Lone Star Prince
Lone Star Prince
Cindy Gerard
THE LOYAL PROTECTORGregory Hunt had always been the best - whether he was handling the toughest legal cases in Texas or coming to the rescue of damsels in distress. Only, this particular damsel was one he had loved once before - the regal Princess Anna von Oberland, whose privileged position made her off-limits.Now she needed his help, and Gregory had to risk all to save her. Because under the watchful, yearning eyes of Anna's four-year-old son - whose handsome features strikingly resembled his own - this tried-and-true Texan sensed more urgency than ever!Five wealthy Texas bachelors - all members of the state's most exclusive club - set out on a mission to rescue a princess… and find true love.
Letter to Reader (#ufab38ae7-aed4-5220-92b2-cc66babe8974)Title Page (#udf3c408d-c5b0-557f-b3fe-926fa7006560)Dedication (#u9e358c71-9fdd-53eb-9db8-a121428465a4)About the Author (#u8ed7e1a0-be56-59e5-883d-85a96d631e35)“What’s Happening in Royal?” (#ucb21b390-e469-5dcd-9b25-d36dfed1ddaf)Prologue (#u319e6ef8-26e2-5d52-83a6-a2b26d5adb3b)Chapter One (#ueeb6ad0f-9350-52fd-963e-7c0f975ca057)Chapter Two (#u8d3abd6e-1f26-57fd-a22e-11941b3af063)Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
This month, in LONE STAR PRINCE
by Cindy Gerard, meet Gregory Hunt—
a lawyer extraordinaire who hides his vulnerability
behind cynical eyes. Until he rescues the
one woman he could never forget,
Princess Anna von Oberland—a royal, regal beauty
whose son bears a striking resemblance to our hero!
SILHOUETTE DESIRE IS PROUD TO PRESENT THE
Five wealthy Texas bachelors—all members of the state’s most exclusive club—set out on a mission to rescue a princess...and find true love.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the
exhilarating miniseries
Texas Cattlman’s Club,
only from Silhouette Desire!
Dear Reader,
Merry Christmas from Silhouette Desire—where you’re guaranteed powerful, passionate and provocative love stories that feature rugged heroes and spirited heroines who experience the full emotional intensity of falling in love!
The always-wonderful Cait London is back with this December’s MAN OF THE MONTH, who happens to be one of THE BLAYLOCKS. In Typical Male, a modern warrior hero is attracted to the woman who wants to destroy him.
The thrilling Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB concludes with Lone Star Prince by Cindy Gerard. Her Royal Princess Anna von Oberland finally reunites with the dashing attorney Gregory Hunt who fathered her child years ago.
Talented Ashley Summers returns to Desire with That Loving Touch, where a pregnant woman becomes snowbound with a sexy executive in his cabin. The everpopular BACHELOR BATTALION gets into the holiday spirit with Marine under the Mistletoe by Maureen Child. Star-Crossed Lovers is a Romeo-and-Juliet-with-a-happy-ending story by Zena Valentine. And an honorable cowboy demands the woman pregnant with his child many him in Christy Lockhart’s The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby.
Each and every month, Silhouette Desire offers you six exhilarating journeys into the seductive world of romance. So make a commitment to sensual love and treat yourself to all six for some great holiday reading this month!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Please address questions and book requests to
Silhouette Reader Service
U S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
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Lone Star Prince
Cindy Gerard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to the ladies of the Club, Dixie Browning.
Caroline Cross, Peggy Moreland and Metsy Hingle.
Ladies—it’s been a treat. I’m so glad I was along for the ride!
Special thanks to Leanne Banks, Susan Connell and
Glenna McReynolds for their friendship, their extraordinary insights
and their unflagging generosity. I love you guys.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Cindy Gerard
for her contribution to the Texas Cattleman’s Club series
CINDY GERARD
If asked “What’s your idea of heaven?” Cindy Gerard would say a warm sun, a cool breeze, pan pizza and a good book. If she had to settle for one of the four, she’d opt for the book, with the pizza running a close second. Inspired by the pleasure she’s received from the books she’s read and her longtime love affair with her husband, Tom, Cindy now creates her own warm, evocative stories about compelling characters and complex relationships.
All that reading must have paid off, because since winning the Waldenbooks Award for Best Selling Series Romance for a First-Time Author, Cindy has gone on to win the prestigious Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence, Romantic Times Magazine W.I.S.H. awards, Career Achievement and Reviewers’ Choice nominations and the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award nomination for Best Short Contemporary Romance.
“What’s Happening in Royal?”
NEWS FLASH, December 1999—Rumors are running rampant about town that an actual royal princess may be in our midst! There have been unconfirmed reports that Princess Anna von Oberland is missing from her European country of Obersbourg, and may be hiding out in our own Royal, TX. Imagine...a princess in Royal—who would’ve “thunk” it?
Could our rugged Texas Cattleman’s Club members know the whereabouts of Her Royal Highness?
There are those who say that Gregory Hunt—hotshot attorney, Cattleman’s Club member and most eligible of bachelors—may have more than a passing interest in the lovely Princess Anna. In fact, rumor has it that they shared a passionate tryst years ago in her far-off land....
Will the princess be discovered here... and rumors be put to rest? Please stay tuned!
Prologue
September 5th, 2:00 a.m.
Somewhere over the Atlantic
Hollywood couldn’t have staged a more dicey plot An evil prince. A beautiful princess in his clutches. A midnight rescue by an ex-marine and ex-lover, charging in to save the day.
Trouble was, this wasn’t Hollywood. It was all too real, and as Greg Hunt stared grimly across the cabin of the private jet bound for the States, he hadn’t yet decided if he was the hero or the chump in this little melodrama.
The woman gazing vacantly out the window of the starboard side of the aircraft was exhausted, but still, her bearing was regal, her posture erect.
Four years ago when Greg had first met her she’d been beautiful. There was no denying, she was beautiful still. Yet Princess Anna von Oberland, loved by the paparazzi, adored by the masses, had been robbed of the wide-eyed innocence that had struck him as both intriguing and irresistible those many years ago. A haunted, hunted edge had painted pale violet smudges beneath her summer-green eyes, drawn fine lines of tension around a smile that was forced and shallow and reserved only for the child sleeping at her side. Her silk and velvet voice, with its honeyed, husky resonance, spoke of lost summers and faded dreams and hinted of her European lineage only when she was exhausted. Like now.
Shifting uneasily, Greg took his own turn staring out the window into the blackness of night at thirty-one thousand feet. He tried to divorce himself from an unrelenting need to hold her. Seeing her like this—seeing her again—had brought back feelings he’d thought were dead and buried. And while he was relieved she had turned to him for help—was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her—he was also determined not to let her or her solemn-eyed little boy breach the wall he’d built around his emotions when she’d walked away from him four years ago.
Determined, but unfortunately, not one hundred percent successful, he admitted grudgingly. Against all resolve, his mind wandered back to the summer night they’d first met. He’d been a marine on his last tour of duty and then had to return to Texas to take his place -as heir apparent to the Hunt dynasty. On leave in the little European principality of Obersbourg, he’d been taken in completely by the guileless little peasant girl whose eyes had been only for him. He hadn’t known she’d been a princess on the run from her family, her obligations and the stark reality of her position in life—just as she hadn’t known he was anything but a lowly marine.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that their eyes had met, locked, held across a street full of dancers in the plaza. A lifetime since they’d woven their way unerringly through the crowd and into each other’s arms. Since they’d danced. Fallen in love. Made love. And when her true identity had come out, they parted.
He quickly checked the memory. There was no point hashing over that again. It had been four years. He’d put it all behind him—at least he had until he’d received her transatlantic call last week and the panicked sound of her voice had brought it all back like it was yesterday.
“Gregory. I need you. Please come. Please... come.”
So he had. With the backing of Texas billionaire Hank Langley—and Langley’s Avenger, a Hunt Industries aircraft—the able assistance of Sterling Churchill and Forrest Cunningham, all members of Langley’s Texas Cattleman’s Club, they’d smuggled the princess and her son out from under the Obersbourg royal guard not three hours ago. All ex-military men, they had created the Alpha team to tackle this mission.
He scrubbed the back of his knuckles absently against the stubble on his jaw and stared broodily into the dark. As corporate counsel for Hunt Industries and CEO of several companies under the Hunt umbrella, he’d had plenty of work to keep him busy. So he was damned if he knew why he’d been so ready to let himself get wrapped up in her life again. He only knew that this time, it wasn’t by chance. This time there was more at stake than reckless hearts and stolen moments. He didn’t have all the details sorted out, but he knew that Anna’s sister, Sara, and Sara’s lover were dead, the victims of a mysterious car crash. Sara’s infant twins were in the physical custody of Ivan Striksky, the playboy prince of Asterland, who was holding them the equivalent of political hostages as part of a plot to force Anna to marry him. And Greg, it seemed, had been cast in the role of white knight.
White knight, hell, he thought as the hushed whispers of Churchill and Cunningham—men he’d been glad to have guarding his back—drifted from the aft end of the Avenger. This little caper had international incident written all over it. It was going to take a damn sight more than his law degree to smooth some very ruffled, very royal European feathers when this thing broke wide open and the King and Queen of Obersbourg discovered their golden goose was missing.
He stretched his long legs out in front of him, figuring he’d deal with it when it happened. In the meantime, the only part he had left to play in this little scenario was to see Anna safely to the States. She was a resourceful woman; she’d figure out where to go from there. All he needed to do was get on with his life—and quit thinking about why this woman, above all women, could mess up his head in more ways than he could catalog or name.
William stirred in his sleep. Making a protective shield of her body, Anna folded him closer to her side. Her reaction was instinctive though, at the moment, unnecessary. There was no threat here. Not in this jet with Gregory. At least there was no physical threat. Uncertainty, however, was still an ugly reality. For her it was too real and too chilling even though, for the time being, they were safe from Ivan. And they were free from her parents, who had been willing to sacrifice her and, ultimately, William to Ivan in exchange for a financial bailout to save Obersbourg’s sovereignty.
William cried out, startling her out of her thoughts. His small voice was a panicked, frightened mew in the humming silence of the pressurized cabin.
“Shh, baby. Momma’s here.” Small for his age, William was often mistaken for a year younger than the precious age of four he would turn on his next birthday. She scooped him onto her lap, cradled his face to her breast, murmured in soothing tones. “It’s okay. Momma’s here.”
She pressed her lips to the top of his head, then laid her cheek there as he drifted back to sleep.
“Is he okay?” Gregory’s deep voice was a soft rumble of concern.
She nodded, wanting to assure him as much as herself. Enfolding William in security and warmth, she gained her own small measure of comfort from the solid pressure of his little compact body snuggled against her. “He’s fine. This has all just been a little frightening for him.”
Although he held his silence, Anna could feel Gregory’s dark gaze on her, then on William. She could sense the questions she knew he would ask. And she prayed for the answers that would satisfy him, asked forgiveness for the lies her lack of courage would force her to tell.
“Where’s his father, Anna? Why was it me you called and not him?”
His question was sharp and direct, fitting since this was the moment that had been looming in the shadows of all else that had happened. She’d been bracing for it, had carefully concocted the lie, woven it ruthlessly around the truth.
“He’s never been a part of William’s life,” she said, then slowed her words, shook off the accent only her nerves and fatigue had allowed to slip into her speech. “What his father and I shared...” Purposefully, she let the thought trail off, gave a small shrug, an invitation for him to draw his own conclusions. “I... I had hoped for more.”
“He abandoned you?” A swift, dangerous anger underscored each word.
“No,” she said quickly. “Oh, no. Not abandoned. Let’s...let’s just leave it at it wasn’t meant to be.”
In the darkness, she sensed Gregory’s gaze drift over William, studying his dark brown hair, his slight little frame, picturing, perhaps, his Mediterranean-blue eyes.
“I’m so sorry to have involved you in this, Gregory,” she said abruptly, speared by a piercing need to steer the attention away from William. “I...I didn’t know where else to turn.”
“I told you...” His voice was soft, even if his eyes were hard. “I told you that if you ever needed me I’d be there for you.”
Yes. Yes, he had told her, and even four years later, she’d known she could count on him. After all, it was his strength that had drawn her to him in the beginning—his strength and his earthy, middle class charm. At least she’d thought then that he was just a working man. It wasn’t until last year that she’d seen an article on Hunt Industries and realized that Gregory was the equivalent of American royalty. The irony was so very hard to accept.
She’d been feeling the burden of her position, of centuries of tradition, of familial obligations that fateful summer. In one of her rare acts of rebellion, she’d disguised herself as a village girl and escaped it all for a few hours to get lost in the fantasy atmosphere of the summer street festival—and ended up spending four glorious days and nights with Gregory. She’d given in completely to her instant and overpowering love for the exciting, fun-loving American who not only showed her a glimpse of a freedom she’d never known but also introduced her to true passion and the one great love of her life.
He’d been so...so American. Strong. Vital. So guilelessly arrogant in his self-confidence, utterly charming for his lack of pretense. And so beautiful. In his close-cropped military haircut, his crisply creased olive drabs that hugged his rugged body and showcased the breadth and the depth of the man within, he’d made her fall fast and hard. Though he could never know it, she’d also fallen forever.
A vivid memory of the day they parted hit her with a startling sense of presence. She remembered every pulse beat of that day, recalled with a sharp twist to her heart the moment she’d told him the truth about who she was, and why they couldn’t be together. Angry, he’d scribbled his phone number across an American dollar bill and pressed it into her hand. His blue eyes had been stormy, his jaw set in anger and pride. “If you ever need anything, call this number.”
In the diluted cabin light, she searched his eyes for any sign of the passion that had flared between them then. She saw only a sense of duty, a cold stare of indifference. Yet he had kept his promise. He had come for her. Tears stung her eyes, tightened her throat. If only someone could have been there to save Sara.
Sara was dead and now the twins were lost to Anna, too.
