“Thank God.” Ari sank his head back against the limo seat. “I don’t know how long I’ve been gone, exactly. It was summer when I was taken, and it’s summer again—that’s as close as I can get.”
“Almost exactly a year, yes,” Stefan supplied, then tempered his words at Ari’s wan expression. “But you’re almost home.”
The car stopped. Stefan stepped out of the limo, then handed out Nicki, his gaze warning her to stay quiet as Ari emerged from the car. She nodded, though she was clearly confused, and she didn’t object when he reached for her hand.
Good. Stefan didn’t think he was going to let go of Nicki Clark any time soon. She’d have to get used to that idea.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nicki willed herself to relax as they walked toward the yacht. She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous. The danger was past. They had the prince—even if he didn’t know he was a prince. She’d succeeded—they’d succeeded.
So why did she feel like she’d failed?
Ryker/Ari drew fewer stares than he ordinarily would because of his casual clothes, despite his unkempt hair and thick, scraggly beard. But when they approached the yacht with its bold crest of the Royal Family, he didn’t react. He stared up at the boat with a rueful smile and turned back to Stefan. “It seems I have very good friends. I’m glad of this, though I don’t know what I did to deserve it.”
“You’ve been a worthy friend in return, and will be so again.”
Ryker didn’t seem convinced, and they boarded the yacht under the deferent and watchful eyes of the crew. None of the crew referred to Ryker as anything specific, using the same honorifics for him as they would any other dignitary. Ryker, for his part, didn’t recognize any of them either.
“Tamas here will show you to your state room, Ryker,” Stefan said. He’d not moved out of touching distance from Nicki, and she wondered about that, too. “We’ll be setting sail at first light, sooner if we must. But it would be best not to draw attention.”
Ryker nodded. “I don’t think the authorities will waste resources searching for me. I will not turn down the opportunity for a shower, though.” He lifted his hand to his beard. “And if there’s a razor aboard, that’d be good.”
“I think we you’ll find everything you need in your state room. I would have brought a barber too, but we can’t risk any information about you getting back to officials here.”
“Of course,” Ryker murmured, though he looked bemused as he went below decks.
Stefan wasn’t finished yet. He turned with Nicki to walk her across the deck to the communications room of the ship. Instead of turning into that room however, he went another few doors down until he rapped on the door. It swung wide and she stared into the bright space—it was some sort of sick room, with a single raised palette, pristine counters and locked cabinets.
And one of the guards standing in the center of the room…with a stethoscope around his neck.
“What is this?” Nicki said, though Stefan wouldn’t let her stop until he’d pushed her in the room and closed the door behind them.
“This is Marco Osman, whom you’ve met. In addition to his skills as an operative, he is the team medic. I don’t want to risk a Turkish doctor here in Alaçati, but it’s a twelve hour trip to Garronia, and I can’t risk that either if you are unwell.”
“I told you, I feel fine—” the usual panic surged forth as Nicki considered the reality of what Stefan was saying. A doctor would be examining her, and this was only a field medic. When she returned to Garronia, she had no doubt there would be another doctor. Her medical files would be requested, and if her family didn’t get involved, it would be a miracle. “Really—I’m good. I’d tell you if I didn’t feel okay.”
Stefan was immovable as stone. “I can remain in the room or leave, whatever you feel more comfortable with.”
Nicki made a face. “Oh for God’s sake, Stefan. Fine.” She trooped forward and stood in front of Marco. “You want me standing or on the bed thing?”
“The bed thing is fine,” Marco said. To his credit, he didn’t smirk, and he didn’t glance at Stefan, though Stefan’s scowl practically filled the room as Nicki hopped up on the examining table. Before he could ask, she reached up and stripped off her shirt, leaving only her industrial strength jog bra. To emphasize her irritation, she tossed the shirt to Stefan. She was used to competing in far less clothing than many super models wore. She wasn’t shy about her body in front of strangers.
She still flinched when Marco put the stethoscope to her chest. But it was cold.
