The Horseman's Son Read Online Free PDF Page A

better.
    Those two car crashes had not been accidents. And neither had the other assaults. They were connected to him. He was the only common denominator.
    Since he was aware of that, he’d learned to take precautions, and he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Adam—accidental or otherwise. In fact, that’s the reason he hadn’t been seriously involved with any woman since his fiancée’s death five years earlier. For whatever reason, it seemed as if someone didn’t want him to be happy in love.
    “If there’s a threat to Adam,” he heard Collena say, “then I need to know about it.”
    And Dylan decided to turn the tables on her. “You said someone tried to kill you after you gave birth.”
    She nodded. And swallowed hard.
    “Then maybe whoever it was will try to come after you again and finish what he started,” he pointed out.
    “No. The Brighton criminals were arrested. Some are dead and some are in jail.”
    Because he thought there might be doubt in the depths of her brown eyes, he pushed harder. “You’re absolutely positive that the police rounded up all of them?”
    “I’m as certain of it as you are of the fact that your sister and fiancée’s killer has nothing to do with Adam.”
    Touché. Under different circumstances, Dylan might have liked her.
    “So, why suggest marriage?” Dylan asked.
    “On paper, it’s the best solution. Adam will have two parents who love him. He’ll want for nothing. No shared custody. No one weekend with you, the other weekend with me. And if we’re married, if you legally adopted him, then there’ll be no way that anyone can cut either of us out of his life.”
    That last part sounded reasonable, but the whole picture had flaws the size of Texas. “And what about a loveless marriage? Do you really want that?”
    Collena made a soft sound of amusement. “From my experience, love is vastly overrated.”
    “You’re too young to be so skeptical,” he commented.
    “I’m a lot older than my age might imply.” She shifted her position. “Look, I’m not some starry-eyed gold digger, Mr. Greer. I don’t want a husband, a lover or someone’s shoulder to cry on. I don’t even want someone to support me or pretend that I matter to him. I just want the best possible life for my son. A life where no one is pointing fingers at him because he’s different.”
    Dylan didn’t let himself react to the emotion. To the truthful tone of that obviously painful confession. “If you wanted that, you should have stayed away from him,” he challenged.
    “I considered it.”
    And she was serious, too. Serious enough to bring tears to her eyes. It was the second time today that she’d teared up, but even with that track record, Dylan didn’t think she was a woman accustomed to showing her feelings. Those tears looked out of place.
    “You considered staying away,” he paraphrased. “Yet, you came anyway. Lucky me.”
    “I tried, but I can’t give him up.” She moistened her lips, looked away. “I lost him once, and I can’t survive if I have to go through that again.”
    Unfortunately, Dylan knew what she meant, but he pushed aside the camaraderie he felt. It was best to keep his feelings toward Collena Drake as detached as possible.
    He checked his watch and realized it’d been a good ten minutes since he’d asked Jonah to return. Dylan hit the intercom button on his desk so he could be heard in the kitchen.
    “Jonah?”
    “He left,” Dylan heard Ina, the cook, say. “He said he had another call.”
    Well, that was just great. Jonah wasn’t finished with this call. For all the deputy knew, Collena Drake could have been a killer. At a minimum, she’d trespassed, and Jonah should have waited around long enough to see if he was going to have to arrest her for that. Not that Dylan planned to have her thrown in jail. But Jonah didn’t know that.
    “I can see myself out,” Collena insisted. She was heading for the door before she turned back around to