A federal agent falls for his target in the newest Coltons of Shadow Creek romance!

On the hunt for escaped criminal mastermind Livia Colton, FBI agent Josh Howard knows just where to start: the fugitive’s family. Namely, Livia’s eldest daughter, Leonor Colton, who was very close to her criminal mother. Could the alluring museum curator be hiding the Colton matriarch? Maybe.

Undercover as a billionaire art collector, Josh is invited into Leonor’s life. He’s surprised to find that the heiress, betrayed by an ex and at odds with her siblings, needs a strong shoulder, and there Josh is all ears. But when an attempt is made on Leonor’s life, Josh finds his cover is about to be blown—along with his unexpected true feelings for his Colton connection.

“And just what is it that you really want to do—but don’t?” Leonor asked him in a voice that had mysteriously gone down to just above a whisper.

As it was, her voice sounded very close to husky—and he found it hopelessly seductive.

Standing just inside her suite, Leonor waited for him to answer while her heart continued to imitate the rhythm of a drum roll that only grew louder by the moment.

Josh weighed his options for a moment. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t, he couldn’t help thinking. And then he answered her.

“Kiss you,” he told Leonor, saying the words softly, his breath caressing the skin on her face.

She felt her stomach muscles quickening.

“Maybe you should go ahead and do that,” she told him. “I promise I won’t stop you.”

* * *

The Coltons of Shadow Creek:

Only family can keep you safe...

Colton Undercover

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 Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To

Patience Bloom

Who Seems To Have

Enough Faith In Me

To Believe I Can

Pull Off Yet Another

Continuity.

Thank You!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

“You, lady, are a real piece of work.”

At the moment, there was no one else in the FBI field office in San Antonio, Texas with Special Agent Joshua Howard. His words were addressed to the photograph of Livia Colton he had pulled from the file on his desk. A file he had gone over and reviewed countless times in the last few days.

Livia, or rather, her untimely escape from prison, was the reason he was about to temporarily relocate to Shadow Creek, a place unofficially known as “the town that Livia built,” and with good reason.

Josh shook his head as by now all too familiar details danced before his brown eyes. The life of the attractive, blond-haired, fifty-two-year-old illegitimate product of a one-night stand between one of the wealthier Coltons and a drug-addicted prostitute read like something out of a Hollywood movie, right down to the part where, by all indications, Livia’s once-unchecked sociopathic behavior rivaled that of a classic “bad seed.”

While behaving lovingly toward her easily manipulated father, Livia was ruthless toward her half siblings. Rumor had it that, by his own admission, Livia was the only person whom Matthew Colton, her convicted serial killer half brother, truly feared. In Josh’s book, that was saying a great deal.

Marrying and discarding husbands as if they were used tissues, Livia amassed a considerable fortune and six children along the way, all presumably with different fathers. Resorting to her natural cunning, she managed to quadruple her fortune through organized crime. She’d trafficked in drugs, women and whatever else might have been profitable at the moment.

Her children, she barely tolerated unless there was a photographer within the vicinity to immortalize her with them. She had been a great one for photo ops. There had been one offspring, her oldest daughter, Leonor, whom people said she disliked less than the rest.

Not exactly a glowing testimony, Josh thought.

The living definition of a wild child Livia Colton had finally given, before her downfall, at least outwardly, all the signs of wanting to settle down. She’d gotten married again, this time to an Argentine horse breeder who it was said treated her children far better than she did. She had had her last child, Jade, with him.

Playing the part of a benevolent pillar of the community, Livia built the town she had adopted a much-needed hospital, funded most of their 4-H program, allowed other ranchers to use her water supply without charge and threw legendary parties. Shadow Creek’s society worshipfully revolved around her. No one questioned where her rather fabulous wealth came from, especially not those who benefited from it.

But eventually, the law, steadily collecting evidence against her over the years, managed to bring charges against Livia. Ten years ago the onetime queen of Shadow Creek was convicted of numerous charges, including murder. She had just barely avoided the death penalty—bribing the judge no doubt, Josh thought—and was sentenced to serve five life sentences in Red Peak Maximum Security Prison in Gatesville, Texas. Her neighbors all turned their backs on her, her vast fortune was confiscated and her six children were left to fend for themselves the best way that they could.

It sounded, Josh thought, like a perfect ending, with justice being served—except that, maximum security prison or not, Livia had managed to escape two weeks ago. The first thought that occurred to him was that one of her children must have been instrumental in bringing about her escape and was currently helping and sheltering her.

But which one?

He’d looked into all their backgrounds.

Josh spread out the six assorted photographs, some candid, some professional, of Livia’s children.

They were nothing if not an eclectic bunch, he thought. They only had one thing in common—well, two, if he counted that they all had the same mother—or at least that was what the birth certificates said. Claudia, her second youngest, had been born while she was traveling in Europe and there was only Livia’s word that she’d given birth to the girl.

Each of her children was good-looking in his or her own way. It was always harder confronting attractive people and getting them to confess, Josh mused. Somehow, they thought that their looks would help shield them from the dire consequences of their actions: in essence, their “get-out-of-jail-for-free” cards.

But he intended to confront them, because one—if not more—of them was responsible for Livia’s escape.

Finding out who it was, how they had engineered it and where they—and Livia—currently were was the job he’d been assigned by the Bureau. And it was why he had his “go bag” stashed in the trunk of his silver sedan. He was leaving for Shadow Creek.

Apparently all the siblings, except for River, Livia’s third born, were finding their way home after having scattered once Livia’s trial was over.

Of the six, his gut was pointing him toward Leonor Colton. Out of all of Livia’s children, Leonor was the only one who visited Livia while she was in prison. He knew that Leonor certainly had the money to finance her mother’s escape. He’d just conducted a check on her accounts and saw that there had been a large withdrawal made a few months ago.

Was that money used to bribe guards to look the other way?

And there was more. Leonor had just recently returned “home” to Shadow Creek and Josh had to wonder why. Was it to reconnect with her roots, or just with her mother? Granted, by all accounts, Livia Colton made Joan Crawford come across like Mother of the Year in comparison, but desperate times meant desperate measures and if the woman was to turn to any of her six children, it would be Leonor.

Livia had already been sighted once in these last two weeks, around the time when the man who had kidnapped her grandson, Cody, was killed. Josh had a strong feeling that the woman had been involved and was responsible, at least indirectly, for the man’s death.

That meant that she was somewhere in the state. Maybe even close by.

Working on this assumption, Josh got ready to go.

“Next stop,” he murmured under his breath, his voice echoing about the empty office, “Shadow Creek. Hopefully to slap the cuffs on you, Livia—and whoever it is that’s been helping you. Playtime,” he informed the woman’s photograph just before closing the file and putting it into his folder, “is over. It’s time for you to pay the piper.”

Smiling grimly, Josh left the office.

Chapter 1

Thanks to the special trust fund her late father had set up for her, unlike many people her age, thirty-one-year-old Leonor Colton didn’t need to work. She wanted to work. Wanted to put her art degree to use and do something that made her feel as if she was contributing in some small way to society. That was why she had initially taken that unpaid internship at the Austin Art Museum. While others might have floated along, especially since they weren’t getting paid, Leonor worked exceptionally hard. She put in long hours, coming in early and staying late, long after the museum had been closed to the public.

All this hard work managed to impress Adam Sheffield, the director who was in charge of the museum, so much so that once her internship was over, he offered her the job of assistant curator. She took it gladly and worked her way up to her current position of curator.

For a while, Leonor thought, looking back now, things had seemed as if they were going quite well for her. Better than well. She had managed to hold her head high, despite the devastating scandal that had all but ripped her family apart. Because of her mother’s arrest and subsequent conviction—something that neither she nor any of her siblings saw coming—they had gone from being at the pinnacle of Shadow Creek’s community to being objects of everyone else’s contempt.

Leonor had risen above the gossip and mean-spirited talk, ignoring it and going on with her life. She’d gotten her education—a degree in the arts—and a job she loved in her chosen field. Even her love life had taken a much-needed turn for the better.

Or so she had thought.

