Colton Baby Conspiracy (The Coltons 0f Mustang Valley Book 1) Read online

  Marlowe didn’t answer the assistant directly. Instead, she instructed the woman in an urgent voice, “Call Security and tell them to come in here, Karen.”

  Karen blinked, her eyes widening as she looked at her boss. “Security, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” Marlowe answered, keeping her eyes on the teddy bear. “I want them to examine footage to see who dropped this off and check this thing out completely, just in case it’s wired for explosives.”

  Chapter 11

  She had to concentrate to keep her hands from shaking as she stared at the note she had taken out of the package. Congratulations on your baby. Wish it was mine.

  All sorts of half-formed thoughts were ricocheting around in her head.

  Who had sent this?

  Why?

  Did she have some creepy stalker tracking her after all?

  Had someone followed her into the drugstore and watched her buy the pregnancy test? And even if that was true, how could this stalker have possibly known the results of that test?

  Or was he just guessing? After all, there was a fifty-fifty chance of being right. But to what end? And why?

  She was back to her first question: Who was doing this to her?

  Marlowe could feel herself becoming nauseated again. She closed her eyes and willed her stomach to settle down. Willed it to cease its bitter-tasting rise up into her throat and mouth. She pulled her fingers into tight fists. This wasn’t the time to let her body dictate to her.

  She needed to think, to do something, not just be a sitting duck.

  Marlowe drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, then did it over again.

  Security had come in and taken possession of the possibly lethal teddy bear a few minutes ago, so at least she didn’t have to worry about the damn thing exploding and harming anyone. That was something, she thought, silently consoling herself.

  Marlowe took out her phone. Her hands were still shaking.

  She started texting Bowie, wanting to tell him about this newest development in what was quickly becoming a very complicated saga. Before she had gotten to the third word, the company phone on her desk rang, making her jump.

  She really needed to get a grip on herself, Marlowe thought.

  Blowing out a tense breath, she yanked up the receiver and all but barked, “Hello?”

  “Marlowe?” It was Ace’s voice on the other end of the line. He sounded as tense as she felt, she thought. “Good,” her brother was saying. “You are back, then. I need you to come into the boardroom right now. Ainsley just got the DNA test results back. She wants to tell us the results all at the same time. The rest of the board is already here.”

  Of course they were, Marlowe thought impatiently. This was getting to be the story of her life. The last one in.

  “Did she tell you what the result of the test was?”

  She heard her brother laugh, but there was no humor in the sound. “You know Ainsley. If the result is supposed to be a secret until everyone is gathered together to hear it, then she intends to keep it a secret—even from herself—until then,” Ace told her. “She hasn’t even opened the envelope herself. So hurry up and get here. This suspense is killing me.”

  “I’m on my way,” she promised, quickly hanging up the phone.

  With all this craziness going on in her life, the pregnancy, the shooter and now this stalker, she was embarrassed to admit that she had completely forgotten about Ace and the DNA test. Marlowe felt almost guilty that she had.

  But it wasn’t as if Ace needed her to boost his morale, she silently insisted. Of course the DNA test was going to show that he was a Colton. To think that anything else could possibly happen would be absurd, she told herself, hurrying to the boardroom.

  The results were going to be positive. They had to be, Marlowe insisted.

  Even so, her heart felt like it was racing to the tune of “Flight of the Bumblebee” by the time she walked into the boardroom.

  The five other members of the board were already assembled in the room, just the way they had been when that bombshell of an email had been sent. Looking quickly around, she noted that their expressions all looked just as hopeful as hers did.

  All except for Selina, Marlowe thought. Selina’s expression was that belonging to a woman who was anticipating her version of good news.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Payne said sarcastically, the moment that Marlowe crossed the boardroom threshold. And then the man shifted his eyes toward Ainsley. “All right, Ainsley, go ahead. Open the envelope and read the results out loud.”

  Ainsley flashed an encouraging smile at Ace, then ripped open the side of the envelope. She took out the lab results. Pressing her lips together, Ainsley scanned the single sheet of paper in her hand.

  “I said out loud, Ainsley,” Payne repeated sharply, raising his voice so that it all but thundered through the room.

  Ainsley’s expression turned grim.

  This couldn’t be good, Marlowe thought, hoping against hope that her instinct was wrong.

  Ainsley read the results out loud. “It says that there is less than zero chance that Ace Colton is a Colton by blood.”

  “What?” Rafe cried, stunned.

  “There has to be some sort of mistake,” Marlowe insisted. “It can’t say that.”

  “That can’t be right, Ainsley!” Ace declared, looking like someone who just had a land mine explode right in front of him. “There must have been a mix-up at the lab. We need to have the sample retested, this time by another lab.”

  “Dad,” Rafe spoke up, coming to Ace’s defense. “Marlowe’s right. A mistake has been made.”

  All their voices were blending together in a cacophony of noise, each voice drowning out the others. Payne himself looked as if he was in a state of shock, and for once in his life, he was speechless.

  Of all of them, only Selina looked pleased. Really pleased.

