THUNK.
Sophie Kettle gripped the deep leather armrests of her seat. Logically, she knew she had just heard the engagement of the landing gear on the private royal jet she was a passenger on. But it felt more as if she had heard the sound of her own heart falling.
Nonsense, she told herself, firmly. She was a freshly scorned woman. Her heart, what was left of it, was curled up in a protective little ball, behind the walls of a newly buttressed fortress. It was certainly not falling.
And yet when Maddie had said, “Lancaster will meet you,” why had Sophie wanted to protest? And strenuously?
She had wanted to ask Maddie to send someone—anyone—else. But that would have been like broadcasting that her feelings for Lancaster—her recent heartbreak not acting as any kind of cautionary tale—were the very same as her feelings for him had always been. As soon as Maddie had mentioned his name, Sophie’s emotions had started dancing just out of the range of her control, like a high-strung Pomeranian refusing to be caught. Or tamed.
“Your feelings are like a badly behaved Pomeranian?” she scoffed at herself. It was a measure, really, of what bad shape she was in.
As she gazed out the window, the plane began its descent, and the island of Havenhurst came into view. It wasn’t the first time she had been here, but this time it seemed different. The lush forests, the rolling hills, the green fields, the village, the castle, it all felt altered because, this time, this place was going to be home for as long as Maddie needed her.
And really, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Except for—the jet landed with a gentle tap, and coasted down the runway—him.
Out the oval of her window, Sophie saw Lancaster, as the plane glided to a complete halt. There was the thunk again, no landing gear to blame it on this time.
He was on the tarmac, standing in front of a black, sleek car that flew the royal flags on each side of it. He was wearing his everyday uniform, his beret tucked under the epaulet on the shoulder.
As ordinary as it was, that knife-pressed uniform, the alert calm in the way he held himself, made Lancaster look exactly like what he was: a warrior, and a Celtic warrior at that. Tall, strong, fit…ready, somehow, for the things regular people were not ready for.
A whisper of a breeze drew Sophie’s eyes to his hair. It was the beautiful red-gold of fall leaves and longer than she had seen it before. As she watched, the breeze teased it slightly, lifting strands off the wideness of his brow.
Really, Sophie chided herself, he was just an ordinary man, in a drab green working uniform. It wasn’t even the resplendent dress uniform—goodness, that man could rock a kilt—she had seen him in at Prince Ryan’s christening, where he had been godfather and she had been godmother.
Not that she wanted to think about that event. Ever again. The godmother/godfather thing had made her feel unrealistically connected to Lancaster. At the reception, after just a touch too much wine—
Good grief! It was two years ago. Was she still embarrassed?
Yes.
As Lancaster lifted his eyes to the plane, scanning the windows, Sophie felt herself sinking down in her seat. She did not want him to catch her watching him! He might surmise she was studying him, unchanged from the obsessive teenager she had been the first time she had seen him.
She did not want him to know, ever, that what she felt right now, catching that first glimpse of him again, was the same thing she had felt when she was that teenager and he walked through the doors of the Black Kettle Café in Mountain Bend, Oregon, four years ago.
So much life had happened to her since then!
And yet, there it was. Her eyes had touched on him, and it felt as if her heart was falling, as if all the world was fading, until her vision became a dark tunnel that ended in the bright light that was him.
Lancaster.
She slid back up a bit, squinted at him and slid back down. Rationally, he did not look like any kind of a bright light!
His handsome, perfectly sculpted features were closed, and if anything, when he gazed directly at her window, having seen her despite her efforts to shrink away, something around the line of that sensual mouth tightened marginally.
Well, who could blame him? She’d been just barely an adult—fresh out of high school—the first time she had met him. She could feel her cheeks burn, even now, as she recalled chasing him so shamelessly, his firm putting away of her, as if he saw only the child she had wanted so desperately to outgrow.
Two years later, at the christening, she had been even more intent on proving to him she was a grown-up in every way that was possible. Even without the excuse of her youth, he had rejected her. Rather resoundingly!
Lancaster was an attractive man. Feeling attracted to him was natural, a function of biology, nothing more.
Well, since then, Sophie had matured. Come into herself. Men chased her, not the other way around. Her fiancé—now ex-fiancé, Troy—had been relentless in declaring his love.
So why had it all fallen apart?
Sophie shook it off. The point wasn’t that her relationship had failed, but that she was more jaundiced about true love, now. Romance was for children, and she had long since lost her childhood.
This time it would be different around Lancaster, she told herself, because she had the tools of disillusionment to override her sense of being pulled toward him like a magnet being pulled to steel.
Taking a breath, Sophie pulled herself back up, forced herself to look out the window, and straight at him.
