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He sighed, realizing that trusting in this deal—and whatever luck the universe might have on offer—remained his best shot to steer clear of whatever his loving stepmother was plotting. It was his best chance, too, to buy himself the time to figure out whether Selina might be somehow linked to the woman who had apparently switched him with the real Colton heir—or his father’s shooter.
“All right, then,” he agreed. “Let’s do this disguise thing.”
“Just don’t make any quick moves or do anything you haven’t vetted with me first,” Sierra warned him, “or your particular get-up may involve an eye patch and extra bandaging...”
Chapter 2
Having altered her appearance on many previous occasions, Sierra was quick to improvise. While he turned his back to make his own choices, she stripped off her gray fleece top, then pulled an oversize navy men’s work shirt from Ace’s bag of tricks over her tee.
After shoving the rolled sleeves up to her elbows, she tackled her long hair, twisting it into a long ponytail, which she tucked up beneath another duffel find, a tweed newsboy cap. Also large for her, the hat slanted jauntily, its short brim resting atop a pair of chunky, horn-rimmed glasses. To that, she added a distinctly teenage male slouch and the bored and sullen sneer that had made any number of jittery bail jumpers miss her among crowds before.
“Wow,” Ace said when he turned around a couple of minutes later. “If I didn’t know there was a good-looking woman underneath that...”
“And for a diamond cufflinks, silver-spoon type, you make a half-convincing cowboy,” she said, honestly assessing his new look, thanks to the black Stetson, Western shirt and boots and the red bandanna he’d tied around his neck. But then again, she reminded herself, he wasn’t biologically a Colton, so maybe this version was closer to the truth than either one of them imagined.
“I’ve got a fake beard and some spirit gum if you think that’ll help.”
Making a face, she shook her head. “Just keep your collar high and your hat low because if anybody gets close enough to look at either one of us too hard, this is gonna be a real short trip.”
Sierra couldn’t help noticing how nervous Ace looked as they emerged from the hatch that her charge had blown open earlier into a darkness brightened by the glow of a full moon. As he peered into the deepest shadows, he jerked his head toward the sound of an owl hooting and a soft wind rustling through the treetops.
“Relax, Ace,” she urged him, more concerned about his frame of mind than she was about running across anyone else on this isolated hillside. “I had every reason to make sure I wasn’t followed coming up here. We’re all alone, not a soul for miles. My car’s hidden just a couple hundred yards below.”
“Sure,” he said, his voice hoarse as he used some fallen branches in an attempt to disguise the now vulnerable entrance from other prying eyes, an entrance she’d had a devil of a time finding earlier, in spite of the rough map the real estate agent had sketched for her. But as he rose and walked beside her, their feet crunching on dried twigs and grasses, she could easily spot the tension in his movements, as if every muscle lay coiled, waiting to spring into action at the slightest sign of trouble...
Or was he waiting for his chance to get the drop on her?
Increasingly concerned that he might try something that would end up getting one or both of them hurt—or cost her her crucial payout—she began to wonder if sticking with Selina’s deal would prove the safer bet. “Maybe this offer of yours isn’t such a good idea,” she suggested as he lifted a pine bough and held it to let her duck under. “Twenty-five grand’s a lot of money just to delay a problem you’re going to have to deal with sooner or later anyway. And besides, if you really were right about your stepmother plotting something—”
“I’m willing to take my chances,” he said, his breath catching for a moment as he caught his first glimpse of the lights of town, many miles in the distance.
“I’d be just as happy solving my problem with her money as yours,” she admitted, reaching up to adjust her cap, which had slid down to obscure her vision. “Besides, you could hire a really good lawyer with that kind of—”
Returning his attention to her, he waved off her concern. “Lawyers and money I’ve got,” he said bitterly. “Money I’ve saved my whole life for the family I never took the time away from work to start. And now, for all I know, I’ll never get the chance to...”
“Ace...” Her heart twisted at the thought of the latest news from Mustang Valley. A personal matter and a secret that a complete stranger like her had no business sharing with the fugitive.
She weighed her options, struggling to balance the knowledge of the heinous crime this man stood accused of against the possibility that just maybe, telling him would ground him, giving him some reason to be careful. A reason that might help ensure her future, keeping her alive, as well...
* * *
Her gaze connected with his. A real connection that Ace felt running through him like a strong electric current. And in that moment he sensed, with a clarity unlike anything he’d experienced in his entire life, that there was something that she meant to tell him. Something that would fracture the plane of his life into two distinct parts: before and after.
“There’s no easy way to say this except to come right out and tell you,” she began, her voice vibrating with emotion. “You have a daughter. A daughter of your own who’s waiting patiently to meet you.”
“What? What the hell?” Adrenaline spilled through the floodgates, unleashing a throbbing in his chest, a burning tightness stretching over his skin. Followed by absolute fury that she would mess with him like this. “Why on earth would you tell a lie like that when you know damned well I’ve just lost any claim to all the family I ever had?”
“Whoa, whoa, cowboy,” she said, a glint of moonlight off the handgun’s metallic surface giving away the fact that she had raised it. And making him realize he’d advanced on her in a way she clearly found threatening. “Pipe down for a minute and just listen to me, would you? I’ve seen a picture of Nova myself, thanks to Selina, and heard that your brothers and sisters introduced her as your daughter. A daughter by blood, Ace. There’s already been a DNA test.”
“But that’s...impossible,” he said. “I don’t have a little girl—I couldn’t possibly.”
“She’s in Mustang Valley,” Sierra told him. “And she’s a young woman, not a child. Not only that, but she’s—”
Stiffening, Sierra cut herself off to glance back over her shoulder.
It was the only warning Ace had before a dark bulk separated itself from the deeper shadow. A loud crackling sound preceded her cry of pain and alarm as she buckled forward.
Before Ace understood what was happening, she’d collapsed completely. He spotted a large man hunched over her and pressing a stun gun to the side of her neck, which was sparking and snapping with the rattling sound of a transformer arcing.
