by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
"And a friend," the woman told the dog, releasing Cara. "Be on your best behavior," she called over her shoulder to the animal that was even now trotting over to the door. "Brutus doesn't bite," she told Max. "He just likes to frighten people with his bark."
Max looked at Cara, amused. "You and Brutus have a lot in common."
Cara's smile was instant, wide and not entirely genuine. "Yeah, but I bite and don't forget it."
The woman looked at her somewhat uncertainly. "Cara?"
Cara gestured toward Max. "This is—" Stumped, she looked at him. "What do I call you?"
"Max," Max said to the older woman. Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips and kissed it in the courtly fashion he'd been raised.
Bridgette was charmed. "Nice smile," she commented to Cara.
"Yes, it is," Cara agreed. "Covers a myriad of flaws." Though she would have liked to have stayed the evening, she knew that Bridgette would go all out, cooking a meal and making them at home and the woman needed her rest. "We can't stay, Bridgette. I just wanted to stop by and give you this." She placed the check Max had given her into the other woman's hand and folded her fingers over it. "For the farm."
Bridgette looked down at the check, her mouth falling open. She tried to give it back to Cara, but the latter stepped back. "I can't accept this, child."
"Yes," Cara insisted firmly, "you can. I wish it was more, but at least it'll keep those bankers in their cages for a while."
Bridgette pressed her lips together to keep the sudden sob that rose in her throat back. She'd already made her peace with foreclosure. This was like an unexpected miracle.
"This'll pay the back taxes," she said, nodding her head. And then she shook it, looking at the «
young woman she had taken in so long ago. "Cara, I don't know what to say."
"Don't say anything. Not to me. Just tell those bankers to go—chase themselves." It was clearly not what she wanted to say, but she was tempering her words in deference to the woman before her.
She looked more closely at the check and was puzzled. Had Cara entered into some sort of bargain because of her? "Why is his signature on it?"
Cara waved away the concern she saw in Bridgette's face. How like her to worry about everyone but herself. "Long story. It's in lieu of the bounty money he's acing me out of. The bail jumper I was after is wanted in Montebello and Max needs to take him there before the guy faces the charges against him here."
"I see." She didn't, but she left legal matters to the people around her. Tears filled her eyes as she thought of the breathing space this gave her. The crops she was hoping on would now be able to come in. "I can't tell you what this means to me."
"You don't have to." Impulsively Cara hugged the woman. "Need me to take you into town?"
The bank was closed now, but she could go tomorrow. "No, Elliot'll do that," she assured Cara, referring to her hired hand. "You've done more than enough already." She ran her hand over Cara's hair affectionately. Remembering. "Best thing I ever did in my life was bring you home for chicken soup."
"Chicken soup?" Max asked as they walked back to his car.
"It was more than that." And more than she was willing to go into now. Cara got into the car. "Bridgette's a nurse, retired now. When I met her, I was sick, she took care of me."
He was waiting for more, but it didn't come. "That's pretty sparse on the details."
She shrugged, staring up the car. "Maybe if the plane ride gets too long and we get bored, I'll fill you in." Big maybe, she added silently.
Which meant that for now, she didn't want to discuss it, Max thought.
He of all people understood not wanting to touch the past. The problem was, her past was beginning to interest him.
Possibly more than it should have.
Chapter 13
Max studied Cara's profile as she drove them back to Shady Rock. The woman amazed him. She'd done what appeared to be an entirely selfless act and she wasn't even talking about it. There were some people he knew of back in Montebello who would do well to take a page from her book.
"You made her very happy."
Cara felt a deep sense of satisfaction. The only thing that marred it was that she wished it could have somehow been more. But it would be. There was always another bail jumper to pursue, another bounty to collect. She intended to share the proceeds with Bridgette until the woman was well on her feet again.
"Bridgette deserves to be happy. All she's got is that farm. Woman spent most of her life helping others in one way or another. Never had time for a personal life of her own. Now she's getting on in years and there's no one to look out for her."
"So you do."
It wasn't a question. There was a great deal more to this woman who cleaved to bounty hunting in order to make her living than he'd first thought. She wasn't all noise and bravado.
But then, he had figured that out when they'd made love.
Cara shrugged, dismissing the subject. She didn't like calling attention to her softer, more sentimental side. That was for private moments to be shared with people she trusted. So far, that really only meant Bridgette.
She looked at the road before her and thought about what lay ahead. They were going to be in town pretty soon. "All right, so now what?"
"Well, the king's private plane won't be here until tomorrow around ten." The sheriff had mentioned an airstrip not far out of town. Max left details like that to the king's personal pilot. Roark would find it even if it was little more than square clearing. "So I guess what I need to do is find a place to stay overnight. What's the hotel like?"
There was one hotel over on the other side of town. She'd heard it was nice enough.
"Wouldn't know. I've never stayed there." Cara pressed her lips together, the way he'd noticed she did when she was battling with a thought. "It's a ways down the highway. Probably not grand enough for a duke."