“Sara’s babies,” she murmured, suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and cowardice, her fear for them equaled only by her sense of failure. “I shouldn’t have left without them.”
“Anna...there was no way we could get them out this trip. We cut it too close as it was. I promise you, the Alpha team made plans for my brother, Blake, to rescue them.”
She blinked back the moisture matting her lashes, knowing she was weak for wanting to believe him. Just as he was strong—as she’d known only he could be strong.
“You trusted me to come for you.” His tone forced her to focus on him, on now. When she did, his eyes restated his words as a question that demanded an answer.
She nodded. Yes. She had trusted him.
“Then trust me one more time. Blake will find them. He’ll bring them to you.”
Clinging to the strength of his conviction, she let her head drop back against the headrest, made herself draw a calming breath. Distancing herself from her fear for the babies, she smoothed a tuft of downy fine hair from William’s brow. “You never bargained for this. And I never dreamed I’d have to call on you someday. How can I ever thank you?”
“Level with me,” he said, point-blank, and her heart skipped several beats. “Tell me everything...everything so I can help get you out of this mess.”
Everything. She turned her head away. He deserved to know everything. She couldn’t give him what he deserved. Not now. She enfolded William closer to her side. Maybe not ever. But he was right. If she was going to survive this, if she was to escape Ivan’s far-reaching power and undermine his plans, she had to tell him something. Enough, at least, to keep William safe and keep her from becoming Ivan’s wife and political pawn for the rest of her life.
Aware suddenly that Gregory was speaking to her again, she turned to him, tried to clear her head.
“Why don’t you rest, Anna.” He offered the suggestion with a gentleness that was almost her undoing, as if he sensed she simply couldn’t handle anymore tonight. “You’re exhausted. Try to get some sleep. We’ll sort this all out after we land and get the two of you settled.”
She was too relieved with the reprieve to do anything but thank him again. And to ask the inevitable question.
“Where are we going?”
For the first time since he’d stolen her and William from their quarters in the west wing of Obersbourg Palace, he smiled. “Why, we’re going home, sugar.” A very slow, very deliberate western drawl had slipped into his voice like warm honey. “My home. West Texas.”
Texas. Arid plains, wide open spaces. Cowboys. She remembered his words from that summer when he’d talked about his home with such pride. Miles and miles of nothing but sky. And oil wells. Lots of oil wells.
It sounded like a good place to hide. It sounded like a good place to heal. Carefully, she offered her own smile. “I’ve always wanted to see a cowboy.”
His eyes softened a fraction. “Well that works out just fine then, because I reckon there’re a few cowboys who will be pleased as punch to see you, too.”
While his words were meant to lighten the mood and ease her tension, they had the opposite effect.
“Don’t worry, Anna.”
She met his eyes. Saw again that he had sensed her concern.
“No one in town will know who you are, much less recognize you. We’ve seen to that.”
He seemed both satisfied and sure—and, unaccountably, amused by a prospect he chose not to share with her.
That was fair, she decided. She had her secret. She’d let him have his. For now it was enough to know she was free of Ivan. At least for the moment. And the moment was what she needed most.
It wasn’t over. It might never be over. But she had breathing room now. And she had time. Time to regroup, to assess, to think of a way to save her country without sacrificing her son and herself in the process. Until she accomplished that, she had to believe in Gregory to keep her safe and bring her Sara’s babies.
Exhausted, she finally let the fatigue overtake her. With William safe for the moment and snug by her side, she let her eyes drift close, let months of tension ease from her body and finally gave in to the haven of sleep.
Greg sensed the moment the nervous energy that had fueled Anna hit empty. In the darkness he watched her drift into an embracing sleep. He still didn’t know what had prompted her to turn to him. Couldn’t entertain even a guess—or didn’t want to—because all the explanations started with that long ago summer and ended with the wanting to pick up where they’d left off. The one thing he was sure of in all of this mess was that he couldn’t let that happen. He was wiser now and he’d be damned if he’d let her break through his defenses again.
Yet he couldn’t stop himself from taking stock of her classic beauty as she slept—the porcelain complexion, long blond hair, gently winged brows, wide-set eyes, regally sculpted cheekbones—and feel a hard knot of yearning tighten in his gut. He checked it as abruptly as it started. Obviously, she hadn’t lost sleep over their parting. The child at her side was the proof of that. More to the point, it drove home one indisputable fact: she hadn’t wasted any time moving from his bed to another.
A part of him would like to hate her for that. He didn’t have it in him. Just like he didn’t have it in him to love her. Not again. Not even in the face of the danger she was in. Not even in the face of the temptation.
He looked away. For the last time, there was no reason to go there. She was as out of bounds now as she’d been then. Only now, he was wise enough to know up front where the boundaries began. More importantly, he knew where they ended. And he no longer needed her to spell it out for him. She, after all, was a princess. And as she’d so convincingly implied four years ago, he was no prince.
What he was, he acknowledged with a grim set to his mouth, was a sucker for a damsel in distress. What he would be, he assured himself as he looked away from the tumble of blond hair framing her face, was damn glad when this blew over and Her Royal Highness jetsetted out of his life again and got back to the one she’d been born and bred to live.
One
Four months later. The Royal Diner, Royal, Texas
Gearing up for the breakfast rush, Anna snagged a juice glass on her way to the cooler, filled it and breezed on out toward booth number six. She reset the coffeemaker on her way by as a fleeting thought of her wild escape from Obersbourg four months ago ran through her mind. So much had happened—the risky rescue, the safety factor that was at best a fluid thing while Ivan continued a full-scale search for her, her fear for Sara’s babies until Gregory’s brother, Blake, had rescued them and brought them safely to Royal. Yet in spite of all that, a soft smile tilted her lips as she thought of something Gregory had said to her on that midnight flight. Something that had seemed ominous then, amusing now.
“Don’t worry, Anna. No one in town will know who you are, much less recognize you. We’ve seen to that.”
At the time, she hadn’t understood what he’d meant. Two days later he’d shown up at her door with a pink polyester uniform and instructed her to report for work as a waitress at the Royal Diner as part of her cover to keep her identity concealed. She’d understood perfectly then.
As unthinkable as it had seemed at the time, his intent had been as clear as Waterford crystal: Anna von Oberland—whose royal blood lines could be traced back over seven centuries, who had been tutored by the most prestigious private instructors in Europe, then Swiss educated at the collegiate level, who owned advanced degrees m business and economics, who was successor to the throne of kings—was to be transformed from Her Most Serene Royal Highness, the Esteemed Princess of Obersbourg, to a waitress, in the form of down-home girl, Annie Grace.
The unthinkable hadn’t ended there. Neither had the surprises. In the past months since she’d been hiding out in Royal as Annie Grace, she’d not only played the part of Annie Grace, she’d been having the time of her life.
One of the reasons for all that fun grinned at her from behind the grill as she elbowed up to the cook’s counter to place an order.
A pair of coal-black eyes met hers, sparkling flirtatiously. “You have a need, Annie-mine?”
“I have a need for a short stack, two eggs over easy, a side of bacon, wheat-no-butter, please, Manny.”
“Sure thing, Annie sweetheart, darlin’ dear. Anything else I can do for you while my fire’s hot?”
Anna tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. Even if she hadn’t caught the meaningful waggle of Manny Reno’s dark brows, she’d have known he wasn’t referring to the fire under his grill. Manny, a beautiful Chicano bodybuilder and part-time cook, was an incorrigible and accomplished flirt. And like most of the hardy Texans she’d met since Gregory had eased her quietly into Royal four months ago, he was also about as dangerous as a slice of his coconut cream pie.
Grinning, she clipped the order to the revolving wheel above the counter and reached for the coffeepot. “Give me a break, Manny. It’s 6:00 a.m. It’s Monday. I haven’t built up the strength yet to spar with you.”
“Well, you see now, beautiful girl...” Manny’s black eyes danced from the rich caramel backdrop of his face. “...that’s all part of my strategy. Get’cha while you’re not awake enough to fight this intense attraction you feel for me.”
“Well...there is that.” She shot him a coy smile then sobered abruptly. “Oh, wait.” Bracing a hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes. “I feel something—yes. Here it is now. My better judgment just arrived to save the day. Whew. That was close. For a minute there, I almost lost my head. Sorry, Manny—and we were going to have such a good time, too.”
“Oh, maaan.” Manny groaned, heavy on the theatrics, as he poured batter onto the griddle, then expertly flipped an omelette. “You are breaking my heart here.”
Sheila Foster sidled up to the counter just then, hooked an order on the clip. She sliced Anna a quick, conspiratorial wink before firing her own shot at Manny. “You gotta have a heart to get one broken.”
Sheila was currently single, twice divorced and fighting a size twelve for all she was worth. The fact that she had a hard and heavy case on Manny wasn’t lost on Anna. Neither was it lost on Manny, who, after almost two months of drooling over Sheila, hadn’t worked up the courage to do something about it.
“Who’s callin’ the kettle black, little Sheba?” Manny accused with a grin so sweet Anna could almost taste the honey.
“It’s Sheila, you big ape, and I’ve got a heart. I just don’t see any point wasting any extra beats over you.”
“You know you’re nuts about me, my little chili pepper.”
“The only one nuts around here is you. Now is my number five up yet or did you have to run down a chicken and squeeze the eggs out of her?”
Laughing at their good-natured sniping, Anna headed for the booth where Homer Gaffney sat. Homer smiled when she approached, causing deep creases to dig even deeper grooves into the wizened old face that looked up at her from beneath the dusty brim of a stained and dented straw cowboy hat.
“Here’s your juice, Homer. And you’re drinking regular, not decaf this morning, right?”
“Gotta have the high octane this mornin’, Annie. Full day ahead a’ me. Movin’ the herd. From the sound of things we’ll be bucking stout sou’west winds and a boatload of dust. I’m gonna need all the caffeine I can get.”
As she filled Homer’s cup, she felt that little prickle of unease that sometimes crept up on her when someone looked at her in that I’ve-seen-you-before-kind-of-way. The way Homer was looking at her now.
“I just can’t get over how much you look like that fancy princess woman. Oh, what is her name, anyway?”
“Fergie?” she suggested and worked hard at manufacturing a teasing smile.
“Naw. That other one—the one from some foreign sounding place. You sure you ain’t some long lost twin got switched at birth?”
“Homer, Homer.” She forced a playful, chiding tone. “Last week you said you thought I looked like a movie star. I’ll tell you what, though—if you can figure out some way to make me into a princess, I’ll figure out a way to make you my prince.”
Homer laughed, blushed and tugged on his hat brim. “I’d be more frog than prince—and I don’t allow my Martha would much go for me running off with you. It’s a nice thought, though, huh?”
“You bet, Homer.” She laid a hand on his shoulder then walked away. “It’s a very nice thought.”
It was also a thought that, thankfully, didn’t occur too often. When it did, she generally handled it the same way as she had with Homer just now. She’d laugh, joke and walk away. So far it had worked. Yet the possibility always loomed that the day might come when her luck on that count would run out and someone would recognize her.
Refusing to think about that now, she answered Manny’s ding—he signaled with a little silver bell when an order was up—and delivered an omelette and a sweet roll. Then she quickly bussed two tables and raked in two dollars and some odd change in tips. As she headed back for Homer’s short stack and eggs, she was completely oblivious of the diner’s shortcomings when compared to the grandeur that had once been her life at Obersbourg Palace.
The Royal Diner was your basic greasy spoon café, nonalcoholic watering hole, town meeting place and coffee klatch all wrapped up in one. Just as unlikely as Anna becoming adept as a waitress was the fact that the diner had also become her refuge. She loved every inch of the place—from the worn and cracked dull-gray linoleum floor tiles to the faded red plastic on the booth seats to the scratched chrome strips edging the tabletops and the counter with its dozen stools.
She loved the steamy warmth of it. The smell of it. The sinfully juicy hamburgers that Manny cooked on his grill, the decadently thick chocolate malts that she had learned to make on the ancient malt machine. She even loved the thin film of smoke and grease coating the plate glass windows that Hazel, the owner, had tried to pretty up with muslin curtains.
She knew it wasn’t supposed to work like this. She knew that Gregory had set her up with this waitress ruse because he thought she would consider it menial and beneath her. A princess wasn’t supposed to mingle with, let alone wait on, the common folk. It was his subtle way, she supposed, of paying her back for what she’d done to him years ago.
She understood his motives. She even forgave him. Just like she forgave him for making himself as scarce as a snowstorm in West Texas. Even though his deliberate absence hurt, she figured he was entitled. He’d known she would be forced to take the waitress job—as he’d put it, hiding in plain sight—rather than risk having undue attention focused on the reclusive young woman and child in The Royal Court Complex, apartment 3B.
What Gregory hadn’t understood was that while she had been apprehensive at first, it was because she had been afraid she couldn’t do the work, not because she didn’t want to do it. Another thing Gregory hadn’t understood was that while normal little girls dreamed of castles, servants and knights in shining armor, Anna had dreamed of walking barefoot in the grass, of playing hide-and-seek after dark with the village children, of a best friend to share secrets with.
What she had always wanted was to be a part of something as an equal, not set apart as elite. As Princess Anna von Oberland, she’d done elite. She’d lived elite. Elite was lonely and isolating. She’d lived lavishly, surrounded by rare artwork, gilded mirrors and armies of servants. She’d slept in platform beds beneath satin sheets. And yet everything she’d ever wanted had been out of her reach: the ultimate excitement of the absolutely mundane.
As Annie Grace, the waitress, she’d found that—in an austere two-bedroom apartment and, of all things, an alarm clock. She loved her alarm clock. Like William, it gave her purpose. It gave her a reason to get up and be useful on the most basic level.
Here, in Royal, she was a small part of a whole, and despite everything that had happened, it felt wonderful. She was a single mom, working for a living. And she felt, for the first time in her life, as if she belonged. It was another of life’s strange ironies that as she played the role of a waitress, she felt more real than at any other time in her life.
