Second Chance Colton Read online

  Scandal leads to death on the Colton ranch in the latest from USA TODAY bestselling author Marie Ferrarella.

  When murder strikes his family’s ranch, Detective Ryan Colton follows the evidence…straight to his sister. Instinct tells him she’s innocent. But once her DNA is found at the scene, Ryan goes head-to-head with the forensics expert he’d hoped to avoid. Susie Howard—the beautiful woman he once loved…and left.

  Seeing Ryan again has Susie doubting everything, especially her resolution to forget the sexy, rugged cowboy cop. If her intuition is wrong, then the real killer is still at large and has the Coltons in his sights. Teaming up with Ryan is the only way for him to save his family—and his second chance with her.

  Praise for Marie Ferrarella

  “Expert storytelling moves the book along at a steady pace. A solidly crafted plot makes it quite entertaining.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Cavanaugh Fortune

  “A joy to read.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Christmas Cowboy Duet

  “Heartwarming. That’s the way I have described every book by Marie Ferrarella that I have read. In the Family Way engenders in me the same warm, fuzzy feeling that I have come to expect from her books.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “Ms. Ferrarella warms our hearts with her charming characters and delicious interplay.”

  —RT Book Reviews on A Husband Waiting to Happen

  “Ms. Ferrarella creates fiery, strong-willed characters, an intense conflict and an absorbing premise no reader could possibly resist.”

  —RT Book Reviews on A Match for Morgan

  * * *

  Be sure to check out the next books

  in The Coltons of Oklahoma miniseries.

  The Coltons of Oklahoma: Family secrets

  always find a way to resurface…

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  Dear Reader,

  I have always been a firm believer in second chances—both in giving them and in getting them. You don’t always get things right the first time around. The first time around, things are new, untried. Scary. The first time around, I failed my driving test (and the second time, and the third time, until I got a DMV tester under the age of fifty who wasn’t afraid of dying—but I digress). I’ve been driving for thirty-six years now (I got my license at the age of three) and things have gone very well, thank you. The point is, you should never do things only once and if they don’t go according to plan, just give up. You deserve a second chance, as does everyone else.

  Ryan Colton certainly deserved a second chance to get things right after he broke up with the only woman he was destined to love. He was a marine at the time, going off to fight and not wanting the burden of knowing that his lady, Susie Howard, was back home, worrying about his safety. It was kinder (or so he thought) to let her move on with her life. Ten years later finds them having inadvertently “moved on” into each other’s spheres. This is what second chances are for.

  Thank you for taking the time to pick up my book and read it. And as always, from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

  Best,

  Marie

  SECOND CHANCE

  COLTON

  Marie Ferrarella

  This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written 250 books for Harlequin, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com.

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  The Adair Affairs

  Carrying His Secret

  Cavanaugh Justice

  The Cavanaugh Code

  In Bed with the Badge

  Cavanaugh Judgment

  Cavanaugh Reunion

  A Cavanaugh Christmas

  Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard

  Cavanaugh Rules

  Cavanaugh’s Surrender

  Cavanaugh on Duty

  Mission: Cavanaugh Baby

  Cavanaugh Hero

  Cavanaugh Undercover

  Cavanaugh Strong

  Cavanaugh Fortune

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To

  Carly Silver,

  and

  Brave New Frontiers

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Colton Bodyguard by Carla Cassidy

  Prologue

  There was a time when he loved coming up to this ranch. Loved riding through its fields, getting lost in its acreage.

  Right now, that time seemed as if it were a million years ago. Back then he’d been a boy and this had been his ranch.

  Well, his and his family’s, Ryan Colton amended silently.

  Back then, the only crimes, large or small, harmless or serious, had all been made-up, part of the make-believe games he, his brothers Jack, Eric and Brett, as well as his half brother, Daniel, and his baby sister, Greta, would play.

  Playing had been serious business back then.

  He wished for a moment that he could go back to that point in time. Back to when innocence had been a major player in all their lives.

  But a lot of things had happened since then. Jack had gotten married, become a father and then gotten divorced before he finally got it right and found Tracy. Eric had left the ranch to become a trauma surgeon at Tulsa General Hospital, where he had met Kara, the love of his life. Daniel, along with his wife Megan, and Brett and his wife, Hannah, were still here on the ranch, along with Jack, but Daniel and Brett had ideas about managing the ranch that differed from the direction that Jack had initially wanted to take. All three were currently trying to iron things out rather than clashing over methods the way they had once done.