Up until that point, the redheaded, green-eyed Leonor had only dated sporadically and she had never had a serious relationship—possibly because of the love ’em and leave ’em example that her mother had set for all of them.

And then David Marshall had come along.

Handsome, charming and oh-so-smooth, David had completely swept her off her feet in what amounted to record time. Looking back, Leonor couldn’t believe how quickly she’d surrendered to him, taking down her barriers and opening up her heart. She must have been crazy. But from the bottom of that isolated heart, she had honestly believed that David Marshall was the man she was meant to marry.

Desperately needing to have someone to talk to and trust, in a short amount of time Leonor had completely opened herself up to him and told David not just who she was, but also made him privy to all of her family’s numerous and heretofore well-kept secrets.

It felt so wonderful to finally open up to someone, to have someone she could really talk to without being afraid of any sort of censorship or being looked down upon judgmentally.

She should have been afraid, Leonor thought ruefully now. Considering everything she had been through with her mother’s arrest, she should have been leery, not trusting.

Water under the bridge, she thought regretfully.

A few months ago, after things seemed to be going so well, she woke up one morning to find that David was not only gone from her bed, but gone, it soon became apparent, from her life, as well. And not long after that she found out that he had not only stolen her heart, but he’d taken a very large chunk of her money with him as well. No note, no explanation, not even an argument to serve as a foreshadowing of things to come.

He had just vanished without any warning.

It wasn’t the money she missed. Because of the way the trust fund had been set up, there was more than enough money left, money that David hadn’t been able to get his hands on. But she wasn’t angry about that. She was angry, hurt and confused because he had left her for no good reason.

Or so she thought.

But everything fell into place when one day she’d opened up her computer, logged onto the internet and saw that her family’s story was splashed all over the home page of Everything’s Blogger in Texas, a local gossip site.

Reading the first installment—she couldn’t pull her eyes away—Leonor felt like such a fool.

She still felt that way. All those things David had said to her—he had just been playing her, lying to her so that she would trust him and learn to confide in him, telling him all of her family’s secrets. Secrets he then turned around and sold to the blog.

Leonor felt incredibly stupid and used. And horribly crushed.

In its own way, this was as devastating to her as her mother’s arrest had been that awful, awful day over ten years ago when the law enforcement officers had descended on the sprawling mansion that she and her brothers and sisters called home.

At first, after David’s disappearance and bitter betrayal, she had sought refuge in her position at the museum. But it didn’t help her keep her mind off what a fool she had been. So she’d gone to her boss and asked Sheffield for a leave of absence in the hopes that if she went somewhere else, she’d be able to somehow pull herself together.

“I’m not losing you, am I, Leonor?” Adam Sheffield had asked, concerned as he sat with her in his office, looking at her across his cluttered desk. “Because, I don’t mind telling you, in all my years here, you’re the best curator I’ve ever had.” He’d leaned forward, lowering his voice and creating an air of privacy. “If it’s a matter of more money—”

She’d been quick to shoot that supposition down. “No, it’s not that, Mr. Sheffield. I don’t want more money.”

“Shorter hours, then,” he proposed, guessing at the reason behind her unanticipated request. “I know I’ve been relying on you a great deal—maybe too much—but you’re so damn good at this that—”

She’d stopped the director mid-sentence again. “Thank you, sir, but it’s not the hours, either, Mr. Sheffield.” Leonor went on to appeal to his kinder side. “I just need to get away for a while, pull myself together. I haven’t seen my family for a long time and I think it might be time to go back home for a little while.”

“But not permanently.” It was more of a request than a question. He’d looked at her nervously, obviously afraid of the answer he might get.

“No, not permanently,” Leonor replied.

In all honesty, she didn’t know if she wouldn’t just turn around and return to Austin after a few days in Shadow Creek. She didn’t know how welcome—or unwelcome—she’d be turning up in Shadow Creek after all this time and in the wake of that lurid blog exposé.

Oh, she knew that she could stay at Mac’s ranch, perhaps even indefinitely. Her former stepfather, Joseph Mackenzie, her mother’s former ranch foreman as well as the father of her half brother, Thorne, had made that perfectly clear, even before she had used some of her money to help him bail out his ranch a few years ago.

Mac had always had a special relationship with all of her mother’s children, not just with her or with his own son. Mac was a kind, decent person and the kind of man she would have really loved to have for a father, even temporarily, as was her mother’s habit.

He’d always been there for them, Leonor recalled. And he was the first one she thought of calling on when she found herself needing a place to stay while she regrouped.

“Of course you can stay here, little girl,” Mac had told her when she’d turned up on his doorstep. “Stay for as long as you want. My home is your home. Hell, it wouldn’t even be my home if it hadn’t been for you,” he reminded her.

He’d displayed no embarrassment over that admission, only extreme gratitude.

Mac picked up her suitcase as he talked, doing it effortlessly as if finding her there when he opened his front door was no big deal.

“Oh, Mac,” she cried as he put his large, still-muscular arm protectively about her shoulders and ushered her in, “I’ve made such a mess of things.”

There was nothing but sympathy in his eyes and in his manner toward her.

Even though she was going to be staying in the apartment over the stable, Mac led Livia’s daughter to the wide leather sofa in his living room and sat her down. Seeing the tears in her eyes, he pulled out his handkerchief from his back pocket and offered it to her.

“There’s nothing but death that can’t be undone,” he told Leonor matter-of-factly. “You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”

“No,” she’d said, quietly sobbing.

She wiped away her tears, but it was futile. More tears came to take their place. She felt as if she was completely made up of water.

“Then it can be fixed,” Mac had assured her. Studying her face quietly, he’d asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

At first, Leonor had remained silent.

Mac wasn’t the kind of person to press.

But then, after a few minutes, he’d heard her say, “I trusted the wrong man.”

“Hardly anyone alive hasn’t done that at least once in their lives,” Mac told her, making it sound like a common occurrence. After a beat, Mac ventured a question. “How bad is it?”

She pressed her lips together in an effort to keep a fresh onslaught of tears back. “Bad,” she’d finally answered.

He’d smiled at her kindly. He had always viewed her first and foremost as a daughter, even if they didn’t share the same blood.

“Would it help any if I tracked this guy down and beat the living daylights out of him?”

“No.” She thought about the blog. The story, done in several vivid, lurid installments, had already been run. The rest of her siblings had probably already seen it. And probably hated her for it. Only traveling back in time could change that. “The damage has already been done.”

“Oh,” Mac had said. His deep voice rumbled out the single word, putting a huge amount of meaning behind it. “You’re talking about that internet story, aren’t you?”

Leonor’s eyes had widened as she looked at the man who had patiently taught her how to ride. The man she had always regarded as more than just her mother’s foreman, or even Thorne’s father. He had always been the single stable force in her life.

Had she disappointed him?

“You saw that?” she asked in a small, ashamed voice.

Mac had surprised her by laughing. “I’m not quite as backward as you might think. I own a laptop and sometimes, I even turn it on.”

Leonor flushed. “I didn’t mean to insult you—”

His smile was wide and all encompassing, as well as very kind. “You didn’t, little girl. I’m just teasing you. But I did see the articles,” he said, referring to the tell-all that went into great detail about not just Livia before her empire had crumbled and she’d been sent to prison, but also about each of the woman’s six children and their lives, “and I thought to myself that whoever wrote it had to have a lot of inside information about the Coltons from someone.” The look on his face registered surprise, but not condemnation. “I just never thought that the ‘someone’ was you.”

She was desperate to make Mac understand that she hadn’t revealed any of it for personal gain or, heaven forbid, for any sort of monetary reward. “He tricked me, Mac. He made me think that he cared about me. I would have never said a single word if I’d known that he was going to use it to spread it all over the internet.”

Mac nodded understandingly. “I kinda figured that,” he told her.

There was absolutely not a single iota of judgment in the man’s deep voice.

Leonor pressed her lips together, and then raised her tear-filled eyes to his. “I thought he loved me,” she confessed, her voice almost trembling. “I thought I could tell him anything. He told me I could tell him anything.”

“I just bet he did,” Mac replied, doing his best to keep his anger in check. “You sure you don’t want me to track him down and beat him up for you?” This time, as Mac clenched his hands into fists beside him on the sofa, he was only half kidding.

