Colton Christmas Protector (The Coltons of Texas #12)(24)

As Reid drove to the church, she’d shed her sweatshirt, just in case there were still bits of embedded glass clinging to it, and used the brush from the gym bag she kept in the backseat to rid her hair of any last shards before retrieving her son.

The velvet box of jewels peeked up at her from her purse, and she frowned. “Do you think... Is it possible someone knew we had the jewels with us? That it was a failed robbery attempt?”

“I think you’re on the right track, but I don’t think it is about the jewels.”

The hard line of Reid’s mouth sent a frisson of something cold and dark to her soul. “What are you saying?”

“Think about it, Pen. Your father’s butler saw us in his office. He has to know by now that we were there snooping. That we were in his safe.”

“My father! You think my father sent that man to shoot us?” She chortled a scoff of disbelief. But fingers of fear and doubt squeezed her heart. “My father...”

Every time she repeated the assertion, a tiny piece of her skepticism chipped away. Could Hugh Barrington, who’d never been especially warm or generous with her, who’d coldly ignored her mother in the last months of her illness—who kept a getaway stash in his safe—really be as cruel and heartless, as criminally cold-blooded, as to put a hit on her and Reid to protect his own interests?

Nausea swelled in her gut. She wanted desperately to deny it. And yet...Andrew had been keeping a file on him. Someone had replaced Andrew’s insulin with potassium chloride.

“But...we were only in his office a couple hours ago. For him to have arranged a hit on us that quickly would mean—”

“Stanley was on the phone to him before we made it back to my truck. I guarantee that.”

She turned a stunned look to Reid, her insides churning. Her father!

“Does it really surprise you that your father could have a gunman for hire in his little black book? With one call he could have made the arrangements, given the guy your address, knowing eventually you’d have to go back to your house.”

Acid built in her stomach as the harsh truth settled like a rock. “Pull over.”

“What?”

“Pull over!” she shouted, even as she unbuckled her seat belt and opened the passenger door.

He braked hard, swerving to the curb just as she stumbled out of the Explorer and indelicately lost her lunch on the side of the road.

“Pen!” His voice held a sharp note of concern.

She waved a hand behind her, as she coughed and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “I... I’m okay,” she lied. She was trembling to her core. Heartsick. Terrified. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be okay again.

She flopped back onto the passenger seat and motioned for him to drive on. “Go. Hurry. We have to get Nicholas, before...”

She closed her eyes, not allowing herself to finish the thought. Nicholas had to be all right. She simply couldn’t live with any other possibility.

Finally Reid wheeled into the church lot and parked on the side nearest the children’s wing.

When they hurried up to the nursery door, the volunteers at the Mother’s Day Out were concerned by the cuts on her face and gave Reid suspicious looks. She assured them with a stiff smile that she was fine, just shaken by the “minor accident” that broke the car window. After signing her son out and carrying him, with Reid escorting her, back to her Explorer, she buckled Nicholas into his safety seat. She climbed in the back with him as Reid slid into the driver’s seat. If the drive-by shooter found them again, she wanted to be closer to her son, be better able to protect him, shield him. And in the meantime, as needy as it sounded, she wanted to be able to see Nicholas, touch him, reassure herself that he was safe. Sometimes, especially since Andrew’s death, she just needed an extra degree of connection to her son. Today was one of those days. In spades.

“Give me your cell phone.” Reid extended his hand toward her, and she blinked at him.

“Why?”

He frowned his irritation with her reluctance. “I don’t want anyone tracking us.”

The seriousness of their situation smacked into her again, stealing her breath. Reid’s cloak-and-dagger tactics brought the reality home. She was on the run, hiding from a killer. Potentially sent by her father.

Reid wiggled his fingers impatiently. “Come on!”

Fear balled in her gut like a cold stone as she fished in her purse for her phone. She handed it over and watched in dismay as he pried off the back and removed the battery and SIM card. He tossed the pieces onto the passenger seat, then performed the same disassembly on his own mobile phone. With their phones’ GPS-tracking abilities disabled, Reid cranked the engine and sped out of the church parking lot.

Nicholas watched her with wide, curious eyes, blinking an unspoken question about what was happening. She tried to mask her fear, not wanting to upset him, but her son was perceptive for a two-year-old. Mommy didn’t usually sit in the backseat. A strange man was driving their car. He’d been too young the last time Reid had been at their house to remember the sandy-haired man behind the wheel of their SUV. Nicholas’s curious brown gaze was so like his father’s it hurt her heart sometimes to look at him.

“Mommy?” Her son tipped his little head in inquiry, his button nose wrinkling.

Her chest contracted as her love for him swelled at the precious sound of his baby voice addressing her. When would every tiny thing he did stop being such a fascination and point of pride to her? Never, she hoped.