Romancing the Crown Series

by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)

"I'll take care of the ranch."

  Her gaze snapped up to his face. "You?"

  "You don't think I can?"

  If he'd still been Joe, she wouldn't have doubted it, Lucas thought. She knew he could work hard, that he understood the running of a ranch, and that what he didn't know he'd learn fast.

  "I guess I didn't think about it," she said. "But it can't be typical prince's work."

  Lucas drew in a compressed breath. "Jessie, I'm the same man I was. Remembering my identity didn't change that."

  "Remembering he was the crown prince of Montebellan royalty didn't affect just plain Joe?" she said, disbelief in her voice.

  "I didn't say that. I just meant I can still be the man who helped you run this place. So you can not worry, and spend time with Luke."

  "Oh." She lowered her gaze to the baby's face, to his tiny hands clutching at the bottle. "You'd do that?"

  Lucas swore to himself. He'd known he must have hurt her badly, but he hadn't realized—despite a rather stern warning from his sister Julia—just how badly. But he didn't want to get into it now, not when she was still weak, still fragile. So instead, he gave her a part of the truth he knew she would understand.

  "I like this life. There's something about the American West that's always appealed to me."

  Jessie frowned. "You mean even before you... landed here by accident?"

  He nodded. "I used to read about it, see it in films. Even as a child, I was fascinated by the freedom of it, the incredible openness and space, the sparse population. Montebello is an island, after all, with a finite amount of space. Your West seems... infinite."

  "Wide-open spaces," she said.

  "Yes. And the people are so different here. No one cares where you were born, or who or what you were, but only what you are now. And if your word and your work are good."

  "Joe's work was good," she said wistfully, as if the man she'd known as Joe was still gone, not standing right in front of her.

  "When I was here, I used to live in daily dread of being asked questions I couldn't answer," he said quietly. "It took me a very long time to realize that people out here give you the right to keep your secrets, as long as you're not hurting anyone else."

  For a long moment she stared at him, and he regretted using those words about hurting anyone when he'd hurt her so much. But finally all she asked was, "Is keeping your secrets so important to you?"

  He grimaced. "It's something that was taken away from me the day I was born. The heir to the Montebellan throne is public property, and expected to live for the people first, his country second, the monarchy third, and himself somewhere much further down the line. Trying to keep secrets isn't very wise in that environment."

  "You sound like you resent it."

  He frowned. "I didn't mean to sound as if I do. And I don't, really. It's who I am, and resenting something you have no choice about is pointless."

  But still, her observation made him uncomfortable enough that he excused himself, telling her he would do an assessment of conditions on the ranch and report back to her in a few hours. He didn't want to leave her, not so soon after finding her again, not so soon after he'd thought she was lost to him forever, but he knew she would worry until she was certain the ranch affairs were under control. Her wicked sister had tried to sell off all the animals. Luckily the ranch hands Ursula dismissed had worked together to keep Jessie's prized horses at one of their own small places, and to place the cattle with a nearby rancher who had graciously sold them back when Jessie's story became known.

  Lucas was thankful that the hands had suspected something wasn't right and had saved the herd Jessie had worked so hard to breed. He wanted her calm and at peace before he broached the touchy subjects they had yet to deal with. And that was going to take time.

  He only hoped he had enough.

  * * *

  Jessie didn't miss the tension that radiated from Lucas. She knew there were things hovering, things to be discussed, things to be decided. But she was more than happy to put them off. Right now all she wanted to do was hold her baby, learn everything about him, from those perfect little toes to his silken dark hair, and revel in having him back.

  She knew the ranch would work its healing magic on her. It had already begun. And thankfully, there weren't many memories of Ursula here. Her sister had hated the place, and had forsaken it long ago, when Jessie was twelve, for the bright lights of city life and dreams of stardom.

  Ursula had been bitter beyond Jessie's ability to tolerate when she'd come back from New York after breaking up—Jessie suspected she'd been dumped—with the man she'd claimed was her manager. She'd not found the success she'd dreamed of, and the world—and for some reason her little sister—were to blame. It was as if Ursula had hated her for being content to stay here on the ranch, for not having big dreams like Ursula's own.