“I don’t want you getting into trouble on my account,” Leonor told him.

“Might do us both some good,” he pointed out, coaxing her just the tiniest bit.

Leonor looked up at him quizzically. She knew why he thought it would do her some good, but Mac? She didn’t quite understand why he would say that.

“Why you?”

“Because I don’t like anyone hurting you,” he told her simply.

She felt her heart swell. She really needed to hear that, she thought.

“Thank you, Mac.” She returned his smile, wondering how she could possibly convey to the man how grateful she was to have him in her life. “Letting me stay here for a while is all I need.”

She sighed and put her arms around Mac—or tried to. There was more of the big man than her arms could possibly encompass.

Mac laughed softly—she’d always thought of his laugh as such a comforting sound—and embraced her.

“Like I said, stay as long as you like. I want you to think of this as your home,” he told her again without any fanfare.

That had been four days ago. So, here she was, Leonor thought, hiding out at Mac’s ranch, doing her best to pull herself together and regroup enough to be able to face each of her siblings, preferably individually, so she could field their questions and get them to hear her out and see her side.

She needed to have them forgive her, if not today, then eventually. Forgive her and see that she was as much of a victim in all this as they were, because they might be resentful to see their names and their lives shockingly dramatized online in a cheap effort at sensationalism. But David had used her to do this to them and she was not only suffering the same fate as they were, she was also suffering because someone she loved and believed loved her had done this, using her as a means to an end. And in the bargain, making her family look at her as a traitor. She’d reported him to the police, but he had hidden the money well and it was a case of her word against his. Things looked rather bleak from every standpoint.

She had trouble battling the hopelessness that kept insisting on encroaching on her state of mind. But if she hoped to ever win back her family, she had to keep that feeling at bay.

* * *

Well, this was unexpected, Josh thought, checking his email the moment he checked into the bed and breakfast when he arrived in Shadow Creek.

Leonor Colton had taken a leave of absence from the museum.

Josh frowned. He had gone undercover, taking on the identity of a billionaire with a keen interest in art and the museum, in order to become a person of interest to Leonor so that he could get closer to her, and now she’d taken a leave of absence. Josh shook his head. This was going to be trickier than he thought.

Well, it was too late to switch identities again because in this day and age everyone’s “backstory” could be checked out on the internet in a matter of minutes, and his was already a matter of record. That was thanks to Jeremy Bailey, the IT wizard in the San Antonio field office who had whipped up this identity for him. Jeremy had even created a Facebook page for him, cleverly backdated with photographs of an ex-wife and a number of parties and fund-raisers—all art-oriented—that he’d attended in the past.

Josh pulled up the page on his laptop now, wondering who the woman posing as his ex-wife was. Whoever Jeremy had used, the woman was a little too flashy for him, he mused. He preferred more classy women, women whose brains were stuffed to full capacity instead of just their closets.

So far, Josh hadn’t met anyone who could hold his interest for more than a few dates, but then, in defense of all the women he had ever gone out with, he’d never had the time to properly pursue a relationship.

For one thing, he had moved around a lot, transferring to different field offices whenever new opportunities arose. Single, with no family, he had nothing to keep him anchored to any one place.

With him, it was always the next case that piqued his interest.

But at the moment, it wasn’t the next one that did it. It was this one.

He had set his sights on bringing Livia Colton in, and to do that, he had already decided that he was going to have to get close to Leonor. Some of the circumstances might have changed, but the bottom line was still the same.

He just needed to do a little rewriting to make it ultimately work and he was nothing, he thought, smiling to himself, if not creatively flexible.

“You’re going down, Livia Colton,” he promised. “And so’s your daughter if she’s in on this.”

He got to work.

Chapter 2

“Just remember, you don’t have access to a bottomless expense account.” Andrew Arroyo’s voice crackled a little, thanks to a poor cell phone connection. “The budget’s been cut, so be sure you watch how you throw that money around, Howard,” the FBI assistant director in charge of the San Antonio field office warned him. “Just because you’re supposed to be this big shot billionaire doesn’t mean you have to spend money like one. As a matter of fact,” Arroyo hinted helpfully, “a lot of billionaires are known to be tight when it comes to their money.”

Josh was beginning to regret checking in with his superior so soon after arriving in Shadow Creek. He should have waited until he had something a little more solid by way of an alternate plan to offer the man.

Still, Josh felt he needed to say something defensively before he found his hands completely tied in this little undercover drama he’d found himself taking part in.

“I can’t exactly penny-pinch, Assistant Director Arroyo,” Josh told his boss matter-of-factly. “I am supposed to be a billionaire.”

“The operative word here being ‘supposed to be,’” Arroyo pointed out.

If he’d really liked Arroyo, he would have just kept quiet about this lecture. But he didn’t. Arroyo liked to micromanage everyone assigned to him and that wasn’t the way that Josh liked to operate.

“That’s three words, sir,” Josh replied matter-of-factly.

He could almost hear Arroyo scowling. The assistant director had the kind of scowl that took in every single part of his face. “Don’t nitpick, Howard.”

“I won’t if you won’t, sir,” Josh responded. And then he grew serious as he tried to explain his position. It was the only plan he could think of to make himself privy to Leonor’s movements without arousing her suspicions. “It’s a work in progress, but the plan is to have Leonor Colton try to get close to me so she can try to convince me to donate to the museum.”

“You can play hard to get,” Arroyo suggested. “Nothing makes a woman want a man more than if he acts as if he’s not interested.”

In his opinion, his superior would be the last person anyone would go to for advice on getting close to a member of the opposite sex.

“Which might explain why you’ve never been married,” Josh observed under his breath.

“I heard that,” Arroyo snapped. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and the Bureau’s rather limited expense account.”

Calling Arroyo had definitely been a mistake on his part, Josh thought. He was just going to have to work things out to his own satisfaction. “As stimulating as this conversation is, sir, I’ve got a plan to get into motion. I’ll check in with you later,” Josh promised vaguely.

Just before pigs begin to fly, he added silently.

The next minute, Josh terminated the call and put away his cell phone before his superior could protest or say anything else.

He was on his own, Josh thought, going back to the laptop he’d left open on the desk. Sitting down, he pulled up the site that had caught his eye. The one currently featuring the Everything’s Blogger in Texas story about the individual members of Livia Colton’s family.

It contained, he couldn’t help thinking, an amazing amount of information, the kind that families generally liked being kept private. At least some of it had to be true, right?

He went on reading.

* * *

Leonor opened the studio apartment door in response to the knock she’d heard. Mac was standing on the landing just beyond the wooden stairs that went down to the back of the stable. He looked just a little larger than life—the way he always did. Stepping back to give him access to the apartment, she looked at him curiously.

“Something wrong?” she wanted to know.

Mac crossed the threshold, but made no attempt to come in any farther. If she were to make a guess, she would have said that he looked a little uncomfortable, which was unusual for the man.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, little girl,” he began, “because you know I care about you and I always have.”

She didn’t think she liked the sound of this, but Mac had never been anything but kind to her. “What are you trying to tell me, Mac?”

His kindly expression didn’t match the words that came out of his mouth. “Get out.”

Stunned, she could only stare at the tall, strapping man. “What?”

“I don’t mean ‘get out’ get out,” he told her, tempering his tone. He didn’t want her to misunderstand what had motivated his words. “Just get out.”

This was only getting more muddled. There wasn’t much in her life that she was sure of these days, but she was sure that Mac wouldn’t deliberately hurt her or abandon her.

Taking a breath, she asked, “And the difference being?”

He wasn’t much for talking, more a man of deeds rather than words. He tried to make himself understood again.

“The difference being that you need to get out there, little girl. Get out there and mingle. You can’t just hide up here in this tiny space above the stable indefinitely. That’s not going to solve anything and the longer you hide, the harder it’s going to be for you to finally get out there.” His eyes met hers, hoping he was getting through to her. “Thirty-one is way too young to become a hermit.”

She sighed. Turning from him, she crossed back to the bed and sat down on the edge. “You’re right.”

Mac had no choice but to follow her in. “Of course I’m right. I’ve always been right.

