Chapter 10
A few days had passed since Jasper Whitlaw had given Lakin the photograph that she stared at while sitting at her desk in the RTA office.
She hadn’t told anyone but Troy about it yet.
He’d wanted to bring Jasper Whitlaw up to Bobby Reynolds, but she’d made Troy promise to keep all of that quiet until she found a way to tell her parents.
Lakin didn’t want to upset them more than they already were about the recent murders.
They were already worried enough about her.
They kept calling to try to get her to stay with them.
But after knowing that someone had probably followed her to their house the other night, she was determined to stay away.
She didn’t want to put either of them in danger if she was.
But why would she be? It didn’t make any sense that someone would want to hurt her. Or want anything from her.
What did Jasper Whitlaw want?
Troy was convinced that the man had an agenda for seeking her out.
He was even more worried about her than her parents were.
He’d insisted on staying with her, but he’d moved back to the couch, telling her that he didn’t want to chase her from her own bed like he had the other night. After they’d made love…
That had been a mistake. Making love with him again hadn’t brought her closer to him but had somehow highlighted the distance between them.
Usually after they made love, they would cuddle and discuss the future, making plans. But Troy clearly didn’t want to talk about the future at all.
Maybe that was just because of the uncertainty over his injury.
But he was going to physical therapy; he seemed to be getting better.
Still, he didn’t talk to her about the hotel or ask if she’d gotten the business loan yet.
He didn’t seem any more interested in their future than in getting back into her bed.
Maybe he’d thought it was a mistake, too. And maybe not just making love but their whole relationship.
She wasn’t sure now if they had a future together.
The doubts churned in her stomach, making her queasy despite the fact she hadn’t even had any coffee lately.
After losing her mugs off the roof of the SUV, she hadn’t gone back to Roasters.
She hadn’t wanted to risk running into Jasper Whitlaw there again.
But when she looked up from her desk, she found him standing over her.
His sudden appearance startled her for a number of reasons, not least of which was that she’d thought she was alone in the office.
Spence and Parker had left some time ago to lead hiking and fishing tours respectively.
She must have been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed him open the door and walk into the building.
“So you haven’t lost my number,” Whitlaw remarked, his dark eyes cold as he stared down at her.
She suddenly felt too choked to speak, like something was clogging her throat. She hadn’t even considered calling him over the past few days, not with what had happened to Troy and his suspicions about Jasper Whitlaw barging into her life. She wanted him to be wrong about the man, but…
She couldn’t bring herself to trust him, either, let alone believe anything he told her.
While she wanted to know more about her past and the woman in that photograph with her, she had a feeling Whitlaw might not tell her the truth.
Besides, learning more about her genetics didn’t seem to matter much right now when she wasn’t sure she and Troy had a future together, much less a future family.
“Why haven’t you called me, little girl?” he asked. “Don’t you care where you came from? Or do you think you’re too good for me because you’re a Colton now?”
She cleared her throat of the fear and dread that had caused it to clog. That fear wasn’t for herself now. “What do you know about the Coltons?” she asked.
Whitlaw smirked. “More than you probably think I know. Probably more than a lot of people in this town know about them.”
About the tragedy that had brought them here to start a new life in Shelby? Was that what he was alluding to? And how would he know about that?
She jumped up from her desk, sending her chair rolling across the polished concrete floor. “Stay away from them,” she said.
The older man snorted. “Why? Don’t you want them to know that your daddy’s come back for you?”
“I’m not a little girl anymore,” she said.
His beady gaze flicked over her in a way that a father should never look at his daughter. “You look so damn much like her…”
“Where is she?” she asked, wondering about her biological mother.
“If you’d called me, I might have told you,” he said. “But I’ve been sitting around this crappy town waiting for my phone to ring, and I’m not feeling quite so talkative anymore.”
“What do you want?” she asked. She was pretty sure that Troy was right now. Her father, or whoever this man was, hadn’t reached out to her because he cared about her. He didn’t even know her.
“Well…” He smirked again. “I could use some money. I’ve been sleeping in my truck because I can’t afford a place around here.”
