” Serena told him. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday. Demi’s not here.”

“I need to verify that for myself,” Carson told her shortly. “Why don’t you go downstairs and wait with the rest of your family?” he suggested.

Carson could feel Judson Colton watching his every move.

“I’d rather stay up here, thank you,” Serena answered. “She didn’t do it, you know,” she told Carson. “Demi’s not capable of killing anyone.”

Serena was entitled to her opinion, he thought, even though it was naive. “You’d be surprised what people are capable of if they’re pushed hard enough,” Carson told her.

“There is a limit,” Serena insisted.

“If you say so,” he replied, complete disinterest in his voice.

His attention was focused on Justice who was moving around Serena’s room with growing agitation. Suddenly, Justice became alert and ran up to the walk-in closet. He began pawing at the door.

Carson looked over his shoulder at Serena, disappointment clearly registering on his face. “Not here, huh?”

“No, she’s not,” Serena insisted, crossing the room to her closet.

Carson waved her back. Taking out his weapon, he pointed it at the closet door and then threw it open. Justice ran in and immediately nosed the hot-pink sweater on the closet floor. The German shepherd moved the sweater over toward his master.

Picking it up, Carson held the sweater aloft and looked accusingly at Serena.

“I said I saw her yesterday,” Serena pointed out. “Demi must have dropped her sweater here when I wasn’t paying attention. I never said she wasn’t here yesterday, only that she’s not here now—and she isn’t,” Serena insisted.

Drawn by all the commotion and the headlights from the police vehicles when they drove to the house, Serena’s brother Anders, who lived in a cabin on the property and worked as the Double C foreman, came into his sister’s bedroom.

“Serena’s right. Demi was here at the house yesterday afternoon, but she left and she hasn’t been back since. Trust me, I can’t abide that little bounty hunter, and I’d tell you if she was here. But she’s not,” Anders said with finality.

“And neither one of you would know where she went or might consider going if she was running from the police?” Carson pressed.

Serena and her brother answered his question in unison.

“No.”

Chapter 4

“Here.” Carson shoved the hot-pink sweater over to Anders. “Take this and put it somewhere, will you? The scent is throwing my dog off.”

Anders frowned at the sweater Carson had just shoved into his hand. “Sorry. Hot pink’s not my color.”

Carson wasn’t amused by the foreman’s dry wit, not when he was trying to find his brother’s killer.

“Just get rid of it for now. As long as that’s around, Justice can’t home in on anything else Demi might have left behind that could wind up proving useful.”

Muttering something about not being an errand boy under his breath and looking none too happy about having Carson on the premises, Anders took the sweater and marched out of Serena’s suite. Wadding the sweater up, he tossed it into the linen closet that was down the hall and shut the door.

Carson looked back at his dog. Now that the offending piece of clothing was gone, Justice became totally docile.

“C’mon, boy, keep on looking,” he urged his German shepherd partner. “Seek!”

Responding to the command, Justice quickly covered the remainder of the upper floor, moving from one area to another, but nothing seemed to spark a reaction from the dog. Nothing caused him to behave as if he had detected any telltale scent that indicated that the woman he was hunting was hiding somewhere on the floor or had even left anything else behind.

Serena kept her distance but still followed the detective, shadowing him step for step. For now, Lora was cooperating and went on dozing.

Coming back through the adjacent nursery, Carson made his way into Serena’s oversize bedroom. His eyes met hers.

“See, I told you she wasn’t here,” Serena told him. When his face remained totally impassive, she heard herself insisting. “You’re looking for the wrong person, Detective. Demi didn’t kill Bo. There’s got to be some kind of mistake.”

About to leave her suite and go back downstairs, Carson stopped abruptly. Justice skidded to a stop next to him.

“My brother’s dead. He wrote Demi’s name in his own blood on the asphalt right above his head. Her necklace was found at the crime scene, and there’s a witness who said he saw Demi running away from the area some fifteen minutes before Bo’s body was found in the parking lot. From what I can see, the only mistake here was made by Demi,” he informed Serena curtly, doing his best to hold his anger in check.

Part of the anger he was experiencing was because of the crime itself and part of it was due to the fact that having seen Serena holding her baby like that when he’d first entered had stirred up painful memories for him, memories he wanted to leave buried.

