Page 29 of The Unknown Colton
Her?
Or him? His supervisor’s words echoed inside his head. He might lose more than his job? His life? Or the woman who was the most important part of his life?
Lakin threw her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his. She was trembling. “I was so scared,” she said. “I thought I was going to lose you.”
He closed his arms around her and held her tightly against him. God, he’d missed her so damn much. Not just the weeks he’d been gone, but since he’d been back there’d been such a distance between them. He tipped her face up to his and lowered his mouth, brushing it across her lips.
Her breath whispered out, heating his skin, making him tingle. He wanted to deepen the kiss, but she stepped back and dropped her arms from around him.
“Why are you following me?” Lakin asked.
“I wanted to make sure you got safely home,” he explained. Her safety was what mattered most to him.
“I mean earlier,” she said. “I know you were parked outside my parents’ house. I saw your truck pull away when I walked outside. Why were you there?”
He sighed and pushed his hand through his hair. “I don’t like that after all these years some guy shows up claiming to be your father and that he approached you right after someone broke in here.”
“For food.”
“You don’t know that’s really why they broke in,” he pointed out. “Because of the break-in and how shaken you were after Whitlaw came up to you, I wanted to keep an eye on you.” He wanted more than his eye on her, but she’d put distance between them again. “And I don’t think I was the only one following you.”
She shivered but didn’t argue with him. And she didn’t seem at all surprised, either.
“You know someone’s been following you,” he surmised.
She shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. I’ve never seen anyone. Did you get a look at this person?”
He shook his head. “When I tried, they drove off.”
“And you sped off after them,” she said, her breath catching. “You could have been hurt or worse, Troy. That was so dangerous.”
“Yes, it was,” he agreed. “This person following you is dangerous.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I just can’t be certain someone really is and that it’s not just paranoiaabout the serial killer and the other things that have happened in Shelby lately.”
Maybe because he finally knew about all those dangerous occurrences, he’d assumed his supervisor’s call was a threat. But it could have been empty. What had happened on the mountain could have been an accident. But he didn’t really believe he was overreacting to any of it.
“I think it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said. And he would be more than sorry if something happened to Lakin; he would be devastated. “We should call the police.”
Though he wasn’t sure what they could do about him being run off the road. There were no cameras up in the mountains, and he wouldn’t be able to give them a license plate number or even a good description.
“Bobby Reynolds was here the other night with Eli and Kansas,” she reminded him. Bobby was the officer who’d been with Shelby PD the longest. “He wasn’t concerned about the break-in here at the cabin.”
“I’m concerned,” Troy said. “About the break-in. About this man claiming to be your father. And whoever’s following you…” He wasn’t just concerned; he was scared to death that something was going to happen to her. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
Her dark eyes widened for a moment, and her mouth opened. Finally she said, “Yes.”
He gasped. “What?” Had something else horrible happened?
“When you didn’t reply to my emails and texts about the Shelby Hotel, I went to the auction anyway,” she said. Then she paused, drew in a deep breath and said, “And I bought it.”
“What?” That was not what he’d expected her to say. It had nothing to do with the break-in and Whitlaw. “I don’t understand.”
“I bought the Shelby Hotel,” she said. “I actually got a great deal on it.”
“But the auction meant you had to pay cash. No matter how great a deal, how would you have enough cash to purchase it?” he asked.
Her face flushed slightly, and she glanced down. “My dad helped me.”
