McKinnon's Royal Mission

by Amelia Autin

  She chuckled, wishing she could share the joke with someone. Wishing she could share the joke with Trace. But that was out of the question. Then an idea occurred to her. Perfect, she thought. Andre had taught her the basics years ago, but no one—no one meaning Trace—knew it. Trace would be the ideal teacher. And he wouldn’t be able to say no. Not under the circumstances.

  * * *

  Trace stared at the princess in disbelief. “You want me to teach you how to what?”

  “Shoot,” she said composedly. “I wish to learn how to protect myself.”

  “That’s not necessary,” he told her bluntly. “You’ve got three federal bodyguards dancing attendance on you, not to mention the security team you brought from Zakhar.”

  “Yes, but I wish to be like Keira,” she told him.

  “You’re planning on walking into a bullet?”

  The princess was distracted for a minute. “Is that what she did?”

  “Yeah,” Trace growled. “Two years ago. No,” he corrected himself, “more than that now. Took her almost a year before she recovered full use of her right arm.”

  She looked at Trace with curiosity. “But you were her partner. How is that possible?”

  Trace felt himself flushing under his tan. He’d asked himself that same question at the time. And numerous times ever since. Never mind that Keira, Walker, Ryan Callahan and he had been operating as a team, and Callahan had been closest to her at the moment it had all gone down. Never mind that Keira had deliberately stepped in front of Callahan to take a bullet meant for him. She’d still been Trace’s partner then, and he’d blamed himself for not keeping a closer eye on her.

  But he couldn’t tell any of that to the princess. That operation was still a closely guarded secret—and there were still trials pending. Not to mention the princess was a foreign national who did not have a need to know. “Long story” was all he said.

  She considered him for a minute, and he was afraid she was going to ask more questions, but all she said was, “I do not wish to ‘walk into a bullet’ as you say, but I would still like to learn. If you do not think you can teach me...” she added so artlessly that Trace shot her a sharp, narrow-eyed look, suspecting she had something up her sleeve. But she met his look with one of such innocent inquiry he figured he had to be mistaken...until he got her on the shooting range.

  * * *

  Trace swore under his breath. This was not going as planned. He’d brought the princess to his favorite shooting range and made her sit through three hours of gun safety class before he ever let her step outside with a gun in her hand. Sweetly appealing in her jeans and rose-pink sweater that hugged her curves, with her hair piled with seeming carelessness atop her head in a way that let a few curls dance tantalizingly every time she moved her head, she’d listened intently to every word he said. She’d even asked questions that proved she was following what he was saying. He’d shown her different kinds of pistols, talked to her about ammunition, about rimfire versus center-fire and various calibers of bullets. He’d had her load and unload bullets into a clip, and had demonstrated how to load a clip into a pistol and chamber a round. He’d explained what a safety was, and the importance of utilizing it.

  But the minute she stepped onto the range with a Smith & Wesson 22-caliber pistol it was as if he’d wasted his breath. No one can be that incompetent with a gun, he told himself. Either she hadn’t really been paying attention, or he was a lousy teacher.

  “No, Princess, you’re holding it all wrong,” he said with a touch of exasperation. “And never point a gun at a man unless you intend to shoot him,” he added when she swung around in his direction. “Even if the safety’s on.” He grabbed her gun hand and forced it downrange.

  She removed her headphones, letting them hang around her neck, and stared at him. “Would you have shot him?”

  Trace removed his own headphones. “Shot who?”

  “The man at the lake. The one who took my photograph,” she explained. “You just said I should never point a gun at a man unless I intend to shoot him.” Her face was solemn. “So would you have shot him?”

  He thought about it for a moment, wondering exactly what she was asking. And why. “If that had been a gun in his hand and not a camera—yes. He would have been dead before he got off a shot. Dead before he hit the ground.”

  “But it was a camera,” she said stubbornly. “So would you have shot him?”

  He shook his head. “But I had to make him think I would. I had to scare the hell out of him so he’d give me the camera.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I—” He stopped, not wanting to tell her the truth, but not wanting to lie to her either. He remembered her soft cry of dismay when the shutter had clicked, and his protective instincts had kicked in. Nothing was going to be allowed to hurt her in any way when he was around to prevent it. No matter what he had to do.

  She was still looking up at him, a question in her eyes. “Because it’s my job to protect you,” Trace said finally. And while it was the truth, it was a far cry from the whole truth.

  She didn’t say anything, just nodded, as if his answer matched her expectations. She turned back to the gun range and slipped her headphones back on. “Can you not help me?” she asked again in a sweetly helpless way.

  Trace sighed and positioned himself behind her for the third time, fitting his right hand around hers. “It’s not that difficult, Princess,” he told her with as much patience as he could muster. He brought her arm up with his and aimed at the target. “You just find your point of aim and shoot.”

  This close to her the smell of her delicate perfume was mesmerizing, not to mention what the feel of the back of her body cuddled up against the front of him was doing to his breathing. He quickly disengaged and stepped backwards, slipping his headphones back on. “Now you try it,” he told her with a voice that wasn’t quite steady. “No, take the safety off first.”

