Stepbrother Breaks Bad: The Complete Series Read online

  With that, he fished it out of his pocket and laid it on the bar. There it was. A shiny gold shield with an eagle on top. All official like. Proof positive that Colton Marbray had made something of himself.

  He was a lawman alright.

  And the knowledge—and the badge—was heavier than I expected.

  Our fingers touched when he took it back, and it was like touching a live wire. All my insides sizzled and when I lifted my eyes to his, I wondered if he could feel it too. Two minutes back in my life and already I wanted to crawl over the bar and kiss that sardonic mouth of his. Wanted to run my fingers over the stubble on his cheek. Wanted to knock that hat off his head, pull those long arms of his around me, and kiss him into oblivion.

  It wasn’t fair that my stepbrother could still do this to me after all these years. It was even less fair that he was doing it on purpose. A thing I realized only too late, when he pulled two police photos and held them up. “Don’t suppose you know these two?”

  I nearly sputtered. Here I thought we were having a moment, and instead, he was working a case? I straightened up, my gut churning. “You said you weren’t here for business…”

  “No. I said I wouldn’t deign to call it business.”

  “You said you were here for a whiskey,” I snapped, wondering just how easy a target for manipulation he thought I was. Easy, truth be told. I’d always been easy for him. But I didn’t have to be happy about it.

  “Can’t a man do two things at once, Shelby?”

  “Get out,” I said, crossing my arms over myself.

  Colton ignored my command and returned one of his own. “Look at the pictures, Shelby. You recognize these boys or not?”

  My eyes barely flicked to the photos then back to him. “Not.”

  His lips pursed in disapproval. “You didn’t even look.”

  “I’m not gonna, either.”

  “Shelby, if you don’t cooperate, you’re gonna make me suspicious as to why. And when I get suspicious, I’ll start looking into things you and your father probably don’t want me looking into. So, for old time’s sake, why not just be a good girl and help me out?”

  I nearly spat at him. “I ain’t a girl and I ain’t good.”

  He stared a moment, then wet his lips as if contemplating the sexual innuendo. Then he cleared his throat. “Well, I know you want me to inquire as to what you mean by that. And I’d be lying if I said I don’t want to know. But if we start down that road, it’ll only lead us to the same place it did all those years ago. So why don’t you help me out anyways and save us both a lot of pain.”

  Well, he couldn’t spell it out any clearer, could he? Because nothing had changed. I was still in love with him. He still felt nothing for me. The sooner I got my stepbrother out of this bar and out of my life, the sooner I could go back to trying to forget him. So I snatched up the photos and gave them a good hard look.

  Then, feeling dread flow over me with the weight of concrete, I said, “Sorry. Never seen these boys before in my life.”

  Chapter Two

  COLTON

  Colton Marbray didn’t know what Shelby had been up to in the years that he’d been away. Oh, he’d wondered about his beautiful stepsister nearly every day since he left. He’d thought about her in boot camp. He’d thought about her in the army. He’d thought about her while training up to be a special agent. He’d even thought of her the day he nearly flushed his career down the toilet.

  But thinking about Shelby didn’t mean that he still knew her. Because the Shelby he remembered—whip smart with a sweet heart—wouldn’t still be working for her lowlife daddy. She’d have managed to get herself out of this life somehow. So, hell, he didn’t know who Shelby was anymore.

  But he did know one thing. He knew she was lying.

  He knew it down deep. In a place that went far beyond his training or instincts. And the fact that she was lying worried him to the marrow of his bones. “So then I guess you weren’t working here last Friday night?” Colton asked, giving her a chance to change her mind.

  She only shrugged. “Can’t remember. All my Friday nights tend to blend, one right into the other. Why?”

  Colt leaned in closer, trying desperately to ignore the scent of her hair which was niggling at his senses and testing his self-control. “What if I was to tell you that one of these boys used a credit card right here in this establishment last Friday night.”

  She shrugged again. “Then I’d guess they had nothing better to do. Kind of like a man who comes here drinking in the middle of the afternoon.”

