The Pregnant Colton Bride

Especially when the sheriff asked in a voice that bespoke of impending doom. “You sure about that, Mr. Colton? Having your lawyer there might prove to be very...handy,” Watkins finally concluded.

“I’ve got nothing to prove and nothing to hide,” Zane stated flatly. “So, no, I don’t need to have a lawyer present.” His eyes shifted to Watkins. “But thank you for your concern, Sheriff,” he added coldly.

Watkins merely shrugged indifferently. “Suit yourself, Mr. Colton, but I’m going on record as saying I think you’re making a big mistake not having this little lady get you that lawyer of yours.” His gray eyes shifted toward Mirabella. “And you’re my witness, little lady,” he said, emphasizing this fact.

Mirabella clenched her hands into fists, but kept them firmly against her sides. She knew she was expected to keep silent, to just be part of the decor, but she couldn’t in all good conscience say nothing.

“What I’m a witness to, Sheriff Watkins, is one of your bigger mistakes. Mr. Colton didn’t kidnap or harm Mr. Eldridge,” she told him fiercely. “He wouldn’t do something so awful.”

Ordinarily, Watkins would have just ignored her the way he ignored mosquitoes unless they had the misfortune of landing on him. However, he was amused by her bravado. So, the sheriff paused and looked at her.

“And you know this because...”

Mirabella drew herself up to her full height. “Because I have—and use—the common sense the good Lord gave me. Something that you, Sheriff, are apparently lacking.”

Zane had no idea exactly what the sheriff might be capable of if pushed too far. And, in any event, he didn’t want Mirabella drawn into this. There was just something about her that brought out the protector in him.

“Belle, don’t,” he instructed firmly. “It’s going to be all right. You just hold down the fort until I get back.”

She squared her shoulders, resigned, but not defeated. “All right, but I still think you should let me call the lawyer.”

A faint bell dinged, announcing the elevator had arrived.

“Smart girl. You should listen to her,” Watkins advised as he ushered Zane into the elevator car. The deputy got on behind them.

“Maybe later,” Zane retorted.

“Suit yourself. But later might be too late,” the sheriff predicted.

Mirabella’s heart sank as she watched the elevator doors close, cutting off her view of Zane.

She had a bad feeling about this.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_49509e34-34db-5b8e-9496-3067f44ef1a7)

Watkins silently walked into the small area that doubled as an interrogation room when it wasn’t being used as a break room by his deputies. Zane had been sitting there for the better part of an hour, waiting for the sheriff to return after he had placed him there, telling him to wait and that he would be back soon.

Obviously they had different definitions of the word soon, Zane thought. But then, he was aware Watkins was toying with him.

Entering from behind Zane, the sheriff dropped a sealed evidence bag on the table right in front of him. The contents of the bag made a small “ping” noise as it made contact with the metal tabletop.

“Now, then,” Watkins declared, “I believe that there is your cuff link, Mr. Colton. You’re not going to waste your breath and my time denying it, are you?” he challenged, sitting down opposite Zane. “What with those pretty initials on it and all, saying Z.C., I figure that cuff link’s gotta be yours.”

Zane looked at the item in question. Even contained in the see-through evidence bag the way it was, the cuff link managed to catch the room’s overhead light. It gleamed almost defiantly as it lay there in the center of the small metal table.

Zane raised his eyes to look at the smug expression on the sheriff’s face. He could see Watkins was just itching for him to deny ownership. The sheriff was a man who relished fighting—and enjoyed winning.

He was not about to give Watkins that satisfaction.

“It’s mine,” Zane replied.

He’d only noticed that the cuff link was missing sometime toward the latter part of the day that his father had been presumably kidnapped. With bigger things to deal with than a missing cuff link, he hadn’t even tried to find it.

Apparently Watkins had.

“Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way,” Watkins said, referring to his suspect’s admission. “Now, just what was it doing in the bushes right outside your stepdaddy’s window?” Watkins asked in a faux friendly voice, his eyes once again all but pinning Zane to his seat.

Watkins was the kind of man he could easily lose his temper with, but Zane knew he only stood to lose if he did so. Exercising total restraint, he managed to control his temper. He only sounded mildly sarcastic as he answered the sheriff’s question.

“I don’t know, I must have lost it while I was out there, looking for Eldridge after we discovered he wasn’t in his room and we found his blood all over the floor.”

Watkins’s expression remained skeptical. “Or maybe you lost it while dragging your stepfather’s body out through his bedroom window. If you ask me, that seems more logical,” Watkins deliberately concluded.

Aggravated, Zane bit back a few choice retorts. Instead, he said evenly, “I was in an entirely different section of the house when my stepfather was taken.”

Watkins asked dubiously, “Can anyone verify that?”

Zane met the man’s eyes without any hesitation. “I was with my mother.”

“Your mother,” Watkins repeated with a smirk. “Sure you want to go with that?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Zane fired back. “It is the truth.”

Watkins’s short laugh told him what the sheriff thought of his alibi. “Well, throughout history, a lot of mamas have been known to lie for their sons. For instance, the mamas who were the wives of rich, powerful men. They often just looked the other way when their sons rid them of those men.” Watkins leaned closer over the table as if he were sharing some sort of deep, dark confidence. “You take that Emperor Nero’s mama as an example. Did you know Nero’s mama poisoned her husband so her boy Nero could become emperor?” Watkins asked, chuckling as he spoke.

For two cents, Zane would have been more than willing to tell the sheriff exactly what he thought of the man, but he knew it would do him no good, only harm. Zane was determined not to allow the man to goad him into losing his temper.

“Fascinating as that is, Sheriff,” Zane told him, “I do have another witness.”

The hell you do, boy.

Watkins clearly didn’t believe him as he asked, “And this witness just happened to conveniently pop up in your memory now?”

Zane ignored the sheriff’s mocking tone and continued telling him his alibi. “The family housekeeper, Moira, was there at the time, as well. You might recall the name, Sheriff. Moira was the first one to discover my father was missing after my mother had sent her to the master suite to wake him up. It was Moira’s screams that alerted everyone else to the crime.” And then Zane restated his location. “I was nowhere near that side of the house when my father was taken.”

Unfazed, the sheriff continued with his accusation. “You could have taken him earlier.”

Watkins wasn’t letting up. Zane was now convinced the sheriff was just trying to bait him and get him rattled. Rattled people said all sorts of incriminating things.

Zane continued to maintain his innocence.

“There was evidence that my stepfather fought his kidnapper. The room looked like a hurricane had hit it.” And then he homed in on the main thing that would back up his claim. “One of the things knocked over in the struggle was an heirloom clock. Its face was smashed and the time on it stopped at 7:30.” He remembered his sister pointing that out at the time. “At 7:30 I was sitting in the dining room, having coffee with my mother.”

Watkins made a dismissive noise. “That’s a nice little story.”

All right, he’d been polite. He’d been patient. But enough was enough, Zane thought. He wasn’t about to be bullied or browbeaten by Watkins any longer. The sheriff had fixated on him long enough. The man needed to turn his attention to catching the real kidnapper, not sit around, spinning fairy tales because it suited his purposes.

“Do you have any real evidence linking me to my stepfather’s disappearance, other than a cuff link I could have easily lost at any time?” Zane demanded. When Watkins made no response, other than to glare at him begrudgingly, Zane nodded his head in satisfaction. “I didn’t think so.”