“Brianna! Good morning,” Julia Mansfield said brightly when she noticed Brianna standing in the door. “We were just on our way down to see you and say goodbye.”
Hunter glanced up, his expression inscrutable. He flicked her a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and Brianna’s stomach swirled anxiously.
“We’re on the eleven-o’clock flight back to Louisiana,” Julia said. “I’m sure you could still get a ticket if you wanted to come with us.”
Brianna heard the hope, the unspoken question in Julia’s voice. The same query was in Hunter’s eyes as the family awaited her response.
“Oh, um...no. I’m staying here. I...” She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. “Can I have a minute alone with Hunter before you go?”
Julia cast her son a worried glance, and Hunter’s jaw tightened.
“It’s okay, Mom. I’ll be there in a minute.” He sat straighter in the wheelchair and waited until the nurse and his parents had left before raising his gaze to Brianna. “So you’ve decided to stay with Chris.” A statement, not a question.
“Once he’s discharged, we’ll go to my parents’ beach house for a couple of weeks. He deserves some time out of the public eye to get to know his son before returning to Meridan.”
Hunter nodded, his mouth grim. “Sure. Good idea.” He took a deep breath, his nose flaring as he turned his face toward the window. “It’s what’s best for Ben...and you.”
Brianna’s pulse tapped an anxious rhythm, uneasy with Hunter’s dark mood. “Are you all right? You seem...upset.”
He scoffed and sent her another forced tight smile. “I’ll be fine. I knew, deep down, it would come to this.”
“Come to what?” She sat on the bed and tipped her head, her heart drumming a staccato beat.
“You and the prince. Ben. You belong together. You’re a family. I understand.”
She swallowed hard and took his hand. “I don’t think you do. When Chris goes back to Meridan...I’m not going with him. Ben and I are going home to Louisiana.”
Hunter jerked his head around, his gaze crashing into hers. “What?”
She turned his hand over and laced her fingers with his. “Chris and I spent a long time last night talking. About Ben. About where our relationship stood, where it might go.” She squeezed his hand. “About you.”
His eyebrows rose. “Me?”
“Yes, you. He wanted to know what kind of man you were. He wanted to know more about the man who’d helped protect his son.”
A little of the darkness lifted from his expression. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him that you were a man of integrity, of courage and of compassion. I said that you’d been there when Ben needed you, that you’d sacrificed for Ben and shown him love, that you’d put his needs over your own and had protected him from all kinds of peril. Just as you did for me.”
She stroked his stubble-dusted face and fought the lump swelling in her throat. “I’ve felt alone most of my life, Hunter. I’ve lost people I loved and counted on, had to take a backseat to the demands of my aunt’s career...and Chris’s. He left me last February because of his duty to his throne. He may have loved me, but not with his whole heart. I don’t want to be second with the man in my life. I want unconditional love and loyalty. I didn’t have that with Chris.”
Hunter blinked as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I told Chris I couldn’t marry him.”
“But what about Ben? His right to the throne in Meridan?”
She nodded. “The throne will still be there when Ben’s older. He’ll still be Chris’s legal heir. Chris has agreed to keep Ben’s identity a secret until Ben, at age eighteen, can decide for himself what he wants to do with his life.”
Hunter narrowed his eyes. “And what happens until Ben is eighteen?”
“I’ll raise him, with financial support from Chris, and Chris will have liberal visitation rights with his son. Ben will spend time, maybe summers, in Meridan, learning the culture and history. We want him to make an informed choice when the time comes.”
Hunter stared at her, his gaze stunned and his eyes searching hers. “So...where does that leave us?”
She bit her lip and took a deep breath. “I guess that’s up to you. Since the day we met, you’ve stood by me, even when you thought you might lose me to another man. I know you’ve felt like someone’s second choice before, like you’ve always had to settle for other people’s hand-me-downs. I’m sorry if my situation made you feel pushed aside or less than completely cherished and appreciated for who you are.”
He shook his head. “It’s okay.”
She cupped his face between her hands. “No, it’s not. Because you aren’t second to me. I love your courage and conviction, and I treasure the warmth and compassion you show everyone in your life. I see your integrity and values in every choice you make, and you inspire me to be a better person. I love your sense of humor, your patience, your love for your family...even your stubbornness. I want to wake up to your sexy smile and beautiful eyes, and when my doctor’s six-week moratorium is over, I want to make love to you until we’re both too weak to do anything but sleep in each other’s arms. When I look at all you’ve come to mean to me and my son, I can’t imagine putting you anywhere but first in my life. Just the way you’ve put me first these past weeks. When I think about the future, I don’t want the life of royalty, I want a love that makes me feel royal to one special man. I want what I’ve found with you. I love you, Hunter. You’re my future.”
