The crafty expression returned to Matthew’s face, and he shook his head. “Can’t do that, boy. You get your one clue, just like the others.” He waited for Chris to say something, but when Chris didn’t speak, he offered, “Biff.”
“Biff? That’s it? Biff?”
Matthew nodded, a secretive smile forming. As if he knew what Chris was thinking. As if he knew that if Chris could have reached through the glass he would have put his hands around his father’s throat and—
No! A tiny corner of Chris’s brain forced him back to sanity. You are not a killer, he reminded himself, the words becoming his mantra. You are not a killer. He’s your father, but you are not him. And you are not a killer.
He settled his Stetson on his head, shielding his eyes from Matthew’s searching gaze. “You are an evil man,” Chris told his father evenly through the phone. “And yes, your blood flows through our veins. But Mama’s blood flows through our veins, too. You killed her, but you can’t kill her spirit—we’re her legacy. She lives on in us.”
He put the phone down and stood. Matthew was speaking—his lips were moving—but Chris didn’t want to hear anything more his father had to say. He turned and walked toward the door...to freedom. Freedom his father would never know until the disease ravaging his body claimed him, and he left the prison in a hearse.
Chris would never return. Would never look on his father’s face ever again, not even at his funeral...which Chris would not attend. But this visit had been necessary after all, and not just to receive his clue that was no more help than the clues the others had received. No, this visit brought closure. Chris hadn’t realized he needed it, but now he finally acknowledged that the father he’d once known no longer existed. The stern father who—despite that sternness—had loved his wife and children had been a different man. This man—Matthew Colton, wife murderer and serial killer—wasn’t the father of Chris’s memory. Something had changed him. Twisted him. He was beyond the reach of even his children’s pleading.
And knowing that, the shackles binding Chris to the past were finally broken. I’m his son, he acknowledged once again. But I am not him.
* * *
On the way back to town Chris passed the entrance to his brother Ethan’s ranch. A sudden impulse to talk with Ethan made him brake sharply and swerve into the turn without signaling, earning him an angry honk from the truck behind him.
“Sorry,” he muttered, glancing at his rearview mirror even though he knew the other driver couldn’t hear him.
It wasn’t just letting Ethan know the clue their father had given him that had made Chris turn, but also the desire to share that he finally understood Ethan’s complete rejection of Matthew all these years. Ethan had been only seven to Chris’s eleven when their father had murdered their mother—he didn’t have the memories Chris had of the good times with their father. But that was all gone now, erased by the knowledge that the father he remembered and the man dying in prison were two different people.
Chris pulled up in front of the ranch house, parked and got out, leaving his hat on the seat and not bothering to lock his truck. Ethan’s probably out on the ranch somewhere, but Lizzie can tell me where he is. His boots thudded as he mounted the wooden stairs and crossed the front porch, thinking about the last time he’d been out here. Ethan’s ranch—Ethan and Lizzie’s ranch, he reminded himself with a smile—had quickly become the Colton family gathering place. And soon there’d be another celebration, when Lizzie gave birth.
His smile faded as the never-to-be-forgotten sadness came to the fore. The loss of his own baby when Laura died wasn’t the constant heartache it had been at first, but the pain would never go away completely. His baby would have been the first Colton of the next generation, not Ethan’s. But that wasn’t Ethan or Lizzie’s fault. And he would love their baby the way he loved Susan and Bobby. The way he loved Ian and Jamie.
He stood stock-still for a moment. The way he loved Ian and Jamie?
You do, his shocked mind acknowledged. You love them as if you were their fath—
He chopped that thought off before he could finish it. “Don’t go there,” he muttered. “Don’t.”
He forced himself to move, to knock on the screen door. The front door was open, so he called through the screen, “Lizzie? Lizzie? It’s Chris.”
The only answer he got—a long, low moan—scared the hell out of him. “Lizzie!” He grabbed the handle on the screen door and pulled, but the latch was on and the door refused to budge. Another moan, and this time Chris wrenched at the screen door with all his might. With a creaking sound, the old wood gave way, the latch pulled free and Chris was inside. “Lizzie?” His gaze encompassed the neat living room, but he saw nothing, so he moved down the hallway, bellowing, “Lizzie, where the hell are you?”
“Kitchen— Ohhh!”
He found Lizzie there, her face drenched in sweat. She was bent over the back of a chair, gripping it tightly as the labor pain ebbed. His eyes took in everything, including the way her clothes were sopping wet and the panting sounds she was making as she breathed.
“Crap!” He lifted his sister-in-law gently into his arms and headed for the front door. Hospital, his frantic mind told him. “How far apart?”
“I...I couldn’t time them,” she gasped, “so I don’t know. Four minutes maybe?”
