“She wasn’t.” He started walking again, faster now.
She caught his arm. “Trey, damn it, listen to me!”
No, he didn’t want to listen to her. He didn’t want to have to look into her gray eyes. He didn’t want to face the fact that he still wanted her, still loved her.
He wanted to cry, but he pumped his anger instead, making a point to look at his watch, to look impatient. “Okay, I’m listening. You’ve got sixty seconds. Make it quick.”
“I think I can help identify the driver of the blue subcompact.”
That caught his attention. “You know which one of Stacy’s friends drives a blue Toyota?”
“He’s not one of Stacy’s friends,” Kathy told him. “I thought he was my bodyguard and—”
“Bodyguard. Right. Princesses naturally have bodyguards.” Trey couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand here and listen to this. He started walking again, started up the stairs. “Kathy, just go home.”
She ran after him. “That’s not fair! You said I could have sixty seconds.”
“Yeah.” He pushed open his office door. “Well, I lied.”
“Mr. Sutherland, I think you better look at this, sir.” Joe Verrone, the police detective in charge of the search for Stacy, stepped out of the crowd of policemen that had gathered around the computer at Trey’s desk.
“What is it?”
Verrone’s dark brown eyes were sober. “One of the ransom letters we’ve received, sir. It wasn’t a letter. It was a CD-ROM. You better sit down.”
“Joe, you’re scaring me.” Trey sat and one of the other detectives activated the computer message.
The picture on the monitor jumped and crackled and then—
It was Stacy. She was sitting on the floor in the corner of a nondescript room, tied to a chair, her chin held deceptively high.
She spoke. “Daddy. I’m here, I’m safe. For now.” Her voice shook slightly. “I’m supposed to tell you to get a suitcase and put one million dollars inside.” She looked off camera. “Right. I’m sorry.” Her voice shook again. “One million dollars in small, unmarked bills. Further instructions will follow.”
The screen went black.
“Oh, my God.” Trey felt sick to his stomach. “Oh, my God.” Stacy had been kidnapped and he’d been sitting around for nearly an entire day, feeling mad as hell, feeling inconvenienced, so certain that she’d run away just to get back at him, certain she would turn up any minute.
Kathy was beside him. She took his hand, squeezing it, calm and capable enough to start finding answers to the multitude of questions he had.
“What do we do?” she asked Joe. “Do we go ahead and get the money? Do we follow the instructions and try to catch whoever’s done this only after we get Stacy safely back?”
The look on Joe’s face was not a good one. “Kidnapping’s a capital offense. If the perpetrator thinks the victim can identify him or her in any way….”
“We might not get Stacy back,” Trey said. He held on to Kathy’s hand desperately, praying that some of her ability to think clearly and calmly would penetrate this sickening fear that had completely gripped him.
“In my experience, we should try to find your daughter by all means possible,” Joe told him.
Kathy put her arms around Trey. “We’ll get her back,” she murmured. “We’ll do whatever it takes. We’ll find her.”
He held her tightly and let himself be glad that she was there. God, he’d been such a bastard when she’d first shown up. He’d been so convinced Stacy had run away to make a point, and Kathy…He lifted his head and looked into Kathy’s eyes.
“You said you could identify the driver of that blue car.”
She nodded, looking from him to the detectives. “A man in a small blue car had been following us around for weeks. I thought he was one of the Wynborough Royal Bodyguards, but I was wrong. No one was dispatched to watch me here in Albuquerque. I had a very clear look at his face a number of times. He’s a grown man, about Trey’s age, a little shorter than Trey, but quite a bit heavier. He’s got short hair, like a soldier, and a very distinctive face. Dark eyebrows, inset eyes, rather large nose and chin, flat cheekbones.”
Trey looked up at Joe Verrone who had picked up the telephone. “Can we get a sketch artist down here?”
“Already doing it, sir. With luck, she’ll be here in five minutes.”
Five minutes. Trey could die five hundred times over in five minutes. He stood up and moved to look out his window, pretending to stare at the mountains, when in fact his eyes were too blurred from tears to see much of anything at all.
Please God, keep Stacy safe….
He felt Kathy’s familiar touch, and he reached for her, holding her tightly, welcoming her warmth.
“We’ll find her,” she said again.
With Kathy in his arms, infusing him with her warmth and hope, he could almost believe it himself.
Trey stared at the police sketch. “I know this man.” He looked up at Joe Verrone. “He works for me. Or rather, he did. I fired him about a month ago. Bruce Baxter.”
“You got a home address for him?” Joe asked.
“You’re kidding,” Trey said. “You honestly think he would kidnap Stacy and take her to his house?”
“That’s always the first place we look,” Joe told him. “And I’m hoping we’ll find your daughter there. I know it sounds less than intelligent, but believe me, the state jails aren’t filled with geniuses.”
Trey broke free from Kathy’s arms and sat in his desk chair, sliding quickly toward his computer. “His home address is probably still in the company’s personnel files.” He pulled the information up onto his screen.
