Protecting the Pregnant Princess
Page 6
Timmer tugged on her other arm, trying to pull her free of the driver. “She’s not Charlotte.”
“I know she doesn’t look exactly like her,” Trigger said. “But her voice…”
Timmer chuckled. “The princess is so adept at learning languages that she picks up the dialects of the people she spends the most time with. So of course she picked up her American accent from Charlotte and sounds just like her.”
So there was another woman out there that not only looked like her but sounded like her, too?
Trigger shook his head, obviously still unwilling to accept Timmer’s explanations. “But the way she holds a gun…”
“Charlotte taught her how to shoot. She taught her how to defend herself.”
So despite the certainty with which Timmer had said her name, he wasn’t really sure who she was. Or at least he now appeared positive that she was the princess when earlier he’d seemed convinced she was Charlotte. Until Jane reclaimed her memory—and all of her memories—she had no idea which of these two women she actually was.
“Since they were that close,” Trigger persisted, “maybe Charlotte talked to her about some of our old cases.”
Timmer groaned in obvious frustration with the other man’s stubbornness. “You yourself said that Charlotte kept everything to herself. You doubted the princess would know anything.”
Jane dragged in a deep breath as her own frustration overwhelmed her. “I don’t know anything. I don’t even know who I am.”
The guy studied her face intently. “Then it’s possible she’s Charlotte and that Charlotte had a nose job and that scar fixed…”
Jane wanted to reach a hand up to her nose and her cheek. But she couldn’t move her hands. She was trapped, her arms bound as effectively as the restraints had tied her up and made her helpless.
But Jane wasn’t helpless. While her memory was gone, her common sense was not. She moaned and sagged against the seat, faking a faint.
*
AARON’S HEART SLAMMED against his ribs as he watched her go limp. He reached inside the car and caught the woman up in his arms, tugging her free of Trigger’s grasp. Careful to not hit her head against the roof, he lifted her through the door and carried her toward the house. She was light but she wasn’t limp. Her body was still tense. With fear? Was she so frightened that she couldn’t relax even in unconsciousness?
Her actions back at Serenity House hadn’t been fearful. More fearless.
But maybe the fight she’d put up had exhausted her to the point of passing out. He needed to get her inside. He needed to get her away from Trigger.
The car headlamps illuminated the entrance to the tiny clapboard and fieldstone house. Aaron didn’t bother searching for a hidden key to the front door, and he didn’t waste time walking around to the back door that he’d unlocked earlier that evening. Instead he lifted her higher in his arms and kicked open the front door.
“I could’ve gotten that for you,” Trigger said, as he hurried inside after them. He pulled a sheet from a couch and stood there, waiting for Aaron to lay her down.
Aaron didn’t want the U.S. Marshal anywhere near her, so he held her yet in his arms. “Why did you really flag my passport?” he asked. “What was your real reason for wanting to find Charlotte?”
“You called me,” Trigger reminded him. “You wanted my help to find her.”
Because he’d thought that if she was in trouble—or hiding the princess from her controlling father—that she would have reached out to friends. It was only now that he realized she and Trigger may have been partners, but they had probably never been friends.
Not like he and Whit had once been friends. But that seemed like a lifetime ago now.
“I know why I called you,” Aaron said. “But why did you agree to help find her? What information did you want from her?”
Instead of answering Aaron’s question, Trigger asked one of his own. “You really don’t think she’s Charlotte?”
Aaron finally settled her onto the couch. The headlamps shining through the open door illuminated her flawlessly beautiful face. “Look at her. Really look at her. What do you think?”
“She’s been missing for almost six months. She could have had plastic surgery,” Trigger said, stubbornly clinging to that possibility.
She’d actually had the surgery long before she’d disappeared, but Aaron felt compelled to continue lying to the Marshal. “Is Charlotte the kind of woman who would ever get plastic surgery?”
“What I knew of Charlotte, no,” Trigger admitted. “The woman had no vanity. She cared about nothing but keeping people safe. And because of that, she might have had it, so she could protect the princess.”
Charlotte’s former partner knew her better than he thought he had.
But then Marshal Herrema shook his head. “That would be extreme, though, even for Charlotte. But even if it’s Princess Gabriella, she might know something. Maybe Charlotte talked about…”
“About what?” Aaron asked. “What do you want to know about?”
Trigger shrugged. “An old case.”
“If it’s old, why does it matter now?”
“The witness is missing.”
“Just now?” Could that case have had something to do with what had happened in Paris? Had someone gone after Charlotte to find out where the witness was?
Trigger sighed. “The witness has actually been missing for a while, and it’s important we find her.”
If she’d been missing before Charlotte disappeared, wouldn’t he have already contacted her? And if Charlotte hadn’t told him then, she must have had her reasons for keeping the witness’s location secret from her former partner.
“Charlotte left the Marshals a few years ago,” Aaron recalled. “How would she know anything about where this witness is now?”
“They got close.”
Like she and Princess Gabby had.
