by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
One of the men shifted, and Tyler got a glimpse of that someone, standing in the middle of their circle. Her back was to him, but he'd recognize those dark brown curls and that regal bearing anywhere. Son of a bitch, it couldn't be! He'd left her safe and secure in big sister's care in Billings. There was no way in hell she could be here in Clarkston!
But she was. She turned to laugh at something one of the men had said, and there was no doubt. A hundred and thirty miles from where she was supposed to be and putting him in a world of trouble.
Princess Anna. In the all-too-luscious flesh.
He charged out the door, down the steps and across the parking lot, his only thought to grab the princess, drag her royal hide into the truck and get her the hell back to Billings. Before he reached her, though, good sense prevailed. Excluding her, he was the runt in this group. Of course he was armed—he had his Sig Sauer in the shoulder holster, a compact Beretta in an ankle holster and a knife in his jeans pocket—but who was to say these guys weren't armed, too? After all, this was America.
Slowing his steps, he stopped beside the red SUV he'd followed in, its engine making clicking noises as it cooled, and shoved his hands into his pockets. After a moment, one of them looked his way. "Can we help you with something?"
"Nah. I just thought when you were through there, I'd like word with your friend."
Even though she was bundled against the cold, he could se the stiffness spreading through the princess. She slowly turned, the smile gone from her lips, her demeanor formal and distant. The brat didn't even have the grace to look guilty, he noticed. Instead of at least acknowledging that she was the one in the wrong place, she was looking at him as if he had no right to be there. "Oh. I'd planned to be gone before you arrived."
"Didn't plan too well, did you?"
The biggest of the men took a step forward. "This guy bothering you, Annie? You know, you don't wanna talk to him, you don't have to."
Annie . Tyler hated the sound of the nickname in another man's voice. He couldn't call her that—couldn't even call her Anna—and damned if he was going to listen to some good ol' boy do it. Gritting his teeth, he said coldly, "It's time to leave. You have an appointment in Billings, remember?"
She smiled just as coldly. "No one's waiting for me in Billings or anywhere else, for that matter."
"Christina—"
"Thinks I'm with you."
"Why would she—" Understanding arrived about the time the big guy took another step toward him. The princess had pulled off a royal scam! She'd persuaded her father that she desperately needed to see her sister, then convinced the sister that she was going to travel with him, all so she could achieve her original goal—to look for Prince Lucas herself. As if some foolish, empty-headed little princess could accomplish what trained investigators, so far, had failed at. What did she know of conducting a search, an interview or an investigation?
Enough to arrive at this site ahead of him, a small voice pointed out.
"We need to talk," he demanded. "Now."
For a moment he thought she would refuse. The desire to do so was obvious in the tilt of her chin, the disdain in her eyes. But after a long, tense moment had ticked past, she turned to the men with a dazzling smile. "Excuse me, gentlemen. This won't take long."
Not trusting himself to touch her, Tyler gestured for her to follow him to the middle of the parking lot. With plenty of angry words trying to break free and not trusting himself to say any of them—What the hell are you doing here? Are you insane? What kind of fool-minded scheme is this? Does the king have any idea what you're doing? You should be turned over your daddy's knee—he just stared at her. And stared.
She shifted uncomfortably, then shuffled her feet. Funny. He hadn't thought she would ever show discomfort to a mere employee. When the wind blew a strand of hair across her cheek, she brushed it back, then pursed her lips primly. "If you have something to say, Mr. Ramsey…"
"I have plenty to say, Your Highness. I intend to say most of it to your father."
Dismay and more disdain darkened her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?" Then… "I'm not going back to Billings."
"No. Obviously, you can't be trusted to stay there."
"You can't send me home. The plane has already begun its return flight."
He smiled. "Don't be so sure, Princess. All it would take is one phone call to departure control at the Billings airport. If they can't get in touch with the Gulfstream, they can contact the air traffic control center that can. The jet can be back on the ground at Billings as quickly as I could get you back there."
She lost a bit of her confidence, because she knew he was telling the truth. "And how do you think you would get me back there?"
"With handcuffs and a gag would be my first choice. Failing that, I thought I'd drive you back in my car."
"I'm not going with you."
"I don't recall offering you a choice, Princess."
She smiled smugly. "If you lay one hand on me, I'll scream bloody murder and my new friends will be more than happy to come to my aid."
She gestured toward the men, all watching them with suspicion, and Tyler noticed once again that the littlest of the eight was about thirty pounds heavier than he was. He didn't have any doubt they were the kind of guys who would act first and ask questions later … and he had plenty of doubts whether she was bluffing. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't Maybe she thought they would simply hold him back while she made her getaway, or maybe she knew they'd beat the hell out of him given what they thought was a reason.
"It seems we're at an impasse," she said softly.
He looked at her. With her curls windblown and her cheeks reddened from the cold, she looked sweet, innocent and so damn beautiful … when in fact she was deceitful, manipulative and devious as hell. "I guess we are," he agreed. "And what would be your solution?"
"I'll travel with you."
"No."