Even better, since arriving in Royal, she was seeing things in William that she had always yearned to see. While he was still reserved and slow to trust, he smiled more. He even laughed sometimes without fear of reprisal. Harriet Sherman, her next door neighbor and volunteer baby-sitter, had been responsible for much of that.
Manny hit the bell again, snapping her head up. She hurried to pick up a morning special and remembered how difficult it had been to leave William in Harriet’s care that first morning. Even with Gregory’s assurances that Harriet was his employee and that he’d positioned her next door to Anna’s apartment for the sole purpose of looking after both her and William, it had been hard leaving him.
Now it was hard to think of taking him away from here, away from Harriet and her loving arms and oatmeal raisin cookies. But she knew she must eventually return to Obersbourg and face her obligations.
She squared her shoulders, drew a bracing breath. Ivan wouldn’t call off his dogs. He would not give up on trying to strong-arm her into marriage. And as much as it hurt to acknowledge it, her parents would continue to offer her up to Ivan as the prize to save Obersbourg’s sovereignty.
Even accepting all this, she knew she must return. Obersbourg was her country. Her birthright. Her obligation. Hopefully, she would be stronger for her time here in Royal. Hopefully, she would come up with a solution to her country’s grave dilemma that didn’t require marriage to a man she had despised even before she’d begun to suspect he was involved in Sara’s death.
For all of those reasons, the thought of leaving Royal haunted her. Soon, though, she would have one less reason to stay. As of Sunday, her final tie to her sister, Sara, would be severed. One more link with Ivan would be broken. And while Gregory would never be hers again to lose, one more reason for his protection would also be negated.
Her sunny mood of moments ago was as lost as the sun that had disappeared beneath the dust inspired by a tenacious and sustained wind. Reality encroached severely on Annie Grace’s fantasy world. Like an unyielding and vengeful enemy, it deposited the weight of obligation and the cold hard facts of duty back into the hands of Anna von Oberland—all to the relentless tick of the clock as time slowly ran out on her.
The King and Queen of Obersbourg’s entire existence exemplified saving face at all costs, celebrated the triumph of appearance over reality. So it was sadly ironic, Anna thought, that in her boldest act of defiance yet, she had resorted to practicing the ruling principle of her parents’ lives—a principle she abhorred.
This Sunday, however, she played their game to the letter. She watched the happy celebration unfold before her in the grand salon of the Texas Cattleman’s Club with a plastic smile in place when the reality was that her heart was breaking. She murmured the appropriate words when her only triumph was in the knowledge that no one knew how much her actions had cost her.
As promised, Miranda and Edward, her sister’s twin babies, had been rescued by Gregory’s brother Blake. They were safe—thank God they were safe here in Texas—but as of today, they were no longer hers to protect. As of today, they were no longer hers at all.
In one of the hardest decisions of her life, she had given them up. She had given them over to the loving arms of Blake and his new bride, Josie.
It was the right thing to do, she told herself, just as she had told herself repeatedly since Blake had brought the babies to Texas. Blake and Josie loved them. They would ensure that Anna’s promise to Sara would be fulfilled.
“Promise me, Anna. Promise me,” Sara had pleaded shortly after the twins were born. “If anything happens to me...promise me you won’t let mother and father raise them. Promise me you’ll get them out of Obersbourg and find someone who will love and nurture there.”
Anna had smiled back then at her little sister’s dramatic plea. Sara had always been the actress of the two of them. The rebel. The wild little princess who thumbed her nose in the face of tradition, laughed at the rigors of royal protocol.
Bracing against a fresh wave of pain, Anna drew herself erect. It was because of Ivan Striksky that Sara would never laugh again. The final proof had arrived yesterday. Gregory had sent the damning evidence over to the diner via messenger.
She was still trying to come to grips with the words in the fax sent by the attorney who had handled the estate of Marcus Dumond, Ivan’s horse trainer. Marcus had been much more than a horse trainer, as it turned out. Anna had known he had once been Sara’s lover. She hadn’t known that Marcus was the father of the twins. And now, because Gregory had ferreted out the truth, she had proof that the car crash that had killed both Sara and Marcus had been arranged by Ivan.
The rumble of deep, masculine laughter dragged her away from her thoughts of that devastating news and back to the reason for today’s celebration. Today was the day she had agreed to officially release the twins for adoption. Today was the day she severed her last tie to Sara.
She made herself shut out the ugly string of events that had brought her here and focused on the happiness around her. Blake was a good man. Josie a good woman. Both were all smiles as they stood side by side, each of them cradling one of the babies in their arms. And while she had agonized about her decision, in the end she knew she’d had no choice. It had been Sara’s wish.
Just like she’d had no choice but to attend today’s celebration. Thank God for Harriet, she thought, as she so often had in the past months. Sensing intuitively that Anna would need to draw on all her resources to keep herself together, she had volunteered to take William to a movie today.
“Anna?”
She blinked, automatically set a smile in place even before she realized it was Josie who had walked up beside her and lightly touched her arm.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” She broadened her smile, and even though her heart was breaking, opened her arms to little Miranda when Josie held her out to her. Tears filled her eyes as Miranda reached up and tangled her little fingers in Anna’s hair.
Life was so strange, she thought, smiling down at the happily gurgling baby. When Blake had finally managed to smuggle the babies out of Europe and into Texas, he’d run into the storm of the century while driving across the state with them. Josie had spotted his car in a washed-out ravine. Blake had been unconscious, the babies crying and hungry. Josie had managed to get them all home to her farmhouse, and during Blake’s recovery, while he’d struggled to regain his memory that had been temporarily lost in the crash, they’d fallen deeply in love—with each other and with the twins.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Josie murmured, breaking into Anna’s thoughts.
“Yes,” Anna agreed softly. Relishing the warmth and the sweet scent of the baby in her arms, she held her closer. “She’s very beautiful.”
The silence that followed rang hollow with the unspoken pain of her loss.
“You will always be her aunt, Anna.” Sensitive to Anna’s regrets, Josie’s eyes, when Anna met them, were kind and reassuring. “You will always be Edward’s aunt. They’re your family. Please, don’t doubt that. We won’t ever take that away from you.”
Anna blinked hard, gave Josie a genuine smile as Blake, with Edward sleeping soundly in his arms, joined them.
“I know,” she said. “Just like I know they’ll have a far better home and life with you than if I were to take them back to Obersbourg.”
She didn’t doubt that for one moment. Even as William’s mother, she had difficulty exercising authority over how he was raised. As the twins’ aunt, her influence would be even more limited. She couldn’t bear to have happen to them what happened to Sara. She couldn’t let two sweet, precious lives be ruled by the iron fist of her father and the apathetic blind eye of her mother. If subjected to her parents’ strict code of discipline, like Sara, they might eventually rebel. Like Sara, they might turn to a wild and destructive lifestyle—like the one that had played a part in ending her life.
Her next words were spoken as much to herself as to Blake and Josie. “They have a chance for a normal life now. I have to believe that.” She stopped, braced and deliberately met Josie’s concerned gaze, then Blake’s. “I do believe that. Just like I believe Sara would have approved. You’re very special. Both of you.”
Blake’s warm brown eyes, so different from his brother Gregory’s distant blue, probed hers. “No regrets.”
She kissed Miranda lightly on the cheek and handed her back to Josie before answering with conviction. “I have many regrets in all of this—the decision to give up the twins to you is not one of them.”
Josie embraced her then, her own eyes brimming with tears.
“Oh, no.” Anna managed a shaky laugh. “Don’t you dare start. I’m lost if you cry—and this is a party, remember? Go. Go party.”
“You’re okay then?” Blake touched a hand to her arm.
“I told you. I’m fine. Now go. I saw your father looking for you.”
As she watched them walk away, a bittersweet ache in her chest, someone accidentally bumped into her, then apologized profusely. For the first time today, her smile was spontaneous. Since Gregory had brought her here to Royal, she had grown to appreciate the Texas style of gallantry, the open friendliness of its people.
She made herself focus on the gathering, recognized many of the faces, faces’ of people who knew her as Annie Grace, just a waitress at the diner. Aside from Blake and Josie, only Gregory and Harriet and the three men who had assisted him on the Alpha mission to rescue her last September—Hank Langley, Sterling Churchill, Forrest Cunningham—knew her true identity. They too, had joined the celebration. So had their wives, Callie, Susan, and Becky.
She had taken special notice of Gregory and Blake’s parents, Janine and Carson Hunt. She wasn’t certain how much Gregory’s parents knew about the twins’ situation—or about hers. She only knew that they looked at her through kind eyes that made her yearn for something she’d never received from her own parents. Carson was a robust bear of a man with crinkled brown eyes and a thick head of silver hair. Janine was lovely. Diminutive in stature, yet obviously her own woman, her blue eyes, so like Gregory’s, were warm, bold and full of life as she welcomed Edward and Miranda to the family with loving arms.
The only person noticeably absent was Gregory. True to form, since that September morning when he’d settled her into the apartment, he had made it a point to be absent if she was anywhere in the vicinity. His influence had been known in many other ways, however. It was Gregory who had expedited the adoption process by calling in some markers, taking advantage of his connections with both the bar and the bench. And it was the respect he’d earned in the community that had kept public speculation about the twins’ parentage to a minimum. There was acceptance that they now belonged to Blake and Josie—a simple fact.
It was for the best all around that he maintained his distance from her, she knew. It saved her from answering questions for which he would eventually demand answers. Still, there was regret associated with the knowledge. Just as there was a sudden, chest-tightening anticipation when, on the heels of those thoughts, Gregory walked in the door.
Her heart clenched, as it always did, when she saw him. His dark good looks and impressive presence set him apart even m this room full of men who were unequaled among men. Above all else, though, the tension strung tight around his mouth, the intensity in his eyes held her riveted as he walked unerringly toward her.
When he took her hand in his, relayed the need for silence through a quick, firm squeeze, she was filled with a sudden, intuitive awareness that what he was about to tell her would change her life forever.
Her heart skipped several beats. “Gregory... what is it?”
She searched his face with a heightening premonition of dread as he shook his head then sought and found his brother and the men who had been in on the Alpha rescue mission. With a clipped lift of his chin, he signaled them to follow him.
Her heart plummeted to her stomach as he led her in suspended silence to a small room off the main salon. Langley, Churchill, and Sterling, along with Blake and Josie, who had handed off the twins to Gregory’s parents, followed then shut the door behind them.
“What’s happened?” Panic had become a valid and violent contender for the apprehension that clogged her throat.
After a moment’s pause, Gregory captured her gaze with the same strength as his firm grip on her hands.
“Ivan Striksky is dead.” The softness of his voice was no cushion for the shock of his announcement.
The jolt weakened her knees. With Gregory’s solemn arrival, she’d expected news of Ivan. But this...
She felt suddenly as if she’d fallen into a vacuous tunnel, where sound, shape and texture blended together in a numbing, surreal kaleidoscope of confusion.
“Dead?” she heard someone ask and knew on a peripheral level that someone was her.
A circle of concerned faces closed supportively around her. She heard Josie’s soft voice whisper her name and urge her to sit down as Hank settled a protective hand to her back.
“What...how?”
A hush filled the room as the four men and one woman who were privileged to the specifics of Anna’s true identity and her midnight flight from Obersbourg listened in stunned amazement as Gregory related what details he had managed to find out about Prince Ivan Striksky’s suicide.
Two
She was running... running through maze after maze. Long bony hands grabbed at her. Chased unrelentingly. She was so tired. Her legs wouldn’t support her. She stumbled, searched, desperate to find a light that never came. For a haven that never opened to her. Then she was trapped And the hands. Hundreds of hands grabbed at her...
Heart racing, Anna bolted wildly up in bed, wrestled with tangled sheets. Stumbling blindly to the window, she threw it open, swallowing a scream. Even in the grips of the nightmare, her concern was for William. She didn’t want to frighten him. He’d been through enough.
A reassuring rush of arid, West Texas air hit her full in the face as she braced her palms on the sill. She dragged it in—deep, hungry drafts—and willed herself toward lucidity.
Clinging desperately to the reality that was now, she reached for the presence of mind that would assure her it was over. They were safe.
Even after months of haunting her nights, when the nightmare hit, it still took Anna by surprise. Tonight it was worse than the other nights. Tonight it had grabbed her by the throat. Had her heart slamming in her chest, her breath catching. The hideous grip of it had strangled her as darkness enfolded her in cloying, suffocating isolation.
Calmer now, she opened her eyes, felt a cool breeze feather across her perspiration-drenched skin and sagged in weary relief against the open window frame. Then she made herself recount the last four months in her mind to cement the fact one more time that it was really over.
She and William were safe.
The twins were safe with Blake and Josie.
And Ivan was dead.
Ivan was dead.
She shivered and drew away from the window as the memory of his suicide and the December breeze rustling her damp nightgown combined to pebble her skin with gooseflesh. Dragging a hand through her tousled hair, she sank back down on the edge of the bed, dug her palms into the blanket at her hips and forced several steadying breaths.
It was at times like these that she wished she could drink like some of the rowdy Texans she’d grown to know and appreciate since she’d arrived in Royal. A good, stiff shot of straight-up bourbon might settle the demons that had robbed her of yet another night’s sleep.
“Face them,” she whispered into the darkness.
There is no more fear, she reminded herself staunchly and willed the residual trembling in her hands to steady. No more fear. Only decisions that needed to be made. So many decisions—
A sudden pounding on her door shot her heart straight back to her throat. She vaulted to her feet, whirled toward the sound.
“Anna...Anna are you all right?”
Gregory.
Relief was swift and draining as she rushed toward the door, not wanting to wake William who was sound asleep in the other bedroom. When she reached the small foyer, she threw the deadbolt. With both hands clutching the heavy steel door, she opened it a crack and met the dark concern in a pair of hard blue eyes shaded by the brim of a coal-black Stetson.