The tests proceeded from there, the pure basics to determine that her blood pressure, pulmonary activity, pulse and heart rate were normal, with no apparent ill effects from her fainting spell. Her eyes checked out, her depth perception and peripheral vision appearing unharmed. Throughout it all, Stefan stared, his glower eventually diminishing to a stoic impassivity that made her more nervous than the checkup did.
“Your immediate vitals are good, and given the limits of our testing equipment, that’s as far as we can tell with this equipment,” Marco eventually concluded. “You are significantly dehydrated. The climate here is arid, but dehydration can result from other issues too, like stress or adrenal fatigue. You’ll want to test that. You do not appear to have suffered a true cardiac event, and I can detect no arrhythmia or fibrillation currently. Nevertheless, we’ll want to monitor you for the length of the voyage.” He turned to include Stefan in his next statement. “With Miss Clark’s permission, we’ll have a full workup done as soon as we return to—”
“No,” Nicki said immediately.
“Yes,” Stefan snapped. His gaze whipped to hers, but he continued to speak to Marco. “Set it up. For both of us. Full VO-2 Max stress test, echo and EKG testing, and then the same battery of athletic performance tests we put the recruits through at the end of intake training.”
“Of course sir,” Marco said as Nicki’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean, for both of us?”
Stefan shrugged. “If I’m going to ask you to have your physical capacity checked, I should go through it as well. It’s been some time since I’ve gone through the full detail of it, and that’s not smart.” He nodded to Marco, and tossed Nicki’s shirt back to her. “We’ll be leaving shortly since you’ve checked out, and I’d like to put in a call to the king and queen once we clear the port. If you’d join me for that, I’d appreciate it.” He hesitated. “Probably best that we’re both cleaned up.”
Even as he turned to the door, however, his phone buzzed.
Nicki hopped off the bed. “The queen?”
Stefan scowled at his phone. “Regrettably, no. It appears that our attempts to move up our departure may be delayed.” He shunted his glance to her, and real regret seemed to color his gaze. “This might take a while. I’ll send for you when we’re clear.”
“Of course,” she murmured. He held the door for her and she went through, but to her surprise he didn’t touch her, didn’t kiss her on the way out. As soon as she registered that disappointment, she clamped down hard on her emotions, and picked up her pace.
“Get a grip on yourself,” she muttered, trudging up the hallway back toward the main deck. Stefan was the commander on this yacht. He also was a highly respected diplomat for his country. He did the right thing, at the right time, and when he did it, it mattered. If she was going to stay with him…
Her steps slowed as her brain caught up with her galloping thoughts. Stay with him? That wasn’t an option—it had never been an option. Stefan hadn’t asked, and he’d certainly given no indication that that was what he wanted from her. He wanted her healthy, sure. He was pissed that she blacked out but who wouldn’t be? And…and he did care for her. She knew that. He cared for her as a teammate definitely. As for more than that, it shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter.
She’d always gone it alone, out of self-preservation more than anything else. She could handle going down with a busted heart as
long as she didn’t drag anyone down with her.
Nothing had changed about that.
Nicki continued to her room. Of course, until now, all of her concerns had been a hypothetical. Maybe her heart would go out on her one day—maybe it wouldn’t. But they were beyond hypotheticals at this point. She’d passed out. Her heart hadn’t stopped, sure, but when the going had gotten tough…she’d flaked. No matter how she tried to talk her way out of it, the truth of the matter was—she was sick. She was broken.
The tears started before she made it to the shower. Nicki stripped off her clothes woodenly, pausing in front of the mirror to survey herself. Other than the usual assortment of bruises, she appeared to be whole. Normal. She didn’t look like a ticking time bomb. She turned and switched on the water, grateful for the cocoon of noise and warmth as she stepped beneath the heavy spray.
