A Colton Target Read online

  The military man returns home—to a secret child

  It’s a boy for the Coltons of Roaring Springs

  Dodging paternal pressure, Blaine Colton entered the army years earlier. Now the prodigal soldier returns home, coming face-to-face with the woman he left behind. Gorgeous-as-ever Tilda Deeds has changed in one way, though; she’s mom to their teenage son! As danger stalks Blaine and the family he never knew he had, can love survive in its wake?

  “Josh,” Tilda said.

  The seriousness of her tone caught his attention. “Yeah, Mom?”

  She wanted to warn him to stay away from Blaine. To not give him any details about their lives. But there was no way she could do that without sounding crazy. “You’re going to need some lunch money,” she said instead.

  “Yeah, I guess,” he replied, sounding puzzled.

  She got up fast, fumbled around in her purse and handed him a twenty. Then wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “Be safe, my boy,” she said. “And have fun,” she added. Then she turned and hurried back to her bedroom before he could see the tears in her eyes.

  Teenage boys simply didn’t know what to do with crying moms. Wasn’t in their wheelhouse. And she didn’t want to do anything to spoil his day. He was such a good, hardworking kid and he deserved to have a fun day off from school.

  And Blaine would have lots of other kids on the slopes today to worry about. There was no reason to focus on her son.

  * * *

  The Coltons of Roaring Springs: Family and

  true love are under siege

  * * *

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  Dear Reader,

  I’ve always been a sucker for sprawling families where the personalities are as big as the real estate, the pockets deep, the problems complex and the romantic entanglements tangled up, indeed. When these appeared years ago on television, in the form of Dallas and Falcon Crest and Dynasty, I was an avid watcher. There was mystery and romance and it was fascinating to watch the story be slowly revealed. I suspect that’s why I jumped at the chance to be part of this year’s Colton story.

  Lucky for me, this particular branch of the Colton family resides in Colorado, one of my favorite places to set a book. Blaine Colton is a war hero who has recently returned home after years of absence to stumble upon the biggest surprise of his life. Tilda Deeds is a loving mom and a dedicated teacher.

  They’re both going to be called upon to navigate new territory and there’s danger in unexpected places. But joy, too, as a family is formed and love blossoms.

  I hope you enjoy.

  All my best,

  Beverly

  A Colton Target

  Beverly Long

  Beverly Long enjoys the opportunity to write her own stories. She has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business and more than twenty years of experience as a human resources director. She considers her books to be a great success if they compel the reader to stay up way past their bedtime. Beverly loves to hear from readers. Visit beverlylong.com, or like her author fan page at Facebook.com/beverlylong.romance.

  Books by Beverly Long

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  The Coltons of Roaring Springs

  A Colton Target

  Wingman Security

  Power Play

  Bodyguard Reunion

  Snowbound Security

  Protecting the Boss

  Harlequin Intrigue

  Return to Ravesville

  Hidden Witness

  Agent Bride

  Urgent Pursuit

  Deep Secrets

  The Men from Crow Hollow

  Hunted

  Stalked

  Trapped

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  To the many women in my family who are moms and teachers and handle both roles so skillfully. You’re making a difference and I thank you for that.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Excerpt from Cavanaugh Cowboy by Marie Ferrarella

  Chapter 1

  Blaine Colton woke up in a strange bed. Which wasn’t that unusual, given how he’d spent the last thirteen years. But the fact that he was at Colton Manor, in one of its many guest rooms, made it not all that great.

  His parents’ home was big enough that a map would be helpful. And built soundly, with well-insulated walls, making it difficult to tell if anyone else in the house was yet awake. But just in case they were, he stayed right where he was.

  He’d arrived too late last night for any real conversation. Had made small talk with his mom and been relieved to learn that his dad was at a late-evening meeting. Then he’d looked in on his grandfather Earl, who had his own suite within Colton Manor, and had apologized for missing the man’s ninety-fourth birthday celebration. Although he wasn’t sure the old man had fully grasped who he was, Blaine had thought he seemed happy enough.

  Perhaps happier than he was. Generally, upon waking, he had a purpose. Lives depended upon it. Now, he turned his head, stared at the wallpaper with its pale green background and tan vertical stripes, and started counting. When he got to the corner of the room, he turned his head again, and did the opposite wall.

  Forty-two stripes on each side. A big room.

  He had not been raised in this showplace, aka home. It had been built long after he’d moved away. Enlisted in the army. The organization where he’d served with pride.

  Before he’d thrown it all away.

  And had to come back, in disgrace. Well, almost. Unbeknownst to him, his father, the powerful Russ Colton, had asked a favor of his even-more powerful cousin, former president Joe Colton, and with a wave of a wand or some greasing of palms, depending on your perspective of government, his discharge paperwork had been altered.

