Colton Nursery Hideout
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Dana Nussio
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Chapter 1
As she tucked the plastic test kit just inside the bowl and aimed as best she could at the absorbent tip, her new pencil skirt wadded at her waist, Tatiana Davison grimaced over the irony of the moment. Taking a pregnancy test in the executive restroom was one way to spend her first morning as co–chief executive officer of Colton Plastics. Just not one she would have chosen. Ever.
“Dad would get a good laugh over this,” she whispered as she snapped the cap on the kit.
Tatiana shivered more than she had on the drive to the office, not yet reacclimated to Michigan’s early-March deep freeze, and then cracked open the solid wood stall door to see if anyone had overheard her talking. Of course, no one had. This plush facility, with pristine granite countertops and waterfall-type faucet fixtures she would marvel over each time she washed her hands, was for her private use. She’d even locked the door to the outer parlor area.
Anyway, her father wouldn’t be trying to cheer her up over news she received today or any other day. He wasn’t aware that she’d accepted this prestigious position at the fast-growing Grave Gulch company that business magazines had called “one to watch.” Nor that she’d moved back to the city of thirty-five thousand that she’d fled last year, overwhelmed after her dad’s arrest for murder. He would have known many things about her life if he’d bothered to call her. Other than that one time right after the charges were dropped and he was released.
When Len Davison had first been arrested, Tatiana would have sworn there was no way her father could have murdered some guy last fall in Grave Gulch Park. Or any other time or place, for that matter. If only she was so certain of that now. In fact, she was almost convinced he was guilty.
She couldn’t think about that this morning. There was no time to feel bad again, either, that her own DNA had connected him to the crime in the first place. She should never have done that genealogy testing...but she had her own problems to deal with at the moment. The ones resulting from her own poor decisions and her too appealing co-CEO. If only thirty-four-year-old Travis Colton hadn’t been her favorite kind of male specimen, with toned arms beneath his perfectly pressed dress shirt and a no-nonsense square jaw on his fawn-colored face. And why couldn’t his short, dark blond hair have been prickly like steel wool under her fingertips instead of irresistibly soft?
She shoved away memories that had no place in that moment or location, finished up the necessities and readjusted her clothes. Then she carried the test to the sink. She placed it on a paper towel, faceup as the instructions had required, and covered the whole thing with a second towel.
Why she bothered hiding the result, she wasn’t sure. With her stomach rolling just from the scent of the room’s lilac air freshener, she had a good guess what the answer would be. And it wasn’t a great one.
She washed her hands, scrubbing for longer than was necessary to clean them, and then studied the instructions to determine how soon the test could be read. Three minutes? Shouldn’t it take longer than that for an answer that could change her life?
The delicate gold watch she’d purchased in honor of her upward move from celebrated plastics engineer to a corporate leadership role told her time was up. She uncovered the kit and lifted it to get a better look. Two dark pink lines had appeared in the result window. Air froze in her lungs, and her face in the mirror blurred, then sharpened, then blurred. Pregnant? That couldn’t be true, and yet the proof was right there in front of her, in pink and white.
She lowered the test onto the towel and fumbled with the fancy faucet again, cool water spilling over her hands. Then she pressed her palms to her burning cheeks and forehead. When the heat finally started to cool, she gripped the edge of the counter and glanced up at the glass again. A red-faced woman stared back at her, damp hair clinging to her cheeks and mascara smeared beneath her eyes. The same engineer who’d thought it was a good idea to share a bottle of wine in her hotel suite living room with her corporate equal to celebrate her new executive position. The one who’d foolishly talked long into the night and had ended up happily tangled with him in the sheets of that king-size bed.
What had she been thinking? Well, it was obvious that she hadn’t been considering consequences, or this morning she would have been able to march into Colton Plastics like a windstorm instead of cowering in her office as if preparing for a tornado drill. No, she couldn’t think about Travis now. It didn’t matter that he was unlike any man she’d ever met. That his incisive light blue eyes were also incredibly kind. What good would it do for her to recall that the pressure of his strong arms around her had made her feel safer than she had at any time since her father’s arrest? Or that his tender touch might have teased awake parts of her beyond skin and flesh?
He evidently hadn’t felt the same. In fact, he couldn’t get out of her hotel room fast enough, while she’d been imagining that they’d connected on some deeper level. The test showed they’d connected, all right.
