Dr. Colton’s High-Stakes Fiancée Read online

  But what choice did she have? She would lose her CPA license if she got caught not reporting her findings. She scooped up all the documents and the printouts of her calculations and put them in her briefcase. Her knees were shaking so bad she could hardly stand. But stand she did. Terrified, she walked to the elevator and rode upstairs to the executive floor. Craig Warner’s secretary looked surprised to see her, almost as surprised as Rachel was for being here. The woman passed Rachel into the next office, occupied by Lester Atkins, Mr. Warner’s personal assistant. Rachel wasn’t exactly sure what a personal assistant did, but the guy looked both busy and annoyed at her interruption.

  “Hi, Mr. Atkins. I need to speak with Mr. Warner if he has a minute.”

  “He has an appointment in about five minutes. You’ll have to schedule something for later.”

  Disappointed, she turned to leave, but she was intercepted by Mr. Warner’s secretary standing in the doorway. “If you keep it quick, I’m sure Mr. Warner won’t mind if you slip in.”

  Rachel felt like ducking as the secretary and Lester traded venomous looks. She muttered, “I’ll make it fast.”

  Actually, she loved the idea of not getting into a long, drawn-out discussion with Mr. Warner. She’d just float a teeny trial balloon to see where the winds blew around here and then she’d bail out and decide what her next move should be. In her haste to escape Lester’s office, she ended up barging rather unceremoniously into Mr. Warner’s.

  He looked up, startled. “Rachel. I didn’t expect to see you this soon.”

  She smiled weakly. “Well, I’ve hit a little snag and I wanted to run it by you.”

  Craig leaned back in his chair, mopping his brow with a handkerchief before stuffing it in his desk drawer. “What’s the snag?”

  “I was comparing the original receipts against the financial statements of the oil-drilling company like you asked me to, and I found a few discrepancies. I’m afraid I don’t know much about Walsh Enterprises’ procedure for handling stuff like this. Do we just want to close the books on it and move on, or do you want me initiate revising the financial statements?”

  Craig frowned and she thought she might throw up. “How big a discrepancy are we talking here?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut for a miserable second and then answered, “Big enough that the one person whose signature I can read would be in trouble if he weren’t already dead.”

  “Ahh.” Comprehension lit Craig’s face. She thought she heard him mutter something under his breath to the effect of, “The old bastard,” but she couldn’t be sure.

  The intercom on his desk blared with Lester announcing, “Mr. Warner, your eleven o’clock is here.”

  Rachel leaped to her feet with alacrity. Her need to escape was almost more than she could contain. She had to get away from Warner before he fired her.

  He stood up. “I’ve got to take this meeting. We’ll talk later.”

  She nodded, thrilled to be getting out of here with her job intact.

  “And Miss Grant?”

  She gulped. “Yes, sir?”

  “Keep digging.”

  He was going to support her if she found more problems. Abject gratitude flooded her. God bless Craig Warner. Weak with relief, she stepped into Lester’s office. And pulled up short in shock. The last person she’d ever expect to see was standing there. And it was not a nice surprise. “Finn!” she exclaimed. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  He arched one arrogant eyebrow. “Since when is what I do any of your business?”

  Good point. But had she not been standing well within earshot of her boss, she might have told him to take his attitude and shove it. As it was, she threw him a withering glare and said sweetly, “Have a nice day.” And go to hell, she added silently.

  “Finn. Thanks so much for coming,” Craig Warner said from behind her. “I know it’s strange in this day and age to ask a doctor to make a house call—”

  Lester pulled the door discreetly closed and Rachel heard no more. Was Craig Warner sick? He looked okay. Maybe he was a little pale and had been perspiring a bit, but the guy had a stressful job. And why call a specialist like Finn? Last she heard, he was an emergency internist—not a family practitioner.

  She started back to her desk, her thoughts whirling. Keep digging. What exactly did Warner expect her to find? And why had Finn agreed to see Craig in his office? Why not tell the guy to call his own doctor? Maybe Finn had come over here to wreck her new job. After all, he’d successfully wrecked just about every other part of her life. Without a doubt, the worst part of living in a small town was the insanely long memory of the collective populace. You made one mistake and it was never forgotten, never forgiven.

