Colton 911: Secret Alibi
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Beth Cornelison
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Prologue
Three minutes. Just three minutes.
Good God, who knew three minutes could last so long?
Valerie Yates tried to clear her mind, shift her focus, but waiting had never been her strong suit.
She bent over the paper in front of her and resumed sketching. A face began to take shape in the squarish oval she’d started. Eyes, nose, lips...
Soft, demanding lips. Skilled lips that made her breath catch and her toes curl.
With that unbidden thought, she pressed too hard and the tip of her charcoal pencil snapped off. Huffing her frustration, she leaned back in her desk chair, shook the tension from her hands. Checked the clock.
Seriously? It had only been one minute and fifteen seconds?
She scrubbed a hand down her face and took a deep breath to quell the churning in her gut. The added nervous tension did not help the swirl of nausea that had plagued her lately.
One minute thirty seconds. Halfway.
Groaning, she found her sharpener and fixed the tip of her pencil. Resumed sketching. A smudge with her thumb to soften a line and add shadow, contour. She was drawing Nash again, she realized. Without even considering what she was doing, her fingers, her mind, automatically created the image that filled her thoughts these days. She set down her pencil, closed her eyes and allowed herself to go to those magic nights and stolen moments. To sweaty skin. Adoring hazel eyes. Whispered promises.
Nash Colton. Her first love. Her first lover.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” he’d said morosely that last summer night, two months ago.
“Me, too.” Valerie had shifted to her side, pressing her lean, naked body against his. Even at eighteen, he had the taut, muscled body of an athlete. Not gross, bulky muscles like those weight lifters they’d watched on the summer Olympics last year. No, Nash was more... What was that swimmer’s name? Michael... Phillips? No, Phelps.
Valerie drew circles on his flat, bare chest and sighed. “I’ll come back next summer. And probably at Christmas. My mom was talking about going skiing in Colorado at Christmas, but I’ll tell her I want to come back here instead.”
“You’d give up skiing in Colorado to see me?” he asked, his tone both surprised and wistful. Grateful. Hopeful. Her heart broke a little for him. She knew how the death of his mother and strained relationship with his father had hurt Nash.
“Of course, I would. I—” She caught herself before she blurted “I love you.” Instead she finished with “I think you’re special. We have fun together.”
He wiggled his eyebrows seductively. “Lots of fun.”
She playfully punched his arm. “You know what I mean.”
“And how will you explain your preference to come back to Chicago instead of skiing to your parents? Are you ready to tell people about us?”
Val furrowed her brow. “No. We can’t tell yet. If my mom ever found out we were...well, whatever this is.” She waved her fingers between them. “She’d freak. She probably wouldn’t even let me come back to visit Uncle Rick next summer.”
“She’s really that strict?”
“Yeah.”
Nash frowned and folded his arm behind his head. “Has she ever explained why she doesn’t want you spending time with my family?”
“Not really. She just says ‘Stay away from those Coltons! They’re trouble!’”
“Well, I can understand that a little if my father and Uncle Axel are the only Coltons she knows,” Nash said, his dark blond eyebrows furrowing, “but has she even met any of the rest of us? We’re not so bad.”
“It’s more than that. I’m pretty sure she got pregnant with me in high school. I mean, all you have to do is the math. So she’s worried that I will—” She didn’t finish the sentence because it was obvious what her mother was worried she’d do. And because she and Nash had. Recently. More than once.
He flashed an impish grin. “Yeah, well...”
Valerie felt a flush sting her neck and cheeks. “Nash!”
He stroked her face with his fingers. “Don’t worry. We’ve been careful.”
Valerie leaned on one elbow and bent her head to kiss him. “I know.”
“It’s hard, not telling anyone. I really want to tell Damon. He’s not just my brother. He’s my best friend. And you make me so happy...”
Beaming her own bliss, she framed his face between her hands. “You, too. But...for now, let’s not say anything. If my mom found out—” She sighed, knowing how badly that conversation would go and not wanting to risk anything that would push her mother to the edge. To drink. “Maybe next summer—”
A hungry growling sound rumbled from his throat as he captured the back of her head with his free hand and tugged her down for a deep kiss. “I don’t think I can wait for next summer, Val. God, I’m going to miss you.”
Tears pricked her eyes, and so he wouldn’t see her weakness, she kissed him again. Long and hot and full of the love she was scared to put into words.
His hand moved down her spine, cupped her bottom. She scooted on top of him again, her body on fire, and he rocked his hips up, moving—
Ding.
The tiny bell sound of the timer she’d set on her clock yanked Valerie out of her memories. Back to her Ohio bedroom. And the reality that faced her in her en suite bathroom.
“Well,” she said, glancing down at the sketch she’d made of Nash, “Time’s up. Here goes nothing.”
Her knees shook as she crossed her bedroom and approached the bathroom sink. She lifted the washcloth she’d used to cover the plastic stick, as if to hide it from...what? She wasn’t sure. So she wouldn’t peek early?
Her hand trembled as she lifted the corner of the rag and flipped it aside. Leaned in to read the display.
Positive.
The nausea in her gut surged, and she lost what little breakfast she’d managed this morning. After wiping and rinsing her mouth, then flushing the commode, she sank to the floor with the plastic pregnancy test stick in her hand. What was she going to do? Her mother would kill her. Worse, would her mother retreat into the bottle again? She’d just gotten sober this summer at the clinic. But any little thing could push her to the brink.
A sob rose in Valerie’s throat, but she choked it back. She had to be brave, had to figure out what to do next.
“Oh, Nash. I guess we weren’t careful enough.”