Serena shook her head, refusing to buy into the scenario that Demi had killed her ex-boyfriend in some sort of a fit of misguided jealousy. That was not the Demi she had come to know.

“Look,” she began, trying to talk some sense into the detective, “I admit that it looks bad right now—”

Carson barely managed to keep a dismissive oath from escaping his lips.

Serena didn’t seem to notice as she forged on. “There’s no way that the Demi Colton I know is a killer. Yes, she has a temper, but she wouldn’t kill anyone, especially not her ex-boyfriend.”

Carson looked at her sharply. What wasn’t she telling him?

“Why?” he questioned.

Did Demi’s cousin know something that he didn’t know, or was she just being protective of the other woman? Was it simply a matter of solidarity between women, or whatever it was called, or was there something more to Serena’s certainty, because she did look pretty certain?

Serena began to say something else, then stopped herself at the last moment, saying only, “Because she just wouldn’t, that’s all.”

Carson looked at the chief’s sister closely. She knew something. Something she wasn’t telling him, he thought. His gut was telling him that he was right. But he couldn’t exactly browbeat her into admitting what she was trying to hide.

He was just going to have to keep an eye on the chief’s sister, he decided.

Just then, the baby began to fuss.

“Shh.” Serena soothed her daughter. She started rocking the child, doing her best to lull Lora back to sleep.

But Lora wouldn’t settle down. The fussing became louder.

Glancing up, Serena was going to excuse herself when she saw the strange look on the detective’s face. In her estimation he looked to be in some sort of pain or distress. Sympathy instantly stirred within her. She hated seeing pain of any kind.

She had to be losing her mind, feeling sympathy for a man who seemed so bent on arresting her cousin. It was obvious that he had already convicted Demi without a trial and looked more than willing to drag Demi to jail.

However, despite all this, for some strange reason, she was moved by the underlying distress she saw in his eyes.

“Is something wrong, Detective Gage?” She waited for him to respond, but he didn’t seem to hear her despite their close proximity. “Detective Gage?” she said more loudly.

Suddenly realizing that she was talking to him, Carson looked at the chief’s sister. She seemed to be waiting for him to respond to something she’d obviously said.

“What?” he all but snapped.

The man was in no danger of winning a congeniality award, Serena thought. “I asked you if something was wrong.”

Damn it, Carson upbraided himself, he was going to have to work on his poker face. “You mean other than the obvious?”

Serena mentally threw up her hands. This was hopeless. Why did she even care if something was bothering this boorish man who had come stomping into her house, disrupting everyone without displaying so much as an iota of remorse that he was doing it. Never mind that her brother had led this invasion into her parents’ home, she felt better blaming the detective for this than blaming Finn.

“Never mind,” she told Carson, changing topics. “I have to see to my baby, if it’s all right with you,” she said, a mild touch of sarcasm breaking through.

Rather than say anything in response, Carson just waved her back to her quarters.

Serena’s voice was fairly dripping with ice as she said, “Thank you.”

With that she turned on her bare heel to walk back into her suite.

“Let’s go, Justice,” Carson said to the dog, steering the animal toward the stairs.

Keeping a tight hold on the dog’s leash, Carson walked out of the house quickly, a man doing his best to outrun memories he found far too painful to coexist with.

Once outside, he saw the other members of the K-9 team. Not wanting to be faced with unnecessary questions, he forced himself to relax just a little.

“Anything?” Carson asked the man closest to him, Jim Kline.

Jim, paired with a jet-black German shepherd whimsically named Snow, shook his head. “If that woman’s anywhere on the property, she’s crawled down into a gopher hole and pulled the hole down after her,” the man answered him.

Finn came over to join them. Carson noticed that the chief looked as disappointed as he felt.

“Okay, men, everybody back to the station. We’re calling it a night and getting a fresh start in the morning.” The chief glanced over in his direction. “You, too, Gage,” he ordered, obviously expecting an argument from Carson.

And he got it. “I’m not tired, Chief,” Carson protested, ready to keep going.

“Good for you,” Finn said sarcastically. “Maybe when you get a chance, you can tell the rest of us what kind of vitamins you’re on. But for now, I’m still the chief, and I still call the shots. We’re going back to the station, end of discussion,” Finn repeated, this time more forcefully. He left absolutely no room for even so much as a sliver of an argument.