  Honorable was a much nicer word.

  Blaine owed his father—never a comfortable position to be in. I want you to come home. That’s what his father had said.

  It wasn’t as if he had anyplace else to go. His friend Rylan Bennet, who’d fallen hard and fast for Blaine’s cousin Bree, had offered to put a good word in for him with Rylan’s old security company. But he’d passed on that. Couldn’t really think about anything permanent until he did what he needed to do here.

  He’d express his gratitude to his father. But so help him, if Russ even hinted that Blaine had made worse choices than he’d made over the course of his own lifetime, it wasn’t going to be pretty. That man was the reason he’d left Roaring Springs some thirteen years ago. The reason he’d returned only sporadically, until now.

  To be a stranger in a strange
house.

  Who had nothing but time on his hands. Hiding in his bed, counting stripes.

  He threw back the covers. The hell with that.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, Blaine stood outside his brother Decker’s office, located in the far corner of the top floor of The Lodge. While he’d never been inside it before, he knew, from a photo that Decker had once shared, that his two walls of mostly windows offered magnificent views of both the Rocky Mountains and, in the distance, the town of Roaring Springs.

  He opened the heavy door, and a woman sitting behind a desk, her hands on a computer keyboard, looked up. She had very short dark hair and was dressed in a black business suit. Maybe midforties. He was confident that this was Penny. Decker had mentioned his administrative assistant a few times over the years. Always favorably.

  “Good morning,” she said politely. “How may I help you?”

  She probably thought he was a lost guest, looking for his way to the coffee shop. He flashed a smile. “I’m here to see Decker.”

  “Do you have an appointment, sir?”

  He shook his head. “I’m his brother.”

  He could see the wheels turning in her head. She thought she knew Decker’s family. After all, most of them worked in some way for the Colton Empire, as his father liked to call it.

  “Blaine Colton,” he added for clarity. It wasn’t as if he expected that Decker had spent much time talking about him in the office. And he’d been gone for years. In places doing things he couldn’t talk about. Ever.

  She picked up her phone. “Your brother Blaine is here to see you,” she said. Then she listened. “Of course,” she murmured before hanging up. Now she was eyeing him with some speculation. “He’ll be right out. And he asked me to cancel his nine o’clock.”

  Decker wanted some time. Probably didn’t want him to have to hurry his explanation. Blaine owed him that. Might owe him a lot more before their meeting was over because he was here to ask a favor.

  Another debt of gratitude. He was going to have a pile at the rate he was going.

  Not a comfortable situation for a man who’d spent more than thirteen years never asking for or expecting any favors from anyone.

  He sank down into a chair, but his brother didn’t keep him waiting long. In less than two minutes, he was striding through a connecting door, his face showing very little emotion. But the rough hug and the solid pat in the middle of his back said enough. Decker was happy to have him home. Over the years, he likely had envisioned that when this moment came, Blaine might be in a casket with a flag draped over it.

  “I was going to come by the house tonight,” Decker said, pulling back.

  Blaine had suspected as much. But this wasn’t the kind of conversation one had over cocktails. Or in front of an administrative assistant, regardless of how loyal she might be. “Can we talk?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  Decker’s office was big but not fancy. Polished wood floor and a nice rug that he suspected his brother had had some help picking out. There was a big desk, maybe cherry, and a black leather chair, placed so that Decker could work and enjoy the view the windows offered. Two comfortable-looking tan leather chairs sat in front of the desk. But Decker didn’t lead him there. Instead, he headed for a round table in the corner. Four more leather chairs. They took seats across from one another. Blaine glanced over his shoulder at one of the ski pictures that hung on the wall. “Nice,” he said.

  “Taken on Wicked.”

  “I love that run.”

  “All the daredevils do.”

  “Speaking of daredevils, congrats on the wedding,” Blaine said.

  Decker flashed a wide smile. “Nothing daring about it. Most rock-solid decision I ever made. Kendall is great. Can’t wait for you to meet her.”

  “Looking forward to it. I was sorry to hear that she’d been injured.” He’d heard there had been some doubt that they might save her eye.

  “Yeah. Bad days. But she’s rallied like a champ,” Decker said. “And doing well.”

  There was an awkward silence. Neither of the brothers excelled at small talk. Finally, Decker leaned forward. “What happened?” he asked quietly.

  “I got stupid.” That was the simple explanation. But his brother deserved more. “I met a woman. Honor Shayne. Very bright, hardworking, fun.”

  “Doesn’t sound all bad,” Decker said.

  “We were both officers. Normally, a consensual relationship would have flown under the radar. Unfortunately, my commanding officer was old-school and, given that I was leading a team that Honor was assigned to, he’d made it very clear that he wouldn’t view dalliances—” he emphasized the word because in the last several weeks, after hearing it over and over again, he’d begun to hate it “—favorably.”