“It doesn’t have to change anything,” she muttered, but the reality wasn’t as easy as that. She had proof now. Who knew what was really wrong with her? At a minimum she’d be prescribed a laundry list of drugs, and if things got worse, her whole life could change. She could end up walking on eggshells and that still could wouldn’t that her heart wouldn’t give out one day anyway.
She didn’t want surgery. She didn’t want more pills. And she didn’t want to tell her family, especially her mother, who seemed to have been rooting for the family to stay in crisis since her father had been diagnosed. She didn’t want to hear the latest treatment options, didn’t want to get forwarded even more articles about athletes dying on the field.
The water pounded down around her, and she leaned against the wall, finally giving into sobs. She didn’t want to be broken, a liability. Didn’t want to live her life like she was the walking wounded. But now people would know. Her friends, certainly. The royal family. Stefan.
She could keep it there, maybe, she thought. If she agreed to the tests conducted in Garronia, there’d be no record of those tests to follow her back home. She could manage her care quietly, away from her family’s prying. She wouldn’t be stupid—couldn’t be, not anymore. She’d care for herself so she never left anyone in the lurch again. But she’d go somewhere that would be easy. Maybe to Josef’s teaching school after all, down in Texas. She’d be close to hospitals and clinics there, if needed. She could manage. She would adapt.
Nicki huddled beneath the pounding water, and never felt more alone.
It was another several hours before the yacht slipped out into the Alaçati Bay, and Stefan turned away from the sunrise peeking over the horizon. The delay had been tedious, but not dangerous, in the end. Typical bureaucratic nonsense to ensure they had signed the right papers and paid the right fees before Turkey was willing to let them go. There’d been no mention of Ari or of the vagrant escape on the southern ridge, not a peep from Omir or any other Turkish official about anything going awry on the sleepy June night.
Sleep was not something he’d had much of through it all—catnaps only, with reports coming in from all directions.
The weather for sailing was clear. There should be nothing to obstruct their speed. They wouldn’t race home, wouldn’t draw attention, but at least they would not run into any storms. He didn’t know how Ari would handle a storm at sea, given how his odyssey had begun nearly a year ago.
The royal family had been put off with a convenient lie about the timing of the rescue operation—and more lies about the precise nature of the facilities they were infiltrating. Cyril knew the truth, but if the king and queen had received word of the possible conditions Ari had been enduring, it wouldn’t have helped matters. It probably would’ve complicated them, in fact, with Jasen and Catherine’s natural tendency to want to intervene using diplomatic channels.
And then there was the prince himself. Ari was being monitored in his state room, with surveillance cameras installed for this purpose in his sleeping quarters and even the bathroom. Not to invade his privacy, but to insure he didn’t become disoriented again or harm himself either by accident or misguided design. Stefan grimaced. The crown prince would not be affronted to learn of the surveillance, merely bemused. But that man in the state room was not the crown prince. He might never be.
The final piece of information was the most disquieting. The name Ryker Stavros had to come from somewhere, but Stefan couldn’t for the life of him deduce where. And all attempts to quietly ascertain the answer had met a dead end. Had Stavros helped Ari escape the wreckage of his plane? Had he attempted to harm Ari in some way, imprinting on him indelibly?
“Sir. The communications room is ready.”
“Good,” he said. “Miss Clark?”
“Already present. She was waiting for us when we knocked.”
That did finally ease Stefan’s tension, for all that it introduced another round of concerns. Nicki would undergo exhaustive tests when they returned to Garronia, but he wasn’t fooling himself into believing that she’d actually act on the results. She wasn’t a child, or in his command. He couldn’t force her to take the information they would provide her and care for herself appropriately. He couldn’t force her to stop taking so many risks, to stop pushing herself so relentlessly.
There were so many things he couldn’t do.
Shoving those thoughts out of his mind, he followed Tamas down to the communications and pushed inside. As Tamas had indicated, Nicki was there. She stood against the far wall, fresh and ready for anything in a tee-shirt and khakis. Her color was good, her eyes bright.
She’d hate that he was even thinking of her in those terms, as if she’d suffered an injury or illness. But the fact remained that she had. She’d have to get used to his concern.