“If anyone knows where she is, Charlotte does,” Trigger said.
Aaron gestured at the unconscious woman on the couch. “That’s not Charlotte,” he lied. At least he was pretty damn certain he was lying.
“But since that woman was her friend, Charlotte might have talked about her. Or maybe the princess overheard Charlotte talking to the witness…”
“It wouldn’t matter if she had,” Aaron said. “She has amnesia. She doesn’t remember anything now.”
“Not even you?”
He shook his head. “No. She may never get her memory back.” That was another lie because he was determined for her to remember. Him.
“Amnesia is her excuse for forgetting,” Aaron continued. “What’s yours?”
“What?”
“We had a plan,” he reminded the Marshal. “After we got her out, you were going to go to the police and have them get a warrant to seize Serenity House records to find out who the hell put her in that place.”
Trigger stared at the sleeping woman for another minute, as if he was having an inner debate about whether or not she was Charlotte. Aaron recognized the look since he’d been having that debate within himself since he’d found her in Room 00. Finally Trigger shook his gray head, turned away and walked toward the open door. “I’ll go to the county sheriff and see what I can find out,” he agreed. “Do you want me to bring anything when I come back?”
He didn’t want the Marshal to come back. “I have everything we need in the trunk.” He followed the Marshal out to the rental car and groaned when he saw the fresh damage on it. “I’m definitely not getting my deposit back,” he murmured as he got the box of food and clothes. Then he told the Marshal, “You’ve got my number. Call me as soon as you talk to the sheriff.”
Trigger nodded and got back behind the wheel of the running car. When he drove off, he left the cottage and property in total darkness. Aaron stumbled his way to the open door and stepped into the blackness inside the home. As he did, a cold barrel pressed hard against his temple. Had the guards already tracked them down?
“Don’t move,” a raspy voice warned him, “or I’ll kill you.”
Chapter Six
“You don’t want to kill me,” the man told her.
Timmer was right. She didn’t want to kill him. But he was the only thing that stood, literally blocking the door, between her and freedom. And she suspected that she needed to leave before the other man returned.
What had he been saying about a case and a missing witness? And why had his mentioning those things had her heart beating heavy with dread and fear?
“I won’t kill you,” she promised, “as long as you do what I tell you. Hand over your gun and don’t try to stop me from leaving.”
“You can’t leave,” he said.
“Why did you go to the trouble of breaking me out of that place?” she asked. “Why take me out of one prison cell if you only intended to put me in another?” That was why she’d been determined to not get on that plane to only the devil knew where—the devil who claimed to be the father of her unborn child. She shuddered.
“This isn’t a prison cell,” he replied.
“Then let me leave.”
“And go where?” he challenged her. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
“Too close to that horrible hospital.” She shuddered again.
“Do you even know which state we’re in?”
“We’re in the U.S.?” The question slipped out, revealing too much of her ignorance. Hell, talking to him at all when she should have been running from him was showing her ignorance. She couldn’t trust him—not when she couldn’t remember who he was to her—besides that he was an old lover.
He nodded, his head moving against the barrel of the gun she held on him. She eased back a little, not wanting to hurt him. “We’re in Michigan.”
Michigan. She’d been in Michigan before. Hadn’t she?
“And,” he continued, “this place is a temporary shelter.”
Despite her earlier threat, he moved. His eyes must have adjusted to the faint light as thick clouds moved away from a sliver of the moon. He set the box down on a table and rummaged inside it. If he’d been looking for a weapon, he would have pulled the gun from the waistband of his pants. Instead he pulled out a small box and a wad of paper, and he moved again—to the fireplace. The paper rustled then caught the flame from the match he struck. The paper ignited the logs that had been left in the hearth.
Warmth and light spilled from that wide brick hearth, tempting her to leave the bone-chilling cold of the open doorway and approach it. But then she’d be approaching him, too.
“We’ll stay here,” he said, “until we figure out our next move.”
“Our next move should be getting out of this place,” she said. They needed to leave before the older man returned or those guards from the hospital tracked them down.
“We have no vehicle,” he pointed out.
She shouldn’t have let the other man leave with the car, but she hadn’t wanted to deal with him and his insistent questions, either. That was why she’d faked the faint. “I can walk.”
“You’re not strong enough,” he said.
Pride lifted her chin. “I’m strong—”
“You just—” He stopped himself and laughed. “You didn’t really faint. You staged that whole thing, so you could get the jump on me. I helped you escape Serenity House. Why won’t you trust me?”
Serenity House? That was the name of the psychiatric hospital? How ironic when she’d felt anything but serene there.
“Because I don’t know who you are,” she reminded him.
“My name is Aaron Timmer.”
She shrugged. “Your name means nothing to me.” But that was a lie. Aaron felt right, like it fit him—like she had once fit him.
He sighed with obvious resignation. “You really don’t remember anything.”
“I need more than your name,” she explained. “I need to know who you are. What kind of person can break in and out of a secure facility and steal an ID badge and fight off trained guards…?”
