Possessed by a Warrior

by Sharon Ashwood

  Chloe shivered. Serious wasn’t Lexie’s style. Normally she would have carried on, making one off-color pun after the next. What’s going on? I don’t know how much more I can take. “If it hadn’t been for Sam, I would have been chopped to steak tartare. He’s saved my skin more than once.”

  “We need to talk, Chlo. These guys aren’t as squeaky clean as you seem to think.”

  A flush of anger heated Chloe’s skin. She could feel Sam’s strong arms picking her up, the shield of his body between her and danger. She wanted to defend his honor. She owed him that much loyalty.

  Lexie must have seen it on her face. “Don’t get mad at me. I’m trying to help you.”

  She was too tired to fight down her emotions. “Like I said, Sam saved me. I don’t want to hear anything against him.”

  “You’re defending him?”

  “He defended me.”

  “You’re the one who always wants information. Maybe now is the time to listen.”

  Chloe looked up, meeting Lexie’s adamant gaze. She wanted to face whatever her friend had to say now, but she shied away. Too much had happened; her courage had been used up last night.

  Lexie leaned close, putting her lips close to Chloe’s ear. “How much do you know about Faran and his friends?”

  “Only that they’ve been great. Mostly.” Chloe suddenly wasn’t sure what to say. “It’s complicated.”

  Lexie put her finger to her lips. “Can we talk privately here?”

  They leaned across the glass-topped table so they could speak softly.

  “What’s so hush-hush?” Chloe asked. Lexie hadn’t wanted to talk on the phone, and now she was acting like Oakwood was littered with listening devices. Well, given the Gravesend Security connection, maybe it was.

  Lexie bit her lower lip. “How much time do you have right now? For any of what I have to say to make sense, I have to go back to when Faran and I met. There’s a lot to explain. They’re not people.”

  As if on cue, Faran walked in the room, his head bent as he finished texting on his phone. When he stopped and looked up, he froze, phone halfway to his pocket.

  Chloe swore under her breath at the horrified look on her friend’s face.

  And Faran had seen Lexie. No, seen was the wrong word. From the bald pain that flickered across his face, it was more as if his soul smashed against the windshield of her sudden frosty reserve. The moment lasted long enough for Chloe to squirm. She’d warned him his ex-girlfriend would be in town, but he hadn’t expected her here.

  “Lexie.” He drew himself up, chin lifting, his aspect suddenly one of studied calm. For all his laid-back manner, he showed iron control.

  “You,” Lexie said softly, but that one quiet word held a universe of anger. “What are you doing near my friend?”

  “My job. I’m in security, remember? One of the good guys?”

  “I hardly think that’s possible.”

  “Lexie!” Chloe exclaimed.

  They both glared at her, expressions nearly identical.

  Her friend’s stare was the more ferocious of the two. “Stay out of this, Chlo. What’s between him and me, that’s our business.”

  “Don’t get involved,” Faran said at almost the same moment. “It’s old history. It doesn’t need to be dragged up and turned over like old compost.”

  Chloe heard Lexie’s indrawn breath. “Nice, Kenyon,” she snarled. “Nice to know what we had rates the same as coffee grounds and kitchen scraps.”

  His eyes went an icy blue. “You broke it off.”

  “You lied.”

  Faran’s eyes narrowed. “You pushed. I told you there were some questions I couldn’t answer. I had no choice.”

  Her friend looked away. “Forget it. If you can’t see the flaws in that picture, nothing I can say will make a difference.”

  Silence ached through the room. Chloe made a T gesture with her hands. “Time-out. I’m a wedding planner, not a couples therapist.”

  “And from what you said on the phone, you have a huge wedding to plan.” Lexie stood, smoothing her skirt. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

  Faran followed her every gesture, pain etched into his face, then looked away. Lexie paused, studying his profile, her mouth drawn into a tight line.

  Chloe wished she could fix whatever was wrong, but didn’t have a clue. “Lexie...”

  “We’ll talk later, Chloe,” her friend said briskly. “Let’s set something up at the hotel. I’m all yours for as long as I’m in town.”

  With that, she walked out. Faran seemed stranded in the middle of the floor, not sure what to do with himself.

  “I’m sorry,” Chloe said gently. “I had no idea it was that bad.”

  “No, I’m sorry. You didn’t need to see that. I’m going to go for a walk.” His voice was oddly throaty. “I think I need to eat something, and then I’ll be all right.”

  “Blood sugar?” she asked.

  Faran smiled wanly. “Kind of like that.”

  “Then take care of yourself.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  His hands were clenched as he stalked from the room, shoulders hunched. Chloe watched him go, wondering what in blazes had happened between the handsome young man and her best friend. She realized she was sweating, her stomach in a tight, hard knot.

  They’re not people.

  What the blazes did that mean?

  * * *

  Chloe opened her laptop and waited as the screen sprang to life. She was back in Jack’s office. Outside, the light was fading.

  For the past few hours, she’d been too upset to deal with Sam, Faran, Lexie or any of the rest of that part of her life. Instead, she’d spent the afternoon making wedding arrangements. As always, work helped calm her.