A baby. That explained a lot. Like why she’d been unable to stay awake later than nine the past few weeks and that she’d slept during the whole flight across the Atlantic when she was usually wide-awake on planes. And that it was more than jet lag and a nervous stomach over starting her new position that made saltine crackers her constant companion as she’d unpacked.
“Me? A mother?” Tatiana couldn’t wrap her head around it. There was no way she could ever be that unselfish, like her wonderful late mom. She was too preoccupied with her career and would be even more so now. Even at age thirty-two, she still had only plastic houseplants in her apartment for a reason. The real varieties always died quick deaths in her care.
Though she’d always supported other women’s reproductive rights, she’d never considered what her choice would be in the event of an unplanned pregnancy. But as she listed all the reasons she couldn’t and shouldn’t be a parent, of its own accord, her hand slid from the edge of the sink to the front of her skirt, just below her waistband. Damp fingerprints marked the cloth over her still-flat belly. No matter what unfortunate decisions had led to this reality, a child was now nestled inside her, growing. Her child. The two of them were in this together.
As she brushed her hand down her skirt, the damp prints fading, the test drew her attention again. Those two lines didn’t lie. Nor did the hands on her watch. She had ten minutes until her first important meeting in a job she needed now more than ever.
Tatiana shoved the closed test kit and instructions back in the box, wrapped the whole thing in the plastic shopping bag and tucked it inside her designer purse. She pulled out her tiny cosmetics case, and in minutes had reapplied her makeup, combed her hair and brushed away the wrinkles on her skirt. She clipped her hair at her nape again and adjusted the few shorter sections left free around her face. She would appear presentable if no one looked too closely.
Compartmentalizing. She was good at it. Otherwise she never would have survived those weeks after her father’s arrest last fall. Sure, she’d fled to Paris after his last cryptic call, but she’d managed to make it a long vacation as well. Even when the chance to interview for the perfect company had interrupted her tour and her unwise affair with Travis Colton had made her miserable upon her return to the romantic city.
If she planned to get through this morning’s financial overview with Travis, she would have to harness her concentration skills again and hold an even tighter rein on her emotions. No matter what was going on in her personal life, or her body, she would show him that he hadn’t made a mistake in recruiting her for his company.
She could do this, she told herself as she gathered her favorite pen and her leather folio and pulled open her heavy wood office door, nibbling a cracker, just in case. The empty administrative assistant’s desk outside her office served as a reminder that one of her first tasks would be to interview candidates for that position.
As she traced the series of hallways that separated her plush office from Travis’s, Tatiana ticked off items on the morning’s agenda. They would go over cost estimates and discuss the division of responsibilities and their visions for the future of Colton Plastics.
And when those conversations and any other first-day details were out of the way, if she could gather the courage, she would tell Travis that she was carrying his child.
“Welcome to Colton Plastics, Miss Davison.” Travis stood behind his desk as she entered his office with his admin, Jan Kennedy. Even as he spoke the words, they sounded ridiculous to him. He and Tatiana knew each other on so much more than a last-name basis, though whatever that had been needed to stay in the past where it belonged.
So, why was he staring at that tiny expanse of bare skin that showed between the top of her tall black boots and the hem of her skirt? And why was he following the wavy lines of the deep brown hair that had come loose around her face and recalling how that mass of silk felt spilling through his fingers?
That it had been six long weeks since he’d burned off some steam with any woman was no excuse. Nor that she was the last one with whom he’d shared a bed. Even if as co-CEOs, he and Tatiana were equals in the workplace, answering to the same board of directors, he’d never been one of those guys, who hit on female co-workers, and he wasn’t about to start now. He didn’t plan to continue, anyway.
Besides, they had important matters to address that morning, even more critical than establishing professional boundaries. Only after they’d figured out how to deal with current headlines and the ones to come in the next few weeks could he bring up the amazing sex that should never have happened and vow to never repeat it.
He averted his gaze just in time for her to catch him looking. Her huge hazel eyes narrowing, she lifted her chin.
“Good morning. I prefer Tatiana.”
Her movements were robotic as she crossed the room and extended her hand for a brief, professional handshake. Her skin appeared paler than the glowing olive tone he remembered as well. He couldn’t blame her, he supposed. The situation was awkward already, and it was about to get worse.
