by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
"So you want me to return home and thus ensure that Desmond is out of the way here."
He grinned. "Exactly."
"Do you think…" Her expression turned troubled, and guilt darkened her eyes. "Do you think he means harm to Lucas?"
Had Caruso gotten too cozy in his newly developed friendship with King Marcus since Lucas's disappearance? Would he protect his position at any cost? Could he possibly be stupid enough, foolish enough, reckless enough, to try to remove any competition for that position—even the king's only son?
It certainly wouldn't be the first time one family member had turned on another, especially when power or wealth was involved. But it was too serious an accusation to make, too dangerous a conclusion to reach, without something more to go on than a feeling that things weren't right.
"I honestly don't know what he's doing, Annie. Maybe I'm being paranoid. Maybe he truly is just trying to help. But we can't take any chances. Getting him away from here and back to San Sebastian seems the best course of action to me."
"And what will you do?"
"I've got to talk to the local sheriff about the man Lorenzo caught trying to break into Ursula's house. That may or may not require some follow-up. Then I'll report in and see what the bosses want me to do."
"So…" Anna gazed at her hands, clasped in her lap. "You may go from here to your next assignment."
He found it easier to look at her hands, too. "Maybe. Or maybe back into training. I don't know."
"You… We… We, uh, might…" After a moment, she drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Very well," she said, looking and sounding every bit the cool, collected princess. "Shall we return to the house and break the news to Desmond that he's cutting his trip short?"
"In a moment. There's one more thing I need to do first." Abruptly he took her in his arms, lowered her to the bed, stretched out with her and kissed her. It was hard, hungry, a desperate attempt to silence the questions echoing in his head. What if this was the last time he could ever hold her? What if his job kept him away from Montebello? What if she didn't want him there? What if he was nothing more to her than a pleasant aspect of her American adventure? What if she forgot him and married one of her princes or kings?
What if he told her he loved her and she didn't love him back?
What if she did?
When finally he released her, somehow he'd wound up on his back and she was lying on top of him. He was hard, and she was soft and hot where her hips rubbed him. Her lips were swollen, giving her a well-kissed look, and her eyes seemed twice their size, filled with a sadness that made him ache inside.
He recognized a goodbye when he saw it.
He released her slowly—his fingers didn't want to let her go any more than his heart did—and she sat up, then stood up, putting the width of the room between them. As he sat up, she combed her fingers through her hair, straightened her coat, avoided looking at him. "We should go."
"Yes," he agreed, even though the last thing he wanted was to walk out that door.
She walked to the door, her back to him, and waited. "Of course we won't tell Desmond and Ms. Chambers about finding the ski cap."
"Of course not." He opened the door for her, then closed and locked it behind him. When he reached to steady her as they descended the snow-covered steps, she none too subtly moved away.
Once again he felt the force of Caruso's and Ursula's gazes as they approached the house. By the time they walked into the kitchen, though, the couple was sitting at the table, as if they'd remained there the entire time.
"Find anything?" Ursula asked idly.
"No, we didn't. We won't impose on you any longer." Tyler turned his attention to Caruso. "Anna has decided to return to Montebello this evening, which naturally requires an escort. You wouldn't mind doing that for her father, now would you?" He said it in a conversational way, as if it were a sure thing, as if Caruso couldn't possibly refuse. And even though suspicion flared momentarily in his dark eyes, it disappeared immediately and was replaced by eagerness.
"I would be honored to escort my charming cousin home," he said, giving her an oily smile. "Between my job and the demands on her time, we spend so little time together. This will give us a chance to talk."
Anna smiled politely. "I'll look forward to it."
"Then why don't we get started?" Tyler asked. "I'll see you to the airport in Denver."
"That won't be necessary," Caruso began, but Tyler cut him off.