  Her staff had been doing the legwork to fulfill Iris Fallon’s every desire, but Chloe still had to make decisions. Phone calls to and from her suppliers kept her focused and busy, but now most businesses were closing down for the day.

  Finally, her mind was free to roam back to the question of Sam Ralston. Who is he, really? And why did Lexie think he wasn’t “people”? Did it have to do with the whole international Men-in-Black thing?

  She clicked on a search engine and sat frowning for a moment. What am I thinking? Do I have the right to check him out like this?

  Just because Lexie had warned her to stay away? Just because he’d done his best to keep her ignorant of everything he was doing? Just because he’d admitted he was an agent of some kind? Um, yeah. Just because she understood there were things about his work she couldn’t know, that didn’t make her any less curious about who he was as a man.

  She was willing to believe that Sam thought he was doing the right thing. She did not believe she knew a quarter of what she ought to know about him.

  She typed his name into the search engine. A bazillion hits came up and most looked relatively useless. A smattering of them, however, seemed to relate to a news story. She selected the first of those. She immediately saw a black-and-white portrait of a pretty blonde twentysomething wearing a fascinator. The caption below the picture identified the woman as Lady Beatrice Concarra. She stared at the picture for a moment, feeling an irrational jealousy. What did Lady Beatrice have to do with Sam? Then she read on.

  Assassination Attempt at Emerald Sea

  Lady Beatrice Concarra, eldest daughter of the famed shipping magnate, Arnaud, Duke of Nulanne, was fatally shot at 1:15 a.m. on Tuesday. The incident occurred at Emerald Sea, a dance club located in the Marcari capital. Lady Beatrice had arrived at the club around midnight as part of Princess Amelie’s retinue.

  Palace security has not yet released the name of the attacker. The gunman fired directly onto the dance floor, striking Lady Beatrice in the heart. Sam Ralston, security c
hief for the palace, claims the attack was an assassination attempt on the princess. Security at the dance club was reportedly breached, although no one in authority would give specifics. According to Ralston, “There are hostile elements we have been watching for several weeks now. The tragedy is that Lady Beatrice suffered as an innocent bystander.” The palace would not comment on whether those “hostile elements” are Vidonese nationals.

  However, unnamed sources claim the ancient feud between Marcari and Vidon is heating up again in reaction to the proposed marriage between Princess Amelie and the Vidonese crown prince, Kyle. Separatists on both sides protest the prospect of unification of the two kingdoms.

  The article went on and Chloe read the rest with a growing sense of shock. Sam Ralston was security chief for Princess Amelie of Marcari? Seriously? He’s part of the palace staff?

  That explained so much. Guarding royalty? The responsibility was staggering. No wonder he took the whole bodyguard thing to the max. A lapse could be fatal. Look what happened to poor Lady Beatrice.

  When he’d said being a bodyguard could go wrong, this must have been what he meant.

  And this surely had some bearing on what had happened to Jack. Would his security work have included working for the Marcari government? Then of course security agencies would know about him because he was in the business of keeping crowned heads alive. And the wedding dress? A connection to the princess went a little way to explaining why he had it. Why didn’t you tell me any of this, Uncle Jack?

  She clicked on a few more links, but they all seemed to be about the same shooting. Otherwise, Sam Ralston kept a very low profile. Or, her Sam Ralston did. There was also a Sam Ralston, car dealer in Utah; a physics professor in Toronto; and, a twelve-year-old playing the drums on YouTube. But now Chloe’s curiosity was going at full steam.

  Never mind snooping on the internet for information made her feel like a love-struck teenager searching to find photos of her latest crush.

  She tried “Samuel Ralston” and got the less-than-helpful hits again. Then Samuel, Ralston without the quotes. That resulted in a bazillion hits to the power of ten. Chloe just about closed the laptop and walked away, except she spotted a row of thumbnail images partway down the screen—all pictures of various Samuels. She clicked the command to show her only images. The screen filled with tiny squares.

  And there he was, in an old tintype photograph. A shock of recognition made her breath hitch as she sat up straighter, angling the laptop screen for a better view.

  Same eyes, same chin, same delectable mouth. He was wearing a Union officer’s uniform and that frozen expression people got from holding still for the old, slow cameras, but it was definitely Sam. Chloe zoomed in on the image until it started to blur. It had to be him. Even his long, dark eyelashes were the same.

  She sucked in a breath, snapping herself out of the realm of impossibility. No, it was his ancestor, surely, but the family resemblance was marked. She clicked the link and it took her to a page hosted by a Pennsylvanian historical society. Ralston Samuel Hill had been a lieutenant colonel in the Civil War. Son of a career politician, graduated from West Point, married to Amy Weston, father of two sons and one daughter. Presumed killed in action, 1862.

  They look so much the same. But that was silly. If he’d lived, he’d be how old? Over 180, anyway. Chloe stood up, pacing around the room to burn off a sudden burst of nervous energy.

  Sure, the names and features were similar, but there was a good explanation. Sam must be a descendant of one of the children. That was all. And it was easily proved.

