The Bluewater Affair

271 Pages·2016·0.66 MB·English

by  Gerard Cindy

The Bluewater Affair
Cindy Gerard

Family Secrets Book 04

September 2003

SUBJECT: Susannah Hobson - Single, soon-to-be-mother.

FAMILY HISTORY: Stepdaughter of Violet Vaughn, mother of the
Extraordinary Five

DARKEST SECRET: Hiding her knowledge of Code Proteus...and holding
on to her heart.

Abandoned by the father of her child, vulnerable beauty Susannah Hobson
returned to her family's Colorado ranch hoping to find a safe haven. Yet her
homecoming was shattered when she discovered that her beloved stepmother
had been killed. Fortunately, handsome rancher Travis Dean was there to offer
her some neighborly support and the security of his strong embrace. Yet
Susannah knew that caring for this man was impossible. Because Susannah
suspected that Violet's death was no accident, and her own newfound knowledge
of her stepmother's involvement in a secret government project put her in danger.
Susannah couldn't risk Travis's life by staying...but could she jeopardize her own
soul by leaving?

Five extraordinary siblings.
One dangerous past.
Unlimited potential.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Susannah Hobson—Her stepmother's suspicious death has turned her world
upside down, and she discovers everyone has secrets—even the ruggedly
handsome rancher who has vowed to protect her and her unborn chid, whether
she likes it or not!

Travis Dean—He'd left the city and come to his grandfather's ranch to get away
from trouble, only to encounter his proud, willful and very pregnant neighbor,
who badly needed someone to watch over her—and give her a lasting lesson in
love.

Williard Croft—The ruthless mastermind behind Violet's untimely death will
stop at nothing to hunt down the Extraordinary Five—even if it means
destroying everyone they love.

Jake Ingram—He couldn't believe Violet was gone, not when he'd just reunited
with his loving birth mother. His hopes of unlocking the mysteries of his
extraordinary past vanished with her death, unless...
Prologue

Late March, Sheridan, Wyoming

Even before he knocked, Susannah Hobson knew it was Jason Murphy standing
outside her door. The sound of his boots on the steps running along the outside
wall of the old house was unmistakable; the sudden spike of her pulse was par
for the course.

She smoothed an unsteady hand over the long, brown hair that he had loved to
see down and flowing over her bare shoulders, then made a quick scan of the
living room. Like everything else in the drafty little second-floor apartment, and
in spite of her best efforts, it looked like what it was—cheap, shabby and worn
out.

The walls might have once been pale blue, but had long ago faded to dank,
dismal gray. The springs on the sofa she'd bought last year at the secondhand
store were shot, as was the floral upholstery. It had been pretty once. So had her
eyes. They'd been a vibrant big-sky blue, full of hopes and dreams and the
defiant pride of the very young and the very naive.

She was still young—at least in years. She was no longer naive. And although
she had hopes, she had few illusions about what Jason's response would be when
she broke the news. Over a month had passed since he'd climbed the creaking
stairs to her apartment. He hadn't been happy that she'd tracked him down in
Denver; he'd come when she'd asked him to, though, so she supposed it said
something. So did the damning mix of emotions that flooded her when she
opened the door and saw him standing there.
He was cowboy lanky, muscled and lean, and, along with the cold, the scent of
leather and horses followed him to her door. His unusual green eyes and outlaw
grin had been her undoing six months ago. She'd known then what he was. He
was a circuit bronc rider; he was on the make. In spite of it— maybe even
because of it—she'd still taken the tumble, just like she had half a dozen times
for half a dozen guys who had all found reasons to abandon her in the past four
years.

Each time, she'd hoped this time would be different. Each time, she'd fallen for
the pretty face, the smooth lines and the promise of love everlasting. Each time,
her eyes had lost a little luster and her pride had taken another hit when they'd
left her.

"Hey," she said, a small kernel of hope still hovering at the fringe of reality.
Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe this cowboy would stick. "Thanks for coming."

His smile was forced and tight and as icy as the wind cutting into her apartment
through the open door. "Yeah, well, you said it was important."

"Can you sit? Maybe stay for a while?"

He tucked his bare hands, scarred by his profession, chafed and red from the
cold, into the hip pockets of his Wranglers. "Ah, actually, it's kind of a bad time
for me."

It hurt that he wouldn't look at her. His boot tips, caked with sludgy remnants of
last night's snow, became the focal point of his attention. Susannah felt a thick,
heavy acceptance settle like the lead-gray clouds scudding across the dusk sky
behind his broad shoulders. They promised more cold and more snow and made
her shiver. So did the closed expression on his face when he finally met her eyes.
Her hope shifted, like the icy draft of the March wind, to anger.

"I'm pregnant."

She hadn't meant to blurt it out that way. And, she knew, he hadn't meant to
react. She had his attention now, though. His shocked gaze narrowed on her face
then dropped to her stomach. Disbelief, then grim acknowledgment, and finally
anger played across the beautiful face that had hovered above hers in the dark
and planted this baby inside her.

He clenched his jaw and stared behind her at some spot on the wall, then cut his
gaze back to her face again. "And I suppose you're going to try to tell me it's
mine." The hurtful words, like his breath, hung in the subfreezing air then drifted
away with the last of her hopes.

