He didn't know.
But he wanted to find out.
It was just after lunch the day after Gideon had met with his friend Cody Austin when the knock came at the door of their suite.
Alessandra glanced nervously at her fiancé as he went to the door. Out of habit, she smoothed the long pencil skirt she wore, standing beside the sofa but not moving.
She didn't want to scare her new sister the moment she walked in the door.
"Relax," Gideon said. He nodded to her hands, which she realized she'd twisted in front of her.
She was so nervous. This was a big moment for her. For her entire family.
She heard the murmur of his voice, but not his exact words as he opened the door.
And then a young woman followed him inside the suite, looking around in wide-eyed wonder. She was only a year or so younger than Alessandra. While Alessandra and her two biological sisters Eloise and Mia shared the same almost platinum blonde hair, Cindy's hair was more dirty blonde and was cut around her shoulders. Her eyes were brown instead of the blue Alessandra had expected.
But there was a different mother in the picture, she reminded herself. Of course her half-sister wouldn't be an identical match for the three princesses.
"Hello," Alessandra said, hoping her voice didn't betray her nerves.
"Howdy." Cindy nodded in Alessandra's direction, though her eyes still flicked around the room, taking everything in. "Nice place you got here."
"Won't you sit down?" Alessandra indicated the sofa facing hers, which would put a coffee table between them. "We've ordered refreshments, if you'd like a glass of tea or water."
The other woman sat, so Alessandra did as well. Gideon perched on the arm of the sofa beside her.
"I'm not that thirsty. Just real curious why I got a mysterious summons to meet you here. You really a princess?"
The girl's diction wasn't the best, and her twangy accent was much worse than Gideon's. But Alessandra could overlook that.
"We have a couple of questions for you," Gideon shot Alessandra a look that she interpreted as don't jump the gun.
She appreciated her fiancé and his careful approach, but she just really wanted to know if Cindy was her sister.
"Where were you born?" Gideon asked.
"Lubbock, Texas," the girl responded, though she looked a little suspicious.
"Have you ever lived in Kalispell, Montana?" Gideon asked.
Cindy crossed her arms. "For a little while. Why?"
Gideon put a hand to Alessandra's shoulder. "We're looking for someone. We've been keeping things very private, but Alessandra recently found out she has a half sister."
The other woman suddenly pealed with laughter.
Startled, Alessandra looked at Gideon, who appeared as flummoxed as she felt.
Cindy slapped her thigh and even wiped away tears before she quieted. "And you think"—she hiccoughed—"you think I'm a princess?"
Alessandra swallowed the unease that rose in her throat. "Yes."
Gideon shot her another look. "Your birthdate matches," Gideon said. "We'd tried to verify your birth certificate, but we’ve been running into roadblocks."
Cindy shook her head. "I'm not who you're looking for," she said, now serious.
"Our father—" Alessandra started, but Cindy interrupted.
"I know my dad. He's a deadbeat, not a king. Believe me, as a little girl, I wished all the time for someone to come and take me away."
Alessandra shivered.
Now the other woman stood. "This has been fun." Her tone indicated it had been anything but. "I'm sorry I'm not who you're looking for."
Gideon stood too, but Alessandra's legs were shaky and felt too weak to hold her.
"Would you consent to letting us do a DNA test, just to make sure?" Gideon asked quickly. "It's just a swab on the inside of your cheek."
Cindy shrugged. "I guess that'd be fine. Won't do you any good, though."
She and Gideon conversed in low tones as he helped her with the test. Just a few minutes had passed when Gideon stuck what looked like a cotton swab in some kind of plastic tube and then sealed it in an envelope.
Thirty seconds later, Cindy ducked out of the suite.
Alessandra remained on the sofa, stunned and inexplicably hurt.
That had gone all wrong.
Later that night, Gideon found Alessandra staring out the hotel room window at the Austin skyline. She'd barely touched her dinner, hadn't wanted to talk after Cindy had left the suite earlier.
He hated seeing her despondent. He'd tried to warn her that things might not go smoothly in this search for the lost princess.
Now he sidled up behind her at the window, set his hands on her waist.
Thankfully, she leaned back against him, settling her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
He watched her reflection as she stared out the window. He search for any sign of tears. Alessandra was good at hiding her feelings, though usually not from him.
"I'm sorry things didn't go the way you wanted," he said softly.
She breathed in deeply. "You told me it wouldn't be simple."
"Doesn't mean I didn't want it to be."
She breathed in again, and it was shaky this time. "Thank you for that. Do you think we'll ever find her?"
"It's hard to stay hidden forever, at least from what I've seen. The DNA test might still come back with a different result than she thinks."
He didn't know whether to hope that could be true or not.
He talked Alessandra into sitting beside him on the couch as the room darkened around them. She curled into his side, and they played a local news station.
And then he was reaching for the remote and turning up the volume as a reporter interviewed a dark-haired man outside the rodeo fairgrounds.
He vaguely recognized the man, maybe had passed by him earlier or in the few days he'd been scouting the venue.
Now the man was dressed in a finely tailored suit. He spoke with the same light, cultured accent similar to Alessandra’s.
