Taking her gently by the wrist, he swung her past River and Maverick, who wagged their greetings, and into his arms, his smile welcome after all these months of uncertainty and loss, months in which she’d learned that not every man crumbled before adversity or blamed others for their setbacks.
“Aunt Alicia’s got this covered. Believe me, she’s a five-star general when it comes to ordering people around.”
“But I promised her I’d—”
“She’s aware you’re being abducted by your husband.” His voice was a sexy rumble as he drew a strip of deep blue silk out of his rear pocket. “So play along now, Emma, or you’ll spoil the surprise.”
His gaze latched onto hers, those deep brown eyes she loved so much lit by a playful spark. Was he putting on a good face, attempting to hide what it would cost him walking away from the work of generations? She knew full well how many nights of late he’d spent tossing and turning as he’d worried over returning with the family—minus Aunt Alicia, who’d chosen a move to the new active retirement community all her friends had been gushing over instead of relocation to Colorado—to run his security business, with all the memories, good and painful, that his former home entailed.
“Playing along,” she agreed, trusting him enough to allow him to blindfold her. “But if this is one of those sexy kinds of surprises, you’re going to be sorry you didn’t give me time to shower first.”
As he tied the cloth, he kissed the top of her ear, sending delicious shivers through her body. “If you think I’d be put off by a little sweat and grit and dog hair, you don’t know me at all.”
Laughing, she trusted him to lead her, half expecting that, as early as the hour was, he’d take a detour to their bedroom. Instead, he carefully guided her down the staircase and toward what she was certain was the front door, where he told the dogs, “Sorry, you two. This part of the journey’s exclusively for humans.”
“Where on earth are you taking me?” she demanded as their footsteps echoed beneath the portico.
“Patience, Emma.”
“Since when has that ever been my strong suit?”
He chuckled. “You’ve shown a lot of it of late. With me, especially. I just wanted you to know it’s been appreciated. Here we are, at the truck. Now don’t forget to duck your head when you step up.”
Burning with curiosity, she allowed him to help her buckle in and somehow managed to contain her questions—and keep from fretting about all the other things she should be doing. Things like grading midterms for the online classes she’d started teaching part time this semester and finishing a grant proposal for a local nonprofit she’d become involved with, which rehabilitated injured wildlife.
But when the truck slowed to make a turn, the chassis jolted three times on the right side. It was enough to goose her heart rate because she knew that set of potholes. Knew the place where he was taking her. A place of blood and death.
“No, please.” She shook her head as her shaking hands fumbled with the silk cloth. “I don’t want to play—to play this game anymore.”
“It’s all right, Emma,” he said, slowing as he reached out to touch her knee. “I just need you to trust me—”
“I almost lost you here, Beau,” she said, pulling off the cloth. Yet her eyes remained closed tight because she didn’t want to see it. Couldn’t bear to again. “Don’t you understand? I still have the nightmares sometimes. The ones where Russell’s hanging body wears your face, where those gunshots exploding all around us leave you as dead as—”
“Another few minutes, Emma. That’s all. Just keep your eyes closed that much longer and we’ll be past Number 43. I promise.”
She sat stiffly in her seat, still shaking with emotion. As much as she loved these low hills and swales and all the hidden life that thrived here, she would be glad to put this blood-soaked corner of this land in the rearview of her life.
The pickup slowly climbed onto a ridge before Beau braked and stopped the engine. Leaning to kiss her temple, he whispered, “I sorry we had to pass through that place to reach this one, but I hope you’ll find the view worthwhile.”
Drawing a deep breath, she opened her eyes to see that they were on the area’s highest ridge, looking out over a vista dotted with the shadows of the puffy clouds above and herds of cattle fattening on pastures replenished by the winter’s rains. Realizing that she would never again take in this view, she stepped out of the truck and saw, to their east, the once-proud Kingston lands extending as far as the sparkling blue Gulf. But to their west, the coastal plains rolled out for miles more, studded with the many turbines that had once been Green Horizons’. And all of them, to her shock, were alive and spinning once again.
“What on earth?” she asked. “I thought Green Horizons was finished—that they’d never kill another bird or hurt another soul.” At last count, half of the company’s leadership was under indictment.
“Oh, they’re finished.” Beau moved to her side. “You’re right about that. But—I didn’t want to say a word until the deal was final, but another company, Living Winds, has bought up all of the company’s obligations on this site—with significant concessions.”
“What kind of concessions?”
“They’ve had to retrofit every one of those turbines with state-of-the-art bird strike mitigation technology, which will have to be tested and signed off on every year. By you.”
“By me? But won’t we be in Colorado? The buyers for this place have made it abundantly clear that they don’t want us around interfering with how they do things on their property.”
“That’s very true.” He shrugged before casting a boyish grin in her direction. “Or at least it would be if I weren’t about to pull the plug on this whole godforsaken deal.”