"Oh, I think it is. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't personally put the two of you on a chartered jet headed east." And he knew just who to call—his brother, Jake—to arrange a last-minute international chartered flight. By the time they drove back to Denver International, Jake would have a Dassault Falcon waiting. It was the next best thing to the Gulfstream, and it would have a crew whose loyalty was to the Ramseys, who would make sure Anna's snake of a cousin didn't try anything and would deliver her safely home.
Since he had no choice but to agree, Caruso tried to do so graciously. "Very well, then. Shall I follow you, or vice versa?"
"If you know the way, we'll follow you."
Caruso smiled. "I always know where I'm going. Excuse me while I get my coat."
Tyler, Anna and Ursula stood around the kitchen table, none of them speaking. Anna looked about a million miles distant, and Ursula looked as if she were trying to determine her next move. When Caruso returned wearing his coat and gloves, she offered him her hand.
"Your visit this afternoon was a pleasure, Desmond," she said. "And Tyler, yours, too. I wish you luck in finding Joe. if you have any more questions, feel free to come back and ask them. Anna."
Though the reasonably polite thing to do would be head to the SUV and let Ursula and Caruso say goodbye in private, Tyler wasn't feeling the least bit polite. After all, it was a sure bet he wasn't going to get any time alone with Anna once they reached the airport. The goodbye she'd said in the cabin was going to be all he got for the time being.
Maybe forever.
* * *
Ursula watched from the living room window until the two vehicles were out of sight, then turned away. Thanks to Ramsey and that little twit Anna—what a prissy thing she was!—Desmond had been forced to leave his suitcase behind. It was upstairs in the guest room where they'd spent the better part of the past two days, making wicked love and wickeder plans. She wouldn't waste time searching through it, though—had, in fact, already done that the first night, while he slept. All she'd found was a small fortune in clothing and damn near as many toiletries as she packed when she traveled. Desmond Caruso was a vain man.
Being a vain woman, she didn't hold it against him.
Instead she went down the hall to Jessica's office, sat down at the desk and turned on the computer. Though he'd confided a great deal in her, Desmond had never told her exactly who he was—not that she'd pushed it. Finding out things like that was what the Internet was for.
Of course, she'd kept two rather major secrets of her own. In all their talking and scheming, there'd been no mention of Jessica, or the baby she carried. Desmond's plans involved getting rid of Prince Lucas in order to slip someone else into his place. She didn't believe he would be at all happy to learn that the prince had a child who would be the rightful heir to the throne after his father's death, and she didn't intend to give him advance notice.
That baby had a fabulous future ahead, and she fully intended to be at his side.
Every step of the way.
* * *
Just as Jake had promised, the Falcon was waiting at the general aviation terminal when they arrived. Tyler sorted Anna's luggage from his own, but when he started to pick up the bags, she reached for them, too. "You're not my porter," she reminded him, her wan smile an indication of how little she felt like teasing.
"I'll carry your bags, Annie." Gently he removed her hands from the straps. "These guys—" he nodded toward the crew "—are all armed and well trained to take care of
you. If Jeff there in the middle isn't the most gracious flight attendant, it's because he's a bodyguard instead. You might want to show Caruso how your weeks in America among the common folk have changed you by inviting Jeff to watch movies with you in the cabin or whatever."
"I will."
"I put your brother's cap in this bag." He tapped the larger of her suitcases. "See that it gets turned over to Lorenzo and no one else, all right?"
"I will."
He turned the luggage over to the crew, who stowed it, then returned to the truck, where Anna still waited. His smile was unsteady and kept slipping away no matter how hard he tried. "I guess this is goodbye."
"Thank you for everything. And I'll tell Papa you were a most professional bodyguard."
This was probably a good time to tell her that she and Christina could quit lying now; Papa knew all about her adventure. But he didn't want his last few minutes with her colored with anger, disappointment or worse, and Desmond was waiting impatiently in the jet's doorway. "I, uh… Thank you."
"For what?"
