Her Cowboy Prince

by Madeline Ash

  “I need you to try, Kris.” Mark leaned forward, elbows on his knees, blue gaze steady. “If you’re serious about being king, you can’t mess around anymore. Respect protocol. Please.”

  Sobering at the plea, Kris raised his hands in surrender. Mark’s future with Ava depended on Kris doing this properly—for if Kris wasn’t prepared by the coronation in three months’ time, Mark would put Kiraly over his own happiness and take the crown.

  “Alright,” he said. “I promise to do the right thing.”

  A clever verbal loophole even if he did say so himself.

  Mark gave a nod. “Thank you.”

  Satisfied with that, Philip bowed to them both and left the study.

  Kris blew out a breath and ran a hand along the back of his neck, fingers digging into muscle. “Summits, hey,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Do we get a lot of those?”

  Mark gave a laugh. “No idea.” He stood, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. “How’re you holding up?”

  Honestly? His life had been upended and everything that had once brought him comfort and peace had tumbled away. Horses and back porches and big skies were all out of reach.

  “Hard to know,” he said.

  A sturdy upbringing in Montana couldn’t have prepared him for daily life as a monarch. This life was bait for all species of predatory stress.

  The sharp-toothed stress that preyed on responsibility. His smallest choice could have far-reaching consequences, and that pierced deep into his conscience.

  The stress of dramatic change. It was always there: a million crawling wrongs throughout the day. Every time he woke to find his manservant setting down his morning coffee, it stung him. Every time his guards fell into step behind him, sting; every time someone called him ‘Your Highness’ with a bowed head, double sting; and every time he reluctantly handed the reins to the stable master after a ride because he had somewhere else to be, he stung all over his capable cowboy body.

  And dwelling in the shadows of his mind was the stress that he was in over his head. That he might not be able to pull off this king thing and would cause the end of Mark and Ava’s relationship.

  His only defense was to give his attention to everything Philip and Mark taught him in his daily training. It had been less than two weeks, but he was trying his best. Kira City looked breathtaking at night—he knew, because he often stayed late in this tower study, revising notes, reciting what he’d learnt, memorizing names and agreements and political relationships. He might not be a natural leader like Mark or a natural learner like Tommy, but he’d be damned if he messed this up through lack of trying.

  Not that he’d tell Mark any of that. His brother needed Kris’s unfazed, raffish front—needed to sigh and roll his eyes. Because if Kris started acting too seriously, it’d be a neon warning sign that he was freaking the hell out, and Mark, being Mark, would back down from his abdication.

  And that was not going to happen.

  “The view from up here still makes my head spin,” Kris said. “But I’m getting used to it.”

  Mark glanced distractedly out the nearest window. “I meant how are you holding up after last night.”

  Oh. The engagement party? “Fine. It didn’t get that wild.”

  He received a pained glance. “I thought it might have made you think of someone,” Mark said carefully, “and how much you miss her.”

  Gut suddenly aching, Kris looked away.

  He didn’t need an engagement party to remind him of Frankie. She was an emotional shadow, clinging to the heels of his heart, always half a thought away. The last time he’d seen her . . . it haunted him. I can’t do this, she’d told him. In the months since, he’d called, messaged, emailed—and heard nothing. At first, her silence had burned a hole in him, and restless frustration had poured out. He’d hardly been able to sit still. After a while, he’d forced himself to accept the obvious.

  She’d returned to Sage Haven and heard the town gossip. The news—the extent of the secret he’d kept from her—had broken her trust in him. Without that, he wouldn’t hear from her again.

  His fault.

  All his fault.

  Sometimes he crouched on the brink of going after her. He could skip the country, fly back home, and beg for her forgiveness. Lying awake at night was the hardest. Her absence would scrape over him like a phantom touch and he’d churn up the covers knowing he couldn’t keep living without her.

  But he had no choice.

  He was a prince of Kiraly. Soon to be the king. Slipping security in the city was one thing, but he wasn’t so irresponsible as to abandon his duty.