"…name is Prince Pieter of Glorvaird. My mother was estranged from her family before she was born."
Alessandra sat up and perched on the edge of the couch.
"You know this guy?"
She shook her head. "I've never met my cousin."
"I’m seeking reconciliation with the royal family and have some information concerning recent attempts on the princess's lives that may be of interest."
The camera zoomed in on the guy. Dark hair, blue eyes. He looked very little like Alessandra, but the way he carried himself, the high cheekbones.
"I have no ulterior motives and would welcome a meeting with my cousin and whatever security she deems necessary."
The news moved on to other stories, but Alessandra continued to stare at the screen. Then she turned to him, her face curiously blank. "Do you think he meant it? That he wants reconciliation with our family?"
Gideon shrugged. "I'm more interested in what he said about the attempt on your life. You told me in the beginning you thought your aunt was trying to kill you."
She was quiet for a long moment. "Do you think he's a part of it? That he could be trying to make an attempt of his own?"
"I think that'd be pretty stupid after he just went on TV and announced himself." But of course Gideon was suspicious.
"You should call your sister," he said. "Maybe have Eloise talk to your dad. We need to find out why your aunt was banished and what he thinks about meeting with this Pieter guy."
She nodded slowly. He knew she had a tumultuous relationship with her father, but if the king told her not to meet with this cousin, Alessandra likely wouldn't.
But that didn't mean Gideon couldn't meet with him. He wanted answers about the attempt on Alessandra's life and assurance that it wasn't going to happen again.
He'd do anything to protect the woman he loved.
9
Pieter had gotten the call late last night, but he hadn't
been sleeping, as he'd been waiting for it.
He'd agreed to meet Alessandra's fiancé for breakfast in the hotel restaurant.
The firm knock on his door shouldn't have been a surprise. He finished knotting his tie and looked through the peephole. Gideon Hale.
He should have expected this. Didn't his mother love to show up unexpectedly? It was an intimidation technique Pieter was familiar with.
But today he wouldn’t be intimidated. He fixed McKenna's kiss in his mind and opened the door. The former Navy SEAL pushed his way inside—Pieter was no match for his honed strength and didn't even try to block Hale's way.
He endured the pat down the other man insisted on and then straightened his tie and jacket as Hale proceeded to open the closet and every drawer in the room, even ducked into the bare washroom. Pieter stood in the center of the room, watching and waiting.
"If I was planning something against Alessandra, do you really think I'd leave evidence in my hotel room?"
He knew it was the wrong thing to say but resented the other man's suspicion. It wasn't as if the assassination attempt had been his idea.
"Are you planning something against Alessandra?" Hale got in his face. "Because I'll do anything to protect her."
It was a real threat, one that Pieter met head-on. He spoke steadily. "The only thing I want from my cousin is to reconnect with her. Our families have been separated long enough."
Hale continued his stare down, and Pieter met his gaze evenly. For once, he had nothing to hide. It was a feeling he'd rarely experienced.
Finally, Hale stepped back with a slow nod. "She said the same thing."
Pieter experienced a moment of hope. Maybe she was downstairs, waiting in the restaurant, but it was quickly extinguished when Hale said, "She's in talks with her sister and the king."
Whatever hope he'd been feeling disintegrated. The king had been the one to send his mother away, the one to keep both of them away.
"I think you'll find things have changed a lot in Glorvaird," Hale said, still slightly wary. "The king is...not well."
Pieter experienced a pang of sympathy for his cousin, one that would've been foreign to him before McKenna.
"Tell me what happened in New York," Hale demanded.
"Can we at least get breakfast? I’m starving." And ready to be in public instead of this private room with this very large, aggressive man.
Hale agreed grudgingly.
The restaurant in the hotel lobby was bustling with patrons.
As Hale sat across from Pieter, a flash went off from a few yards away.
A hostess rushed over to escort the camera-toting reporter out of the restaurant.
Hale glared at Pieter, who shrugged and smiled a little fiercely. He might be changing his stripes, but that didn't mean he had to give over every advantage. If the press saw him with Alessandra's fiancé, they would report favorably about him.
A waitress took their orders and filled their mugs with coffee. The booth in the corner was semi-private, and when she left, Gideon leaned forward. "Start talking."
Pieter told the solider about going on tour with the cyclists and returning home to discover his mother's sinister plot, how she'd gone off her meds and hired an assassin. He also shared what he'd done to fix it, paying off the men his mother had hired and heightening security around her.
He went on to explain how he'd come here to enact revenge on the royal family and even the fact that he'd gotten close enough to discover their secret mission. “But I won’t do anything with the information.”
Gideon looked skeptical. "Why the change of heart?"
Pieter's gaze was drawn behind his companion to a slender figure standing in the entryway near the hostess stand. McKenna.
What was she doing here? He hadn’t seen her since last night.
Gideon turned, following Pieter's gaze.
Pieter half stood, letting McKenna catch sight of him and then enduring Gideon's curious look as he stood to greet her.
She wore a pair of what must be favorite jeans, worn as they were, and a tank top. Her hair was pulled in a ponytail behind her head. She looked just as she was, young and fresh and wholesome.
