Chapter 11 Colt
Colt
My hand slapped at the buzzing sound coming from the night stand. I loved my job—truly, I did—but if a deputy was calling to tell me there was some big after-hours issue when I’d just managed to finally fall asleep after that dinner, I might throw my badge out the window and set my uniform on fire.
I could still smell Violet’s amber and honey perfume.
It was like the second she walked into this house, it pulled the essence of her everywhere.
She’d only been downstairs, but I would have given sworn testimony that she’d laid her head down on the pillow next to me with how I could still smell that damn intoxicating scent.
“Ford,” I answered gruffly, clearing the sleep from my throat with a borderline indecent cough. Everything was silent, until a watery sniff came over the line.
“Colt?” Violet’s whisper had the hair on the back of my neck standing straight up. Not only because she was calling me in the middle of the goddamn night, but because I could hear the worry in her voice. The room zoomed past me as I sat up in bed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I-I need you. Can you come to the cabin?” The small hitch in her voice made my blood run cold.
She was crying. Violet never cried. Not on our wedding day.
Not from our divorce. She was always so steady.
So stoic. Nothing except when we struggled to get pregnant.
And…oh fuck. The last times I’d seen her cry were after the last miscarriage and when her mother died.
“I’m already on my way, sweetheart. Just take a deep breath.” I was on my feet, sliding them through the legs of some jeans I’d thrown over the armchair in my room when I’d gone to bed after dinner. “Is it the baby?”
“No. He’s okay. It’s…I can’t…please, just hurry. I’ll explain when you get here.”
“Fuck, Vi. I promise, I’m going as fast as I can. You want me to stay on the line with you until I get there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’m heading out the door right now. It’ll take me five minutes to get in the truck and get to you. Just breathe. You don’t have to say a goddamn word, but I better hear you breathing over this line the entire time.”
I made it out my door, into my truck, across the ranch, and down the road to her place in three minutes. I should arrest myself for how fast I was driving.
“Violet? Hey, sweetheart, it’s just me,” I called out as the door knob twisted easily in my hand. Fuck. She better have just unlocked it, or I was going to lose my goddamn mind. The door swung open, and it only took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark, landing squarely on her.
Violet was hunched over, her elbows resting on the counter in the kitchen with her face illuminated by her laptop. She was fully dressed…If it wasn’t the baby, why was she still dressed in what she wore to dinner? Shouldn’t she be in whatever she’d wear to bed?
Damn it. Now I was the one who needed to take a breath.
“Violet?” I called out again. But her body didn’t move, her eyes just stayed glued to her cell phone.
“Vi,” I whispered before I slid my hand to cup her cheek. She jumped at the contact, her hand coming up to slap me away.
“Christ, Colt. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Me? You stopped responding to me while I was driving over here, and then I came in and found you standing there like a goddamn mummy. What the fuck is going on?”
“I…” She winced, her hands moving to her lower back. My hand followed hers, pressing in right next to where her fingers were massaging. She groaned, her eyes closing, and the realization of how intimate the moment was slammed into me.
I wasn’t the man who should be helping with her pregnancy aches and pains. She had someone—who knows where he was—that needed to step up and be by her side.
“You should be sitting down. Or do we…you’re dressed? Do you need me to take you to the hospital after all?”
“What? No…no, I’m fine. I just…” Her head shook as her eyes dropped back to her phone.
“Come on.” I wrapped my arm around her waist and slipped her phone off the counter before she could grab it. It took only a second to guide Violet over to the couch before I made my way back into the kitchen. Once I had a fresh glass of water, I marched it over to her.
“Drink.”
“I’m not thirsty. I just want answers.”
“Don’t be stubborn. You’ve been crying, and you’ll get a migraine.”
Her eyes finally found mine for the first time since I’d gotten there. “You remember that?”
I nod my head. “Yeah, I remember. Drink. And then I want to hear about why you’re wound so tight I’m afraid you’re going to pop.”