  At that, the town drunk snorted and moved down to the end of the bar. Colton had nearly forgotten he was there, and he’d have to question him too, but Shelby’s information was likely to be more reliable. “Shelby. These boys turned up dead in a pricey Silverado this morning on the side of the highway. They were shot. Execution style.”

  She blanched, which was good. It meant that she still had the tender heart he remembered her for, even under all her grown up sex-appeal and bad-ass attitude. But as upset as the news obviously made her, it didn’t loosen her tongue. Instead of answering his questions, she shot out one of her own. “And they sent you to investigate instead of the police?”

  Now it was his turn to lie. Or at least, to be judicious with his words. This wasn’t his case. It was a matter for the local police. But when it came to local crime rackets lead by men like Shelby’s father, the Boone County police were notoriously incompetent. Almost as if they were being paid to get it wrong.

  Which they were.

  So Colton said, “There were traces of explosives in the back of the pickup truck. Possibly means illegal weapons were being transported across state lines. It’s a matter of curiosity.”

  “For you or your agency?” she shot back.

  He didn’t have a great answer for that. He was supposed to be working a desk job in Madison. He was supposed to keep his head down, work the cases he was assigned, and not go off chasing leads that might get him into even deeper shit. But he hadn’t become a law enforcement officer just to bust criminals in far away states and foreign countries while overlooking the ones he knew about right here at home.

  Starting with Buford Baker. His stepfather. A man with whom he had scores to settle. If he could put Buford away—well, that’d go a long way toward settling his guilt over his mother. Colton hadn’t been able to protect her when he was a boy. But now…well, if he could put Buford Baker in jail, he’d feel like he did something right by his mother after all.

  Shelby interrupted his thoughts by pushing back away from the bar, a pink bra strap peeking out from the shoulder of her tank top, a splash of color against that delicious expanse of pale creamy skin. Good Lord Almighty. She had such a casual sensuality it could make a man lose his mind, and Colton was halfway near to losing his already.

  Shelby had always been his greatest temptation; the thing he wanted most that he couldn’t have. He’d had to literally leave the state to save himself from going the way of the devil. Now that he was back, what was his defense?

  Taking the pictures of the dead men, she came around the bar and sat on the stool next to him, her thigh touching his. He caught the whiff of her shampoo again. Or maybe it was perfume. Something vaguely like oranges blossoms—and had to suppress the urge to grab her by the nape and kiss her hard.

  She must’ve known it, because she peered up at him from beneath those long pale eyelashes and snared him with seductive eyes. “Sorry. If these men were here, I don’t remember. But maybe I could help you out in some other way…”

  She was all purr and suggestion. She was putting it on for his benefit; it was a show. But it was working just the same. It threw him completely off his game, forcing him to ask, when he knew he ought not, “What other way do you wanna help me out, Shelby?”

  “Oh, I dunno,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “You were always wound tighter than a drum, far back as I can remember. But never like this. You’re chewing that toothpi
ck into splinters.”

  Colton stopped chewing and laid the damned toothpick on the bar. “And you think you can help unwind me, is that it?”

  “Sure, if you’ve got some coins for the machine.”

  Colton followed her gaze to the old jukebox. “You fixin’ to ask me to dance?”

  “Maybe a dance will jog my memory.”

  Colton narrowed his eyes, wondering if this was the old game they used to play. Shelby throwing herself at him. Him doing everything he could to resist. But something had changed. There was a hardness in her that hadn’t been there before. He realized that this was a new game entirely.

  Why she was coming on so strong just to run him off.

  And it made him so damned mad that he rose from the stool and grabbed her by the hand. “You wanna dance, we’ll dance,” he said, tugging her against his chest. Inhaling sharply at the feel of her breasts as they pressed against him. Hating the way she felt so perfect. “We don’t even need music.”

  Did he imagine that she wilted just a little bit in his arms? But when she caught her breath she smiled and said, “Still can’t remember a thing.”