There was that stigma again, he thought, the one that always came up whenever anyone knew his background. People ceased to be comfortable, to be natural, around him. As if he had been part of the court of Ivan the Terrible.
"I don't require grand," Max said mildly. "Just a bed with a pillow and sheets."
"They can supply that." Cara pressed her lips together again. Damn it, the best thing she could do was just leave this alone. Let him go to the hotel, what difference could it make?
Even so, she heard herself saying, "So can I."
The quietly worded offer surprised him. "Is that an invitation?"
She shrugged carelessly, uncomfortable if he was putting any sort of deeper meaning into the act. Uncomfortable with the thought that she was putting any kind of meaning into the act.
Feeling cornered, she gave him an explanation more for her own sake than for his. "You wrote the check, I guess the least I can do is give you a place to stay and a hot meal."
Another surprise. "You cook?" He couldn't really envision Cara doing anything else besides ordering takeout.
"Yes, I cook." She smothered her immediate "raised-hackles" response. There was no point in getting upset over an assumption that, all things considered, was perfectly logical, given her personality. Besides, it was almost true. She wasn't exactly in line to having her own cooking show.
She slanted a glance in his direction. "I said the meal would be hot, I didn't say it would be good."
He laughed. "I'm easy. Hot is good."
And it was, Max thought, looking at her.
The trouble was, it seemed to be getting hotter between them all the time and he didn't think that either one of them was ready for that or really knew what to make of it.
* * *
"Then it is true, just as I've suspected. I'm glad you've come to me with this."
King Marcus frowned as he moved around his lavishly sculpted gardens. This was the only place he
felt that it was safe enough to conduct a private meeting with anyone. And this meeting was very
private. There were only two peopl
e in it, himself and Hassan, the son of the very man he had, until
recently, been feuding with, Sheik Ahmed.
There was now a truce, reached between two grieving fathers who had each reportedly lost a son.
Ahmed's had been found, returning to the arms of the woman he loved, Marcus's daughter, Julia. The
two were joined now, by their love and their infant son.
All appeared to be well now between the two countries, but there were those who wished it otherwise. Those who wanted to perpetuate another feud, undermine both governments and seize power.
Because of that, affairs had to be conducted in secret and people kept in the dark.
Dark.
It was the dark that was the problem. Or, more specifically, the Brothers of Darkness. It was a terrorist group that had originated within Sheik Ahmed's own country, Tamir, and had dedicated itself to obliterating anyone, Montebellan, Tamiran or anyone else who did not wholeheartedly agree with them and pledge their life to the cause.
It was the Brothers who had set off a bomb in San Sebastion, the capital of Montebello, the Brothers who he suspected were behind Lucas's disappearance.
"Yes," Hassan confirmed solemnly. He said what Marcus had already suspected, why he had sent Max to bring Jalil Salim back. The young future sheik looked around the area that was surrounded with green hedges. Just enough for privacy, not enough to hide someone if they approached.
"Jalil Salim, who is passing himself off as this Kevin Weber in the United States, is part of the Brothers of Darkness. According to my father's intelligence agents, he has gone to the United States to try to raise money for the organization. Accordingly he has helped to set up a petroleum business in Texas which is actually a front for this heinous group."
Hassan's frown mirrored the one on the face of the man who had received him. "I do not have to tell you that such an organization, once rooted, can spread, infecting so many other places. The Brothers of Darkness would grow stronger, their organization jeopardizing the governments in both of our countries. They have to be stopped before this happens," he concluded passionately.
Marcus wholeheartedly agreed. With the Brothers of Darkness working within Tamir and the United States, he knew his own country would be particularly vulnerable. He would have an enemy at both flanks. And America was as much the land of opportunity for the dark of heart as it was for the pure. Perhaps even more so.
But since this was a courtesy call from the sheik, Marcus left the arena opened to Ahmed's son. The evil had sprung up within the borders of Tamir and as such, it was their problem. Protocol did not allow for him to intrude unless invited.
"Since Jalil and his men are all natives of your country, how does your father wish to handle this situation?" Unable to contain himself, wanting the problem dealt with swiftly, Marcus began, "I could
But Hassan raised a hand, respectfully calling a halt to anything the king was going to propose. "There is already a plan, Your Highness. My father is sending me to Texas to see about 'negotiating —" 'he smiled at the use of the word "—a possible business merger with this so-called up-and-coming petroleum company. Once I am on the inside, I will be in a position to learn more. In the meantime, I was told that you have dispatched Maximillian to bring this scum of the earth back to Montebello."
Marcus tread lightly along the so recently reconstructed bridge between his country and Hassan's. "I have it on good authority that Salim is responsible for several terrorist acts within Montebello and may very well have had a hand in the explosion that ripped apart my son's plane—"
Hassan nodded, his dark eyes growing sympathetic. "Our two families have both had much to grieve over in the last year, Your Highness. But as someone once said, that which does not kill us—"
"—makes us strong," Marcus concluded.
