Colton Christmas Protector (The Coltons of Texas #12)(32)

So where did that leave him? Alone. Not lonely exactly, but maybe beginning to search, to question. He wanted to settle down someday. But he hadn’t yet found that certain someone who knocked his socks off.

When Penelope’s face materialized in his mind’s eye, he quickly scuttled the image of her curled against him to the recesses of his brain. Pursuing that line of thought would just be asking for trouble. Any attraction he felt for her was not only unrequited, he was sure, but verboten.

Reid carefully stripped out of his dirty clothes, knowing shards of his windshield were probably still embedded in the folds and seams of his shirt and jeans. Leaving the clothes on the bathroom floor, he stepped into the hot shower spray, still ticking off reasons in his head why he needed to keep his feelings for Pen in check. One, she had a child. He wasn’t ready to be a father. Good God, look at the sorry role model Eldridge had been. What did he know about raising a family?

Two, she was Andrew’s widow. And if getting involved with his late partner’s wife wasn’t awkward enough, his part in Andrew’s death, intentional or not, complicated the hell outta matters.

Three, just hours ago he’d promised to protect her. Somehow that pledge seemed like it should include protecting her from himself. From false expectations of a future together. From a broken heart. From—

He scoffed a laugh when his arrogance dawned on him. As if Penelope couldn’t help but fall in love with him. He shook his head in disgust. He was a prime example of the conceit and sense of entitlement, the hubris of the Coltons that she’d always accused his family of suffering.

He swiped soapy water from his face. Before the attack, Pen had wanted nothing to do with him. She still harbored bitterness and distrust for the man who’d administered the fatal drug to her husband. Even since explaining his side, he’d sensed her reserve.

And then the shooter had sent everything about their dynamic into a tailspin. She was being forced to trust him. He was imposing his presence on her to keep her and the kid safe. The brush with danger had cracked the wall she’d put between them and given him a peek at a vulnerability and neediness she had fought hard to deny. And in unguarded moments, he’d sensed a crackle of something in the air. An energy. A magnetism. More than just his attraction to her.

Reid shut off the shower and stared at the drain as the last of the runoff disappeared. She’d reciprocated his lingering glances, reacted to his touch and allowed him to see a softer side of herself. She’d trusted him not just with her life and Nicholas’s, but with glimpses of her heartache, her loneliness...her soul. He’d shared flickers of an intimacy with her that went beyond physical chemistry. When he held her during her meltdown, he could almost imagine she fit there, was created to be in his arms.

Heart thumping, Reid slipped his towel from the bar beside the shower and started drying off. He’d have to proceed with caution. In less than twenty-four hours, he’d moved from a secret attraction to his late partner’s wife, to helping her uncover the extent of her father’s deception and protecting her and her child from an assassin. Pen could get hurt in any number of ways in the coming weeks. The last thing he wanted was to add to her grief and pain. If she reached out to him for comfort and companionship during the rough days ahead, he’d have to keep his libido in check. Pen needed a friend now, a protector, not another reason to hate him.

*

Thirty minutes later, as he returned to his Range Rover, a dark blue Mercedes pulled up the drive and parked near the servants’ entrance. Aaron Manfred. Who’d told his wife to say he’d gone to bed early and had her cover for him.

“Evening, Aaron,” Reid called across the lawn. “How are you tonight?”

The old man startled and turned with a jerk to face him. “Oh, hello, Mr. Reid. I’m fine, thank you. And yourself?”

Reid scratched his chin, wondering for only a moment before deciding not to call the butler out on his wife’s lie. The older man scuttled inside, shooting backward glances and a small wave to Reid as he went into the mansion.

Odd, Reid thought as he climbed into his vehicle, but gave it no more attention. He had bigger fish to fry, and he’d already been away from the lake house longer than he’d planned. He had to get back to Pen and Nicholas and make sure they were safe. A butler’s mysterious evening excursion was small beans compared to the newly discovered fraud of the family lawyer and an assassin’s attempt on his life.





Chapter 10

Penelope found a can of tomato soup in Reid’s kitchen that hadn’t expired and heated it up for Nicholas when he started getting whiny for his dinner. The few fish-shaped cheese crackers left in his diaper bag from Mother’s Day Out rounded out his dinner, and when he finished eating she started preparing him for bed. She availed herself to the guest bathroom and used the shower gel and shampoo from the master bath to clean Nicholas up.

The woodsy, masculine scent of the cleansers was disconcerting, not just because she worried the harsh chemicals might dry out Nicholas’s skin, but because it was far too easy to imagine Reid using the same products as he showered.

Heat rose to her face. She hadn’t pictured a man other than her husband in the shower since before she met Andrew. That she could so easily conjure such an erotic image of Reid now had to speak to her fatigue, or her rattled nerves, or...something! Anything other than the most obvious—she still harbored secret fantasies about her teenage crush. She was a grown woman now. A mother. A widow.