  “Yeah,” was all he said to Mark, because he couldn’t remember if he’d asked a question.

  “You still haven’t heard from her?” Mark shifted, sliding a hand in his pocket, looking uncomfortable. “At all?”

  “Not so much as a snicker.”

  Mark shook his head, gaze down and jaw tight.

  “Don’t hold it against her.” Frankie didn’t deserve Mark’s blame. “I kept all this from her. Pretty big deal.”

  Mark didn’t answer. Jaw still locked, he headed toward the door.

  “Say hey to Ava and Darius for me.”

  That broke the tension in his brother’s shoulders. Mark relaxed as he quirked a brow over his shoulder. “In response, I’m guessing Ava will scold you for walking out of the summit.”

  “Not a doubt in my mind.”

  Grinning, Mark closed the door behind him.

  Kris leaned back in his chair, mentally trailing his brother down the stone steps that spiraled through the tower like an apple peel. Once he was confident Mark had reached the floor below, he pulled out his notebook from the bottom desk drawer, flipped it open and frowned over his recent speculations.

  Yes, he’d put up his hand to be king.

  But there were three persisting problems with that.

  Everyone was well aware of the first. He had a strained relationship with authority—including his own authority, which he struggled to take seriously.

  The second was Frankie. Kind of hard to rule a kingdom with a gaping hole in his chest.

  The third was contained within the pages of this notebook. Theories, guesswork, hunches, and clues. He wasn’t a detective by a long stretch, but without knowing who he could trust—aside from Mark and Tommy, whom he refused to worry with his suspicions—he’d been left to handle this himself.

  This being his deadliest source of stress: his conviction that the late royal family’s deaths had not been the accident the official investigation had claimed.

  They’d been murdered.

  And to keep the kingdom safe, it was up to him to prove it.

  “Right, who wants to tell me what we’re doing here?” Frankie stood with arms crossed in the palace surveillance room, staring down a select group of her team.

  Kris’s security detail.

  Every single one of them looked unusually wide-eyed for five-thirty in the morning. Admittedly, Frankie in a bad mood got her team out of bed faster than a flipped mattress.

  The king-in-training’s two main personal guards, Peter and Hanna, were positioned the closest. They’d accompanied him almost everywhere inside the palace and out since the day he’d arrived. Frankie had selected Peter, a lean-muscled man in his mid-forties, for his quiet competence and extensive military experience, while Hanna was the royal guard’s youngest member. Razor-eyed and quick-minded, the twenty-three-year-old was as enthusiastic as she was disciplined. She’d transferred from the police force where she’d consistently ranked best mark. Several of the other half-dozen guards in front of Frankie watched Kris overnight and on Peter and Hanna’s days off. The rest escorted the prince when he ventured beyond the palace grounds.

  As he had last night.

  “I imagine it has something to do with the footage you’ve lined up for us.” This suggestion came from Hanna as she cocked her head toward the nearest screen, her long blond ponytail swaying. Her unifo
rm was impeccable, right down to the creases in her navy trousers.

  Frankie arched a brow. “Care to be more specific?”

  The woman winced. “And the fact that Prince Kristof disappeared again last night.”

  “Bingo.”

  There was a mass shamed shuffling of feet.

  “We can all count.” Frankie’s agitation was running wild. She’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but royals were only allowed to disappear on her watch when she let them. Kris might think nothing of his own security, but it was Frankie’s job to protect him and he’d finally made that impossible to do from a distance. “This has happened too many times.”

  Last night bumped it up to disappearance number five.

  “Would we all like to find out how he does it?” No one was foolish enough to respond. “The last time he slipped you, I took the liberty of installing security cameras at his go-to hot spot.” The Bearded Bunting, a bar well outside the city’s nightlife district. It attracted few tourists—the bar was mostly a place for locals coming together to drink and dance and hook up. Basically, a melting pot of Kris’s favorite pastimes. “Let’s watch, shall we?”