  She complied. This time she faced the target, aimed, and for the first time, fired. She didn’t hit the target, but she didn’t flinch—and that’s when the suspicion hit him. Despite the noise-canceling headphones she wore, she should have flinched at the sound and kick of the pistol she’d just fired for the first time—most newbies did. Which meant she probably wasn’t a newbie with a gun. So why was she pretending she was? Why had she dragged him out here? Why had she patiently sat through gun safety class? And why had she asked him to demonstrate by positioning her arm time and again?

  Then he figured it out, and he wasn’t sure if he should swear or feel complimented. While he was still trying to decide, another question came to him. Should he tell her he knew the truth, or should he let her go on pretending, wasting both their time? She turned to him just then, looking for direction. “Again,” he told her automatically. “Keep trying until you empty the clip.”

  Slowly she fired one shot after another, and by the time the clip was empty Trace realized he couldn’t tell her he knew. That expression he’d seen the first day he’d met her came back to him, the same expression he’d seen on Labor Day after he tried to set her at a distance. The patient expectation and acceptance of rejection he’d been shocked and then angry to see told him there was something going on with her he needed to handle with kid gloves.

  Friday night Liam had told him he was pretty hard on the princess, and he’d been right. Maybe she was just trying to overcome what she saw as his dislike of her by getting him to see her in a different light. Or maybe she just wanted to practice her feminine wiles on someone she saw as safe. Whatever the reason, if he told her he’d seen through her little charade she’d be embarrassed. And worse, humiliated, just as she’d been on Mount Evans. She doesn’t deserve that, he thought protectively.

  She turned to him again, her brows raised in a question. “I emptied the clip.”

  Silently he reache
d into his pocket, pulled out the spare clip, and handed it to her. “See if you can change the clip,” he said. “Then try again. Keep trying until you hit the target at least once.”

  * * *

  The next evening Trace was watching Monday Night Football in the guest house living room with half his attention and doing the crossword puzzle with the rest when the phone rang. He muted the sound of the football game and reached for it. “McKinnon.”

  “It’s Alec. I’m out here in the stables with the princess, and—”

  “What the hell is she doing riding without me?”

  “She’s not,” Alec assured him. “She just came out to visit her horses like she does most evenings after dinner, but there’s something wrong with Suleiman and I don’t—”

  “Where’s her groom?” Trace asked sharply, then answered his own question. “It’s Monday so he’s off, damn it. Call the vet and get him out here,” Trace told him. “The number’s posted beside the phone. Do you see it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Keep the princess calm, if you can. I’ll be right there.” Trace headed for the stables in a hurry. She loves that horse, he thought, perturbed. If anything happens to him...

  When Trace arrived Alec was just hanging up the phone. “Vet’s on his way,” he said.

  Trace heard him on one level and nodded, but he only had eyes for the princess. She was in Suleiman’s stall, trying to get him up. Suleiman was thrashing around on the ground, in obvious pain, and she was tugging on his mane, calling to him urgently in Zakharan, but Suleiman either wouldn’t—or couldn’t—rise.

  When Trace entered the stall she turned a face of desperate pleading toward him. Two tears had trickled down her cheeks, leaving trails that glistened, but she ignored them. She said one word in Zakharan, then shook her head as if angry at herself, and switched to English. “Colic.”

  Trace had understood her the first time. “Let me get in there, Princess.” But his hands were already on her arms, moving her firmly out of the way. To Alec he said, “Got to get him up—colic can be a killer if the horse rolls around on the ground and gets his intestines all twisted up.” He grabbed a halter from where it hung near the stall and quickly strapped it to the horse’s head despite the way Suleiman tossed his head in an attempt to resist, forcing the bit between the horse’s teeth and into place. Then he tugged hard, bracing himself against one wall for extra leverage, his muscles distended.

  “Call to him, Princess,” he ordered.

  “Suleiman! Up, boy, up, up!” she repeated, in a mixture of English and Zakharan.

  With a shrill neighing sound, the horse staggered to his feet. Trace stroked the horse’s neck soothingly. “Good boy,” he praised in a calm tone, although he was feeling anything but calm. Just because Suleiman was standing didn’t mean he was out of danger. “Get back, Princess,” he told her curtly when she started forward. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t become violent.”

  “Not with me,” she assured him, careless of her safety, her eyes anxious for her horse. “Suleiman would never—”

  “Not normally, no. But with colic you can’t be sure. If the pain gets too bad he could lash out, and I don’t want you too close to him.” He started leading the horse out of the stables. “I’ll walk him until the vet arrives.”

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight before Trace finally fell into bed. It hadn’t taken long for the veterinarian to confirm the princess’s and Trace’s diagnosis when he arrived, and apply the proper treatment. Trace had been tremendously relieved it hadn’t been anything worse than impaction colic that didn’t require surgery. But it had been bad enough...and messy. Not just for the vet. He’d been surprised at the princess’s active participation, but then realized he shouldn’t have been—nothing was too much for her where the horse she loved was concerned.

  Afterward, Trace had told Alec to take her back to the house so she could clean herself up, and he’d returned to the guest house himself for a shower and change of clothes. But he’d been quick about it because he’d had a hunch the princess would be back, and he’d been right. The princess had stayed with the vet while he gave Suleiman intravenous fluids merely as a precaution, then stayed, even after the vet left.

