In Colton's Custody Read online

  A Colton must solve a DNA mystery...

  ...and save his family from ruin.

  One phone call suddenly upends Asher Colton’s life. He discovers his baby daughter might have been switched with single mom Willow Merrill’s. Worse, the day care owner vehemently hates his family. But for the babies’ sake, they work to uncover the truth about the births as threats to the Colton family—and Willow’s business—mount. But can the truth set free a love-scarred rancher and his harshest enemy?

  “I feel like I’ve just been kicked in the head by a horse, and I’m still expected to make life decisions for my kid.”

  Automatically, Asher’s gaze shot to Harper, who was still chewing on her toy, but he couldn’t help but to look back at Luna again. Was it possible that she was his child instead? No. Harper was his. He was certain of it.

  When he glanced up again, he caught Willow studying Harper, her brows drawn together. He knew the questions in her eyes were mirroring his own. Their gazes connected for a few seconds, and then they both looked away.

  He could have kissed Luna, who picked that moment for another round of giggles. Until she lifted both arms. To him. He swallowed, his gaze flitting to Willow. Her frown made it clear what she thought about that.

  “Looks like you’ve won my daughter over.”

  But not you.

  * * *

  Book Five of The Coltons of Mustang Valley

  * * *

  If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

  Dear Reader,

  I am excited to share Asher and Willow’s story with you. I loved having the chance to bring these two characters from very different backgrounds together while exploring the damage that long-held grudges can have on our hearts. I was privileged to collaborate with eleven fine authors in this continuity series, along with our talented editor, Carly Silver. Their ingenuity and patience have helped me to build a better story.

  Moving into Mustang Valley and enveloping myself in the world of Payne Colton and his family have been a delight. I can’t wait to see how all the pieces come together while getting to know new characters and savoring their romances along the way. I hope you’re enjoying the ride as much as I am.

  If you loved In Colton’s Custody, you might also like my earlier titles for the Harlequin Romantic Suspense line, Shielded by the Lawman (Feb. 2019) and Her Dark Web Defender (Nov. 2019).

  I like staying in contact with readers, no matter how you choose to connect. Sign up for my newsletter at www.dananussio.com; join me in the Coffee, Cupcakes and Contemporaries reader group (www.Facebook.com/groups/1426474880768003); or connect on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/DanaNussio) or Twitter (www.Twitter.com/DanaNussio1). You can even drop me a line on real paper at PO Box 5, Novi, MI 48376-0005.

  Happy reading!

  Dana Nussio

  IN COLTON’S CUSTODY

  Dana Nussio

  Dana Nussio began telling “people stories” around the same time she started talking. She’s continued both activities, nonstop, ever since. She left a career as an award-winning newspaper reporter to raise three daughters, but the stories followed her home as she discovered the joy of writing fiction. Now an award-winning author and member of Romance Writers of America’s Honor Roll of bestselling authors, she loves telling emotional stories filled with honorable but flawed characters.

  Books by Dana Nussio

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  The Coltons of Mustang Valley

  In Colton’s Custody

  True Blue

  Shielded by the Lawman

  Her Dark Web Defender

  Harlequin Superromance

  True Blue

  Strength Under Fire

  Falling for the Cop

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To my hero of thirty years, Randy, who does all the cooking, endures my deadline mania and makes it possible for me to live my dream of writing stories all day. I love you. To our daughters, Marissa, Caterina and Alexa, who learned to fend for themselves during said deadlines and have grown into strong women who are courageously following their own dreams. And to Isabelle Drake, Veronica to my Betty, the academic who instructs me on how life imitates comic books and the friend who reminds me to live the real thing outside the pages.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Excerpt from Colton Manhunt by Jane Godman

  Excerpt from Ten Days Gone by Beverly Long

  Chapter 1

  Asher Colton latched the barn door and strode toward the corral, his favorite boots scraping the dusty earth in a comfortable rhythm. That the man he’d known for only two days matched him in both pace and in the number of scuffs on his boots made Asher grin. Those were small similarities, and they didn’t know anything for sure yet, so he schooled his features as he sneaked another glance at the guy next to him.

  Unfortunately, Jace Smith caught him peeking, so Asher stared out over the open fields and banks of trees that made up Rattlesnake Ridge Ranch. With its rich red, Arizona soil stretching to the base of Mustang Valley Mountains and kissing the sky where the heights dipped, the Triple R was the only place Asher had ever been truly content.

  Well, until recently.

  Now the land he oversaw at least gave him an excuse to look away from the newcomer and prepare himself for whatever question he would pose next.

  Instead of asking one, Jace cupped both hands over his headful of dark hair. “That sun is already a killer out here, even this early in the morning.”

  The side of Asher’s mouth lifted. The guy might have seven more years of life experience than Asher’s thirty-three, but when it came to ranch education, their guest was as much a newborn as their spring calves were.