Resigned, Carson crossed over to his vehicle and opened the rear door to let Justice in. Shutting the door again, he opened the driver’s side and got into the car himself.

He felt all wound up. Talking to Serena Colton while she was wearing that frilly, flimsy nightgown beneath a robe that wouldn’t stay closed hadn’t exactly helped his state of mind, either.

Carson shut the image out. It only got in the way of his thoughts. And despite being dragged through the wringer physically and emotionally, he sincerely doubted he was going to get any sleep tonight.

Biting off an oath, Carson started up his car and headed toward the police station.

* * *

Serena could tell that the rest of her family was still up. From the sound of the raised, angry voices wafting up the stairs, they were going on about this sudden, unexpected turn of events and how furious her father and mother were that Finn hadn’t seen his way to leaving them out of this investigation strictly on the strength of the fact that they were his family.

Instead, Finn had actually treated them like he would anyone else, rousing them out of their beds just because he felt it was his duty to go over the entire grounds, looking for a woman her parents felt had no business being on the family ranch in the first place.

Serena let them go on venting, having absolutely no desire to get involved by sticking up for Finn. Her parents were going to carry on like this no matter what she said.

Besides, right now her main duty was to her daughter. The ongoing commotion had eventually agitated Lora, and she wanted to get the baby to fall back to sleep.

The corners of her mouth curved in an ironic smile as she looked down at the infant in her arms. Funny how a little being who hadn’t even existed a short three months ago had so quickly become the very center of her universe. The very center of her heart.

Since the very first moment Lora had drawn breath, Serena felt obliged to protect the baby and care for her, doing everything in her power to make the world around Lora as safe and inviting for the infant as was humanly possible.

These last few months, her focus had been strictly and entirely on Lora. She had long since divorced her mind from any and all thoughts that even remotely had anything to do with Lora’s conception or the man who had so cavalierly—and unwittingly—fathered her.

It had all been one huge mistake.

She had met Mark, whose last name she never learned, at a horse auction. The atmosphere at the auction had been fast paced and extremely charged thanks to all the large amounts of money that were changing hands.

Representing the Double C Ranch and caught up in the excitement, Serena had broken all her own rules that day—and that night. She had allowed the devastatingly handsome, charming stranger bidding next to her to wine and dine her and somewhere amid the champagne-filled evening, they had wound up going back to her sinfully overpriced hotel room where they had made extremely passionate love. Exhausted from the activity and the alcohol, she had fallen asleep after that.

She had woken up suddenly in the middle of the night. When she did, Serena found herself alone, a broken condom on the floor bearing testimony to her drastically out-of-character misstep. Managing to pull herself together and taking stock of the situation, she discovered that the money in her wallet as well as her credit cards were gone, along with her lover.

Canceling the cards immediately, she still wasn’t fast enough to get ahead of the damage. Her one-night stand had cost her several thousand dollars, racked up in the space of what she found out was an hour. The man worked fast.

It was a very bitter pill for her to swallow, but she felt that there was an upside to it. She’d learned a valuable lesson from that one night and swore never to put herself in that sort of stupid situation again. Never to blindly trust anyone again.

Moreover, she made herself a promise that she was through with men and that she was going to devote herself strictly to raising horses, something she was good at and understood.

That was what she planned.

Life, however, she discovered, had other plans for her. Her first and only one-night stand had yielded a completely unplanned by-product.

She’d got pregnant.

That had thrown her entire world out of kilter. It took Serena a while to gather her courage together to break the news to her parents. That turned out to be one of the worst experiences of her life. They reacted exactly as she had feared that they would. Her father had railed at her, absolutely furious that she had got herself in this sort of “situation,” while her mother, an incredible snob from the day she was born, carried on about the shame she had brought on the family.

Joanelle accused her of being no better than her trashy relatives who hailed from the two lesser branches of the family. The only ones in the family who were there for her and gave her their support were her brothers, Finn and Anders.

She also received support from a very unlikely quarter. Her cousin Demi Colton. She and Demi had never been really friendly, given the branches of the family they came from. But Demi had done her a favor involving one of the ranch hands about a year ago. That had earned her cousin a soft spot in Serena’s heart.