  “You didn’t listen, and he tossed you to the curb.”

  “Kicked. Tossed is too nice of a word.”

  “Did you love her? Do you?” Decker said, amending his question for present tense.

  “Didn’t and don’t. I liked her. I respected her. I’m sorry that she got caught up in this mess. But she’s moving on. Has already landed on her feet, teaching at West Point.”

  He’d never been in love. Had maybe come close before he’d left Roaring Springs at age eighteen. That is, if a kid that age could know what love was. He’d known that he cared for Matilda Deeds. Cared enough that for the last thirteen years he’d been carrying around a picture of them at prom. Him in his dark suit. Her in her pretty red dress that had accented her dark hair and unusual, dark gray eyes. Her sexy, curvy shape had seemed to be poured into her dress that night, likely making every teenage boy that saw her unable to think of much else.

  He’d been mostly thinking about how to get his hand under the slit that ended midthigh. And, later that night, had figured out how.

  Yeah, he’d cared. Enough that he would have married her if she hadn’t lost the baby that they’d conceived that prom night on the couch in her parents’ basement.

  “You’ll land on your feet, too,” Decker said confidently, bringing Blaine back to the present.

  “Dad called in a favor with Uncle Joe. Got my dishonorable discharge changed to honorable.”

  The other man shrugged. “You were a Green Beret and served with distinction for more than a decade. You earned a chest full of medals. You made a mistake, one that shouldn’t have cost you everything. I think our uncle simply gave the army a chance to get it right.”

  For the first time since he’d opened his eyes that morning, Blaine felt his chest relax. The Coltons were a complex bunch, but when push came to shove, they were family, and he could count on them.

  “What’s Dad saying now?” Decker asked.

  “We haven’t talked yet. Not looking forward to that,” Blaine added. “I was hoping you could help me with that.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I need a job. I’ll do anything.”

  Decker turned his head, looked out the window. “We’ve had late snow this year. Great for business. But the director of my Extreme Sports division broke his leg a week ago. It—”

  “I’ll do it,” Blaine said, sitting forward in his chair.

  “I was going to say it’s going to require you to strap on the equipment. We’re also short on instructors, and the demand for skiing and snowboarding lessons has never been higher.”

  The Colton property was a popular winter destination for many reasons. But for the true sports aficionado, it had always been because of the diversity of runs that were offered. Everything from the bunny hill to the super challenging, including two terrain parks, filled to the brim with opportunities for snowboarders to strut their stuff. Serious winter-sports fanatics came from all over to test themselves. “Sure. I can do that.”

  “Okay,” Decker said. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
/>
  Nice of Decker to frame it that way.

  “You’ll need to swing by Curtis Shruggs’s office to fill out some paper work,” his brother continued. “He’s our director of personnel.”

  He thought he’d met Shruggs once before, on one of his brief trips back to Roaring Springs. His parents had been hosting a party for managers at Colton Manor. Blaine had been hiding out in one of the libraries, and the man had wandered in. “The guy with the blue eyes?”

  “Yeah.”

  He could still remember a couple of his female cousins, and maybe even one of his sisters, going on about the man’s eyes. So gorgeous. For his part, he’d thought the guy was nice enough and his eyes were fine. The brief encounter had left him thinking that there was something about the man that hadn’t seemed quite right. He’d not said anything to his family, realizing that in all likelihood, it hadn’t been Shruggs who was off-kilter that night, but rather, it had been him. Coming back to Roaring Springs had always been difficult for him.

  But now, if Shruggs could get Blaine set up with a job, Blaine was only too happy to go see him. “One more favor?” he said, smiling at his brother.

  “What?” Decker asked.

  “I want to move into staff housing.”

  Decker rocked back in his chair. “Wow. You must really want to avoid Dad.”

  * * *

  Two days later, Blaine had his hands full, corralling a group of six middle-school boys who’d signed up for the intermediate snowboarding class. They were in the larger park, the sky was a brilliant blue, with the temperature hovering around twenty-eight degrees, and there was two inches of fresh powder from the night before.

  “Let’s go,” a blond kid yelled. Blaine thought his name was Isaac. “I am ready to shred the gnar,” the boy added, invoking some favorite snowboarding lingo.

  “Yeah, well, before any of you conquer this mountain, you’re going to show me that you know the basics.” He suspected they did. Kids in this area of the country were snowboarding in preschool. But he also understood boys and young men—having been one and having led a fair number of brand-new recruits over the years. Sometimes skills were exaggerated to keep up with the rest of the group. “Let’s quickly run through a few things.” He wanted to make sure they all knew how to stop and turn, both sharp and wide, gracefully fall and get up by themselves, and walk their boards back up the hill.