Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 (41 page)

Thinking of Alaina on the rocks, dying, was unpleasant, but not intolerable. She had become a lush and a bore. Once, he had enjoyed her. Hell, he’d even been fond of her. But those days were gone.

Gavin smiled as he gazed at Delia. He hoped she was taking a good look at the coastline, because she would not be returning—not with him, at any rate.

He intended to leave her in Greece.

He would return to Monaco with Briana. She would be either his mistress or his wife, whatever he decided was best. He was, by God, going to possess her— No, he was going to
own
her.

Travis Coltrane sat behind the large mahogany desk in his richly appointed office at the American Embassy in Paris. He was wearing a three-piece suit in a soft shade of charcoal gray. His shoes were black and highly polished. A gold watch chain hung across his vest. Travis looked important. He
was
important.

And he hated his job.

Tossing aside the document he was trying to read, he rose from the high-backed burgundy leather chair and went to the window. He stood there, hands folded behind his back. Though Kitty had guessed he was miserable with their new life, he had not, as yet, said so to her in plain words.

Travis had never been a desk man, an indoors man, and he never would be. He longed to return to Nevada and his beloved ranch. He longed to work in fresh air and sunshine. Hell, he was so eager to get back in the saddle, he wouldn’t even complain when the snows came and the frigid winds blew.

He told himself to concentrate on where he was. The view before him was surely magnificent. The Champs de Mars, a vast parade ground, stretched south for more than half a mile. The Champs de Mars had been the scene of many historical events, including violent riots and celebrations during the French Revolution.

At the far end stood the Ecole Militaire. A handsome military school built in the eighteenth century, it looked more like a palace than a military academy. Initially meant to provide officers’ training for the sons of poor aristocrats, the school was later opened to outstanding students from academies outside Paris.

Travis recalled the story he’d heard concerning the academy’s most famous student—Napoleon Bonaparte. It was said that his final report card had carried the notation
Will go far, if circumstances permit.

Thoughtfully Travis looked at the controversial new structure at the north end of the parade grounds. Built for the 1889 Paris World’s Fair by the architect Alexandre Eiffel, it was the object of much criticism. It was called everything from a curiosity to a monstrosity, and many people wanted it torn down. Travis respected the Eiffel Tower for what it was: a brilliant engineering feat. The pressure per square inch the tower exerted upon the ground was no greater than the pressure per square inch a man would exert sitting in a chair. At 985 feet, it was easily the tallest structure in the world. There was a nice restaurant there. He and Kitty had dined in it a few times, and…

Kitty.

How he loved that woman. He’d never loved anyone so much. All he wanted was to make her happy in their old age, as happy as she made him.

He’d thought that some time in Paris and traveling through Europe was what she wanted. But Kitty was more homesick than she would admit, and she missed Colt terribly.

Travis shook his head. A nagging worry increased with every day that there was no word from Colt. It had been over three months and, damn it, this wasn’t like Colt. Surely he knew his parents would worry.

A knock startled Travis out of his reverie. He went to his desk, sat down, and picked up the document again before calling,
“Yes,
come in.”

His secretary seemed nervous. That, for her, was unusual. Miss Tyrone, an old maid at thirty, detested men in general, but she was an efficient secretary and nothing bothered her. Once, Travis had teased her about the severity of her appearance, good-naturedly joking that she probably scared men away with her drab clothes and overly serious expression. She told him in her usual flawless English that that was how she wanted it. From then on, Travis and Miss Tyrone kept each other at a distance.

As he watched her cross the room, he began wondering what could be wrong. As she held out a yellow telegram, he saw that her hands were trembling.

“For you, sir, a personal matter.”

“It’s about time,” Travis cried jubilantly, taking the paper from her hands. “Do you think now I’ll find out what that son of mine has been up to?”

Miss Tyrone’s face was filled with sympathy as she said, “It isn’t from your son, sir. It’s from your daughter…”

And before Travis’s eyes could focus on the words before him, he felt his blood turn to ice.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

No one attempted to stop Travis Coltrane from entering the convent on Jaune Mountain, which was just as well. He rode through the gates, his eyes narrowed, his back ramrod straight.

He was met by a fluttering nun and refused to listen to her protests, moving politely past her toward the convent. Knowing she was beaten, Sister Marie led him down a shadowy, dim hallway that smelled of old newspapers and wet hair, until they reached the infirmary.

Travis stepped inside silently.

At the far end of the room was a young woman in white on her knees beside a patient’s bed, head bent in prayer. Was it the daughter he hadn’t seen in fourteen years?

At the sound of approaching footsteps, Dani looked up with tired, burning eyes. A gasp stuck in her throat as she watched the man come toward her.

She was looking at the image of her brother! He was tall, husky, muscular. He had the same smoke-gray eyes as John Travis. The only marked difference was the touch of silver in his raven-black hair.

With pounding heart, Dani gripped the edge of her brother’s bed and struggled to stand. Tears began trickling down her pale cheeks from the sharp pain of joy mixed with sorrow—joy at seeing her father…sorrow over their long estrangement.

Travis, shaken, held out his arms to her. She moved toward him slowly, and he folded her against his chest. They clung to each other.

When, finally, they drew apart, Travis tersely told the nun on duty to leave them alone. Darting a questioning look at Dani, she left the room.

When they were alone, Dani hurriedly explained all she knew about her brother’s condition. Colt was still unconscious. He was no better and no worse than he had been the day before.

After taking a long look at his son, Travis turned back to Dani. He gently cupped her chin and looked down at her with all the love he hadn’t been able to give her for fourteen years. “Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me everything.”