A deal, she knew, he hated, since it would result in the ranch being carved up into dozens of pieces for commercial and residential development by a conglomerate of foreign investors. The mansion itself, they’d been told, would have an airstrip put nearby, along with an eighteen-hole golf course and boutique shops to support its use as an executive conference center.
But as distasteful as he—and especially his aunt Alicia—found it, the project would at least bring jobs to local residents, including those employees whose welfare meant so much to Beau.
“Don’t you remember all the work, all the months you’ve spent hammering this deal together?” she asked him.
“I remember every agonizing minute,” he said. “Especially how they’ve kept trying to back out of their obligations to pay benefits and a living wage. So that’s why, now that we have Living Winds on board and Ed tells me we’ll be getting a financial settlement from Green Horizons’ parent corporation, I want to make a change of course. To take a shot at saving all this.” His gesture swept the land around them, the sky above and Gulf beyond. “But only if you’re with me.”
Emma’s heart broke wide open, knowing that he meant it, that if she said the word, he would close the door on this dream. He would find another, smaller challenge, one they could more easily shoulder. If she asked him to, he’d come with her to a different place, a different future than the one he’d tentatively planned, so she could follow whatever opportunity ignited her passions.
But at the moment, the only passion she was thinking of stood right in front of her.
Laying her head against his chest, she said, “Of course I’m with you, always. Where else would I be?”
As he embraced her, Emma smiled, her fingers brushing just below her navel, touching on the memory of sorrow. And on that place where fresh hope nestled, new and fragile as the first green shoots of spring.
* * *
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In Colton’s Custody
by Dana Nussio
Chapter 1
Asher Colton latched the barn door and strode toward the corral, his favorite boots scraping the dusty earth in a comfortable rhythm. That the man he’d known for only two days matched him in both pace and in the number of scuffs on his boots made Asher grin. Those were small similarities, and they didn’t know anything for sure yet, so he schooled his features as he sneaked another glance at the guy next to him.
Unfortunately, Jace Smith caught him peeking, so Asher stared out over the open fields and banks of trees that made up Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch. With its rich red, Arizona soil stretching to the base of Mustang Valley Mountains and kissing the sky where the heights dipped, the Triple R was the only place Asher had ever been truly content.
Well, until recently.
Now the land he oversaw at least gave him an excuse to look away from the newcomer and prepare himself for whatever question he would pose next.
Instead of asking one, Jace cupped both hands over his headful of dark hair. “That sun is already a killer out here, even this early in the morning.”
The side of Asher’s mouth lifted. The guy might have seven more years of life experience than Asher’s thirty-three, but when it came to ranch education, their guest was as much a newborn as their spring calves were.
“What did you expect? It’s May in Mustang Valley. Highs are always in the mideighties this time of year. It’s not that different from anywhere in southeastern Arizona, is it?”
“Guess I spend too much time in the air-conditioning.”
“Ya think? Anyway, I told you to wear a hat.”
Asher adjusted his own and wiped sweat from his forehead as he’d already done a dozen times that morning. Unlike their guest, who’d been staying at the mansion the past few days, as ranch foreman, Asher had already been at work for hours.
“Yeah. Need to get me one,” Jace said, as he pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slipped them on.
“Would be a good idea.”
It was hard to believe anyone living in that part of the state wouldn’t already own a decent cowboy hat, especially someone who might be, well, a relative. He pointed farther up the panel fence with cedar posts and caps.
“Come on. I promised to show you the new additions.”
“Has it been a big season?”
“Great so far. We’re getting several hundred calves a day.”
“Are those good numbers?”
“Really good. Our operation runs over twenty thousand cows and another ten thousand heifers. Both Angus and Hereford. In case you don’t know, cows are females that have had at least one calf, and heifers are females that haven’t calved yet.”
“I know that. I’m not that much of a city slicker.”
“Good to know.” Asher doubted Jace was telling the truth but didn’t call him on his fib. It wasn’t the guy’s fault he’d been raised in the city. Or, possibly, by the wrong mother.
A few months earlier, Asher’s whole family had been rocked by the revelation that his oldest brother, Colton Oil CEO Ace, had been switched at birth. Since then, his dad had been shot, a crime in which Ace was a suspect, and was in a coma; the family had worked to track down the “real” Ace. Jace’s arrival at the ranch two days earlier had been a surprise, but if the information Jace had received was true, then they might have solved their mystery.
“This place is amazing. I’m lucky just to have seen it.” Jace looked up and down the fencerow. “If not for the earthquake last month, I might never have found the courage to find out for sure if I’m one of the babies someone switched at that hospital.”
“Tragedies definitely shake us up and spur us to action.” Asher was talking about his own family, but the other man was too caught up in his story to notice. “Oh. Pardon the pun. You know, spurs.”