His eyes grew damp, and he threaded his fingers through her hair. “Me, too. You’re an amazing woman, Bri.” Wincing, he leaned forward and kissed her nose. “I guess the reason none of my other relationships fit right was because I was meant to be with you.” He sat back in the wheelchair, holding his ribs. “I want to grow old with you, Bri.”
A release swept through her, relief that she hadn’t misread his feelings for her, joy for the days ahead. “That sounds wonderful.” This time, she leaned closer to kiss him, but pulled back at the last second. “And you’re okay with raising another man’s son? Sharing custody with Chris?”
Hunter captured her nape and tugged her forward, completing the kiss. “As long as I’m not sharing you, your heart.”
She bit her lip and shook her head. “No, that is entirely yours. Always.”
His expression warmed, and his eyes lit with his smile. “Then I’d be honored to help raise your young prince.”
“Our young prince. You have every right to claim him.”
He cocked his head. “Do you think Chris would be all right with me adopting Ben?”
“I know he would. He wants what’s best for Ben, and he knows you’ve gone the extra mile already for his son. In fact, Chris said when he got back to Meridan, he’d see that you were duly recognized for your heroism. He mentioned you being knighted.” She sent him a lopsided grin. “How does Sir Hunter Mansfield sound to you?”
He gave a short laugh. “Not as good as making you Mrs. Hunter Mansfield.”
She raised a startled gaze. “Is that a proposal?”
“No,” he said, then struggled, grimacing, to get out of the wheelchair and down on one knee. “Brianna Coleman, the day you nearly ran over me was the luckiest day of my life. I pretended that day to be your husband, and the role felt right. I’d like to apply for a permanent gig. Will you let me have the honor of being your real husband?”
She slid off the bed so that she knelt in front of him and gently looped her arms around his neck. “The wife of a knight. That sounds a bit like a fairy tale, too.”
“As long as we get the happily-ever-after, that’s all that matters to me.” He framed her face with his hands and drilled her with his intense blue gaze. “So is that a yes? Will you
marry me?”
She laughed and kissed his bruised cheek. “Oh, did I forget to answer?”
“Not funny, Bri.” He gave her a mock scowl. “Will you answer already? My ribs are killing me.”
She chuckled and kissed him deeply. “Yes, Sir Hunter. Of course, yes!”
* * * * *
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Prologue
August 1st
If she couldn’t have her son back, was peace too much to ask?
The question reverberated through sixty-eight-year-old Nancy Rayford’s throbbing skull with an intensity untouched by the powerful prescriptions she had taken. Still, the knocking went on, a pounding at her front door. What time was it, anyway? How long since she’d drifted off?
Tossing aside the light throw she’d used as a blanket, she pushed herself up off the soft cushions of a leather sofa before blinking at the television. There, the muted figure of some late-night comedian clowned before his silent audience. All of them laughing up a storm, as though her sweetest boy had not been reduced to ashes in a small urn just two weeks before.
Not a boy; a man, she reminded herself, Ian and his brother both. But she’d never known either one as a grown adult, as a soldier, thanks to her husband’s scorched-earth approach to fatherhood. Now he was gone, as well, leaving her alone here, or as alone as an aging widow could get surrounded by thousands of acres of drought-plagued range and thirsty cattle.
The pounding started again, adding a desperate edge to the insistent rhythm. It sliced through her drugged reality, reaching a part of her that understood there must be something very wrong. Shaking overtook her at the suspicion that she would find another pair of uniformed officers at her front door, somber military personnel assigned to tell her that her surviving firstborn son, her Zach, was gone, too.
With a cry of pain, she lurched through the empty house, her shaking hand reaching for the door before she could wonder if it might be unsafe to do so. Because he was all she had left; if he’d been taken from her now, too—
With her heart pounding in her throat and the world careening wildly around her, she unlocked the door and flung it open so hard that it banged against the entry wall. Staring into the dark August night, she begged the same God who’d failed at every turn to heed her prayers that it not be the news she most feared. Please don’t take him, too.
But tonight’s visitor wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt rather than the dreaded uniform. She was a gaunt and pale young woman, with eyes shadowed by exhaustion and arms that trembled with the weight of the small child she carried. The sleeping girl of three—or was it four?—years, wrapped in a blanket, her tawny hair a matted mess.
“I can’t do this anymore,” the young woman told her, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I just can’t. I need your help, please, Nancy. C-can you take her?”
Drained from days of headaches and weak from dehydration, Nancy felt a jolt of pure energy restore her. Her long trance shattered, and a new sense of purpose moved her forward. She raised thin arms to lift the burden from the taller woman’s arms, to cuddle the child close to her breast.
Rather than weighing her down, the little girl’s weight made Nancy feel lighter than she had since her husband’s death, six months earlier, lighter and younger than she had in decades. And when she looked down into the precious face, so smooth and unblemished and impossibly perfect, the knowledge coursed through her, a swift river of current telling her that this was no accident at all.
This was, instead, a miracle, a reason to go on.
Chapter 1
Three months later...
