Five

Sunlight glinted off the untidy tumble of Anna’s blond hair as she raced toward Harriet’s car, scooped the boy into her arms and held him close. Greg watched from the shadows of the foaling barn, a sober scowl on his face.

His sense of exclusion was acute and, in the absolute, unwarranted. Not only did he not fit into that picture, he was the one who had pulled into the drive, showed Anna into the ranchhouse, then beat a hasty retreat to the barn to get some distance from her. Like a coward. Like a man suffering from a straight, clean shot of raw emotion that burned like whiskey in his gut.

Yeah, he’d lost control in that alley, but it was the moment, he told himself in a bid to rally some pride as he headed toward Harriet’s car. It was just that seeing Anna attacked by that swarm had sent a surge of adrenaline bolting through his blood. He couldn’t let them mob her.

You could have kept your damn hands off her, though, he blasted himself as he covered the distance in long, slow strides. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t, and a part of him that couldn’t squelch what they’d had together—what he’d thought they’d had together four long summers ago—still ached to finish what he’d started in that alley.

The sane, pragmatic, unemotional part of him, however, knew it would have come to no good end. He still had to deal with the residual damage, however—and not by hiding out in a dark horse barn in the clear blue light of day.

“Hey, Greg,” Harriet said by way of greeting when she spotted him walking toward her car.

Harriet was sixty-five years old and had lived every one of them. Greg had trusted her with his life—this petite woman in her loose fitting jeans and western shirt, her salt-and-pepper hair and hard-earned crow’s feet—just like he had trusted her with Anna and William’s lives.

He knew before he asked that he’d had no need to worry about the latest great escape from Royal. “Have any trouble getting out here?”

“Not a lick.”

“Were you followed?”

She grinned. “Only by a couple of your cronies. I believe it was Churchill and Cunningham. They must have put two and two together and figured you’d sent me this way with little Will, here.”

He looked toward the heavily gated drive that was carefully camouflaged by a strategically designed landscape of colorful, rugged boulders, squat mesquite trees, crape myrtle, yucca and yaupon. Only the mesquite were native to the area. The rest of the vegetation flourished only because of painstaking nurturing and constant care.

“They turned around a few miles back, when they were certain we’d made it without trouble.” Harriet opened the back door, reached for a suitcase.

Greg cocked a brow.

“Sorry, hon. I know you said no delays. I travel light, but not that light. I had to pack my makeup mirror. And the boy had to have his jammers. Right, Will?”

Prince William von Oberland grinned shyly around the arms that held him. “Cowboys,” he said, snuggling closer to his mother and sliding an uncertain look Greg’s way.

“Cowboys?” he asked, at a loss.

“His pajamas,” Harriet supplied, as Greg hefted the suitcase out of her hand and headed for the house. “They’re Dallas Cowboys pajamas,” she explained.

“Well, all right then.” Greg offered the boy an open grin and, in a spontaneous reaction to his shy smile and very compelling charm of his blue eyes, ruffled his dark hair. “Glad to see you hitched your wagon to a winner, there, Wild Bill.” Then he walked ahead of them to open the front door.

Silent throughout the exchange, Anna was gripped by the picture of Greg’s strong, tanned hand tousling William’s hair. Emotions too riotous to stall flooded her at his simple gesture of kindness. William knew so little of a man’s gentle touch. Knew less of affection from that quarter. The hero worship that spread across his face when Gregory had called him Wild Bill was both sweet and painful to witness, yet a bludgeoning reminder that he knew nothing of a father’s touch——until that very moment.

An ache that had started even before William was born intensified and weighed on her heart like lead.

“Telephone, Mr. Hunt.”

A slim woman with warm brown eyes and a lovely, dark complexion that proudly proclaimed her Mexican heritage met them just inside the foyer.

Gregory had briefly introduced Anna to Juanita Hernandez when he’d shown her into the house earlier. Juanita smiled a welcome to Harriet and gave William a friendly wink as she handed Gregory a portable phone.

“Hunt,” Greg said briskly into the receiver, and with a sweeping lift of his hand, he invited Anna and Harriet to make themselves comfortable in the great room while he took the call.

