And that maybe Callum just needed something to do.
“It’s nice having you around,” he said, as the two of them approached his truck in the dark.
“I’m turning down assignments left and right,” the broad-shouldered man said with a shrug. “There’s a shooter out here somewhere and who knows when he’ll be back to try to finish the job. Especially if Dad can reveal his identity, and I’m fairly certain he can, since the asshole faced him point-blank, shot him at close range. Things are quiet now, with Dad in a coma. And he’s not ever left alone. Why risk getting caught killing a man if he might never regain consciousness? But if he comes out of it...”
“You’re a good son.” Rafe tapped Callum on the back. “I pity the man if he tries a second time.” He wasn’t kidding.
“You’re a good son, too, Rafe,” Callum said, suddenly serious, standing by Rafe’s truck door, preventing him from getting in. “You and Ace, you’re more like Dad than any of us. You two are the sons he wanted. Asher keeps the ranch running, but the ranch is more hobby to Dad than anything. Colton Oil is his lifeblood. Grayson, he’s off saving lives instead of joining the business, and me, I’m really off, doing nothing for the family. But you and Ace...”
“I’m just doing what I’m good at,” Rafe said. “Same as you.”
But as he got in his truck, and felt Callum’s support at his back all the way home, he actually felt like a real Colton.
And the feeling was good.
* * *
The knock at her door had Kerry pulling the gun out of her holster and pointing as she approached her front door from a little to the side of it, in case someone put a bullet through it, hoping to hit her as she answered. At six in the morning, she knew that whoever was there wasn’t making a common house call.
She caught a glimpse of the street in front of her house, looking past the front door through the window in the living room.
Rafe’s truck. What the hell?
Lowering her gun, she took a peek through the peephole, just to make sure he was alone and then pulled open her door. “You scared the hell out of me,” she told him. As her anger dissipated, at the tail end of the adrenaline the knock had sent searing through her, she wished she’d thought twice about opening her door.
The man was freshly showered. She could tell by the smell. In jeans that looked sinfully good on his lean, long legs, and a button-down blue shirt that was properly tailored to him, he’d definitely changed since she’d last seen him. His cowboy boots, a different pair from the day before, were equally flashy as those had been. He’d forgone the shave. And his blond bushy hair could have done with a brush.
“What do you want?” she asked. And then it occurred to her, he could be in trouble. Something could have happened.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay, may I come in?”
“Of course.” She stood back, let him in, glanced around outside, but nothing was out of place.
“What happened?” Thank God she’d already showered and dressed. She wanted time to get back up on Mustang Mountain after she’d finished her work for the day. Gun still in her hand, until she knew what they were dealing with, she led him into the dining room. Away from any windows anyone who’d followed him could shoot through.
“Nothing happened. There’s no one out there,” he told her, apparently having followed her gaze. “You can put the gun away.”
Slowly, watching him, she did so. And realized her heart was pounding. “What’s going on?”
“I would never ask you to ditch your family in order to be with me,” he said, his tone kind of harsh.
That again. She’d thought they were done with it. Needed to be done with it.
And was touched that he’d obviously taken her words to heart to the point of showing up at her house disheveled—as disheveled as Rafe Colton ever got—at six in the morning. “It wasn’t about you asking me, Rafe, it was about you including me.”
It shouldn’t matter that it was important to him. It really shouldn’t.
They had to let go. Both of them. They just had to do it. Like ripping a bandage off a wound.
“I wasn’t referring to twenty-three years ago,” he said. She frowned. Had he been drinking?
She was pretty adept at discerning such things. Had a lifetime of experience doing so. Didn’t see it in him. But...
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“I’m a Colton,” he told her. “And you’re asking me to leave my family in order to be with you.”