by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
* * *
As they walked out of the bar and toward the elevator, Cara planned how and when to make her move. Weber's room was both the best place and the riskiest. Best because there was no one to get in her way, no one he could use as a shield to make his getaway. And, since the room was on the sixth floor, there was only one way out for Weber. He certainly wasn't going to leap out the window and suddenly sprout wings. This time, there would be no Dumpster to catch him.
But it was the riskiest place because there would be no witnesses, no one for him to fear if he suddenly turned on her or tried to overpower her.
The operative word here was "tried."
Which was why she had her gun very strategically planted beneath the slinky white skirt of her dress. She could easily draw it out when the time came.
Cara stole a glance at the man at her side as he jabbed again for the elevator. She'd known what he looked like, had carried around his likeness to hold up in front of people and help jar their memories, but she hadn't realized just how unnerving he was in person. There was an aura around him. Though it seemed foolish, it felt as if she was in the presence of pure evil.
It wasn't often that her imagination ran away with her.
The elevator opened. She felt his hand at the small of her back, pushing her forward. They were the only two occupants.
Cara could feel her nerves jumping. As before, she'd managed to track Weber down by the activity on his charge card. When she saw that he'd checked into the Excelsior Hotel in Dallas, she'd felt as if she'd hit pay dirt. Different than the hotels he'd stayed in previously, the Excelsior catered to a whole different breed of people. The man was moving up. Her guess was that Weber had to be feeling pretty cocky about his getaway. Maybe he actually thought he'd lost them.
Pride went before a fall, she thought smugly. Which meant that she couldn't get too confident or she would be sharing his fate.
Turning toward her, he nuzzled her neck. "How do you like to do it?"
Cara was struggling not to have her skin crawl off her body. "Slowly. All night."
He ran his hands up and down her bare arms, his breathing becoming audible, heavy. "And what will this night of ecstasy cost me?"
Steady, just a little while longer, she counseled herself. For Weber's benefit, she smiled seductively. "We'll talk terms in your room," she promised.
"Why wait until we're in my room to get started?" Grabbing her roughly, he pulled her to him, his hand going up her skirt.
Quickly Cara pulled away. When he protested, his temper flaring, she pointed to the small camera mounted in the corner.
"Security cameras," she told him. "You don't want some underpaid, pimply-faced adolescent getting his rocks off by watching us, do you?"
He grunted something completely unintelligible under his breath as he fisted his hands at his sides and glared at the camera.
The woman with him was hot and he wanted to take her now, while his loins throbbed.
"Americans," Weber jeered. "Always watching everything. A nation of voyeurs."
Thank God for small blessings, she thought. He'd almost slipped his hand over her weapon.
Once they were in his room, Cara knew she was going to have to act fast. There would be no time for slipups and what she had going for her was the element of surprise. The man was thinking so hard with his organ that he hadn't recognized her. She'd gone through a lot of trouble not to look like herself, but a real professional would have noticed the similarities between the pro he was bringing to his room and the woman who had pounded on his door a short while ago.
Lucky for her, she thought.
Now all she needed was for her luck to hang on a little longer. There were handcuffs in her purse. It might have been safer for her to have placed her weapon in there, too, but she'd wanted to feel the reassuring press of metal against her flesh and had opted to strap her gun to the inside of her leg.
Her quarry brought her to his door, unlocking it. Anticipation rushed through his veins.
"I want you to strip for me." He locked the door behind her. "Slowly."
Cara turned around, stepping back coyly out of his reach. "We still haven't talked terms."
Pulling out his wallet, he yanked out several large bills, tossing them on the floor between them. "There. Terms. Now do your part."
It was now or never, she thought. Even if she began to go through the motions to distract him further, dropping her dress would leave her wearing matching bra and panties and a gun that didn't match either.
As his eyes bored into her, Cara began to slowly hike her skirt up, swishing the material along her legs, knowing that she was going to have to be fast to get the drop on him. She hadn't gotten to where she was by underestimating the people she was up against.
Her eyes never leaving him, Cara slipped her hand beneath her skirt, her fingers securing the hilt of her gun. She froze when she heard the knock on the door. The sound vibrated in her chest, blending with the hammering of her heart.
Distracted, angry at being interrupted, Weber growled, "Yes?"
"Room service," a Southern voice twanged.
"Go away. You have the wrong room," Weber barked. "I did not order anything."
"No, sir, this is the right room," the voice insisted. "Compliments of the house. Champagne and a basket of fruit."
Weber took a step toward the woman whose obedience he'd just bought. "Leave it in the hall."
"Can't, sir. I need you to sign that you got it. Otherwise, they'll think I took it and I'll lose my job. I've got a family to support—"
"Enough!" Weber shouted. Swearing, he swung around and unlocked the door again. He looked at the table that was before the bellman. There was nothing on it. Incensed, he looked up at the tall bellman. "Where is my champagne?"
"Right here."
The next moment, the table was being shoved into Weber. Caught off guard, Weber stumbled backward and fell.
Cara's mouth dropped open in surprise. She'd been so busy not underestimating Weber that she'd wound up underestimating his pursuer.
Ryker.
It took her less than a split second to come to. Cara pulled out her weapon, training it on Weber, who was sprawled out on the floor.
"Don't move a muscle," she ordered. "Kevin Weber, you're under arrest by order of the sheriff's department of the town of Shady Rock, Colorado."
Max was shrugging out of his bellman's jacket. There was a gun in one hand and she saw the handcuffs at the back of his belt. "He's my prisoner, Rivers," he informed her as he tossed the jacket aside.
She smiled at him serenely, shaking her head. "Uh-uh. I had him first. And possession, Ryker, is still nine-tenths of the law."
On the floor, Weber looked angrily from the call girl to the bellman. "Who the hell are you people?"