Stung, but not really surprised, she hugged her arms around herself, suddenly so
cold and so tired. "There's no 'suppose' or 'try' about it. It is yours."

He finally closed the door behind him. And stood there.

He looked as cornered as a coyote caught in the crosshairs of a rifle scope now
and what had been a knee-jerk accusation transitioned to hostility—first a spark
then a full-blown bonfire. There was a hole the size of a fist in her bedroom wall.
The hand that had put it there curled tight at his side. He wanted to hit her. She
knew he wouldn't. A cowboy had his honor.

Cowboys didn't hit women. They just knocked them up and left them to ride the
next wild horse and the next wild woman. She'd watched it happen often enough
to her friends and swore it would never happen to her. Now it had.

She'd never felt so alone. And alone was exactly what she hadn't wanted to be.
That was why she'd called him. And until this moment, she'd thought she'd
known what she wanted from him. But as he stood there looking not only
trapped, but helpless and weak, she actually felt sorry for him. He was twenty-
three years old, a year older than she was. She'd thought he was a man. Tonight
she saw what he really was. A boy. Scared and selfish and ready to duck and run.

And she felt very old, and very alone.

"This ain't my problem," he said with a set of his jaw that dared her to deny it.

For as quiet as he'd been, he suddenly had a lot to say. It wasn't his fault; she was
the one who screwed up; he wouldn't be trapped; he knew a doctor who would
take care of it.

She heard the surly panic in his words like a low hum of static beneath the
surprising and sudden clarity of her thoughts—thoughts that were so strong and
so right, she could no longer deny them or push them to the back of her
consciousness and fool herself into believing they weren't the absolute truth. She
didn't want Jason Murphy, she realized as he dug into his hip pocket for his
wallet, dragged out three twenties—probably all the money he had to his name
— and held them out to her.
She smiled tiredly, shook her head. "I don't want your money, Jace."

He stood there, his hand extended, a defiant plea for her to take the money,
assuage his guilt. "Then what do you want?"

She wanted to matter to someone. To mean something to someone. Because it
was now apparent that concept would be lost on him, she didn't bother to try to
explain it. "I don't want anything. I just thought you should know. Now you do.
And you can go."

When she shouldered around him and opened the door, inviting him to leave the
same way he'd come in, he hesitated for only a moment. He pressed the money
into her hand on his way by. Then he walked out of her life without a long look
back.

His tire tracks were still embedded in the snow two hours later when Susannah
shrugged into her coat and boots and trudged the three blocks to the Stop and Sip
where she tended bar five nights a week for minimum wage and tips. If the
thought of an abortion crossed her mind during the next few months as winter
grudgingly gave way to spring and the life inside her flourished and grew, it was
to reject it out of hand. This baby was hers. She loved it more every day. And
when, at the end of June, the morning sickness and fatigue were pretty much
behind her, but the thickening of her waist made it hard to snap her jeans, she
packed up her things.

It didn't take long; she didn't have much. She threw her few clothes and favorite
books into the back of her ten-year-old Chevy Blazer and headed south.
There was a song that had gotten a lot of play a few years back. The lyrics came
to her as she drove down the highway toward the ranch where she'd grown up,
where she'd been loved and which she'd left behind.

The message was about finding strength in moments of weakness. About the
burden of blame and how it can trap you in the past. The song was about when it
was time to move on.

Now was her time. She couldn't change the past; she could only deal with the
present and hope the future held something she could handle. She wasn't going
to mire herself deeper in regret and wait for the next blow to land. She was
taking control of her life and making the best of it for herself and her baby.

It had taken four years of stubborn, defiant pride to reach this point. It had taken
the past four months to come to terms with how she was going to do it. She had
some fences to mend, but she also had someone who cared about her waiting in
Colorado.

And more than anything in the world, she wanted to go home.
Chapter One

June 27, near Walden, Colorado

The sky should have been gray, leaden with clouds, heavy with rain. The day
was too pretty, the sky too blue to bear witness to the carnage that lay a hundred
yards below in the deep ravine.

Grim-faced, Travis Dean glanced from the destroyed metal guardrail on the
narrow bridge to the skid marks and deep gouges in the dirt leading off the
shoulder of the road. He made himself look at the grisly scene scarring the
gorge. The knots in his stomach tightened as half-a-dozen rescue workers
labored to free the occupants of the mangled vehicles. They wouldn't save any
lives today. Today their gruesome task was to recover bodies.

One of them would be the body of his friend. And right now he wanted to run
away from the reality of her death, as much as he'd wanted to run away from a
life he'd left behind three years ago.

He made himself stay. Made himself watch in silence as the crew worked in
pairs by the twisted remains of Vi Hobson's older model pickup. Several yards
away, another crew labored beside the charred chassis of a vehicle that had
burned to an almost unrecognizable lump of melted plastic and charred metal.

Besides his own pickup, two Jackson County Sheriff cruisers, two ambulances
and a fire truck lined either side of the winding road. To his right, Chet
Deerfield, Jackson County Deputy Sheriff, pulled out a notepad and pen, then