  At which point he wanted to haul her over his knee and give her the spanking of her life. Instead, he kissed her. He hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t known he was going to do it. But one moment she was bending her head toward him like a flirtatious coquette. The next moment, he’d slanted his mouth over her plump lips and the scorching heat of it was enough to fry his brain.

  Fuck, but he’d been waiting a long time for this. And it was better than he expected. His heart started pumping in his chest, driving hot desire through him. Hell, if the town drunk wasn’t sitting ten feet away, he might’ve just bent her over the bar and had his way with her.

  But when Shelby’s arm slipped round his waist and he felt her touch his holster, his training kicked in, and he got hold of himself. Pulling away.

  Still, it was a near thing.

  He still wanted her more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life.

  In truth, he was damn near shaking with it.

  Still, he knew better. Years ago, he couldn’t have Shelby because she was his stepsister. He was supposed to protect her. He was supposed to be the big brother for her that she’d never had. He wasn’t supposed to take advantage of her. Which is exactly what he’d be doing now if he gave into temptation and seduced her while trying to put her father in jail.

  All that was beside the fact that she was likely an accessory to her father’s crimes. So nothing had changed. He still wanted Shelby but he still couldn’t have her.

  Maybe she knew it because her eyes burned a hole of resentment through him while she wiped at the corner of her beautiful mouth. “Well, I aways wondered what it’d be like to kiss you, Colton. Now I know. So, I guess you best finish your drink and be on your way.”

  Jesus H. Christ. What had he done? Pounding nails into the porch to fix the old railing was helping to burn off some of the lingering sexual heat from his encounter with Shelby, but it wasn’t doing shit to quiet the nagging doubts in his brain.

  Colton had come back to Shiloh township to get back on the straight and narrow. To put his career back on track and get his mind right. Instead, he’d come unravelled the second he saw his sexy stepsister.

  And he hadn’t even gotten a lead out of it…

  Jesus H. Christ, he thought for the hundredth time.

  Then he nearly hit his thumb with the hammer at the sight of a truck rumbling up his drive. He knew exactly who it belonged to. Annabelle Tidwell. His nearest neighbor for miles. Miss Annabelle had a thing for pink and had her truck painted to match. The truck was a bit faded and patchier than he remembered, to be sure, but there was no mistaking it, even before she climbed out of the truck crying, “Why Colton Marbray as I live and breathe!”

  Wiping the sweat from his brow, he said, “Miss Annabelle.”

  “Saw the lights on in this place when I was driving by last week. Told my boys that it had to be you. But when you weren’t at church this Sunday, I decided to take a chance and drop by myself,” the older woman chattered on, then pulled a big round container from the seat of her truck. “I brought a pie!”

  “Can’t turn that away,” Colton said, not having to fake his enthusiasm for the sake of politeness. Miss Annabelle was a pushy woman who was always in everybody’s business, but she was the best baker in Boone County. Her pies were legendary and Colton’s stomach was already rumbling.

  “It’s a new recipe for the annual contest,” Miss Annabelle said, conspiratorially. “A splash of wine in the berry filling and a dash of cinnamon in the crust. Haven’t tried it myself yet, so I hope you won’t mind if I invite myself in for a bite.”

  He did mind. Because he was covered in dirt and sweat and the old house wasn’t in any shape for company. But he could scarcely turn her away. Wouldn’t be neighborly. So Colton kicked open the screen door with his foot. “C’mon in. I think I’ve got some…”

  “Coffee would be perfect,” Miss Annabelle said, puffing her way up the stairs and into the house.

  Colton followed, making a mental inventory of what he had in the pantry. Which wasn’t much. “Out of coffee. But there’s some milk—”

  “And precious little else, you poor boy!” Miss Annabelle said, having opened up his fridge uninvited.

  He knew the contents. A pack of beer. A few eggs. Some ketchup…

  “Meant to go shopping,” Colton murmured, washing his hands in the sink and drying off with a towel while Miss Annabelle took over his kitchen.