And then, when she found herself pregnant, with her parents pushing for her to “eliminate” her “shame,” it was Demi, surprisingly enough, who had come out on her side. Demi told her that she should do whatever she felt she should as long as that decision ultimately meant that she was being true to herself.

At that point, Serena did some very deep soul-searching. Ultimately, she had decided to have her baby. Seeing that her mind was made up, her brothers gave her their full support. However, it was Demi she found herself turning toward and talking with when times got rough.

She wasn’t ordinarily the type who needed constant bolstering and reinforcement, but having Demi to talk to, however sporadically, wound up making a world of difference to her. Serena truly believed that it was what had kept her sane during the low points of this new experience she found herself going through.

Because Demi had been good to her when she didn’t need to be, Serena wasn’t about to turn her back on her cousin just because a tall, good-looking detective wanted to play judge, jury and executioner when it came to her cousin. Demi had obviously fled the area without ever coming to her, but if she had, if Demi had come to her and asked for money or a place to hide, she would have never hesitated in either case.

She believed that Demi was entitled to a fair shake. Most of all, she believed in Demi.

“I wish you would have come to me,” she whispered into the darkness. “I wish you would have let me help you. You shouldn’t be alone like this. Not now. Especially with the police department after you.”

Serena sighed, feeling helpless and desperately wanting to do something to negate that.

Lora began making a noise, her little lips suddenly moving against her shoulder. She was clearly hunting for something.

Three months “on the job” as a mother had taught Serena exactly what her daughter was after.

“You want to eat, don’t you?” she said.

Walking over to the rocking chair that Anders had made for her with his own hands, she sat down. Holding Lora against her with one arm, she shrugged out of the top of her nightclothes and pressed the infant to her breast. Lora began feeding instantly.

“Last time, little one,” Serena promised, stroking the infant’s silky hair. “I’m starting you on a bottle first thing tomorrow morning. Mama’s got to get back to doing her job, sweetheart. Nobody’s going to do it for her,” she told the little person in her arms.

Rocking slowly, Serena smiled to herself. She was looking forward to tomorrow, to getting back to feeling productive. But for now, she savored this very possibly last intimate moment of bonding with her infant daughter.

Chapter 5

As he’d predicted, Carson didn’t get very much sleep that night. His brain was too wired, too consumed with reviewing all the details surrounding his brother’s murder. There was more than a little bit of guilt involved, as well. He hadn’t wanted to go to Bo’s bachelor party to begin with, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that if he had only got to it a little earlier, he might have been there in time to prevent his brother’s murder from ever happening.

Carson finally wound up dozing off somewhere between two thirty and three in the morning. At least he assumed he’d dozed off because the next thing he knew, he felt hot air on his face. The sensation blended in with a fragment of a dream he was having, something to do with walking through the desert, trying to make his way home with the hot sun beating down on him. Except that he’d lost his way and didn’t know just where home actually was.

Waking up with a start, he found Justice looming right over him. The hot wind turned out to be the dog’s hot breath. Justice’s face was just inches away from his.

Scrambling up into a sitting position, Carson dragged a hand through the unruly thatch of dark hair that was falling into his eyes.

“What is it, boy?” he asked groggily. “Did you solve the crime and couldn’t wait to let me know?” Blinking, he looked at the clock on his nightstand. It was a little past six in the morning. How had that happened? “Or are you hungry, and you’re trying to wake me up to get you breakfast?”

In response, the four-footed black-and-tan active member of the K-9 police department nudged him with his nose.

“I guessed it, huh?” Carson asked, swinging his legs off his rumpled double bed.

Except for the fact that he had pulled off his boots last night, he was still dressed in the same clothes he’d had on yesterday. He really hadn’t thought he was going to be able to fall asleep at all so in his estimation there had been no point in changing out of them and getting ready for bed.

Carson didn’t remember collapsing, facedown, on his bed. He supposed the nonstop pace of the last two days, ever since he’d come across Bo’s body in The Pour House parking lot had finally caught up with him.

He blinked several times to get the sleep out of his eyes and focus as he made his way through the condo into his utilitarian kitchen.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Carson said to the furry shadow behind him. “This whole place could fit into a corner of Serena Colton’s suite.”