  She worked feverishly through the afternoon and found more and more places where money had been skimmed off of the profits of the oil-drilling company and disappeared. She’d have stayed late and continued working if tonight she hadn’t volunteered down at the senior citizens’ center. It was bingo night, and the retirees didn’t take kindly to any delays in their gambling.

  Finn rubbed his eyes and pushed back from the computer. He’d been searching various medical databases for symptoms that matched Craig Warner’s but so far had come up with nothing. The guy was definitely sick. But with what? His symptoms didn’t conform to any common disease or to any uncommon diseases that he could find, either. He’d begged Craig to go to Bozeman and let him run tests there, but Craig had blown off the suggestion. He’d said he just needed some pills to calm his acid stomach and wasn’t about to make a mountain out of a molehill.

  But in Finn’s experience, when a non-hypochondriac patient thinks he’s sick enough to seek medical advice, it usually isn’t a molehill at all.

  He dreaded going home to face more of Maisie’s grilling over his latest encounter with his ex-girlfriend. For she’d no doubt heard all about it. She had a network of informants the FBI would envy.

  It had been a nasty shock running into Rachel like that today at Walsh Enterprises. The woman was sandpaper on his nerves. As if he fell for a second for that syrupy-sweet act of hers. He knew her too well to miss the sarcasm behind her tone of voice. Once it would’ve made him laugh. But now it set his teeth on edge. He’d been prepared to act civilized toward her when he’d come back to Honey Creek, but if she was determined to make it a war between them, he could live with that.

  Muttering under his breath, he pushed to his feet and headed out of Honey Creek’s small hospital.

  “What’re you doing here, bro?”

  Finn pulled up short at the sight of his brother, Wes. It still looked funny to see him in his sheriff’s uniform and toting a pistol. Wes had been as big of a hell-raiser as the rest of the Colton boys. Finn supposed there was a certain poetic justice in Wes being the guy now who had to track down wild kids and drag them home to their parents.

  Belatedly, Finn replied, “I was just using the hospital’s computer to look up some medical information on their database.”

  “Trying to figure out how to poison certain of the town’s females, maybe?”

  Finn snorted. “Yeah. Maisie. That woman gets nosier every time I see her.”

  Wes shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder if they switched her at birth and Mom and Dad brought home the wrong baby. I stopped by to see if you’d want to get a bite to eat?”

  “Yeah, sure. Lily working late tonight?”

  “Mother-daughter Girl Scout thing. I’m baching it for supper. I saw your truck in the parking lot.”

  Finn walked out onto the sidewalk with Wes. It was strange enough thinking of his older brother as sheriff. But a family man, too? That was downright weird. It made Finn a little jealous, though. He’d been so sure he and Rachel would have a passel of towheaded ankle-biters by now. Funny how things turned out.

  The sun was setting, outlining the mountains in blood red and throwing a kaleidoscope of pinks and oranges and purples up into the twilight sky. His thoughts circled back to Wes’s comment a
bout Maisie not belonging to the family. He commented reflectively, “I dunno. Sometimes I see a bit of Dad in Maisie. The two of them get an idea stuck in their craw and they won’t let it go.”

  Wes laughed. “Right. Like the rest of us Coltons aren’t that same way? Stubborn lot, we are.”

  Finn grinned. “Speak for yourself, Sheriff. I’m the soul of patience and reason.”

  Guffawing, Wes held the door to his cruiser open for him. “Then you won’t mind paying for supper, will you, Mr. Patience and Reason?”

  Finn cursed his brother good-naturedly. He didn’t mind, though. He made decent money as a physician, and public servants didn’t rake in big bucks. He did roll his eyes, though, when Wes drove them to Kelley’s Steakhouse, which was without question the most expensive restaurant in town. They ordered steaks with all the trimmings, and then Finn picked up the conversation. “How’s the murder investigation coming?”

  Wes shrugged. “Frustrating. There are damned few clues, and everywhere I look I find another suspect with a motive for killing Walsh.”

