in our family portrait {Colt}

[Chevrolet Isabel Crowe]

Every Tuesday started the same for Chevrolet... The same way most week days did. Early to rise, doing her very best to make herself presentable before walking to school. Yes. Walking. Because despite being one of the more sensible people in her household for the last nineteen years, her two elder brothers and her father still didn’t think she was good enough to have her own car. Hell. She was probably a better driver than all of them but they didn’t really care about that did they?

There was a reason to like Tuesdays though -- Tuesday she finished early! She had a free period at the end of the day which meant she got to go home at lunchtime. She couldn’t fail her senior year again, so every spare moment not dozing off in a class room or stretching her body to its limits in Ballet were spent hitting the books. Another reason she liked Tuesdays? The house was empty! This meant she could sit downstairs, blaring her music as loud as she wanted and drink Dr Pepper through Red Vines to her hearts content!

That was an ‘Every Tuesday’ for Chevrolet. Today wasn’t every Tuesday. Today started off just like any other, even got to Chey getting home, settling herself down with her books and everything happening just as it normally did. The difference started when there was a knock on the door of her family home. She hadn’t been expecting what she’d see when she pulled open the door. You’d think it would be the police officer that would strike the girl funny, but it wasn’t... It was the rather official looking woman with a crying child attached to her.

Her first instincts told her that one of her brothers had done something REALLY stupid. It wasn’t until they asked for Colton Coulter that her heart truly sank. She’d tried to get as much information as she could out of them, information like the fact the now screaming child was indeed Colt’s, that he’d apparently had a child with his ex-wife and that they couldn’t disclose any more details but that they needed Colt to take the child or she’d be put into care.

Call Chey a bad person, but the first thing that went through her brain was the chances she felt that child would have if she was forced into a care home. She wasn’t sure what to think. Colt was Mr Hunter, Mr Never Around, she didn’t know how that worked with having a child, but she knew that her heart was breaking for the little mite with her red wet eyes! She didn’t know what to do so she just lied. She told them that she was his fiancé!

After a lot of convincing, they finally agreed to leave the child with her, telling her that they were going to come and see them BOTH and the child in a couple of days! As soon as they left her heart broke again, wondering if she could even get him here or if he’d want to keep her. She could only pray! So she rang him and after the moment awkward possible phone call... He was on his way home.

It took her almost two hours to calm the tyke down, holding her in a death grip on the couch and rocking her to sleep, just sitting there exhausted and waiting for Colt to come home.

[Colten Levi Coulter]

Since Chey's phone call, Colt had been driving like a bat out of hell.

With barely an explanation for the officers in charge of the investigation and a shove for his cousin to get the hell in the car, the tawny haired bounty hunter had left skid marks out of Reno that would have made his sister proud. He also acquired three new speeding tickets, all on other alias's of course and a pounding headache from Kellan's bitching. Jesus H. Christ. The man could moan more than a woman at times and was it Colt's fault he got car sick?

With the youngest Crowes words going around and around in his head, Colt desperately tried to make sense of what it could mean. Surely it was a case of mistaken identity... Surely Anna wouldn't have been so cruel as to keep the knowledge that he had a kid from him. Not even she would be that evil, he tried to assure himself.

Unfortunately, his instincts told him something else completely. Why wouldn't she keep something like that from him? She'd never been the person he'd thought she'd been and their relationship had ended on bitter terms. Hell, bitter hadn't even come close to covering it. After an argument to end all arguments, he'd finally come clean about his job and she'd hit the ceiling. Her demands that he get "a real job" still rang in his ears and he could practically hear her screaming at him that he was an idiot. An idiot who couldn't pass a real academy test and lived in a fantasy world.

Yeah, fantasy world. She hadn't a fucking clue.

He'd left that next morning, hoping to give them both time to chill out only to return to find the house empty of everything. When he'd tried to contact her by phone, her cell had been changed and her parents refused to tell him anything. Their divorce was handled absentee and he'd seen her only once more in court to sign the final papers. He'd sworn that day never to get involved again.

And now this. Son of a bitch.

Blazing past the Beacon Hills city limit sign, Colts car never slowed down till it pulled up outside of the Crowe house. Out of the car and heading for the house before Kellan could say another word, the hunter didn't even bother to knock as he tossed open the front door and entered a home that was almost like his own.

"CHEY?? CHEVROLET??" he called out, scanning each room as he went till he found her and the child on the couch. The moment he spied the child though, his stomach hit the floor and any doubt he'd had was gone. "Son of a........ Son of a..... "

Turning right back around, he walked out of the living room again and out towards the back. Before he even realized what he was doing, blind rage hit him and his fist landed into a wall that looked as if it might have seen that sort of thing a time or two already. Pain blazed in the limb but Colt was beyond acknowledging it.

He had a kid. He had a daughter. One that his ex had never thought to tell him about.

[Chevrolet Isabel Crowe]

It seemed that as soon as Chevrolet shut her eyes, drifted off into the same sleep world the toddler on her chest had entered, the sounds of her name being shouted through the house woke her. For a moment she looked down to the tot, half waking and rubbing her eyes, simply stroking her hair and shushing her back to sleep, just in time for her Daddy to spot her. Chey's jade green eyes looked to him as he stood ready to curse, eventually storming away from the situation. Certain that Everly was to stay asleep, she moved her to one of the chairs in corner and ran off in the direction Colt had headed. She wasn't sure what to say, she wasn't sure what she could say. She'd got there just in time to watch Colt take his problems out on his hand, or possibly the wall, she wasn't sure which he was angry at, at that present time.