Juanita curled a finger for William to follow her. Her open smile and the delicious scents wafting from the kitchen were too compelling an enticement for William to deny. With a quick look at his mother, who gave a nod of consent, he bounced shyly off the sofa and walked toward Juanita. His ramrod-straight gait told Anna he was hesitant but determined.

“You like cookies?” Juanita invited softly as she tucked William along her side with a gently guiding hand. “My Tito likes cookies. I bet he will like you, too. Come. I’ll have him show you where I keep the cookie jar.”

“Juanita is Greg’s housekeeper,” Harriet explained, unnecessarily as the two left for the kitchen. “Her husband, Alexandro, trains Greg’s quarter racers. Tito’s their youngest boy. I think he’s five now. Sweet child. He’ll make a wonderful playmate for William while you’re here.”

While you’re here. Anna replayed the words in her mind, wondering just how long that would be, calculating how long she could afford to stay. They’d embarked on a grave journey four months ago. Nothing to date, however, had felt more dangerous than the kiss she and Gregory had shared in that back alley a little over an hour ago. Dangerous and exciting. And totally forbidden if she was going to get out of this with her sanity intact.

When they had arrived earlier and Greg had shown her inside, she’d been too shaken by all that had happened and too worried about William to take in her surroundings. Now that he was here and safe, now that she had a little distance from the impossible pull she still felt toward Gregory, she settled onto the sofa and took a long, sweeping look around her.

The house was pure, perfect Texas. Huge rooms, open archways, sunlit alcoves. Warm blues and brick reds. Soothing shades of sand. All the colors and textures combined to lend a glow of welcome, enhance the sense of space.

From the exterior adobe walls to the stucco, brick and pine of the great room, Gregory’s home looked like something that came from the earth, something that came from his own strength, an extension of his character. A towering fireplace crafted from pristine limestone dominated the great room, just as he dominated any room he was in. The same rough cedar that she’d noticed in the porch posts was repeated on the ceilings. Saltillo tile elegantly graced the gleaming foyer floor.

Heavy frontier-inspired furniture invited cushioned warmth and hospitality, while tanned cowhides and Navajo rugs accented everything from the walls to the longleaf pine floor. Every decorative touch rang true, ingraining the house with the essence of his Texas heritage, in the respect he felt for tradition. It was a home that was deeply and intrinsically attuned to the rich history of the land, land that Gregory told her when they’d passed the main entrance gate into Casa Royale had been in his family for more than a century.

She glanced toward the dining area that was open to the great room. A hand-hewn and intricately carved table and matching chairs spoke of both age and native craftsmanship and cried for a family to fill it with laughter and celebration.

Greg’s dark scowl as he disconnected from his call put thoughts of celebration or the future on hold—re- placed them with more pressing thoughts. The here and the now.

“Bad news?” Harriet reacted to Greg’s dark look while Anna’s insides coiled into tight knots.

“That was Blake. He did some checking on what prompted today’s little scene in the diner. It seems there was a leak m the Asterland embassy. News of the prince’s death got out a couple of days ago. The reporter—Herkner—the one who accosted you, Anna, works for the American Investigator—”

“The Investigator? That sleazy rag?” Harriet interrupted in disgust.

“That sleazy rag,” he confirmed, meeting Anna’s eyes, then looking quickly away. He headed for the bar in the corner of the room.

“Wasn’t it the Investigator that broke the story last month about a possible spotting of Prince Striksky in Royal?”

“Yeah, it was. While the Alpha team kept an eye on Striksky, I did a little creative leaning on the right people and got any follow-up stories squelched. It didn’t keep Herkner from asking questions, though. He eventually found out that Anna’s parents and Striksky had been in league to arrange a royal wedding. When he dug deeper, he found out about Anna’s disappearance, that it had been covered up. From there it was just a matter of ferreting out where Ivan died. When he did, Herkner headed for Royal, asked more questions and stumbled onto Anna working in the diner.”

“And the rest, as they say, is history,” Harriet summed up tidily.

Greg opened the minifridge, found a long-neck bottle of beer and twisted off the lid. Anna expected him to tip it to his lips. Instead, he rounded the bar and extended the bottle to Harriet, who gratefully downed a healthy swallow.

When Anna declined his offer of something to drink, he returned to the bar for his own bottle of beer.