Since those first few days when Gregory had settled her into this small apartment, he had never again crossed the threshold. The cool message of that statement had not been lost to her. He had come to her aid when she’d needed him, but he’d made it clear as a Texas sky that he wanted no part of her life. So seeing him here now, at this hour, on the heels of the nightmare, was beyond her comprehension.
“What... what are you doing here?”
His expression was as dark as the night, his eyes as cool as chipped ice. “I was on my way home from the Club when the lights on the alarm panel in my pickup lit up like a Christmas tree.”
She sagged against the door, raked the hair away from her face as understanding dawned. When he’d first shown her the apartment, he’d told her with terse words and military precision about the silent alarm he’d installed on all the windows and doors in the event Ivan found her. The alarm was electronically linked to the Texas Cattleman’s Club that he and the rest of the Alpha team frequented to his home in Pine Valley and his personal vehicles.
“I didn’t think. I...I had a bad dream,” she confessed with reluctance. “I needed some air and threw open the window. I’m sorry. I forgot about the alarm system.”
Greg stared down at the woman who had created enough havoc in his life to mount a small uprising. He’d known when he’d answered her call for help last August that he’d been opening up a Pandora’s box full of problems. He’d been prepared for the investment of time, tactics and diplomacy. He’d had to employ plenty of both, not the least of which had been keeping Anna safe and the Alpha team apprised and on the lookout for Striksky when he’d gotten word that the prince had been on his way to the States a couple of weeks ago.
Then there was the adoption and that business with Marcus Dumond’s attorney when he’d ferreted out the truth of Striksky’s role in Sara’s death. And finally, keeping the prince’s suicide hush-hush and arranging for his body to be shipped quietly back to Asterland’s embassy last week had been as tricky as any litigation he’d ever handled. He was damn glad that was behind him and that explaining Ivan’s demise was the government of Asterland’s problem now.
So, no it wasn’t the time that bothered him. It was the emotional investment he hadn’t bargained for. It was the emotional investment that came with the highest price tag.
To cut his losses, he’d kept his distance from Anna. Hell, as much as possible, he’d kept his distance from Royal, flying to Dallas, or Houston and even a couple of trips to Georgia to tidy up some legal ends at the Hunt aircraft plant. Much to his friends’ dismay, he’d also kept his own counsel where Anna was concerned. Seeing her like this though—hovering on the ragged edge of a nightmare, clinging valiantly to a pride that she didn’t realize her vulnerability undercut—the cost of his bid to stay away from her climbed a little higher.
He’d been skirting her like a wolf circling a fire, avoiding all but the most necessary encounters. And even though Ivan was no longer a threat, when her alarm had sounded a few minutes ago, his heart had pumped into overdrive. He’d rammed the gas pedal on his truck to the floor and flown across town to get to her.
He could see now that she was safe. She was safe, but she was far from all right. Her green eyes were wild with residual fear. He had little doubt that if she could manage to pry her fingers off the door, they’d be trembling like leaves in a windstorm.
He’d seen her like this before—on the night the Alpha team had stolen her out of Obersbourg, then a week ago when he’d broken the news that Striksky was dead. He hadn’t been able to turn his back on her then. As much as his better judgment warned him against it, he couldn’t do it now, not and live with himself—a characteristic that may yet prove to be his fatal flaw where Anna was concerned:
Steeling himself against the urge to fold her into his arms and hold her until her trembling stopped or until he initiated something they’d both be sorry about later, he very gently pried the slim fingers that had gone white off the door. Knowing he’d regret it, he opened it wide enough to accommodate his shoulders and slipped inside.
After shutting the door behind him and disarming the alarm panel, he turned back to her. “You got any of that sissy mint tea you managed to get Harriet hooked on?”
Her lips trembled only slightly as she gave him the small smile he’d been hoping for.
“I think I can scare some up.” Brushing her hair back from her face, she headed for the kitchen.
He’d congratulated himself a hundred times for deploying Harriet Sherman—“Tank” to those who had worked with her before she’d retired from the military—next door to Anna in the role of watchdog in the guise of nosy neighbor, motherly confidante and baby-sitter. With Harriet nearby the past four months, he’d slept a little easier knowing Striksky had very quietly launched a worldwide search for Anna. In this last dark week since Striksky, faced with international humiliation when his underhanded scheme had failed, had committed suicide not five miles from Royal, he’d been doubly glad to have Harriet in place to help Anna through that ugly mess.
It was obvious to him now, however, that she was still struggling with the backlash. Standing in the arched doorway of her small kitchen, he set his jaw, told himself he’d stay long enough to make sure she was steady again. Then he’d get the hell out of the combat zone.
In the meantime, he had to work hard at snuffing out a hundred intimate details that made up the immediate moment: Like the fact that he was alone with her—something he’d managed to avoid until now. Like the fact that it was the middle of the night, the hour of shared beds, shared warmth and shared bodies. Like the damnable itch on the palms he clenched as tight as his jaw to keep from reaching out to touch her milk-white shoulder. A shoulder that was bare beneath the thin silk strap of her short, clingy nightgown. Skin that radiated a honey scent, which beckoned, enticed and clung to the midnight air like fragrance on a rose.
He knew what that skin felt like beneath his fingers, against his tongue. He knew how she tasted. What it felt like to lose himself deep inside her—like drowning in heated silk, like sinking into sweet, tight oblivion. And every night since she’d been in Royal—her safely tucked away in her apartment, and him wherever his nocturnal wanderings took him—he’d remembered every intimate detail of the love they had made.
He bit back a low growl of frustration at the turn of his thoughts. Yet when he saw that her hands were still trembling violently in the aftermath of her nightmare, he took two stalking strides toward her.
“Sit,” he demanded and made himself grip her shoulders at arm’s length. In a no-nonsense motion, he guided her to a chair and sat her down. “How often does this happen?”
She sat as still as a block of wood, her hands clutched tightly in her lap. “Just...not often.”
Not often, my ass, he thought with a dark scowl. He’d bet his portfolio this was a nightly occurrence. Swearing as much at the clench of sympathy he felt in his chest as at his body’s reaction to the way her deep breath stretched the pale-blue silk tight over the softness of her breasts, he turned back to the counter and slammed around filling the teakettle.
When he’d set it on to boil and settled himself, he turned back to her. Leaning his hips against the counter, he crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his hands under his armpits, where they wouldn’t lead him into trouble.
“You don’t lie worth a damn, Your Highness.”
Immediately regretting the angry edge he’d let creep into his voice, he worked at gentling his tone. “You want to talk about it?”
Eyes downcast, she gave a small, tight shake of her head.
Fighting a crushing awareness of her vulnerability, he stared at that tumble of blond hair a long time before he was able to speak again. “You’ve been through a lot, Anna. Maybe you ought to consider seeing someone...a doctor or someone to help you through this.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” she bristled, lifting her chin and gracing him with a valiant, aristocratic smile. “Besides, how would it look? A von Oberland in therapy? It wouldn’t do. Appearances at all costs you know. Wouldn’t want the world to get wind that the royal blood was anything but true blue.”
He narrowed his eyes, studied her long and hard. A little starch looked good on her. It was a sign she was still fighting. Suddenly he didn’t feel so bad about baiting her with the “Your Highness” crack, even though anger had provoked it. The fact was, like it or not, he had a lot of anger built up inside where Princess Anna was concerned. He’d held it in check for four years, but ever since he’d brought her here, he’d felt it escalating.
It seemed like forever instead of mere months that he’d been fighting feelings he didn’t want to admit to and blaming her for being the cause. He’d done his duty. He’d gotten her out of Obersbourg, then watched from afar, made sure she was safe. Just like he’d made sure she was set up in this apartment in his own building, that she was absorbed into the small community of Royal as Annie Grace, a distant cousin of some city father too far removed for anyone to question in any depth. He’d seen her dressed in her hot-pink waitress uniform, with her hair pulled back into a nondescript pony tail, waiting tables at the local greasy spoon—a job he’d set up for her. A job he’d secretly hoped she would find appalling and so far beneath her she would have stomped her regal foot and thrown a royal tantrum.
In retrospect, he wasn’t too proud of himself for stooping so low as to want to humiliate her. Not that his plan had worked, anyway. She hadn’t done one damn thing he’d expected.
What she’d done was adjust. Without comment. Without complaint—and he’d been the one left feeling devalued.
She’d taken to the waitress role as if she’d been born with an order pad in her hand instead of a gilded rattle. She’d waited tables, laughed with the locals and looked and acted like she’d enjoyed every minute of it.
Act is the key word here, he told himself, working hard to reinforce his cynicism where she was concerned. He didn’t dare forget that she was a consummate actress—had played the role of her life when she’d made him fall in love with her.
He rolled a shoulder, shook it off. That was then. This was now. And love—whatever the hell that was—didn’t have anything to do with what he was feeling for her now. What he was feeling for her now, he told himself, was a grudging tolerance that had gotten tangled up in a misplaced sense of responsibility. And a leftover sexual obsession that he had no intention of indulging.
Stone-faced, he turned toward the whistle of the kettle, set it off the heat and snagged a pair of mugs from her cupboard. As he held the chunky stoneware in his hand, he worked hard to convince himself that the princess was no doubt missing the delicacy and the elegance of her seventeenth century fine bone china and the servants who all but drank her tea for her. Yet when he set the mug in front of her, she cupped it gratefully between her small hands, absorbed the welcome warmth, first through her fingertips then with her mouth, as she touched the mug to her lips.
A knot of tension that was becoming all too familiar when he was around her coiled tight in his gut.
“I’m fine now.” She made a forced attempt to sound more steady, more centered. “You don’t have to babysit me. People have bad dreams. It’s not a big deal.”
A muscle in his jaw worked involuntarily and he stated the facts as he saw them. “And you don’t have to put on some brave front. This has been hard on you. There’s no shame in admitting it.”
The stunned look in her eyes as she reacted to his unexpected empathy momentarily silenced them both.
“Right,” she said finally. “No shame.”
Her voice so full of the shame she was trying to deny, it made his chest hurt.
She sat so still. Her slender fingers were wrapped around that mug like it was her only anchor. Her gaze was focused on something much further away than the clock on the far kitchen wall. And her voice, when she finally spoke, sounded as weary as time.
“I wanted Ivan out of my life,” she all but whispered into a silence that had grown heavy and thick. “I’d prayed he would be made to pay for whatever part he played in Sara’s death, for holding Sara’s babies hostage.” She lifted eyes glittering with unshed tears, stared at a time and place far away from Royal, Texas. “God help me, I wanted him dead.”
The guilt etched on her face clogged his throat with emotion. He swallowed it back. Waited.
Haunted eyes flicked to his then quickly away. “I’m glad he’s dead. For everything he’d done, everything he tried to do. I’m glad he’s dead,” she repeated and once again, met his eyes. Once again, she looked away as if she was ashamed. “What does that make me? What kind of monster does that make me?”
Everything she wouldn’t let him see in her eyes was manifested in those self-indicting words, in the thready hopelessness of her voice. He wanted to drag her into his arms and hold her so she wouldn’t splinter in a million pieces. Yet he sensed that if he touched her now, she would shatter. Like a beautiful spun glass swan. Like a priceless crystal vase.
Since he didn’t think that both of them together could gather all the pieces if she fell apart, he made his voice as gentle as he knew how.
“What it makes you is human, Anna. It makes you human—nothing more. Nothing less. The prince was an opportunist. He was a murderer. And he was a coward—he proved it when he jumped off the bridge south of town. You had no part in that. You had no part in anything he did.”
Despite the sense of his argument, her silence told him she felt she had played a very huge part in it. The next words out of her mouth confirmed it.
“If I had married him he’d be alive, though, wouldn’t he? Sara might even be alive—”
It galled him to hell and back that she would take even an ounce of blame on her slim shoulders. He drew a deep breath, laid a hand on her arm. “Look—”
She jumped as if she’d been burned. “It’s all right,” she insisted abruptly. So abruptly he could only stare as she shook off his touch and rose. “I’m sorry...I’m sorry the alarm bothered you. I’m sorry I laid all this on you. But it’s all right now. I’m all right now.”
She was out of the kitchen and racing for her front door so quickly he was left standing flat-footed in his anaconda boots and a scowl. He glanced at his raised hand, curled his fingers slowly into a loose fist.
Fine, he decided, accepting that his touch had set her off. Obviously, she didn’t want him here any more than he wanted to be here. And as sure as hell was fire, he didn’t want to get all tangled up in caring about her again.
“Call Harriet if you need anything,” he said gruffly and headed for the door. Shouldering past her, he swung it wide.
He wouldn’t have thought anything could have kept him from barreling out of her apartment. Not her tears. Not her guilt.
He hadn’t counted on her touch.
It stopped him cold. It stopped his heart.
Very slowly, he turned his head, looked down at the small hand that lay so tentatively on his arm, then into the eyes of the one woman who could turn hard muscle to yearning flesh, turn simple heat to complex need.
Through all of this, if there had been contact—as minimal and necessary as it had been—he’d been the one to initiate it. He hadn’t initiated this. Just like he hadn’t initiated the explosion of memories her singular act had stirred. Slender hands trailing down the arch of his bare spine, delicate fingers tracing the point of his hip, tangling in his hair, caressing him, urging him closer, demanding him deeper.
He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw so tight he heard a dull pop. Then her whispered, “I’m sorry, Gregory. I’m so sorry for everything,” as her fingers drifted slowly away.
For a long moment he stood there. Struggling for something to say. Reaching for something to do. The better part of wisdom, however, overrode either instinct.
“Lock the door behind me,” he ordered in a rusty voice and strode into the hall without a backward glance. He hit the apartment stairs at a jog and bounded down them and into the night. The urgency of his need to get away from her was suddenly more powerful than the one that had had him shooting across town to get to her.