  “Payne, remember, the bylaws are the bylaws and they have to be obeyed.” Her smile deepened, verging on almost malicious. “You know what you have to do,” she told him, looking at her ex-husband expectantly. “Go ahead,” she urged. “Do it.”

  “I want no one to speak about this.” Payne’s dark eyes swept over every face at the table, almost as if he was looking into their very souls. “The public can’t get wind of this. This stays in the family. Am I making myself understood?” he demanded, looking at each and every one of them again.

  “Payne,” Selina said in a patronizing tone.

  Payne blew out an angry breath. Marlowe knew that what he was about to say gave him no pleasure. If Ace, or this person who had grown up in front of him with Ace’s name, wasn’t a Colton, then the man had no business being the CEO of Colton Oil. He needed to step down.

  “She’s right, boy,” Payne said, his voice flat and cold, “you can’t be part of the board of directors and you most certainly can’t be the CEO now that we know the truth.”

  Ace stared at the man he had thought of as his father for his entire life. How could some piece of paper, most likely faulty, negate forty years, just like that? As if they had never happened at all?

  “Dad, you can’t really be serious,” Ace protested, stunned, hurt and angry. “I don’t care what that paper says, I’m still your son—”

  “No, that’s just it. You’re not,” Payne retorted, his voice growing in volume. “I don’t know who you are, and I certainly don’t know who switched you with my son at birth, or why they did, but you are definitely not my son, and that means you can’t be the CEO of Colton Oil,” he repeated, all but shouting the words.

  Ace shouted back. “You can’t do this!”

  Payne’s eyes grew cold. “I just did,” he informed Ace flatly.

  Fury entered Ace’s eyes. Visibly stunned and reeling, Marlowe imagined he felt as if the very rug had been pulled out from und
er his feet and he was struggling to get his bearings. After all, his whole life had just been declared null and void by his own father, a man who was obviously incapable of even an ounce of sympathy or compassion. Surely he had never felt so abandoned and alone before in his entire life.

  “You’re going to regret doing this, Dad!” Ace promised.

  Ace stormed out of the room, leaving his disoriented siblings to try to comprehend what all this meant for the company as well as for them.

  Marlowe was also wondering why their father had allowed himself to be manipulated to agree with Selina, a woman none of them even remotely liked.

  Was she behind this somehow? Marlowe couldn’t help wondering.

  Meanwhile she was also experiencing regrets again. She regretted having told Bowie about the email and that Ace being related to the rest of them had consequently been in doubt, so a DNA test had been initiated. The bottom line was that the results had caused Ace to be ousted by their father. She could just imagine that this would have the Robertsons beside themselves with joy, although she doubted that Bowie would feel that way. She was beginning to feel that he wasn’t such a bad guy, all things considered.

  She should have just kept her mouth shut, Marlowe upbraided herself. Desperate to have something to blame, she zeroed in on her condition. If it wasn’t for this stupid pregnancy, causing her to be soft as well as weak, she wouldn’t have said anything to Bowie about Ace.

  Well, no more, Marlowe promised herself. From now on, she was going to be as closed off and as tough as she used to be, she vowed.

  Marlowe looked at her father, disappointed beyond words at the way he had handled all of this. Disappointed, too, that the man she had looked up to, despite everything, had given in to Selina, of all people, rather than override the witch.

  Not for the first time Marlowe wondered if the hateful woman was holding something over her father’s head. Something that would make Payne jump through hoops and turn his back on the rest of his family.

  There was no other explanation for her father’s actions.

  It had to be something really big, she decided. Otherwise she was certain that Payne Colton would have sent that woman packing, her tail between her legs, a long time ago—immediately after their divorce, Marlowe thought. Instead, she’d watched her father, never a patient man, keep treating the wretched woman like she was some sort of trusted confidante instead of the hateful, poisonous viper that she was.

  Only the look in his eyes, when he occasionally let his guard down, told Marlowe otherwise.

  What is it, Dad? What does Selina have on you that keeps you in line like this?

  “Okay, everybody, settle down,” her father ordered, raising his voice. It wasn’t a request, it was a flat-out demand, and they all knew better than not to obey. “With Ace gone, someone is going to have to take over as the company’s CEO.”

  Marlowe stiffened, praying that her father was not about to appoint her to this post. There was just too much going on in her life right now for her to maintain a clear enough head, let alone the entire Colton Oil company. She liked to think that she was up to any challenge, but this would have been just too much for her.

  “So, for the time being,” her father was saying, “I’ll take over the position. It’s my old job, anyway,” he said with a resigned shrug, as if part of him had always known it would come down to this eventually. “So, unless there are any objections—” his tone indicated that he didn’t assume that there would be as he looked around the table again “—meeting’s adjourned. Go do your work, people,” Payne ordered.

  The others filed out of the room, but Marlowe hung back. She and Ace were not as close as they used to be, although they did work together on the board. But she really felt for him because of what he was going through now. That made her feel that she needed to say something to her father about the explosion that had just happened between the two men.