“If Herkner hadn’t been so damn pleased with himself and bragged to a friend who is also a freelance reporter, we could have contained things. Bought him off and at least bought a little more time. But his mouth was bigger than his brain. Once he let the word out, it raced across the wires like a brushfire.”

“And they all descended on the diner like locusts today,” Harriet concluded as Anna rose and walked silently to the window.

Outside was an artfully manicured lawn, beautifully littered with cactus, flower beds and miniature trees of everything from live oak to mulberry. All was within the confines of a walled fortress, whose sweeping view of the flat, desertlike prairie beyond the horse barn was out of her reach. She hugged her arms around herself. It was a beautiful prison. Nothing like the one she’d escaped in Obersbourg, but she was a prisoner here, just the same. A prisoner of the media’s making.

Harriet exchanged a concerned look with Greg.

“They can’t get to you here, Anna,” he said, misreading her silence for fear. “I protect my property. I protect my privacy.”

And I’ll protect you were the words left unspoken and unnecessary in light of all he had already done.

It closed in on her suddenly that with Ivan dead, the only thing left to protect her from was her life. Her life as a princess. She’d grown up with cameras thrust in her face. She’d grown up as the center of attention. Until she’d arrived in Texas and played the part of Annie Grace, she had never had a life she could call her own. She’d been public property. Loved. Revered. Adored. But expected, always, to be available to her subjects, the paparazzi, the world.

It was selfish, she knew, to let Gregory go on protecting her when the only threat she still faced was from the life she had been born and bred by royal blood to lead. Sadder still, she couldn’t rally the strength to do anything but take advantage. She would let him protect her from the encroachment of a life she had lived for twenty-eight years.

For just a little while longer. Just a little while longer, even though she felt the shame of her weakness like she felt the burden of the obligations that waited for her. Just a little longer—until she garnered the courage to tell him about William.

She glanced at Gregory. An enveloping sadness replaced the impossible yearning in her heart. Who will protect you, Gregory, she thought as she turned her gaze from his and back to the prairie beyond the walled gardens. Who will protect you from the pain when I finally find the strength to tell you of my betrayal?

Even as she posed the question, she knew there was only one answer. She, and only she, could be the one. She would shield him from the pain by cushioning it with the gift of his son.

The thought of telling him made her heart race. He wouldn’t understand. When she finally found the courage to tell him, he would never be able to comprehend her reasons for keeping William from him all these years. And while those reasons were compelling, there was no possible way for her to make it up to him.

She couldn’t make it up, but she could correct it. One look at the way William’s blue eyes—eyes so like his father’s—lit up when Gregory had ruffled his hair in a gesture of genuine, honest affection, and she’d known she had to correct it for William’s sake. Even if in doing so, she would risk losing William, too.

An even bigger risk, however, was the gamble she’d be taking with William’s tender heart. She had no assurances that Gregory would embrace him as his own. Yes, it was apparent that Gregory was open to liking, possibly loving, William, but there were no guarantees that he would want to become an instant father of a child he had never known. To have his life cluttered with a timid little boy who was hungry for the father he deserved.

That gamble alone was enough reason to hold, for a little longer, a silence bred by a secret that had not yet run its course. She could not, would not return to Obersbourg until she was certain of Gregory’s love for their child. Then and only then could she tell him.

 

Dawn slid across the vast West Texas horizon like the silver streak of a distant, slow moving train. No pastel butterfly emerging from a cocoon, it was all blazing light and dazzling color as the cobalt of night blended and bled, and graciously gave way to a blue so brilliant it burned.

Anna hugged a borrowed bathrobe around her and watched the sunrise from the patio in suspended awe, indulging in its spectacle and the morning quiet until the house woke up around her. Only when the delicious scents from Juanita’s kitchen teased her senses did she rouse herself enough to return to the bedroom Gregory had given her. She quickly showered, then blessed Harriet, who had not only packed William’s pajamas but some fresh underwear and a pair of Anna’s jeans and a pale-blue cotton sweater.

Tito and William came tumbling out of the house and into the yard as Anna sat down at the table on the airy screened-in patio. A soft breeze ruffled her hair as she sat in a teak chair beneath a ceiling of hand-hewn Douglas fir beams. The bluestone floor beneath her bare feet held the coolness of the past night; embers from a fire Juanita had built last evening glowed orange-gold in the open fire pit at her back.