Joe was on the phone again. “Okay,” he said. “That matches what we’ve got. Now we just need to get a warrant and…”
Trey put on his jacket. “I’m going with you.”
“The warrant’ll meet us over there.” Joe hung up the phone. “Mr. Sutherland, with all due respect, sir, you should wait here.”
“I’m going with you.”
Joe looked to Kathy for support.
But she shook her head and took Trey’s hand. “I’m going, too.”
Trey wouldn’t wait in the car.
Katherine couldn’t blame him one bit. The sight of the SWAT team preparing to pay a surprise visit on Bruce Baxter was frightening. The police officers’ guns were enormous. And if Stacy were inside that house, she would likely be in the line of fire.
But it was over almost before it started.
One second the police officers were outside the house, and the next they were inside. Not a single shot was fired.
Joe Verrone waved from the open doorway, and Katherine followed Trey as he ran across the lawn. As he hit the steps up to the front door, Stacy was there.
She leapt into his arms and he held her tightly. “Are you all right? Please tell me he didn’t hurt you!”
“I’m okay. He didn’t touch me,” Stacy told him through her tears. “I knew you would come for me, Daddy. I knew it.”
Katherine couldn’t stop her own tears. Thank God.
“He didn’t really have a gun,” Stacy told them. “It was just a fake gun, but I thought it was real, so I got into his car. I would never have gotten in if I hadn’t thought he had a gun!”
“I know, baby,” Trey murmured, kissing her hair, rocking her in his arms. “It’s all right now.”
“I was so afraid you would think I was being terrible, that I’d run away again,” Stacy sobbed. “I was so afraid he was going to take me away and you’d never know that I had been kidnapped.”
Trey looked up, directly into Katherine’s eyes.
She stepped forward and put her arms around Stacy, too. “Are you kidding? Your dad was so upset. I’ve never seen him that scared. And when we got that ransom message…” She shook her head. “I had to hold him back to keep from leading the SWAT team into this house.”
Stacy laughed through her tears. “R
eally?”
Katherine nodded. “Really.”
Stacy looked at her father. “Can we please go home?”
Chapter 20
Katherine crept toward the door.
Stacy and Trey were still talking to the police. They hadn’t noticed as she’d slipped from the room and headed down the stairs.
It was definitely time to go.
Nothing had really changed between Trey and herself. And she, for one, couldn’t handle the emotional turmoil of another rejection.
Trey didn’t want her. She didn’t need to stick around and hear that again.
“Are you leaving?”
Katherine nearly jumped a mile into the air. “Doug! Please. Make some noise—don’t just creep up on people that way!”
“Are you leaving?”
She nodded. “Yes, I am.”
He was trying not to cry, but his lower lip trembled. “You promised to stay until January.”
“I know, I did. And I’m sorry I have to break my promise.” Her lower lip trembled, too. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“I heard Daddy on the phone,” Doug told her. “He was trying to get someone to come in and drive me and Stace to school and home again, but the only people who were available weren’t people he wanted. He told me it was hard to find anyone before Christmas.” He sighed. “Are you really a princess?”
“Yes.”
“You look like a princess,” he decided. “Poindexter thinks so, too.”
Katherine had to smile at that. “Thank you.”
“Are you leaving because princesses aren’t allowed to be nannies?” he asked.
“Princesses are allowed to be whatever they want,” she told him.
“Then why don’t you stay and be our nanny,” Doug suggested. “Or our mother. Stacy says that’s like being a nanny who never goes away. All you have to do is marry Daddy.”
Katherine laughed. “That really only works if your daddy wants to marry me.”
Doug shrugged. To him that was no problem. “Why wouldn’t he want to marry you? Stacy says he loves you. Don’t people who love each other get married?”
Katherine didn’t know what to say to that.
“You know, you make a very good princess,” Doug told her, “but I think you’d make an even better mother. If mothers are like nannies…Well, you’re already the best nanny in the world, so…” His lip quivered again. “Please stay. You’ve got to stay. At least until January.”
“I can’t do that,” Katherine said softly. “I’m sorry, Dougie.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Thanks for saving Stacy’s life. I heard Daddy telling Stacy that if you hadn’t come back, they wouldn’t’ve found her.”
Outside, the taxicab she’d called tooted its horn. She had to leave. Before she started crying.
She gave Doug a swift hug. “I love you.”
She peeled him out of her arms and went out the door, closing it firmly. She climbed into the cab, gave the driver the name of the airport hotel and closed her eyes as he pulled away from the three people who’d come to be her family.
She didn’t want to leave, but she truly had no choice.
Like hell she had no choice. What kind of thinking was that? No choice? That was the way wishy-washy Princess Katherine had thought in the past. But today she hadn’t been wishy-washy. Today she’d been persistent. Today she’d been Kathy Wind—strong, bold, fascinating, daring Kathy. She’d rejected Trey’s rejection and she’d gone to him because she knew he needed her, regardless of what he thought. And he had needed her. She’d helped him to find Stacy. She’d stood by him and supported him. She’d been strong and hopeful. She had been. She was Kathy, or rather, Kathy was her. They were one and the same person.