“Your water broke already, so this didn’t just start a few minutes ago. Where the hell’s Ethan?” He was already outside, maneuvering his way to his F-150 as fast as he could.
“He went into town. I didn’t tell him... I’ve had false labor pains twice before and...and I didn’t want to worry him again.”
“Where’s Joyce?” he asked, referring to the wife of Ethan’s foreman, Bill Peabody.
“Joyce and Bill went to visit their kids. I never expected...”
He listened to her explanation with only half his attention. The rest was laser-focused on what he had to do. “Open the door, Lizzie,” he told her when they reached the passenger side, and when she did, he kicked it wide-open with one booted foot. He placed her as carefully as he could on the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt around her, but when he went to close the door, she grabbed his arm.
“My things. Suitcase by the front door. Please!”
“Okay,” he told her. “I’ll get them. Don’t go anywhere.”
Lizzie choked on a laugh. “Don’t worry. Just hurry.”
He found the suitcase right where she’d said it would be, then raced out, pulling the front door closed behind him. He wedged the suitcase behind his seat, sat down and belted himself in. As the engine roared to life he said, “Did you call Ethan?”
“I called him earlier, but...my water hadn’t broken yet. He said he was on his way to get me.”
Chris floored it, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. The truck jounced and jolted until he got to the main road, and the minute he turned Lizzie clutched her stomach and started moaning again. “Crap!” he said again, glancing at his watch, then gave her his right hand, steering with the left. “Hold tight on to me,” he said. “Scream if you want to—don’t hold back. And aren’t you supposed to be panting like a dog? Isn’t that supposed to help?”
Between moans Lizzie laughed again the way he’d intended her to, but she didn’t say anything, just gripped his hand in a death grip that—holy crap!—hurt.
When she finally let go, Chris surreptitiously wiggled his fingers to see if any bones were broken. When he figured they were still intact, he hit the Bluetooth button on his steering wheel as they barreled down the county highway.
He waded through the interminable questions the disembodied recorded voice asked him until he finally heard Ethan on the other end. “Ethan, it’s Chris,” he said, cutting his brother off. “I’ve got Lizzie and we’re heading to the hospital.” He darted a look at the clock on the dashboard. “I figure five to six minutes, tops.” It would take longer...if he wasn’t going ninety miles an hour. “Meet us there.”
“Got it,” Ethan replied. “Turning around now. Lizzie? Can you hear me?”
Chris glanced at Lizzie, then pointed to the speaker above his head. “Talk loud,” he advised.
Lizzie laughed again. “I can hear you, Ethan,” she shouted.
“Lizzie, honey, you hang in there, okay? I’ll be with you before you know it.”
“Okay.”
“And, Lizzie?” The hesitation, Chris knew, was because he could hear every word Ethan said to her. “I love you, honey. You and the baby are the best things that ever happened to me, and I—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Chris interrupted. “You love her, you need her, you can’t live without her. Forget that crap and drive!”
He hit the disconnect button and glanced over at his sister-in-law, who was sitting there with tears in her eyes. “Now, don’t you start,” he told her in bracing tones.
“I love you, Chris,” she blurted out as the tears overflowed. “I’m so lucky to have you as a brother-in-law.” Then she caught her breath as another labor pain snared her in its grasp, and Chris could actually see the ripples go through her.
“Crap!” he said again and depressed the pedal until the speedometer hovered around a hundred. He offered Lizzie his right hand again, mentally girding himself against the pain he knew was forthcoming, but also knowing that whatever pain Lizzie inflicted on him was nothing compared to what she was going through. “Hold on tight.”
* * *
Two hours later Chris was still in the hospital waiting room. Ethan had met them at Emergency and had lifted his pregnant wife out of Chris’s truck even more gently than Chris had placed her in it. Chris had parked in the visitor’s lot, retrieved Ethan’s truck from where he’d left it half on the driveway and half on the sidewalk—smooth talking a policeman out of a ticket in the process—then headed for the Emergency entrance with Lizzie’s suitcase in hand. He’d turned the suitcase over to the admitting clerk and had followed her instructions on finding the waiting room. Where he’d waited. And waited.
He’d called Peg and told her what was happening, asking her to pass along the news to Holly and explain why he was delayed getting back. Then he’d called Annabel and Sam, who were on duty and couldn’t talk for long. But they’d both spared him a moment to say Jim Murray had approved them working with Chris and Holly on setting the trap for the McCays.
Chris had forgotten about that. Well, not exactly forgotten, but Lizzie’s crisis had driven everything else out of his head in the heat of the moment. He’d quickly called Ridge and Trevor after that, but both calls had gone right to voice mail. He’d left a message, though, both about Lizzie and the clue he’d obtained during his trip to the prison today—Biff. Then he’d turned his mind to the problem of how best to set a trap for the McCays.
