"Jessie?"
For a moment she thought she had gone back to sleep and was once more hearing Joe's low, husky voice whispering her name. God, she'd been such a fool. Falling in love with an itinerant ranch hand was bad enough, but falling in love with a prince? That was idiotic.
"I know you're awake."
It was Joe's voice.
Her body became rigid as knowledge came back to her in a rush. She'd known he was coming, she'd heard the hospital staff buzzing about the impending visit of Montebellan royalty. There was protocol to learn and follow, security arrangements to be made, she'd heard it all. Including the whispers about the tabloid stories of an amnesiac prince who had dallied with a rustic American woman, only to regain his memory and realize she was utterly unsuitable. She'd tried to dismiss it as tabloid sensationalism, but the common-sense logic of it had dug deep into her heart.
The nurses had even come to her for help, full of their excited questions, and she'd laughed so hard even she couldn't miss the hysterical edge that had tinged the sound. And she couldn't explain the absurdity of them asking her how to address a crown prince when she'd known the man only as Joe Benson, a good man with a horse, but one without a past.
And a good man in bed. Oh, yes, she knew that, too.
Great. What a thing to think of just before you have to open your eyes and face him.
With an effort that taxed her minimal stamina just now, she forced the vivid, erotic memories out of her mind. And opened her eyes.
She had thought she was prepared. She'd spent every hour since the call from the Montebellan royal family's advance man getting ready for this moment, telling herself what to expect. But now that she was face-to-face with it—with him—it did no good at all, and her heart broke all over again.
This man standing beside the bed was a stranger. Oh, he had Joe's face, his dark hair, his lean, rangy body, his beautiful deep blue eyes, so much darker than her own. But he was a stranger. Joe had been haunted by what he couldn't remember, but this man's eyes were even more grim, as if the memories he'd regained haunted him even more. This man stood just as straight, yet seemed weighed down, as if with an even greater burden. This man had an air about him that Joe had never had, something she couldn't quite put a name to. And it wasn't just the fact that he was dressed in an elegant, obviously expensive suit and tie, clothing she could never have pictured her ranch lover wearing.
She opened her mouth to say his name. She shut it again when she realized the name she'd been about to say was Joe. She remembered the discussion she'd heard between a couple of the nurses, about what you called a crown prince. Certainly not Joe....
"I suppose I should say 'Hello, Your Highness,"' she finally said.
He winced visibly. "Jessie, don't."
"I'm sorry. Was that not the proper form of address? Or should I simply be flattered that the 'playboy prince' has come to visit?"
She thought he winced again, but he controlled it so quickly she couldn't be sure. She knew she sounded bitchy but she couldn't seem to help it. She was tired, aching in more ways than one, and emotionally spent. She had to gather what defenses she had, and right now they were rather meager.
"I'm still the same man I was on the ranch," he said. "It's just that my name is Lucas, not Joe."
"Are you the same man?" she asked. "Are you really?"
She saw the brief flicker in his expression, and knew she'd struck a nerve.
"Inside I am. Somewhere."
His voice was tinged with such pain that she dropped the sarcasm in her own. And bit back, as she had been doing since the moment he'd walked in, the urgent questions about her baby. If crazy, twisted Gerald had lied, if the Sebastianis had kept the truth from her and her baby wasn't alive and well, she didn't want to know. Not yet.
"Will you answer a question?" she asked him instead.
"Of course."
"When did you know? When exactly did you remember who you were?"
"That's two questions."
She let out a compressed breath as he dodged answering directly.
"I mean, each has a different answer," he said quickly, as if he sensed her reaction.
"Oh?"
"I knew who I had to be when I saw my photograph on the news. But I still didn't remember anything more than what I'd told you."
She frowned. Then why had he left her like that, skulking out in the middle of the night, leaving nothing but a note? She understood now what he'd written, about not being the man she thought he was, but why had he run, if he still had no memories of his past?
She reached for the small control panel on the hospital bed and pushed the button to raise her head. She was quickly reminded of her every bruise and aching muscle, but she hated lying there helpless, looking up at him.
He leaned over, as if alarmed, and she supposed she must have winced at the various pains. She eyed him warily, not wanting him any closer, not now, not while she was battling to sort out her confused emotions. Again as if he'd read her reaction, he backed off.
Joe had been like that, she thought. He'd been seemingly able to read her every mood. So maybe there was some of Joe left in Prince Lucas Sebastian!.
She tried to hide the shiver that went through her as she thought the name, a name she had heard long before the battered, lost man called Joe had come into her life. The name she'd connected with the other glitterati of the world, kings, queens, princes and princesses.
The name she still found so difficult to connect to the man she'd known and fallen in love with during those glorious months on the ranch that was her life.
She'd allowed herself the fantasy, allowed herself to picture herself and Joe making their life on the land her family had lived on for generations, to picture a happy life with another generation of Chambers's to work this ranch she so loved.
But her Joe was the man often called the most eligible royal bachelor in the world. She had known when she first realized who he was that there was no future for them. Prince Lucas Sebastiani was far out of the league of a modest Colorado rancher who loved her quiet, peaceful life. She understood that. But her heart broke a little more on the knowledge that Joe, just plain Joe, had loved that life, too.