He shrugged. He didn't have words for most of what he wanted to say, and didn't have the nerve for half of it. "Be careful."
"I will." She started to turn away, then swung back around and faced him once more. His chest grew tight, and in spite of the frigid temperatures, be felt heat spreading outward through his body. "Mi manchi. Mi somo inamorata di te."
"What does that mean?"
For a moment she simply gazed at him, then translated. "Be careful. Stay safe."
Disappointment shafted through him. He'd thought … maybe … the way she'd looked so serious…
He forced one of the grins she considered so arrogant. "Always, Your Highness. Always."
With a haunting smile, she turned away again, this time for good, and boarded the jet without a look back. Tyler tried to make himself get in the SUV and leave—after all, he had a long drive back to Shady Rock, and he was already tired from the traveling he'd done that day, and the very last thing in the world he needed was to watch her fly away out of his life—but he couldn't move. He watched the crew board, close the air stairs and secure the hatch. He watched as they taxied away from the hangar, and he continued to watch until finally, in the distance, the jet appeared, a bright mix of colors, in the sky.
Feeling more lost than he'd ever been, he drove back to Shady Rock, where he talked to the sheriff about the attempted break-in weeks ago at the Chambers ranch. Though Lorenzo had stopped the man from gaining access to the house, in the struggle he'd knocked the guy unconscious and his return to Montebello had prevented him from gaining any further information on him.
There wasn't much more to learn, the sheriff told Tyler. The guy's name was Kevin Weber, he was short, dark and olive-skinned, and no one had seen him since he'd posted bail and disappeared. No one had a clue where he'd come from, where he'd gone or how he'd chosen the Chambers ranch to rob. It was obviously not an overly prosperous place—not many ranches in that area were, what with all their capital tied up in their livestock. Of course, there were always people around who'd rather steal ten dollars than work to earn fifty.
As he stood to leave the sheriffs office, the older man clapped him on the shoulder. "You look like you could use a big thick sirloin and a soft cushy bed."
He was both hungry and tired, Tyler admitted, though who cared about sleeping when you slept alone? "Is there somewhere around here where I can find both?"
"Yep, there's a motel and restaurant side by side, just down the street."
He nodded in acknowledgment, then asked one more question. "I went out to the Chambers place earlier, just to ask a few questions and have a look around. What do you think of her?"
"The ranch has been in the family for years. She loves it and
works hard to keep it going—and take my word for it, it's a damn hard job." The sheriff shrugged. "She's well liked and respected around here."
The opinion certainly didn't mesh with his own. Maybe he was just paranoid. Maybe the job had already gotten to him. Maybe he was that poorly suited to it, because he darn well wouldn't have suspected any of that about Ursula. Of course, hadn't he thought this afternoon that the role she was playing for them wasn't the real her? Maybe she'd felt intimidated, or had been pretending to be the kind of woman she thought would appeal to Caruso. Either one would explain why he and the sheriff could be talking about two different people.
"Thanks for your time. If you hear anything about Weber…"
"I'll pass it on."
The sun had already set by the time he left the building, and the temperature had dropped with it. Dinner and a room for the night were his first priorities, he decided as he climbed into the truck. Then he could sleep.
Maybe.
If Anna let him.
* * *
The jangle of the telephone on the nightstand jerked Tyler from a restless sleep. Feeling as if he'd dozed only moments, he flung out one arm to locate it, knocked it off the table, then blindly followed the cord to the phone, then the receiver. "Yeah."
"Rise and shine, little brother. It's afternoon here, which means it's morning there. Too late to be sacked out like some kind of unemployed bum."
"Go to hell," he muttered, then let the phone fall away from his ear. He felt like he'd gone ten rounds with Mohammed Ali and lost every one of them. Nope, forget Ali—he hadn't felt this bad since he'd been knocked on his ass by a bottle of Everclear back when he was in college. He'd been sick as a dog and hung over for a week, and he'd sworn he would never do it again if only God would let him die.