“You said it’s casual around here,” she continued as she sat in one of the guest chairs across from his desk.
“Right. I did say that. Tatiana, then.” He shot a glance at his admin, who stood in her usual pose, notebook and pen in hand, head lowered, as if she didn’t see and know everything that happened in his office. Even that he’d just been ogling his new co-CEO. So much for his determination never to let anyone know about their unfortunate attraction.
Travis cleared his throat. “Did you enjoy your six-week vacation?”
Her eyes narrowed, but her lips lifted in a tight smile.
“I did, thanks. I really appreciated the board agreeing to my terms for a start date, though, if I had to repeat it, I wouldn’t wait to fly in on the Saturday night before it. The jet lag is rough.”
“It’s going to be a long first day then.” He cleared his throat. “I know that Hartman & Wells was sorry to lose you, but we’re thrilled that you’ll be sharing your recognized technical acumen with Colton Plastics.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to be here.”
“You’ll have big shoes to fill,” he continued. “As you know, we lost our chief engineer, Constantine Niarchos, to lung cancer last year, but I want you to be aware that he would be pleased to see the technical side of our company placed in such capable hands.”
“Again, I’m so sorry for your loss. I hope to build on the great work that Mr. Niarchos started.”
She smiled then, her plump lips lifting in that mesmerizing way he recalled, but her smile stopped just below her eyes. He wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Thanks, Jan. No calls for now, please.” He sat again as his assistant stepped out and closed the door. “Okay. Let’s get started.”
He adjusted his desk pad, though he’d already straightened his desk before she’d arrived, moving his regular clutter into one stack. This would be more difficult than he’d imagined. But in Travis’s vision of how this meeting would go, Tatiana hadn’t been sitting across from him in that skirt and that filmy blouse. She’d worn one of those camisole things beneath her top to cover the breast cancer pink ribbon tattoo on her rib cage in memory of her mother, who’d died a little more than a year before, but the piece of cloth did nothing to help him forget that or any of her perfect, hidden beauty.
He decided to ease into the subject they needed to discuss. “Since our positions in the company are equal, I wanted to suggest that we should rotate between our offices for our weekly overview meetings.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said and then opened her folder and balanced it on her crossed legs.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he struggled for the right words. “But before we move on to other subjects, there’s a personal matter we need to discuss.”
Tatiana shot a glance at the closed door, the foot of her crossed leg bouncing and causing her notebook to wobble. “Can that wait? We have more important things to discuss this morning.”
“Unfortunately, it can’t. Look, I tried to bring it up when we spoke while you were still overseas, but you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“It was a bad time then, and it’s an even worse time now.” She tapped the book in her lap several times with her pen but didn’t look up from it. “We need to stick to issues involving only Colton Plastics so that we’ll have time at the end of the meeting to discuss another topic.”
“This is about CP.” At least part of it was. Travis shifted in his executive chair where he usually felt cool and in control. Neither of those words had applied to him from the moment he’d met Tatiana Davison. “Have you seen the Grave Gulch Gazette?”
Her head lifted at that.
“Not yet. As I mentioned, I only arrived Saturday night. Then I spent yesterday in bed, recovering from, well, jet lag.” She stopped herself, her brows pinched together, and then shook her head. “Why? What did I miss?”
“It has to do with your father.”
Tatiana blew out a breath. “I thought we’d dealt with this during our meetings in January. I said I’d had no contact with my father since his release, and I don’t know where he is now. I was open about my personal life, which should have been off-limits during an interview, by the way. But I understood that the negative publicity could affect the company.
“When will the local paper stop reporting on the murder of that guy? What was his name?” She scanned the stack on his desk as though checking for a copy of the newspaper.
“Vincent Gully,” he supplied. He didn’t call her on his suspicion that she already knew the answer. No one would forget the name of a victim her father was accused of shooting at point-blank range.
“Oh. Right.” She looked up from his desk. “Anyway, the charges against my dad were dropped clear back in December, after their supposed evidence went missing.”
“From what I heard, it had help in disappearing.” He swallowed, realizing he’d said too much. Just because his PI brother, Clarke, had shared too many details about the investigation of alleged evidence tampering by Randall Bowe, the police department’s forensic scientist, didn’t mean Travis should share that privileged information further.
“Haven’t you heard about the new allegations?” he asked, hoping she would key in on that information instead of that other juicy detail.