Now, why had that even come up in his haze-filled mind, he asked himself.

Just then another piece of his fragmented dream came back to him. He realized that he’d been trying to cross that desert in order to get back home to Serena.

Home to Serena?

Where the hell had that come from?

He hardly knew the woman. What was his subconscious trying to tell him? It wasn’t as if he was in the habit of dreaming about women. When he came right down to it, he hardly ever dreamed at all.

He came to the conclusion that something had to be bothering him about his less than successful interview with Serena last night. At the moment, he just couldn’t put his finger on what.

Forget about it for now, he ordered himself. He had something more immediate demanding his attention—and it weighed a little over eighty pounds.

“Okay, Justice. What’ll it be? Filet mignon? Lobster? Dog food?” Carson asked, holding the pantry doors open and peering inside at the items on the shelves. “Dog food, it is,” he agreed, mentally answering for the dog beside him.

As he took out a large can, Justice came to attention. The canine was watching closely where the can’s contents would wind up.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to poach your breakfast,” Carson told the dog. “I’m not that hungry.”

To be honest, he wasn’t hungry at all. But given his present state, he desperately needed a cup of coffee. His brain felt as if it had been wrapped up in cotton and he needed that jolt that his first cup of coffee in the morning brought in order to launch him into his day.

Emptying the dog food into Justice’s oversize dish, Carson stepped out of the dog’s way as his K-9 partner immediately began to inhale his food. Carson tossed the empty can into the garbage pail in the cabinet beneath his sink and turned his attention to the coffee maker.

He bit off a few choice words. He’d forgotten to program the coffee maker to have coffee waiting for him this morning. Moving over to the refrigerator, he took out the half-empty can of ground coffee and proceeded to make his usual cup of coffee. The end product, thick and rich, was always something that could have easily doubled for the material that was used to repave asphalt. It was just the way he liked it.

Time seemed to move at an incredibly lethargic pace as Carson waited for the coffee to brew and the coffee maker to give off the three high-pitched beeps, signaling that the job was done.

The timer barely finished sounding off before he poured the incredibly thick, sludge-like liquid into his mug. Holding the mug with two hands like a child who had just learned how to drink out of a cup for the first time, Carson quickly consumed the product of his efforts. He drank nonstop until he had managed to drain the mug of its very last drop.

Putting the mug down, Carson sighed as he sat back in his chair. He could almost feel the coffee working its way through his veins, waking up every single blood vessel it passed through with a start.

The fuzziness was definitely gone.

Getting up to his feet, he looked in Justice’s direction. The German shepherd had inhaled every last bit of what he’d put into the dog’s dish. Carson credited the dog with having the same frame of mind that he did. Justice had needed something to jump-start his day.

“Okay, give me five minutes to shower and change so we can hit the road and get started,” he told his furry partner.

As if concurring with what Carson had just said, Justice barked.

Once.

True to his word, Carson was in and out of the shower in less time than it took to think about it. Going to his closet, he found Justice lying on the bedroom floor, waiting for him.

“Don’t start nagging me,” he told the dog. “I’m almost ready.” When the dog barked at him a couple of times in response, Carson said, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn’t shave.” As if in acknowledgement, he ran his hand over what was now beyond a dark five-o’clock shadow. It could have doubled as the inside of an abyss at midnight. “I’ll do it tomorrow. There’s nobody I’m trying to impress anyway,” he added, pulling on a pair of jeans, followed by his boots.

He paired the jeans with a black pullover then put on his go-to navy sports jacket. As a detective, he was supposed to make an effort to dress in more subdued, businesslike attire. This was his effort, he thought drolly.

Adjusting his weapon in its holster, he said, “Okay, Justice, let’s roll.”

* * *

He stopped by the precinct first to see if any headway had been made in the investigation into his brother’s murder. Specifically, if there had been any sightings of Demi Colton overnight.

There hadn’t been.

When he walked into the squad room, he found that Finn was in the process of handing out the names of people he wanted interviewed in connection with Bo’s murder. Names from the list he had compiled for the chief, Carson thought.

“Just in time,” Finn said when he saw Carson coming in. “I was beginning to think that maybe you’d decided to take a couple of days off like I suggested.”