Violet’s hand came up to rub her belly, the glass of water still sitting on the coffee table untouched. “I’m waiting for a phone call.”
“At…” my eyes dropped down to my watch, “almost midnight? Who the fuck is calling you this late?”
“The Milton City Police Department.”
Her dad lived in Milton City.
“Okay. Start from the beginning.”
She sighed as I sat down next to her, my thigh pressing against hers on the small couch.
“I drove into town after dinner, just to clear my head. I stopped into the diner to see if I could say hi to your mom, but she wasn’t in.
Her key lime pie is still just as good as I remember it, though.
I had a terrible craving for it when I was sixteen weeks.
The frozen pie my grocery delivery service got for me just wasn’t the same, and I cried for three days over it. ”
“Ma would have shipped you up some if she’d known. But I don’t think craving key lime pie is why you’re so worked up right now.”
She sighed. “I’m getting there. I got home later than I thought I would, but I know I turned on the porch lights and left the living room lamp on before I drove to your place.”
Well, I officially didn’t like where this was going.
“They weren’t on when you got home?” I asked.
“No. It freaked me out, but I got out of the car thinking maybe the power was out… Why are you rumbling like that?”
I swallowed, stopping the deep growl that was running through my chest. “If you were freaked out, you could have called me. I was still awake.”
“Because there weren’t any lights on? Colt, come on. I’ve survived a lot of days on my own. Scary, dark nights included.”
Fuck that. She wanted my help. “And yet you called me, sweetheart. So tell me why.”
She nodded, her pupils dilating at the use of the pet name. And I liked that reaction far more than I should have. “I didn’t see it at first. But the door was unlocked and—”
The floor above our heads creaked, and I jumped up, looking around the cabin…
there were at least four rooms I’d need to sweep on this floor, then two bedrooms and a shared bathroom upstairs to get through before we could say the space was secure.
And my wife—dammit! My very pregnant ex-wife who spent the morning telling me about how someone in New York made her feel unsafe—was just hanging around in here by herself until I showed up.
I took a deep breath, trying to not fly off the handle. “Vi? The door was unlocked?”
Her eyes went wide, and she nodded. “I-I came inside and everything seemed fine. I grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and was getting ready to go upstairs, but I was still expecting an email from my business manager. I got on the computer to check real quick, only, the message I got wasn’t from him.
I-I read it and tried to call my dad, but he wasn’t answering.
Maybe I shouldn’t be freaked out, but I called for a wellness check.
That’s why I’m waiting to hear back from the police. ”
“Is it still up on your laptop?”
She nodded.
“Good. I’ll read it in a minute. Come on.” I held out my hands, waiting for her to grab them so I could help her off the couch. She only blinked once before her hands were in mine. Fuck. I needed to get her out of the damn cabin, but the second she slid her hands into mine, I didn’t want to let go.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m getting you out of this fucking house until I search it.”
“Colt?”
There wasn’t time for arguing. “Now.”
I walked her, hand in hand until we were out the door, across the porch, down the stairs, and over to my truck.
“I forgot…”
“What?” I asked as I helped her up into my truck.
“The last note the person sent. It wasn’t sent to my manager’s address.
It…it came to my apartment. I was so flustered by what it said, I didn’t even realize it was delivered there.
I remembered when I was talking to Stone earlier.
If this guy knows my address, he knows my real name…
” Her hand gripped my arm. I could feel the fear rolling off of her in waves.
They ebbed when I first showed up, but they were crashing over her once again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say something before. But now he’s threatened my dad, Colt.”
“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay now. Move your legs for me, just for a second.” I reached under her seat, my fingers brushing against the lock box where my firearm was stored. Wrapping my hand around it, I slid the box back under her seat and discreetly placed the weapon in the holster on my hip.
“What in the world are you going to do with that?”
“Vi, someone could be in your house right now. I’m protecting myself. Now, take my keys. Don’t you dare unlock this truck until you see me coming back out and I give you the all clear. Okay?”