In the sweet shade of this vine-covered extension of the main house, she appreciated the ornamental grasses dotting the edge of a low stone fence that lead to a kidney-shaped pool. Juanita had pointed out the West Texas native sotol; a plant with narrow, serrated leaves that sent up tall flower stalks in the spring.

Spring. She wondered where spring would find her.

Her gaze swept the garden dotted with Mexican stone sculptures resembling plump turkeys and horse heads. A fountain bubbled peacefully near the sculptures, and suddenly she yearned to be sitting on one of the many stone benches circling it. William and Tito sat giggling in the grass nearby. She was about to join them when a horse disguised as a dog galloped straight toward William, who sat cross-legged with a glass of milk and a piece of Juanita’s special cinnamon toast.

Alarmed by the size of the dog, Anna rose swiftly from her chair.

A strong hand gripped her wrist and stopped her.

“Leave them. They’re fine.”

She hadn’t heard Gregory approach. Wasn’t prepared for the impact of his touch. Or for the way her heart kicked up when she lifted her gaze to his as he sat down and indicated she should do the same.

She couldn’t take her gaze from his face—could barely digest the words as he spoke in his slow, Texas way, his attention on the boys, avoiding eye contact with her.

“Cosmo won’t hurt the boy.”

“Cosmo?” Breaking the tether of his effect on her, her gaze swung back to the huge dog as he put on the brakes and parked his lumbering black self right between the boys.

When Tito laughed, William joined in. After only a little hesitation, he reached out to pet the shaggy Newfoundland, who promptly rolled over onto his back and begged for a belly rub.

Until she had brought him to Texas, William would have shied from his own shadow. Today he set his milk aside, fed Cosmo the last of his toast, then flung his arms around the dog’s neck and snuggled against him as if he was a big teddy bear.

Tears stung her eyes as she watched. William’s open gesture of trust was both heartwarming and humbling. As little as four months ago, he wouldn’t have known how to react to the trusting affection the dog exuded.

A sad smile tilted one corner of her mouth. Four months ago, he wouldn’t have been sitting in the grass in denims with frayed knees and a Cowboys T-shirt that Juanita had found for him in a box of cast-off clothes Tito had outgrown. He would have been doing what his grandparents expected of him.

It was now, as he displayed this uninhibited and open affection, that she accepted full measure what her parents’ staunch, staid exceptions had done to him. And she was ashamed that she had not been more effective in undercutting their influence.

Little boys should laugh without fear of reprisal. Before he came to Texas, William rarely laughed. Little boys should run like the wind and wrestle in the dirt. William had never been allowed to get dirty.

Little boys should be little boys—not miniature men, conditioned to always display impeccable manners, to being seen and not heard, to always look like they had dressed to pay homage to a king.

And she had to take him back to all that.

Aware, suddenly, of Gregory’s dark eyes on her, she made herself relax. Muscle by muscle, she let the tension flow from her body—until she made eye contact with Gregory again.

Like the dawn, Gregory Hunt was a stunning addition to the morning. Like her, he’d recently showered. Like her, he’d dressed in denims. There the similarities ended. And as they took stock of each other over the steaming plates of western omelettes and fresh melons that Juanita set before them, she’d never been more aware of those differences.

Drifting above the delicious aroma of Juanita’s breakfast, a hint of scent—the deep, masculine scent of his aftershave—arrested her attention, took her back to yesterday and the kiss they had shared.

Until that moment, she had managed to keep at bay the sweet, heated desire he had never failed to bring to flash point when they had been lovers. Until yesterday when he’d held her again, until he’d gentled her with his words, then aroused her with his touch, she had been able to keep her need for him under control. And now because she had given in, she couldn’t look at him without wanting to make love to him.

She should have resisted. When he’d touched his strong, lean fingers to her face, when he’d pressed tender kisses to her brow, she should have resisted. She’d known where it would lead. She’d known and she hadn’t stopped him. Couldn’t have stopped him if her life had hung in the balance. For his touch, for his kiss, she would risk anything. And now it seemed she had. She’d risked her heart again, and judging by the closed look on his face, the gamble hadn’t paid off.