“Well, almost always,” Mac corrected. “The point is, little girl—go out. Breathe some fresh air. Get in touch with yourself again. There’s a really nice person inside there,” he told her. “You might like her. I know that I do.”

She offered Mac a ghost of a smile. “You have to say that.”

“No, I don’t,” he informed her. “That’s not even in the fine print,” he added affectionately. “Now get out of here before I hitch you up and use you to plow the north forty,” he pretended to threaten.

Leonor laughed. She knew that, as usual, Mac only had her best interests at heart. And he was right. She couldn’t just hide here in this little studio apartment forever. Eventually, she had to get back to her life. Getting up off the bed, she said, “I’m gone.”

His brows drew together in a skeptical furrow. “I can still see you.”

“Then close your eyes,” she told him with a laugh. “I need a head start.” With that, Leonor left the apartment and hurried down the stairs.

Once in her car, Leonor drove into town. She decided to go get some lunch at the new restaurant that had just recently opened just across from the bed-and-breakfast.

Although she lived in Austin now, Leonor knew in her heart that Shadow Creek would always be home to her, and despite everything else that was going on in her life, she did take an interest in the town’s development and growth, slow though it was.

Leonor tried to tell herself that checking out the new restaurant would be a fun thing to do. Most of the people in the area, while not completely forgetting about her mother and the scandal attached to both Livia’s arrest and her trial, had for the most part moved on. At the very least, most of the locals had come to realize that the sins of the mother did not always necessarily come down on the offspring.

The town seemed to finally be coming around to the fact that none of them were anything like their mother.

Heaven knew that she certainly wasn’t, even though she had gone to visit her mother several times in prison. That was more out of a sense of filial obligation, more because she felt sorry for her mother than anything else. Everyone else in the family had abandoned Livia and turned their backs on her.

Leonor supposed that she was the most sensitive one in the family.

However, being sensitive didn’t mean that she was a pushover, she told herself fiercely, although there were some who undoubtedly thought she was.

Even so, she had to give herself a pep talk before she entered the restaurant. Because she was the daughter of the “notorious” Livia Colton and because she hadn’t really been around these last ten years, she knew there would be those who would be looking at her with unspoken curiosity. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t that awkward, gawky girl whose body had taken its sweet time before all the parts were in equal proportion.

She was who she was, Leonor reminded herself, and she had to own that no matter what. If being Livia Colton’s daughter made other people uncomfortable, that was their problem, not hers. People didn’t get to choose their family.

Now all she had to do was believe that, Leonor thought ruefully.

Happily, the restaurant, while doing a nice, brisk business, wasn’t crowded in the big city sense of the word. The restaurants she had gotten accustomed to in Austin were the kind that had lines curling outside the door even with reservations. Waiting was more or less a way of life in Austin.

That wasn’t the case here.

“Table for two, Ms. Colton?” the hostess asked as Leonor came up to the reservations desk.

Leonor was surprised that the hostess knew who she was. But she knew she shouldn’t have been.

* * *

Standing not too far away, Josh heard someone being addressed as “Ms. Colton.” He looked up sharply.

It was her.

Leonor Colton. She looked just like her picture. Talk about luck, he thought. He’d just stopped to get something to eat and he’d struck the mother lode.

As unobtrusively as possible, Josh made his way over to the reservations desk, trying not to appear to be in any sort of hurry.

Leonor’s eyes met the hostess’s. The latter appeared to be friendly. There was no condemnation or curiosity in the young woman’s eyes. Leonor relaxed.

“No, just for one. I’m dining alone,” Leonor told the hostess.

“You know,” a deep voice directly behind her said, “I really hate dining alone, but I’m new in town so I suppose that I’ll have to. Unless, perhaps, you wouldn’t mind sharing a table with me.”

“I’m sorry,” Leonor replied without bothering to turn around. “I don’t eat with strangers.”

Rather than pretending to be put off, Josh circled around her until he was right in her line of vision. The hostess, who was looking on, seemed utterly charmed by him. But his target was not the hostess: it was Leonor Colton.

“My name’s Joshua Pendergrass. Now, if you tell me your name, we won’t be strangers anymore.” He put out his hand, but Leonor made no effort to take it. Her hand remained at her side.

“Look, Mr. Pendergrass,” she began patiently, “knowing your name doesn’t make you any less of a stranger to me.” She didn’t want to cause a scene, but she really wanted the man to go away or at least back off. Granted, he was exceedingly handsome, but so was David, and look where that had gotten her. “I don’t know the first thing about you.”

Unfazed, Josh began to give her a thumbnail version of the bio that had been drawn up for him in the field office. “Easily taken care of. My father’s Elliott Pendergrass and he and his firm have built some of the tallest buildings in Dallas and Austin. Much to my socialite mother’s delight, my father loves finding new ways to build up the family fortune.”

Leaning in just a shade closer to Leonor, he confided in a slightly lower tone, “He’s on record as being very disappointed in me because my interests lie in a totally different field. I’m an art aficionado, and for me heaven is either spending the day prowling about the halls of an art museum, or just sitting in my den, admiring my own rather small, but if I do say so myself, modestly impressive collection. There,” he concluded, flashing a rather world-class smile at her that caused the hostess behind her to sigh just a little, “will that do?”

Leonor didn’t know whether to be amazed—or suspicious. David had done that to her, she thought angrily; he’d made her suspicious of things she would have once happily accepted at face value. He’d robbed her of her ability to be outgoing and friendly.

Still, after what this man with the incredible smile had just thrown out there, she had to ask. “You’re an art lover?”

The man who had asked to share a table with her laughed softly at her question. “I’m afraid it’s much more serious than that. It’s more like I’m obsessed with art. At least that’s the way my father puts it. He had really high hopes of getting me to follow him into the business.” The wide shoulders beneath the expensive jacket rose and fell in a careless shrug. “I’m afraid I don’t have a head for business. I do, however, know what I like, and I really like art.”

“What kind of art?” Leonor challenged. She wanted to believe this was some sort of happy cosmic coincidence, but she’d learned the hard way that she needed to be cautious. “Abstract, modern, contemporary—?”

“A little bit of everything.” When suspicion creased her brow, he confessed frankly, “I’m rather eclectic. Tell you what, why don’t we continue this conversation over lunch?” he suggested. Looking over his shoulder, Josh nodded at the person behind him. “I’m afraid there’s a line beginning to form behind us and this lovely young woman—Kathy,” he said, reading the hostess’s name tag, “is just too polite to move us along. I wouldn’t want her getting into trouble on our account. Table for two, please, Kathy.”

“Wait, I haven’t agreed to share a table with you yet,” Leonor protested, holding up her hand to the hostess to keep her from leading them into the dining area.

Josh looked at her soulfully. “Would you deny a visitor to your town a little friendly conversation over lunch?”

“How do you know I’m not a visitor, too?” Leonor wanted to know, although she had to admit that some of her resistance was fading.

Josh’s expression was nothing if not innocent. It was a look he practiced in the mirror from time to time to make sure he could still pull off.

“Are you?” he asked her.

“Not in the strictest sense, no,” Leonor was forced to admit.

Rather than challenge her ambiguous statement, Josh raised one eyebrow in a silent question as he looked at her. And then he repeated, “Table for two?”

Leonor relented. What was the harm? After all, they’d be out in the open and she was free to leave at any given moment if she wanted to. So, nodding, she looked at the hostess and echoed his words.

“Table for two.”

“Right this way,” the hostess responded, leading them into the heart of the dining room. She took them to a secluded table that was off to one side. “I thought you might prefer this.”

Leonor flashed a grateful smile at the hostess for what she assumed was the woman’s kindness. “Thank you.”

The hostess nodded in response. “Someone will be back for your order,” she told them as she placed two menus on the table before them, and then discreetly withdrew, saying, “Take your time.”

“And enjoy your lunch,” she added just before she slipped away.

“Your father really builds skyscrapers?” Leonor asked the moment the hostess had retreated back to the reservations desk.

“Dad seems to think so. I can give you the addresses of some of the larger ones, although I have to say, you don’t strike me as someone who’s interested in tall buildings—unless, of course, it’s to have your superhero boyfriend leap over them in a single bound.”

