Colton Christmas Protector (The Coltons of Texas #12)(25)
“It’s okay, sweet pea. That’s Mommy’s friend.” Mommy’s friend. Or was he? She might not have thought so this morning when she woke up, but a lot had happened to change her view of Reid in the last few hours. He saved your life.
Reid glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Nicholas. “Hi, buddy. How ya doin’?” He turned back to watch the road, but Pen saw his gaze flick to the rearview mirror over and again watching her, studying Nicholas. “He’s looking more like his dad as he gets older, isn’t he?”
She drew a breath intended to relieve the tightness constricting her lungs, but the sound of gunfire still echoed in her memory, and she couldn’t relax. “Yeah. He does.”
“I can’t believe how big he’s getting.” He met her gaze in the mirror and huffed a wry laugh. “Why do people say that? Like they’re surprised a kid is growing up?” He shook his head and twisted his mouth. “And yet that’s really what I thought when I saw him—how much he’s grown and changed.” He chuckled dryly. “Some fine detective work there, huh?”
She hummed an acknowledgment but wasn’t in the mood for banal conversation. Maybe he was trying to distract her, calm her down, but too much had happened today for her to maintain the illusion of idle chatter. Keeping her composure in front of Nicholas was taking all her energy. She forced a stiff grin for her son’s sake and smoothed his silky hair with her fingers. “Did you have fun playing at the church, sweet pea? Did you play blocks?”
“Bwocks?” Nicholas parroted.
His vocabulary was expanding rapidly in recent days as he mimicked what she said. She could only guess whether he understood what he was saying, but her money was on her son’s ability to connect the dots. Nicholas had an intelligence in his watchful gaze that spoke of precocious levels of understanding. Or maybe that was her biased view as his mother.
She tweaked his chin and whispered, “You’re Mommy’s smart little boy, aren’t you?”
He reached for her face and poked one of the cuts. “Mommy booboo?”
Wrapping her fingers around his hand, she turned up his wrist to kiss it. “Just a little one. Mommy’s okay.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Kiss it?”
She had to fight a sudden onslaught of tears. “Will you?” She leaned closer to her boy, and he pressed a tender kiss to her cheek.
“Ahw bettah.”
She bit the inside of her cheek and blinked back tears as she smiled at Nicholas. “Yep. All better. Thank you, sweet pea.”
Nicholas gave her a sweet smile, then looked past her out the car window. “Fwench fwies?”
The little stinker had spotted the golden arches as they drove past the fast-food restaurant where she sometimes took him for a treat.
“Not today, honey. We’ll get a snack at home.” She ruffled his hair, then, realizing where they were, jerked her attention back to the window. “Reid, where are you going? This isn’t the way to my house.”
“We’re not going back to your house,” he said, his tone flat and uncompromising.
“What are you talking about? Of course we are!”
“No. Too risky.”
She gaped at his profile, too stunned by his pronouncement to respond for a moment. “Reid...”
“Look, whoever that guy was, he was waiting outside your house. Do you really want to go back and give him a second chance to finish the job?”
“But...where can we—” She glanced at Nicholas. He might be too young to understand, but just in case she modified her language. “How do we know he wasn’t aiming for you? Maybe you’re the one who has the target on his back.”
“We don’t know. But he was waiting outside your house. Which is why you’re not going back there until I figure out—for sure—who was behind the attack and why. And put an end to the threat.”
“If there’s a threat. It could have been a random thing. A case of mistaken identity, or a fluke...”
He sent her a look that asked, You don’t really believe that, do you?
“Reid, I can’t—”
“Pen, I know you don’t want to believe it was your dad, but it comes down to this—are you willing to put your child at risk if all your doubts prove wrong?”
A shudder rolled through her. Despite her denials, her attempts to rationalize the irrational, in her gut she knew Reid was right. She couldn’t do anything that would put Nicholas in harm’s way. As incredible as it seemed, the evidence pointed to the frightening fact that—whether it was her father or not—someone had tried to kill her today. And they could try again.
Chapter 8
Reid took a circuitous route as he drove Pen and her son to his lake house. Knowing he could be followed, he made sure to watch his tail and take irregular turns, sometimes doubling back and quite often making zigzagging turns. Only when he was certain no one was tailing them did he drive to his property outside of the Dallas metro area. He’d bought the place several years earlier through a blind corporation he’d set up so he’d have a safe house to go to if one of his police investigations ever got too hot. He’d primarily used the lake house as a getaway when things at Colton Valley Ranch got too crazed, when he needed an escape from classic Colton-style drama.