  “I swear you got taller,” she said, finding some napkins. “So fetch me down two plates from that high cabinet. That’s where your Momma kept the good stuff, God Rest Her Soul. Life’s too short to use everyday plates for a celebratory pie, after all.”

  “What are we celebrating?” Colton asked, reaching up for two of the plates with the silver trim and little rosettes. His mother always loved those, much as she denied it on the day that Shelby dropped one and chipped it. Poor Shelby had been so scared to get a beating at the hands of her father, that they’d all conspired to keep it a secret…

  Shelby. Why did everything always come back to her? He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He couldn’t even stop himself from kissing her…

  “We’re celebrating your return to Shiloh township!” Miss Annabelle replied, oblivious to the Shelby-driven storm raging in his thoughts. “You don’t think I’d bake a pie like this for just any occasion, do you?”

  “Not sure how long I’m staying,” he admitted, handing over the plates. Miss Annabelle had already found a knife and was making expert slices through the lattice-work top of her pie. And for the first time since returning to Shiloh, he remembered that there were things here he missed other than his stepsister.

  “Your Momma would be so proud to see you as the man of this house,” Miss Annabelle said, her eyes fell on the cross Colt wore around his neck. It used to be his mother’s. He’d found it in the jewelry box along with the engagement ring his father had given her. Truth be told, that’d pissed him off because it meant his mother was buried wearing the ring Buford Baker gave to her, but he supposed he ought to count it lucky that the jewelry box wasn’t stripped bare.

  “I only ever wanted to do right by her,” Colt said, looking away.

  Serving two giant slabs of pie onto the tiny plates, Annabelle said, “She always knew that you’d amount to something, Colton Marbray. We all did. Even my Huey knew it. Didn’t think you’d run off to become a lawman, but he said it made sense given how well-acquainted he was with your right hook.”

  Colton stared down at the table. “I guess I owe Huey an apology for that.”

  She laughed. “Oh, Huey don’t hold a grudge. Besides, every boy in Shiloh ought to have known better than to mess with Shelby when you were around. Anybody with eyes knew you were sweet on her.”

  Colton felt heat sweep up his neck. Had his attraction to Shelby really been so obvious? If it had been,
the whole town must’ve thought he was some kind of inbred pervert. He’d felt like one. Lusting after his stepsister night after night, knowing that she was off-limits to him. Knowing that whatever she felt—whatever the felt for each other—would only make their situation at home worse.

  “Saw her just today,” Colton murmured, still embarrassed.

  “Who, Shelby?” Annabelle asked, finding a seat. “That girl. If she doesn’t get away from her daddy, she’s going to end up a good-for-nothing just like him. Maybe now that you’re back in town you can talk some sense into her.”

  “Not sure I have much truck with Shelby anymore.”

  Annabelle shook her head. “Nobody does. Darlene was always afraid that if she divorced Buford, that he’d take custody of Shelby and drag her down into mischief. That’s why your Momma stayed married to him.”

  Colton swallowed. He hadn’t known that. And he added it to the pile of reasons he had to feel guilty about leaving. “She shouldn’t have. Buford is a lowlife.”

  Annabelle smiled. “I know it and you know it, but we can’t sit too high in judgement. People round here do what they’ve got to in order to survive. And Buford ain’t half as bad as he could be. He always did provide for you and your Momma. You can’t deny that. Anyway, your Momma had other things to take pleasure in than her husband. Which is why Darlene never could stop talking about you. Really, she was so proud you know.”

  A lump lodged in his throat. “Not sure pride did her any good at the end.”

  “Now you stop that right now,” Miss Annabelle said, sliding the plate of pie in front of him to urge him to eat it. Then she poured two big glasses of milk. “Your Momma knew that you’d have been with her on her deathbed if you could’ve been. She knew you were off doing big important things. If you’re home for a promotion now, so much the better. She’d tell you it was all worth it.”

  An assignment in Boone County wasn’t a promotion. It was a punishment. He oughtn’t have admitted it, but all he could muster was, “Not sure I’m feeling like it’s all worth it right now.”