California Royale

by Deborah Smith

  He’d find her, and when he did, he’d tie her across his saddle like a captured slave. She deserved that for putting him through hell.

  The black gelding Duke rode was accustomed to the mild demands of the estate’s guests, not the hard riding of a master horseman. Sweating, snorting in dismay, the gelding angled through the trees at a lope, and only Duke’s expert guidance kept both of them from injury. Without the dawn light, Duke’s recklessness would have been even more dangerous.

  When he saw the rocky landmark, Duke turned off the trail and urged his tired mount up the steep, familiar hill. “I’ll let you rest in a minute, partner,” he told the horse in Spanish, and the rough compassion in his voice encouraged the gelding to climb faster.

  They topped the ridge, and Duke leaned forward as if he could already see the small glen through the trees. Let her be there. Please. He’d searched everywhere else.

  Shea was huddled on the steps, looking almost unreal in the ethereal half-light. She had drawn up one knee and rested her forehead there, cushioned on her arm. A flashlight lay beside her. As Duke recognized the exhaustion and despair in her posture, he nearly forgot his anger.

  His horse snorted as he reined it to a halt, and Shea picked her head up. Duke climbed down from the saddle, and she stood to face him. Her jogging shoes were muddy and unlaced, her jeans had ripped places at the knees, and the forest’s sharp fingers had ruined the light knit top she wore. Her hair hung in a limp blond ponytail. She held up both hands in a warning gesture.

  “I know you’re upset with me, Alejandro, but I had to keep looking for her. Please don’t start an argument. I’ve been walking around the forest all night, every muscle in my body is tired, and I’m cold. I’m just resting for a minute.” As he strode toward her, his face grim, she sensed his intentions and began backing up. “You’re not taking me back! I’m not stopping!”

  “The hell you aren’t. You’re making yourself sick.” He continued in a torrent of Spanish, telling her exactly what he thought of her stubborn and thoughtless nature.

  Shea nearly fell down as she stumbled against the cold, wet pipe that gurgled spring water. She stopped backing up and pointed at Duke accusingly. “I do care about the kids you brought to the estate! I care too much! Can you understand now? Amanda is me! I don’t have to know her very well to know exactly what she’s going through! You did this to me, Alejandro. Now let me handle it my own way!”

  “Stop telling me that you and that teenager are just alike. Sympathy is one thing, but I’m fed up with your ridiculous self-torture.” He pulled her by both wrists and seared her with a fierce, unhappy look. “Go ahead and hate me,’ he said hoarsely. Duke hauled her toward him, then bent forward and braced one big shoulder against her stomach. The air whooshed out of her as he stood, hoisting her over his back as easily as he would a sack of horse feed.

  Blood rushed to Shea’s head and made her see pinpoints of light. She clutched the waist of his jeans and hung on grimly as he carried her to his horse. When he sat her down she shoved him away and unleashed her own emotional speech in Spanish.

  “It’s not love that makes you come looking for me! It’s the need to be a bully! A matón, yes!”

  “Tapar la boca.”

  “Be quiet? Is that the way you want me? Quiet … and docile?”

  “I’d settle for quiet,” he retorted. “I’m taking you back to your cottage.” Then he turned her around to face his horse’s saddle, grabbed the bottom of her rump with both large hands, and boosted her upwards. She threw one leg over the horse and landed with a jar that hurt every overworked joint in her body. Suddenly lightheaded from nerves and exhaustion, she bent forward and rested her head on the horse’s mane.

  Alarmed, Duke touched his fingers to her pale, cool cheek. “Shea?”

  She caught a sobbing sound in her throat. “Take me to the Japanese garden. It’s the last place I can think of to look.”

  “No.” He jerked his hand away and cursed viciously.

  “I’ll go without you! I don’t need your help!”

  “I don’t think you need me at all. I don’t know what you need.” She started to sit up, but he reached out swiftly and anchored a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take you, dammit,” he said raspily.