  Pressing play, Frankie turned her back on the screen under the pretense of assessing the reactions of her team. In truth, she couldn’t stomach watching it again.

  She knew by the slight roll of Hanna’s eyes that Kris was dancing up close with several women in the bar’s back courtyard. Knew by Peter’s growing frown that his own face was captured as Kris wove past him to get inside, gesturing to the guard that he was grabbing another drink. Next up was a camera switch, and her team looked momentarily alarmed as they struggled to find him in the crowd. Not just due to the long shot taken from the rear of the room, but the ludicrous fashion trend that had exploded throughout the city since the brothers had arrived—cowboy chic. There were plaid shirts in every color combination, blue jeans, kerchiefs and cowboy hats. Kris wasn’t as easy to spot as he should have been leaning in to talk with a woman in a cute sundress, who looked delightedly shocked by whatever he’d suggested. And Frankie knew by the cringes of every single guard when Kris ducked beneath the crowd cover, removed his telltale checkered shirt and hat, and straightened in a white tank with the woman wrapped around his waist. As he wove through the crowd, she tugged a cap over his hair, wrapped her arms around his neck, and angled her head to kiss the side of his face—her long hair effectively shielding him as he ducked out the door.

  Frankie lifted the remote and hit pause over her shoulder.

  No one spoke.

  “Comments? Questions?” she asked. “Last words?”

  “They kind of looked good together.” Hanna was still staring at the screen.

  Frankie ignored her as she scanned her team, trying to forget that just hours ago, she’d sat balled up in front of the screen, clammy and cold over watching Kris with another woman. “Anyone else?”

  “We apologize for this reoccurrence.” This from one of the guards who’d been positioned across the street from the bar’s front entrance. “Now we know his tactic, it won’t happen again.”

  “You know why it won’t happen again?” She ground her teeth as she took a beat. “Because the next time he leaves these walls, I’m coming with you.”

  Her vision blurred with nerves. For months, she’d avoided Kris. She’d ensured her job didn’t require her to interact directly with the royal family. She’d existed behind the scenes—the puppet master of the interwoven network of palace security. A role that continued to terrify her, even as she strode down the halls with the confidence of someone who fully believed she belonged.

  A lesson from her father.

  Convince them with your own conviction and they’ll never think to look past it.

  “Dismissed,” she said, and turned her back.

  The group filed out in silence.

  When the door clicked closed, Frankie held still. She sensed the young woman’s presence as keenly as she could smell whatever sweetened product kept that blond hair shining.

  “Yes, Johansson?”

  After a moment, Hanna appeared at her side. “Do you swim, ma’am?”

  Instantly knowing where this was going, Frankie met her stare flatly. “No.”

  “Ski?”

  “No.”

  Hanna clicked her fingers, looking away. “Bake?” she asked, her tone spiking doubtfully.

  “Yes,” Frankie said. “I bake. I also enjoy book clubs and sewing my own dresses.”

  “Hey.” Hanna frowned. “That felt targeted.”

  “Stop trying to find a way to outdo me. I’m your superior. I win at everything.” But Frankie flashed her a smile. Since Frankie had first taken down this guard during training, Hanna had become determined to beat her in return. At what, it didn’t seem to matter, which made Frankie suspect it was less of a competition and more an attempt at bonding. Frankie was only three years older than her, after all. “Now, what are you really doing here?”

  Hanna’s gaze slid to the paused image of the crowded bar. “It just . . . it sounded like you were planning on personally catching the prince mid-escape next time.”

  Frankie redirected the motion of that thought before it could hit her. “You’re admitting there’ll be a next time?”

  “Certainly not,” she answered, pulling a whoops face. “But if I may be so bold, you’ve gone to great lengths to avoid the royal family, and this plan could change that. It makes me wonder if it’s really okay with you.”

  Frankie braced, reaching for her coffee mug. Hanna wasn’t exactly a friend. Their positions didn’t allow for that. But the woman saw too much and spoke too plainly for Frankie to lie to her outright.