"Christina already believes that's what I'm doing. She's covering for me with Papa and Mama."
"No way."
"And I can help you look for Lucas."
"Let me put this simply, Princess—no. Hell, no. No way, no how, not in this lifetime."
She threw his own words back at him. "I don't recall offering you a choice, Mr. Ramsey. I'm not willing to remain in Billings and do nothing while my brother may be out here somewhere. He could be injured, and he hardly knows you. He may not even remember you, and may believe he has no reason to trust you. He may believe you're going to harm him. But I'm his favorite sister. Regardless of what's happened in the year past, he'll trust me."
There was no way in hell he was agreeing to her crazy scheme. After all, he'd done his job. He'd delivered her safely to her sister's. The king couldn't hold him responsible because she refused to stay there.
The hell he couldn't. Maybe Tyler had fulfilled his duty by dropping her off at Christina's, but that didn't mean he was free from responsibility now that he knew she'd left there. Like it or not, he was the only one in the king's security detail—hell, the only one in the king's employ, period—who knew where Princess Anna was. He had an obligation to keep her safe until she was back where she belonged.
Besides, it wouldn't be for long. He would place a call to the king that afternoon, and the king would put an end to this lunacy. The princess might lie to and scam everyone else, but she wasn't about to defy an order from the royal papa, no matter how spoiled she was. Tyler would be rid of her—again—by tomorrow for sure.
He gave her a sour look. "How did you get here?"
"In that vehicle." She gestured toward the smaller SUV. "It's very red, isn't it? Rather like your face."
His gaze hardened, and a muscle in his jaw began to twitch. "Give me the keys and tell your friends goodbye."
She gave him the key ring, then returned to the eight giants. While she chatted with them as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he transferred her luggage from her vehicle to his, then took the keys inside, wher
e he bribed the receptionist with a healthy chunk of cash to return the extra SUV to the rental agency in Billings. When he returned, the big guy was helping the princess into the black SUV. She eagerly waved goodbye to the men as he backed out of the space, then drove out of the parking lot.
As he turned onto the highway, she looked at him. "It's not so bad, Mr. Ramsey. Now you've got a partner."
He scowled at her. A princess for a damned partner. Just what he freakin' needed.
* * *
"What exactly have you been up to since I left you at Christina's yesterday?"
Anna didn't need to look at Tyler to know that his fingers were knotted around the steering wheel, or that the muscle in his jaw was jumping, or that his green eyes resembled liquid fire. She certainly didn't need to look to know that he furiously, intensely, didn't want her there, so she gazed out the window instead. "I returned to the airport soon after you left and rented the SUV, and I came to Clarkston. I checked into a motel across the way from the Silver Nugget, and I spent last evening there." For a moment, she was silent. Then she archly added, "You, presumably, were sleeping." With Mareta? She would like to know almost as much as she didn't want to.
"Did you tell those men who you were?"
Though she'd just determined to avoid eye contact, she couldn't resist giving him a scathing look. "I'm not an idiot, Mr. Ramsey."
He murmured something that sounded suspiciously like, "Couldn't prove it by me," and then his mouth thinned in a taut line again. "You never had any intention of visiting your sister, did you?"
"No."
"You lied to your father, your mother, Christina—everyone." She lowered her gaze to her gloved hands. She wasn't proud of the untruths she'd been forced to tell to get this far … but her cause was just and she would do it again if necessary. She would do anything to find Lucas and bring him home!
Deliberately she changed the subject. "I spoke to dozens of people. No one has seen Lucas. We can be in Garden City by six—"
He pulled into the parking lot of the motel where she'd spent the past night and shut off the engine. She glanced around. "Why are we here?"
"We're staying here."
"But I've already spoken to everyone here."
He gave her a cutting look. "Well, Princess, you're not exactly trained to do this, are you?"
"To show a photo? To ask, 'Have you seen this man?'"
"Your father sent me here to follow up on these leads. Me, not you. I'm not going to tell him I've done that when I haven't, and I'm certainly not going to tell him I've done it when only you have. If you don't like it, too bad. Get over it … or go back to Montebello. The choice is yours."
Stubbornly she clamped her jaw shut and stared straight ahead. He waited a minute, then another, then exited the vehicle and went into the hostel's office. He was the most frustrating man she'd ever met. Either it said a great deal for her acting abilities that she'd been able to convince Christina she had feelings for the man, or it was a sad commentary on Christina's judgment that her sister believed she could have feelings for the man. Not one of her boyfriends had ever been so stubborn, so infuriating…
Though she must admit, he could certainly be charming when he so chose. Mareta had been quite smitten with him, and the desk clerk visible through the plate-glass window was all but preening under his attention. It was a very good thing he hadn't attempted to charm her. His ego surely would be wounded to find she was immune to him.
He came out of the office with two keys and drove to the end of the building. After tersely instructing her to wait, he unlocked each of the last two rooms, took their bags inside, then opened the vehicle's door for her. With a regal sniff, she allowed him to help her to the ground, then in a long-suffering voice, she said, "I don't understand why we're frittering away precious time here."