The dread in her eyes and her slack jaw suggested she hadn’t heard.
“You know of more?” she said finally.
“There’s been another murder in Grave Gulch Park. It looked just like the first one. Police believe they’re chasing a serial killer, and DNA evidence at the crime scene connected it to one suspect.” He glanced down at his hands and had to force himself to look up again. “That suspect is Len Davison.”
“My dad? A serial killer?”
Her skin was so pallid now that he was tempted to hit his office speakerphone button to ask Jan to bring a paper bag for Tatiana to breathe in. Why was he suddenly feeling protective of her?
“Nothing is proven yet,” he found himself saying, though he’d just told her about the compelling evidence.
She wasn’t listening, anyway, as she planted her elbows on her thighs and leaned forward, lowering her head in her cupped hands. “No. That’s impossible. He wouldn’t.”
Her last word struck him as odd. Shouldn’t she have said couldn’t? But she was in shock. She wasn’t choosing her words carefully.
“You okay?” Travis couldn’t help himself. He rounded his desk and slid into the chair next to hers. Despite his determination never to touch her again beyond a professional handshake, he leaned forward and reached for her hands.
She jerked them back, crossing her arms as she straightened in the seat. Then she met his gaze. “I’m fine.”
He almost believed her. Tatiana Davison might have been petite enough that she barely reached his shoulder, even in heels, but she was no damsel in distress. He needed to remember that. She was a highly qualified plastics engineer, one whose work had impressed him so much that he’d personally recruited her to take the vacant position at Colton Plastics.
“I’m sorry to be the one to give you the news. I was sure you would have heard already. Didn’t anyone with the Grave Gulch Police Department get in touch with you?”
She lowered her arms to her lap. “I had a few messages from them on my cell while I was still overseas, but I didn’t return the calls.”
“Why not?”
“I figured they were just following up on the first case. I’d spoken to them before, so I didn’t call back. Since the charges were dropped, I expected them to eventually go away and leave me alone.”
“Makes sense, I guess.” She also might have been dealing with the implications of her father’s arrest by hiding from it. Was that why she’d gone to Paris in the first place? “But, unfortunately, the police aren’t going away.”
“I get that.”
Tatiana stared out his second-floor office window, with a similar view of the snow-covered courtyard that she would have seen from her own office. She squinted as she turned back to him.
“All that new information was in the local newspaper?”
“Only part of it.”
“Then how do you know so much?” She nodded as if answering her own question. “Right. You said that the Colton family is like a law enforcement convention. Siblings. Cousins. Everyone except you.”
“I also said I was the maverick,” he blurted and then shook his head. He’d shared too many details with her that night, stories of how he’d never fit with his family—with anyone, really. Intimacies that went far beyond just sharing a bed for one night. “Never said police work wasn’t an honorable trade. Just not for me.
“Anyway, when I announced at a police department pizza party I’d crashed that our board had hired you as my new co-CEO, my sister, Melissa, and brother, Clarke, nearly pounced on me from across the room. Remember, she’s the Grave Gulch chief of police, and he’s a PI who works with the department.”
“That must have been quite a scene.” She settled back in the chair, but her foot rocked again. “Well, what did they say?”
“No specifics beyond what I’ve told you. In fact, in her position, Melissa can’t really discuss active investigations, but Clarke isn’t as bound by those rules. He let me know that she believes her department is dealing with a serial killer. Also, Davison—” he paused, clearing his throat, before continuing “—I mean, your father has disappeared again. They want to talk to you as soon as possible. They think you can help them find him.”
“Haven’t I done enough for them?” She reached for the clip holding back her hair, causing more of the strands to fall loose. “You know, by spitting in that tube and registering with that genealogy website.”
“I’m sure that helped.”
She puffed up her cheeks and exhaled slowly. “I was hoping to learn more about my ancestors. Not send my own dad to prison.”
“None of this is your fault.” Again, the words came automatically, and, again, he regretted them.
“Doesn’t make me feel any better.”
He agreed with her on that one. He would have told her that Davison’s actions alone would be what put him behind bars, but she didn’t seem ready to hear that.
Tatiana tapped her bent forefinger to her lips, appearing deep in thought. She was taking the news better than he would have expected, but then, his board had hired her because she was a proven problem solver. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she was freaking out less than the average person. After all, this wasn’t the first time her father had been accused of murder.