  And Greta, well, Greta was Greta. Her gift for training horses took her away from the ranch a great deal more than it once had. These days found her in Oklahoma City more than here because of her engagement to Mark Stanton. But even when she was gone, her presence seemed to just ooze out of the very shadows, as if unconsciously reminding the others that she, too, was a Colton and every bit as much a part of this ranch as they were.

  As for him, well, he had gone into the Marines in search of himself. He came back still looking, except now he did it as a homicide detective with the Tulsa police department.

  And it was in that capacity, as a police detective rather than a Colton sibling, that he was here now, standing in one of the Lucky C’s smaller stables, staring at a broken windowpane with blood smeared on the jagged edges.

  Whose blood was it and why had they broken in? Other than defacing some of the property, he saw no reason for this. Nothing seemed to have been taken.

  But it was obvious that something sinister was going on here at the Lucky C—something that seemed to call the ranch’s very name into question.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d been called up to the ranch to investigate a sinister occurrence. In the past few months there had been a series of “mishaps,” for lack of a better word, Ryan thought darkly as he methodically examined the crime scene.

  There’d been the fire that’d started up for no apparent reason—no faulty wiring, no carelessly discarded matches or cigarette butts—and several wanton, senseless acts of vandalism. And there was that break-in that had occurred just the other day, also with no particular rhyme or reason to it.

  And then there had been that initial break-in at the main house, shortly after Greta’s engagement party, that had been the start of it all. Someone had broken in and stolen some things—and beaten his mother in the process. Beaten her senseless. Jack had been the one to find her that day. Ryan didn’t want to think about what the possible consequences of that beating could have been if he hadn’t.

  As it was, Abra Colton had remained in the hospital for some time, in a coma and all but lost to all of them. He’d thought his father would come completely apart during that time.

  Mercifully, his mother was out of the hospital now and back home, but when he’d finally questioned her, she’d been unable to shed any real light on what had happened to provoke that attack—or, more important, the name of the person who had attacked her. Her testimony—when his mother was finally up to giving it—had been jumbled and vague.

  And then she had just shut down, saying she didn’t want to “speak of it.” Afraid for her mental state, Ryan knew better than to try to push her. So he was resigned to waiting until such time as his mother was ready to “speak of it.”

  He sighed, moving slowly about this latest crime scene. His mother’s attack—and the robbery—had been the beginning. These other senseless acts of de struction had followed, but they’d left no discernible pattern.

  What he was now looking at was the most recent of several lesser acts of vandalism that had befallen the family. The Lucky C, it seemed, had found itself at the very center of some strange activity—activity that just reeked of malice.

  The only thing Ryan knew with certainty was that the attack, the acts that had followed, weren’t random, the way he’d initially hoped. Someone definitely had it in for his family.

  The questions that were on the table now were why and who?

  He knew that he was too close to this. But who had more of an incentive to solve this thing than he did? Whoever had orchestrated this had already tried—unsuccessfully, thank God—to eliminate his mother, Abra, from the family tree. He didn’t want to hang back, spinning theories and coming up empty, potentially leaving the ranch and his family wide-open for another all-out assault.

  Who knew, the next time it might not just be a broken window he’d find himself dealing with, but someone’s broken neck.

  This had to stop before then.

  Ryan frowned. He needed to put the call in for the crime scene unit to get out here. They had a sharper eye for this sort of thing than he did. With luck and their combined efforts, he could put an end to this, whatever “this” was.

  With luck.

  The very phrase mocked him, but he was determined to get to the bottom of all this.

  And soon.

  He had to.

  Chapter 1

  “You’re wrong.”

  Ryan Colton’s booming, resonant voice filled every available nook and cranny within the small, albeit state-of-the-art, Tulsa PD forensic lab.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Susie Howard, the lab’s chief forensic expert, refused to be intimidated and stood her ground, even though a part of her could understand why the homicide detective before her had balked. After all, she’d just told him that the person who had broken into and apparently vandalized one of the ranch’s stables—and was possibly responsible for the numerous vandalisms that had occurred prior to this latest one—was his sister, Greta.

  But like it or not, Susie thought, evidence was evidence.

  Doing her best to sound professional and remain removed—no easy feat in this case—Susie stated the obvious. “You asked me to put a rush on the DNA evidence, so I did. The sample from the Lucky C’s crime scene went to the head of the line and that’s your answer,” she told him, tapping the name that had been generated by her trusty machine after the test had been completed. Greta Colton’s prints and DNA were in the system because of the nature of her work.

