But not a bounty hunter. Or not one like her, at any rate, who couldn’t afford to waste time cooling her heels around Nowheresville, Arizona, waiting to get her i’s dotted and her t’s crossed.
After tossing back the last swallow of her sparkling water, she rose from the sectional and dug the car keys from her pocket. Ignoring the others’ startled glances toward the jingling, she looked directly into Ace’s confused eyes and said, “C’mon, cowboy, stick with me—and let’s find out the rewards that can come with a willingness to seek forgiveness rather than permission.”
Chapter 10
“How about if I drive?” Ace asked as they stepped out of the elevator into the underground garage. He pulled the keys to his silver Porsche, which he’d grabbed from his study, from the pocket of the leather jacket he’d had at the condo. “My car hasn’t been driven in over a month, and it’s not good for the engine to let it sit too long.”
In truth, he suspected that one of his brothers—probably Rafe, who knew how much Ace prized the convertible—had probably taken it on a spin or two to keep the car in good running order for him, but Ace was itching to get behind the wheel again. To once more feel some semblance of control in his own life.
“Much as I’d love to humor you,” Sierra said, “you have to know, reporters will be on the
lookout for a vehicle you’re known to drive. Which doesn’t exactly make it a good choice when we’re trying to keep a low profile. But if you want to drive my beater...” Tossing him her Chevy’s keys, she turned toward the garage exit. “You’re more than welcome to show off your superior driving skills.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who recently mowed down Bambi’s cousin.”
Her pretty mouth thinned, her eyes narrowing. “That was a low blow, cowboy.”
“Probably,” he admitted with a half smile.
“Lucky for you, I happen to appreciate a man who can deliver a decent counterpunch from time to time.”
Knowing she was right about the Porsche attracting unwanted attention, he followed her out beneath a sky where countless stars stood out against the blackness bright as ice chips. Sierra’s head jerked toward a furtive movement hugging the ground in the shadow of the warehouse across the street.
“Coyote, probably down out of the foothills,” he said, identifying it with a glance.
“Predators are always so much closer than we imagine,” she said, zipping her jacket a little higher, “but as long as they stick to hunting things that creep and crawl, it’s not the hairy ones that worry me.”
As they approached her car, he pushed the button to unlock it, wondering what she was hinting at and why she still seemed so skittish.
Before he could ask, she abruptly changed the subject, saying, “So tell me about Nova. What was your first impression?”
Buckling in, he smiled to himself, warmed by the thought of his expectant flesh-and-blood daughter—his child, carrying his grandchild—curled up fast asleep on the sofa in his study. “That I’ve somehow won the lottery without realizing I’d ever bought a ticket. I realize of course it’s early days, but she seems to have an amazing spirit—and a generous heart, to welcome a father into it who hasn’t been in her life up until now.”
“You’re right,” Sierra said over the sound of the engine starting. “Those kinds of situations can be tricky. But it sounds as if she’s accepted that it wasn’t your fault that her mother chose to keep her existence from you.”
“Maybe it was, in part. I had a girlfriend, after all, and her mother knew it, so maybe she was scared I would reject her or—” With a grunt of disgust at his younger self, Ace put the car in gear and started driving. “I owned up and begged Nova to forgive me for it. But she said her mother had never seemed too bothered by it. Apparently, she quickly moved on and later burned her way through her own family fortune in Europe, where the family fled to avoid any gossip over the pregnancy.”
“You jet-setting rich kids sure had different ways of solving problems than those of us from my side of the tracks,” Sierra commented, sounding more amazed—or possibly amused—than resentful.
“Unfortunately, Nova hasn’t always had an easy time of it—the money ran out some time ago and then she accidentally discovered that the father of the child she’s carrying, this guy named Ferdy, wasn’t only emotionally abusive. He was a dangerous criminal as well.”
“I heard something about that,” Sierra said, “about him following her from New York here to try to kill her.”
“I wish I could have been there for her then, could have protected her from that creep.” He swallowed past the regret lodged in his throat. “If it weren’t for Nikolas—I owe him and the police both, for ending that threat and saving my daughter and granddaughter’s lives.”
“Granddaughter? The baby’s a girl?”
He broke out in a grin. “Not just any girl, but the perfect little girl. I’m sure of it.”
Throwing her head back, Sierra laughed. “Listen to you already! When that little one comes along, you’re going to be insufferable. I can just see it.”
As they passed a security light, he glanced her way. “Will you?”
“Will I what?” She shook her head.
“Will you be around to see it, Sierra? By my side, because that’s what I want—yet I can’t shake this feeling that you’re more likely to bolt than be in my life a week from now, much less when I’m holding my first grandchild.”
“Ace, you know—you know this isn’t for me, don’t you?” She flung an impatient gesture in the direction of the condo. “The whole family deal, with all these clinging strands, like spiders’ webs stick, stick, sticking to a person, until you’re wrapped up so tight, you can hardly breathe. I—I’ve enjoyed our time together, but the truth is, I’m a loner. It’s my nature. Maybe I got it from my mother. She couldn’t hack that whole scene, either.”