Lost in thought, he didn’t see Ethan walk into the waiting room. Not until his brother stood right in front of him did Chris realize he was there. Ethan looked wiped out. Pale beneath his tan. But happy. Ecstatically happy, and relieved.
Chris stood up. “Lizzie okay?” Ethan swallowed hard, as if he wanted to speak but couldn’t. Then he nodded, and Chris asked, “And the baby? Everything okay there?”
“Yeah.” The rasped word was accompanied by a sudden smile that split Ethan’s face. “A boy. Eight pounds, eleven ounces. Twenty-one inches.”
“Wow, big baby. Must take after his dad.” Chris grinned and wrapped his brother in a bear hug. “Congratulations, little brother. You did good.”
Ethan returned the hug, and when the two men finally separated, Ethan dashed a hand against his eyes, swiping away the moisture. “Got something in my eye,” he muttered, turning away.
“Same here,” Chris said, following suit.
But then the brothers faced each other again, smiling to beat the band. Ethan shook his head. “I can never thank you enough, Chris.”
“It was nothing.”
“Don’t give me that BS. I should never have left Lizzie this close to her due date, especially since Joyce and Bill weren’t there. But she swore to me she’d be okay, and I was only going into town.” His eyes took on an expression Chris remembered from their childhood, when the two youngest boys—Sam and Ethan—had looked up to their older “stair steps” and wanted to emulate them. And all four of them had looked up to Trevor, the oldest. “If not for you,” Ethan continued in a grateful voice, “I don’t know what Lizzie would have done.”
Chris flexed his right hand and joked, “That’s some woman you’ve got there. She almost broke my hand twice, so I figure she’s tough enough to have worked out some other solution.” Ethan laughed at that, and the emotional moment passed.
The brothers collapsed into two of the waiting-room chairs. Chris dug a hand into his pocket, pulled out Ethan’s keys and handed them to him, saying, “Better give you these before I forget. Your truck’s in the visitor’s lot. Two rows down.”
“Thanks.”
After a moment Chris asked, “So you got a name picked out?”
“Lizzie and I had been toying with names ahead of time, but she and I talked just now and we’re changing it. James Christopher Colton.” Chris got that choked-up feeling again and couldn’t have spoken even if he’d wanted to. “We figured a middle name would be okay. That way if you ever have a son and want to name him after yourself—” Ethan broke off as if he’d just remembered Chris’s baby that never was, and a stricken look filled his eyes. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t think... I didn’t mean to...”
Chris tapped Ethan’s jaw with his closed fist, but lightly. “Yeah, I know you didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t sweat it. And tell Lizzie I’m purely honored.”
The two men were silent for a few moments, then Ethan said gravely, “You know, I never wanted to marry. Never wanted to have kids. With a serial killer for a father, I...I didn’t want to pass on the Colton name, or—” repugnance was in his voice “—Matthew’s blood.”
“I understand.” This wasn’t the time to get into what he’d planned to tell Ethan earlier, that Chris had completely severed any emotional bond to the father he’d once known.
“But life doesn’t always work out the way you plan,” Ethan continued. “I never planned on Lizzie. I never planned on a baby. But Lizzie...well...”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Chris teased, trying to make light of another emotionally charged moment by using the same words he’d used in his truck on the way to the hospital. “You love her, you need her, you can’t live without her.”
“Yeah.” The fervent way Ethan said the one word told Chris that—all joking aside—his brother adored his wife. And an ache speared through him. Not because he’d loved Laura and lost her, but because he hadn’t loved her as much as Ethan loved Lizzie, as if all light and hope in life emanated from her.
“Lizzie and our baby—they’re everything to me now. And I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could. I thought I could cut myself off from life. Lizzie proved me wrong.”
Simple words. Not particularly profound. Not even the kind of words that evoked a strong emotional reaction. And yet...there was something in those simple words that seemed to reverberate in Chris’s mind. I thought I could cut myself off from life.
Wasn’t that what he’d done? When Laura had died, and their baby with her, hadn’t he tried to cut himself off from life, tried to build a fence around his heart? Hadn’t he retreated—like Superman—into his fortress of solitude?
Those he already loved—his sisters and brothers, Peg and Joe and their kids—he couldn’t stop loving them. But he’d walled himself off from loving another woman, because...
Because what you don’t love you can’t lose.
It sounded like a quotation from something. If it was, he couldn’t place it, but it seemed singularly appropriate.