She nodded and shyly reached for his hand. They sat down, side by side, on the cot next to Colt’s.

Dani spoke very slowly, searching for the words. She cried, and then resumed her story. Her father never interrupted.

In fact, Travis was becoming angrier with each word, for he was finally learning a truth he’d never guessed. The depth, the sheer awfulness of what Alaina had done astonished him.

Dani explained about the deception and theft Gavin had perpetrated, and Travis found himself stunned anew. How could Gavin have gotten away with so many lies?

“My friend Briana is missing,” Dani finished. “I could hear her screaming far away, but we had no idea where to find her. One of the nuns dared to walk farther down the trail…” She paused, swallowing hard. “She was the one who found Mr. Pope’s body. He had been stabbed, but he wasn’t dead. He said the name
Hollister
to the sister, and then he died.”

Travis got to his feet and moved slowly to the window to stare, unseeing, at the autumn forest behind the convent. The world was dying. His son was dying. A friend was dead. His family had been swindled.

It took all his will to stop himself from driving his fist through the glass.

Finally Travis shook himself. “I’ll move Colt, take him to Paris, as soon as it’s safe for him to be moved. He can at least be close to me…and his mother.”

Dani was quick to remind him, “The doctor who came yesterday said he could regain consciousness at any time. You can never predict what will happen with a blow to the head, you know.” Then she asked, “Colt? I call him ‘John Travis’.”

Her father grinned. “The nickname’s obvious. I like ‘John Travis’ better, but ‘Colt’ stuck.”

As if their discussing him was bringing him back to the living, Colt began struggling out of the nightmare that held him prisoner. His head throbbed terribly, and he felt as though a giant spider had spun a massive web around his brain, preventing him from thinking clearly. Who were the people talking beyond that thick black fog clouding him? What was the matter with him?

Dani got up and went to her father. “I want to go with you, but…I must stay here.”

“It’s what you chose,” Travis reminded her softly. “I don’t imagine you made your decision hastily. Somehow I feel you aren’t an impulsive woman.”

She agreed, but she needed to explain. “Had things been different, had I not felt my family didn’t love me, perhaps I would not have become a nun. If I’d felt I had a place in life, well…”

Travis frowned. Of course he wanted her with him and Kitty, but he did not want to encourage her to throw everything away because of this sudden, emotional upheaval in her life. He embraced her, whispering, “Give it time, sweet one. Think it through.” Lord, he thought, she was so much like her mother!

He hadn’t loved Marilee as he loved Kitty, but he’d respected Dani’s mother and loved her in a different, softer way from the way he loved Kitty. Marilee had been one hell of a woman.

As he held Dani against him, time turned backward, and Travis remembered vividly the night Marilee gave birth to Dani.

Weakly, Marilee had lifted her hand to touch his cheek, her breathing ragged as she struggled to speak. “Remember what I told you, darling? Remember…I told you that no moment lasts forever?”

Travis relived the anguish of holding Marilee, knowing she was dying. She wasn’t fighting to live, not really. He tried to prevent her from talking any more because she needed the little strength she had.

Marilee swallowed hard, looking deep into Travis’s eyes. “You said to make more moments,” she told him.
“You
make them, my beloved. Make them with the only woman you ever truly loved…”

Pain consumed her then, and blood gushed. It could not be stopped.

He would never forget the agony of watching Marilee’s eyes lock in a gaze with eternity.

She had gotten out of the way so that he would be free to love Kitty, his first wife, the wife he had believed dead.

But Marilee’s baby had lived, and now he held that baby close. She reminded him so much, dear God, of that tender, loving woman whom he would never forget—would never wish to forget.

A voice broke into the painful remembrance: “Let’s go get the bastards!”

Dani gave a little scream, and Travis whirled around. It was Colt!

And then the three of them were clinging together, there in a whitewashed room in a convent on top of a mountain in France, three who had come so far, from such different places, and who belonged—at least for a little while—together.

They had each been terribly wronged, but by the strength of their Coltrane blood, they were going to make things right.

Alaina could hardly breathe. Each time her lungs struggled to expand, they pushed against her smashed ribs. The pain was excruciating. Not only was her chest cage smashed, every major bone in her body was broken. No one could understand how it was possible that she was still alive three days after a fisherman saw her lying on the rocks.

Dr. Geoffrey Robaire was as puzzled as anyone. He listened to her heart once more, then stepped back from her bed and shook his head. “She cannot last much longer,” he said matter-of-factly, seeing nothing to be gained by lying. Surely the woman knew she was dying. He had never been close to the Countess, or, for that matter, to any of his patients. He kept his feelings out of things.

Travis and Colt stood near the door. They didn’t want Alaina upset by the sight of them, but they had to find out where Gavin Mason had gone.

“Has she been conscious at all?” Travis asked tightly.

Dr. Robaire shrugged. He had not been around her that much. He had been summoned when she was found, and he’d done what little he could, plainly surprised that she continued to live. In his opinion, she was merely stretching out the inevitable—and causing him the inconvenience of running back and forth to give her injections to ease the pain.

Looking at the wife of the fisherman who had found her, he asked the woman if she’d heard the Countess talk, or whether she’d even opened her eyes.

She shook her head. “She has trouble breathing, Doctor, but even the pain doesn’t wake her.” She didn’t care.

The only reason she was sitting in Alaina deBonnett’s bedroom was that her husband had said Mr. Mason would be ever so grateful that she had cared for his aunt in his absence. There would certainly be a nice remuneration from Mr. Mason for their kindness, her husband had told her.

Travis stepped forward, eyes glinting. “I’m going to see if I can get her to talk to me. It can’t harm her, can it?”