“So, you’re bringing this up now because you’re looking for a plan to help Colton Plastics minimize the publicity nightmare. You know, the one that will result from having a co-CEO who’s the daughter of a potential serial killer.”
“It sounds awful when you put it that way.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Or is the board asking me to resign for the company’s sake before I even start to make an impact?”
“No. That’s not what I’m asking.”
“Well, you should be. Colton Plastics is still a relatively new company. As CEO—well, co-CEO now—you are responsible to our shareholders. A scandal this big could put the whole company at risk.”
She was right. This mess made the fact that they’d slept together seem as insignificant as one of the bullet points on the list he could see on her notebook. Yet he shook his head again.
“No. That’s not what I’m asking,” he repeated.
Tatiana’s shoulders relaxed with her sigh. “That’s good. Because I need this job. Now more than ever.”
Again, her words made sense. Potential employers who did an internet search on her would inquire about the public role she might play in her father’s defense. Of course, they would. He had. The label serial killer would only make that worse. Human resources managers would have to balance her job skills against the negative publicity she would bring to their companies. Many—most—would swipe left before she ever made it to an interview.
“Did you give your brother and sister my start date here?”
Travis blinked. He’d been heading off on a what-if tangent while Tatiana had stayed focused on the current mess.
“I did.” Just another on a list of things he regretted doing over the past few months.
“Then we’d better hurry with this meeting. We don’t know when they’ll try to question me.”
Travis had a good idea since his cousin, GGPD detective Troy Colton, had called to confirm that Tatiana had arrived as scheduled that morning. He should have mentioned it, but she was on a roll, jotting more notes on her pad. He’d already given her enough bad news. And he was a coward.
“We need to prepare a statement,” she said. “Tragic personal matter. Please respect the privacy of all CP employees. Unaware of Davison’s whereabouts. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. All that nonsense.”
“Are you?”
“Do you mean am I innocent?”
She shifted in her seat, and he did the same. They hadn’t even made it to the subject of their one-night stand yet. Could this morning get any worse?
“No. I’m asking if you really are unaware of where he is or what he’s been doing.”
“I told you in my job interview that I haven’t spoken with him,” she snapped and then shot a look out the window before facing him again. “Do you need me to swear it on the Colton Plastics employee handbook?”
“That won’t be necessary.” He could have pointed out that not speaking to someone and not knowing where he might be hiding were different, but she was already agitated. Anyway, they still weren’t finished with their unusual first-day topics.
She beat him to it.
“Okay, then. Let’s get onto other matters. As we agreed, I will be interviewing admin candidates this week. Did we receive the prescreened list of applicants?”
“Jan will supply you with that and your passwords following this meeting, but there is still that other personal matter—”
“Can you please stop apologizing for that night?” She gripped the arms of her chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “There were two of us in that hotel suite. There was consent as well, if that’s what you’re worried about, even if the cabernet clouded our judgment. So, stop.”
Only when Tatiana’s eyes widened did he realize that his jaw had dropped open. He closed his mouth.
“Sorry. It’s just that, uh, with everything you just told me and, well, other things...”
“I get it.” Okay, he’d overestimated how well she’d taken the news about her father, so he couldn’t fault her for overreacting. “For the record, I wasn’t planning to apologize. I wanted to set up some ground rules for, uh, our new working relationship.”
“Oh. I see.” She lowered her gaze to her hands. “I’m sure we’re on the same page about that. A mistake. Won’t be repeated. Strictly professional from here on out. Only—”
“So glad to hear you say that.” He rushed to end the awkwardness but then couldn’t stop babbling. “You should know, that’s not something I do—You probably won’t believe that. But I’ve never done anything—” He shook his head, giving up.
“I would tell you to forget about it entirely.” She paused, clearing her throat. “But that won’t be possible now because, uh, the other matter I needed to discuss with you—”
His office phone buzzed then, interrupting whatever she’d been about to say. He reached for the intercom button. “Yes, Jan. Is it something important? Because I asked for no calls.”
“It’s important,” Jan said. “I have representatives from the local police and the FBI, requesting to speak with Miss Davison.”
Travis shot a look at Tatiana, who was rocking in her seat.
“Uh,” Jan began again. “One of them says you’re expecting him.”
