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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 changed 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.”