His eyes met hers through the plane window. His eyes were a cool color of jade that she had never seen in another human being. In her weakest moments, she had wondered if he would pass that feature on to his children.
In her weaker than weakest moments, she had wondered what the combination of her blue eyes and his green eyes—
Thunk.
Biology, Sophie reminded herself firmly. She was a lucky woman, indeed. The universe had brought her this opportunity to test her newly hardened philosophies on men, romance, life and the value of total independence for women.
She broke eye contact with him—she did not smile at him, because he did not smile at her—and got up from her seat, gathering her things.
She took one final glance down at herself and congratulated herself that this part, the image she was projecting, was just right.
At the christening, she had been so eager to overcome that waitress-in-a-small-town first impression she had made on Lancaster that she had worn a gown. It had been a confection of gray mist and pure sexiness. It had been her first designer purchase. It had seemed to reflect the new sophisticated her, a college graduate now, ready to take on the world with her freshly minted two-year marketing diploma.
Or marry Lancaster, if he had asked.
In retrospect the gown had been way too sexy for the occasion, though the brief light that had come on in Lancaster’s eyes, when he had gazed at her over the head of the godson he held in his arms, had made it worth the investment.
That look, as it turned out, had been his one moment of weakness in the whole disastrous weekend.
Sophie, she told herself firmly, you are not taking that particular walk down memory lane.
Today, Sophie considered herself way more a jaded woman of the world—broken engagement under her belt, world travels because of her job with the band—and her outfit reflected that. She was dressed casually in narrow stretch jeans that showed off the length and slenderness of her legs.
She had paired the jeans with a white button-down shirt that she had unbuttoned quite a ways down. She had on a white tank underneath it, and had belted the shirt. The outfit was saved from total “photographer on safari” by a pair of stilettos that stretched her five foot six to an easy five foot nine.
Her long black hair was loose and straight, and she knew from experience that that particular look was a total temptation to men. Still, the last thing she wanted was for Lancaster to think she was trying to tempt him—again—a horrible little voice inside her insisted on reminding her. So, just before she picked up her oversize handbag, she scooped her hair back into a clip, and dabbed on a bit of clear lip gloss.
She wished she had a mirror that would confirm she had accomplished the I’m just not that into you look that she aspired to.
A crew member opened the door of the private jet, and she passed the captain and crew to get to the door. She thanked them for the flight, aware that inside she was still the small-town girl who, despite life experiences, sometimes looked at her circumstances and wanted to pinch herself.
Here she was, Sophie Kettle, arriving at the castle of her good friends, who were royalty. She was the godmother to a prince!
She stepped out of the plane and made herself pause and take a deep breath. She felt the warmth of sunshine on her face, drank in the crisp scents of fall that were in the air. Then, she allowed herself to look at him.
Lancaster had moved to the bottom of the stairs. His expression was bland, an annoyingly professional mask in place, ready to do his duty and assist her if need be.
Not knowing that she would not accept assistance from him if he was the last man in the universe.
Which was, of course, precisely the kind of vow the universe liked to play havoc with.
Because, as she descended the narrow gangway, on the third step from the tarmac, her oversize bag caught on a metal rivet in the handrail. It stopped her forward momentum with shocking abruptness, and the high heels proved ridiculous when faced with the obstacle of unexpectedly being thrown off balance.
She lurched forward, and probably would have fallen down the remaining few steps and crashed into the asphalt.
Except for Lancaster, who was always aggravatingly ready for anything, including, it seemed, a woman falling into his arms.
Sophie registered that he did not even have the decency to look startled as he moved gracefully up the narrow step and blocked her fall with his own body.
She hit him with enough force that it should have knocked them both over, but he was rock steady. His arms folded around her, absorbing some of her momentum. Still, she found her nose squished into the solid strength of his chest, her body crushed against the hard, uncompromising length of his.
Biology was definitely trumping her life experiences!
Because time stopped. She was enveloped in him. His scent was tangy and clean, so utterly masculine it made her feel a dizzy sense of longing. She could feel the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath the crisp fabric of his tunic, the play of warm skin and hard muscle beneath that.
A sensation welled up in her of pure and unadulterated longing, and something even more unsettling. Homecoming.
As if this was the only place she had ever wanted to be, in the circle of Lancaster’s arms.
She crooked her neck and looked up at him.
He stared down at her.
She could see the faintest growth of red-gold stubble on his cheeks and chin, and she remembered the taste of his lips when she had stolen a kiss from them at the christening. She had to fight an insane desire to trace the firm fullness of his bottom one with her fingertip.