  I wonder if she would have loved we wore if I'd failed at sowething big, too ? Jessica thought.

  If Ursula was capable of love at all. Somehow, somewhere, Ursula had changed completely. The sister Jessie had once loved had turned vicious. It was still hard for Jessie to comprehend that Ursula had actually plotted her death so she could feather her own nest by stealing Jessie's baby and using him to curry favor with the Montebellan royal family. Or if that failed, to blackmail them.

  "Are you all right, sweetie?"

  Mrs. Winstead, who had been the cook and housekeeper at the Chambers's ranch during Jessie's childhood, was a welcome familiar presence after the overwhelming proximity of Lucas and his small entourage.

  "I will be," she said, "given time. I'm going to need your help, Mrs. Winstead. I'm terrified of making mistakes with him."

  "Well, don't you worry your head, you'll have that," the older woman said brusquely, "and plenty more help if the crew that man has brought in is any indication. I mean, really, I kept this house for twenty-three years, and took care of you, as well. I think I could manage it again until you fully recover."

  "He means well," Jessie said, a little surprised at how quickly she jumped to his defense.

  "Joe would never have taken over like that, ordering people around," Mrs. Winstead pointed out.

  Jessie sighed. "No. No, he wouldn't."

  Mrs. Winstead sniffed. "I guess finding out he was a prince did that."

  "He's changed," Jessie agreed, almost sadly. She couldn't argue Mrs. Winstead's assessment. Joe had changed when he'd become Lucas. He'd changed tremendously. "But it isn't just that... snowplow way he's got now, pushing everything out of his way. It's more than that."

  "More?"

  Jessie nodded slowly, thinking it through for the first time since the father of her child had strode into her hospital room in all his royal glory.

  "He's weighed down, just as he was carrying that awful weight as Joe. But now he's carrying it in a different way. I'm not sure what it is, but it's there."

  "Maybe," Mrs. Winstead said grudgingly. "I suppose being a prince isn't all it's cracked up to be sometimes."

  Jessie turned that over and over in her mind as she retreated to her mother's old rocking chair with her son and Mrs. Winstead went about the business of preparing a meal, grumbling under her breath about the number of people there were to feed. Jessie smiled, knowing the woman was justifiably proud of her cooking, and that a few extra people were hardly a challenge to her skills.

  Jessie rocked in her mother's chair, coming down from that fever pitch of panic and nerves that had enveloped her from the moment her baby had been taken from her. When Luke went to sleep contentedly in her arms, her heart ached with a fullness she'd never experienced, and she knew she would lay down her life for this little being in an instant, no questions asked.

  But living for him was more difficult. She suppressed the nagging fear she'd been fighting ever since his father had put Luke back into her arms. What did she know about raising a child? For that matter, what did she know about taking care of a baby? She'd never even been around one, not a human one, any
way. She'd hand-raised many animal babies—foals, puppies, calves, rabbits, even a fawn once when she'd been a child—but she didn't know a blessed thing about human babies. And instinct could only do so much in today's complicated world. There was a very big difference between the instinct that told a mare how to take care of her baby and the instincts necessary to keep a human baby safe amid all the dangers of life.

  She wondered if Luke could sense how frightened she was.

  Poor little guy, she thought. You don't even have a mother who knows what she's doing.

  But she'd learn, she promised him silently. She would learn, and pray she didn't do any irreparable damage in the process.

  In what seemed like mere minutes, hours passed, and there was the sound of strong, male footsteps coming from the front of the ranch house. There were three male hands on the ranch, but still she knew who it was. She wasn't sure how, but she knew.

  She supposed the idea that she could hear a certain arrogance in the stride was fanciful. And she had no real reason to assume it was there—he'd done nothing any rich, powerful man wouldn't do. It was just that the change from the quiet, unassuming, almost shy man she'd known as Joe was so startling, and even more so now that they were back here in the place where she'd first met him.