When she'd discovered she was pregnant with his child, she'd been both thrilled and terrified.
Terrified, she thought now as she stared up at this stranger with Joe's face, had been the more appropriate reaction of the two.
"Why?" she asked. "Even if you did realize you were... who you are, why did you go like that?"
He lowered his gaze. "The more I saw of the news story, all the media fuss, the more I realized that if I was found at the ranch it would destroy your life there. I can't explain it, but in my gut I knew it would be chaos." He grimaced. "It was like some part of me still remembered what it was like to be constantly hounded by the media, even if I couldn't remember anything else yet."
"But later... you did remember?"
"Jessie," he said quietly, and there was an undertone in his voice that made her hold her breath. "I'll tell you everything, answer every question you have, I promise. But...."
She held her breath once more, waiting in tense silence as he walked back to the door of her hospital room. He opened it partially, and she heard him speak quietly to someone outside, although she couldn't make out the words.
When he turned around, he held a small bundle in his arms. Jessie smothered a gasp. She hadn't thought he would... she just hadn't dared to think about it at all.
She sat up quickly, despite the protest of various body parts. Her heart raced. She forgot to breathe at all. And every last ache and pain was forgotten as Joe—Lucas—laid that bundle gently in her arms.
And at long last, after countless weeks of agony and heartache, she did what she had feared she would never do again.
She looked down into the eyes of her son.
Chapter 2
Lucas felt his heart pound solidly in his chest as he watched the tender reunion. From wha
t he'd been told, Jessie had barely been able to hold baby Luke before he'd been snatched away by the near-bumbling madman to play his pivotal role in the insane scheme hatched by her vicious sister.
He couldn't even begin to imagine what it had been like for her. His own mother, the serene, unruffled Queen Gwendolyn, had been moved to tears at the picture painted by the American investigator's report on how Jessie was found.
"She will be fragile," his mother had warned him before he left, "and you must treat her gently."
His mother, as usual, had been right. Jessie was making no effort to halt the tears that flowed freely down her cheeks. Perhaps she wasn't even aware of them. It wouldn't surprise him, given the absolutely rapt look on her face as she stared down at little Luke. His throat was tight and he was having a hard time holding his own tears back. He knew that feeling so well, that sense of disbelief and wonder. It was a long, silent moment before he could speak.
"I'd been trying to contact you, calling the ranch at different times of day, but you never answered. I was afraid you had... that it was because I'd left you that way, that you were avoiding even talking to me. I couldn't blame you for that, told myself you had every right."
She flicked a glance at him, and he read in her expression that there was at least a little truth to his guess—that if she had been there at the ranch when he'd called, she would have done just that.
When she looked back at the baby, wonder again filled her face, and she lowered her head to nuzzle Luke's dark hair, and reached out to gently touch his cheek. With an effort, knowing it had to be said no matter how much he didn't want to say it, Lucas went on.
"When they told me you'd been killed, that Gerald Hanson had murdered you, I felt like the sun had gone out. When they told me you'd been pregnant, but the child had been stillborn, I no longer cared about anything."
Her gaze came up to him again, and this time she didn't look away.
"I went through the motions, but without purpose. Nothing mattered to me, not my life, my country, my crown. Nothing. And then—" He had to swallow to get the rest out past the lump in his throat. "Then they brought me Luke. And I had a reason to go on."
He reached out and laid a hand on their son's dark head. "He was the only thing that got me through," he said softly. "I had to keep going, for him."
Something warm and beautiful came into her eyes then as she looked up at him. Something he imagined he might have seen had things been normal, if he had been there when his son had been born. He wasn't sure he'd earned that look from her, but he couldn't deny how it made him feel. And how much he wished he had earned it.
She cuddled the baby closer, cooing nonsensically to him. Luke gurgled back, which seemed to delight her. When she looked up at Lucas again, her expression was eager as she asked, "What's he like?"
That took him a little aback. He's like a baby, didn't seem like what she'd want to hear, yet he wasn't sure what else to say. So he thought for a moment, searching for something to tell her.
"He has your smile," he finally said. "And he likes my father's beard."
Jessie smiled at his first words, but at the rest, the smile slowly faded. Lucas saw her changing expression and wondered what he'd said wrong.
"All those weeks I missed," she said, sounding so forlorn his chest tightened. "You know him, even your parents know him, but I don't."
"No more," he said. "He's with you now, you can make up for lost time."
She started to say something, then stopped. She let out a weary sigh, but hugged her baby even closer, leaning over to lay her cheek against his forehead.
"Jessie? What is it?"
"I want to go home," she whispered. "More than anything, I want to go home and be with my baby."
"Then that's what will happen."
She shook her head. "They won't let me out of here," she said. "The doctor said that I needed to stay another day, at least."
"We'll see about that," Lucas said.
He walked to the door and signaled Lloyd. The man hastened over, and before he could open his mouth and say that annoying "Your Highness," Lucas spoke.