He nodded to her and then to Tamas, who stood at the controls. “Patch us through.”
The screens came alive and Cyril Gerou was the first to catch his attention, but multiple screens flickered and Stefan sighed. The king, queen and current crown prince were also on the video screen, and their expressions indicated that they were braced for the worst.
“Report,” Cyril said crisply, giving no indication that Stefan had already been in contact with him. Probably wise.
“Our reconnaissance trip proved successful sir, your highnesses,” he said, focusing on Cyril and pushing on as all three members of the Andris family surged forward, brimming with questions.
“Ari is alive,” he raised his hand sharply, making the royal family flinch, though it didn’t stop Catherine from bursting into tears. “He appears to be suffering from a severe case of amnesia. He doesn’t know who he is or how he came to be in the airplane. He knows that he crashed, that he’s some sort of pilot. He believes his name is Ryker Stavros. We have not—”
“Ryker Stav—you’re joking.” It was Kristos who spoke, and Stefan flicked his gaze to the screen depicting the young prince. Kristos stared at him wide eyed, while Jasen turned to his wife and drew her close. “That name—that was a character Ari dreamed up when we were kids, an alter ego or whatever. Ryker Stavros was an international mercenary bounty hunter kind of guy, able to go anywhere, be anyone. We would role play games for hours where he was Ryker and I was an equally capable Drake Quinn or something like that.” He smiled weakly. “Only I wasn’t a pilot. I was a special forces operative.”
“He’s healthy though—he’s healthy?” Catherine turned from Jasen’s embrace and stared into the screen. “He doesn’t have his memory, but we can help him with that. We can help him.”
“He appears healthy,” Stefan said. “He’s submitted to a basic medical review aboard ship, but we’ll need a more exhaustive examination when he returns to Garronia.” He paused. “If his return to the capital city is considered advisable immediately. I’m not certain.”
“Why not—” Catherine’s anguished cry was quelled by King Jasen’s snapped response.
“You think it will delay his recovery? It will overwhelm him?”
“There’s simply no way to tell, your highness. He believes quite firmly that he was concussed in th
e crash, but he knows with a certainty his name and his trade. If we suddenly take that out from under him, I’m not sure how he will react.” Stefan grimaced. “Further, I’m not sure we want to manage the press once they learn that the prince has returned, but that he is in any way impaired.”
“He’s not impaired,” the queen protested hotly. “He’s injured—but he will recover.”
“He might recover, Catherine,” Jasen said. His words were stern, but not unkind. They had the result of making the queen go pale. “Ari is alive, and for that we are eternally grateful. He appears to be responding normally otherwise?”
“Yes, your highness,” Stefan said. “He appears in good health and of sound mind, other than his memory. I have no idea if that will change.”
“Agreed. But if we have the prince here on site, the media will learn of it. It could be overwhelming for him, and that couldn’t be helpful.”
“But how can we—how can he—” the queen’s throat worked as she tried to get hold of herself. “We have to be able to see him,” she whispered. “Surely that can be arranged somehow?”
“Ask Fran—she might know.”
Nicki’s voice sounded from the corner of the room, and she took a step back as everyone’s eyes turned to her.
The queen leaned forward, breaking away from Jasen. “What do you mean, she might know?” she demanded.
“Well, she worked with vets—active military too. That was her thesis study, the effects of PTSD on general cognitive something or other.” Nicki flapped her hand, clearly warming to the idea. “I don’t know the specifics, but she spent nearly a year on it so she would know. Heck, maybe she could talk to Ryker—Ari. Maybe she could help him remember who he was?”
The queen seized on the idea with both hands, turning to Kristos. “Where are the girls now?” she asked, but once again Jasen was the voice of reason.
“We have time, Catherine,” he said, his words calm. “It’s another several hours before the yacht will reach our shores.” He flicked his gaze to Cyril. “Do you agree with Stefan’s concern about where they should dock?”
Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 Page 19