Unfortunately, the phone hadn't fallen so far that Kyle's loudly pitched voice wouldn't carry. "Jeez, Ty, how much sleep do you need to be sociable? You're acting more like our old man than my kid brother."
It took a supreme effort to get the receiver back up to his ear. "I was up late driving Monday night. I flew to Denver early Tuesday morning." And, thanks to Anna, got precious little sleep in between. "I drove more than six hours yesterday, and it's—" he pried open one eye to check the clock on the nightstand, and his voice climbed an octave "—four in the freaking morning. What do you want?"
"I thought you'd like to know that Princess Anna and Desmond arrived home an hour or two ago, and the king and queen are tickled pink with the ski cap."
Tyler raised his free hand to rub the ache settling in his chest. That was the real reason he felt so damn sick this morning. Not the travel, the lack of sleep or the three—or five—beers he'd had before bed.
Anna.
He missed her, and he wasn't sure he could live without her.
"You there, bud?"
"Yeah, I'm here." He pushed himself up higher, then stuffed a pillow behind his back. "How'd you find me?"
"The princess said you were going to talk to the sheriff in Shady Rock. Since you didn't check in with anyone last night, I called him, and he said he'd sent you to a motel in town. Since there's only one…"
"Damn, you should've been a mercenary," Tyler said sarcastically even as he wondered how Anna was. Had she slept at all on the long flight home? Had she missed having him right there at her side? Was she glad to be home and anxious to get back into her royal routine?
Was she eager to put her adventure behind her?
"Have you figured out what the hell Caruso was really doing at the ranch with Ursula Chambers?" he asked to distract himself.
"Not yet. He's sticking to the same story—he wanted to do something because of his great concern for the king." There was a moment's silence, then Kyle cautiously went on. "We haven't quite figured out what the hell Princess Anna was doing there with you, either."
"Ask the king."
"All this time, we thought she was in Billings with her sister and—"
"Ask the king," Tyler repeated, his jaw clenching.
There was another silence, then Kyle spoke again. Damn thing about being the oldest brother—he thought he had a God-given right to stick his nose into everyone else's business
. "That woman you met up in Montana … the one you were trying to decide whether it was okay to go to bed with … tell me that wasn't Princess Anna."
Tyler didn't tell him it was none of his damned business—that went without saying. He didn't tell him anything at all. And that was enough.
"Hell, Ty… You do make some amazing choices. What're you gonna do now?"
"That's a good question," he replied, deliberately twisting it. "I've followed orders. Where do I go from here?"
"I meant about Princess An— I guess you knew what I meant, huh?" Kyle cleared his throat, then asked, "What did you find out about the burglar?"
Dutifully Tyler repeated what little the sheriff had been able to pass on about Kevin Weber, then waited.
"Let me talk to Lorenzo about this, then I'll get back to you. Don't go back to sleep. I'll make it as quick as possible."
Tyler agreed, then hung up and stared into the darkness. Kyle had let him off easy this time, but that wouldn't last. He knew how to pester the deepest secrets out of anyone—another oldest-child trick, Tyler thought. He had never known how to keep Kyle from worming out the truth about everything, until now—make the truth so damn painful you think you're gonna die. Then you could keep it to yourself.
The phone rang again less than fifteen minutes later. Kyle skipped the greeting and went straight to the point. "Max Ryker, Lorenzo's brother, is a private investigator in the United States. The king's going to ask him to find this Weber guy and find out what he can tell us. He wants you to stay where you are—at least in Colorado. You can find a nicer place if you want, as long as you let us know where. And Max will contact you as soon as he gets there."
"Okay. Can I go back to sleep now?"
"One other thing. King Marcus said to extend his sincere gratitude to you for taking such good care of his daughter." Kyle practically snorted. "He doesn't have a clue, does he?"
Tyler ended the conversation the same way it had started. "Go to hell," he said. And then he hung up.