Stiff and tired from hours of driving across the desolate northern Texas prairie, Jessie Layton climbed from her blue hatchback and stepped into the howling wind.
Bent low against the gusts, she slung her purse over her shoulder and raced for the steps leading up to the wide white veranda without waiting for her cameraman to follow. By the time she made it to the mansion’s front door, she was choking on the brick-red dust, her eyes and nose streaming and long ribbons of her reddish-blond hair whipping across her face. Shivering with a cold that her leather jacket barely cut, she felt scoured and sandblasted—and angrier than ever.
Leave it to my sister to drag me halfway to Hell.
No. That wasn’t right. As she pushed the hair from her face, she reminded herself she hadn’t driven all the way up to the Panhandle ranch, where her twin’s trail had gone cold, for Haley’s sake, no more than she was here for the “very personal human-interest story” she’d pitched to her news director as a pretext to get out of Dallas for a few days. Though the request must have come as quite a shock considering that she’d been on the verge of breaking a story bound to make national headlines, She had really come because she’d made a promise. A promise to the mother she was about to lose.
The thought brought with it a stab of fear, the same swirling sense of panic that threatened to pull Jessie under several times a day. She was still working to get past her father’s sudden death two years before, and he had barely acknowledged her existence, except to criticize her. Now, her mother, too, was dying, the one parent she could always count on for support, for love—Jessie couldn’t bear the thought.
She closed her eyes for a moment, steadying her breathing, reminding herself that they still had weeks or months left. Or maybe even longer. Aggressive as the cancer was, her mom was holding her own at the moment, and the oncologist had allowed that spontaneous remissions had happened in a few rare cases.
If she could find Haley and bring her home to make peace, they might get the miracle they needed. Or maybe Mom just wants to see her one more time before she dies... The reason didn’t matter. Finding Haley, and getting her home fast, was more important to Jessie than anything else right now. Important enough that she scarcely gave a thought to the risk to her career and the story she’d been so focused on selling to her news director.
Henry Kucharski stumbled up the steps behind her, the bushy gray wreath that ringed his bald head swirling in the gale. A wiry little man with a woolly caterpillar of a mustache, he was struggling with the mini-cam, pulling off the lens cap as she pounded on the front door.
“Three in the afternoon, and it might as well be full dark,” he said anxiously. “Without decent lighting, this footage won’t be worth the—”
“Don’t you get it, Henry? I couldn’t care less about the lighting,” she said, “or the footage, either.”
Pried loose by the wind, a nearby shutter started banging. Concerned her own knock wouldn’t be heard, Jessie tried ringing the bell but didn’t hear it. As she’d suspected when she’d first spotted the darkened windows, the storm must have caused a power outage.
“That’s not what you told Vivian.” Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, Henry squinted against the wind. “And I’ll remind you, she’s my boss, too. You and I both know how she holds on to grudges. And how many ways she has of making our lives miserable.”
Jessie, who towered over him in the high-heeled boots she wore with a tunic and leggings, spared him an apologetic look, remembering how allergic the poor guy was to confrontation. And how sweet he’d been to postpone his wedding annivers
ary dinner with his wife of twenty-six years to make the six-hour drive out here with her when it was clear that no one else would. “I’ll take full responsibility. Don’t worry.”
She rapped at the oversize mahogany door again, more insistently this time. Please let someone be home. She’d spotted a big pickup parked out back, but for all she knew, the owners were off somewhere in another vehicle from the attached four-car garage.
“Oh, I’m not worried about me, so much. It’s you, especially after you jammed that story on the mayor down her throat. Vivian has friends, I hear, including one very close friend supporting—” As the doorknob rattled, Henry went silent, tensing as he readied his camera.
The moment the door cracked open, a gust sent a swirl of sand spinning into Jessie’s face. She cried out, covering her stinging eyes with her hands.
“Come inside, out of the wind,” insisted a female voice, thin and scratchy. “Quickly, please. You’re letting in the dust.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Henry as he ushered Jessie inside and pressed a handkerchief into her hands.
Blotting her streaming eyes, Jessie blinked in the dim light of a surprisingly formal entryway for this part of the world. Half a dozen tiny flames flickered, where someone had set out candles atop a fussy table with carved, curved ivory legs. The soft glow was reflected by a tall, ornately framed mirror, its illumination warming the cool marble floor beneath a vaulted ceiling. Like the huge old house, miles from its nearest neighbor, this entryway had been built to impress, even overwhelm, potential rivals.
Having grown up in Dallas’s upscale Highland Park neighborhood, Jessie had long since gotten past the notion that privilege necessarily deserved protection. It was part of what made her fearless when confronting those who considered themselves untouchable, from a beloved sports legend who was systematically cheating customers at the car dealership he’d purchased, to the mayor of Dallas, who would very soon be facing his own reckoning over his crooked reelection campaign.
Protecting Her Royal Baby Page 24