“O-okay. Oh, my phone, Colt! I need to have it in case the police call.”
My hand rested on her leg. “I’ll answer it if they do. Just turn up the heat and get warm.”
She nodded, and I gently closed the door. I waited until I heard the locks click into place before I turned around and marched back inside.
What the fuck had she been thinking, staying inside when she came home to an unlocked door?
If she didn’t want to move in with me, I needed to figure out how to make it clear I was moving in.
God, I could just see it now, the way the tip of her ears would turn red like they always did when we argued.
As I walked through the kitchen, the floor above my head creaked again.
I wasn’t about to take any chances. My weapon came out of the holster.
I walked through the kitchen to the small bathroom that held the washer and dryer.
Clear. Once I was back out, I climbed the stairs to the second floor.
The first bedroom was untouched. The bathroom in between was the same.
But the second I opened the door to the room Violet was clearly sleeping in, my heart rate doubled.
I focused on the task at hand, walking down the room, checking for an intruder. When the space was clear, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed dispatch.
“Has anyone been in the cabin with you?” I grumbled as I sat my ass down in the driver’s seat. The bag I packed with clothes from the laundry instantly went over my shoulder and into the back. I had my finger on the door lock a second later.
“What are you doing? Why are you putting my bag back there?”
“Vi.” I set my hand on her arm, hoping the contact would make what I had to tell her somehow easier—it wouldn’t. It’s disgusting and vile, and for a second I think that maybe I can get away with giving as little detail as possible. “Has anyone else been at the cabin?”
“No. I’ve barely been here a week. Who the hell would be in the cabin with me?”
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel as I force the air from my lungs.
“Someone was in the cabin. I’ve already called it in, gave them permission to come out here, and told them if they needed to speak with you they can come to the ranch tomorrow.
Right now, I’m taking you home. And you’re moving in with me. Tonight.”
“Sorry,” she gasped, “did you say someone had been inside? How do you know?”
“It was messy in your room. Things thrown around.”
Her shoulders relaxed as her head hit the back of the seat. “I’m a messy person, Colt. That was just me unpacking!”
I grimaced, thinking back on the downright vile things that had been done to her clothes. “No. It wasn’t.”
Her head didn’t move, but her eyes found mine. “What do you mean?”
“Your…uh…” I cleared my fucking throat, remembering how all her delicate undergarments were strewn about the bedroom.
How they were placed on her bed. How they were violated…
“Someone had been in your room. It looks like they sifted through your underwear drawer and they left some physical material behind. That’s why I called in my guys.
They’ll get the evidence to the lab, and if there’s a DNA match on file, we’ll get this son of a bitch. ”
“I’m sorry…Did you just say physical material? As in what?”
“It looks like someone used your clothes for…” Christ. I didn’t fucking want to say it out loud, much less to Vi. I knew she'd be horrified. “For an intimate sexual act, Vi.”
A violent shudder rolled through her body.
“Oh my God. That’s so…ew.”
I reached out, my hand settling on her leg.
“It’s okay. I’m going to keep you safe while we get to the bottom of this.
I’m going to take you home.” It wasn’t a promise I made lightly.
Everything inside me was screaming to get Violet out of there and back to the ranch where I could make sure she was safe.
“No. I don’t have to go to the ranch. You don’t have to—”
“Your piece of shit baby daddy didn’t stick around,” I snapped, her eyes going wide at my outburst. What was wrong with me?
“Look. You proved that you could do it on your own—I get that you wanted to do things your own way. But this threat is real, and the threat is here now. I’m not taking any chances.
He didn’t stick around to protect the two most precious people on Earth, but I sure as fuck will. ”
“It’s not like that…”
“Then tell me what it’s like,” I begged.
Violet turned away from me, her head resting on the back of the seat.
“I’ll go with you to the ranch,” she whispered, closing her eyes and effectively ending our conversation.