  Payne pulled a few papers together, then raised his eyes when he saw that Marlowe hadn’t left yet.

  “You got something to say, girl?” Payne addressed her gruffly.

  He must have assumed that she was going to ask for his forgiveness for the mess she had gotten herself into with the Robertson kid.

  “Yes, I do,” she told her father. “Ace didn’t mean it, Dad.”

  Payne’s forehead furrowed into a mass of wrinkles.

  “What?” he demanded.

  Her father had a gold medal in intimidation, but Marlowe refused to back down. Instead, she forced herself to push on.

  “Ace was just upset,” she told Payne. “His whole world has just come crashing down all around him, and he wound up turning all his anger on you. But you have to know that he didn’t mean what he just said.”

  Payne grew angrier.

  “What goes on between Ace and me is none of your damn business, missy, so back off, you hear me?” he shouted at her. “And you’re in no position to give me any kind of advice!”

  Marlowe struggled to hang on to her own temper. She supposed that her father was upset by the news himself and this was his way of dealing with it. But she wasn’t in the mood to make excuses for her father or put up with his bad temper or his even worse personality.

  “Sorry,” she said sarcastically. “I guess I forgot my place.”

  “Damn straight you did. Well, don’t forget it again, you hear me?” he warned. “You might not like the consequences.”

  Her father was treating everyone as if they were annoying interlopers. There was just no getting through to him today, she thought, annoyed clear down to the bone.

  Turning on her heel, Marlowe left the boardroom as quickly as possible, wanting to get away from the man before she said something cutting and surly.

  That, she knew, would make her no better than her father—and she didn’t have the sort of surly outlook to carry it off.

  She was about to return to her office when she caught sight of Ace. He looked both angry and lost at the same time.

  Impulsively, she hurried over to the man she had always regarded as her oldest sibling. Because they had two different mothers, Ace was actually her half brother, a fact that her father always emphasized for reasons known only to him, but she had never thought in those terms. Ace was her brother, pure and simple. And the DNA results, along with what had just happened back in the boardroom, didn’t change anything.

  He was still Ace to her, just as she intended to be still Marlowe to him. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t say something to Ace in an attempt to make him feel better.

  “Ace,” she called out to him. When he kept walking, she tried again. “Ace!”

  Reluctantly, Ace stopped walking and turned around to face her. The look on his face was defensive and surly, as well as hurt.

  “What?” he said bitingly.

  “I just wanted to tell you that I don’t care what some DNA report says. You’re still my brother, Ace Colton, as far as I’m concerned, and I just wanted you to know that you have my full support, no matter what you decide to do. This was a terrible blow, but I know you. You’re going to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and find a way to come back from all this.”

  He looked at her as if she were talking nonsense. “Excuse me, but have you met our father? Sorry, I mean your father?” He tersely pretended to correct himself. “The man doesn’t bend or give.”

  “Yet. He hasn’t bent or given yet,” Marlowe pointedly insisted. “But there’s always a first time, Ace. And I know it’s going to happen.”

  Ace laughed shortly. “I appreciate the Pollyanna pep talk, Marlowe, I really do,” he told her. “But right now I think that I just want some space from everything, if you don’t mind.”

  Humoring Ace, she raised her hands as if to symbolically give him that space.

  “You’ve got it, big brother. Just promise me that you won’t let that sp
ace turn into something that winds up becoming insurmountable.”

  “Okay, I promise,” Ace said in an offhanded manner as he left. There was no conviction in his voice.

  With all her heart, Marlowe really wished that she could believe her brother meant what he said.

  Chapter 12

  “Mr. Robertson, there’s a Ms. Colton asking to see you.” Bowie’s administrative assistant, Gloria Kennedy, who had been with the company since its very beginning, peered into his office. Looking like everyone’s kindly grandmother, the woman entered Bowie’s office only after knocking first and being told to come in. “Shall I tell her that you’re in a meeting?”

  “But I’m not,” Bowie told Gloria, although he appreciated the fact that she was attempting to guard his privacy.

  What was Marlowe doing here? he wondered. He assumed it had to be Marlowe, because why would any of the other Colton women have a reason to come to see him? Something must have happened, he thought. But what?

  “I know, sir,” Gloria answered patiently. “But it is a Colton, sir, and...”

  Gloria’s voice trailed off as if that lone fragment was enough to explain why she had kept the woman cooling her heels in the outer office.

  Bowie didn’t bother debating the matter with his assistant. He normally trusted Gloria’s judgment implicitly, but this was an entirely different matter. Without saying another word, he strode into the outer office.

  He was just in time to see Marlowe going to the outer door, leaving.

  “Marlowe, wait,” he called out, crossing quickly over to her.

  Visibly annoyed at the way she’d been treated by Bowie’s assistant, Marlowe made no effort to stop walking out of the office.

  Bowie was quick enough to catch up to her, and he placed himself directly in the way of Marlowe’s escape route. He was now convinced that something had to be terribly wrong for her to come into what he knew she considered enemy territory to see him.

  Had someone made another attempt on her life? The very idea left him cold.