“I don’t have a superhero boyfriend,” she informed him tersely.

She was rewarded with a killer smile. “Sounds promising,” Josh told her.

“Well, it’s not,” she said, making things very clear right up front. “You said I didn’t strike you as someone who would be interested in tall buildings. Just what do I strike you as? And I warn you, I can see a line coming a mile away.”

“Good to know,” Josh responded, then said, “One won’t be coming.”

Lacing his fingers together before him, Josh leaned his chin on them as he studied her for a long moment, his brown eyes sweeping over her slowly as if he was literally taking measure of every inch of her.

Finally, he told her the conclusion he’d come to. “I’d say that you were someone who was interested in art. Passionately interested, would be my guess,” he amended.

“And just how did you arrive at this ‘guess’?” Leonor questioned.

“That’s easy,” he assured her. “By the way your pupils dilated just now when I mentioned my art collection. I definitely got your attention. Let me guess—you’re a collector yourself.”

Eventually, she wanted to be. But that wasn’t in the cards just yet. For now, she was content to soak up knowledge and experience. “Not exactly.”

Leonor paused just then as the server approached their table with a basket of bread sticks.

“Would you like to order something to drink?” the woman asked.

The idea of having something stronger than the water that was already on the table was highly appealing to Josh, but he knew he couldn’t afford to be anything but sharp right now. He looked at Leonor, waiting for her to go first.

“Just a lemonade,” she told the server.

“Make that two,” Josh said.

“You can’t like lemonade,” Leonor protested, thinking the man was just trying to be polite.

“I can’t?” Josh asked. He looked at her, puzzled. “Why not?”

“Seriously?” she questioned.

“Why? Does liking lemonade make me less of...an art collector?” Josh finally asked, although that wasn’t the first thought that came to his mind.

His question made her laugh and he silently congratulated himself on managing to peel away the first protective layer that Leonor Colton had wrapped around herself.

“Being an art collector has nothing to do with it,” she told him. “No, it’s just that I don’t know of any men who would admit to actually liking lemonade, say, over an alcoholic beverage.”

His smile was easy, engaging and almost incredibly guileless, Leonor thought as he told her, “Then consider me your first.”

Your first.

The way he said the words had her catching her breath just for a second. She had no idea why she was putting a far more sensual interpretation on them, but just for a moment, she had.

And then she forced herself to shake it off.

Collecting herself, Leonor searched for something to say. “What are you doing in Shadow Creek, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I don’t mind,” he assured her. He broke off a piece of his bread stick before saying, “I’m just taking in the sights.”

She gave him a dubious look. He was trying to pull her leg.

“Shadow Creek doesn’t have any ‘sights.’” She supposed that to some, that wasn’t entirely true. But there was nothing here that would make it to the pages of a “must see” section of any reputable guidebook. “At least not the kind that would be of any interest to you.”

Josh deliberately looked at her for a long moment. Long enough to make her shift in her seat ever so slightly.

And then he said, “You’d be surprised.”

Chapter 3

Josh shifted the focus of the conversation away from him and back to her. “You know, you still haven’t told me your name,” he reminded her.

She wasn’t convinced that this was just an accidental meeting and that he didn’t know who she was. Looking up from her menu, her eyes met his.

“No, I haven’t.”

He proceeded carefully. “Oh, a lady of mystery, is that it?”

Amusement highlighted his rather rugged features. Leonor couldn’t make up her mind if the sexy stranger was having fun at her expense, or if he was just talking. Obviously he hadn’t heard the hostess call her “Ms. Colton.”

“Why don’t I call you ‘Kate’?” he suggested gamely. “I’ve always been partial to ‘Kate.’ It’s my mother’s name,” Josh explained.

“It’s Colton,” Leonor said out of the blue. She watched his expression carefully.

It didn’t change. There was no enlightenment evident on his face.

“First or last?” Josh asked casually.

This being Texas and an era given to unique names, she supposed it might have been reasonable for him to assume that Colton could be a first name—but she still doubted it.

“Last,” she told him. Pausing, she took a breath, mentally bracing herself for the reaction she expected to come, then said, “Leonor Colton.”

There was no telltale smirk, no sign of recognition, no change in his expression whatsoever. Had the man been living in a cave? Her mother had made news in every sort of medium with her escape.

“Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” she wanted to know.

There was just the slightest regretful rise and fall of his shoulders as Josh apologized for his ignorance. “I’m sorry, should it?”

She didn’t believe him. This had to be an act. “You’ve never heard of Livia Colton?” Leonor almost demanded.

Looking just a touch embarrassed, Josh shrugged again. “There was something on the news the other day, but I have to confess that unless it concerns something of international importance—or the art world—I really don’t pay much attention to it.”

“The art world,” Leonor repeated, still highly skeptical that the man she was sharing a table with was on the level. Granted, there were people who lived and breathed nothing but art, but they were men with forgettable faces, not men who infiltrated women’s dreams, the way this one surely had to have been ever since he had first started attending school.

“I’m afraid so,” Josh told her. “I told you, I’m a collector and an art buff of sorts.” His smile widened in direct proportion to his warming up to his subject. “I find that there are amazing displays of discipline evident in the art world. Discipline that can’t be found in society these days.” And then he flushed, as if Leonor had caught him in an awkward moment. “I’m sorry. I probably sound like a nerd to you.”

“No.” She quickly discounted his negative assessment of himself. “But you do sound too good to be true,” she admitted in a moment of fleeting weakness.

His smile was almost dazzling as he said, “Why, Ms. Colton, are you flirting with me?”

“No!”

Realizing that she had almost shouted out the word, Leonor lowered her voice as she covertly glanced around to see if anyone was looking in their direction, watching them. She’d been trying really hard to maintain a low profile.

No one seemed to be looking in their direction. It was as if they recognized her, but were giving her space anyway. Maybe there was a truce in place between the town and her mother’s offspring.

She certainly hoped so.

“No,” Leonor repeated in a much lower tone. “I’m not. I’m just saying that I never met anyone who proclaimed themselves to be an art lover—outside of the program at the college I attended,” she qualified.

Josh laughed softly, amused at the way she had worded her statement. “It’s been a long while since I was in college.”

“Where did you attend?” Leonor asked. She reasoned that if she asked him enough questions—and this man was lying to her—she could gather together enough ammunition to trip him up.

His photographic memory pulled up the bio that had been worked up for him.

“College of William & Mary,” he told her in the same matter-of-fact tone he might have used if he were telling her that he had attended some trade school in the area.

“That’s in Mississippi, isn’t it?” she asked conversationally, waiting to see if he would agree with her.

“No, it’s in Williamsburg, Virginia,” he corrected casually.

Anyone could know that, she thought, pushing on. “What did you study?”

“Not nearly as much as I should have,” he admitted with guileless honesty. “But I did manage to graduate with a degree in art.” A smile that was fond at the same time that it appeared resigned curved his lips. “My father was furious.”

He was trying to reel her in and she knew it. Still, she heard herself asking, “He didn’t know what you were studying?”

This time, the shrug was rather philosophical. “My father was hoping that if I didn’t follow him into the ‘family’ business, I’d at least become another Thomas Jefferson. He went to school there,” he interjected in case she didn’t know that.

She wasn’t quite sure she followed the logic here. “Your father wanted you to become a president?”

Josh took a sip of lemonade before answering. “Thomas Jefferson was that century’s version of a Renaissance man,” he told her. “I think my father was hoping I’d emulate Jefferson and become someone who was good at a variety of things, one of which would be at least related to the building trade.”

This time she did follow his line of thinking. “Since Jefferson designed Monticello.”

Josh grinned, nodding. “You’re catching on.”

It took effort not to get caught up in the cheerful way her tablemate presented his facts. “You do spin a story,” she told him. Then, in case he thought he was charming her, she added, “I think around here, they call that telling tall tales.”

“You don’t believe me,” he guessed, neither annoyed nor disappointed.

Leonor tempered her words. She had to admit that she did find the man entertaining. “Let’s just say I have a healthy skepticism.”