And his father's heart had felt heavy enough at times to have wished for death. But his country needed him at its helm, now more than ever, and the luxury of giving up, of surrendering to the burdens of life, was not his to partake.
The two men shook hands in silence, sealing a political alliance as well as a personal one.
Salim would be in Montebello in less than two days. They could go forward from there.
* * *
Max followed Cara into the small, one-story house and looked around the surrounding area. Vaulted, wooden beamed ceilings met his eye. The living room appeared to be both large and cozy at the same time. Two things at once. Much the way its owner was, Max mused.
"So this is where you live?"
She swung around, immediately on the defensive. "What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing." He had no idea where that wary tone she'd used had come from. He certainly hadn't done anything to bring it on. "You know, you really should do something about that tendency you have to see battlefields where there are only meadows."
She tried to remember if there was something in her refrigerator that she could safely offer a guest. She'd been away for several weeks and all she knew she had were two boxes of cereal in the pantry. Any milk had long since turned sour.
"Meadows can be turned into battlefields in the blink of an eye." Moving around several jars of spaghetti sauce, she located a box of spaghetti. Dinner, she thought in triumph. She glanced at him over her shoulder. "Ever hear of Bull Run?"
He thought for a moment. "No."
"Sorry, I forgot." Closing the pantry door with her elbow, she brought the jar of sauce and box of spaghetti to the counter. "You're not American."
"I am in part." He watched her take a pot out of the closet and search for another. Something stirred inside of him. Since when had rummaging for cookware become sexy? "My mother was born in this country. In California."
If she'd had a palace to live in, she damn well wouldn't have left it. Cara filled one pot with water and placed it on her stove.
"So that's what you're doing in California? Looking for your roots?"
More like escaping them, he thought. "Something like that."
She turned the heat up under the pot and then placed the second one on the burner. "Did your mother come with you?"
"No," he said quietly. "She died when I was fourteen."
That was too soon to lose a mother, but at least he'd had a mother for a while. She had no idea what hers had even looked like.
Picking up a can opener, Cara turned it upside down and placed the tip under the lid, maneuvering it so that she could get air under the seal. A small popping noise announced her success. She remembered he'd said his father was dead, too. "That makes you an orphan, too. I guess that gives us something else in common."
She twisted the lid off and dumped the contents of the jar into the second pot. Max took both the jar and lid and tossed them away for her in the trash can.
"Orphans and runaways. Not the most positive things to build on."
She looked at him sharply. "Who says we're building anything?"
He moved a little closer to her. "Would you be that averse to a friendship?"
She suddenly made herself very busy. Nerves began to move just under the surface.
"You in California, me here." She took out two dinner plates from the cupboard. "Don't see that there'd be much point in starting anything, friendship or otherwise."
She was nervous, he suddenly realized. The idea made him smile. "Our paths might cross. Our lines of work keep us moving around."
He was standing much too close to her, standing in her space, taking up her air. Reminding her of things that were best left forgotten. "And you had just better keep moving, mister, because—"
He took the ladle out of her hand and placed it on the counter. "Because why, Cara?"
Was it just her, or was the air slightly thicker? Harder to breathe? "There you go, using my name again. I like it better when you call me Rivers."
He looked at her, his curiosity definitely aroused. "Why?"
Why was her mouth suddenly so dry and her fingertips tingling? He was just a man, nothing
more. Why did the room seem to be tilting just because he was in it? "Because when you call me that, there's a professional space between us."
"And you want space." Rather than move back, he seemed to move forward without moving an inch.
"Yes." She damned her voice for quavering over the single word.
Max looked into her eyes, an indulgent smile on his lips. "Now who's lying?"
She felt a flash of anger and quickly rallied around it, vainly attempting to make it her standard. "Look, just because I slept with you once doesn't mean I'm about to hop into the sack with you every time we're in a room alone together."
"No hopping," he promised.
His eyes already seemed to be making love to her. Were making love to her. And definitely undermining her resolve. She tried to make him understand. "I slept with a private investigator, not a duke."
Max shook his head, his eyes keeping her prisoner. "You slept with a man, not a vocation."
Didn't he understand? She'd been on equal footing before, but here she was out of her league. "Being a duke isn't a vocation, it's away of life. You're used to grand things—"
"Yes," he said softly, feathering his fingers through her hair, his eyes caressing her. "I am."
She felt herself weakening and sinking fast. "Damn it, you don't play fair, Ryk—what the hell do I call you, anyway?"
Max reached behind her and turned off the burner beneath the pot of water. ' "Max' always worked."
She was determined to be defiant until what she now realized was the inevitable end. "I like Ryker better."
His smile got under her skin with long, arousing fingers. "Then use Ryker if it makes you comfortable. I want you to be comfortable, Cara."
She knew better. He was a man. There was only one thing a man wanted a woman to be. "You want me to be naked."
He laughed, but only softly. Seductively. She was beginning to think she hadn't a chance. "Eventually. Getting there is half the fun."
"Fun?" she breathed, feeling everything beginning to turn upside down.