  Duke put a foot in the stirrup and swung up behind her. His lower body crowded her rump, forcing her to sit up and scoot forward in the saddle. He slid one muscular forearm around her waist and trapped her against his powerful torso. His face was close to her ear and she could hear his rough breathing.

  “I’ll take you to the damned garden,” he repeated. “And then I’ll take you home. I’m leaving for the ranch after that.”

  Shea moaned softly. “No,” she whispered in a distraught tone. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “You want to go to the garden? Then don’t talk to me. I’ve heard enough.”

  Shea bit her lip and silent tears slipped down her face. They fell on his hand holding the reins, but he ignored them.

  Instinct told Shea that should Amanda wander into the garden, she would linger there, mesmerized. Early morning was the prettiest time of day, when sunlight glinted off the ornate little pavilion and dew shimmered like spun silver on the exotic flowers. Their fragrances mingled with the rich earth scent of the surrounding forest, and hummingbirds floated among the blossoms.

  So when Shea and Duke crested the hill and stopped, she half expected the scene they found—Amanda sitting on a stone bench by one of the garden’s ornamental pools. She had her head bowed, and she didn’t move. Her attitude conveyed a weariness and dejection that Shea understood intimately.

  “So I was right,” Shea whispered. “I should have looked here first.”

  Duke got down from the saddle, grasped her around the waist, and lifted her off the gelding. When her feet touched the ground, Shea turned to look up at him beseechingly. “Please,” she said softly, a world of apology in the word.

  He eyed her grimly. “We’ll talk later.”

  Defeat drained her of argument and she simply nodded, then turned toward the garden. When Shea started down the curving stone steps, Duke grasped her arm. “Move easy, Palomino. She might spook and run.”

  Shea shook her head, and her eyes never left Amanda. “No, she won’t run.”

  She continued down the steps, and Duke stayed beside her, his hand still holding her arm in case she stumbled from fatigue. But when he glanced at her face he saw strength and energy. She moved with unhurried grace, and as he watched, it seemed to him that her eyes filled with deep contentment. A startling idea came to him. She hadn’t just found the girl. She’d found herself.

  “Amanda?” Shea called.

  The girl lifted her head and gaped at them in shock, then straightened defensively and slung her shaggy brunet hair away from her face. Her faded gray sweatshirt was rumpled, and a leaf clung to the leg of her blue jeans. Her fierce and haughty expression couldn’t hide the evidence of dried tears.

  “Yeah. You’ve found me. So what? I knew I’d get caught soon. I wasn’t trying to hide, see?”

  Shea sat down cross-legged on the stone floor by the bench and looked up at the girl calmly. Amanda stared back at her. Duke moved a few feet away and stood with his hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans. “You look like hell,” Amanda said abruptly, and jabbed a finger at Shea.

  “I’ve been out in the woods all night, trying to find you.”

  “Why? You get bored with doing your nails and decide to play good fairy?” Amanda cut her eyes in Duke’s direction. “No, I got it. You’re just trying to impress him. You did it to make him happy.”

  Shea smiled, completely unrattled, and shook her head. “I did it for you. And for myself.”

  “Yeah, for yourself, right. What do you care about a fat kid with problems?”

  Shea took a deep breath, shut her eyes for a moment, then locked her gaze on Amanda’s. “I used to be a fat kid with problems.”

  After a stunned moment, Amanda utt
ered a terse obscenity that indicated her disbelief. “You don’t have anything in common with me,” she insisted.

  “I’ve read your background. I grew up in an inner-city housing project, just like you did.”

  Amanda’s mouth curved in a sneer. “Oh, yeah, and how did your mother make a living?”

  Shea resisted a sudden gnawing urge to look at Duke. Please understand, Alejandro, she prayed silently. “She was a prostitute. Just like your mother. She was a waitress in a strip bar, and she sold herself to make extra money.”

  Amanda simply stared at her. Then her expression tightened in a painful grimace that was part belief arid part hope. “You came from that?”

  Shea nodded. She glanced at Duke as he sat down on his boot heels. He had his head bent, and he jammed one hand through his hair. He was upset, either horrified or sympathetic or both. Shea struggled to clear the knot of fear from her throat and looked quickly back at Amanda.

