THE PRINCESS AND THE P.I.

by Donna Sterling

  She wouldn't, after all, let him see her face. Which meant she didn't really trust him worth a damn.

  "Here," he muttered, placing the sunglasses in her outstretched hand. "They're clean."

  As she put the sunglasses back on, he leaned into the car and pulled from his glove compartment a small kit, which he slipped into his jeans' pocket. And while she busied herself packing her possessions into the back seat, he opened the kit, withdrew a microdot electronic tracking device, and attached it to her purse. Just in case she tried to give him the slip.

  "If there weren't any electronic devices on me," she pondered, nestled in the passenger seat once more as he settled behind the wheel, "then how did that blue van find us?"

  "The device was probably on the bracelet or sandals you pitched in the Dumpster."

  "Hmm. Too bad we don't have the time to find them and see."

  "Yeah. Too bad." He started up the car.

  She frowned, shivered and glanced both ways down the quiet side street. "At least we've lost the van for now. We'd better get far away from here, and quick. I'd wanted to spend some time in Atlanta, but I think it might be risky." After a moment she decided. "Head south."

  "South? What about that cabin up north that I mentioned earlier?"

  "I'd rather visit Florida. Panama City Beach, I think."

  "Panama City!" He'd figured her more for the Greek Isles or South of France type. "There's bound to be capacity crowds this time of year—either families or hell-raising partygoers."

  "Sounds perfect." She smiled and leaned her head back against the seat, her rosy-blond curls cascading like a waterfall, her slender throat alluringly exposed.

  A sudden impulse possessed him—to press a kiss against her throat, just beneath the tender underside of her jaw; to taste the skin that had felt like heaven beneath his hands. Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, he realized this was going to be one long drive—much longer than the six hours it would actually take to get to Florida.

  "I'm in the mood for crowds, Walker." Her voice grew soft and dreamy. "Lots of frolicking vacationers on the beaches … in the bars … on the miracle strip…"

  Tyce scowled and gripped the wheel harder. The chase hadn't worried her as much as he'd hoped. She still wanted to be around crowds. He certainly couldn't force her up to that mountain cabin. There went his hopes of getting her alone.

  Maybe it was better this way, he grudgingly mused. In his present state of mind—and body— he'd pose more of a danger to her than the crowds would.

  They drove in tense silence. The afternoon gradually gave way to evening and the expressway to a two-lane country road. Darkness descended. Hazy country moonlight replaced the glare of urban streetlights.

  As she rested her head against the seat and closed her eyes, Claire kept her sunglasses on. She felt vulnerable at the moment. Intensely vulnerable. Despite the fact that she didn't know the man at all, Walker's body search had left her so aroused she'd barely been able to walk to the car. Maybe it had been the danger of the moment, knowing her enemies were actively hunting her, or her own long-repressed desire to be naughty. Maybe it had been the sheer sexual appeal of a man as solidly masculine as Walker. Whatever the reason, she'd never before felt as wanton as she had while his hands and eyes had moved over her.

  Even now, her body simmered with sensual longing. She wanted him to reach across the seat and stroke her with those strong, bronzed hands; feel her breasts, rouse her nipples to that exquisite sensitivity that left her aching for more. She'd unzip her shorts, welcome his hand inside … she'd seek out the hardness she hoped to find behind his zipper—

  That thought brought her up sharp. Had he been aroused? If so, he hadn't shown it. He'd been positively wooden-faced the entire time he inspected her, doing nothing more than what she'd asked. Maybe she wasn't his type. When it came to sex, she hadn't been her own fiancé's type, it seemed. He'd sought out other woman to satisfy his sexual needs when he could have been with her.

  What was she lacking in the sexuality department?

  She'd been called beautiful by the press—an exaggeration, she knew, but people seemed to believe it. In fact, they believed it too much. She knew she didn't live up to the glamorous image the media had created for Valentina Richmond.

  When it came down to reality—to just plain Claire—would all men find her lacking? A troubling question. Very troubling.