The chief knew him better than that, Carson thought. “Not until we catch Demi.”

When he saw the chief shifting, as if he was uncomfortable, it made him wonder what was up.

“Yeah, well, on the outside chance that it turns out Demi didn’t kill Bo, we do need to look into other possibilities. Like whether there might be anyone else out there with a grudge against your brother strong enough to want to kill him.”

The way he saw it, even thought he had compiled the list for Finn, shifting attention away from Demi would be a waste of time and manpower.

“Bo didn’t write anyone else’s name in his own blood,” Carson pointed out in a steely voice. “He wrote Demi’s.”

Finn threw another theory out there. “Maybe there was something else he was trying to tell us other than the name of his killer.”

Carson frowned. Finn was stonewalling. Everyone knew that things between the Colton and Gage families weren’t exactly warm and toasty. There was a feud between the two families that went back a long ways, and it flared up often.

Was that why Finn seemed so intent on running down so-called “other” leads rather than going after a member of his own extended family? Finn was a good police chief, but his behavior seemed very suspicious to Carson.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Finn said in response to the look he saw descending over Carson’s face. “You think I’m trying to protect Demi. I’m not. I’m the police chief of this county. I don’t put family above the law. Hell, you were there. I roused my own family out of bed to conduct a search for Demi.

“But I’m not about to bend over backward and behave like someone’s puppet just to prove to everyone that I won’t let my sense of family get in the way of my doing my job. However, just because half the force is out for blood, doesn’t mean I’m going to put blinders on and pretend there might not be anyone else out there who stood to gain something from your brother’s death.”

“Like what?” Carson wanted to know.

“Well, we won’t know unless we look into it, will we?” Finn answered. “Now, aside from all those girlfriends your brother was always accumulating before he got engaged to Hayley, he was married once before, wasn’t he?”

Carson nodded. “Yeah, to Darby Gage,” he told the chief, adding, “They’ve been divorced for over two years.”

“Which one of them asked for the divorce?” Finn wanted to know.

He didn’t have to try to remember in order to answer. “Darby did.”

Finn was all ears. “Why?”

A half, rather mirthless smile curved Carson’s mouth. Just because he wanted to find Bo’s killer didn’t mean that he had approved of his brother’s fast-and-loose lifestyle.

“Seems that Darby didn’t care for the fact that Bo couldn’t stop seeing other women even though they were married.” He knew how that had to sound to Finn. “I’m not making any excuses for Bo,” Carson told the chief. “He was an alley cat. Always had been. And personally, in the end, I think that Darby was glad to be rid of him.”

“Maybe she decided she wanted to be really rid of him,” Finn countered. “In any case, I want you to go talk to the ex-wife. Find out if she has an alibi for the time your brother was murdered.”

He should have seen that coming. “Okay, will do,” Carson told him. “You heard the man, Justice,” he said to the dog. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Since her divorce from Bo Gage two years ago, Darby Gage had been forced to stitch together a number of part-time jobs just to make ends meet.

Carson found her at the diner where she worked the morning shift as a waitress.

It might have been his imagination, but his ex-sister-in-law seemed to tense up when she saw him coming into the diner.

Putting on a cheerful face, Darby walked up to him with a menu and said, “Take a seat, Detective Gage. We’ve still got a few empty tables to choose from.”

Carson picked a table that was off to one side. Parking Justice there, he sat down.

“What can I get you?” Darby asked.

He could see that the cheerfulness was forced. It probably unnerved her to see him here, he guessed. “Answers,” he told his ex-sister-in-law.

Her blue eyes swept over him. In his estimation, she looked nervous. She gave up all pretense of cheerfulness. “Is this about Bo?”

His eyes never left her face. His gut told him that she didn’t have anything to do with Bo’s murder, but he was here so he might as well do his job.

“Yes.”

Darby sighed as she shook her head. “I don’t know what I can tell you.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Carson told her.

He’d found that saying something like that took the reins away from the person he was interviewing and put them back into his hands.

Carson kept one eye on Justice, watching for any sort of a telltale reaction on the dog’s part. All the German shepherds on the K-9 force were initially bred and then trained by Bo or one of the trainers employed at Red Ridge K-9 Training Center. That was actually where his brother had met Hayley, who was one of the trainers.