  “No surprise there,” Finn commented. “He wasn’t exactly cut out for sainthood.”

  “No kidding. It just stinks that Damien had to pay for something he didn’t do.”

  They fell silent, both reflecting on the bum deal life had dealt their brother. Finn had visited Damien regularly in jail and tried to be supportive, but a little worm of guilt squirmed in his gut. Damien had always sworn he didn’t kill Walsh. Turned out he’d been telling the truth all along. They all should’ve tried harder to get him exonerated.

  Fifteen years was a hell of big chunk of a person’s life to throw away. It hardly seemed like that long to him, but he imagined it had felt like twice that long to Damien.

  It seemed like only yesterday Finn had been in high school, excited to play in the district football championship, dating the prettiest girl in the whole school, and counting the days until he was going to blow this popsicle stand for good. Of course, Rachel had a couple more years of high school to go before she could join him, but then…then they were going to run away together and see the world.

  And it had all changed with a single phone call. He’d never forget his sister Maisie’s voice, delivering the news that had shattered his world—

  “Earth to Finn, come in.”

  He blinked and looked up at his brother. “Sorry. Was just remembering stuff.”

  “Yeah, Honey Creek has that effect on a soul, doesn’t it? Want go down to the Timber Bar and get a beer? I’m off duty.”

  “Sounds great. But you’re paying, cheapskate.”

  Chapter 3

  It was nearly midnight when Rachel pulled into her driveway. The bingo had ended at ten, but the usual volunteers who cleaned up hadn’t shown up tonight. Folks knew she was single and had no life of her own, so they didn’t hesitate to recruit her for the crap jobs that required sticking around late. And of course, she was too much of a softie to say no.

  She got out of her car and locked it. The weather had turned cold and it felt like snow. Soon, winter would lock Honey Creek in its grip and not let go until next spring. She made a mental note to get out the chains for her tires and throw them in the trunk of her car.

  She headed across the backyard under a starry sky so gorgeous she just had to stop and look at it. But then a movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye and she lurched, startled. That was something or someone on her back porch!

  She fumbled in her purse for the can of mace that swam around in the jumble at the bottom of it. Where was that can, darn it? Whoever it was could rob her and be long gone before she found it at this rate! She ought to keep the thing on her keychain, but it was bulky, and this was Honey Creek. Nothing bad ever happened here. Not until Mark Walsh’s murder. Why hadn’t it occurred to her before now that she ought to be more careful?

  Whoever was on the porch moved again slightly. The intruder appeared to be crouching at the far end of the porch near the back door.

  “I see you!” she shouted. “Go away before I call the police!”

  But the intruder only slinked back deeper in the shadows. Her eyes were adjusting more to the dark, and she could make out the person’s shape now. There. Finally. Her fingers wrapped around the mace can. She pulled it out of her purse and held it gingerly in front of her like a lethal weapon.

  “I swear, I’ll use this on you. Go on! Get out of here!”

  But then she heard something strange. The intruder whimpered. She frowned. What was up with that? Surely she hadn’t scared the guy that bad. She heard a faint scrabbling sound…like…claws on wood decking.

  Ohmigosh. That wasn’t a person at all. It was some kind of animal! She was half-inclined to laugh at herself, except this was Montana and a person had to have a healthy respect for the critters in this neck of the woods.

  She peered into the shadows, praying she wasn’t toe to toe with a mountain lion. She wasn’t. Actually, the creature looked a little like a wolf. Except he was too fuzzy and too broad for a wolf. They were leaner of build than this guy. Nope, she was face-to-face with a dog.

  She lowered the can of mace and spoke gently, “What’s the matter, fella? Are you lost?”

  Another whimper was the animal’s only reply.

  She squatted down and held out her hand. Okay, so a stray dog wasn’t exactly the safest thing in the world to approach cold, either, but she was a sucker for strays. Heck, she’d been collecting them her whole life. Yeah, and look where that had gotten me, a cynical voice commented in the back of her head.