  Doubts about her sexual appeal should, by all rights, have doused the inner fire Walker had lit with his intimate touches and veiled eyes. But erotic images of things he could do to her … and she to him … kept her blood on a low simmer for hours.

  Walker, meanwhile, kept his eyes on the road.

  "Walker," she said as they drew closer to their destination in the small hours of the night, "are you married?" She'd hit upon this possibility with a good measure of relief. Not only would she then understand his lack of sexual interest in her, but she'd respect him all the more for it.

  "No."

  She wasn't sure if she should be glad or insulted. "Are you … in love?"

  He looked at her as if he might tell her to mind her own business. After a moment, though, he surprised her by answering, "I thought I was, once."

  Maybe that was it—he was recently heartbroken. "How long ago?"

  "Many years." He smiled, but without humor. "I was eighteen. Her daddy disapproved."

  "So you stopped seeing her?"

  "I wasn't that gallant. He had the hell beat out of me, just to get his point across."

  A cry escaped her. "How terrible! Was he held liable for it?"

  "He was old money. I was a kid from the streets." He slanted her a glance through the moonlit darkness. "What do you think?"

  His cynicism took her by surprise. There did indeed seem to be some unresolved emotional issues here, but not quite the kind she'd imagined. "What did his daughter do?"

  He shrugged, his intensity gone as quickly as it had come. "Told me to quit coming around. Found herself a more suitable boyfriend." After a reflective silence, he added softly, "I'm no aristocrat, Princess."

  Her body went stiff. "What did you call me?"

  He winced, as if regretting a slipup.

  "Did you call me … 'Princess'?" She stared at him, her heart now pounding with something more than desire. She'd been called "Princess" by the paparazzi and the general public for as long as she could remember. Did he know who she was?

  "If I offended you, I'm sorry," he said. "I meant it only as a … a figure of speech. A casual endearment. You know, like 'Sweetheart' or … or 'Sugar.'" He sounded as if he were floundering. "I know that none of those is politically correct, but I have a bad habit of saying them anyway when I'm talking to a … a woman like you."

  "Like me?" Her insecurities rose up to taunt her. Perhaps he saw her as haughty or spoiled. Maybe that's why he'd called her princess. She couldn't help the frosty tone as she inquired, "Like me, in what way?"

  He took a moment to reply. "Poised. Elegant."

  He studied the road for a good long while, then said in a curiously gruff whisper, "Beautiful."

  Something inside her leaped, warmed and glowed. How foolish of her, to take a compliment so to heart. She'd practically forced him into flattering her.

  His gaze was a silent, serious request for forgiveness. "I meant no disrespect. My apologies … ma'am."

  Bothered by her growing attraction to this perfect stranger, she could only hope she was justified in giving him the benefit of her doubt. He probably had tossed out the word "princess" in a casual, offhanded way. "Please," she whispered, "call me Claire."

  "Claire."

  The soft, reverent way he said her name filled her with an almost painful warmth. "The only time I want you to call me by one of your 'casual endearments,'" she said, her own voice hushed and somber, "is if you mean it."

  And it was there again between them, intensified by their stares—the oddly intimate silence that left her feeling so vulnerable.

&
nbsp; The dream came to him with such vivid horror that he woke with a start, his muscles clenched and his breathing rapid. It took a moment to realize where he was—on the living room sofa bed of the condo they'd rented. He shut his eyes in the darkness and willed his heart to stop racing. He hadn't dreamed of the fight in years. He supposed he had now because he'd spoken of it. He rarely did. Why had he told her? At least he hadn't told her all of it. Maybe that was why the untold parts had replayed in his dream.

  He hadn't been alone that night fourteen years ago when his girlfriend's father had sent thugs to work him over. He'd been with a friend—a good friend who had grown up with him on the mean Los Angeles streets. They'd always watched each other's backs, he and Joe. Tyce had talked Hattie into taking Joe in and teaching him the business, too.

  They'd been having the time of their young lives, he and Joe, working together on covert tailing assignments, earning decent bucks, dating girls a little too high-class for their lowly backgrounds.

