Hunting the Colton Fugitive

by Colleen Thompson

  “I’m half-starved and exhausted and miles from my car, which for all I know is by now rigged up with more explosives than July Fourth in a theme park castle,” she admitted, her voice hoarse with either fatigue or the dust she’d swallowed during her earlier fall. “So like it or not, I’m afraid that I’m not going anywhere quite yet.”

  * * *

  A week after the arrest of Kyle O’Neill, Sierra found herself walking between two of the long, white barns outside the sprawling guest ranch-style Colton mansion early one beautiful, clear morning that hinted at the warmer days to come. Simply walking, she felt the pleasant stretching of tight muscles and her lungs expanding to take in the scents of fresh, green grass and open sky, which smelled as clean as her clothing now was, thanks to efforts of the ranch’s pleasant and efficient staff.

  Pleasant or not, she’d meant to be long gone by now, and surely would have been, had Ace not insisted on summoning a doctor to examine her here the night of their arrival—because apparently house calls were still a thing for people rich enough to own their own oil company. After politely but firmly ordering Ace to quit hovering and leave the tastefully plush and private guest suite where she’d been put up, the long-time family retainer had checked Sierra over head to toe.

  A bosomy older woman with a warm, informal manner, she’d quickly put Sierra at ease, assuring her that she could expect to make a full recovery. With her mind already skipping ahead to fretting over where she could get her hands on another set of wheels and where she might go next, Sierra found herself caught off guard when the doctor had solemnly added the words, “In time.”

  Frowning, Sierra shook her head. “What do you mean, in time?”

  The doctor’s blue eyes captured and held her gaze, drawing out the pause before she spoke. “It’s very clear that, between the healing ribs, this concussion and all the other scrapes and bruises, your body’s account is badly overdrawn, and the payment’s now come due—in the form of long soaks in the bath, plenty of sleep, preferably in a quiet, dark room such as this one, and nourishing, wholesome meals on a regular schedule. Home-cooked would be my recommendation.”

  “What kind of half-baked prescription do you call that?” asked Sierra, who couldn’t recall the last home-cooked meal she’d eaten. “They pay you extra for the country doctor routine? Did Ace bribe you?”

  But the truth was, she hadn’t had much fight left in her, and Ace had been smart enough—or possibly distracted by his reunion with so many family members—to give her the space she needed to accept what both Dr. Earth Mother and her own body were telling her in no uncertain terms. When she’d finally passed out in what turned out to be the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in, she’d remained asleep for the better part of the next two days.

  But she could only lie around resting for so long, even with Ace hand-delivering trays of food and offering as much company and conversation as she cared for. But though she forced herself to eat and rest, to do what she needed to recover—including this attempt at light exercise—she could already feel herself withdrawing. Preparing herself for what she still knew in her heart was the right thing, the only thing that she could do. That was still as true now as it had been the night of her arrival in this haven, no matter how seven days and nights of soft, scented sheets, meals that didn’t come with their own cardboard containers and complimentary grease blots, and the hundreds of acres of fenced pastureland surrounding what she’d come to think of as Colton Central had lulled her into a false sense of security...along with the three “hands” she’d already made as Ace’s brothers Callum, ranch foreman Asher, and their distant cousin, Jarvis, whom she’d discovered, during her background research, worked as a ranch hand on the Triple R. But she went along with their charade, ignoring them as they pretended to fix a fence while discreetly monitoring her stroll, on Ace’s instructions, no doubt, from a distance.

  She had zero doubt all three were armed—something about the way they walked and periodically scanned the pastures, as if some eager hit man was likely to pop out from behind one of the grazing cattle to take a shot at her as any moment. Or maybe they were more worried she’d jump one of these neatly painted white fences, hop up onto the back of the nearest horse—she decided she liked the look of that flashy brown-and-white pinto with the wide, white blaze—and gallop off to parts unknown.

  She chuckled to herself, imagining their dismay. And everyone’s astonishment, once it was learned that her only previous equestrian experience involved a carousel ride at a now-defunct casino—and her swearing off champagne at the age of twenty-one.

  The smile died on her lips when the phone in her pocket vibrated. Lost for days, the cell had been found inside her Chevy, which had been searched for any tracking devices or explosives by police before being towed from the parking lot of the hospital. Though Spencer had advised her not to risk driving the car again, he’d been kind enough to personally come to the ranch last night to deliver her lost phone, which she must have dropped inside the vehicle at some point. She’d been even more grateful when he hadn’t brought up the fact that the car had never been legally registered in her name, though she could practically see him biting his tongue to keep from lecturing her about it.

  After thanking him, she’d plugged in the cell to charge. But so far she’d been afraid to look at it—or her laptop—since the announcement of her so-called murder.

  Dread filling her lungs, she forced herself to pick up the phone now, handling the thing as though it were a live bomb. And sighing to see it was her friend Brie, who had at least been in on the whole fake death scheme from the start.

  Answering, Sierra said sarcastically, “Iris Higgins speaking.”

  “Whoever on earth came up with that name,” the detective told her cheerfully, “you should probably kick him.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it,” Sierra groused, though the thought of repaying Ace’s kindness and generosity in such a manner left a sour taste in her mouth.