  “What did you expect? It’s May in Mustang Valley. Highs are always in the mideighties this time of year. It’s not that different from anywhere in southeastern Arizona, is it?”

  “Guess I spend too much time in the air-conditioning.”

  “Ya think? Anyway, I told you to wear a hat.”

  Asher adjusted his own and wiped sweat from his forehead as he’d already done a dozen times that morning. Unlike their guest, who’d been staying at the mansion the past few days, as ranch foreman, Asher had already been at work for hours.

  “Yeah. Need to get me one,” Jace said, as he pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slipped them on.

  “Would be a good idea.”

  It was hard to believe anyone living in that part of the state wouldn’t already own a decent cowboy hat, especially someone who might be, well, a relative. He pointed farther up the panel fence with cedar posts and caps.

  “Come on. I promised to show you the new additions.”

 
“Has it been a big season?”

  “Great so far. We’re getting several hundred calves a day.”

  “Are those good numbers?”

  “Really good. Our operation runs over twenty thousand cows and another ten thousand heifers. Both Angus and Hereford. In case you don’t know, cows are females that have had at least one calf, and heifers are females that haven’t calved yet.”

  “I know that. I’m not that much of a city slicker.”

  “Good to know.” Asher doubted Jace was telling the truth but didn’t call him on his fib. It wasn’t the guy’s fault he’d been raised in the city. Or, possibly, by the wrong mother.

  A few months earlier, Asher’s whole family had been rocked by the revelation that his oldest brother, Colton Oil CEO Ace, had been switched at birth. Since then, his dad had been shot, a crime in which Ace was a suspect, and was in a coma; the family had worked to track down the “real” Ace. Jace’s arrival at the ranch two days earlier had been a surprise, but if the information Jace had received was true, then they might have solved their mystery.

  “This place is amazing. I’m lucky just to have seen it.” Jace looked up and down the fencerow. “If not for the earthquake last month, I might never have found the courage to find out for sure if I’m one of the babies someone switched at that hospital.”

  “Tragedies definitely shake us up and spur us to action.” Asher was talking about his own family, but the other man was too caught up in his story to notice. “Oh. Pardon the pun. You know, spurs.”

  Jace smiled over at him before returning to his story. “If I’d spoken to Luella anytime in the past decade, I could have asked her some questions about what that nurse had said, but I doubt she would have told me the truth. She never did about anything else.”

  Asher purposely didn’t look at Jace then, giving him time to collect his composure. It was a kindness that men gave to each other.

  “It’s too bad you had such a difficult relationship with your...well, the woman who raised you.”

  That Jace always referred to Luella Smith by her first name was telling. Some mother she must have been.

  Asher had kept it to himself that his two brothers were still tracking Luella, the woman who had apparently switched her healthy son for a sickly baby, Ace, but Jace’s connection to her gave his story credibility.

  “Bet that keeps you busy.”

  Caught lost in his thoughts, Asher blinked. Jace gestured toward the field. He was clearly trying to change the subject, a ploy Asher should have been familiar with since he used it whenever anyone brought up his ex-girlfriend, Nora.

  “We’re busy, all right. No sleep for ranchers or ranch hands during calving season. Poor Harper. Half of her nighttime diaper changes have come from the housekeepers and the kitchen staff lately.”

  Twice as many in the daytime, too, now that his most recent nanny had hightailed it out of town. His shoulders drooped over the slim pickings he would face in yet another candidate search. How was he supposed to prove that as a single dad, he could be a better parent than his father ever had been, when he couldn’t keep consistent childcare for his six-month-old daughter?

  “Cute kid, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” Asher couldn’t help grinning at that. It was hard not to like a guy who complimented his baby.

  “Strange, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Asher slid a glance his way. “Not sleeping or changing diapers. I get a lot of practice at both.”

  “I bet you do, but that’s not what I meant. It’s just this whole situation. I still can’t get used to it. I keep looking for any physical resemblance between us.”

  “Find any?”

  “With you? Not so much.”

  “That would be less likely. Either way.” Asher rushed to add the second part.

  Why did he keep getting ahead of himself? They had no proof yet. He owed it to his family to remain skeptical until they did. Ace deserved at least that much.

  Anyway, Jace was right. Asher looked no more like the guy than he did his adopted brother, Rafe. Jace bore no resemblance to Asher’s full siblings, blond twins Marlowe and Callum. On the other hand, with all that dark hair and those blue eyes, Jace fit right in with Asher’s half brother, Grayson, and half sister, Ainsley, the other two children of Payne’s first marriage. Everyone at the mansion had noticed.

  “Guess we’ll know for sure soon enough.”

  Asher startled as the other man seemed to have read his thoughts. “S’pose so.”