  Tyce had thought himself in love. His girl had said she'd marry him. They'd made plans.

  Her old man's thugs ambushed Joe and him with pipes, bottles and chains in an alley one night. The alley ran slick with blood. They'd barely survived the attack.

  But they hadn't been the only ones hurt. He and Joe had grown up fighting in dark back alleys. They'd turned the weapons against their attackers. One of those men had died.

  The cops blamed Joe. His fingerprints were found on the pipe that had crushed the skull of the meanest thug. They convicted him of murder. The old man used his political power to insure the toughest sentence possible. Till this day, Joe sat in a California prison, serving a life sentence without parole.

  Pain and anger coursed through Tyce, making him sick and hot with it. He'd get Joe out, he swore. He'd spent the past fourteen years of his life trying. He'd built his fortune, a damn solid one, with just that end in mind. But money wasn't enough to get Joe's case reopened. The old man had too much power in California; he'd gone to great lengths to prevent discovery of his own role in the killing. He had, after all, hired those thugs. Joe had killed in self-defense.

  During his quest for justice, Tyce had learned about other cases that cried out to him. Street punks, foster kids, teens thrown into jails without sufficient counsel or evidence. Tyce considered these kids his own. He knew the battles they fought, the odds they faced. He did what he could to help them. His investigations had gotten quite a few of them off.

  It was Joe's turn now.

  This assignment to follow Valentina Richmond promised to be the key to Joe's freedom. Tyce had struck a deal with her uncle, Edgar Richmond—another viable political force in California. Tyce would keep him informed of every move his niece made, and Edgar would see to it that Joe's case was retried.

  Nothing could get in the way of that deal.

  It took a while, but Tyce eventually slept. He opened his eyes hours later to bright Florida sunlight, the roar of the surf outside and a pang of annoyance. He'd slept much deeper than he'd intended.

  He rose from the sofa bed, crossed the living room to the closed bedroom door and rapped on it, hoping Claire hadn't slipped by him unnoticed. Chances were she was still sleeping.

  She'd been exhausted last night by the time they'd driven up to the beachside complex and hadn't put up more than a token fight when he'd registered them in a one-bedroom unit instead of a two bedroom. This setup would afford him a better watch over her. The sofa bed was situated near her bedroom door, allowing no way in—or out—without his notice.

  Unless, of course, he was dead to the world.

  His knock drew no response from within the bedroom. "Ms. Jones?" he called. He received no answer. Steeling himself against the odd rush of tenderness he'd felt when he'd used her given name last night, he called, "Claire?"

  She didn't answer.

  He tried the bedroom door, found it unlocked and pushed it open. The king-size bed was rumpled but unoccupied. The adjoining bathroom open and empty.

  She was gone.

  * * *

  4

  « ^ »

  Cursing beneath his breath, Tyce strode from the bedroom to the kitchenette, then back to the sliding-glass doors in the living room. He whisked the drapes aside to find the chairs on the tenth-story balcony unoccupied, with no one standing at the railing that overlooked the sugar-white beach and azure Gulf waters.

  Anger stormed through him, and he realized it was fueled by a keen anxiety. She'd left the condo without him. Anything could happen to her out there alone. Anything. Anyone as famous as she faced a very real danger on the streets unprotected.

  Another thought hit him like a fist to the stomach—what if she wasn't coming back? Maybe his asinine slipup last night when he'd called her "Princess" had tipped her off to the fact that he knew her real identity. Maybe she'd caught a bus or a train, or rented a car.

  She'd left a few toiletries and luggage, but she could have done so to throw him off, to get farther away before he realized she wasn't coming back. She had enough cash to buy whatever she needed and travel as far as she wanted to go.

  Pacing to his briefcase, he took out his notebook computer, flipped it open and sat down at the glass dining table. With a few clicks of the mouse, he brought up a local street map on the screen, then activated the electronic tag he'd attached to her purse. He'd find her, by God.

