AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And judging by the speed with which her look of surprise turned to thinly veiled hostility, she was no happier with this surprise encounter than he was.
“Selina,” he said, recovering from his shock a beat more quickly. “I see you’re here ordering the flowers for that welcome-home surprise party I’m sure you’ll be throwing for me, since you’re so heavily invested in my safe return.”
He half expected her to try to sell the lie, attempting to convince him that she’d actually cared enough about his welfare. But maybe she knew that only a stranger to the family, like Sierra, would ever buy it coming from her.
Or perhaps his dig regarding the twenty-five grand she’d blown in the hopes of seeing him locked up was too much for Selina. Whichever was the case, she stiffened before haughtily tossing her expertly tinted light brown hair behind her shoulders. “Why, Ace, I can’t believe you’d have the nerve to show your face on the streets,” she said before looking up and down the currently vacant sidewalk. “Aren’t you terrified that people will start shouting about a dangerous fugitive on the loose, or maybe some concerned citizen will even try to take matters into his own hands, since so many of them carry concealed weapons these days.”
A spark of gleeful menace lit her smile at this suggestion.
Ace gave a grunt of disgust. “I’m sure you’d love it if someone shot me. It’d save you the risk of the real truth coming out at any trial, but all charges against me were dismissed.”
She lifted her nose in the air, reminding her of how she’d looked down on him since childhood, a habit that she’d continued long after he’d grown tall enough to tower over her. “What so-called truth is that?” she asked.
“Whatever you were trying to hide by seeing my father’s shooting pinned on me. Whether it’s that you were somehow behind it yourself, or something else is involved, I have no idea, but I—”
“Your father was always so ridiculously proud of you,” she said, her searing gaze burning through him. “Boasted how his firstborn was so brilliant, so shrewd when it came to the business, and listen to you. Ha!” Her mocking laughter echoed beneath the awnings of the connected shops along the street. “You certainly make me glad I never wasted my precious time and energy on children.”
Ace’s own laugh was equally devoid of humor. “I imagine any potential spawn of yours would be grateful, too, to be spared of having such a mother. I certainly know that my siblings and I cannot wait for the day when we can talk our father into seeing you for what you really are and can evict you from the ranch, Colton Oil and our lives for good.”
“Mark my words,” she told him, “that is never going to happen. As long as he is living, your father will never dare to cross me—and I suggest that you don’t, either.”
“Why, Selina? Why? What is it you’re holding over Dad? I know it’s certainly not affection. If you ever cared about him at all, beyond what his money and his family name could get you, those days are long over. So what is it? Are you flat-out blackmailing him, or—”
Laughing, she turned her high-heeled shoes to walk away from him. But before she did, she tossed off a few last words, almost carelessly, over one stylishly dressed shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Ace? Wouldn’t all of you just die to...”
* * *
Still steaming from his encounter with Selina, Ace did his level best to tell himself the woman wasn’t worth getting rattled over. But he must’ve been more upset than he’d imagined, because as he was walking through the parking lot and into the hospital lobby with the large arrangement of white flowers he’d grabbed and purchased, thrusting his credit card at the cashier in stony silence, he couldn’t help noticing the odd looks he was getting. Enough that he began to wonder if people recognized him from news reports and wondered what the notorious Ace Colton was doing walking free.
But no, that couldn’t be it, because the looks weren’t hostile or frightened, more...bewildered.
Looking about himself in confusion, Ace finally caught the eye of the older woman in a volunteer’s smock sitting behind the lobby’s information desk, who at first blinked in surprise before her mouth rounded into what appeared to be an O of comprehension. Smiling discreetly, she beckoned to him with a crook of her finger.
“Yes?” he asked her, more confused than ever as he set the arrangement on top of her desk.
“May I ask,” she said politely, arranging her face pleasantly, “if these absolutely beautiful flowers are meant for one of our patients here?”
“Of course they’re for a patient,” he said, his irritation boiling over. “Is it really that unusual to try to cheer someone up with a few flowers when they’re in the hospital?”
“Not at all,” she said, arching one golden eyebrow, “but it is rather unusual for someone to walk into a hospital with an arrangement with that particular message.”
Following the direction of her nod, he took a careful look—his first, apparently—at the front of the basket, then surprised himself with a loud bark of laughter as he finally saw his mistake.
“Whoa, boy. If I thought I was in trouble with my—with my lady friend before,” he said, his face burning as he removed the silk banner he’d completely missed before. The one reading Rest in Peace. “I would’ve been resting in pieces if you hadn’t saved me. Thank you so much.”
Giggling like a teenager, she waved off his gratitude. “You’re more than welcome. After all, it’s not very often we hospital volunteers get a chance to save a life.”
After thanking her one more time, he headed for the elevator, deciding that his boneheaded mistake had at least given him the gift of a decent story to tell on himself. One he hoped to turn to his advantage, using his own chagrin to get Sierra smiling. Or laughing at him, perhaps. He didn’t care, if only it might somehow pave the way to her forgiveness.
&
nbsp; But the moment he stepped off the elevator, his stomach clenched, somehow grasping ahead of his brain that something was amiss as various personnel hurried from room to room, poking their heads into doorways, looking behind the nurses’ station and inside the supply closet.
When Ace spotted Callum among them, he caught his breath, shocked to imagine that, even with a concussion, Sierra had managed to figure out a way around the imposing man.
“How’d she manage it?” Ace asked him, knowing his brother was far too experienced to be easily outmaneuvered. “Because I know there’s no way you’d let an outsider take her.”
Regret darkening his blue eyes, Callum sighed. “I’m sorry, Ace. Damned sorry. She’s slippery as a basket of eels, and about a hundred times as clever. She faked a convincing seizure and none of the medical staff answered the call button, so I ran to find help for her.”