She left him for a moment. She had no idea what she could say and do to make it better, instead she just moved towards him, placing a hand on her shoulder. She considered getting ice for his hand but she knew that the pain pulsing through it was probably comforting to him right now, in the strangest possible way. "Okay I have no idea what to say right now... Even google didn't have good suggestions... So just know I'm here if you need to scream or cry or..... anything...."

[Colten Levi Coulter]

Breathe in, breath out. Breath in, breathe out. Keep your shit together. Those were the only thoughts Colt allowed to go through his mind for a long moment as he tried to get a grip on his wildly swinging emotions. After all, he was a father now and having his kid see him lose it wouldn't exactly be the thing now would it?

Fuck, he really did have a kid. He didn't need a paternity test to see the truth because it was like looking at a young Jessie all over again. Right down to the pert nose and the long lashes that no doubt covered the Coulter family eyes.

Holy hell. Talk about getting smacked with the idiot stick. How could he not have known that he had fathered a child? Why the hell hadn't he checked up on his ex more? No wonder the bitch hadn't wanted to see him! The memory of the loose fitting sundress she'd worn that last day spun through his head and he wanted to slam his forehead into the wall then.

God damn it, he was such an idiot!

So lost in his thoughts was Colt that the soft touch on his shoulders about made him leap out of his skin. Glancing over at the small pixie standing there, the hunter blinked owlishly before her words computed and he turned to lean his back on the wall. Still rubbing his busted knuckles, he stared at Chey in an almost dazed fashion before he finally found his voice.

"Tell me.... Tell me everything....Whats she doing here? Why now? Does she even know about me?"

[Chevrolet Isabel Crowe]

What was she supposed to do? All Chey knew for certain was that Colt was suffering and she could hardly bare it. It held heavy in her chest, heavier than the pain she was feeling, than her fears that her dreams were over now that Colt had a child. Watching him was terrifying. She knew that it was only now he was starting to believe it and she knew that it was a lot to take in, that it would take him a little time. She didn't know his ex wife was already dead, they hadn't been willing to disclose that information, so it was reasonable that right now all she wanted to do was punch the woman in the face for putting him through this.

As he finished speaking, Chey moved to take hold of his hands, careful of his knuckles as she looked down to see if they'd need stitching or just treating. "She knows that she's coming to stay with her Daddy, I didn't get much out of her but the social worker seemed to think that her Mother hadn't told her very much about you, all she knew was that she wasn't allowed to see Daddy, that it wasn't safe for her to see you..." It was that part that broke Chey's heart the most, the fact that anyone would tell a child that Colt's care wasn't safe. His job wasn't desirable for the 2.4 kids scenario, Chey knew that, she lived it, but no person would have taken more care or loved her more than he.

"We're going to have to talk to them some more to get the whole story. I did everything I could. It took a lot of arm twisting to get them to leave her here but if they took her they'd have put her into temporary care and I couldn't bare to let them do that." Chey had the same realisation Colt had, that the little blondie was just like her father and her aunt, that if she wasn't Colt's she had to be Jessie's or there was more Coulter's out there reproducing. "I can take care of everything if you just tell me what you want to do."

[Colten Levi Coulter]

Hearing Chey tell him he had a daughter had been bad enough. The moment Colt had laid eyes on her, his world had been rocked on its very foundations. Everything he'd known, everything he'd been certain of, had crumbled around him and savage emotions he'd never considered himself capable of had ruled his red hazed vision. He'd wanted to kill his bitch of an ex-wife at that moment and he finally understood what drove men to commit crimes of violence.

The only thing that brought him back from that edge? Chey herself. Her voice gave him the tether he needed to ground himself even as he blew out a breath and tried to see beyond his clouded emotions. Never had he wanted to lash out at something more but he had to get a grip on himself because he was, evidently, a parent now. A good dad didn't go around hitting things and acting like an ass. That would only reaffirm what his daughter had already been told evidently.

Blowing out a long breath, the bounty hunter/hunter leaned his head back and looked down at the little woman before him. Her calmness allowed him to calm in turn and he nodded. "Thanks, Chevy." he told her, knowing she'd had to take a lot upon herself and it couldn't have been easy calling him like she had. NOt to mention getting saddled with a kid like that. "I'm sorry about all this. I'm sorry you got drug into the middle of it. I ... Damn it... I didn't have a clue...."

The thought of it all threatened to overwhelm him again for a moment but he fought it back. Forcing himself to think logically, the hunter shook his head. "Fuck... I haven't a clue how to be a dad. I don't even have a house. I live on the road."

[Chevrolet Isabel Crowe]

If she was honest, Chey was surprised that Colt was finally calming. She didn’t put it down to her own calming ability, she believed it was his strong will. Her bright jade eyes never left him, not once. There was no doubting that this girl was absolutely besotted. She shhhed him as he started to speak. “Don’t be silly! If I didn’t want to be in the middle of all this I wouldn’t have got myself there. I lov… I just want to be there for you. Any way that I can.” Of course the end of that sentence where the word ‘preferably in your arms’ should have been was cut. Her brain was like the greatest editor in the world. She was still too scared to tell him what was truly in her brain, she still had that deathly fear of rejection that plagued her for her entire life.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t think you can, but you know I’m going to stay by your side the entire way. I’ll do whatever I need to in order to help you out. You can stay here as long as you want! Ryder’s room and JD’s rooms have been empty for a while now, then there’s the spare room… We’d just need to get rid of all the junk… We have so much wasted space. Dad’s never around and Samara’s always at work…. It’d be nice to have some life in the house. And if I have to, I’ll look after her when you’re off hunting.” Without thinking she took his hands in both of hers and squeezed
them. “Do you want a drink while you work out what you want to do…?”