“A trained bodyguard,” he replied.
“Bodyguard?” she asked, the title striking a chord within her. “For hire?”
“Yes, I’m a professional bodyguard. I used to have my own security business.” He sighed again. “Well, with a partner, but that didn’t work out. Now I protect only one person.”
“Me?”
“No.”
She smiled. “Good. Because if you were responsible for protecting me, you’re not that great at your job.”
He flinched as if she’d struck a nerve.
She nearly apologized, but then she didn’t know the whole story. Didn’t even know if what he was telling her was just a story and not the truth.
“If you’re someone else’s bodyguard, why are you here?” she asked. “Why did you come looking for me?”
*
AARON HAD ANSWERED her earlier questions because he wanted to jar her memory—wanted to say something that would have her remembering everything. So he’d been honest with her. But being honest now would gain nothing. She didn’t know how he’d felt about her. Because she’d left the palace the morning after they’d made love, he hadn’t even had time to figure out how he’d felt about her before she and the princess had disappeared.
“Why did you track me down?” she repeated her question. Then she drew in an audible breath and asked, “Or aren’t I the woman you were looking for?”
“You’re the woman I was looking for,” Aaron assured her.
Her brow furrowed in skepticism. “I’m Princess Gabriella?”
“No,” he said, correcting her. She was nothing like the princess, who he’d found to be rather timid despite having lived her life in the bright glare of the media spotlight. “You’re Charlotte Green.”
Her brow furrowed even more with confusion and skepticism. “You convinced the other man that I wasn’t.”
“I wasn’t sure he can be trusted.”
“I’m sure he can’t,” she said.
“You remember him?”
“I don’t have to remember him to realize that he can’t be trusted,” she said. “I’m not sure I can trust you, either.”
“I’m telling you the truth. You’re Charlotte Green.” He had no doubt. She may have forgotten who she was but she hadn’t forgotten what she was. She wasn’t just defending herself as she’d taught Princess Gabby; she was using her talent and experience to protect herself. She’d even used it to protect him back at Serenity House. “You’re a bodyguard, too.”
“I’m a bodyguard.” She said it as if trying on the job title to see if it fit.
“Now,” he said. “Before you went into private security, you were a U.S. Marshal.”
“That’s why that other man was talking about a case and a witness,” she said. It was as if she was trying to fit together puzzle pieces to get a picture of her forgotten past.
He studied her face, looking for any flicker of recognition—to see if she remembered any of what he was telling her. “He thinks you know where she is.”
“I don’t know…” She lifted her free hand and rubbed her swollen temple as if her head was throbbing. “I don’t remember…”
“That’s okay,” he assured her with a twinge of guilt for overwhelming her with information. It was obviously too much for her to process all at once. “He was talking about an old case. You may not know anything about that witness anymore.”
“But the other guy—Trigger—” she uttered his nickname with such derision it was almost as if she did remember him “—said that the witness was a friend of mine.”
“I haven’t known you long,” he admitted, “but it seems like you tend to become friends with the people you protect.”
&
nbsp; “Do you get close to the people you protect?” she asked.
He glanced back at the flames flickering in the hearth, and with a flash of pain he remembered another fire. “Sometimes too close and then it hurts too much when you lose them.”
“Who’s lost?”
He wouldn’t talk about his old case with her. That wasn’t her memory to recover, and it was one he wished he could forget. “Princess Gabriella.”
“Is that who you were protecting?” she asked.
Aaron shook his head. “No, you’re her bodyguard. Do you know what happened to her?”
She swayed as if her legs were trembling, as if she were about to pass out again. Or for real this time. Because she still tightly clutched the gun, he walked slowly and carefully toward her—trying to be non-threatening. But she didn’t let him get close. Instead she moved around him to stand in front of the fireplace. She trembled yet, shivering.
Cold air blew through the open door, stirring sparks in the fire. So she stepped back from the hearth, as if afraid of getting burnt.
Aaron shut and locked the door, but because his kick had broken the jamb, he also moved a bureau in front of it to keep the wind from blowing it open again.
“Are you okay?” he asked, as he joined her by the couch in front of the fireplace. “Is your memory coming back?”
She shook her head and grimaced. “No. It’s almost like it’s slipping farther away. If you’re so sure I’m Charlotte and not the princess, then you’re saying I had plastic surgery to look exactly like her? That’s why you and that other man—that Marshal—didn’t know for certain which one of us is which?”
Firelight flickered across her face, illuminating her perfect features—her breath-stealing beauty. “When you started protecting Princess Gabriella, you had plastic surgery to look like her. When I met you, you had already had it done—the two of you are pretty much identical.” But only Charlotte had stolen his breath—not the princess.
“So identical that you couldn’t tell us apart? What makes you so certain that you’re right now?” she challenged him.
“I was wrong to doubt myself before,” he said, self-disgust overwhelming him. “I should have known immediately that you were Charlotte.”