“Nonsense.” Joe sent a wry smile over the rim of his snifter. “I’m not only your uncle, son, I’m your boss.”
“Who’s talking to an employee taking a leave of absence to decide if he wants to continue in his job.”
“You’re a fine lawyer, Jackson, and I’m proud you’re a part of Colton Enterprises. But if it’s not a job you can put your heart into, you’ll never be happy.” Joe shrugged. “Until or unless something changes, you work for me and I’m ordering you to take the corporate jet tomorrow. Is your mother in L.A. these days?”
Jackson frowned. “Last I heard.” His parents had always maintained an arrangement that suited them. Graham lived near Jackson in San Diego; Cynthia Colton, a high-powered entertainment attorney, kept an office and condo in L.A. Throughout their marriage they had led their lives, together and separately. Mostly separately.
“If Cynthia’s there, take some extra time if you want and drop by to see her.”
Jackson thought about the impersonal air kiss and polite “how are you?” he’d received when his mother arrived at Hacienda de Alegria for his sister’s wedding. That had been the first time he’d seen her in nearly a year. He didn’t see a point in stopping by her office for another token kiss and disinterested greeting.
“I’ll take the jet, Uncle Joe. Thanks.”
“No need to thank me, son. We’re family. Family sticks together.”
“Yeah.” Jackson rubbed at the muscles knotted in the back of his neck while his gaze drifted to one of the bookshelves where picture frames and books vied for space. A woman with a wavy mane of chestnut hair and dimples smiled out from a pewter frame. Emily Blair Colton, the youngest of Joe and Meredith’s daughters, adopted as a toddler, had disappeared months ago in what had initially been thought of as a kidnapping. After receiving a ransom note, Joe had paid a heart-stopping amount of money for Emily’s return. Days later, Joe had informed the family that he’d heard from a trusted source that his adopted daughter had fled Prosperino after an intruder tried to kill her. All Joe would tell anyone was that Emily was safe. If he knew her whereabouts, he wasn’t saying. The FBI was still trying to get a lead on the person who had sent the fake ransom note and collected the money.
“Uncle Joe, I’m sorry to bring my problems to your doorstep,” Jackson said quietly. “You’ve got enough to worry about with someone taking potshots at you and all that’s happened to Emily.”
“I’d have been hurt and insulted if you hadn’t brought your problems to me.” Joe ran a hand through his thick hair. “I want Emily home. More important, I want her safe.”
“We all want that.”
“Everyone, except the person who tried to kill her.”
“True.”
Joe plucked a brass paperweight shaped like an oil rig off his desk blotter. “Emmett Fallon gave this to me when the first wildcat well we dug in Wyoming came in,” he said, hefting the paperweight in his palm. “Back then, I was young, headstrong and arrogant enough to think nothing bad could happen to myself and the people I cared about.” Sighing, Joe resettled the paperweight on the blotter. “These past ten years, life has proved me wrong.”
The look of genuine sorrow in his uncle’s face prompted Jackson to veer the subject in a different direction. “Speaking of Emmett, I ran into a woman tonight who works for his son, Blake, at Hopechest Ranch.”
“Who?”
“Cheyenne James.”
“River’s little sister,” Joe said, his face instantly brightening. “I used to pick her up from the reservation and bring her to stay here on the weekends. She was so shy, she barely spoke to me. Would hardly even look at me. Years went by and I didn’t see her. When she walked up to me at my birthday party and introduced herself, you could have knocked me over with a fingertip. She’s a beautiful woman. Took my breath away just looking at her.”
“Yes,” Jackson agreed quietly.
Joe stared down into his drink, his brow furrowing. “Later at the party, I saw the two of you talking. I remember thinking I wasn’t surprised, seeing as how you’d never been one to bypass a gorgeous woman. That wasn’t too long before all hell broke loose.” Joe’s gaze rose slowly to meet Jackson’s. “Is Cheyenne the one who saw you a couple of feet from where the person who shot at me stood?”
“Yes. Although I doubt she’s aware of the suspect’s location.”
“Did you tell her the police questioned you?”
“No.” Jackson raised a shoulder. “Maybe I will.”
Joe’s mouth curved. “So, you plan to see her again?”
“We’re having breakfast the day after tomorrow.”
“Can’t say that surprises me. Like I said, I’ve never known you to let a beautiful woman get away.”
He’d let Cheyenne get away once, Jackson acknowledged silently. Then spent months with thoughts of her chasing through his brain. No other woman had ever had that effect on him, ever captured his thoughts for so long. Maybe that was why—until his sister’s wedding—he’d made only one short visit to Prosperino. Maybe somewhere in his subconscious he’d known if he had stayed in Prosperino for any length of time, he would seek out Cheyenne. And maybe, just maybe, he harbored a small lick of fear that she was the one woman he couldn’t walk away from unscathed.
So, he’d avoided her. Successfully. Until tonight when he walked out of a dark movie theater and found her in the lobby. It was as if she’d been waiting for him. Just him.
Dammit, he could still taste her. And he wanted to taste her again. Soon.
Jackson let out a long breath. What in the hell was he going to do about Cheyenne James?
Patsy had watched the climactic end of Joe, Jr. and Teddy’s war game, then kept a sharp eye on both boys while they brushed their teeth. After that, she’d herded them into their separate bedrooms in the north wing and kissed them good-night, leaving them both with a prediction of dire consequences if they didn’t stay in bed this time.
Now, an hour later, dressed in a robe of shimmering white silk, she stood in her dark bedroom before the expansive wall of windows that faced the sea. The moon was full and high, cutting a swath of light across the black water.
“What do you mean you’re going underground?” Patsy hissed into the cell phone she’d crammed between her shoulder and cheek. She wasn’t concerned over the prospect of Joe walking in during her phone call. He hadn’t stepped foot into her bedroom in years. “I’m paying you to kill Emily Colton, not lay low while she disappears again,” she added.
“Look, the sheriff in this fleabag town—Atkins is his name—has his men working overtime trying to find the bitch’s attacker,” Silas Pike answered. “I show my face in Keyhole, Wyoming, I’m dead meat.”
“What you are is incompetent. I hired you to kill Emily in her bed, in this house. You screwed that up and let her get away. Then, you chased her across the country for heaven knows how many months. By some miracle of God you stumble on her whereabouts, attack her, yet still can’t manage to kill her. Now, you expect me to continue to pay you while you hole up somewhere for who knows how long?”
“Ain’t gonna be that long,” Pike countered. “Just long enough for that sheriff to figure some dude just passing through town is who jumped her. Once that happens, I’ll go back for her.”
“And fumble things again.”
“And kill the bitch. You don’t want to pay me to lay low for a while then finish her off, just say the word and I’ll go home. Makes no never mind to me.”
Patsy closed her eyes, blocking out the moonlight that shimmered on the dark water.
Dammit,