  “I don’t even know who my father is,” Shea continued. “I grew up poor, and overweight, and very, very angry at the world. If it hadn’t been for a tough little woman who lived in our apartment building, I’d probably be—Lord knows what right now. She kept me out of serious trouble.”

  “I can’t picture you in any kind of trouble, Goldilocks.”

  Shea smiled grimly. “By the time I was twelve, I was a terrific pickpocket and shoplifter. My best heist was a frozen turkey from a neighborhood grocery store.”

  “What the hell did you want with a frozen turkey?”

  “It was Christmas, and the woman I mentioned—the one who kept me out of trouble—couldn’t afford a turkey. So I brought her one. Unfortunately, she figured out that I stole it, and she made me take it back.”

  “But how … how …” Amanda waved one hand around her, indicating the estate. “How’d you end up running a fancy joint like this?”

  “When I was fifteen, my mother got arrested. The state juvenile authorities decided I’d be better off in a foster home while she was serving time. I got lucky. Have you ever heard of Funny Money, that game show on television?”

  “Sure. It’s been around forever.”

  “The man who hosts it—he and his wife don’t have any children of their own—so they take in foster kids. I went from living in public housing to living in a Beverly Hills home.”

  Duke spoke then, his voice low and incredulous. “Chip Greeson?”

  Shea cleared her throat and stared down at her rigidly clasped hands. “That’s right. I’ve always kept quiet about it because Chip’s a celebrity. He and his wife don’t want the press to find out about their work with foster children: Too much publicity would be hard on the kids. I lived with the Greesons until I was eighteen. I lost fifty pounds, I learned to like school, and I realized that I was a lot more than a prostitute’s daughter. Later, the Greesons paid my way through college.”

  Amanda buried her face in both hands. “I bet I know why you were a fat kid.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Shea agreed softly.

  “So nobody would touch you.”

  Shea inhaled with painful slowness. “That’s right. If I made myself unappealing, the men who hung around my mother—”

  “Would stop trying to bother you,” Amanda finished. She raised her head. The anger and sarcasm were gone from her features. “It works. I know.”

  Shea sat beside her on the bench. She put her arms around Amanda, and they shared a look of eternal compassion. “You’re not alone,” Shea told her. “I’ll help you.”

  The tears Amanda cried now were tears of relief. “I’ve never had anybody who gave a damn about me,” she murmured brokenly.

  “Neither did I at your age. And it’s taken me a long time to really believe that anyone could care about me.”

  Amanda buried her head on Shea’s shoulder and sobbed. Shea closed her eyes and cried too—for Amanda, for all the young people hurt by the ugliness in the world, and for herself. What did Alejandro think of his golden princess now? Eventually, when her courage was high, she lifted her head to look at him.

  He was gone.

  “Boss, I was so worried.”

  “I’m all right,” Shea interjected wearily. “Have you seen or heard from Duke?”

  “He’s in your office.”

  Shea halted in mid-stride and stared at her closed office door. Her stomach felt as though it was tied in knots. “Did he say anything?”

  “Said you found the girl. That you and she were in the garden talking things over. Said he had some business to do, and he wanted to use your phone.”

  “I’m going in. If anyone calls, take a message.”

  “Want me to let Duke know—”

  “No. I’ll surprise him,” Shea said grimly.

  Her energy renewed a bit, she strode to the door, opened it without knocking first, and stepped into her office. Duke sat at her desk, her gold-and-white pedestal phone looking ridiculously dainty in his hand. He wore dark, aviator-style sunglasses, and she couldn’t tell anything about his emotions as he glanced up.

  Shea shut the door hard, went to the guest chair in front of the desk, and sat on the edge of the seat. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could tell from the angle of his head that he was staring straight at her.

  “Will you take care of that immediately. Bill?” Duke told someone on the phone. “I’ll come down to San Diego and sign the papers within the next couple of days. Yeah, that fast. All right. Gracias. Bye.” He hung up the phone.

