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“Ace, please,” Sierra urged him.
Ace sagged back against the mattress, his mind still teeming with questions.
Before he could ask another, Spencer’s cell buzzed in the pocket of his blue uniform.
Spencer frowned down at the screen. “Sorry, but I’ve got to call back my captain.” With a warning look at Sierra, he added. “Fifteen minutes, twenty, tops, and remember my conditions.”
An impudent smile made her green eyes sparkle. “Do I look like the kind of girl inclined to break the rules?”
Spencer frowned and left the room, muttering about this whole idea being against his better judgment.
Sierra snorted. “Your cop cousin doesn’t much care for bounty hunters. Especially the kind who leave a mess like we did back at The Cactus Flower for his crowd to clean up.”
“So what exactly happened back there?” Ace asked. “There were so many people and so much confusion.”
“By the time I was able to check on you, you’d blacked out.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “When I saw all that blood, I thought for sure I’d gotten you killed, dragging you into an ambush with my enemies as if you don’t have troubles enough of your own.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known they’d follow you across state lines,” he said honestly.
“I should have, Ace. I should’ve guessed I’d made it personal with Ice Veins over bringing in his nephew when he was about to skip the country. What I didn’t know, though, was that Eddie had gotten himself shanked at the county lockup.”
“And Ice Veins blames you.”
“Blamed, you mean. Because the man is definitely past tense, thanks to you.”
“What do you mean?” Ace shook his head, struggling to remember.
“He was lunging for the K-9 when you slammed into him. Except somehow, the sergeant tells me, in that pileup with you, him and Boris—that’s the dog’s name—Ice Veins ended up with his own knife jutting from his throat.”
Ace winced at the memory of that same blade slicing through his flesh like butter. “That had to hurt.”
“Not for long.” Sierra touched her side where she had been kicked. “And as far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t’ve happened to a more deserving person.”
“I’m with you on that,” he said, his every movement pulling at his stitches, though the pain was muted by the anesthetic he’d been given. “How’re the ribs, by the way?”
“Couple of hairline fractures, the ER doctors told me.” She shrugged, her mouth set in a grim line. “I’ve had worse in the ring.”
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said, reaching out to enfold her wrist with his free hand.
“Do what?” Her arm stiffened with his touch, but she didn’t pull away. At least, not yet.
“Play the tough girl all the time, not around me.”
“I’m not a girl. I’m a woman, and make no mistake, I am tough.”
“From what little I know of you, I’m guessing that you’ve had to be. That for a long time now you’ve had no other choice, and no space at all to let your guard down.” Though he, a man whose future and freedom hung in limbo, had no right to do so, he ran the pad of his thumb along her narrow wrist, feeling the ve
lvety softness of her skin over the firm framework beneath it.
Her eyes slid closed, her sigh shaky. It was only then he knew for certain that she’d sensed what he had, that shuddering rush of air and ions between them, the way the sky seemed to gather itself in the high country with a big storm rushing in. The way he’d always felt waiting for the dark clouds to split open and the rains to bring a desert bloom.
“So your debt’s cleared and your nightmare’s over,” he said. “And you can go back to your life without Ice Veins’s threats hanging over you. You’ll head home and be all right now.” No matter what happened in his own life, he could content himself with that, with thinking of her from time to time, moving forward, happy.
She stepped away, turning her face from him, but not before he spotted her grimace and felt the tension rippling through her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m worried about you. That’s all.” Her gaze shuttered when she looked his way once more. “Worried that I did the wrong thing, accepting your stepmother’s offer and that bounty.”