She eased away from her dismal thoughts as Harriet joined them.

“What a fine morning.” With a grin and a nod toward the boys and the dog, she sat down and poured herself a cup of coffee. “And to think, tomorrow I’ll be slogging through six inches of slush and snow trying to convince myself it’s pretty.”

“Tomorrow?” Anna lost the battle to keep the alarm from her voice. “You’re leaving?”

When Harriet turned kind eyes to her and nodded, she felt her fingers grow cold under the Texas sun.

“It’s Christmas next week, honey,” Harriet said gently. “My family is in New York. They expect me there.”

Christmas. Family. Of course. Of course, she’d known Christmas was only a week away. She’d known Harriet would be leaving for a family visit. With all that had happened, it had slipped her mind. For someone like Harriet, the holidays would be a time of family celebration, of homecoming and warm embraces.

She made herself smile. She hadn’t realized until this moment how she had grown to depend on Harriet’s genuine warmth and affection. “I’ll miss you. William will miss you.”

Harriet’s smile hovered somewhere between affection and sorrow. “That goes both ways.” She hesitated, glanced at a hard-faced Greg then back to Anna. “Will I see you here when I return to Royal after New Year’s?”

Anna couldn’t find it in her to meet Harriet’s kind eyes. “I...I don’t know. I—”

“It’s all right.” Harriet covered Anna’s cold hands with hers. “If not here, we’ll make sure we get together again soon, okay?”

It was a time-honored ploy to avoid the pain of dealing with a goodbye that neither wanted to accept. So Anna played the game, for Harriet’s sake and for hers.

“Absolutely. We’ll keep in touch.”

Yet when Harriet left the table to join the boys and spend some time with William before she left for Royal to pack for tomorrow’s flight, Anna struggled with a sad certainty that she might never see Harriet again.

Greg watched the exchange with a mood that grew blacker by the minute. This was not how things were supposed to work out. He was not supposed to feel these things for Anna—things that started with empathy, built to concern, drifted hard and heavy toward a desire he’d only pretended no longer existed.

Hell. She wasn’t supposed to end up here. Not here, the one place where he’d always been able to escape to be free of her. Her sanctuary was not supposed to overlap with his.

Casa Royale had always been that. His sanctuary. His pocket of paradise carved out of the heat of West Texas. He’d never brought a woman here. Had never intended for Anna to end up here but he’d run out of options yesterday. As he watched her steel herself to deal with the pain of letting go of yet one more person who was special to her, he felt close to the end of his control as well.

Four years ago he had never planned on falling in love with her. Once he had, he’d never planned on letting her go. She was the one who had done the walking away. She was the one who had said goodbye.

Now she was back in his life. She was back, and unfortunately, every time he turned around she seemed to be more deeply rooted into his existence—like he was rooted to life in the West Texas soil. He had to remember that the soil in Texas was shallow. Transplanted vegetation did not flourish here. Like life, it had to be nurtured in order to sustain it, and it had to be resilient enough to grow.

Despite her fragile appearance, Anna was resilient. She’d proven that. But, like his carefully tended gardens, she was not native. There was little chance that she would thrive here. And he, he had no business even thinking along those lines.

Yet fool that he was, with increased involvement, came a damnably increasing need. He wanted to be the one to slay her dragons, to free her from the sadness in her heart and heal the world of hurt she tried to hide behind those fathomless green eyes.

For some unaccountable reason he didn’t want to explore, he was also drawn to that quiet, tentative little boy of hers. William’s reserve called out to him in a way he couldn’t explain. Recurrent and unreasonable notions kept cropping up, telling him that he ought to be the one to open the locked door so the child behind those serious blue eyes could come out and play.

He was getting in too deep. Way too deep. He was letting himself get involved with thoughts of both Anna and the child that weren’t his to consider.

Abruptly, he rose from the table, steeled himself against the look of her, green eyes questioning, the long, unbound silk of her hair trailing halfway down her back.

“If you’ll excuse me. I have work that needs my attention.”

He left her then. Walked straight to his office. Shut the door. And there, by God, he told himself he would stay until he came to his senses, or at least until he got a handle on them.