The Prince's Wedding

by Justine Davis

  And he'd brought her baby to her. That above all. For that alone, he deserved her thanks, and a bit more patience, she thought. No matter who he was now. But she was grateful when he left her alone with her horse. Brat, at least, didn't confuse her.

  * * *

  With this new resolution in her mind, Jessie spent the next few days concentrating on getting well. She didn't think she was as fragile as Lucas thought, and she soon realized her nurse was an ally. The woman departed after her assigned three days, telling Jessie to do as much—but only as much—as she felt like doing.

  First she would walk, she decided, staying close to the house and barns. And on the second day of those walks, she got a wicked shock. She went to the small family graveyard, where her parents and grandparents had been laid to rest on the land they loved. She felt the need to be close to them, to pour out her fears and her confusion, as she had in the days after discovering she was pregnant with the child of a man who had already walked out on her.

  As she stepped through the gate in the low, picket fence that surrounded the small plot, she was vaguely aware of something different, something wrong. But it wasn't until she walked to her parents' graves that she realized what it was.

  There was a new grave next to theirs. A very new one, one the grass hadn't yet covered. Set at the head was a plain metal marker.

  And on the marker was her name.

  It gave her such a start she nearly screamed. This was a detail no one had told her, that they had carried the farce this far, to dig a grave for a body that didn't exist.

  "Damn it, why didn't they get rid of that?"

  Lucas's voice came from close behind her, but she was so rattled by what she'd found she didn't even jump. His arms came around her and he turned her away from the eerily gruesome sight of her own grave. And for just that moment she let herself believe he meant it, that he was comforting her just as Joe would have. But it lasted only that moment as he held her then reality returned in a rush and she pulled away. He let her go and perversely, she didn't like that either.

  In the days that followed, Jessie continued to take her walks, but she avoided going that way again. And as her strength grew, along with her restlessness, she decided to take that first ride. She couldn't resist the urge any longer. She needed to see for herself that everything was all right, that the ranch hadn't changed somehow during her absence.

  There was nothing really physically wrong with her, she thought. It was exhaustion from her ordeal, coupled with being rundown after a birth with no medical care. But remembering Lucas's reaction last time, she announced her intention first.

  "You're sure you're up to it?"

  "I'm sure. I'm only going for a short while, the first time."

  "I'll come with you."

  "That's not necessary."

  "It is for me." There was that imperious tone again, she thought. She didn't care for it.

  "You don't need to."

  "It's me or Lloyd, take your pick."

  She frowned. "Look, I don't need an escort. All that's over now."

  He started what she thought would have been a sharp retort, then stopped himself. And again she wondered what he'd been about to say.

  "Then let me come because I want to," he said instead. "I've missed this place."

  That, she thought, she could understand completely. "All right."

  He seemed surprised by her easy capitulation. She knew she was a sucker for anyone who could understand her love for the ranch. A real sucker.

  So as she saddled Brat and headed out, Lucas rode beside her on the big bay gelding he'd ridden as Joe. And for an afternoon she tried to pretend that nothing had changed, that the man beside her was still the man she'd fallen in love with all those months ago.

  The man she still ached for, every night she spent alone. An ache that had come back full-force now that they were under the same roof.

  But any time she looked at him straight-on, any time she saw his eyes, the illusion was shattered. This wasn't Joe, the man with no past, no ties, the man with the puzzled, haunted look in his eyes. This man knew exactly who he was, knew his place in his world.

  Or his realm, she thought with silent irony. In the literal sense of the word, relating to kings. She still found it hard to believe. But she knew it was true. Unlike the quiet Joe, Lucas had a place in a bigger world—in fact, a place on the world stage. A stage where there was no role for a simple Colorado rancher.

  It was Brat who warned her, her ears swiveling back, her tail swishing. Jessie turned, and as she'd half expected, saw the big bay approaching. Whenever she went out to ride, it seemed he came after her. She wondered if he was watching her, or if he just had everybody on the ranch reporting to him whenever she left the house.

  Irritation flickered through her, but she was determined nothing would spoil today. She'd been waiting to make this particular ride since she'd arrived back at the ranch, and she wouldn't let her self-appointed keeper interfere. She wheeled Brat back around and continued on, and was honest enough to admit she'd just decided to take the much trickier shorter route, up the sheer side of the mesa on a trail narrow enough to have her scraping a stirrup on one side while her other foot hung out over space.

  He kept up with her, of course. She hadn't really expected him not to; that hadn't even really been her intent.

  Sometimes it seemed like her life had narrowed down to two things—her baby and his father. Every minute that wasn't taken up with Luke—which admittedly wasn't many—was taken up with battling her feelings for the man sleeping just across the hall.

  She went very still as something struck her for the first time. Brat's head came up. The horse was incredibly sensitive to the slightest new tension in her body. She whispered a soothing word to the animal, but kept on thinking about what she had just realized. That unlike Joe, who had stayed in the bunkhouse even after they'd become lovers, Lucas—and his entire entourage—had moved into the house without any hesitation, or even asking her.