  Chloe sat down again and logged into a genealogy database she sometimes used when a couple wanted a family tree in their wedding album. She looked up Ralston Hill there, but the only new information she could find was that his widow had remarried and the children had taken her new husband’s name. There was no easy link between Sam’s historical double and his present-day self.

  The only useful thing she’d found out was that he’d been there when tragedy struck Lady Beatrice, a young girl who’d gone out to dance away the Mediterranean night.

  That death was the only key she had to Sam’s history. Otherwise, the internet had little to say on the present-day Sam. When a guy showed up only when someone died or was in danger of dying, she had to wonder just how much more she wanted to know.

  But I think I’m falling in love with him.

  Chapter 22

  Sam stormed back into the house two hours later. Chloe wasn’t absolutely sure he hadn’t left sometime in the middle of the night. Wherever he’d been, it hadn’t made him happy.

  Long ago, her mother had advised Chloe, in a rare mother–daughter conversation, never to confront her man when he first got home from the office. He should have a drink and a relaxing moment alone with the newspaper before being presented with domestic problems.

  As old-fashioned as it sounded—and a bit odd coming from a woman who had been about as domestic as a bobcat—it wasn’t bad advice under certain circumstances. Chloe waited an entire hour before tracking Sam to his lair, Scotch on the rocks in hand. Her quarry was in the games room, chalking a pool cue with the air of Vlad the Impaler sizing up his next victim.

  “Home from the office, dear?” she said sweetly, handing him the Scotch. She tried not to think about what Sam’s workday might have entailed.

  He put down the chalk and cue, an unsettled expression on his face, and took the drink. “Thank you.”

  “Bad day?” Chloe started a circuit of the pool table, giving him distance.

  He didn’t answer.

  “You questioned that man, Pietro, after I left last night, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t answer. It felt like a wall had sprung up, dividing the room between them.

  “I know you probably took an oath of secrecy or something to do with your job. I get that now. And if you can’t tell me what the creep said now, just say that someday you will tell me, so that I’ll understand why my uncle died.”

  “Chloe—”

  “Don’t Chloe me.” Her tone was sharper than she intended, and she took a deep breath to soften her words. “That man tried to kill me.”

  He watched her walk around the table for a beat, tracking her movement with his eyes. Chloe felt the wall between them pushing outward now, crowding her away.

  He looked both sad and wary. “I know he did.”

  “Did he tell you anything useful?”

  A dark expression crossed Sam’s face. “No. So don’t push. This time, it’s not worth the effort.”

  She watched him take a sip of the drink, then set it down neatly on a side table. “That’s it?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched down. “I spent today tracking down where the Knights were staying. We tried before, but this time I finally found them. They were in a campground trailer park some distance away. They left around three this morning. They’re in the wind. We have men trying to locate them again.”

  Chloe’s breath caught. He was giving her real information. He was letting her in as far as he could. That was all she could ask. She took a step closer to him, wanting the discomfort between them gone.

  Something slid behind Sam’s careful expression. It looked to her like hurt and confusion. “Winspear’s gone, too. No one knows where he is. I don’t trust very many people right now.”

  She was going to take his hurt away if she could. If she could get close enough. “I just want to know one other thing. What’s going to stop the thieves from coming back here?”

  “The dress and the jewels go back to where they belong. If they’re not here, there is no motivation for anyone to bother Oakwood.”

  “And when is someone coming to get the dress?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” His eyes were hard and flat as iron. “I don’t trust anyone else. That doesn’t s
eem to work out for me.”

  She knew he wasn’t referring to her; he probably meant Winspear. But his words still bothered her. “You can’t judge everyone by what’s happening here.”

  He braced his hands on the pool table, glaring at the green surface. “It’s not the first time I’ve trusted when I shouldn’t.”

  “Is that what happened with Lady Beatrice? You trusted people to help out with security and they failed?”

  He looked up sharply. “I don’t talk about that.”

  Chloe folded her arms against the sharpness of his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

  “Where did you hear about that?”

  “The internet. It said the boy in the club wasn’t the only one you caught. In the end three conspirators were charged and convicted. They found the bodies of the assassins torn to pieces in their cells. All but the boy who fired the gun.” Her voice shook as she said it. The description of the scene was nauseating.

  The tension in the room spiked. “Leave it alone.”

  “What happened?” Chloe replied, her fingers trailing along the polished edge of the pool table as she circled it slowly, working toward him. The hard, glossy wood felt a bit like the conversation—there was substance there, but it was slippery and hard to grasp.

  “Leave it alone.”

  She stopped, close enough that they could reach out and touch. Proximity acted like magic. The wall between them crumbled. She couldn’t explain how she felt it, but she did. They’d somehow reached an unspoken agreement. He would tell her what he could. She could ask for more, but agreed to accept it when he had to remain silent.

  Sam gave a heavy sigh. He picked up the drink and took another swallow. “Lady Beatrice made the princess laugh. I think she was the only real friend Amelie had. I was supposed to keep both of them safe. I brought in others to help. Lady Beatrice died because I trusted them.” He stopped abruptly, seeming to stop himself before he said more. “I don’t like to talk about it.”