  He gave the dirt an extra kick and ground his molars. They might as well have been talking about the weather rather than the life-altering reality that Jace might be the real Ace.

  Just thinking it made him feel disloyal to the man he knew as Ace. If only they could turn the clock back four months, to the time before that mysterious email had drop-kicked his family’s world and the structure of Colton Oil. Before they’d learned about the baby switch. He longed for those days of blissful ignorance.

  “How do you think Ace is doing?” Jace asked.

  Not as well as you. Somehow, Asher managed not to say that out loud, though Jace’s questions from the past two days were starting to annoy him. “As well as can be expected for a guy whose life has been flipped on its head.”

  “I get that.”

  Asher shrugged. Jace clearly could relate to receiving news that had changed his life, but it was probably easier for someone to discover that a silver spoon might be slipped in his mouth than to have one yanked out, along with a few teeth.

  “It’s just that Ace is the only one of your siblings I haven’t met yet,” Jace continued. “I totally understand why the others are keeping their distance until after the DNA test. I appreciate that they at least dropped by and introduced themselves.”

  “Six of seven isn’t too bad for just two days.”

  His siblings were curious. No one could blame them for that when they might have been meeting Payne Colton’s real firstborn with his late first wife, Tessa, for the first time.

  “But Ace’s situation is a little different,” Jace continued.

  “He’s been busy, too.”

  If lying low back at his loft condo in the city’s industrial zone—or at the Dales Inn in town—counted for busy anyway. In Ace’s defense, he had to stay put while the media trucks lingered at the hospital and just outside the ranch’s main gate.

  “Is he still considered a suspect in your dad’s attempted murder?”

  Asher bit back the temptation to tell Jace to mind his own damn business. Depending on the results of the test they’d scheduled, Colton family matters just might be his business.

  “He’s been questioned and told not to leave town. Now you know everything I do.”

  “What about Payne? Any updates on him?”

  “Nothing beyond what Ainsley told you two nights ago.”

  “That’s what I figured.”

  If Jace noticed the edge to Asher’s voice, he didn’t show it. Anyway, there was no more to say. His dad was still in a coma, and there was no guarantee when, or even if, he would ever awaken.

  “He’ll wake up.”

  Asher stiffened, the other man rightly guessing his thoughts again.

  “Hope so.”

  “When did you say Ainsley would pick me up for the test?”

  “About twelve thirty. Appointment’s at one.” Not soon enough for Asher. At least then it would be her turn to play Twenty Questions with Jace.

  “I knew that. I’m just nervous, I guess.”

  Asher shifted his feet. The Coltons weren’t the only ones whose lives were in flux. Still, that didn’t make him want to talk about it. Or think about it. Good thing they’d finally reached the near side of the calving pasture, where several cows were nibbling grass and nursing their young.

  “These are some of our newest a
rrivals.”

  He leaned forward to rest his forearms on the six-inch-wide fence cap, and the other man followed his example.

  “Wow, the calves are amazing.”

  That was something they could agree on. If nothing else on the Triple R made sense to Asher lately, this land and the cattle were things he understood.

  “See that calf closest to the fence?” He pointed to an animal with distinctive markings on its head and legs. It was pulling voraciously on its mother’s teat. “He just showed up last night. Thought he was never going to get up on his legs.”

  “Looks like he made it.”

  “Yeah.” His lips lifted. After a rocky start, the little guy was doing just fine. Asher had secretly been calling the calf “Lucky Boy,” but he couldn’t let it get out that the foreman was nicknaming new arrivals.

  “What was wrong with him?” Jace asked.

  “A healthy calf usually stands up and nurses in the first two hours. Those from difficult births, like him, sometimes take longer. It’s critical that calves nurse within the first four hours to benefit from the antibodies in colostrum. If they don’t, we’re forced to tube feed them.”

  Jace made a sad face as he watched the animal several seconds longer.

  “Poor little guy. What did you end up doing?”

  “Just as we started to intervene to give him his best chance for survival, he popped up on his feet and went to his mom for breakfast.”

  “Sounds like a lucky calf to be born on the Triple R. Are you calling him Lucky?”

  “We don’t give them nicknames.”

  “That’s not a rule, is it?”

  Asher shifted his head so Jace wouldn’t see his grin. He still didn’t want to get ahead of himself, but he had a good feeling about Jace. It would be nice to have at least one sibling who cared about animals as much as he did. His cell buzzed in his back pocket, interrupting his thoughts. He pulled out the phone and checked the number to make sure it wasn’t Neda, one of the housekeepers, calling about Harper. Usually, he let business calls go to voice mail and answered them when he returned to his office at the back of the barn, but he froze at the words on the caller ID. Mustang Valley General Hospital? Had his dad’s condition changed? Or worse? Maybe Payne Colton wasn’t the kind of dad people wrote greeting cards about, but that didn’t mean Asher wanted him to...