Jace smiled over at him before returning to his story. “If I’d spoken to Luella anytime in the past decade, I could have asked her some questions about what that nurse had said, but I doubt she would have told me the truth. She never did about anything else.”
Asher purposely didn’t look at Jace then, giving him time to collect his composure. It was a kindness that men gave to each other.
“It’s too bad you had such a difficult relationship with your...well, the woman who raised you.”
That Jace always referred to Luella Smith by her first name was telling. Some mother she must have been.
Asher had kept it to himself that his two brothers were still tracking Luella, the woman who had apparently switched her healthy son for a sickly baby, Ace, but Jace’s connection to her gave his story credibility.
“Bet that keeps you busy.”
Caught lost in his thoughts, Asher blinked. Jace gestured toward the field. He was clearly trying to change the subject, a ploy Asher should have been familiar with since he used it whenever anyone brought up his ex-girlfriend, Nora.
“We’re busy, all right. No sleep for ranchers or ranch hands during calving season. Poor Harper. Half of her nighttime diaper changes have come from the housekeepers and the kitchen staff lately.”
Twice as many in the daytime, too, now that his most recent nanny had hightailed it out of town. His shoulders drooped over the slim pickings he would face in yet another candidate search. How was he supposed to prove that as a single dad, he could be a better parent than his father ever had been, when he couldn’t keep consistent childcare for his six-month-old daughter?
“Cute kid, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Asher couldn’t help grinning at that. It was hard not to like a guy who complimented his baby.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“What?” Asher slid a glance his way. “Not sleeping or changing diapers. I get a lot of practice at both.”
“I bet you do, but that’s not what I meant. It’s just this whole situation. I still can’t get used to it. I keep looking for any physical resemblance between us.”
“Find any?”
“With you? Not so much.”
“That would be less likely. Either way.” Asher rushed to add the second part.
Why did he keep getting ahead of himself? They had no proof yet. He owed it to his family to remain skeptical until they did. Ace deserved at least that much.
Anyway, Jace was right. Asher looked no more like the guy than he did his adopted brother, Rafe. Jace bore no resemblance to Asher’s full siblings, blond twins Marlowe and Callum. On the other hand, with all that dark hair and those blue eyes, Jace fit right in with Asher’s half brother, Grayson, and half sister, Ainsley, the other two children of Payne’s first marriage. Everyone at the mansion had noticed.
“Guess we’ll know for sure soon enough.”
Asher startled as the other man seemed to have read his thoughts. “S’pose so.”
He gave the dirt an extra kick and ground his molars. They might as well have been talking about the weather rather than the life-altering reality that Jace might be the real Ace.
Just thinking it made him feel disloyal to the man he knew as Ace. If only they could turn the clock back four months, to the time before that mysterious email had drop-kicked his family’s world and the structure of Colton Oil. Before they’d learned about the baby switch. He longed for those days of blissful ignorance.
“How do you think Ace is doing?” Jace asked.
Not as well as you. Somehow, Asher managed not to say that out loud, though Jace’s questions from the past two days were starting to annoy him. “As well as can be expected for a guy whose life has been flipped on its head.”
“I get that.”
Asher shrugged. Jace clearly could relate to receiving news that had chan
ged his life, but it was probably easier for someone to discover that a silver spoon might be slipped in his mouth than to have one yanked out, along with a few teeth.
“It’s just that Ace is the only one of your siblings I haven’t met yet,” Jace continued. “I totally understand why the others are keeping their distance until after the DNA test. I appreciate that they at least dropped by and introduced themselves.”
“Six of seven isn’t too bad for just two days.”
His siblings were curious. No one could blame them for that when they might have been meeting Payne Colton’s real firstborn with his late first wife, Tessa, for the first time.
“But Ace’s situation is a little different,” Jace continued.
“He’s been busy, too.”
If lying low back at his loft condo in the city’s industrial zone—or at the Dales Inn in town—counted for busy anyway. In Ace’s defense, he had to stay put while the media trucks lingered at the hospital and just outside the ranch’s main gate.
“Is he still considered a suspect in your dad’s attempted murder?”
Asher bit back the temptation to tell Jace to mind his own damn business. Depending on the results of the test they’d scheduled, Colton family matters just might be his business.
“He’s been questioned and told not to leave town. Now you know everything I do.”
“What about Payne? Any updates on him?”
“Nothing beyond what Ainsley told you two nights ago.”
“That’s what I figured.”
If Jace noticed the edge to Asher’s voice, he didn’t show it. Anyway, there was no more to say. His dad was still in a coma, and there was no guarantee when, or even if, he would ever awaken.
“He’ll wake up.”
Asher stiffened, the other man rightly guessing his thoughts again.
“Hope so.”
“When did you say Ainsley would pick me up for the test?”
“About twelve thirty. Appointment’s at one.” Not soon enough for Asher. At least then it would be her turn to play Twenty Questions with Jace.
Deadly Texas Summer Page 25