And she made his heart pound.
"Hey." She bussed his cheek with a kiss.
He was surprised by the confident move and found his hand rested at her waist naturally.
"You look... Princely." She looked him up and down, taking in the suit and tie, his usual apparel. He wasn’t sorry to say goodbye to the cowboy-imposter clothes.
She looked delectable. If they were alone, he’d kiss her properly, find out why she'd sought him out this morning. He was brimming with hope.
But he was uncomfortably aware of Hale's gaze on his back. And then the other man said, "Why don't you join us...?"
There was nothing to do but make introductions.
McKenna slipped into the booth where he'd just vacated his seat, leaving him to slide in beside her.
The waitress brought their food, and McKenna declined to order anything, saying she'd eaten with a friend earlier.
He snuck her a piece of bacon anyway and grinned a little when she sipped from his coffee mug.
But his grin faded when Hale said, "I'd like to hear more about your mother."
McKenna felt the tension overtake Pieter and couldn't help reaching for him. She'd spent the night with Danielle and her mother in their RV, and they'd all been watching the evening news when she'd seen Pieter's segment.
She was running on instinct, coming to his hotel this morning. She'd only hoped to see him, talk to him after seeing him on TV.
She'd told him he could act the prince, and he had.
And maybe a small part of her wanted to know whether he was still enacting his plan for revenge or if he was genuine in his desire for reconciliation with his family.
And now Gideon Hale had asked the hardest question of all. Pieter had mentioned his mother's mental illness but not gone into detail.
If he was really changed, if he was moving forward with his life trying to live up to the title nobody seemed to think he deserved, wouldn't he tell Mr. Hale what he wanted to know?
"One of my earliest memories is of my mother going into one of her rages," Pieter said quietly. He set his fork aside. Maybe talking about his mother made his appetite disappear.
She sidled closer on the bench and curled her fingers around the fist in his lap.
"Sometimes hours later, maybe the next day, she’d be apologetic and tearful, begging forgiveness."
He paused, and she saw the bob of his Adams' apple as he swallowed.
"With Mother, it's often impossible to tell whether she's genuine or trying to manipulate. Sometimes her tearful apologies were real, and others, they were simply designed to win me into her good graces once again."
How awful. She'd often longed for the mother she'd never known, but this... To know that your own mother was manipulating you... She couldn't fathom it.
"When I was a teenager, I tried to hide Mother's condition from everyone. I was embarrassed, ashamed. And there was always that part of me that ached for mother's approval—"
He broke off, continued with, "That's neither here nor there."
As if his feelings didn't matter.
"When the press began printing stories about her decline, she would—well, if she saw the newspaper, she would go into a rage. I was able to nudge her out of the public eye and have spent a lot of money hiring caretakers and doctors that would keep quiet."
Gideon nodded solemnly.
"I tell you this so you understand that my mother is not well and that her motives are not always clear. She often disappears in her own head for weeks at a time."
His shoulders steadied. "I don't know what happened between my mother and the king, only that she speaks sometimes of betrayal and plots. Whatever passed between her and your future father-in-law happened before I was born, before Alessandra was born. Whether my mother can be welcomed back into the royal
circle, I don't know, but I shouldn't be exiled for something I had no part of."
Gideon sipped his coffee before speaking. "I can't guarantee a meeting," he said. "Alessandra is very careful with fulfilling her family duties. If Eloise or the King decline a meeting, I don't know that she'll go against them."
Pieter's hand tightened in its fist , though he betrayed no other outward sign of emotion. "I understand."
"But…" She started to say something. She didn't know what, but Pieter had come so far, and Gideon couldn't even see it...
Gideon nodded at her, then returned his gaze to Pieter. "Alessandra is very interested in reconnecting the family. I think with her father's condition uncertain and not knowing how much time he might have left, it's been hard on her. I think she’s more aware how important family connections are."
Some of Pieter's awful tension eased at that. Enough that he released his fist and threaded their fingers together beneath the table.
It wasn't assurance that he'd get to meet his cousin, but it was a sign, however small, that his cousin hadn't rejected him.
Alessandra paced the unfamiliar suite’s living area. She was unaccountably nervous.
What was Pieter like? Would he like her?
After Gideon’s rendezvous with Pieter, she and her fiancé had made a video call to speak with her father and Eloise. They’d given tentative approval for a meeting.
And now the meeting time was here.
She'd also spoken to Mia on the phone earlier, and her sister had been just as excited about the meeting as Alessandra and wanted a full report as soon as he left.
Pieter was dark where she was light—Gideon had managed to find a picture of her cousin—and the wariness in his gaze as he entered the small sitting room at a separate hotel from where she and Gideon were staying threatened her composure. Gideon was taking no chances with her safety, even though he believed Pieter's intentions to be good.
"Thank you for taking the meeting with me," her cousin said, reaching forward, probably to give her hand a royal kiss, but she stepped toward him with both arms out.
He accepted her hug, embracing her loosely as Gideon watched.
Cowboy Fairytales Omnibus Page 25
