Hunting The Colton Fugitive

Her business is finding criminals…

But can she risk falling for a fugitive?

Capturing Ace Colton is the solution to bounty hunter Sierra Madden’s troubles. The bounty will pay off the vicious loan shark whose goons are after her. Too cynical to buy Ace’s protestations of innocence, Sierra tamps down her growing attraction. But when she’s the ultimate target, she might be forced to rely on the absolute last person she should trust.

The Texas-based author of more than thirty novels and novellas, COLLEEN THOMPSON is a former teacher with a passion for reading, hiking, kayaking and the last-chance rescue dogs she and her husband have welcomed into their home. With a National Readers’ Choice Award and multiple nominations for the RITA® Award, she has also appeared on the Amazon, BookScan and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists. Visit her online at www.colleen-thompson.com

Also by Colleen Thompson

Passion to Protect

The Colton Heir

Lone Star Redemption

Lone Star Survivor

Deadly Texas Summer

Rescuing the Bride

Lethal Lessons

Capturing the Commando

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Hunting the Colton Fugitive

Colleen Thompson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90534-7

HUNTING THE COLTON FUGITIVE

© 2020 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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To the fellow authors I’ve met along the way,

thank you for all you do to offer inspiration,

encouragement and a pathway through

the darkest thickets.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Sitting at the built-in computer nook of a bunker hidden in the secluded foothills surrounding Mustang Valley, Ace Colton had long since lost track of whether it was day or night. With little access to natural light and zero human contact, he’d spent much of the past weeks obsessively sifting through news reports while considering the evidence against him. Trying to make sense of the so-called witness to his confession, the planted weapon and the way the solid and successful life he’d so long taken for granted had fallen to pieces since January.

No, fallen was the wrong word. That implied something that had simply happened on its own, for no rhyme or reason. It was obvious by this point that his life as Payne Colton’s eldest son, the hardworking and successful CEO of a billion-dollar corporation, Colton Oil, had been deliberately blown to pieces. Stolen from him by whomever had sent out that email telling every other member of the board, his family, that he was, in fact, no real Colton, but an imposter foisted off on them at birth.

Then, before the sickening shock of it, the sense of isolation and displacement, could begin to settle, his job was ripped away, too, though he’d done absolutely nothing wrong—known nothing of any scheme involving his being switched at birth.

He would never forget the searing pain of hearing his father, the man he loved and trusted, tell him that only a real Colton was fit to lead the company. Afterward, harsh words had flown between them, words Ace would regret forever. For as understandable as his hurt and fury might have been, he’d been overheard, making him the prime suspect later when his father had been found lying on his office floor, barely breathing, with two bullets in him.

Is he breathing still? When Ace had fled after a so-called witness had implicated him, and a gun linked to the shooting was found beneath a floorboard inside Ace’s own condo, the man he would always think of as his real father had still been in a coma, in critical condition. As badly as Payne had hurt Ace by acting as if, without a genetic link, none of his business acumen, hard work, or the relationships he’d spent a lifetime building made one damned bit of difference, he couldn’t hang around his condo waiting to be arrested, even though he knew he’d let down the people who cared for him by going into hiding.

But neither could he actually leave the area, not without doing whatever he could to track down the real shooter, protect his family from further harm, and find some way to get his life back on track, even if he had to do it using his laptop to connect to the untraceable virtual private network that was his sole link to the outside world. He thanked his lucky stars that he’d purchased this plot of land several years ago from the cash-strapped, out-of-state nieces of a former owner. Only after the property’s closing had Ace learned of the existence of a survival bunker from some old receipts and a set of long-forgotten plans found among a packet of yellowed paperwork he’d been given.

That long-ago investment, based on his vague instinct that the land, with its scenic views of the valley below, might someday prove a good place to build vacation rental cabins, had paid off in spades, a gift from his younger self to the desperate fugitive Ace had become. A gift he’d carefully retrofitted and provisioned as best he could in the weeks before it became apparent that he would soon be taken into custody.

Within the tomblike confines of the bunker, he searched his online sources for any relevant local updates from the Mustang Valley area, from the obituary he dreaded to the longed-for news that his name had been cleared. Finding neither, he began skimming other headlines, only to nearly jump out of his skin when an alarm wailed over speakers placed throughout the bunker.

Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!

The security cameras he had installed above-ground set off a siren that echoed throughout the confined space, alerting him to the presence of an intruder.

Heart thrashing against his rib cage, Ace leaped to his feet before typing in the code to access the hidden cameras. As his screen divided into six sections, a glimpse of swift movement and a clearly human outline on the lower right panel, near the entrance hatch, made his gut clench, though the lighting was too dim to make out any details.

There was a bright flash of light and then a muffled boom. Carefully hung tools fell from the walls of the bunker as Ace’s panic spiraled.

Was it the police, detonating the hatch and coming to arrest him? Surely not, he thought, reasoning that law enforcement, if they found him, would arrive en masse rather than what had appeared to be a solitary presence. His instincts told him it was far more likely that this was the same person who’d made the attempt on his father’s life and set him up to take the fall. Had the perpetrator come to bring him in—or to shoot him down, too?

Sweating bullets, Ace went for the handgun he’d procured before going into hiding and wondered if he had it in him to pull the trigger. With only one way in and out of the bunker, there was no avenue to flee, and locking the inner submarine-style door would only give his unwanted guest time to gather reinforcements—or trigger yet another blast.

Something clattered from the hatchway. Ace tensed, his stomach going icy cold.

Reaching above his head, he flicked off the LED lights that would expose him when the interior door opened. After weeks of solitude in the confined space, he knew the bunker’s every twist and turn by heart—the only real advantage he had against a well-prepared intruder.

Pushing himself back into the alcove adjacent to the opening, he waited in pitch darkness, feeling more like a trapped feral animal, teeth bared and claws ready, than the polished, urbane and occasionally ruthless corporate warrior he’d been for so long.

Against the shallow scrape of his own breath, he heard the turning of the door’s mechanism, followed by the whoosh of its hydraulics. Dim light flickered; then came a shadow, followed by a puff of air cooler than the scrubbed bunker atmosphere he had been breathing. Smelling of leaves and needles, earth and fresh greenery, it spoke of the foothills, nighttime—and an imminent threat to his freedom or his life.

With a wordless shout that echoed through the bunker, he jumped out and wrapped his arms around what he swiftly realized was a smaller person, twisting his body to slam his unwelcome guest headfirst into the bulkhead. There was a thud and a cry of alarm—higher pitched than he expected. An instant later the intruder twisted free, the silky sweep of long hair brushing across his face and filling his nostrils with a clean, light scent that triggered a memory of one of his sisters’ shampoos.

“Ainsley?” He drew back reflexively, wonder vying with relief to imagine his attorney sibling tracking him here somehow. Guilt came next as he recalled how he’d thanked her for her efforts to help him by disappearing on her, and horror at how hard he’d slammed her into the bunker’s unyielding steel framing. “Ainsley, are you all right? I’m so sorry if I hurt—”

Out of the darkness, something came at him like a guided missile, a blow that struck his temple hard enough to knock him off his feet.

Head swirling on a raft of nausea, he found himself on his hands and knees a moment later, feeling for the pistol, which had gone flying from his hands. A second click preceded the flashlight’s beam, and the whole bunker was once more flooded with bright light.

Before his eyes could adjust, the intruder sent his gun spinning out of reach with a kick. A no-nonsense yet decidedly feminine voice ordered, “On your feet, right now. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

The speaker was not his little sister but a small and slender woman, maybe early thirties, whom he had never seen in his life. With her wavy, red-blond hair pushed back behind squared shoulders, she was aiming an intense green-eyed gaze, along with the business end of her 9mm automatic, directly at him.

“I said, on your feet—now,” she repeated, her face as softly feminine as her voice was firm. “That is, if you aren’t still seeing stars from that left cross.”

“That was you that hit me?” He staggered a little as dizziness washed over him when he rose. “With your actual fist?”

Sure, he’d dropped his guard when he’d mistakenly imagined he had body-slammed his little sister, but this woman, who couldn’t be more than five-four and maybe one-fifteen soaking wet, had damned near knocked him out with a single blow. “Tell me you clocked me with that gun or something. Leave a man a little pride, at least.”