  Okay, maybe they were kind of friends, because she decided against pulling rank just to end the conversation. Swallowing coffee, she met curious blue eyes and raised a brow.

  Hanna gave a quick, delighted smile. “Why would I think you’ve avoided the royal family, your face is asking while your mouth is conveniently busy? Let’s take the first time Prince Kristof found the staff dining hall.”

  Oh, groan. Stellar first example.

  Frankie had been eating a late lunch at a back table, minding her own business, when she’d distractedly caught eyes with Hanna across the room. Hanna, who’d been on shift. Meaning there was no other reason for the guard to be stepping into the dining hall other than to accompany Kris.

  Instinct had shoved Frankie under the long wooden table a second before a room-wide murmur announced the prince’s unorthodox appearance.

  “Hey, everyone, don’t mind me,” he’d said, and his deep, textured voice had plunged clean through her chest—a hard, sliding pressure that had almost reduced her to tears. That voice. That man. She’d fixed her stare on his leather boots across the floor and commanded herself not to move. Life would be better for him if he believed he’d left her behind in Montana. Better for them both. “I like to snack. So if you see me in here every now and then, just carry on as usual. No bowing or whatever.”

  He’d stayed. He’d snacked. And Frankie had remained under the table for ten minutes after she’d been sure he was gone.

  “Another example,” Hanna now continued, “is the occasional flash of a bright jacket and red hair I catch darting around corners.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Abrupt lunges through side doors, hiding in weird royal alcoves, even one undignified bolt down a corridor—she’d done it all. And not just to avoid Kris, but Tommy, and even Mark in the early days, before necessity had forced her to reveal herself to the levelheaded firstborn.

  “No?” Hanna raised a shoulder. “Then there was your instruction on day one to never mention your name, and if his Highness ever asks to speak to the head of personal security—which he has done multiple times—to never bring him—”

  “Get to the point, Johansson,” Frankie said tiredly, hating the measures she’d had to put in place for Kris’s own good.

  “He know
s you.” Hanna’s sparkling eyes had narrowed. “They all do.”

  “Nothing slips past you, does it?” Just as Hanna started smiling, Frankie added with a level stare, “Except, of course, the future King of Kiraly.”

  Hanna’s smile vanished.

  “My relationship with the royal family is none of your concern,” Frankie said firmly.

  Hanna’s shoulders settled back. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Hadn’t you better catch up with Peter? Pretty sure your prince likes a pre-breakfast snack right about sunrise.”

  Hanna’s eyes bulged. “Oh my God, he never stops eating.” Then she straightened, gave a sharp nod, and departed.

  Alone, Frankie turned back to the screen. Her guard was right. The prospect of personally confronting Kris made her want to shrivel out of existence.

  Insides churning, she pressed play and set the footage to repeat.

  It didn’t matter how high she angled her chin or how far back she rolled her shoulders—pain had speared through her the first time she’d watched it and there was no hiding that now. Instead, she used the pain to her advantage. Every time Kris spoke in the woman’s ear with his sex-soft smile, something fragile inside Frankie collapsed in on itself. Every time he hoisted the woman’s legs around his waist, Frankie’s arms wound tighter around her own middle, and every time the woman leaned in to place her mouth on his neck, Frankie bit down on her bottom lip so hard she tasted metal.

  She’d never pretended to be over him. So she took the salt from her blinked-back tears and used it to cure her heart. Preserve it for the beating it was about to endure.

  Philip had said he’d talk to Kris yet again about his behavior, but the prince couldn’t be tamed. He’d do it again. When he did, Frankie would catch him.

  And the explanation he’d demand would be the end of them.

  Breakfast was strange without Mark.

  Kris and Tommy sat in the blue parlor, overshadowed by the grand room, the gargantuan table, and the empty space their brother had left behind.

  In the days since Mark had moved with Ava to the outskirts of Kira City, a disconnect had formed between Kris and Tommy. As if the knot of their bond had come loose, and like beads on a string, they were starting to separate along the cord. It was an ache at his very core to realize the absence of one brother put space between them all.