“I can understand,” Josh replied. “A beautiful woman like you being approached by a total stranger would do well to be on her guard.” He leaned in over the table as if to share a secret with her. “There are a lot of unsavory people out there.”

“You’re not going to try to convince me that you’re on the level?” she asked, rather surprised, even though she was doing her best not to show it.

“I’ve always found that the harder someone pushes a point, the more that point is held to be highly suspect.” And he was not about to do anything to turn her off. “I’m just content to share a meal and a conversation with a lovely companion.”

He saw that she was about to protest the word companion, and quickly said, “Speaking of sharing—” The words hung in the air as he put his hand inside his jacket, slipping it into his breast pocket. Josh extracted five photographs. “I wasn’t completely forthcoming with you earlier. I’m not here to take in the sights. I’m actually on a combination vacation/scouting trip—although my father questions how I can take a vacation if I don’t have a revenue-producing career to take a vacation from.” He flashed a grin. “That did sound rather awkward, didn’t it?”

She pushed that observation aside, far more interested in the photographs that were in his hand. Leonor had to admit that as much as she was trying to remain above the exchange, or at least appear to be above it, the man she was sharing bread sticks with had managed to arouse her curiosity.

Her eyes riveted to the photographs in his hand, she asked, “What’s the scouting part of it involve?”

“I’m looking for the proper place to—let’s be honest—” he told her with a smile, “show off some of my collection.”

At that point, Josh carefully spread out all five of the photographs on the side of the table, creating rather an interesting column.

She didn’t want to look as if he had captured her attention, but he most definitely had.

Giving up all pretense of disinterest, she drew one of the photographs closer to her and looked at it, then at him. It couldn’t be a photograph of what she thought it was.

Could it?

“Is that a—?” Leonor deliberately let her voice trail off, waiting for the man sitting across from her to fill in the artist’s name.

Which he obliged.

“A Jackson Pollock? Yes. I have to admit that I’m more willing to lend that one out than I would be, say, my Van Gogh. Or the Turner.” There was a fond expression on his face as he admitted, “I’m probably rather lowbrow in the opinion of a lot of the so-called ‘refined’ art critics but there’s just something about a seascape that moves me.”

Leonor drew all five of the photographs closer to her and studied them, one by one, then raised her eyes to his. “And these are originals?” She didn’t bother hiding the note of skepticism in her voice.

“They’d better be, considering the price I paid for them.” And then he laughed, lightening the moment. “Yes, they’re originals. I had two different art appraisers verify their authenticity.”

“Two?” she questioned.

He nodded. Picking up a bread stick, he broke it in half before biting into it. “One could have always been bought by the collector supposedly ‘selling’ the painting. Two different appraisers from different companies are far less likely to be in collusion.”

“So, you’re a skeptic,” she noted. She felt herself softening despite her resolve. It wasn’t in her nature to constantly hold everyone at arm’s length.

Josh nodded, although he looked as if he took no joy in admitting the fact. “I’m afraid that these days, you have to be. There are a lot of people out there who want to part you from whatever prize possessions they have their eye on.” And then he flashed a smile at her. “But I don’t have to tell you that.”

“Why?” she wanted to know. He did recognize her, she thought. Why else would he have just said something like that to her? He was telling her that he knew she was aware of what he was referring to, namely, the blatant fickleness of her neighbors that she had had to endure when that scandal surrounding her mother had flared up.

But that apparently wasn’t what he was telling her, she learned.

“Because it’s obvious that you find me highly suspect,” Josh told her. “You wouldn’t be that way unless something had happened to you along the way to make you so suspicious of everyone.”

It was her turn to shrug. “Maybe I’m just naturally suspicious.”

“A woman as beautiful as you?” he questioned, shaking his head. “I doubt that.”

She had no idea what being attractive had to do with it. “You’re pretty free with your compliments.”

The look that he gave her could have melted a rock—and she wasn’t a rock, she thought, doing her best not to succumb.

“Only when they’re merited,” Josh countered.

He was being much too smooth. There had to be a way to get to him, to unravel all these pretty words before they completely undermined her defenses.

“So if I had a face that could stop a clock—?” She left it up to him to finish.

“I wouldn’t tell you that you were beautiful,” he said honestly. “I’d shine a spotlight on all your other assets.”

“And flatter those,” Leonor guessed knowingly.

He inclined his head, as if considering whether he would or not. “If they deserved it, yes.”

She decided to reserve judgment on the man for another time. Right now, the photographs he had shown her had her attention.

“You’re really looking for someplace to display these paintings?” she asked, a wary note in her voice. She would hate to be taken in by the likes of this Joshua Pendergrass. She knew that the first thing anyone would think was that she had gotten swept off her feet and dazzled by the man’s overwhelming good looks rather than by his breathtaking collection.

Josh nodded. “Yes.”

She knew she would hate herself if he actually decided to go this route and she lost out, but she needed to know why he hadn’t thought of this himself.

“Why don’t you just get in contact with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City? I’m sure that they would be more than happy to put your collection on display.”

He finished off the second half of the bread stick before answering. “I’m sure they would.”

She looked at him. It seemed rather clear to her. “So? Why don’t you?”

“Because the entire museum is teeming with works of art,” he explained. “The people who come through those halls are almost anesthetized, accustomed to seeing the greats and near greats at every turn they take, every hall they walk through. I think my collection would be better appreciated displayed in a smaller venue. Someplace that isn’t quite as overwhelming.” His eyes met hers. “If you get my thinking.”

“I do,” she told him.

She was trying to play it cool, but she had to admit to herself that she was growing progressively more excited, with each passing moment, about the possibilities this man whose path she had crossed represented to her. To the art museum where she worked. She’d certainly had her share of bad luck, but this had to fall under the heading of the most fortuitous meeting she’d ever had.

Deciding to stop being so morbidly cautious, Leonor broached the subject of where she worked to him to see his reaction.

“You know, I work for an art museum.”

She expected him to look delighted, or at least extremely pleased. She hadn’t expected him to look disappointed—in her.

“Now you’re just having fun at my expense, Ms. Colton.”

“No, really, I work at an art museum,” Leonor assured him. “And please, call me Leonor. When you say ‘Ms. Colton,’ I expect to turn around and see my mother standing there.”

“All right,” he agreed, then tried her name out on his tongue. “Leonor.” It seemed to all but float between them. And then he got back to the subject under discussion. “I looked this town up before I came here. I don’t recall reading that there was an art museum in the vicinity. So, unless that guidebook is out-of-date—”

“It’s not,” she admitted. “You didn’t read anything about there being an art museum in Shadow Creek is because there isn’t one.”

Josh shook his head, his rather long dark brown hair moving ever so slightly. “I’m afraid you lost me. I thought you just told me that you worked for an art museum—”

“I do, but I don’t work here,” Leonor clarified before he could get any further. “I work for an art museum in Austin.”

“A museum, not a gallery?” he specified, watching her face intently.

She was beginning to think that a lot of people had tried to put one over on this man at one time or another. He came across as smooth, gregarious and charming, but at the same time he seemed rather subtly alert, as if he was waiting for things to go wrong before they eventually went right.

“It’s an art museum,” she assured him. “It’s not as large as some of the other ones in, say, the bigger cities like Los Angeles, and certainly nothing like the Museum of Modern Art in New York,” she allowed. Leonor looked down at the five photographs again. They were all truly beautiful works of art. “But we have several respectable collections on the premises, and I guarantee that we would do your collection complete justice if you wound up deciding that you wanted to display the paintings at our museum.”

He nodded thoughtfully, appearing to carefully consider her words. “I’d have to think about it,” he told her.

She’d expected nothing less and would have been suspicious if he had said otherwise. “Of course, I understand.”

“Meanwhile, I do have to eat,” he said matter-of-factly. “And a bread stick only goes so far.” He looked around the premises. “Tell me, does the server ever come back after she brings over the lemonade or are we supposed to just fill up on bread sticks? Because, if that’s the case, she’s going to have to come back with more bread sticks.”

“She’s supposed to come back,” Leonor told him.

Scanning the area, she spotted the young woman who had brought over their lemonades. She appeared to be talking to the two men who were seated at another table across the way. It didn’t look as if order-taking was involved.