And Kathy wouldn’t whine about having no real choice. Kathy would bulldoze over any obstacles. Kathy would reach out and grab Trey by the shoulders and shake him until he realized that he’d fallen in love with her, with her. She knew he had. Kathy wouldn’t just let what they’d found together slip away. She would do something outrageous to win him back.
As the cab pulled up to the hotel, Kathy leaned over the seat. “Wait for me,” she told the driver. “I’ll be right back.”
Trey sat in his office and stared out his window at the brilliant red-orange sunset.
Kathy was gone. She’d left while he was talking to the police. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to properly thank her.
He closed his eyes, letting himself remember how she’d seemed to know when he’d needed a hand to hold, when he’d needed her arms around him. Her hopeful words had kept him from falling apart more times than he could count.
And then, when he’d gotten Stacy back, when his daughter was in his arms and she’d admitted she was afraid Trey had thought she’d run away…
That was exactly what he’d thought. But Kathy had known it wasn’t what Stacy needed to hear right then. It wasn’t something Stacy ever needed to hear. And she’d known just what to say to get them both past that. She hadn’t lied. Her words had all been truthful. She had simply left out the part where Trey believed Stacy had run away.
Was it lying by omission?
Trey didn’t think so.
And was it lying by omission when she’d given him an aka when he’d first hired her as their nanny? Stacy had been right—he’d used a false name many times himself when they traveled.
God, he was a fool.
Kathy loved him. It didn’t matter what she was—nanny or princess. She truly loved him. He believed that with all his heart.
And he loved her, too.
Yet he’d let her walk away.
He stood up and went to find his children.
Doug and Stacy were both in the playroom. Anita must have lit a fire in the fireplace before she’d left. The room was warm and cheery, and the Christmas tree in the corner of the room smelled festive and fresh. Stacy was curled up on the couch with a book, and Doug sat working a jigsaw puzzle at the table.
“Hey, guys, I need to go away for a few days,” he told them. “But before I call Anita to see if she can stay with you, I thought I’d find out if maybe you want to come along.”
“You don’t need to call Anita, Dad,” Doug said.
“Shhh,” Stacy hissed at her brother. She turned back to Trey. “Where?”
“I’m not exactly sure yet,” Trey admitted. “Either Aspen or Wynborough. It kind of depends where Kathy’s gone.”
Stacy closed her eyes. “Yes!”
Doug laughed so hard he fell off his chair.
And Kathy stood up from behind the sofa, where she’d been organizing a bookshelf.
“Was there something you needed?”
She was here. In his house. Mere feet away from him. Smiling at him so uncertainly.
“What…” he said, all ability to speak completely leaving him. “How…?”
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I couldn’t leave you in the lurch without a nanny. Not with Christmas coming. I didn’t think it would do at all if word got out that one of the Wynborough princesses had welched on a deal.”
“Marry me,” Trey said.
“Yes!” Stacy said. She stood up. “Come on, Doggie. Time to disappear.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.” Stacy picked her little brother up and carried him from the room, closing the door very tightly behind them.
“Please,” Trey added, losing himself in the softness of Kathy’s eyes. “God, I’m doing this all wrong. I was going to find you and plead my case and…Kathy, forgive me.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Out of obligation to a deal—”
She said something entirely unprincesslike. “I’m here because I love your children.” Her voice shook slightly. “And because I love you. I haven’t exactly kept that a secret.”
“But I have,” he told her. “I’ve been lying by omission, right from the start.”
He reached for her and she came willingly in
to his arms. “I love you, more than you will ever know,” he whispered. “Marry me.”
Kathy smiled, and he knew that it could rain every day for the rest of his life, and he wouldn’t lack for sunshine. “Yes.”
He kissed her harder, deeper, losing himself in the sweetness of her mouth, in the fire of her touch and…
He pulled back, laughing. “My God, you’re a princess. My father-in-law is going to be a king. I feel like I’ve been dropped into the middle of a fairy tale.”
She kissed him again. “My father will like you.”
“I don’t know anything about royalty—about what to say or do, or…My manners are abysmal. I’ve probably broken all kinds of rules of etiquette already and I haven’t even been to court yet.”
“I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” she told him. “Starting with the most important details.”
“Such as…?”
“Well, for one thing, this princess really loves making love to you on your desk.”
Trey laughed.
“And in other creative places,” she added. “As long as there’s a lock on the door and shades that can be pulled down….”
Trey looked at Kathy, then at the very comfortable-looking rug in front of the blazing fire, then back into Kathy’s eyes.
She was standing close enough to him to know exactly what he was thinking. And she smiled as she kissed him. “I’ll get the shades if you lock the door.”
Trey moved quickly. She did, too.
She was back in his arms in a matter of seconds. She smiled at him, and he kissed her. And together they sank down, in front of that blazing fire, and began living very, very happily ever after.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5108-7
UNDERCOVER PRINCESS
Copyright © 1999 by Harlequin Books S.A.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
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