“You were the one who broke into my cabin,” she said. “And stole that food.”
He snorted. “I shouldn’t have to break into anything. You should be begging me to stay with you. I’m the only real family you have left, little girl.”
She gasped with shock, even though she had always suspected that her biological mother wasn’t alive. Surely she would have sought Lakin out sooner if she had been.
She leaned closer to him and lowered her voice even though no one else was around to overhear them. “The Coltons are my real family,” she said. They had been there for her after her biological family abandoned her.
But what if her mother hadn’t abandoned her?
“Well, if you don’t want me bothering your real family for money, you better help me out.” Whitlaw held his tobacco-stained hand across her desk, palm up.
Her face flushed with embarrassment and anger. Embarrassment that Troy was right and that she could potentially be related to this mercenary man. And anger that he was threatening the Coltons, the people who’d loved and raised her like their own.
“You don’t want to help out your own father?” Whitlaw asked.
She nearly shuddered at the thought of this man being related to her. But she didn’t want him bothering her mom and dad, so she opened the bottom drawer of the big desk and reached inside her purse for her wallet. She didn’t carry much cash, so she only had a couple of twenties to hand over to him.
He stared down at the two bills lying in his palm as if waiting for her to produce more. “That’s all you got?”
“Yes, it is,” she said.
“This isn’t nearly enough.”
“For what?” she asked.
“For a room. Hell, even for much of a meal,” he said. “And I’m really hungry right now.”
“It’s all I have,” she said. And unfortunately, until her business loan was approved, she didn’t have much money in the bank, either.
He snorted again. “Like you keep telling me, you’re a Colton now, little girl. I don’t believe you can’t get your hands on more than this.” He wadded up the bills in his fist.
She found herself instinctively stepping back from the desk.
Maybe he wouldn’t have hit her, but she had the uneasy feeling again that he knew more about the Coltons than maybe even some of the Shelby townspeople knew.
Like he knew how much money they’d had before Will and Ryan had moved here and started their adventure business.
Like he knew about the real estate business in California…
But how? Who the hell was he really?
Before she could ask, the office’s front door opened. Whoever had taken the fishing tour, Spence or Parker, had probably returned, maybe with some clients.
But she couldn’t see around Whitlaw. He leaned closer and whispered, “You better get more because I’ll be back for it.” Then he turned and walked away from her, right past Troy and Spence who’d just stepped inside the office.
Lakin held her breath until the door closed behind him, then released it in a ragged sigh of relief that he was gone.
For now.
She believed him, though. He would be back because he definitely wanted more than forty dollars from her. But she wasn’t sure that money was really all he wanted.
* * *
Troy glanced at the door as it closed behind the older man, then he turned back toward Lakin. She looked as shaken as she’d been the day she came home from Roasters after meeting a man claiming he was her father.
“Is that him?” Troy asked, his heart thumping with anger that the man had upset her again.
“Who?” Spence asked curiously. “Who was that? A client?”
Lakin shook her head. “Nobody. That was nobody.” She stared hard at Troy as if silently willing him to shut up. Then she turned toward her cousin. “Spence, I left some messages on your desk.”
Spence glanced between her and Troy. “Trying to get rid of me? Okay.” He headed toward his office, leaving them alone.
The old man must have been watching her and waiting for another chance to catch her alone. Troy cursed himself that Lakin had been alone. But he’d had another physical therapy session. And he’d thought her brother and cousin would be here with her.
Troy turned around and headed toward the door, but before he reached it, Lakin caught up with him.
She stepped in front of him. “Let him go.”
He shook his head. “We need to find out who the hell he really is and what he wants.” And if he was the one who’d been following her and who ran Troy off the road.
But Lakin remained planted in front of the door. “I don’t want you going after him,” she said.
Troy wondered if she was trying to protect that man or him. “What happened, Lakin? Why was he here?”
Her face flushed.
“Money,” he surmised.
She closed her eyes.
Troy touched her face, running his fingertips along her jaw. “I’m sorry.”
She opened her eyes, and tears glistened in them. “You were right.”