  He hadn't been shy, she told herself, he'd just been lost, uncertain. It made him seem shy.

  She was right, of course, the footsteps were his. He stopped in the kitchen doorway. She looked at Luke a moment longer, wondering if she would ever be able to face his father with the ease she once had.

  Finally she lifted her gaze.

  The look of pure longing she caught on Lucas Sebastiani's face startled her. It vanished quickly, hidden behind a steady, neutral expression she'd never seen on Joe's face. She was left wondering what—or who—it had been directed at.

  "I've talked to the hands," he said, in a tone as neutral as his expression. "They checked up on the place and kept it in good shape, despite Ursula's treatment of them. Gant left a couple of weeks ago, but everyone else stuck it out. They all suspected something wasn't right."

  She was glad to hear it. Not every man was willing to work for a woman even in this day and age, and she'd honed her crew down to those to whom it didn't matter.

  "They respect you," he said, as if he'd read her thoughts. "And they all know you work as hard if not harder than any of them. You love this place and this life just like they do, and that's enough for them."

  "Thank you," she said, pleased.

  "There are a few things," he said, going on as if what he'd said had been simply fact, not a compliment. "As usual, there's fence to repair. The liver chestnut mare got a wire cut, but Barney says it's not serious. And the reservoir up on the flats is clogged again."

  Again Jessie's gaze shot to his face. As Joe, he'd suggested a way to fix the problematical reservoir permanently, with a supply and drainage system that was, for the moment, beyond her means. When she'd asked him how he'd known about such things, he'd gotten the strangest look on his face. And at last, rather forlornly, he'd answered simply, "I don't know."

  "I presume you remembered how you knew those things?" she asked.

  "Yes. There's an area of Montebello that has no water of its own. As my engineering project in college, I designed a system to deliver and store water from elsewhere on the island."

  "Did you ever build it?"

  "Yes. That's how I knew it would work, apparently. I knew that much, even if I couldn't remember the rest."

  She glanced down at her son, noticed as never before his resemblance to his father. "It must be a relief to you, to have your past back in place."

  "It is," he agreed, then added, "and it isn't."

  Cryptic, she thought. Like Joe had sometimes been. Only with Joe she'd always thought it was unintentional. Now she wasn't so sure.

  "I will build it now, if you like."

  She shook her head. "I still can't afford it."

  "Jessie," he began.

  She went still, knowing he was about to offer to pay for it himself. To his credit, he must have realized that was the wrong tack, because he stopped.

  This was something else she hadn't really had time to think about, that her Joe was now a man with resources beyond anything she'd ever dreamed of. But right now, all she could think was that the offer he'd almost made smacked of an effort to ease whatever guilt he felt from walking out on her.

  "You think that makes everything okay? You come back and throw money around? You think I can be bought?"

  A muscle along his stubborn jaw jumped. "I never said that."

  If he had, she thought, he would no doubt be offering all he could give. Joe might have been content to stay, to become part of the fabric of her life here as she'd always hoped he would. But Joe was as gone as if he'd died the night he had walked out on her. Prince Lucas Sebastiani—she didn't even know what his full royal name was, she realized—was a horse of another color altogether. A horse in designer slacks and silk shirts. She found herself longing for Joe's faded jeans and second-hand-store shirts, which had been all he'd been able to afford when she'd first hired him.

  "I was just trying to help," Lucas said, his voice tight. "I know you want and need that done, so why shouldn't I do it?"

  "What I want," she said slowly, "you can't give me."

  "Try me," he said, sounding almost desperate now.

  "The crown prince of Montebello can't give me what I want," she amended.

  Something weary flickered in his eyes once more. "It's who I am. My first loyalty must always be to Montebello."

  She saw both that he meant it and that it had cost him. He had a loyalty to his country that he would not forsake. This, she thought, was what had changed most. Joe had been fairly carefree, despite the burden of his amnesia. Lucas carried a responsibility that was almost a visible thing.