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Cindy Gerard
THE LOYAL PROTECTORGregory Hunt had always been the best - whether he was handling the toughest legal cases in Texas or coming to the rescue of damsels in distress. Only, this particular damsel was one he had loved once before - the regal Princess Anna von Oberland, whose privileged position made her off-limits.Now she needed his help, and Gregory had to risk all to save her. Because under the watchful, yearning eyes of Anna's four-year-old son - whose handsome features strikingly resembled his own - this tried-and-true Texan sensed more urgency than ever!Five wealthy Texas bachelors - all members of the state's most exclusive club - set out on a mission to rescue a princess… and find true love.
Letter to Reader (#ufab38ae7-aed4-5220-92b2-cc66babe8974)Title Page (#udf3c408d-c5b0-557f-b3fe-926fa7006560)Dedication (#u9e358c71-9fdd-53eb-9db8-a121428465a4)About the Author (#u8ed7e1a0-be56-59e5-883d-85a96d631e35)“What’s Happening in Royal?” (#ucb21b390-e469-5dcd-9b25-d36dfed1ddaf)Prologue (#u319e6ef8-26e2-5d52-83a6-a2b26d5adb3b)Chapter One (#ueeb6ad0f-9350-52fd-963e-7c0f975ca057)Chapter Two (#u8d3abd6e-1f26-57fd-a22e-11941b3af063)Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
This month, in LONE STAR PRINCE
by Cindy Gerard, meet Gregory Hunt—
a lawyer extraordinaire who hides his vulnerability
behind cynical eyes. Until he rescues the
one woman he could never forget,
Princess Anna von Oberland—a royal, regal beauty
whose son bears a striking resemblance to our hero!
SILHOUETTE DESIRE IS PROUD TO PRESENT THE
Five wealthy Texas bachelors—all members of the state’s most exclusive club—set out on a mission to rescue a princess...and find true love.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the
exhilarating miniseries
Texas Cattlman’s Club,
only from Silhouette Desire!
Dear Reader,
Merry Christmas from Silhouette Desire—where you’re guaranteed powerful, passionate and provocative love stories that feature rugged heroes and spirited heroines who experience the full emotional intensity of falling in love!
The always-wonderful Cait London is back with this December’s MAN OF THE MONTH, who happens to be one of THE BLAYLOCKS. In Typical Male, a modern warrior hero is attracted to the woman who wants to destroy him.
The thrilling Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB concludes with Lone Star Prince by Cindy Gerard. Her Royal Princess Anna von Oberland finally reunites with the dashing attorney Gregory Hunt who fathered her child years ago.
Talented Ashley Summers returns to Desire with That Loving Touch, where a pregnant woman becomes snowbound with a sexy executive in his cabin. The everpopular BACHELOR BATTALION gets into the holiday spirit with Marine under the Mistletoe by Maureen Child. Star-Crossed Lovers is a Romeo-and-Juliet-with-a-happy-ending story by Zena Valentine. And an honorable cowboy demands the woman pregnant with his child many him in Christy Lockhart’s The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby.
Each and every month, Silhouette Desire offers you six exhilarating journeys into the seductive world of romance. So make a commitment to sensual love and treat yourself to all six for some great holiday reading this month!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Please address questions and book requests to
Silhouette Reader Service
U S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian. P.O Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Lone Star Prince
Cindy Gerard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to the ladies of the Club, Dixie Browning.
Caroline Cross, Peggy Moreland and Metsy Hingle.
Ladies—it’s been a treat. I’m so glad I was along for the ride!
Special thanks to Leanne Banks, Susan Connell and
Glenna McReynolds for their friendship, their extraordinary insights
and their unflagging generosity. I love you guys.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Cindy Gerard
for her contribution to the Texas Cattleman’s Club series
CINDY GERARD
If asked “What’s your idea of heaven?” Cindy Gerard would say a warm sun, a cool breeze, pan pizza and a good book. If she had to settle for one of the four, she’d opt for the book, with the pizza running a close second. Inspired by the pleasure she’s received from the books she’s read and her longtime love affair with her husband, Tom, Cindy now creates her own warm, evocative stories about compelling characters and complex relationships.
All that reading must have paid off, because since winning the Waldenbooks Award for Best Selling Series Romance for a First-Time Author, Cindy has gone on to win the prestigious Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence, Romantic Times Magazine W.I.S.H. awards, Career Achievement and Reviewers’ Choice nominations and the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award nomination for Best Short Contemporary Romance.
“What’s Happening in Royal?”
NEWS FLASH, December 1999—Rumors are running rampant about town that an actual royal princess may be in our midst! There have been unconfirmed reports that Princess Anna von Oberland is missing from her European country of Obersbourg, and may be hiding out in our own Royal, TX. Imagine...a princess in Royal—who would’ve “thunk” it?
Could our rugged Texas Cattleman’s Club members know the whereabouts of Her Royal Highness?
There are those who say that Gregory Hunt—hotshot attorney, Cattleman’s Club member and most eligible of bachelors—may have more than a passing interest in the lovely Princess Anna. In fact, rumor has it that they shared a passionate tryst years ago in her far-off land....
Will the princess be discovered here... and rumors be put to rest? Please stay tuned!
Prologue
September 5th, 2:00 a.m.
Somewhere over the Atlantic
Hollywood couldn’t have staged a more dicey plot An evil prince. A beautiful princess in his clutches. A midnight rescue by an ex-marine and ex-lover, charging in to save the day.
Trouble was, this wasn’t Hollywood. It was all too real, and as Greg Hunt stared grimly across the cabin of the private jet bound for the States, he hadn’t yet decided if he was the hero or the chump in this little melodrama.
The woman gazing vacantly out the window of the starboard side of the aircraft was exhausted, but still, her bearing was regal, her posture erect.
Four years ago when Greg had first met her she’d been beautiful. There was no denying, she was beautiful still. Yet Princess Anna von Oberland, loved by the paparazzi, adored by the masses, had been robbed of the wide-eyed innocence that had struck him as both intriguing and irresistible those many years ago. A haunted, hunted edge had painted pale violet smudges beneath her summer-green eyes, drawn fine lines of tension around a smile that was forced and shallow and reserved only for the child sleeping at her side. Her silk and velvet voice, with its honeyed, husky resonance, spoke of lost summers and faded dreams and hinted of her European lineage only when she was exhausted. Like now.
Shifting uneasily, Greg took his own turn staring out the window into the blackness of night at thirty-one thousand feet. He tried to divorce himself from an unrelenting need to hold her. Seeing her like this—seeing her again—had brought back feelings he’d thought were dead and buried. And while he was relieved she had turned to him for help—was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her—he was also determined not to let her or her solemn-eyed little boy breach the wall he’d built around his emotions when she’d walked away from him four years ago.
Determined, but unfortunately, not one hundred percent successful, he admitted grudgingly. Against all resolve, his mind wandered back to the summer night they’d first met. He’d been a marine on his last tour of duty and then had to return to Texas to take his place -as heir apparent to the Hunt dynasty. On leave in the little European principality of Obersbourg, he’d been taken in completely by the guileless little peasant girl whose eyes had been only for him. He hadn’t known she’d been a princess on the run from her family, her obligations and the stark reality of her position in life—just as she hadn’t known he was anything but a lowly marine.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that their eyes had met, locked, held across a street full of dancers in the plaza. A lifetime since they’d woven their way unerringly through the crowd and into each other’s arms. Since they’d danced. Fallen in love. Made love. And when her true identity had come out, they parted.
He quickly checked the memory. There was no point hashing over that again. It had been four years. He’d put it all behind him—at least he had until he’d received her transatlantic call last week and the panicked sound of her voice had brought it all back like it was yesterday.
“Gregory. I need you. Please come. Please... come.”
So he had. With the backing of Texas billionaire Hank Langley—and Langley’s Avenger, a Hunt Industries aircraft—the able assistance of Sterling Churchill and Forrest Cunningham, all members of Langley’s Texas Cattleman’s Club, they’d smuggled the princess and her son out from under the Obersbourg royal guard not three hours ago. All ex-military men, they had created the Alpha team to tackle this mission.
He scrubbed the back of his knuckles absently against the stubble on his jaw and stared broodily into the dark. As corporate counsel for Hunt Industries and CEO of several companies under the Hunt umbrella, he’d had plenty of work to keep him busy. So he was damned if he knew why he’d been so ready to let himself get wrapped up in her life again. He only knew that this time, it wasn’t by chance. This time there was more at stake than reckless hearts and stolen moments. He didn’t have all the details sorted out, but he knew that Anna’s sister, Sara, and Sara’s lover were dead, the victims of a mysterious car crash. Sara’s infant twins were in the physical custody of Ivan Striksky, the playboy prince of Asterland, who was holding them the equivalent of political hostages as part of a plot to force Anna to marry him. And Greg, it seemed, had been cast in the role of white knight.
White knight, hell, he thought as the hushed whispers of Churchill and Cunningham—men he’d been glad to have guarding his back—drifted from the aft end of the Avenger. This little caper had international incident written all over it. It was going to take a damn sight more than his law degree to smooth some very ruffled, very royal European feathers when this thing broke wide open and the King and Queen of Obersbourg discovered their golden goose was missing.
He stretched his long legs out in front of him, figuring he’d deal with it when it happened. In the meantime, the only part he had left to play in this little scenario was to see Anna safely to the States. She was a resourceful woman; she’d figure out where to go from there. All he needed to do was get on with his life—and quit thinking about why this woman, above all women, could mess up his head in more ways than he could catalog or name.
William stirred in his sleep. Making a protective shield of her body, Anna folded him closer to her side. Her reaction was instinctive though, at the moment, unnecessary. There was no threat here. Not in this jet with Gregory. At least there was no physical threat. Uncertainty, however, was still an ugly reality. For her it was too real and too chilling even though, for the time being, they were safe from Ivan. And they were free from her parents, who had been willing to sacrifice her and, ultimately, William to Ivan in exchange for a financial bailout to save Obersbourg’s sovereignty.
William cried out, startling her out of her thoughts. His small voice was a panicked, frightened mew in the humming silence of the pressurized cabin.
“Shh, baby. Momma’s here.” Small for his age, William was often mistaken for a year younger than the precious age of four he would turn on his next birthday. She scooped him onto her lap, cradled his face to her breast, murmured in soothing tones. “It’s okay. Momma’s here.”
She pressed her lips to the top of his head, then laid her cheek there as he drifted back to sleep.
“Is he okay?” Gregory’s deep voice was a soft rumble of concern.
She nodded, wanting to assure him as much as herself. Enfolding William in security and warmth, she gained her own small measure of comfort from the solid pressure of his little compact body snuggled against her. “He’s fine. This has all just been a little frightening for him.”
Although he held his silence, Anna could feel Gregory’s dark gaze on her, then on William. She could sense the questions she knew he would ask. And she prayed for the answers that would satisfy him, asked forgiveness for the lies her lack of courage would force her to tell.
“Where’s his father, Anna? Why was it me you called and not him?”
His question was sharp and direct, fitting since this was the moment that had been looming in the shadows of all else that had happened. She’d been bracing for it, had carefully concocted the lie, woven it ruthlessly around the truth.
“He’s never been a part of William’s life,” she said, then slowed her words, shook off the accent only her nerves and fatigue had allowed to slip into her speech. “What his father and I shared...” Purposefully, she let the thought trail off, gave a small shrug, an invitation for him to draw his own conclusions. “I... I had hoped for more.”
“He abandoned you?” A swift, dangerous anger underscored each word.
“No,” she said quickly. “Oh, no. Not abandoned. Let’s...let’s just leave it at it wasn’t meant to be.”
In the darkness, she sensed Gregory’s gaze drift over William, studying his dark brown hair, his slight little frame, picturing, perhaps, his Mediterranean-blue eyes.
“I’m so sorry to have involved you in this, Gregory,” she said abruptly, speared by a piercing need to steer the attention away from William. “I...I didn’t know where else to turn.”
“I told you...” His voice was soft, even if his eyes were hard. “I told you that if you ever needed me I’d be there for you.”
Yes. Yes, he had told her, and even four years later, she’d known she could count on him. After all, it was his strength that had drawn her to him in the beginning—his strength and his earthy, middle class charm. At least she’d thought then that he was just a working man. It wasn’t until last year that she’d seen an article on Hunt Industries and realized that Gregory was the equivalent of American royalty. The irony was so very hard to accept.
She’d been feeling the burden of her position, of centuries of tradition, of familial obligations that fateful summer. In one of her rare acts of rebellion, she’d disguised herself as a village girl and escaped it all for a few hours to get lost in the fantasy atmosphere of the summer street festival—and ended up spending four glorious days and nights with Gregory. She’d given in completely to her instant and overpowering love for the exciting, fun-loving American who not only showed her a glimpse of a freedom she’d never known but also introduced her to true passion and the one great love of her life.
He’d been so...so American. Strong. Vital. So guilelessly arrogant in his self-confidence, utterly charming for his lack of pretense. And so beautiful. In his close-cropped military haircut, his crisply creased olive drabs that hugged his rugged body and showcased the breadth and the depth of the man within, he’d made her fall fast and hard. Though he could never know it, she’d also fallen forever.
A vivid memory of the day they parted hit her with a startling sense of presence. She remembered every pulse beat of that day, recalled with a sharp twist to her heart the moment she’d told him the truth about who she was, and why they couldn’t be together. Angry, he’d scribbled his phone number across an American dollar bill and pressed it into her hand. His blue eyes had been stormy, his jaw set in anger and pride. “If you ever need anything, call this number.”
In the diluted cabin light, she searched his eyes for any sign of the passion that had flared between them then. She saw only a sense of duty, a cold stare of indifference. Yet he had kept his promise. He had come for her. Tears stung her eyes, tightened her throat. If only someone could have been there to save Sara.
Sara was dead and now the twins were lost to Anna, too.
“Sara’s babies,” she murmured, suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and cowardice, her fear for them equaled only by her sense of failure. “I shouldn’t have left without them.”
“Anna...there was no way we could get them out this trip. We cut it too close as it was. I promise you, the Alpha team made plans for my brother, Blake, to rescue them.”
She blinked back the moisture matting her lashes, knowing she was weak for wanting to believe him. Just as he was strong—as she’d known only he could be strong.