  She continued walking, so as not to worry the babysitters who were keeping a watchful eye on her. “How’s Rocky doing?”

  “Your cat’s just fine where he is. More than fine. He and Max have gotten to be big buddies. Can you believe it? Who would’ve thought two reformed alley cats would turn out to have so much in common?” Brie asked, snorting at the mention of her boyfriend. “But I didn’t call to talk about those two animals.”

  Sierra swallowed hard. “What then?”

  “Well, you can forget the fake identity,” Brie told her.

  “I guess so, after Captain Conspiracy with the cell phone camera plastered my photo and his stupid little exposé all over social media,” Sierra said, angry all over again about what the man had done. “I’ll have to come up with something else—and the most convincing paperwork I buy off the black mark—”

  She cut herself off, abruptly conscious she was talking to a cop and not just a friend.

  “I’m going to forget you said that,” Brie said. “And so can you, Sierra, because as of four-forty-six this morning, your situation’s changed completely.”

  Giving up any pretense of walking, Sierra went to the fence and grabbed onto the top board with her free hand so hard the knuckles whitened. Because she heard an optimistic note in her friend’s voice, one completely at odds with their last conversation. And of all the things Sierra had to fear, she was most afraid of allowing herself to get her hopes up, to imagine that this respite, the peace and the kindness—and even the love she had been offered—might possibly last...

  * * *

  Ace found her standing outside the south pasture, gripping the fence tightly as she stared off at the mountains. With her sunlit hair fluttering behind her in the breeze, she looked impossibly beautiful and fierce, yet somehow at the same time fragile, like a statue of a Viking warrior princess forged out of spun glass.

  He cleared his throat so as not to st
artle her with his approach.

  When she turned to look at him, he was relieved to see her cheeks were dry, though sunlight betrayed a few clumped lashes that hinted that Callum might have been right in telling him she’d appeared upset following the phone call she had taken some forty minutes earlier.

  Instead of asking her about that, he decided on the indirect approach. “I’ve come bearing a gift. You look like maybe you could use this.”

  “I could always use fresh coffee. Thanks.” Hand shaking slightly, she accepted the travel mug he offered.

  When Sierra took her first sip of the mug’s contents, her green eyes lit up. “Mm, what’s in this? It’s not the usual brew.”

  “It’s Genevieve’s secret blend,” he told her as she drank some more. “Made with a splash of vanilla and some spices or other. Cinnamon, maybe? Nutmeg? She brewed it up special this morning to celebrate that the neurologist has confirmed my father is making slow but steady progress emerging from his coma.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Sierra said before taking a second sip.

  Her appreciative murmur took him straight back to the sounds of pleasure he’d coaxed from her when the two of them had been together—a memory that had him groaning in frustration before he could stop himself.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, clearly unaware of how difficult it had been for him to focus on his father’s ongoing recovery, the continuing search for the real Ace Colton and worries over what his birth mother might still have in store for the family.

  “What’s wrong,” he admitted, “is that I can’t keep up this charade any longer. Can’t keep holding back my feelings for you and playing the genial, low-pressure host when I’m really worried sick that at any moment you’re going to cut and run.”

  “I wouldn’t—” she began. “I won’t—not without telling you goodbye. And th-thanking you. For loving me. For healing me.”

  “But you’re not healed yet, are you, Sierra?” he demanded, frustration hardening his voice. “Not if you’re too scared to love anybody back. And not if you’re still leaving, after what Detective Stratford told you about Ice Veins’s nephew being murdered by a rival gangster this morning after being returned to jail awaiting trial.”

  Sucking in a startled breath, she choked and coughed on her drink. She still had tears in her eyes by the time she’d recovered enough to ask him, “Brie called you, too? I mean, Detective Stratford?”

  “Don’t act so put out,” he said. “Your best friend didn’t rat you out. It was Spencer who called me after she’d informed him.”

  The color in her cheeks deepened, her nostrils flaring with sudden indignation. “Let’s just back up a second, Ace. What do you mean, Brie didn’t rat me out? Are you suggesting that after all you’ve done for me and everything we’ve been through together, I was intending to keep this news from you? And what? Just slink off somewhere one night? Is that what you think of me?”

  “It isn’t like you haven’t warned me of your intentions to leave Mustang Valley.”

  “So you and your family wouldn’t be in danger,” she insisted, a fire igniting in her eyes.

  “But we won’t be in danger from your pursuers any longer, will we?” he asked. “Because without Eddie Harris alive to pay the price he’d offered on your head, you aren’t going to have to worry about hit men any longer, are you?”

  “I’ll have to be careful for a while, and maybe stay clear of Las Vegas in case of close associates,” she said, “but Brie doesn’t think it will take long for word to get out that there’s no money in the job to make going after me worth the risk or trouble.”

  “That’s wonderful news, Sierra,” he said. “You’ll be safe again. And you’ll have choices. Hell, you’ll even get to return from the dead. How many people can say they’ve ever gotten that chance?”

  “It’s still sinking in, I guess. I suppose I’m still numb.”