Bo had made his living breeding the dogs for the police department as well as for other clients. Darby had been part of that business until the divorce and even now, one of her part-time jobs was cleaning the kennels at the training center.

In Carson’s experience, German shepherds were exceedingly sensitive when it came to certain character traits and if Darby had somehow been involved in Bo’s murder, maybe the dog would pick up on that.

But Justice’s response to his former trainer’s ex seemed favorable. So much so that when Darby absently stroked the top of the dog’s head, Justice wagged his tail.

Taking that into account, Carson still pushed on. “Where were you around 6:30 p.m. the night Bo was killed?” he asked Darby. Then, realizing the waitress might play dumb about the date, he started to add, “That was on—”

“I know when Bo was killed,” Darby said, cutting him off. “I was just leaving the kennels after cleaning up at the training center.”

Technically, he already knew that because he had got her schedule by calling the places where she worked. But he wanted to hear what she had to say. “Anyone see you?”

“Other than the dogs?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell by Darby’s expression if she was being sarcastic or just weary. Given that Bo had put her through the wringer and was the reason why she had to hold down all these various jobs just to keep a roof over her head, for now he let the remark slide.

“Yes, other than the dogs.”

She thought for a moment. “I think one of the handlers, Jessop, was still there. He might have seen me. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d need an alibi so I didn’t make a point of having someone see me leave.” And then she suddenly remembered. “There’s a time card I punched out. That should be proof enough for you.”

He knew that there were ways to manipulate a time card. But since, in his opinion, Darby wasn’t the type who could even hurt a fly, he nodded and said, “Yes, it should.” Getting up from the table, he dug into his pocket and took out five dollars. He put it down on the table. “Thanks for your time, Darby. I’ll get back to you if I have any other questions.”

Darby picked up the five dollar bill and held it up for him to take back. “You can’t leave a big tip, you didn’t buy anything,” she pointed out.

Carson made no attempt to take the money from her. “I took up your time,” Carson answered.

With that he and Justice left the diner.

Chapter 6

Bo hadn’t done right by Darby.

That was the thought that was preying on Carson’s mind as he drove away from the diner.

They might have been brothers, but he was aware of all of Bo’s shortcomings. His older brother had always been the typical playboy: self-centered and careless with anyone else’s feelings. He was making good money with his German shepherd–breeding service and could have seen to it that Darby had got a better settlement in the divorce—at least enough so that she wasn’t forced to take on so many part-time, menial jobs in order to keep a roof over her head.

But Bo’s lawyer had been a good deal sharper than the lawyer Darby had been able to afford to represent her, so Bo had wound up keeping almost everything. He got the house, the business and most of the bank accounts, while Darby had clearly got the very short end of the stick.

In his opinion, the ultimate humiliation was when Bo had tossed her that crumb by letting her earn extra money cleaning out the kennels at his breeding operation.

If his brother hadn’t written Demi C on the pavement with his blood, Carson might have looked a little more closely at Darby as a possible suspect in Bo’s murder. He certainly couldn’t have blamed her for being bitter about the treatment she’d received at Bo’s hands both before and after the divorce.

But Darby hadn’t seemed bitter to him, just closed off. And decidedly weary.

She probably wasn’t getting enough sleep, given the various conflicting schedules of the jobs she held down, Carson thought.

“What do you think, Justice?” Carson asked the dog riding in the passenger seat beside him. “You think Darby might have got fed up and decided to teach Bo a lesson for treating her so shabbily?”

Justice barked in response to hearing his name and Carson laughed.

“That’s what I thought. You like her, don’t you, boy? Back to Demi, then,” Carson agreed.

About to drive back to the station, Carson abruptly changed his mind as well as his direction.

He was heading back to the Double C Ranch.

Something had been bothering him about Serena Colton’s testimony. Why was she so convinced that Demi hadn’t killed his brother despite what could be considered a deathbed testimony? Why was she so certain that her cousin wasn’t capable of killing someone even though everyone knew the bounty hunter had a bad temper.

He’d once seen Demi take down a man at The Pour House who was twice her size and obviously stronger than she was. Thin and wiry, the woman was nonetheless a virtual powerhouse. Ever since that day, he’d regarded Demi as being rather lethal.