“You trusted me to come for you.” His tone forced her to focus on him, on now. When she did, his eyes restated his words as a question that demanded an answer.
She nodded. Yes. She had trusted him.
“Then trust me one more time. Blake will find them. He’ll bring them to you.”
Clinging to the strength of his conviction, she let her head drop back against the headrest, made herself draw a calming breath. Distancing herself from her fear for the babies, she smoothed a tuft of downy fine hair from William’s brow. “You never bargained for this. And I never dreamed I’d have to call on you someday. How can I ever thank you?”
“Level with me,” he said, point-blank, and her heart skipped several beats. “Tell me everything...everything so I can help get you out of this mess.”
Everything. She turned her head away. He deserved to know everything. She couldn’t give him what he deserved. Not now. She enfolded William closer to her side. Maybe not ever. But he was right. If she was going to survive this, if she was to escape Ivan’s far-reaching power and undermine his plans, she had to tell him something. Enough, at least, to keep William safe and keep her from becoming Ivan’s wife and political pawn for the rest of her life.
Aware suddenly that Gregory was speaking to her again, she turned to him, tried to clear her head.
“Why don’t you rest, Anna.” He offered the suggestion with a gentleness that was almost her undoing, as if he sensed she simply couldn’t handle anymore tonight. “You’re exhausted. Try to get some sleep. We’ll sort this all out after we land and get the two of you settled.”
She was too relieved with the reprieve to do anything but thank him again. And to ask the inevitable question.
“Where are we going?”
For the first time since he’d stolen her and William from their quarters in the west wing of Obersbourg Palace, he smiled. “Why, we’re going home, sugar.” A very slow, very deliberate western drawl had slipped into his voice like warm honey. “My home. West Texas.”
Texas. Arid plains, wide open spaces. Cowboys. She remembered his words from that summer when he’d talked about his home with such pride. Miles and miles of nothing but sky. And oil wells. Lots of oil wells.
It sounded like a good place to hide. It sounded like a good place to heal. Carefully, she offered her own smile. “I’ve always wanted to see a cowboy.”
His eyes softened a fraction. “Well that works out just fine then, because I reckon there’re a few cowboys who will be pleased as punch to see you, too.”
While his words were meant to lighten the mood and ease her tension, they had the opposite effect.
“Don’t worry, Anna.”
She met his eyes. Saw again that he had sensed her concern.
“No one in town will know who you are, much less recognize you. We’ve seen to that.”
He seemed both satisfied and sure—and, unaccountably, amused by a prospect he chose not to share with her.
That was fair, she decided. She had her secret. She’d let him have his. For now it was enough to know she was free of Ivan. At least for the moment. And the moment was what she needed most.
It wasn’t over. It might never be over. But she had breathing room now. And she had time. Time to regroup, to assess, to think of a way to save her country without sacrificing her son and herself in the process. Until she accomplished that, she had to believe in Gregory to keep her safe and bring her Sara’s babies.
Exhausted, she finally let the fatigue overtake her. With William safe for the moment and snug by her side, she let her eyes drift close, let months of tension ease from her body and finally gave in to the haven of sleep.
Greg sensed the moment the nervous energy that had fueled Anna hit empty. In the darkness he watched her drift into an embracing sleep. He still didn’t know what had prompted her to turn to him. Couldn’t entertain even a guess—or didn’t want to—because all the explanations started with that long ago summer and ended with the wanting to pick up where they’d left off. The one thing he was sure of in all of this mess was that he couldn’t let that happen. He was wiser now and he’d be damned if he’d let her break through his defenses again.
Yet he couldn’t stop himself from taking stock of her classic beauty as she slept—the porcelain complexion, long blond hair, gently winged brows, wide-set eyes, regally sculpted cheekbones—and feel a hard knot of yearning tighten in his gut. He checked it as abruptly as it started. Obviously, she hadn’t lost sleep over their parting. The child at her side was the proof of that. More to the point, it drove home one indisputable fact: she hadn’t wasted any time moving from his bed to another.
A part of him would like to hate her for that. He didn’t have it in him. Just like he didn’t have it in him to love her. Not again. Not even in the face of the danger she was in. Not even in the face of the temptation.
He looked away. For the last time, there was no reason to go there. She was as out of bounds now as she’d been then. Only now, he was wise enough to know up front where the boundaries began. More importantly, he knew where they ended. And he no longer needed her to spell it out for him. She, after all, was a princess. And as she’d so convincingly implied four years ago, he was no prince.
What he was, he acknowledged with a grim set to his mouth, was a sucker for a damsel in distress. What he would be, he assured himself as he looked away from the tumble of blond hair framing her face, was damn glad when this blew over and Her Royal Highness jetsetted out of his life again and got back to the one she’d been born and bred to live.
One
Four months later. The Royal Diner, Royal, Texas
Gearing up for the breakfast rush, Anna snagged a juice glass on her way to the cooler, filled it and breezed on out toward booth number six. She reset the coffeemaker on her way by as a fleeting thought of her wild escape from Obersbourg four months ago ran through her mind. So much had happened—the risky rescue, the safety factor that was at best a fluid thing while Ivan continued a full-scale search for her, her fear for Sara’s babies until Gregory’s brother, Blake, had rescued them and brought them safely to Royal. Yet in spite of all that, a soft smile tilted her lips as she thought of something Gregory had said to her on that midnight flight. Something that had seemed ominous then, amusing now.
“Don’t worry, Anna. No one in town will know who you are, much less recognize you. We’ve seen to that.”
At the time, she hadn’t understood what he’d meant. Two days later he’d shown up at her door with a pink polyester uniform and instructed her to report for work as a waitress at the Royal Diner as part of her cover to keep her identity concealed. She’d understood perfectly then.
As unthinkable as it had seemed at the time, his intent had been as clear as Waterford crystal: Anna von Oberland—whose royal blood lines could be traced back over seven centuries, who had been tutored by the most prestigious private instructors in Europe, then Swiss educated at the collegiate level, who owned advanced degrees m business and economics, who was successor to the throne of kings—was to be transformed from Her Most Serene Royal Highness, the Esteemed Princess of Obersbourg, to a waitress, in the form of down-home girl, Annie Grace.
The unthinkable hadn’t ended there. Neither had the surprises. In the past months since she’d been hiding out in Royal as Annie Grace, she’d not only played the part of Annie Grace, she’d been having the time of her life.
One of the reasons for all that fun grinned at her from behind the grill as she elbowed up to the cook’s counter to place an order.
A pair of coal-black eyes met hers, sparkling flirtatiously. “You have a need, Annie-mine?”
“I have a need for a short stack, two eggs over easy, a side of bacon, wheat-no-butter, please, Manny.”
“Sure thing, Annie sweetheart, darlin’ dear. Anything else I can do for you while my fire’s hot?”
Anna tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. Even if she hadn’t caught the meaningful waggle of Manny Reno’s dark brows, she’d have known he wasn’t referring to the fire under his grill. Manny, a beautiful Chicano bodybuilder and part-time cook, was an incorrigible and accomplished flirt. And like most of the hardy Texans she’d met since Gregory had eased her quietly into Royal four months ago, he was also about as dangerous as a slice of his coconut cream pie.
Grinning, she clipped the order to the revolving wheel above the counter and reached for the coffeepot. “Give me a break, Manny. It’s 6:00 a.m. It’s Monday. I haven’t built up the strength yet to spar with you.”
“Well, you see now, beautiful girl...” Manny’s black eyes danced from the rich caramel backdrop of his face. “...that’s all part of my strategy. Get’cha while you’re not awake enough to fight this intense attraction you feel for me.”
“Well...there is that.” She shot him a coy smile then sobered abruptly. “Oh, wait.” Bracing a hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes. “I feel something—yes. Here it is now. My better judgment just arrived to save the day. Whew. That was close. For a minute there, I almost lost my head. Sorry, Manny—and we were going to have such a good time, too.”
“Oh, maaan.” Manny groaned, heavy on the theatrics, as he poured batter onto the griddle, then expertly flipped an omelette. “You are breaking my heart here.”
Sheila Foster sidled up to the counter just then, hooked an order on the clip. She sliced Anna a quick, conspiratorial wink before firing her own shot at Manny. “You gotta have a heart to get one broken.”
Sheila was currently single, twice divorced and fighting a size twelve for all she was worth. The fact that she had a hard and heavy case on Manny wasn’t lost on Anna. Neither was it lost on Manny, who, after almost two months of drooling over Sheila, hadn’t worked up the courage to do something about it.
“Who’s callin’ the kettle black, little Sheba?” Manny accused with a grin so sweet Anna could almost taste the honey.
“It’s Sheila, you big ape, and I’ve got a heart. I just don’t see any point wasting any extra beats over you.”
“You know you’re nuts about me, my little chili pepper.”
“The only one nuts around here is you. Now is my number five up yet or did you have to run down a chicken and squeeze the eggs out of her?”
Laughing at their good-natured sniping, Anna headed for the booth where Homer Gaffney sat. Homer smiled when she approached, causing deep creases to dig even deeper grooves into the wizened old face that looked up at her from beneath the dusty brim of a stained and dented straw cowboy hat.
“Here’s your juice, Homer. And you’re drinking regular, not decaf this morning, right?”
“Gotta have the high octane this mornin’, Annie. Full day ahead a’ me. Movin’ the herd. From the sound of things we’ll be bucking stout sou’west winds and a boatload of dust. I’m gonna need all the caffeine I can get.”
As she filled Homer’s cup, she felt that little prickle of unease that sometimes crept up on her when someone looked at her in that I’ve-seen-you-before-kind-of-way. The way Homer was looking at her now.
“I just can’t get over how much you look like that fancy princess woman. Oh, what is her name, anyway?”
“Fergie?” she suggested and worked hard at manufacturing a teasing smile.
“Naw. That other one—the one from some foreign sounding place. You sure you ain’t some long lost twin got switched at birth?”
“Homer, Homer.” She forced a playful, chiding tone. “Last week you said you thought I looked like a movie star. I’ll tell you what, though—if you can figure out some way to make me into a princess, I’ll figure out a way to make you my prince.”
Homer laughed, blushed and tugged on his hat brim. “I’d be more frog than prince—and I don’t allow my Martha would much go for me running off with you. It’s a nice thought, though, huh?”
“You bet, Homer.” She laid a hand on his shoulder then walked away. “It’s a very nice thought.”
It was also a thought that, thankfully, didn’t occur too often. When it did, she generally handled it the same way as she had with Homer just now. She’d laugh, joke and walk away. So far it had worked. Yet the possibility always loomed that the day might come when her luck on that count would run out and someone would recognize her.
Refusing to think about that now, she answered Manny’s ding—he signaled with a little silver bell when an order was up—and delivered an omelette and a sweet roll. Then she quickly bussed two tables and raked in two dollars and some odd change in tips. As she headed back for Homer’s short stack and eggs, she was completely oblivious of the diner’s shortcomings when compared to the grandeur that had once been her life at Obersbourg Palace.
The Royal Diner was your basic greasy spoon café, nonalcoholic watering hole, town meeting place and coffee klatch all wrapped up in one. Just as unlikely as Anna becoming adept as a waitress was the fact that the diner had also become her refuge. She loved every inch of the place—from the worn and cracked dull-gray linoleum floor tiles to the faded red plastic on the booth seats to the scratched chrome strips edging the tabletops and the counter with its dozen stools.
She loved the steamy warmth of it. The smell of it. The sinfully juicy hamburgers that Manny cooked on his grill, the decadently thick chocolate malts that she had learned to make on the ancient malt machine. She even loved the thin film of smoke and grease coating the plate glass windows that Hazel, the owner, had tried to pretty up with muslin curtains.
She knew it wasn’t supposed to work like this. She knew that Gregory had set her up with this waitress ruse because he thought she would consider it menial and beneath her. A princess wasn’t supposed to mingle with, let alone wait on, the common folk. It was his subtle way, she supposed, of paying her back for what she’d done to him years ago.
She understood his motives. She even forgave him. Just like she forgave him for making himself as scarce as a snowstorm in West Texas. Even though his deliberate absence hurt, she figured he was entitled. He’d known she would be forced to take the waitress job—as he’d put it, hiding in plain sight—rather than risk having undue attention focused on the reclusive young woman and child in The Royal Court Complex, apartment 3B.
What Gregory hadn’t understood was that while she had been apprehensive at first, it was because she had been afraid she couldn’t do the work, not because she didn’t want to do it. Another thing Gregory hadn’t understood was that while normal little girls dreamed of castles, servants and knights in shining armor, Anna had dreamed of walking barefoot in the grass, of playing hide-and-seek after dark with the village children, of a best friend to share secrets with.
What she had always wanted was to be a part of something as an equal, not set apart as elite. As Princess Anna von Oberland, she’d done elite. She’d lived elite. Elite was lonely and isolating. She’d lived lavishly, surrounded by rare artwork, gilded mirrors and armies of servants. She’d slept in platform beds beneath satin sheets. And yet everything she’d ever wanted had been out of her reach: the ultimate excitement of the absolutely mundane.
As Annie Grace, the waitress, she’d found that—in an austere two-bedroom apartment and, of all things, an alarm clock. She loved her alarm clock. Like William, it gave her purpose. It gave her a reason to get up and be useful on the most basic level.
Here, in Royal, she was a small part of a whole, and despite everything that had happened, it felt wonderful. She was a single mom, working for a living. And she felt, for the first time in her life, as if she belonged. It was another of life’s strange ironies that as she played the role of a waitress, she felt more real than at any other time in her life.
Even better, since arriving in Royal, she was seeing things in William that she had always yearned to see. While he was still reserved and slow to trust, he smiled more. He even laughed sometimes without fear of reprisal. Harriet Sherman, her next door neighbor and volunteer baby-sitter, had been responsible for much of that.
