Colton Christmas Protector. Beth Cornelison

been a good cop, and he wouldn’t have undertaken something as serious as an investigation of her father without cause. But Reid’s concurrence settled the issue. She should have been relieved to have been vindicated, but Reid’s assessment left a hollow pit in her stomach. The truth hit her like a rock to her skull. Andrew believed her father was corrupt.

      Cold, snobbish and unloving toward her—she knew already, but...corrupt?

      She muttered an unladylike curse as a tremble started at her core.

      “I want to see that file. Your father has far too much influence and knowledge of my family’s business for me to ignore any suspicions Andrew had.”

      She rolled her eyes. How typical of Coltons to think first of how any revelation affected them. Their bottom line. Their secrets. Their precious reputation. “Oh, of course! The Colton family must be protected from scandal at all costs!”

      “Really?” Reid said dryly. “Is that what you think?”

      She didn’t reply. The file sat on the desk before her, mocking her. She could almost hear the alarm bells, the blaring computer voice. “Danger, Will Robinson!” She knew with a certainty that whatever Andrew suspected her father was guilty of was enough to rock her sheltered life. She did not want to expose the skeletons in Hugh Barrington’s closet. And yet...

      “Pen, the last thing I want to do is cause you any more pain,” Reid said, bringing her attention back to the phone call. “But if Andrew was working on something...” He paused. “I need to see that file. I can be there in ten minutes.”

      She stiffened her spine and blinked rapidly. “Come here? But—”

      When she’d called Reid, she hadn’t considered the idea that he’d want to review the documents. That she’d have to see him.

      “Is that a problem?” he asked.

      Yes! her head screamed, while she stammered, “Uh, I... No. But...”

      “All right. Good. Ten minutes, then.” Reid hung up before she could think of an out.

      * * *

      Reid pulled his truck to the curb in front of his late ex-partner’s ranch-style house and huffed out a breath. In months gone by, he’d parked in this same spot and headed into Andrew’s modest but comfortable home to spend hours watching football, or discussing cases, or sharing meals with the family. Andrew had joked that because Reid was a bachelor, Penelope seemed to think that meant he always needed a home-cooked meal. Forget the fact that he lived at the family ranch where Bettina Morely, the Colton’s full-time cook, was at his beck and call and elaborate dinners were prepared most evenings for him and the rest of the Colton clan.

      But Pen was something of a mother hen, even before she had Nicholas, and loved nothing more than to have people gathered around her table for a big dinner. Her nurturing extended to animals, as well, and the Clarks always seemed to have at least one foster dog and a few stray cats they were caring for in addition to their own elderly beagle, Allie.

      Reid had always suspected her love of such domestic events as family dinners and cookouts on football afternoons stemmed from a lack of such familial events as a child. Penelope’s father, Hugh Barrington, had never struck Reid as the home-and-hearth type, and on his few visits to the Barrington estate through the years, Reid had found the mansion cold, more of a showcase than an inviting home. Not the kind of place he thought Pen would have felt comfortable or warmly loved. Especially after her mother died when Pen was a young teenager.

      Andrew’s few comments on the matter had confirmed as much. Pen had shaken the metaphorical dust of the Barrington estate from her sandals as soon as she could. Nor was there any love lost between Penelope and her father.

      Was that the reason behind this mysterious file Pen had found? Andrew’s attempt to keep tabs on the man who’d been such a disappointment to his wife? Or was Andrew onto something more?

      Reid climbed from his truck and walked up the front sidewalk, admitting to himself he had a few nerves about this meeting. He hadn’t seen or heard from Pen since Andrew’s funeral, even though she’d crossed his mind many times in the intervening months.

      The front door opened before he could ring the doorbell, and he met Penelope’s stormy expression. “Hey, Pen. How are—”

      “Don’t ‘Hey, Pen’ me.” She braced her hands on her hips, lips taut in classic ticked-off-woman mode. “Just because I called to ask you a question doesn’t mean you can invite yourself over or think I’ve forgotten or forgiven what you did.”

      Reid drew a slow breath and released it. He’d had to deal with plenty of bad moods in his life, from his own pissy and entitled family members to suspects high on any range of chemicals. He raised a conciliatory hand. “But you did call, and the best way for me to make sense of the file and why Andrew may have kept it, and hidden it, is for me to take a look at it.”

      He hoped once she’d had a chance to voice her spleen, they could set the ill will aside long enough to get to the bottom of this mysterious file on Hugh Barrington. She held his stare for several silent seconds, returning his petitioning look with unmoved hostility. Not that he expected anything else.

      Reid was too realistic to fool himself into believing he could magically change her opinion of him. Not in one day. Maybe not even if given weeks to plead his case and counter the false information and supposition fed to her by the police department and media following Andrew’s death. True—he had been overheard in a loud altercation with Andrew the day his partner died. And he had administered the injection that proved fatal to Andrew. But there was so much more to the story...

      Then her expression seemed to crack. Her pert nose flared, and her sculpted eyebrows dipped as if she were fighting tears. Her chin wobbled and she turned her face away just as moisture sparkled in her hazel eyes. That brief flash of vulnerability and grief sucker punched Reid in the gut. He was prepared to deal with her anger, but a widow’s multilayered emotional quagmire was beyond his skill set. Especially the fragile emotions of a woman he cared about.

      Without comment, she spun on her heel and marched into the house, leaving him to follow. He caught the door before it closed and stepped out of the chill December air. The house looked much the way he remembered it, but different, too. Instead of Andrew’s sports magazines and accent pieces reflecting Penelope’s feminine taste, the living room was littered with toddler toys and piles of tiny-sized laundry featuring dogs, giraffes and trains in primary colors.

      Penelope had disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms, and Reid considered whether he should follow or wait there. Playing it safe—he didn’t want to cause more strife than his presence already did—he took a seat on the couch next to the folded clothes.

      When Pen returned with a fat manila folder in her hand, he stood again and held out his hand for the file. “Is Nicholas asleep?”

      She shrugged and replied curtly, “Don’t know. He’s not here.” She jabbed the folder toward him, scowling.

      Taking the file, Reid frowned his confusion. “Where is he?”

      “Mother’s Day Out.”

      He arched an eyebrow. “Come again?”

      She rolled her eyes as she sat, smoothing the seat of her yoga pants with her hand as if they were fine linen pants. She perched on the edge of the nearest wingback chair, sitting primly, with her back straight and her ankles crossed, as if she were at etiquette class instead of in her own home. Apparently the social training from her youth kicked in when she was stressed. Or else she was purposely refusing to let herself relax around Reid, a choice wholly contradictory to her yoga pants, oversize sweatshirt, sock feet and sloppy ponytail. “He’s at Mother’s Day Out, a program the Methodist church down the road offers three times a week,” she explained. “They watch young children from ten o’clock to three so that mothers can run errands or do...whatever. I needed time without Nicholas clinging to my leg to get Andrew’s office sorted out.”

      Reid balanced the folder on