“Come to think of it—” eyeing him critically, she waved the weapon to direct him farther inside the tube-shaped bunker “—maybe you ought to sit down. That punch to the head has you talking nonsense.”

As he moved in the direction she indicated, she bent to sweep up his pistol with her free hand before dropping it into a side pocket of her dark gray tactical pants, her movement so deft and assured that he knew immediately he was dealing with a well-trained professional.

There goes my last chance at freedom, he realized, his heart sinking. Unless he started talking fast.

“Who the hell are you,” he demanded, “and what do you want with me?”

“Relax and take a load off,” she suggested, gesturing toward a built-in leather sofa across the narrow corridor.

With little choice, he complied, while his captor stood across from him, her back pressed against the command center’s chair behind her.

“Nice little hideaway you’ve got down here,” she said, waving to indicate the pristine white walls and birch shelving, lined with boxed supplies that could easily stretch to last him for another six months. “Lucky thing for me your former real estate agent is the talkative sort. Very eager to chat about how understanding you were over the irregularities with the paperwork—including this little unpermitted building project that you could’ve thrown a fit over since it had never been inspected.”

“I couldn’t see much point of causing those two young women any grief over some old mothballed bunker I never had any intention of using,” Ace said, shaking his head. “And you actually looked up my real estate agent?”

She smiled. “In my experience, it’s a rare runner who strays too far from his home turf. Especially one with the kind of family ties that you have…and properties to spare.”

“In your experience as what?” he asked, more certain than ever than the armed intruder who’d packed such a wallop wasn’t law enforcement, since she hadn’t identified herself as such. “The woman who’s come here to kill me?”

She shook her head and made a scoffing sound. “I’m not here to kill you, Colton. I’ve come to escort you to the Mustang Valley PD so I can collect the bounty I’ve been promised.”

Sierra Madden tensed as Ace Colton leaned toward her, a lump rising where she’d slugged him and his dark brown eyes boring uncomfortably into hers.

“Start explaining, right now,” he ordered, looking better than he had any right to, considering his month-long confinement.

The neatly groomed light brown hair in his corporate headshots had given way to a somewhat longer, more unruly look. In place of the expensive suit and silk tie, he now wore a tight black T-shirt with worn jeans molded to a trim, athletic body. Though the bulge of his biceps made her suspect he’d been working off some of his frustrations with free weights, he was a good deal leaner than he’d been in photos from his CEO days. A spiky layer of stubble, frosted with a hint of silver at his jawline, gave him an edgy look of the sort that she’d always been drawn to…sometimes to her detriment.

Some men dressed up nicely, she knew, but leave it to her to come up with one whose appearance had been improved by life on the lam. Not that it matters. Ace Colton’s nothing to me but the fat paycheck I need to buy my way out of big trouble.

“First off, I need to know exactly who you are,” he added, “and who it was that put you on my trail.”

She chuffed a laugh. “You know, you’re awfully demanding for a guy with a goose egg on his head and a gun pointed at him. Or is arrogance just an occupational hazard for you CEO types?”

“Ex-CEO,” he said, sounding irritated, “as if you haven’t made it crystal clear already you’ve done your homework on my background. Which gives you a distinct advantage over me.”

“I happen to like advantages. But then again, who doesn’t?”

“Come on. A name, at least? What’s that going to cost you?”

She shrugged. “Fine, then. I’m Sierra Madden.”

“And you must be a bounty hunter, right? But how can that be? I haven’t been arrested, so there’s no bail bond for me to have skipped out on. What authority do you even have to—”

“The way I figure it, I’m aiming all the authority I need at you right now.” She jerked her gun a smidgeon higher. “But you’re right. This isn’t usually the way I work. And in your case, there’s no need to think of me as the enemy. I’m here to help you, Asa.”

“It’s Ace,” he corrected—unnecessarily, since she knew full well from her research that no one ever called him by his given name. “And I don’t know which part of that story is the most convincing, the part where you break in here aiming a gun at me or maybe it’s when you said you were about to turn me in to the police to be arrested.”

Frowning, Sierra reminded herself that Ace Colton was, for her, a means to an end. She didn’t have to like him—plus, he was wanted for attempted murder. “I’ve been hired by a member of your family interested in bringing you home so the best possible defense can be arranged for the pending charges.”