Only...he hadn’t really been able to do it. Holly’s boys had crept into his heart in just three short days. Identical twins be damned—he could tell them apart, and not by their tiny physical disparities. Ian, the outgoing one, with his “damn the torpedoes” outlook on life. Jamie, the shy one, with that “don’t hurt me” look in his eyes. Holly’s eyes.
That was when it hit him. Ian and Jamie weren’t the only ones who’d slipped beneath his emotional fences. Holly had, too.
* * *
Chris stayed to keep his brother company at the hospital until Ethan went up to visit Lizzie again, in her room this time with the baby, dragging Chris along. Lizzie looked a thousand times better than the last time Chris had seen her, and baby James looked so much like Ethan it was almost comical. Chris knew you couldn’t tell what color a newborn’s eyes were going to be, but between Lizzie’s green eyes and Ethan’s hazel ones, he figured the odds were good his nephew’s eyes would at least be hazel.
He kissed his sister-in-law’s cheek and told her he’d back her in an arm wrestling competition anytime—making both Lizzie and Ethan laugh. He admired the baby, marveling that something so tiny could have such powerful lungs. “Just like you, Lizzie,” he said, again making them laugh. Then he left the three of them to have some family time alone together and headed out.
* * *
It was after dark by the time Chris finally reached the Merrill house. His stomach was rumbling—he’d skipped lunch, and breakfast was a distant memory, but even if Peg asked him to stay for dinner he couldn’t. He’d left Wally at his house, not realizing he’d be gone all day. Although Wally was outside in the fenced yard with a food bowl and a water dish, the food was probably long gone, and maybe the water, too.
Peg answered the door, Susan at her heels, and the minute he walked in Susan grabbed his knee. “Pick me up, Unca Chris.” He obliged, heading for the family room with her propped on his left shoulder.
“Everything okay?” Peg asked, trailing behind him.
Chris waited until he reached the family room to make the announcement. “A boy,” he told Joe and Peg. “James Christopher Colton. Mother and baby are doing great. Ethan I’m not so sure about—he looked pretty shaky to me.”
The Merrills laughed. “Yeah, Peg wanted me in the delivery room when that one was born,” Joe said, pointing at his daughter cuddled in Chris’s arms. “But I nearly passed out. Remember, Peg?”
She snorted. “Yes, but I wasn’t about to let you off the hook when Bobby was born.” She didn’t say it—little pitchers have big ears, he thought with an inward smile—but he knew Peg well enough to know what she was thinking. If you’re there for the conception, you damn well better be there for the delivery.
Joe said something in reply, but Chris wasn’t really listening because just then Holly walked into the room and took a seat near the twins. This was the first time he’d seen her since that morning, and now, after his startling revelation in the hospital...now he couldn’t seem to look away. Her long blond hair was clipped neatly away from her face on one side—she’d ditched the dark-haired wig, and Chris couldn’t be sorry. Not when she looked like this. He remembered the corn-silk feel of her hair between his fingers last night when he’d—
He put a clamp on that memory. But then he heard Holly saying in his mind, It’s going to happen, Chris. Not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow night. But it’s going to happen.
Which was why he’d stopped off at the pharmacy in the hospital before he left. That package was hidden in the armrest of his truck, tucked there so Holly wouldn’t see it and think he was assuming...well...what he was assuming.
“Staying for dinner?” Peg asked.
“What? Oh. No, we can’t,” Chris replied. “Wally’s been home alone since this morning. Outside,” he clarified. “But I’m sure he’s as hungry as I am.” He looked at Holly again. “You about ready to go?”
A stricken expression fleetingly crossed her face, then she pasted a smile in its place. She knelt between Ian and Jamie, who were arguing over who deserved the bigger truck, and tugged them into one last embrace. “Mommy has to go now. You be good for Ms. Peg and Mr. Joe, okay?”
“’Kay,” Ian said, and Jamie echoed, “’Kay.”
She kissed them both, then stood, stony-eyed, as if she refused to let herself cry in front of her sons. “Say goodbye to Uncle Chris.”
Chris handed Susan to her father, then picked his way through the toys scattered across the rug. He leaned over, curled an arm around each boy and lifted them simultaneously, tickling their tummies with his fingers. “You be good for Ms. Peg and Mr. Joe,” he reiterated and was rewarded with the same chorus of ’kays, giggling ones this time.
He didn’t know what made him do it—well, yes, he did—but he popped a kiss on Jamie’s nose, then on Ian’s, before he set them down. Then he grabbed Holly’s hand and tugged her toward the doorway. “Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s get out of here before the waterworks begin.”
They were already out the door before Holly gulped air and said, “I didn’t think Ian and Jamie were going to cry. I’ve left them with Peg before, and they—”
“I wasn’t talking about the twins. I was talking about you.”