Leonor was eager to be accommodating—yes, this man she was sharing a table with could still be a fraud, but if he wasn’t, the museum where she worked stood to gain a lot if Josh Pendergrass was kept happy.

As long as all it takes is a full stomach, she silently qualified.

Because if it took anything else, or if this was a case of something else being involved other than an art collector looking for a venue to display his collection, then she wasn’t interested in keeping this man content, no matter how exceptionally good-looking he was.

A good-looking man was why she had come home to regroup in the first place. Maybe if David hadn’t been as handsome or as charming as he was, she would have seen through his ruse a lot sooner and been spared a lot of heartache.

Well, she was never going to be that blind again, Leonor promised herself.

But she was just as determined not to allow what David had done to jade her or color the way she looked at things. That, she knew, would be as much of a tragedy as her running blindly toward making another really stupid mistake.

Catching the server’s eye, the next moment Leonor stood up. Raising her voice only slightly, she informed the young woman, “We’re ready to order now.”

The server looked only moderately embarrassed to have to be summoned this way. She quickly approached their table.

“Very good, Ms. Colton,” the young woman said.

Josh pretended to look at her with a measure of surprise. “So that really is your name?” he asked, taking the server as the final authority on the matter.

Why would he think that she had lied to him earlier? What was the point of admitting that she was part of a family that had the stain of infamy on it if she didn’t have to?

“Yes, Colton really is my name,” she answered Josh, and for the first time in a long while, she didn’t sigh as she said it.

Chapter 4

“Well, you certainly look happy,” Mac said when she walked into the ranch house almost four hours later.

It was good to see her like this, the rancher thought. She’d been through a lot. More than her share. It was time for her to find something to smile about.

He crossed over to her. “I’m guessing that taking my advice turned out well for you.”

Leonor nodded. Since the outing had been his idea, she’d chosen to come into Mac’s house when she got back from town instead of going straight to the apartment over the stables.

Kicking off her shoes, she sank down on the sofa. It creaked slightly, like an old friend murmuring a familiar greeting as her body settled back against the creased leather.

“You were right, Mac,” she freely admitted. “It felt good to get out. And, surprisingly enough,” she added with a self-effacing smile, “no one felt compelled to throw rocks at me.”

That came as no surprise to him. “You were always the nice one, little girl,” Mac told her. “Nobody would throw rocks at you—any more than they’d throw rocks at me.”

Leonor laughed at his statement as Mac sat down in the far corner of the sofa. “That’s because you’re not related to Livia by blood,” she pointed out. “Besides, let’s face it,” she added, tongue in cheek, “you’re big and intimidating. People in town would be afraid to throw rocks at you. They’d be afraid of the consequences of something like that.”

His rich baritone laugh seemed to completely encircle her. “You might have a point,” he agreed. “Just remember,” he told her, becoming serious, “I have your back, little girl.”

His phrasing amused her, as did the nickname he had for her. Rather than bristle or take offense, thinking it played upon her helplessness, she found it endearing. “And any other part of me that needs protecting?” she wanted to know.

Mac nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Good to know.”

He looked a little closer at her. “You certainly are in a good mood,” Mac observed. “Did you run into some old friends?”

She sincerely doubted that anyone in town thought of themselves as belonging to that small, intimate group. To be completely honest, Leonor wasn’t so sure that any of the town’s locals thought of anyone in her family as a friend.

“That would be pretty hard to do,” she told Mac, “given the circumstances. But I did meet this man at that new restaurant across from the bed-and-breakfast...”

Mac was instantly alert. “Oh?”

She smiled. Mac was getting protective. She could tell. She knew the signs. She supposed old habits were hard to break.

Considering everything that had happened in the last few months, it was nice having someone looking out for her, Leonor thought. She could have used Mac when David was hovering around, making her completely stupid and blind until it was too late to undo the damage, she thought ruefully.

“Nothing to get excited about,” she warned Mac. “From what I could tell, the man’s just passing through. We shared a table at a restaurant.”

“The restaurant is that crowded?” Mac asked in amazement. He was always interested in how the other businesses in and around Shadow Creek were doing because, eventually, whatever happened to them had an effect on his own ranch. They were all interdependent in one way or another.

“No,” Leonor said, negating that and any other theory that Mac might come up with. “He just didn’t want to eat alone and asked if he could join me.”

“And you agreed?”

She saw that Mac was watching her carefully. What did he expect to see? “Well, I don’t exactly have leprosy.”

“No,” he readily agreed. “But what happened to being leery?” He would have thought after what she’d been through with this David character, she’d be highly suspicious of any man she hadn’t known for years. There was no arguing that Leonor was a very attractive young woman, but she was also a Colton and certain precautions always needed to be in place.

“He’s an art collector,” Leonor told him, as if that single attribute was capable of negating an entire host of sins.

Mac crossed his arms before his chest, looking exceedingly formidable. “And you know this how?” he asked patiently.

She knew how Mac was liable to take this, but all she had was the truth. “He told me.”

“And you believed him? Seriously?” Mac questioned. He frowned. He trusted her judgment, but this didn’t sound good. “I thought you were the suspicious one.”

She made no comment about that. Instead, she explained what had won her over. “He showed me photographs of some of his paintings. He’s looking for somewhere to display them.”

“So naturally he thought of Shadow Creek?” The dubious look on Mac’s face grew more pronounced.

“No, the Austin Art Museum,” she answered a bit too sharply.

This wasn’t sounding as good to him as it apparently did to her, Mac thought. “In other words, he’s stalking you?”

“No,” she insisted. “We just kind of ran into one another.”

He highly doubted that, but Leonor was a grown woman, capable of taking care of herself—he supposed. If he suggested otherwise, he knew that was liable to blow up on him.

“Uh-huh. Well, as long as you stay alert, I can’t see the harm in that,” he said agreeably. His expression softened as he looked at her again. “And I’ve got to say, it’s really great seeing you smile again. For a few days there, I didn’t think you were ever going to look anything but devastated again. I don’t mind saying that it hurt to see you that way,”

She was surprised to hear him say that. “I thought I was doing a good job hiding my feelings.”

Mac laughed, shaking his head. “Hate to tell you this, but you weren’t.” Since she was in such a good mood, he thought she’d be amenable to doing something else. “Listen, I was just thinking. What if we—?”

But Mac never got the opportunity to finish his sentence because at that moment, the front door flew open, hitting the opposite wall with a bang. Leonor’s half brother Thorne Colton came in, scowling and for all the world looking like a storm that was about to roll over the plains.

Without Thorne saying a word to his father, his deep brown eyes immediately homed in on Leonor. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he accused. Not waiting for her to answer one way or another—he wouldn’t have believed her if she’d said no—Thorne continued his rant. “Never really thought of you as being this selfish, but then, I guess I couldn’t really have expected anything else, could I? Given who your mother is,” he concluded nastily.

Mac was up on his feet, his usual easygoing expression gone. “Watch your tongue. And don’t forget, Livia’s your mother, too.”

Thorne blew out an angry breath. “And how many times have I wished that wasn’t true?” Livia’s fourth born snapped. The focus of his anger widened, taking in his father as well as his half sister. “What the hell were you thinking, anyway,” he demanded, glaring at at Mac, “letting Livia lead you to her bed?”

“That is none of your business,” Mac informed him, his voice only growing deeper as he warned his son off, “and whatever else you might think about that part of my life, you wound up being the result of that brief interlude—and no matter what else might have gone down, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Mac’s frown deepened as he looked at his son. “Except, maybe, for when you come rolling through here like a clap of thunder. I want you to keep a civil tongue in your head when you talk to your sister,” his father warned.

But Thorne was as stubborn in his own way as his father was. The only difference was their chosen decibel range.

“Why should I when she went running off at the mouth, spilling family secrets to some jerk with a laptop and an internet byline?” Thorne demanded. His eyes narrowed into dark brown slits as he glared at Leonor. “I’m right, aren’t I? It was you who sold us all out and told whoever the hell is behind Everything’s Blogger everything about us.” He didn’t wait for her to confirm his supposition. “How much did they pay you?” he wanted to know.