“I’ve been through all that with my sister.” He grimaced as if the memory pained him. “I know Ainsley means well, but with someone intent on setting me up to take the fall for our father’s shooting—”

“Ainsley?” Sierra shook her head. “It wasn’t her who sent me, or any of your siblings. It was your stepmother.”

“My stepmother? You can’t mean Genevieve? Why would she, when she thinks I’ve shot her husband?”

“No, not your father’s current wife. The other one. Selina Barnes Colton was the woman who—”

“Selina? Are you out of your mind?” Ace erupted, rocketing to his feet so quickly that Sierra shrank back, abruptly reassessing her earlier assumptions about the soft, rich man she’d thought to find here, a previously pampered forty-year-old heir who’d been unable to accept the abruptness of his change in status. “That woman doesn’t want to help me. She’s never wanted anything except to feather her own nest and—Hell, for all I know, she’s the one who shot my father and tried to pin it on me in the first place.”

“Sit down right now,” Sierra ordered, pointing the gun squarely at his chest. “Or so help me, I will make your stepmother very sorry that she didn’t specify that I had to return you in one piece to collect the bounty.”

“She’d throw you a party if you shot me. Believe me, from the moment she weaseled her way into the family, that woman has never, for a single moment, had anyone’s best interests but her own in mind.” Ace shook his head, his eyes darkening with fury. “Marrying my dad after my mother died and playing our stepmother for a hot five minutes was only a means to an end for her and nothing more.”

“So she was never the maternal type? That’s what you’re saying?”

Ace scoffed and waved the question off, bitterness twisting his expression. “She might’ve had my father fooled at one time—and for all I know, she still has something on him, considering how she’s managed to hold on to her job at Colton Oil and the nice house he built for her on ranch property—but believe me, she’s not fooling anybody else.”

Sierra caught her breath, recalling her own suspicions. The rational, rehearsed-sounding explanations the polished businesswoman had given, along with the outsized bounty Selina had offered, hadn’t jibed with the raw avarice gleaming in the cool depths of her eyes.

Ordinarily, Sierra would have asked more questions. Or even trusted her instincts and walked away from the highly irregular agreement. But the truth was, she’d been desperate, more than desperate, and the deal, coming when it had, had seemed like a miracle from heaven. Or from whatever Great Beyond accepted broken-down gambling addicts like her father.

“She’s never given a damn about any of my father’s children,” Ace said. “For her, it’s always been about getting her hooks into the family fortune. And I promise you, whatever she’s paying you to do is part of the next round in her game plan, because she has to know that we’ll toss her off the property in a minute if my father—if he—”

He stopped himself abruptly, his forehead creasing with worry. Sinking back down to the sofa, he asked quietly, “Tell me I haven’t missed something while I’ve been stuck here, that my father hasn’t—that he isn’t worse. Or even—I keep checking online when I’m able, but I know that sometimes, in cases like these, the hospitals and police withhold information.”

“As far as I know,” she said, “there’s been no change in his condition.”

He sighed, some of the tension draining from his face. “Thank God for that.”

“I suppose you’re sorry then, about what happened,” she said, reminded of how many times she’d heard such sentiments from killers in the past. Maybe, she supposed, they even meant what they were saying. But in her world decent people didn’t shoot or stab or strangle the people they loved when they got angry. They didn’t leave them grievously wounded while they fled like cowards from the consequence of their actions.

“Of course I’m sorry someone did this to him. Did this to all of us,” Ace blurted, his deep voice shaking with emotion. “I didn’t hurt my father. I never…no matter how upset we both were—you have to believe me.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “No offense, Ace, but I’m not really the person you need to waste your breath convincing. You’ll get an attorney, I imagine a first-rate one with all your money, and he or she will—”

“I love my dad,” he insisted, his dark gaze never wavering. “I always will, and he’ll always be the man I think of, the ideal I’d want to emulate, should I ever get the chance to be a father.”

Though she was well aware that Payne Colton wasn’t Ace’s biological father, it struck her that Ace’s words still resonated in a way that his stepmother’s hadn’t. But Sierra had run across plenty of people who were perfectly capable of harming a family member and then pretending—even to themselves—that it had never happened. Or praying that the victim would pull through so the charges they themselves faced would be limited to assault rather than murder.