  The dog took a step forward, or rather hopped. He was holding his right rear leg completely off the ground. “Oh, dear. Are you hurt? Let me go inside and put down my purse and turn on a light and then we’ll have a look at you.”

  She hurried into the kitchen and dumped her purse and mace canister on the table. She turned on the lights and opened the back door. “Come here, Brown Dog. Come.”

  The dog cringed farther back behind an aluminum lawn chair. She squatted down and held out her hand. The dog leaned like it might take a step toward her and then chickened out and retreated even farther behind the chair. If she knew one thing about frightened animals, it was that no amount of coaxing was going to get them to go where they didn’t want to go. Looked like she had to go to the dog.

  “Hang on, Brown Dog. Let me get some more light out there and then just have a look at you on the porch. Would that make you feel better?”

  She kept up a stream of gentle chatter as she went inside, opened all the blinds and flooded the back porch with light. She stepped back outside. And gasped. The entire far end of her porch was covered with blood. As she watched, the dog staggered like it was nearly too weak to stay on its feet. Even though the dog had a thick, shaggy coat, she could still see hip bones and shoulder blades protruding. The creature was skeletal, his eyes sunken and dull in his skull.

  And then she caught sight of his right hind leg. It was a bloody, mangled mess with white bone sticking out of a gaping wound she could put several fingers into. For all the world, it looked like he’d been shot. And the bullet looked to have nearly ripped his leg off.

  Oh, God. This was way beyond her paltry skills with antibiotic cream and bandages. The sight of the wound nearly made her faint, it was so gory. She had to call a vet, and now. Dr. Smith, Honey Creek’s long-time veterinarian, retired a few months back, and the local ranchers had yet to attract another one to town. She’d have to call someone in Bozeman. She raced into the house and pulled out the phone book, punching in the first number she found.

  “Hello,” a sleepy female voice answered the phone.

  She blurted, “Hi. A dog is on my back porch. He’s been shot and he’s in terrible shape. I need a veterinarian to come down to Honey Creek right away!”

  “I’m sorry, dear, but my husband doesn’t cover that far away. And besides, he’s out on a call. Said he’d be gone most of the night.”

  Oh God, oh God, oh God. Breat
he, Rachel. “Is there another vet in the area I can call?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know any small-animal vets who’ll go to Honey Creek. You’ll have to bring the dog up to Bozeman. Can I take your number and have my husband call you? He may have a suggestion.”

  No way could she pick up that big dog by herself and hoist him into her car. And even if she did manage it, she suspected the dog on her porch wasn’t going to live another hour, let alone through a long drive over mountain roads. It might be twenty miles as the crow flew to Bozeman, but the drive was considerably longer. Especially at night, and especially when it got cold. Even the slightest hint of moisture on the roads would freeze into sheet ice in the mountains. “Thanks anyway,” Rachel mumbled. “I’ll figure out something else.”

  She hung up, thinking frantically. Now what? She needed someone who could handle a gunshot wound. A doctor. Maybe she could take the dog down to the local emergency room—

  No way would they let her in with a stray dog carrying who knew what diseases. She swore under her breath. She got a bowl of water for the dog and carried it outside. Tears ran down her face to see how scared and weak he was and how voraciously he drank. He was dying. And for who knew what reason, he’d wandered up to her porch. She had to get him help.

  Without stopping to think too much about it, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed the phone number that hadn’t changed since she was in high school, and which she’d had memorized for the past decade and more.

  “Hello?” a gruff male voice answered.

  She couldn’t tell which Colton it was, but it definitely wasn’t Finn. She spoke fast before her courage deserted her. “I need to speak to Dr. Finn Colton. This is a medical emergency. And please hurry!”

  While she waited a lifetime for him to come to the phone, the dog lay down on the porch, apparently too weak to stand anymore. Panic made her light-headed. He was dying right before her eyes!

  “This is Dr. Colton.”

  “Oh, God, Finn. It’s Rachel. You have to come. I tried to call a doc in Bozeman but he can’t come and there’s so much blood from the gunshot and I don’t know what to do and I think I’m going to faint and please, there’s no one else I can call—”