I’ll wait for you. When the time is right, when it’s safe again, you’ll reach out, come to me, and we’ll be together. I promise you, we’ll—”
“Don’t wait on me,” she told him, her words choked with emotion. “And promise me, Ace, you won’t ever postpone a shot at happiness. Because we never have any way of knowing when it’s the last one that we’ll get.”
* * *
Gliding through the dark streets, Ace clenched his jaw to keep from shouting in frustration. To keep from arguing that he damned well wasn’t going to accept that, now that he’d finally found a woman who made him want to play for keeps, the two of them had zero chance of ending up together. As he struggled to come up with alternatives that wouldn’t involve abandoning the family he both needed and wanted to do right by, his thoughts chased themselves in endless circles, like a dog running after its tail.
“Ace,” Sierra was telling him, her voice seeming to come from a great distance. “Ace!”
“What?” he ground out.
“Slow down, will you? You just blew through that stop sign. And getting the two of us or someone else killed isn’t going to fix a thing.”
“You’re right,” he conceded as he eased off the accelerator. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I just—I’d fight a war to save you. Don’t you know that?”
“You’re already fighting a war of your own on more than one front right now,” she reminded him, “so you’re going to have to trust me to handle my own battles.”
He felt torn in two, thinking of failing her when she most needed him, whether or not she was willing to admit it. “Do you even have a weapon? Or money enough to finance an extended stay away from home?”
“I’ll pick up something for self-defense, and I’ve got the money from Selina. Most of it’s in the bank, of course, but I’ll make an ATM withdrawal to get me started.”
“That’s not going to be enough. Not for—”
“I’m used to living by my wits,” she insisted.
“It’s the thought of your dying by them that scares the hell out of me,” he said. “So at least let me help you, will you? Make sure you leave Mustang Valley armed and with plenty of cold, hard cash in hand. I have a good amount, you know, buried in a cache not far from the bunker.”
“You do?” Sierra shook her head. “Why on earth didn’t you say so earlier, when Ice Veins’s goons were threatening to blow my leg off over that missed payment?”
“I thought about it,” he said as the lights of Mustang Valley General Hospital came into view. “But at first, I didn’t trust you—no offense.”
“None taken,” she said, “being as I figured you for a wannabe murderer yourself. An incredibly hot one, as it turned out, but still.”
“And after those thugs showed up—and Ice Veins himself, later—I figured if I mentioned I have cash, rather using my accounts to buy us some more time until the police arrived, they’d march us at gunpoint to get it and then leave two dead bodies where the money used to be.”
She exhaled noisily. “You might’ve been raised in privileged surroundings, but I’ll give you this. You’re a pretty quick study when it comes to dealing with the criminal element.”
As they pulled into the parking lot, he said, “So then the plan is this, right? After we see my father, we’ll head back up to the bunker and get you the cash you’ll need.” If he thought he could hide her there, he would, but they were both all too aware that the location could never again be considered safe or secret.
“I don’t want to take your money, Ace. I can’t—can’t say when or if I’d be able to pay you back.”
“I don’t give a damn about the money,” he said. “You’ll take it, and there’s a gun there, too, buried in the footlocker.”
Sierra snorted, shaking her head. “So you were holding out on me about the weapon, too? For shame, you desperado.”
He shrugged. “You never gave me half a chance to get to it, but yeah, I’ve got another handgun squirreled away up there.”
“You know, if you don’t end up going back to the high-roller CEO life, I’m pretty sure you could have a future as a bounty hunter...or a felon.”
“And if you ever give up the bounty hunter business—” a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, as well as at his heart “—maybe you could be a stand-up comic, because that’s the most hilarious suggestion I’ve heard all night.”
She chuckled as he put the car in Park, but when their eyes met, Ace felt fear, as cold and wet as fresh-poured concrete, filling up his chest and lungs. Fear of losing the woman who’d not only found but also resurrected him from the closed coffin of his life in hiding.
She must have felt it, too, for his last glimpse, as she turned from him, was of the tears gleaming on her lashes. Then she flung open the passenger door and stepped out of the car.
Following suit, he hurried after her, calling, “Sierra, don’t. Please. Let’s figure out a way that we can—”
“Ace, look out!” she warned him, started as a small and wiry man rose from between two cars, springing toward them, aiming something at—at Ace?