  And while that made her admire him, it also answered the question she hadn't dared ask. He would go back, back to that life, that glittering, glamorous life that to her was no more than a fantasy, a fairy tale that happened to be real enough to make the gossip columns and on occasion the nightly news.

  Even what had happened to him was the stuff of fantasy; the rich, royal, jet-setting playboy crashing his private plane, stricken with amnesia, recovering just in time to go undercover for an FBI anti-terrorist operation, then home to a glorious welcome for the prodigal prince.

  She much preferred Joe, itinerant ranch hand with no past and a future of his choosing.

  For a long, strained moment, Lucas stared at her. He started to speak, then stopped himself. "Let's not talk about it now," Lucas said at last. "There's time yet. Just heal and get well, Jessie."

  She appreciated his concern, but long after he'd left her there with their son still in her arms, she was still wondering what he'd been about to tell her. And why he'd changed his mind about it.

  Something made her shiver, and she wasn't sure why. She shrugged off the feeling, telling herself nothing bad could possibly happen now that she had her baby back.

  Chapter 4

  It's one of the strangest sensations of my life, Lucas thought. Like being a stranger in a familiar land.

  He'd saddled up the big bay gelding he'd ridden when he'd been here before. He fancied the horse remembered him by the way he'd nudged Lucas's shoulder familiarly.

  It felt strange to be back in a Western saddle, since at home he rode with English-style tack. He had to confess, he'd missed the easy, long-legged way of Western riding. The big, solid quarter horse also seemed strange after the fiery, dish-faced Arabians that were his father's pride and joy.

  I'd like to bring home one or two of these horses, he thought as he leaned back to pat the powerful hindquarters that could accelerate the animal faster than any other horse over short distances. The combination of Arab endurance and quarter horse speed off the mark could be an interesting combination.

  He'd ridden a lot since returning to Montebello, on his own black Arab
ian. In the beginning it had been the only peace he'd found as he'd struggled to assimilate everything that had happened. When he'd thought Jessie and the child she'd never told him about were dead, it had been the only way he could feel close to her.

  When Luke had been brought to him, miraculously healthy and alive, he'd gone riding both when panic had filled him about being responsible for this tiny life and when he wanted to give thanks that some small part of Jessie still lived on this earth.

  So now here he was, riding a familiar horse over familiar ground, yet knowing and feeling that he was a completely different man than he had been then. He remembered the days on the ranch with perfect, wistful clarity. They were like some long ago, treasured childhood dream—except that there was nothing childlike about what he'd felt for Jessie Chambers.

  He rode on, memories coming back to him at a faster and faster rate, this hill, this stand of trees, this bend in the river. He remembered the long, hard days, the strenuous work that had left him exhausted at the end of the day. But it had been a pleasant sort of exhaustion, the kind that meant the satisfaction of ajob well done, and a peaceful night of sound sleep.

  He didn't know that kind of simple satisfaction anymore. Even the memory of it had faded amid the glitter of his other life. It was only now that he'd returned here that an echo of the feeling filled him. And a longing to experience it again, made more poignant by the realization he likely never would.

  He hadn't appreciated the simplicity of that life when he'd had it. And he probably would never have realized the lack he felt now had he not spent those quiet months here. But now that lack was an aching, empty place inside that he didn't think he could ever fill again.

  Unless he had Jessie. It was all tied up with her, and now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure how much of that peace had come from this place and how much had come from Jessie herself. Jessie and her love, a treasure he had had for all too short a time. A treasure that made all his wealth, his position, his much-envied title pale by comparison.

  He pulled the bay to a stop on a rise. He looked back, knowing that from here he could see the ranch house. He'd ridden up here before, in that time when the only past he'd had dated from the day he'd come to in the wreckage of a small plane, with no idea of who he was or why he was there. The smell of aviation gas had spurred him to quick movement, and he'd dragged himself away from the crash site just in time—the fire had begun barely moments after he'd got clear. He'd saved only the clothes he'd been wearing, including the distinctive ski cap he'd had on in anticipation of the weekend in Aspen, the cap that had led his sister Anna to believe he was still alive.