  It wasn't really arrogance, or royal prerogative. It only made sense—he'd want to be close to Luke. And she couldn't deny she was glad to have all that help handy, she was still very new at this mothering business. But it just pounded home to her how things had changed, how Joe was just as gone as if he'd never really existed.

  So why did she lie awake at night, listening for the slightest sound, not just from Luke's crib, but from the room across the hall? Why was she unable to sleep even after he'd gone to bed and silence descended on the house?

  Why did she so often wake up from dreams that were a tangled mass of emotions, with the only constant being the hot, erotic images drawn up out of the depths of memory?

  She shuddered, and Brat's head came up again. And again she spoke to the horse, and forced herself to turn her attention back to the rather precarious trail. She felt the buckskin's powerful muscles bunch as Brat prepared for the push up and over the rim of the mesa, and for a few seconds at least, she had room in her mind for nothing else.

  Once she reached the flat of the plateau, she sent Brat to the east at a slow trot, glad to now have the task of searching the landscape to distract her. She knew from the sound of rolling pebbles and the swiveling of Brat's ears that the bay had just come over the rim. She didn't look back. Five minutes passed, then ten. Suddenly the buckskin's ears shot forward, and her head came up.

  They're here, Jessie thought, that old excitement that never left her rising anew.

  She reined the buckskin down to a walk, reached back and pulled a small pair of binoculars from her saddlebag, and intensified her visual searching. Still, it was a few minutes more before her human eyes picked up what the mare's sensitive ears and nose had already located.

  She spotted the black colt first. The darkness of his coat stood out on the mesa long dried out by the summer sun and ready for the blanket of snow to come. Coming two now, he was bigger, stronger, and looked fat enough to make it through the winter, as long as he stayed healthy.


  The black colt's mother looked good, as well, perhaps because this year there was no foal at her side. And there was the pinto, and the jug-headed bay, over there was the liver-chestnut filly—wait, did she have a foal? Jessie leaned forward, trying to see, and after a moment was sure; the three-year-old was now a mother. And over there—

  She stopped her own thoughts as she spotted the stallion. He was a wiry, compact sorrel with a flaxen mane and tail, who made up for what he lacked in stature in sheer muscle and power and spirit. He was off to the north, atop a rise, watching over his small band. And in the moment she saw him, he became aware of her. His head came up sharply and he wheeled to face her, even from the distance of at least two hundred yards.

  She lifted the binoculars to her eyes, unable to resist the lure of simply looking at this wildest of wild things. The magnification showed her the flared nostrils, the intense gaze, the sharp ears as the horse analyzed this new possible threat. His body showed the scars of many fights to maintain his leadership, but he was still young and strong, and likely to remain in charge for a while yet, unless he got hurt.

  Usually she would have been up here several times already this year, and he'd be used to her by now. Still, he should know he didn't need to fear this familiar and harmless intruder in his domain.

  She frowned as the horse stomped one forefoot, then wheeled and raced down the rise, trumpeting his warning to his band, sending them racing away. And then she realized what she had forgotten in the joy of seeing the wild ones again—she wasn't alone.

  When Lucas rode up beside her, she was just irritated enough that his presence had sent the wild ones running to take it out on him. But the moment she looked at him, saw the wonder on his face, she bit back the words.

  "Wild horses?" he asked, his tone full of an awe that went a long way toward making her forgive him for his intrusion on what was normally a special, private time for her. "Is that what they were, real mustangs?"

  "Yes," she said, realizing she'd never shown Joe this. They'd been too busy with... other things. "They've been up here on the mesa for a long time now," she finished hastily.

  "I've seen film, but to see them in the flesh...."

  His voice trailed off as he looked wistfully after the vanishing herd. And she forgave him completely, because she could see he felt just as she did.

  "I come up every year to see how they're doing, if they need supplemental feeding before winter. They look good this year. And they only lost a couple."

  "Lost?"

  She nodded. "The old white mare, and a three-year-old colt. She may have died naturally, and the colt may have been driven away by the stallion."

  "May have?"

  "Or they may have been shot, or poisoned."

  He blinked. "What?"

  "A lot of ranchers hate them. Think they take up range and graze that should go to cattle. A lot of them aren't above doing a little thinning of their own. Some of them would like to just kill them all."

  "I can't believe that," Lucas said, shaking his head.

  "It's their livelihood that's being affected. They've got families to feed, and since ranching isn't exactly the most profitable venture these days, they can't afford to cut any slack for anything but their moneymakers, which are the cattle. I understand. I don't agree, I think the horses are too precious to destroy, but I understand where they're coming from."

  "And you can afford it because you're specialized?" he asked.

  She nodded. "My money comes from quality, not quantity, so I can afford the range space."

  For a long moment they just sat there, in the old, companionable silence she'd once known with Joe. She sighed inwardly, knowing that longing for the past was useless, but still unable to help herself. She'd loved Joe with all the passion and emotion she had in her. And she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could come to love this man beside her in the same way.

  But even if she could love a prince, she didn't think she could ever live with one.

