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As Ace peeled off several twenties to go and check in, he said, “I’m not trying to be stingy, but the clerk’s going to find it strange if you try to rent two separate rooms for us.”
His obvious concern for her feelings made her stomach do a funny little slip-slide. Considering their circumstances, they both had a lot bigger worries than anything as old-fashioned as the notion of her honor as a single woman.
“You don’t really think I’m letting you out of my sight, do you?” In spite of her fatigue, she felt a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Besides, we have a lot to talk about before either one of us gets any shut-eye.”
“Starting with what you said about this—this alleged daughter of mine, if you were really serious about that.”
“I may have my moments, bluffing in front of fugitives, but I would never lie about a thing like that,” she insisted. “Never.”
He hesitated, clearly weighing her claim before asking, “You said her name was Nova, right?”
Sierra nodded, seeing in his face how hard the possibility that he had a child had hit him, even if he wasn’t certain he could take her at her word. “Nova Ellis Colton, yes. That’s how I’m told your siblings introduced her. Just wait here in the car, but if you don’t mind... I’ll need to take my keys.”
Anger gleamed in his eyes, like sparks flying off a struck flint. “I thought we were way past that, Sierra, that you’d decided you could trust me. You really think I’d drive off, when you’re my only source of information on a young woman who’s going around pretending to be my last known biological connection on the planet?”
“They’re not treating her as a pretender, not with that DNA test. And she’s not the last. But I’ll tell you more when I come back out. With those car keys in my pocket.” Sierra held her hand out.
Glowering at her, he demanded, “Are you kidding? After a tease like that one? Why on earth would I take off now?”
With a derisive snort, she popped the wide brim of the hat he was still wearing. “I can think of twenty-five thousand bucks’ worth of motivation, cowboy. Which happens to be exactly the same number of reasons I can’t afford to let you go.”
* * *
As he sat waiting, keyless, in the car, Ace tried not to take it personally. Of course Sierra didn’t trust him. He told himself he wouldn’t risk it, either, if he were counting on the twenty-five thousand dollars she needed to repay a criminal with a name like Ice Veins and save her leg, if not her life.
Still, her distrust rankled, after what the two of them had been through, the way they’d worked together to overcome the armed thugs. And even more than that, he’d thought, back in the bunker, they’d truly been communicating on a deeper level than fugitive to captor.
You’ve been locked underground like a mushroom too damned long if you think for one moment that bounty hunter sees you as anything but another scum-sucking criminal to be hauled in for a reward. Reminding himself of the way she’d not only decked him but also come back from her tasing to pepper spray her assailant, he realized he had never met a woman half as hard-core...or any less likely to be persuaded by the Colton name, money and position that had drawn so many other women to him in the past.
Well, you can kiss all that goodbye now, he thought. Even if he cleared up the murder accusation, that suspicion would likely taint him for other companies looking for new executives, just as it would for the type of women he’d so long squired to charity events and social gatherings. Though the career part left him troubled—his role as the face of Colton Oil had always been more a matter of personal satisfaction than money to him—the thought of leaving behind those glittering social gatherings and the polished beauties who lived to dress up for them came as a relief. After all he and his family had recently been through, the thought of suffering through another season of superficial conversations about who was wearing what designer, driving which new luxury car, or vacationing at what exclusive beach or ski resort tempted him to head back to the bunker and hide himself away again.
He began to realize how much the past few months had changed him into someone else. Or maybe he had never been the man he’d liked to imagine in the first place. Maybe the real Ace Colton, the man whose life he’d inadvertently stolen, was meant to be that person and he was someone else entirely.
The wild thought chased its tail around his throbbing head until Sierra returned from checking them in, a small plastic grocery sack and a large, flat box in her hand.
“What do you have there?” he asked once she’d climbed in. “That smells almost like—is that pepperoni?”
“Hot and greasy,” she said, her tone light with amusement. “The night clerk’s maybe eighteen, and he’d just pulled a couple of those French bread pizzas out of this toaster oven they keep in there. Luckily, he hadn’t trashed the box.”
“You talked a teenage night clerk into parting with hot pizza?”
“Don’t be too impressed. The kid had another box in the freezer, and it still cost me twenty bucks. But he did throw in a couple sodas.” She added a shrug. “I figured we could use a little fuel.”
Ace’s stomach gave an unexpected growl, and he admitted, “I could eat,” much to his own surprise.
“Apparently.” She chuckled as she directed him to park the car on the deserted rear side of the building.
Afterward, as they walked to the far end of the room block, Ace noticed she was weaving slightly.
When she stumbled, he reflexively caught her arm to keep her from falling forward. “You all right there?”
Sniffing indignantly, she pulled free and straightened the box with the pizza. “Don’t worry, Ace. Our midnight snack is safe with me.”
He let it go at that, following behind her. And filing away the fact that the stun gun attack had taken more out of her than she was willing to let on.
Once inside the room, he locked and chained the door behind them and turned to see her frowning at the cramped space and tired decor.
“Sorry they didn’t have anything with two beds.” She set down the pizza box and the bag on a small, round table and pulled out one of the mismatched wooden chairs. “Apparently, all their rooms are set up like this one.”
