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Colton's Lethal Reunion
Tara Taylor Quinn
He broke her heart. Now, he’d do anything to save her life Rafe Colton and Kerry Wilder were inseparable as kids—until Rafe cut Kerry out of his life without explanation. Now a detective, Kerry unexpectedly crosses paths with Rafe again while investigating a deadly shooting. Can Rafe redeem his betrayal…and keep her safe?
Long ago, he broke her heart.
Now he’d do anything to save her life.
Rafe Colton and Kerry Wilder were inseparable as kids—until Rafe cut Kerry out of his life without explanation. Now a detective, Kerry unexpectedly crosses paths with Rafe again while investigating a deadly shooting. When Rafe discovers she’s also investigating a cold case that puts her in harm’s way, he vows to work overtime to protect her. But can Rafe redeem his betrayal…and keep her safe?
Having written over eighty-five novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America and is a seven-time RWA RITA® Award finalist. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you need help, please contact 1-800-799-7233.
Also by Tara Taylor Quinn (#u77d6010c-28a7-581c-bd9d-514e726300e5)
Her Detective’s Secret Intent Her
Lost and Found Baby
An Unexpected Christmas Baby
The Baby Arrangement Fortune’s
Christmas Baby
Child by Chance
Mother by Fate
The Good Father
Love by Association
His First Choice
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Colton’s Lethal Reunion
Tara Taylor Quinn
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-0-008-90486-9
COLTON’S LETHAL REUNION
© 2020 Harlequin Books S.A.
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Note to Readers (#u77d6010c-28a7-581c-bd9d-514e726300e5)
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
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Text to speech
For Rachel Marie. I think of you in all I do and have
been reminded through this book that family is
forever—the tie that binds is too strong to break.
I love you.
Contents
Cover (#u1c3ce2fd-f48a-590b-abb8-84299cd94ec6)
Back Cover Text (#u17b52f30-cdcb-517f-9a91-2b283a689212)
About the Author (#u988e4d27-7ba7-5090-a586-bca8d7f600f7)
Booklist (#ufcb0945e-f84e-5393-bfe1-c357569df2d7)
Title Page (#ue7f27442-07bc-54bf-bf36-58e3da39d6c7)
Copyright (#uf9447528-21b3-5303-8756-b4f170100a00)
Note to Readers
Dedication (#u0de80aab-e209-5b7b-b4ab-1ed21516d825)
Chapter 1 (#ua2c149e2-e0c4-5cbe-96cd-b63a5f5f351c)
Chapter 2 (#uab19685d-eaf8-5a3f-b24d-bfef243aab45)
Chapter 3 (#ue01418a4-4c05-510a-bede-b7b43338b840)
Chapter 4 (#ud4f8587a-d96b-52ad-aafc-fc42431fe511)
Chapter 5 (#u50b8a30f-457d-5466-9da5-caf4b13ec020)
Chapter 6 (#u24d5d15f-8642-58fb-8565-e0e20a77f388)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#u77d6010c-28a7-581c-bd9d-514e726300e5)
He had to see her. This wasn’t news. Rafe Colton had known for years that he owed Kerry Wilder an explanation for the way he’d cut out on her—on them—abandoning her and their budding love with no warning. Leaving her to face life alone after they’d been friends, best friends, even secret friends, since they’d been old enough to walk and talk.
For years he’d known. And for years, he’d been avoiding her.
For so many reasons. Not the least of which was that he suspected, maybe even feared, that he was still in love with her. He couldn’t be, of course. There was no way the pubescent feelings of youth would carry unrequited into adulthood. And certainly wouldn’t still be incubating in a grown man of thirty-six.
And yet, he’d procrastinated. Which made him not real fond of himself—deep down in the places he rarely visited, at least.
And then, in the middle of the shock that had rocked his whole adoptive family—the Coltons—she’d walked in the room. And in the two days since, he’d been able to think of little else. Payne, his adoptive father, had been shot—was still lying comatose, unchanged since he’d been admitted to the hospital—his oldest brother was the prime suspect in the murder, and Kerry was the detective assigned to the case.
How could that possibly be?
Okay, he knew how. At eighteen, Kerry had left the ranch where they’d both grown up, but she’d returned to Mustang Valley after college. Had joined the police force in the small Arizona town that was home to Colton Oil. As far as he knew, she hadn’t been near Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch since. Probably didn’t know that, unlike the biological Colton heirs, he’d moved out of the family mansion he’d moved into at five, when he’d been orphaned and subsequently adopted by Payne and his first wife, Tessa.
Kerry also wouldn’t know that, instead of moving back into the old foreman’s house he’d lived in until his father had died—which, as a Colton, and CFO of Colton Oil, would have been completely inappropriate—he’d built his own home. The adopted, nonbiological Colton house. Sitting on a stretch of land out of view of the mansion, a flat piece on the other side of a hill close by the barns—the place where he and Kerry used to go play until he was no longer just the foreman’s son and they weren’t allowed to be seen together anymore. Then it was the place where they hid out, just to be able to see each other.
None of which mattered as the long stretch of two-lane road he’d been traveling through the barren and stark Arizona land gave way to signs of the town ahead. What mattered was that he had to see Kerry.
It wasn’t a mistake that she’d been assigned to investigate his adopted father’s attempted murder. It was fate. Forcing him to do what he should have done long ago. Especially since his adoptive brother Ace, who’d recently been outed as a non-Colton by blood, appeared to be a person of interest to her.
Giving him an excuse to go see her, to talk to her, without raising any eyebrows. Or Payne Colton’s ire. Spoken displeasure, clear lessons that had held Rafe in check where Kerry was concerned for far too many years.
The last admission made him slightly sick. He wasn’t thirteen anymore, ashamed after being caught during his first kiss. He was a man who should have known better then to have let so much time pass. Who should have come clean sooner.
Or at the very least, apologized.
She could look at the video for the hundredth time. Study it another few hours and still come up with no more than she already knew. Payne Colton’s elegant and luxurious corner office showed up in black-and-white on the security footage. And a tad bit grainy. Made the looking easier for her without the proof of his lavish living so obvious. And identifying his shooter more difficult.
She knew what she knew—very little and not enough—and all the staring in the world wasn’t changing that.
“Kerry! You got a visitor.”
James Donovan, the redheaded officer ten years her junior, was leaning back in his chair to peer into the small office Kerry shared with the department’s only other senior detective, P. J. Doherty. Why Doherty couldn’t have pulled the Colton case she didn’t know, but there you had it. Kerry was stuck with it. Spencer was a sergeant, but he was also a Colton. Just a distant cousin, and not close with his family, but also not appropriate for him to be working the case.
Standing, she nodded to Donovan, shut down her screen, headed out front, and a so-so day got a whole lot worse.
Rafe Colton. CFO of Colton Oil. The boy who’d once been a lowly farmhand kid, like her, on the Colton family’s Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch.
With a backward look at Donovan, letting him know she didn’t appreciate him not giving her any warning, she walked to the small reception area.
Donovan didn’t know about her past with Rafe—as far as she knew, no one did. But he should have given her a heads-up that a member of the Colton family was there. Especially since he’d just been involved in a Colton case himself—helping catch a stalker who’d been after another sibling, Marlowe.
It wasn’t like they handled cases involving billionaires all that often. Or ever. And while the Coltons weren’t the only wealthy family within fifty miles of sleepy little Mustang Valley, they were by far the most prominent. The Colton heir, Ace, was her prime suspect at the moment.