  Chapter 5

  The full moon washed the vista in an eerie silver light. Lucas shifted in the saddle, staring out across the vastness of the Colorado landscape from his vantage point on the ridge. Behind him were the Rockies, the towering peaks that still inspired awe in him. He remembered how, as Joe, he'd often stood outside at night and just stared up at them. He'd known that these "serious mountains," as Jessie called them, were something his home—even though he couldn't remember it—didn't have, yet somehow they seemed familiar.

  Now, of course, he knew that the Sebastiani family owned a large cabin in Aspen, a cabin that was one of his favorite places to retreat, and was, in fact, where he'd been heading when the plane he'd rented for the spur-ofthe-moment trip had gone down in that freak Colorado storm.

  And if that crash hadn 't happened, you would never have met Jessie, he thought. And Luke, precious Luke, would never have been born.

  The sense of loss he felt at the very idea startled him. It still had the power to shock him sometimes, how that tiny little boy had already wrapped him around his finger. He'd clung to him at first, when he'd thought Jessie dead, because Luke was the only part of her he had left. But it hadn't taken long to see himself in the child, as well. And soon he was enamored with Luke himself, amazed at how the baby was already showing individuality and personality.

  He'd never before understood the fascination with having children. He'd always known what was expected of him, that he would have to provide an heir to the throne, it had been hammered into him from his own childhood. And on the rare occasions when he'd thought about it growing up, he'd thought little about the woman who would bear those children. He would make, he assumed, a suitable match when the time came, hopefully with a woman he could like and respect. When his parents had chosen a British woman he'd never met, daughter of some earl or other, he'd accepted it as inevitable, eventually.

  He'd also known he would only have to be as involved with his future children as he wanted to be—there would always be nursemaids, nannies and, later, governesses to deal with them. It was expected in many circles.

  But now, he couldn't imagine handing his son over to a string of caretakers. And he suddenly understood why his parents, who had been considered quite odd in royal circles, had insisted on being so directly involved in their children's lives.

  And now, instead of that phantom woman he only hoped he could reach an accord with, he'd had a child with a woman he loved.

  And not only that. He liked and respected Jessie, as well. He admired her, was sometimes even in awe of her, something he was unused to with any woman other than his mother.

  In fact, Jessie was the first woman he'd ever been serious about that he was certain wouldn't crumble in the face of his mother's strength. He doubted she would tremble in the face of his father's power, either.

  He tried to picture it all, tried to envision Jessie in his world. Doubt assailed him, but he shoved it aside. She was the woman he loved and the mother of his son.

  He let out a long breath. He'd tried to put the future out of his mind for this time of respite. More important, he'd kept himself from broaching the subject with Jessie, because he was sure he already knew what her reaction would be. But he couldn't put it off much longer. He had a finite amount of time he could spend here, no matter how much he wanted to stay and give her all the time she needed.

  A chill overtook him, and the bay shifted restlessly. He reached out and patted the horse's neck. Jessie loved this place as she did nothing else; it was in her bones, her blood. And now it was working its magic on her. It, and baby Luke—the bond between them grew stronger every day, and Lucas guessed it would soon be as limitless as if they'd never been separated on the day he'd been born.

  In the time they'd been here she'd grown stronger, healthier, and he could see color in her cheeks once more. As she put the nightmare further and further behind her, that old sparkle in her eyes returned, joined now by a new joy—joy in the baby they'd created here in this place
. Would Montebello bring her joy, as well?

  Reluctantly, he reined the bay around and sent him toward the barn. He felt the cold of the night air against his face, reminding him winter was bearing down on them, a winter unlike any his island home would ever see. There was something exhilarating about the cold, crisp air of these mountains. Taking a deep breath was like a drink of crystal-clear, icy water. There was also a certain appeal to being snowed in, he remembered. A dangerous appeal, he thought, remembering the long, cold nights when Luke had been conceived.

  Heat flooded him then, and the chill of the night was nothing against the inner fire. His body tightened fiercely at the hot, sweet memories. They'd kept each other warm, he and Jessie, during those mountain nights. They'd kept each other warm, and she had kept him sane.

  Now he was going crazy, sleeping every night under the same roof but knowing he had no right to join her in that big, old brass bed. Knowing that Joe would have had the right, but Prince Lucas Sebastiani did not. Odd, how the position that had gained him easy and welcome entry to so many places around the world had shut the door against him in the one place he truly wanted to be.

  Back at the barn, he took his time rubbing down the big bay even though it was after midnight. He gave the big horse a ration of extra grain as thanks for the unscheduled late-night excursion, and at long last, he made his way back to the silent, sleeping house.

  At least, he'd thought it was silent. As he crept past Jessie's closed door, he heard a murmuring sound behind it. He stopped, listening. The murmur sounded almost like a whimper, and that was enough to have him knocking on the door. When no answer came, he pushed the door open.

  Jessie was just sitting up in bed, shoving tangled blond locks out of her face, blinking owlishly.

  "Jessie? Are you all right?"

  "I.. .think so," she said, staring at him somewhat dazedly. "It must have been a dream."

  "A nightmare?" he asked softly, stepping into the room.