  Frowning, Susie withdrew her well-manicured finger. “I can’t help it if you don’t like the answer, but that’s it. The machine doesn’t lie—even if you think that I do,” she concluded, her hazel eyes narrowing as she tossed her head. A blond tendril came loose from the tightly wound bun she wore at the back of her neck as she looked up at the six-foot-two detective.

  Ryan struggled to keep his temper in check. It had grown very frayed lately. Yelling wasn’t going to get him anywhere, he knew that. Especially not with Susie.

  But she just couldn’t be right.

  She couldn’t be.

  His words were carefully measured as he spoke. “I didn’t say you were lying, but there’s always the possibility that there’s a margin of error.”

  Which was what he was pinning all his hopes on now. He knew Greta, had watched her grow up. There was no reason he could come up with for why she would do something like this.

  “Run the test again,” Ryan instructed, his voice leaving no room for argument. “I don’t want to tell you your job—”

  “Then don’t!” Susie retorted.

  Ryan continued on the subject as if she hadn’t said a single word. “But there was enough blood on that broken window to take several swabs. Run a second sample. And a third if you need to,” he added before the forensic expert could protest.

  “How many do you want me to run before you accept the results?” Susie challenged.

  “Just run the test again,” Ryan ordered, doing his best to remain removed from the discussion.

  Fat chance of that. The woman who had just told him that the blood belonged to his sister, Greta, was the same woman he had once been seriously involved with. The same woman, after their relationship had become serious, he had deliberately cut off all ties with.

  He’d been a Marine back then, home on leave, when their paths had first crossed. They had hit it off instantly—hot and heavy, and very, very serious. He spent every moment he could with her, and she with him. Neither of their families knew about their relationship because they never made time for anyone else. It was as if somehow, subconsciously, they both understood that they were on a timetable. When he received word that he was being deployed overseas again, Susie had naturally been upset, but she’d promised to wait for him no matter how long it took.

  That had been the problem. The burden of having someone waiting for him, loving him and praying for his safe return, was just too much for him to carry into battle. The weight of that responsibility threatened to sap away his edge, to blur his focus, and survival depended heavily on focus.

  Besides, if he didn’t make it back, he knew how that could affect the rest of Susie’s life—how it could destroy the rest of her life. He couldn’t do anything about the way his family reacted to news like that, but he could do something about Susie.

  There was far too much guilt attached to their relationship for him, so he chose the simple way out. He broke things off between them—doing so in a letter rather than in person.

  In effect, he had chosen the coward’s way out. He never found out how she felt about the breakup because Susie never wrote back. Eventually, he convinced himself that that was for the best and that this was the way things were meant to be. He was meant to be alone.

  With that in mind, he struggled to move on, to move forward. After his honorable discharge, he wound up becoming a police detective. In the beginning, it all boiled down to a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. And somehow, while he wasn’t looking, six years managed to pass by.

  He’d assumed he would never see Susie again. It got a little easier dealing with that with each year that went by.

  The sight of Susie walking down the hall at the Tulsa police department one morning four years ago had completely knocked the air right out of him. But after a few seconds, he’d recovered and managed to push on.

  For the past four years, they had politely but determinedly ignored one another, pretending not to be aware of the other person’s existence whenever they found themselves in the same general vicinity. His cases were such that he found he didn’t need any help from the forensic department.

  But now, with the vandalism at the Lucky C amped up to a dangerous degree, Ryan resigned himself to the fact that he needed her help. Needed her training and her lab to help him solve this all-too-personal case he had taken on before things went from bad to fatal.

  And now the attractive blonde who still sometimes turned up in his dreams had given him an answer that had all but left him numb and speechless. Was this her way of getting even with him for breaking up with her?

  No, whatever else he might feel about Susie Howard, he knew that she had a great deal of integrity. He was allowing his imagination to run away with him, something that didn’t happen very often. He would be the first to admit that the situation had made him desperate.

  He forced himself to remember that Susie wasn’t the kind of person who would let her feelings get in the way of her work—and she certainly wasn’t the type to frame an innocent person, no matter how much she might want to because she was in effect jilted by that person’s older brother.

  That wasn’t the way Susie operated. Her sense of honor was something that he’d found admirable about her all those years ago.

  Since he knew that Susie wasn’t responsible for the results that were damning his sister, that left Ryan clinging to the only possible excuse he had left—that somehow, the periodically calibrated forensic equipment had malfunctioned.