That would shatter his composure! That familiar electricity was thrumming dangerously in the air between them. Or, if their history was any indication, thrumming dangerously in her, and he was not feeling a thing.
His voice seemed to confirm the latter was true. She was on fire. He was on ice.
“Miss Kettle,” he said, and his voice licked at that fire within her as if it had been fed oxygen. The brogue, the tone, the totally unconscious sexiness of it, made her want to stay crushed against him for as long as he would allow it.
“We meet again.”
Even though she loved his voice, the faintly amused—or maybe it was annoyed—note penetrated. He said it as if she had planned to tumble into his arms.
Given her past indiscretions where he was concerned, that probably wasn’t such a stretch, but it was still aggravating. And humiliating.
Her brain kicked in fully. Obviously, the Miss Kettle was setting up a deliberate barrier between them, and that was a good thing. She pushed hastily away, certain he had not indulged the long embrace out of affection.
He was too much of a gentleman to shove her away before he was certain she had achieved her balance. She teetered on the stair above him, cursing the shoes she had adored just minutes ago. Carefully, she straightened her clothing, anchored her bag firmly on her shoulder and moved down the remaining stairs, ignoring the hand he held out as he stepped back from her.
“Aren’t you being ridiculously formal?” she asked, brushing by him. “We share a godson. We love all the same people. We’re practically family.”
“But we’re not family,” he said, with elaborate patience as if she was being slightly trying, like a small child who needed help with table manners.
She paused and looked back over her shoulder at him. Was he ever going to stop seeing her as a child? It made her want to—her eyes skittered to that lip she had just wanted to touch with her fingertip—well, it made her want to do what she always wanted to do around him.
Which, she should not have to remind herself, had always led to humiliation and disaster.
Sophie reminded herself of the new her: hardened to romantic illusions of any sort, able to discern that following biological impulses, as strong as they might be, could not possibly lead to wise decisions.
“All right, then. Yes, we meet again, Mr. Lancaster,” she returned, her voice chilly, her eyes deliberately moving away from his lips. She drew herself to her full shoe-enhanced height, and lifted her chin.
He cocked his head at her. “Lancaster is fine.”
She turned to face him, full on. “If you’re going to call me Miss Kettle, I’m going to call you Mr. Lancaster.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you. You’re not here as my acquaintance, but as a guest of the prince and princess. If you prefer me to call you by your first name, you can invite me to do so.”
Oh! There was that temptation again! To shock that formality right out of him. But of course, it would just confirm, in his mind, that she was as immature as ever.
Was she as immature as ever?
“Can I call you by your first name?” she asked. She had always called him Lancaster, always used that name in her mind. The name had always seemed complete in itself. It even had a certain sensuous pull to it. Wouldn’t it make a great start to their new chapter if he had a nice unassuming first name like Melvin or Dunstan or Felix?
“No one calls me by my given name,” he said. A smile attempted to make that not quite as unfriendly as it was.
“I don’t even know your first name,” she realized.
“As I said, since I entered the guard, no one uses it, so it’s not really necessary to know it.”
“No one uses your fist name?” she said, skeptically.
“No.”
“Not your mother?”
“My mother’s gone.”
Sophie had a sudden desire to ask him if his wife had called him by his first name. It was really the only personal detail about himself he had ever shared with her, that he was a widower who had lost his wife and young son to a fire. But casting a quick glance at his closed features, she sensed that would be crossing a line, going to the place no one ever went with him.
It made her aware of how alone he was in the world. And that the last thing he would ever appreciate was her thinking that needed fixing.
“Okay then, Mr. Lancaster,” she said. “If no first name is forthcoming, you may call me Miss Kettle.”
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “It’s Major, if you would prefer formalities.” He said this so reasonably that she wanted to kick him. That should startle that impassive look off his face. She also fought the plain and childish urge to say You started it.
Instead, she narrowed her eyes at him, and flicked her hair.
“Whatever,” she said, with what she could only hope was supreme indifference. Then on an impulse, she shrugged her bag off her shoulder and shoved it into his arms. He wanted to be treated like a servant? Fine! She put her nose even higher in the air, went to the car and opened the front passenger door, slid in and slammed it shut.
She smiled as she looked through the tinted glass at the flummoxed expression on his face as he gazed down at her bag.
“It’s not going to be the way you expect, Mr. Lancaster,” she promised him under her breath. “It’s not going to be the way you expect, at all.”
Of course, then she noticed that the steering wheel was on the right-hand side of the vehicle, the opposite of what it would have been back home in the United States. She had inadvertently gotten in the driver’s side.
Sophie sighed, and had the awful thought that maybe it wasn’t going to be the way she expected. At all.