The last question stabbed her right through the heart. “It wasn’t like that,” Leonor cried.

Thorne pretended to look aghast. “They didn’t pay you?” he asked sarcastically.

“Enough!” Mac declared. “She doesn’t owe you an explanation,” he told his son.

“For splattering the so-called low points of my life all over the internet, thanks to some lurid blogger?” he cried, outraged. How could his father be taking her side? That angered Thorne almost as much as what he’d just accused Leonor of. “The hell she doesn’t.”

“Thorne!” Mac shouted. The warning note in the rancher’s voice was clear.

Unable to take Mac fighting with his son over something that she ultimately was responsible for, Leonor raised her voice to be heard above the two men.

“Stop!” she pleaded. When both men looked at her, she began by answering Thorne’s question, really hoping she wouldn’t break down in the middle of it. “I thought I could trust him,” Leonor retorted, anger and hurt throbbing in every syllable. She could feel tears forming as she continued. “We were supposed to get married—”

“Married?” Mac questioned, looking at her. He looked stunned by this addition. “You left that part out,” he told her.

Leonor inclined her head, as if conceding her error. “Sorry.”

“You’re going to have to do better than ‘sorry,’” Thorne told her angrily.

Doggedly, Leonor pushed on with her explanation. “I needed to talk to someone, to get everything I’d been carrying around all this time, like some kind of flesh-eating poison, off my chest.

“People were as nasty to me as they were to you—” she began, looking at Thorne.

His laugh was cold and dismissive. “I really doubt that.”

“Let her finish,” Mac ordered, cutting his son off.

Thorne scowled, but conceded. “Go ahead,” he told his sister grudgingly.

“I needed someone to talk to,” Leonor repeated, “and he was there, ready to listen.”

“And taking notes,” Thorne interjected nastily.

Leonor sighed. Thorne was right, but that didn’t help anything or change it. “I didn’t know that at the time,” she told him. “I had no idea he’d wind up putting it all in a blog and selling it to the highest bidder. I thought he loved me, but he turned out to be an opportunist.”

“If you wanted to talk so badly,” Thorne said angrily, not fully ready to accept that as an excuse, “why didn’t you come to me?”

She looked at him. Was he kidding? They were all at odds when their mother was carted off to prison. Thorne particularly.

“Maybe you forgot,” Leonor pointed out, “but you weren’t exactly the friendliest audience to turn to these last few years. I couldn’t talk to you.”

He wasn’t about to let her turn this around and blame him.

“Maybe that was because I could never understand how you could still love that woman after everything she’d done. She never once thought about how her actions would reflect on us or affect us. Hell, she never once thought about us, period,” he reminded his sister angrily. “Yet you went running off to visit her in prison every chance you got,” he said scornfully.

Her temper flared. Leonor gritted her teeth together as she ground out an answer to his accusation. “Because nobody else did.”

“There was a reason for that!” Thorne pointed out in exasperation. “The woman is evil.” Fury had temporarily robbed him of breath. When he got it back, he asked his sister, “Was she grooming you to follow in her footsteps? Was that it, Lennie? Was that why you sold us out like that? Are you helping her now?”

Stunned, Leonor couldn’t find the words to answer her brother, to defend herself. What hurt most of all was that Thorne felt she had to.

Mac came to her rescue. “That’s enough, Thorne!” he shouted. “I want you to apologize to your sister.”

There was cold fury on Thorne’s face. “Why should I?” he demanded.

Thorne was furious and he felt he had every right to be. His father was blind when it came to Leonor and his other half sisters, but women could be even more evil and deadlier than men. His mother was living proof of that, he thought darkly.

“Because she doesn’t deserve to be treated so disrespectfully,” Mac informed his son. “Because if it wasn’t for her, neither one of us would be standing here right now!”

Thorne had no idea what his father was talking about. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“It’s nothing,” Leonor said quickly. She knew what Mac was going to say and she didn’t want him to. This was a private matter between the two of them, not something she’d done for any sort of credit or recognition.

But Mac wasn’t about to allow Leonor’s generosity to go unnoted any longer. Thorne needed to know just the sort of person his sister was.

“It’s not ‘nothing,’” Mac told her. “And it’s about time people knew how you came through.” He shifted his eyes toward his son. “When the bank was breathing down my neck a few years ago, threatening me with foreclosure because I’d had a run of bad luck and missed a few payments, Leonor used her own money to help bail me out. She paid off the bank.” There was gratitude in his eyes when he looked at her. “If she hadn’t done that, it would have gone up for sale.”

Completely stunned in the face of this information, Thorne could only stare at his father. “You never said anything.”

“Not the kind of thing a man likes to advertise,” Mac replied flatly. “It wasn’t my finest moment. But it definitely was Leonor’s,” he added, looking significantly at her.

Thorne blew out a breath, completely caught off guard. It was his turn to look contrite. “I didn’t know,” he said to his sister.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” Leonor said simply. “I didn’t do it because I wanted people to have something nice to say about me. I did it because your father needed help and this was my small way of paying him back for all the times he was there for all of us. For me,” she added with affection as she looked at the tall, strapping, dark-skinned rancher. “In a way, you’re the parent the rest of us never had,” she told Mac.

Mac smiled at her. “You made it easy.” And then he turned his attention toward his son. “You want to apologize to her?”

He made it sound like an option, but Thorne knew that it wasn’t. And, given what he’d just found out, his father was right. He did owe Leonor an apology. Not for being angry about the blog—she hadn’t denied being responsible for that—but for losing his temper with her like that. No matter how angry he was, she didn’t deserve to have him ranting at her like that, especially not after she’d helped his father the way she had.

Apologies weren’t exactly his specialty and this one was no exception. He went with something positive rather than dwelling on the negative. “Thanks for helping Dad out.”

“Like I said, it was the least I could do.” Leonor shrugged as if it had been no big deal—because, to her, it hadn’t been. The far bigger deal would have been to just ignore Mac’s plight and move on as if there was nothing wrong. “And I did have the money.”

“But you didn’t have to use it,” Mac pointed out.

He wasn’t a man who took anything for granted. Life was hard and he knew that better than a lot of people. He had no really high expectations, but when the occasional pleasant surprise came his way, he was grateful to be able to experience it.

Leonor looked at the rancher. To her way of thinking, there had never been a choice. It was a matter of doing the right thing, or not being able to live with her conscience if she had chosen to close her eyes and just walk away.

“Yes, I did,” she told him quietly.

“Okay,” Thorne conceded. “I take back everything I just said to you,” he told Leonor. “You didn’t sell us out. But what are we going to do about this character who sold the info to the blog?”

“You ignore him,” Mac said, addressing his words to both of them, just in case his son was getting Leonor all fired up about the man again. He wanted her to let go of her anger over this—permanently.

Thorne was not keen on his father’s input.

“That doesn’t seem right after what they wrote,” Thorne protested.

Mac shook his head. His son was missing the point here. “You go after him in any way, even if it’s just to carry on an online war, and all you’ve done is succeeded in getting more people to pay attention to this jackass’s blog. If you want a story to die, the way you kill it is ignore it until it eventually runs out of fuel and burns itself out.”

“What if it doesn’t burn itself out?” Thorne challenged.

Mac was unwavering in his response. “It will. All things die eventually. Yesterday’s news is just that, yesterday’s news. Unless, like a scab, you keep scratching at it and making it bleed. Then somebody pays attention to it.”

Leonor shivered. “A bleeding scab. Not exactly the most appealing image,” she said.

“Maybe not,” Mac agreed. “But that doesn’t make it any less accurate.” And then he took a deep breath, his barrel chest expanding impressively. He considered this topic to be over. “I just bought two new stallions and they were delivered this morning.” He looked from Leonor to his son. “You two up for a trip to the stable to meet the new arrivals?”

She’d always loved horses. It was the best part of her childhood. She couldn’t think of anything she would have liked better than to see the stallions that Mac had purchased.

“Count me in,” she told Mac.

Thorne paused. The fire had settled down in his veins. “Yeah, me, too,” Thorne said.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Mac wanted to know. He crossed to the front door, beckoning them to follow him. “Let’s go!”

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