  “Making plans to leave?” Shea asked in a low, tense voice.

  “Making plans to give you the estate. A surveyor will be out this afternoon to set up a dividing line between the estate and the group home. You’ll get the new land plan along with a deed—”

  “I don’t want a gift given out of pity!” she protested, her voice rising. Shea stood and glared down at him, hurt and confusion battling inside her.

  He stood too, his body rigid with tension and his mouth grim. “Don’t push me, querida. I can’t argue with you right now. Go to your cottage and wait for me. We’ll talk in a little while.”

  “If I own this place now—or will own it, soon—I’ll tell you what to do! Now that you know what I come from, you won’t expect me to be delicate about it, will you?”

  “Get out,” he told her evenly. “I said we’ll talk later.” Then he pivoted, kicked her desk chair out of the way, and went to one of the office windows. He braced his hands on the jambs and gripped the wood so fiercely that she could see muscles flex under his shirt.

  Shea wandered numbly to the settee near him and sank down. “Say it,” she rasped in a wretched tone. “Just say that you walked away because you were disgusted by what I told Amanda. You’ve always given me the truth before. Do it now.”

  He groaned softly and turned his head to look at her. “Woman, you get the wildest notions. I wasn’t disgusted. I love you more than ever.”

  After a moment she managed to ask, “Then why did you walk away?”

  Duke looked back out of the window, his jaw clenched, the sinews straining in his neck. “Dammit, Palomino, leave me alone for a little while, won’t you?”

  “I’m dying inside because I don’t know what’s in your mind right now, Alejandro! I’m not leaving this room!” She got up and went to him, grasped his arm tightly, and leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “Say it in Spanish, in English, in pig Latin, I don’t care. Just tell me what you feel!”

  He trembled beneath her hands. His voice was a low rasp. “Latin men are macho, querida. We don’t like to cry in front of our women.” He shifted, struggling for control as if he were forcing himself to lift an impossible weight.

  Suddenly Shea understood why he’d left her alone with Amanda. Tenderness and relief sleeted through her, and she caught a sob in her throat.

  “You left because you didn’t want me to see you cry? Oh, Alejandro. It doesn’t embarrass me. I don’t think you’re less of a man if you cry in front of me. You cried once when we were ma
king love, remember?”

  “A few tears from happiness. This … is different. And this morning I had … so many things to say to you. They were for you alone, so I walked away. The girl, is she …”

  “She’s asleep in a room here at the main house. She’s fine.” Shea hesitated. “I’m going to help her somehow. I’ll have to talk to the authorities and see what can be done.”

  “Si. We’ll help her, querida.” His deep voice was suddenly tinged with anger. “The way I would have helped you weeks ago, if you’d trusted me.”

  Shea stroked his back for a second, then murmured, “I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone in my life.”

  He made a disdaining sound. “That’s a hell of an accolade. You don’t trust me enough, but it’ll have to do, eh?” Before she could answer, he continued hoarsely, “I would have listened. I would have cared. And things between us would have been so much simpler, if you’d told me that you’d been abused as a kid.”

  Shea knotted her hands in his shirt and pressed her forehead against his taut, unyielding back. “It’s not the kind of story a woman enjoys telling her lover.”

  “I’m your friend as well as your lover. I have to know everything—what makes you uncomfortable, what scares you, what still has power over you.”

  She struggled for a moment, trying desperately to tear down the walls inside her, her hands clenching harder and her face contorted with pain. “Be my friend,” Shea managed to say finally. “And don’t ask me to talk about things that might disgust you.”

  He shifted as a shudder went through him. “If you don’t talk, it will always be between us.”

  “Only if you concentrate on it.”

  “You’re shutting me out. I can’t stand that.”

  She began to cry. “No, no. I’m letting you in. Just as much as I possibly can. Don’t you understand? There’s still a part of me that feels dirty and ashamed. It’s so ugly that I don’t want to share it with anyone.”

  “Palomino,” he whispered wretchedly. “There’s nothing ugly about you. Come here.” He angled his body and raised one arm, beckoning to her without turning around.