  Trace stayed with her, Alec hovering in the background until Trace told him he might as well turn in. “No sense both of us hanging around,” he told the other man. “And you’re on duty tomorrow, so you’d better get some sleep.”

  Trace glanced at the princess from time to time after Alec left, but didn’t say anything. He wanted to tell her there wasn’t anything more for her to do, so she might as well go to bed, too. But he knew that wouldn’t happen, not until she dropped from fatigue. At one point when he looked at her she caught his gaze and held it. There was gratitude in her lovely eyes, and something more. Admiration. The kind of expression that made a man feel ten feet tall and invincible.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “No big deal,” he replied. “You already knew what the problem was, and the vet got here fast. We were lucky it wasn’t anything more serious.”

  Yes,” she agreed. “But I could not get Suleiman up. It could have been so much worse if you had not—” She caught her breath and her eyes darkened.

  He shrugged. “I just happened to know what to do, that’s all.”

  Her eyes betrayed her curiosity. “Yes, but how did you know? You are not a veterinarian. Were you raised with horses? I have wondered...”

  Although Trace laughed, he felt a touch of bitterness. “No, Princess,” he said. “I was raised by my grandparents, and they couldn’t have cared less about horses...or me.” He caught himself up quickly, realizing he’d revealed something he would rather not have revealed.

  She didn’t say anything at first, just turned to watch Suleiman for a minute. Without looking at Trace she said, “But you are a natural horseman. There is no question of that. So how, if you were not raised with horses...?”

  “I was cowboy crazy when I was a kid,” he said with a half-smile of remembrance for the boy he’d been. “I delivered newspapers, mowed lawns in the summer and shoveled snow in the winter to earn money to take riding lessons when I was twelve.”

  This time when she looked at him her admiration was for the single-minded determination of the boy he’d been, not just the man he was. “I understand that kind of dedication,” she said, her green eyes shining, and Trace remembered this woman had obtained her doctorate at the age of twenty-five. Since most math PhDs took five to six years to complete in addition to a four year undergraduate degree, that meant she had to have started very young, putting aside everything else in her drive to achieve her goal.

  “When I was fourteen,” he continued, “I was ‘hired’ by the stable where I took lessons, and I worked there for the next four years. At first they just paid me with more lessons and free rides, but when I was older they paid me in cash, too. I cleaned out stalls, groomed horses, fed and watered them, led trail rides, and even gave lessons myself toward the end.” He smiled at her. “So yeah, I’ve seen colicky horses before, not to mention a few other ailments. Haven’t lost one yet, though some of it was just plain luck.”

  “But you are not a cowboy now. Why did you stop working there?”

  “I joined the Corps at eighteen. The US Marine Corps,” he clarified. “I wanted to see the world.” He chuckled. “That used to be the recruitment line for the US Navy—‘Join the Navy and see the world.’ But I didn’t want to be a sailor. I wanted the toughest bunch of SOBs this country had to offer, and I got it.” Then he realized who he was talking to. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Sometimes my language is a little rough around the edges. Blame it on the cowboy, not the marine.”

  Her green eyes twinkled mischievously. “It is nothing,” she assured him. “I have heard worse.” She laughed under her breath and said somet
hing in Zakharan, the earthy curse he’d thrown at Alec and Liam the first day.

  Trace was hard put not to display his shock, but he managed it. How the hell does a princess know that? “Sounds like a curse,” he said, wondering if she’d tell him.

  She laughed again, this time with delight. “It is, but I dare not translate it for you.” Then her eyes turned wistful. “It is Andre’s favorite curse. Not in public of course. He is very circumspect in public, very much the king. But I have heard him use it...on occasion.” Her face retained its wistful expression, but an amused, remembering smile touched the corners of her lips.

  “You miss him a lot, don’t you?” The question popped out before he realized he was going to ask it.

  “More than anything in the world,” she said simply. She blinked several times, then looked at Trace, and there were tears in her eyes. “He is...special. And so precious to me. I cannot explain. He is my king, yes. But he is my brother, first and last. He would give his life for me, and more no man can give. If not for him...” She wiped the tears from her eyes unashamedly. And what she said next took his breath away. “You remind me of him. So very much.”

  “Me?” he asked ungrammatically, not believing he’d heard correctly.

  “Yes. I cannot explain, not with words. It is something in here,” she said, raising a hand and pressing it to her heart. “I know I am safe with you. Alec and Liam—they guard me well. Do not think otherwise. But they do not remind me of Andre.” She drew a deep breath, sighed and said softly, “I just wish you did not dislike me.”

  Trace didn’t know what to say. He didn’t dare tell her the truth, that he liked her far too much for comfort. Far too much for safety. Hers...and his. “I don’t—” he began, but she cut him off.

  “When I saw you with Alyssa, I saw the man you really are. Gentle. Loving. So very protective. And she is not even your own daughter.”

  “Any man would feel that way about a child,” he said, not quite understanding what she was getting at. “Especially a sweet little girl like Alyssa.”