"Get her doctor. Find out if there's anything that she needs that can't be handled at her home by a competent nurse. If not, find one, and pay her whatever it will take to get her to stay at the ranch full-time until Jessie doesn't need her anymore. Then arrange whatever equipment we'll need. I want her out of here today."
"Yes, Your Highness."
It had been a long time since he'd used the power of his position, but for Jessie and his son he would get back in the habit, and quick. What was the point of being a prince, of having wealth and power at your command, if you didn't use it to help those you loved?
And he would do everything in his power to make up to Jessie everything she'd gone through because of him. He knew she didn't have much reason to love him anymore, not after he'd walked out on her with only a cryptic note of explanation. And he especially knew it after he'd found out he'd left her pregnant. He should have thought of the possibility, of course, but somehow, amid the chaos of his memory returning and the mission that had lured the Brothers of Darkness to its end, he hadn't.
You 're the best catch in the world, his sister Julia had said loyally before he'd left the palace. You're handsome, rich and a prince. What's not to love?
A lot, he thought now, rather grimly. Especially if you were an independent American female like Jessie.
He watched her drink in the simple presence of baby Luke, exploring, counting tiny fingers and toes, just as he once had. He tried not to think of the rest, of what she'd gone through to bring this child of theirs into the world, but he couldn't manage it.
"I'm sorry," he finally whispered. When she looked up quizzically, he added, "I should have been there."
Something flickered in her eyes then, and although she said nothing, he felt sure "Yes, you should have," was her silent answer.
She deserved more from him, he knew that, but he didn't know what to say. Finally he just talked.
"I can't imagine what you went through, Jessie. In the hands of that crazy man, knowing he might kill you at any moment, and then even worse, finding out your own sister was behind it all...."
Every time he thought of Ursula, and what kind of woman it would take to murder her own sister and steal her newborn baby for profit, he felt a churning sickness inside. His family had been involved in a feud with neighboring Tamir for ages, but that had been mostly political, although it had begun with an arranged marriage and a murder. But even that paled beside the personal nature of this treachery. He couldn't even begin to imagine how Jessie must have felt when the entirety of Ursula's reprehensible plot had been revealed.
"A bit different than recovering from amnesia and remembering you're a prince," she said, her tone so neutral he couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Then she added, "And letting yourself be captured by terrorists so the FBI can shut down their U.S. operations."
He drew back slightly, surprised. "You know about that?"
"You're big news, even in America. The media adored the story of the Playboy Prince turned undercover agent."
He winced. He supposed she was quoting a story she'd heard, but that didn't make it sit with him any better. "I hate that nickname. Even when it fit, I hated it."
"And it doesn't fit now?"
He took in a breath, telling himself she had every right to ask. "I'm doing everything I can to make sure it never does again."
She studied him for a moment. "What you went through... it changed you, didn't it?"
"You changed me," he said bluntly.
She blinked, drew back slightly, and he knew he'd spoken too soon. She wasn't ready to hear that, wasn't ready to believe it, not yet.
He knew that he had to give her time. She deserved as much as he could give her. He'd been through his own trauma, true, but he'd also had more time to recover. And her ordeal wasn't just more recent, it had been as bad if not worse psychologically than
his. His, after all, had been an accident, not trauma at the hands of someone he trusted.
He was almost glad when Lloyd inched open the door behind him.
"Your Highness?"
Lucas saw the odd expression that crossed Jessie's face, and wished the man had simply called him Lucas, or Mr. Sebastiani. But he couldn't deal with that now. He turned and walked to the door.
"The doctor says that if there will be a nurse on duty twenty-four hours for at least three days, he will release her into your care. I found a local agency that can arrange a nurse by this afternoon."
"Good. Have someone transport the baby's gear to the ranch. I don't want Jessie to have to worry about setting things up. And make sure Mrs. Winstead is there to cook," he said, referring to the Chambers's former housekeeper who had retired years ago but still helped Jessie prepare meals from time to time. "And get someone to clean, Jessie needs to rest. And—"
He stopped abruptly, realizing he was stating the obvious, that after years with the Sebastiani family Lloyd knew perfectly well what he was to do.
"You know what's necessary," he said.
"Yes, Your Highne—"
"And while we're here, Mr. Sebastiani or 'yes, sir,' will do," he interrupted.
An expression of surprise flitted across Lloyd's face, but he merely nodded. "I'll get right on it."
"Thank you," Lucas said.
"My pleasure. Sir," the man added before he turned to do his prince's bidding.
Sometimes, Lucas thought, being royal had its uses.
* * *
By the time they finally reached the outer hospital doors, Jessie had nearly lost her joy in going home. It was impossible not to notice the stir they caused, impossible not to see the way people whispered as they approached and then hushed as they passed. And most impossible not to notice everyone—females especially—gaping at Joe. At Lucas. At the prince. Whoever he was.
It still rattled her just to think about it, but now, seeing the dynamic for the first time, she knew she'd been right. There was no future for a simple rancher and the heir to the throne of Montebello.
All right, she told herself. There's no future. So enjoy the present. You have your baby. And for the moment, you have Joe. Don't think about tomorrow.
The Prince's Wedding Page 2