He gestured for her to precede him into the room on the end. The decor was identical to the room where she'd slept the night before, right down to the rather stuffy odor. The door joining her room to his was open, and she could see his suitcase on an identical bed inside.
"Your bag?"
In the palace she was accustomed to servants putting things away for her, and so she didn't hesitate to hand her shoulder bag to him. While she was unbuttoning her coat, he emptied it on the bed, then rummaged through its contents.
"What are you doing?" she shrieked, frantically reaching for the paper bag containing Christina's condoms. "You can't—! I demand you stop this instant!"
With one arm, he held her back until he'd pocketed two items—her passport and her wallet, containing all her money credit cards and driver's license. Then he politely returned everything else—including the unopened shopping bag—to her purse, secured the clasp and set it on the bed. "Kick off your shoes, Princess. Watch a little TV. I've got to make some phone calls."
She sank down on the bed, infuriated that he'd gone through her belongings, and relieved beyond measure that he hadn't discovered the condoms. Surely he would have commented on her optimism, or would have twisted Christina's precaution into some sort of tawdry character flaw. With her luck, he might even have assumed that they were intended for use with him, and he might have responded in a way that would require she have him removed from this life.
Instead, he intended to remove her from his life. He would call her father. She knew it as surely as she knew each and every one of the names she'd been christened with. Papa would be furious with her, and he would send the flight crew to pick her up, and he would never let her leave Montebello without him again. Worse, there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn't even attempt another escape. Running away in America required money, and thanks to Tyler she hadn't even the cost of a phone call on her.
Fighting the urge to weep, she walked to the window and stared out. If only she knew how to get hold of Rusty, the largest of her miner friends. He and his associates could persuade Tyler to return her property to her, though she would likely have to stress to them repeatedly that they shouldn't break him. She could probably find them at the Silver Nugget this evening—that was where she'd found them last evening. Perhaps she could persuade them to do something harmless, such as leave Tyler bound and gagged in his room for the maid to find in the morning, while she took her money and his vehicle and continued her search for Lucas. It would be no more than the arrogant man deserved for his highhandedness. After all, he wasn't her boss.
Unfortunately, she was quite certain that inciting a group of men to leave another man bound and gagged in a motel room while she skipped town with his rental vehicle would be frowned upon by the local authorities, even if her father had paid for the vehicle. And she had no doubt whatsoever her parents would find such actions thoroughly appalling.
Even if it was no more than the man in question deserved.
Life simply wasn't fair, she thought with a sorrowful sigh.
* * *
Life just wasn't fair, Tyler thought as he listened to the hum of the long-distance connection in his ear. Only a few days earlier he'd shared the news of this assignment with his brother Kyle. It was nothing complicated, just a task even someone fairly new to the business could handle, but being selected for it had been a vote of confidence from the king and those in authority in his own organization. It had been important to him, and he'd been certain from the beginning that he would complete it quickly, successfully and thoroughly. He would leave no stone unturned, no question unasked, and would do a job Kyle, their father and everyone else could be proud of, pulling it off without the slightest hitch.
Ha!
That was before Princess Anna had been figured into the equation. Frankly, he couldn't imagine a bigger complication than the delicate, deceptively innocent brat in the room next door.
There was a rustle of sound at the other end of the line, followed by King Marcus's voice. "Tyler. I understand you've encountered a problem. Does it involve my son?"
"No, Your Majesty. It involves your daughter."
Af
ter a moment's silence, the king repeated, "My daughter? Which one?"
"Princess Anna."
"She's safe with her sister in Billings, isn't she?"
"No, sir. She's safe in the motel room next to mine here in Clarkston." Grimly, Tyler related the details of finding the princess among her new brawny friends at the mine, her cockeyed proposal that she accompany him to the remaining mines, all but forcing her to leave with him and confiscating her valuables. When he was finished, he waited for the king's response.
It wasn't encouraging.
Laughter rang over the line. "That's my Anna," the king said with no small measure of pride. "She looks most like me, and she thinks most like me. She's very resourceful, isn't she?"
"Yes, Your Majesty, she is, but—"
"Her mother tells me I shouldn't encourage her, and I tell her I don't. She doesn't believe me." King Marcus chuckled again. "So Anna believes she can be of help to you in your investigation."
"Yes, sir. However, I don't need any help."
"No, of course not. Still…"
The muscles in Tyler's stomach knotted. He wasn't going to like the way this turned out. He could already tell.
"She is headstrong."
"Yes," Tyler reluctantly agreed.
"And she is her brother's favorite. He would never doubt her love, her loyalty or her trustworthiness."
Of course not. And she was already there, and if she wanted to tag along, how could it hurt? Oh, yeah, Tyler could see exactly where this was going, and he saved himself the discomfort of hearing it one step at a time. "You want me to take her along, don't you, Your Majesty?"
The king chuckled once more. "If you sounded too happy about it, my young friend, I would worry. On the other hand, though, you don't have to sound as if you've just been condemned to a fate worse than death. Anna is quite intelligent, and people like her. They tell her things. I've always found her to be a pleasant companion."