Given that and her unpredictable temper, he’d never thought it was a good idea for his brother to have taken up with her. Demi Colton wasn’t the type of woman to put up with being treated the way Bo obviously treated women he was no longer interested in seeing exclusively.

Carson couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something that Serena had held back last night when he’d questioned her.

He had no idea if that “something” was significant or inconsequential, but he knew it was going to keep eating away at him until he found out exactly what it was that Serena wasn’t telling him. He might as well get this out of the way before he followed up on some of Bo’s business dealings and talked to the women he’d romanced and discarded.

* * *

When he arrived at the Double C mansion, Carson debated leaving Justice in his car when he went in. After all, it was January and if he left the windows partially opened, the dog would be all right. However, he regarded Justice as his partner and under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have left his partner just sitting in the car, twiddling his thumbs while he went in to reinterview someone connected to a case.

“You’re on your best behavior, boy,” he instructed, taking the leash as Justice jumped down out of the passenger seat.

Alma, the housekeeper who opened the front door when he rang the bell, looked far from happy to see him. The older woman cast a wary eye in Justice’s direction.

“I’m sorry, Detective. Mr. and Mrs. Colton are not in,” she informed him formally.

“That’s all right,” Carson replied politely. “I’m not here to see them. I’m here to talk to Ms. Colton.”

The housekeeper raised her chin as she asked defensively, “Which Ms. Colton?”

The woman knew damn well which one, he thought. She just wanted to make things difficult for him. She was being protective of the people she worked for.

“The older one. Serena,” he specified.

The housekeeper frowned. “I’m afraid that she’s not here, either.”

Just as the woman was about to forcibly close the door on him, Serena’s voice was heard calling to her from upstairs. “Alma, I’m going to need you to watch Lora for me for a few hours while I’m working with the horses.”

Carson’s eyes met the housekeeper’s. “Looks like she came back. Lucky me,” he commented.

“Yes,” the older woman responded icily. “Quite lucky. I will go upstairs and tell Miss Serena that you want to see her.”

“That’s all right,” Carson said, moving past the housekeeper and entering the foyer. “Don’t trouble yourself. I can go tell her myself. I know my way.”

And with that, he and Justice headed toward the winding staircase.

Carson took the stairs two at a time with Justice keeping pace right behind him.

* * *

About to go back into her suite as she waited for the housekeeper to come upstairs, Serena was more than a little surprised to see the detective make his way up to the landing in the housekeeper’s place.

Now what? Serena thought impatiently.

“Did you forget something, Detective?” she asked, doing her best to sound polite and not as irritated as she felt.

“No,” he answered, reaching the landing, “but you did.” He signaled for Justice to sit and the K-9 did.

Her brow furrowed a little as she tried to make sense of what he’d just said. “Excuse me?”

“When we talked last night, I got the feeling that there was something you were holding back, something you weren’t saying,” he told her. “The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I was right. I figured I needed to get back to you to find out just what that was.” He looked at her expectantly.

Alma had just managed to make her way upstairs. The woman was struggling not to pant. “I’m sorry, Miss Serena. He refused to leave.”

“Apparently he’s very stubborn,” Serena said, looking coldly at the invading detective. She drew herself up, moving away from the bedroom doorway. “Alma, if you don’t mind looking after Lora, I’ll see if I can’t put the detective’s mind at rest once and for all, so he can be on his way and we can all go on with our lives.”

He waited until the housekeeper picked up the baby from her crib and left with Lora before saying anything to Serena.

“Have I done something to offend you, Ms. Colton?” he asked, referring to her rather abrupt tone.

He had gall, she’d give him that. “You want that alphabetically, chronologically or in order of magnitude?” she asked the detective.

“Tell you what, I’ll let you pick,” Carson said magnanimously.

He didn’t think she was going to say anything, did he, she thought. Well, he was in for a surprise.

Serena launched into him. “You come storm trooping into my house at an ungodly hour—”

“You were up,” Carson reminded her.

“That’s beside the point,” Serena retorted. “I was feeding Lora. But that still didn’t give you the right to burst in here—”

“The chief knocked,” Carson corrected her. He could see she was getting really frustrated. The fire in her eyes was really rather compelling to watch. “And he is your brother as well as the police chief.”

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