Manny hit the bell again, snapping her head up. She hurried to pick up a morning special and remembered how difficult it had been to leave William in Harriet’s care that first morning. Even with Gregory’s assurances that Harriet was his employee and that he’d positioned her next door to Anna’s apartment for the sole purpose of looking after both her and William, it had been hard leaving him.
Now it was hard to think of taking him away from here, away from Harriet and her loving arms and oatmeal raisin cookies. But she knew she must eventually return to Obersbourg and face her obligations.
She squared her shoulders, drew a bracing breath. Ivan wouldn’t call off his dogs. He would not give up on trying to strong-arm her into marriage. And as much as it hurt to acknowledge it, her parents would continue to offer her up to Ivan as the prize to save Obersbourg’s sovereignty.
Even accepting all this, she knew she must return. Obersbourg was her country. Her birthright. Her obligation. Hopefully, she would be stronger for her time here in Royal. Hopefully, she would come up with a solution to her country’s grave dilemma that didn’t require marriage to a man she had despised even before she’d begun to suspect he was involved in Sara’s death.
For all of those reasons, the thought of leaving Royal haunted her. Soon, though, she would have one less reason to stay. As of Sunday, her final tie to her sister, Sara, would be severed. One more link with Ivan would be broken. And while Gregory would never be hers again to lose, one more reason for his protection would also be negated.
Her sunny mood of moments ago was as lost as the sun that had disappeared beneath the dust inspired by a tenacious and sustained wind. Reality encroached severely on Annie Grace’s fantasy world. Like an unyielding and vengeful enemy, it deposited the weight of obligation and the cold hard facts of duty back into the hands of Anna von Oberland—all to the relentless tick of the clock as time slowly ran out on her.
The King and Queen of Obersbourg’s entire existence exemplified saving face at all costs, celebrated the triumph of appearance over reality. So it was sadly ironic, Anna thought, that in her boldest act of defiance yet, she had resorted to practicing the ruling principle of her parents’ lives—a principle she abhorred.
This Sunday, however, she played their game to the letter. She watched the happy celebration unfold before her in the grand salon of the Texas Cattleman’s Club with a plastic smile in place when the reality was that her heart was breaking. She murmured the appropriate words when her only triumph was in the knowledge that no one knew how much her actions had cost her.
As promised, Miranda and Edward, her sister’s twin babies, had been rescued by Gregory’s brother Blake. They were safe—thank God they were safe here in Texas—but as of today, they were no longer hers to protect. As of today, they were no longer hers at all.
In one of the hardest decisions of her life, she had given them up. She had given them over to the loving arms of Blake and his new bride, Josie.
It was the right thing to do, she told herself, just as she had told herself repeatedly since Blake had brought the babies to Texas. Blake and Josie loved them. They would ensure that Anna’s promise to Sara would be fulfilled.
“Promise me, Anna. Promise me,” Sara had pleaded shortly after the twins were born. “If anything happens to me...promise me you won’t let mother and father raise them. Promise me you’ll get them out of Obersbourg and find someone who will love and nurture there.”
Anna had smiled back then at her little sister’s dramatic plea. Sara had always been the actress of the two of them. The rebel. The wild little princess who thumbed her nose in the face of tradition, laughed at the rigors of royal protocol.
Bracing against a fresh wave of pain, Anna drew herself erect. It was because of Ivan Striksky that Sara would never laugh again. The final proof had arrived yesterday. Gregory had sent the damning evidence over to the diner via messenger.
She was still trying to come to grips with the words in the fax sent by the attorney who had handled the estate of Marcus Dumond, Ivan’s horse trainer. Marcus had been much more than a horse trainer, as it turned out. Anna had known he had once been Sara’s lover. She hadn’t known that Marcus was the father of the twins. And now, because Gregory had ferreted out the truth, she had proof that the car crash that had killed both Sara and Marcus had been arranged by Ivan.
The rumble of deep, masculine laughter dragged her away from her thoughts of that devastating news and back to the reason for today’s celebration. Today was the day she had agreed to officially release the twins for adoption. Today was the day she severed her last tie to Sara.
She made herself shut out the ugly string of events that had brought her here and focused on the happiness around her. Blake was a good man. Josie a good woman. Both were all smiles as they stood side by side, each of them cradling one of the babies in their arms. And while she had agonized about her decision, in the end she knew she’d had no choice. It had been Sara’s wish.
Just like she’d had no choice but to attend today’s celebration. Thank God for Harriet, she thought, as she so often had in the past months. Sensing intuitively that Anna would need to draw on all her resources to keep herself together, she had volunteered to take William to a movie today.
“Anna?”
She blinked, automatically set a smile in place even before she realized it was Josie who had walked up beside her and lightly touched her arm.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” She broadened her smile, and even though her heart was breaking, opened her arms to little Miranda when Josie held her out to her. Tears filled her eyes as Miranda reached up and tangled her little fingers in Anna’s hair.
Life was so strange, she thought, smiling down at the happily gurgling baby. When Blake had finally managed to smuggle the babies out of Europe and into Texas, he’d run into the storm of the century while driving across the state with them. Josie had spotted his car in a washed-out ravine. Blake had been unconscious, the babies crying and hungry. Josie had managed to get them all home to her farmhouse, and during Blake’s recovery, while he’d struggled to regain his memory that had been temporarily lost in the crash, they’d fallen deeply in love—with each other and with the twins.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Josie murmured, breaking into Anna’s thoughts.
“Yes,” Anna agreed softly. Relishing the warmth and the sweet scent of the baby in her arms, she held her closer. “She’s very beautiful.”
The silence that followed rang hollow with the unspoken pain of her loss.
“You will always be her aunt, Anna.” Sensitive to Anna’s regrets, Josie’s eyes, when Anna met them, were kind and reassuring. “You will always be Edward’s aunt. They’re your family. Please, don’t doubt that. We won’t ever take that away from you.”
Anna blinked hard, gave Josie a genuine smile as Blake, with Edward sleeping soundly in his arms, joined them.
“I know,” she said. “Just like I know they’ll have a far better home and life with you than if I were to take them back to Obersbourg.”
She didn’t doubt that for one moment. Even as William’s mother, she had difficulty exercising authority over how he was raised. As the twins’ aunt, her influence would be even more limited. She couldn’t bear to have happen to them what happened to Sara. She couldn’t let two sweet, precious lives be ruled by the iron fist of her father and the apathetic blind eye of her mother. If subjected to her parents’ strict code of discipline, like Sara, they might eventually rebel. Like Sara, they might turn to a wild and destructive lifestyle—like the one that had played a part in ending her life.
Her next words were spoken as much to herself as to Blake and Josie. “They have a chance for a normal life now. I have to believe that.” She stopped, braced and deliberately met Josie’s concerned gaze, then Blake’s. “I do believe that. Just like I believe Sara would have approved. You’re very special. Both of you.”
Blake’s warm brown eyes, so different from his brother Gregory’s distant blue, probed hers. “No regrets.”
She kissed Miranda lightly on the cheek and handed her back to Josie before answering with conviction. “I have many regrets in all of this—the decision to give up the twins to you is not one of them.”
Josie embraced her then, her own eyes brimming with tears.
“Oh, no.” Anna managed a shaky laugh. “Don’t you dare start. I’m lost if you cry—and this is a party, remember? Go. Go party.”
“You’re okay then?” Blake touched a hand to her arm.
“I told you. I’m fine. Now go. I saw your father looking for you.”
As she watched them walk away, a bittersweet ache in her chest, someone accidentally bumped into her, then apologized profusely. For the first time today, her smile was spontaneous. Since Gregory had brought her here to Royal, she had grown to appreciate the Texas style of gallantry, the open friendliness of its people.
She made herself focus on the gathering, recognized many of the faces, faces’ of people who knew her as Annie Grace, just a waitress at the diner. Aside from Blake and Josie, only Gregory and Harriet and the three men who had assisted him on the Alpha mission to rescue her last September—Hank Langley, Sterling Churchill, Forrest Cunningham—knew her true identity. They too, had joined the celebration. So had their wives, Callie, Susan, and Becky.
She had taken special notice of Gregory and Blake’s parents, Janine and Carson Hunt. She wasn’t certain how much Gregory’s parents knew about the twins’ situation—or about hers. She only knew that they looked at her through kind eyes that made her yearn for something she’d never received from her own parents. Carson was a robust bear of a man with crinkled brown eyes and a thick head of silver hair. Janine was lovely. Diminutive in stature, yet obviously her own woman, her blue eyes, so like Gregory’s, were warm, bold and full of life as she welcomed Edward and Miranda to the family with loving arms.
The only person noticeably absent was Gregory. True to form, since that September morning when he’d settled her into the apartment, he had made it a point to be absent if she was anywhere in the vicinity. His influence had been known in many other ways, however. It was Gregory who had expedited the adoption process by calling in some markers, taking advantage of his connections with both the bar and the bench. And it was the respect he’d earned in the community that had kept public speculation about the twins’ parentage to a minimum. There was acceptance that they now belonged to Blake and Josie—a simple fact.
It was for the best all around that he maintained his distance from her, she knew. It saved her from answering questions for which he would eventually demand answers. Still, there was regret associated with the knowledge. Just as there was a sudden, chest-tightening anticipation when, on the heels of those thoughts, Gregory walked in the door.
Her heart clenched, as it always did, when she saw him. His dark good looks and impressive presence set him apart even m this room full of men who were unequaled among men. Above all else, though, the tension strung tight around his mouth, the intensity in his eyes held her riveted as he walked unerringly toward her.
When he took her hand in his, relayed the need for silence through a quick, firm squeeze, she was filled with a sudden, intuitive awareness that what he was about to tell her would change her life forever.
Her heart skipped several beats. “Gregory... what is it?”
She searched his face with a heightening premonition of dread as he shook his head then sought and found his brother and the men who had been in on the Alpha rescue mission. With a clipped lift of his chin, he signaled them to follow him.
Her heart plummeted to her stomach as he led her in suspended silence to a small room off the main salon. Langley, Churchill, and Sterling, along with Blake and Josie, who had handed off the twins to Gregory’s parents, followed then shut the door behind them.
“What’s happened?” Panic had become a valid and violent contender for the apprehension that clogged her throat.
After a moment’s pause, Gregory captured her gaze with the same strength as his firm grip on her hands.
“Ivan Striksky is dead.” The softness of his voice was no cushion for the shock of his announcement.
The jolt weakened her knees. With Gregory’s solemn arrival, she’d expected news of Ivan. But this...
She felt suddenly as if she’d fallen into a vacuous tunnel, where sound, shape and texture blended together in a numbing, surreal kaleidoscope of confusion.
“Dead?” she heard someone ask and knew on a peripheral level that someone was her.
A circle of concerned faces closed supportively around her. She heard Josie’s soft voice whisper her name and urge her to sit down as Hank settled a protective hand to her back.
“What...how?”
A hush filled the room as the four men and one woman who were privileged to the specifics of Anna’s true identity and her midnight flight from Obersbourg listened in stunned amazement as Gregory related what details he had managed to find out about Prince Ivan Striksky’s suicide.
Two
She was running... running through maze after maze. Long bony hands grabbed at her. Chased unrelentingly. She was so tired. Her legs wouldn’t support her. She stumbled, searched, desperate to find a light that never came. For a haven that never opened to her. Then she was trapped And the hands. Hundreds of hands grabbed at her...
Heart racing, Anna bolted wildly up in bed, wrestled with tangled sheets. Stumbling blindly to the window, she threw it open, swallowing a scream. Even in the grips of the nightmare, her concern was for William. She didn’t want to frighten him. He’d been through enough.
A reassuring rush of arid, West Texas air hit her full in the face as she braced her palms on the sill. She dragged it in—deep, hungry drafts—and willed herself toward lucidity.
Clinging desperately to the reality that was now, she reached for the presence of mind that would assure her it was over. They were safe.
Even after months of haunting her nights, when the nightmare hit, it still took Anna by surprise. Tonight it was worse than the other nights. Tonight it had grabbed her by the throat. Had her heart slamming in her chest, her breath catching. The hideous grip of it had strangled her as darkness enfolded her in cloying, suffocating isolation.
Calmer now, she opened her eyes, felt a cool breeze feather across her perspiration-drenched skin and sagged in weary relief against the open window frame. Then she made herself recount the last four months in her mind to cement the fact one more time that it was really over.
She and William were safe.
The twins were safe with Blake and Josie.
And Ivan was dead.
Ivan was dead.
She shivered and drew away from the window as the memory of his suicide and the December breeze rustling her damp nightgown combined to pebble her skin with gooseflesh. Dragging a hand through her tousled hair, she sank back down on the edge of the bed, dug her palms into the blanket at her hips and forced several steadying breaths.
It was at times like these that she wished she could drink like some of the rowdy Texans she’d grown to know and appreciate since she’d arrived in Royal. A good, stiff shot of straight-up bourbon might settle the demons that had robbed her of yet another night’s sleep.
“Face them,” she whispered into the darkness.
There is no more fear, she reminded herself staunchly and willed the residual trembling in her hands to steady. No more fear. Only decisions that needed to be made. So many decisions—
A sudden pounding on her door shot her heart straight back to her throat. She vaulted to her feet, whirled toward the sound.
“Anna...Anna are you all right?”
Gregory.
Relief was swift and draining as she rushed toward the door, not wanting to wake William who was sound asleep in the other bedroom. When she reached the small foyer, she threw the deadbolt. With both hands clutching the heavy steel door, she opened it a crack and met the dark concern in a pair of hard blue eyes shaded by the brim of a coal-black Stetson.
Since those first few days when Gregory had settled her into this small apartment, he had never again crossed the threshold. The cool message of that statement had not been lost to her. He had come to her aid when she’d needed him, but he’d made it clear as a Texas sky that he wanted no part of her life. So seeing him here now, at this hour, on the heels of the nightmare, was beyond her comprehension.
“What... what are you doing here?”
His expression was as dark as the night, his eyes as cool as chipped ice. “I was on my way home from the Club when the lights on the alarm panel in my pickup lit up like a Christmas tree.”