  “Are you sure that’s all?” he challenged. “Because you look more scared to me.”

  After balancing her mug on the fence post near her elbow, she turned up her palms, her eyes shining. “Of course I’m scared. More scared than I’ve ever been before.”

  Reaching out, he enfolded each of her hands in his. In spite of the morning’s warmth and the coffee she had just been holding, they felt like ice.

  “Are you afraid—afraid to tell me you don’t feel about me the way that I do you?” he asked, something in him giving way at the thought of losing her now, when finally, the reason she’d been giving him for leaving had vanished. Or had that been an excuse all along? Had the tsunami of events they’d been swept up in, the one that had amplified her feelings for a time, left behind nothing but a clean-swept blankness when it receded?

  “If that’s the case,” he told her, his throat thickening, “I’ll do everything I can to help you start your life over anywhere you’d like. I promise you...even if it means you never want to see me again.”

  “Ace, no, that’s not what I mean at all,” she blurted, flinging her arms around his waist and pushing her head against his chest. “Don’t you understand? It’s not that I don’t love you, far from it, or that I haven’t been thinking about what you said about you and I being together. I—I want that. I want you, more than anything.”

  After squeezing her tight, he pulled back, enough to cup her face in his hands. That beautiful face, looking up at him completely stripped of its usual defensive layers.

  “Then what on earth are you so afraid of, Sierra?”

  “I—I’m scared that when you get to know the real me, the girl who practically raised herself and has the battle scars to prove it, that there’s no way you’re going to like what you see.”

  “That’s half of what I love about you, that you’re smart, resourceful, tough,” he said. “So different from the pampered princesses and the social climbers I’ve dated in the past that I can’t believe I’ve wasted so many years chasing after the wrong women. Or more likely, the truth was, I wasted my life being the wrong man. But you’ve changed that for me, Sierra. You and what I’ve been through lately have helped change me forever. That’s why I still want you. I want you to be my—”

  She shook her head. “Please, just let me finish. I wasn’t raised like this, Ace—” she gestured to the mansion, its architecture designed to blend into the beautiful terrain “—with a town place and some grand ranch like this out in the country and staff to anticipate my every need. Instead, I always had to be on my guard for people looking to take advantage—and sometimes I wasn’t fast enough, good enough. Back when I was just a kid, there were a couple of men, gambling buddies of my father’s. So-called family friends, who...”

  Her gaze dropped, and heard the sound of her swallowing, saw her hands knotting into fists. The fists she’d made into weapons to protect herself. Because she’d had no other option.

  “I’m sorry, Sierra. So damned sorry for what happened to you back then—and mad as hell to think of anybody hurting you or letting you be hurt when you damned well should have been protected.”

  “My—my father didn’t—he had no idea. In his way, he did his best, I think. And those men...” She shook her head, gaze drifting. “One’s dead, and the other’s in prison for another—It’s all over. It’s over, but it will always be a part of who I am.”

  “Listen to me, Sierra.” Ace laid his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes, willing. “If you believe that what happened to you as a child could in any way diminish the way I feel about you, you’ve got things completely backward. You had no more choice in those crimes than I did when some nurse switched me out of a hospital when I was nothing but a newborn. The only thing your story does is make me admire even more what a damned strong, confident woman you’ve become.”

  She gave a little laugh. “Is that what it looks like from the outside? Because right now I don’t mind telling you, I’d
rather be in the ring, fighting a couple of classes over my weight, than having this conversation.”

  “Have you talked to anyone before about it?”

  “I’m talking to you, now.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I’m honored you would trust me. But I hope you will keep talking. And not only to me, but to a trained counselor, or maybe even with other people who’ve been through this. People who will help you learn to be as proud of yourself as I am of you right now...and as I’d be as your husband, if you think a guy who was recently canned from his last job could possibly be good enough for a woman as brave and smart as—”

  “Fired from his last job? But that ridiculous requirement that you have to have ‘Colton blood’ to be the CEO in the company bylaws certainly wasn’t your fault,” she erupted, sounding righteously indignant on his behalf.

  “No, it definitely wasn’t,” he agreed, refusing to take any blame for Micheline Anderson’s schemes. “But it does mean my future could be a lot different than I’d imagined. Less of this—” he gestured toward the mansion “—and something a lot more modest, based on how the firm for energy consulting I intend to set up after we finally get my family situation sorted, does—”

  “With all your industry experience, it’ll be a huge success. I know it,” she said, her eyes burning with sincerity. With belief in him.

  “But whether or not it is, I’ll only be going through the motions, Sierra, unless I have you there by my side. So tell me, are you with me?”

  The smile that warmed her eyes melted the iciest reaches of his own heart. “Didn’t I tell you not long after we met, cowboy? You’re well and truly stuck with me, for better or for worse.”

  Chapter 17

  “There’s the lucky man,” said Ainsley, running around her desk to give Ace an exuberant hug when he stepped inside her office at Colton Oil the following afternoon. “I didn’t get to tell you in person before, with everyone else from the family gushing over the two of you, but I am so happy for you and Sierra. I knew there was something going on between the two of you!”