  A blinking red light on the screen indicated the location of the tag. She was still on the main beachside road, he realized with relief. He studied the map to pinpoint her exact location. When he found it, he frowned in puzzlement. The red light indicated the condo! The electronic device had to be here. Had she left her purse? Or had she discovered the tag and removed it? If so, he'd have a hell of a time tracking her down.

  As he rose from his seat to search the condo for the purse or the tag, the front door opened. In walked Claire, her purse in one hand and plastic grocery bags in the other. The relief he felt at seeing her made him all the more angry.

  "Morning!" she sang brightly. With her face shaded by those infernal sunglasses and her new sun hat, she looked like a typical young vacationer at the beach, buoyant and carefree and impossibly beautiful in slim white shorts and a flowered halter top.

  "Where the hell have you been?" Tyce slammed his computer closed as she waltzed blithely by him on her way to the kitchenette.

  "Oh, Walker, it was wonderful. I went to a grocery store." She took off her hat and sent it sailing to the sofa, freeing her curls to bounce and shimmer. "I tried to order breakfast from room service, but this place doesn't have room service, being a condominium complex instead of a hotel. The nearest restaurant is a few blocks away, but the concierge—I mean, the clerk—told me that a grocery store was just across the street. And we have a kitchen, Walker. It all just fell into place!"

  "Don't you understand how dangerous it is for you to leave here without me?" His angry reprimand drew her attention away from the grocery bags she'd deposited onto the kitchen counter. She opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off before she could say a word. "I'm supposed to be guarding you from the media and some crazy stalker. How the hell can I do that if you sneak out on your own?"

  She pressed her lips together and lifted one elegant, golden brow above the rim of her sunglasses—a regal admonishment, he realized, for addressing her in an unseemly manner. "I believe I have the right to come and go as I please."

  "Only if you want to be mobbed by reporters or shot by some rifle-toting nut!"

  She paled, but her stance remained queenlike, with her head held high. "Neither of those fascinating possibilities rate very highly on my vacation roster. But then, I hadn't planned on having a constant shadow following me around everywhere, either."

  It occurred to him then that this trip to Panama City might not have been as spontaneous as it had seemed. Maybe she'd meant to come here all along. Maybe she'd planned to meet someone.

  Edgar Richmond had hired him to report on her activities; he
may have had more reason than he'd mentioned. Had she just returned from an early morning rendezvous? The thought twisted and rankled inside of him. With whom, and why? A political intrigue? A secret lover?

  He pried his gaze away from her, needing to cool down. Needing to lose the attitude. He had one, he knew—a bad one. He didn't like the idea of her sneaking away for a private tryst … with any damn body. And though it was his job to probe, question, monitor and report, he didn't want to doubt her truthfulness to him. He, who had personally uncovered hundreds of shady dealings and deceptions—especially among the famous, the wealthy and the beautiful—found himself ready to believe that she'd only gone to get groceries. What was happening to him?

  "You scared the hell out of me," he muttered.

  Some of the regal disdain left her voice. "I'm sorry." She pulled a carton of eggs out of a grocery bag, then a loaf of bread. "You were sleeping so soundly, I hated to wake you."

  "I don't care if I'm in a coma. You wake me before you go anywhere."

  She offered no reply, seemingly intent on putting a quart of milk in the refrigerator, but he noticed a renegade dimple playing hide-and-seek beside her mouth.

  He narrowed his eyes. "What are you smiling at?"

  She turned away to open a cupboard. "I'm not smiling."

  "Okay, then what are you trying not to smile at?"

  When she finally glanced back at him, her dimple had deepened. "You were actually yelling at me."

  He frowned, unsure of how to reply. She didn't seem to be asking for an apology.

  She leaned against the kitchen counter and propped her hand on a slender hip. "Do you know how long it's been since anyone has yelled at me? I believe the last person was my father, when I was about nine." She looked so pleased that the last of his anger evaporated. How could any woman enjoy being yelled at? Not that she had allowed it for very long. The look she'd given him at the time could have frozen any man's mouth shut. His ranting, he realized, hadn't affected her at all, other than to bring an amused dimple to her cheek.