She sagged against the door, raked the hair away from her face as understanding dawned. When he’d first shown her the apartment, he’d told her with terse words and military precision about the silent alarm he’d installed on all the windows and doors in the event Ivan found her. The alarm was electronically linked to the Texas Cattleman’s Club that he and the rest of the Alpha team frequented to his home in Pine Valley and his personal vehicles.
“I didn’t think. I...I had a bad dream,” she confessed with reluctance. “I needed some air and threw open the window. I’m sorry. I forgot about the alarm system.”
Greg stared down at the woman who had created enough havoc in his life to mount a small uprising. He’d known when he’d answered her call for help last August that he’d been opening up a Pandora’s box full of problems. He’d been prepared for the investment of time, tactics and diplomacy. He’d had to employ plenty of both, not the least of which had been keeping Anna safe and the Alpha team apprised and on the lookout for Striksky when he’d gotten word that the prince had been on his way to the States a couple of weeks ago.
Then there was the adoption and that business with Marcus Dumond’s attorney when he’d ferreted out the truth of Striksky’s role in Sara’s death. And finally, keeping the prince’s suicide hush-hush and arranging for his body to be shipped quietly back to Asterland’s embassy last week had been as tricky as any litigation he’d ever handled. He was damn glad that was behind him and that explaining Ivan’s demise was the government of Asterland’s problem now.
So, no it wasn’t the time that bothered him. It was the emotional investment he hadn’t bargained for. It was the emotional investment that came with the highest price tag.
To cut his losses, he’d kept his distance from Anna. Hell, as much as possible, he’d kept his distance from Royal, flying to Dallas, or Houston and even a couple of trips to Georgia to tidy up some legal ends at the Hunt aircraft plant. Much to his friends’ dismay, he’d also kept his own counsel where Anna was concerned. Seeing her like this though—hovering on the ragged edge of a nightmare, clinging valiantly to a pride that she didn’t realize her vulnerability undercut—the cost of his bid to stay away from her climbed a little higher.
He’d been skirting her like a wolf circling a fire, avoiding all but the most necessary encounters. And even though Ivan was no longer a threat, when her alarm had sounded a few minutes ago, his heart had pumped into overdrive. He’d rammed the gas pedal on his truck to the floor and flown across town to get to her.
He could see now that she was safe. She was safe, but she was far from all right. Her green eyes were wild with residual fear. He had little doubt that if she could manage to pry her fingers off the door, they’d be trembling like leaves in a windstorm.
He’d seen her like this before—on the night the Alpha team had stolen her out of Obersbourg, then a week ago when he’d broken the news that Striksky was dead. He hadn’t been able to turn his back on her then. As much as his better judgment warned him against it, he couldn’t do it now, not and live with himself—a characteristic that may yet prove to be his fatal flaw where Anna was concerned:
Steeling himself against the urge to fold her into his arms and hold her until her trembling stopped or until he initiated something they’d both be sorry about later, he very gently pried the slim fingers that had gone white off the door. Knowing he’d regret it, he opened it wide enough to accommodate his shoulders and slipped inside.
After shutting the door behind him and disarming the alarm panel, he turned back to her. “You got any of that sissy mint tea you managed to get Harriet hooked on?”
Her lips trembled only slightly as she gave him the small smile he’d been hoping for.
“I think I can scare some up.” Brushing her hair back from her face, she headed for the kitchen.
He’d congratulated himself a hundred times for deploying Harriet Sherman—“Tank” to those who had worked with her before she’d retired from the military—next door to Anna in the role of watchdog in the guise of nosy neighbor, motherly confidante and baby-sitter. With Harriet nearby the past four months, he’d slept a little easier knowing Striksky had very quietly launched a worldwide search for Anna. In this last dark week since Striksky, faced with international humiliation when his underhanded scheme had failed, had committed suicide not five miles from Royal, he’d been doubly glad to have Harriet in place to help Anna through that ugly mess.
It was obvious to him now, however, that she was still struggling with the backlash. Standing in the arched doorway of her small kitchen, he set his jaw, told himself he’d stay long enough to make sure she was steady again. Then he’d get the hell out of the combat zone.
In the meantime, he had to work hard at snuffing out a hundred intimate details that made up the immediate moment: Like the fact that he was alone with her—something he’d managed to avoid until now. Like the fact that it was the middle of the night, the hour of shared beds, shared warmth and shared bodies. Like the damnable itch on the palms he clenched as tight as his jaw to keep from reaching out to touch her milk-white shoulder. A shoulder that was bare beneath the thin silk strap of her short, clingy nightgown. Skin that radiated a honey scent, which beckoned, enticed and clung to the midnight air like fragrance on a rose.
He knew what that skin felt like beneath his fingers, against his tongue. He knew how she tasted. What it felt like to lose himself deep inside her—like drowning in heated silk, like sinking into sweet, tight oblivion. And every night since she’d been in Royal—her safely tucked away in her apartment, and him wherever his nocturnal wanderings took him—he’d remembered every intimate detail of the love they had made.
He bit back a low growl of frustration at the turn of his thoughts. Yet when he saw that her hands were still trembling violently in the aftermath of her nightmare, he took two stalking strides toward her.
“Sit,” he demanded and made himself grip her shoulders at arm’s length. In a no-nonsense motion, he guided her to a chair and sat her down. “How often does this happen?”
She sat as still as a block of wood, her hands clutched tightly in her lap. “Just...not often.”
Not often, my ass, he thought with a dark scowl. He’d bet his portfolio this was a nightly occurrence. Swearing as much at the clench of sympathy he felt in his chest as at his body’s reaction to the way her deep breath stretched the pale-blue silk tight over the softness of her breasts, he turned back to the counter and slammed around filling the teakettle.
When he’d set it on to boil and settled himself, he turned back to her. Leaning his hips against the counter, he crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his hands under his armpits, where they wouldn’t lead him into trouble.
“You don’t lie worth a damn, Your Highness.”
Immediately regretting the angry edge he’d let creep into his voice, he worked at gentling his tone. “You want to talk about it?”
Eyes downcast, she gave a small, tight shake of her head.
Fighting a crushing awareness of her vulnerability, he stared at that tumble of blond hair a long time before he was able to speak again. “You’ve been through a lot, Anna. Maybe you ought to consider seeing someone...a doctor or someone to help you through this.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” she bristled, lifting her chin and gracing him with a valiant, aristocratic smile. “Besides, how would it look? A von Oberland in therapy? It wouldn’t do. Appearances at all costs you know. Wouldn’t want the world to get wind that the royal blood was anything but true blue.”
He narrowed his eyes, studied her long and hard. A little starch looked good on her. It was a sign she was still fighting. Suddenly he didn’t feel so bad about baiting her with the “Your Highness” crack, even though anger had provoked it. The fact was, like it or not, he had a lot of anger built up inside where Princess Anna was concerned. He’d held it in check for four years, but ever since he’d brought her here, he’d felt it escalating.
It seemed like forever instead of mere months that he’d been fighting feelings he didn’t want to admit to and blaming her for being the cause. He’d done his duty. He’d gotten her out of Obersbourg, then watched from afar, made sure she was safe. Just like he’d made sure she was set up in this apartment in his own building, that she was absorbed into the small community of Royal as Annie Grace, a distant cousin of some city father too far removed for anyone to question in any depth. He’d seen her dressed in her hot-pink waitress uniform, with her hair pulled back into a nondescript pony tail, waiting tables at the local greasy spoon—a job he’d set up for her. A job he’d secretly hoped she would find appalling and so far beneath her she would have stomped her regal foot and thrown a royal tantrum.
In retrospect, he wasn’t too proud of himself for stooping so low as to want to humiliate her. Not that his plan had worked, anyway. She hadn’t done one damn thing he’d expected.
What she’d done was adjust. Without comment. Without complaint—and he’d been the one left feeling devalued.
She’d taken to the waitress role as if she’d been born with an order pad in her hand instead of a gilded rattle. She’d waited tables, laughed with the locals and looked and acted like she’d enjoyed every minute of it.
Act is the key word here, he told himself, working hard to reinforce his cynicism where she was concerned. He didn’t dare forget that she was a consummate actress—had played the role of her life when she’d made him fall in love with her.
He rolled a shoulder, shook it off. That was then. This was now. And love—whatever the hell that was—didn’t have anything to do with what he was feeling for her now. What he was feeling for her now, he told himself, was a grudging tolerance that had gotten tangled up in a misplaced sense of responsibility. And a leftover sexual obsession that he had no intention of indulging.
Stone-faced, he turned toward the whistle of the kettle, set it off the heat and snagged a pair of mugs from her cupboard. As he held the chunky stoneware in his hand, he worked hard to convince himself that the princess was no doubt missing the delicacy and the elegance of her seventeenth century fine bone china and the servants who all but drank her tea for her. Yet when he set the mug in front of her, she cupped it gratefully between her small hands, absorbed the welcome warmth, first through her fingertips then with her mouth, as she touched the mug to her lips.
A knot of tension that was becoming all too familiar when he was around her coiled tight in his gut.
“I’m fine now.” She made a forced attempt to sound more steady, more centered. “You don’t have to babysit me. People have bad dreams. It’s not a big deal.”
A muscle in his jaw worked involuntarily and he stated the facts as he saw them. “And you don’t have to put on some brave front. This has been hard on you. There’s no shame in admitting it.”
The stunned look in her eyes as she reacted to his unexpected empathy momentarily silenced them both.
“Right,” she said finally. “No shame.”
Her voice so full of the shame she was trying to deny, it made his chest hurt.
She sat so still. Her slender fingers were wrapped around that mug like it was her only anchor. Her gaze was focused on something much further away than the clock on the far kitchen wall. And her voice, when she finally spoke, sounded as weary as time.
“I wanted Ivan out of my life,” she all but whispered into a silence that had grown heavy and thick. “I’d prayed he would be made to pay for whatever part he played in Sara’s death, for holding Sara’s babies hostage.” She lifted eyes glittering with unshed tears, stared at a time and place far away from Royal, Texas. “God help me, I wanted him dead.”
The guilt etched on her face clogged his throat with emotion. He swallowed it back. Waited.
Haunted eyes flicked to his then quickly away. “I’m glad he’s dead. For everything he’d done, everything he tried to do. I’m glad he’s dead,” she repeated and once again, met his eyes. Once again, she looked away as if she was ashamed. “What does that make me? What kind of monster does that make me?”
Everything she wouldn’t let him see in her eyes was manifested in those self-indicting words, in the thready hopelessness of her voice. He wanted to drag her into his arms and hold her so she wouldn’t splinter in a million pieces. Yet he sensed that if he touched her now, she would shatter. Like a beautiful spun glass swan. Like a priceless crystal vase.
Since he didn’t think that both of them together could gather all the pieces if she fell apart, he made his voice as gentle as he knew how.
“What it makes you is human, Anna. It makes you human—nothing more. Nothing less. The prince was an opportunist. He was a murderer. And he was a coward—he proved it when he jumped off the bridge south of town. You had no part in that. You had no part in anything he did.”
Despite the sense of his argument, her silence told him she felt she had played a very huge part in it. The next words out of her mouth confirmed it.
“If I had married him he’d be alive, though, wouldn’t he? Sara might even be alive—”
It galled him to hell and back that she would take even an ounce of blame on her slim shoulders. He drew a deep breath, laid a hand on her arm. “Look—”
She jumped as if she’d been burned. “It’s all right,” she insisted abruptly. So abruptly he could only stare as she shook off his touch and rose. “I’m sorry...I’m sorry the alarm bothered you. I’m sorry I laid all this on you. But it’s all right now. I’m all right now.”
She was out of the kitchen and racing for her front door so quickly he was left standing flat-footed in his anaconda boots and a scowl. He glanced at his raised hand, curled his fingers slowly into a loose fist.
Fine, he decided, accepting that his touch had set her off. Obviously, she didn’t want him here any more than he wanted to be here. And as sure as hell was fire, he didn’t want to get all tangled up in caring about her again.
“Call Harriet if you need anything,” he said gruffly and headed for the door. Shouldering past her, he swung it wide.
He wouldn’t have thought anything could have kept him from barreling out of her apartment. Not her tears. Not her guilt.
He hadn’t counted on her touch.
It stopped him cold. It stopped his heart.
Very slowly, he turned his head, looked down at the small hand that lay so tentatively on his arm, then into the eyes of the one woman who could turn hard muscle to yearning flesh, turn simple heat to complex need.
Through all of this, if there had been contact—as minimal and necessary as it had been—he’d been the one to initiate it. He hadn’t initiated this. Just like he hadn’t initiated the explosion of memories her singular act had stirred. Slender hands trailing down the arch of his bare spine, delicate fingers tracing the point of his hip, tangling in his hair, caressing him, urging him closer, demanding him deeper.
He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw so tight he heard a dull pop. Then her whispered, “I’m sorry, Gregory. I’m so sorry for everything,” as her fingers drifted slowly away.
For a long moment he stood there. Struggling for something to say. Reaching for something to do. The better part of wisdom, however, overrode either instinct.
“Lock the door behind me,” he ordered in a rusty voice and strode into the hall without a backward glance. He hit the apartment stairs at a jog and bounded down them and into the night. The urgency of his need to get away from her was suddenly more powerful than the one that had had him shooting across town to get to her.
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Cindy Gerard
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: THE LOYAL PROTECTORGregory Hunt had always been the best – whether he was handling the toughest legal cases in Texas or coming to the rescue of damsels in distress. Only, this particular damsel was one he had loved once before – the regal Princess Anna von Oberland, whose privileged position made her off-limits.Now she needed his help, and Gregory had to risk all to save her. Because under the watchful, yearning eyes of Anna′s four-year-old son – whose handsome features strikingly resembled his own – this tried-and-true Texan sensed more urgency than ever!Five wealthy Texas bachelors – all members of the state′s most exclusive club – set out on a mission to rescue a princess… and find true love.