Cara smiled broadly. She really enjoyed saying this line. "Your worst nightmare, Weber." Gun trained on the man on the floor, her eyes pinning him in place, she asked, "What are you doing here, Ryker?"
He didn't want her to get away with it, but right now wasn't the time to challenge her. If they started arguing, Weber or whoever he really was might get away.
"Trying to get back my car and my prisoner," Max told her.
She could afford to be magnanimous. Up to a point. "The car's downstairs. Valet parking. Just let me get my stuff out of it and you can have it back." She spared Ryker one quick glance. She knew her answer wasn't going to sit well with him. Too bad. She had no intention of giving up custody. "But the prisoner's mine."
The woman was nothing short of infuriating. "I can have you up on charges of grand theft, auto. Like the idea of doing time, Rivers?" He didn't tell her that he didn't want too much attention drawn to Weber, that if the police were called in to arrest her, things might get dicey about Weber and the matter ' of jurisdiction. Besides, when he really got down to it, he didn't like the idea of the woman being arrested. He admired her creativity and spirit. And he liked besting her on his own without outside
help.
Her eyes darted to his face. And then she smiled. "You can," she allowed, sensing that he wasn't the type to follow the strict letter of the law, "but you won't. Like it or not, you admire resourcefulness." Slowly, her gun still raised, she opened her purse. "Speaking of which, how'd you get here?"
"I got the desk clerk to sell me his car." It hadn't been easy. The man insisted on being paid a lot more than the vehicle had been worth, but he'd been desperate.
Thinking back, Cara vaguely recalled seeing an old, rusting jalopy parked in front of the motel office. It hadn't looked as if it could even run.
"You're kidding."
She was smirking. He didn't particularly like being the source of her amusement.
"I'm here, aren't I?" He had a question of his own for her. "Now you tell me how you managed to get my car started without my keys?"
She shrugged carelessly. That had been a lot simpler than sneaking out of the room with all her things. She'd held her breath the entire time, positive that Ryker would wake up and stop her before she managed to get out the door.
"I hot-wired it, only to discover a second set, deep in the folds of the seat cushion."
"I thought I lost those keys," Max muttered. "I even had a second set made."
"Where the hell did you learn to hot-wire cars?"
She supposed it did no harm to tell him. "During my nomadic childhood, I lived with the family of an auto mechanic. He showed me a few things that he thought might come in handy. How to tune up a car, how to jump-start it if the battery's dead—"
"How to hot-wire it if you can't steal the keys, too." The whole story sounded incredible. He had a feeling she was lying to him on principle.
"No, he thought showing me how to hot-wire a car would come in handy if I lost my keys," she corrected. Realizing she'd turned her eyes away from Weber, she looked back and saw that the man was inching his way over to a chair. She cocked the hammer of her gun, aiming it directly at his heart. "Don't even think about it. On your knees, Weber," she ordered.
Holstering his gun, Max took out his handcuffs, but Cara beat him to it and slapped her own cuffs on Weber. Slipping them on Weber's wrists, she tested their integrity before stepping back.
"I'm impressed," Max said to Cara.
She couldn't quite gauge by his tone if he was mocking her or not, but it didn't matter. "Just stay out of my way."
Max loomed over her. She might be clever, but if she thought he was backing off, she was also very naive. "Afraid I can't do that."
Her brows narrowed. "And I'm afraid you have no choice. He's my prisoner, not yours, and he's going back to Shady Rock. I need that ten thousand dollars."
She kept throwing that number around. "What ten thousand?" he wanted to know.
"The ten thousand dollars bounty that Phil Sanford is willing to pay for his safe return before the trial. Phil stands to lose a lot of money if I don't get this scum back in time." She looked at Weber. "Get on your feet," she ordered. "Now." Cursing her ancestry and her soul, Weber rose. "Like you're doing this for the fun of it," she jeered, glancing at Max.
"I'm doing it because I made a promise."
She didn't know if he was serious or not, but his reasons didn't really interest her. Only the ten thousand did. "And I'm doing it because that ten thousand dollars means an awful lot to someone I care a great deal about. To her, it's the difference between life and death."
She was pulling his leg, he thought, trying to play on his sympathies. But the look in her eyes was so sincere, he wasn't sure. What he did know was that arguing over this was wasting precious time.
"All right then, let's go."
She made no move to go. "You're not coming with me."
"The hell I'm not."
The next thing he knew, she was pointing the gun at him.
Chapter 8
"No," she said very evenly. "You're not. I'm not about to take a chance on losing him again. Weber has a date with the sheriff in Shady Rock and that's where we're going. Without you."
Though he'd raised his hands to placate her, Max was certain that Cara wouldn't pull the trigger. He'd looked down more than one gun barrel in his lifetime and was a fairly good judge when it came to the person who trained the weapon on him.
It wasn't that he thought the woman holding the gun was all talk and no action, he already had proof of the contrary. But he also felt that she wasn't a cold-blooded killer.
His eyes met hers. "You don't have a car," he pointed out calmly.
Damn it, why did he have to keep showing up and messing everything up? If not for him, she would have had Weber in her custody over two days ago.
"I have yours."
Max lowered his arms slowly, though he didn't move forward. Just in case he was wrong.
"One step away from grand theft, auto," he reminded her. "And I think you probably know that the police have no soft spot in their hearts when it comes to bounty hunters."
Her mouth curved disdainfully. "Oh, like they're completely enamored with private detectives."
He lifted one shoulder, letting it drop carelessly. Watching Weber on the floor, Max continued to keep a respectful distance from her weapon. "I don't need the police to be enamored with me. I'm not the one who stole a car."
She blew out a breath. Ryker probably hadn't had time to file a report anywhere, but that was his registration in the car. All he had to do was get on the phone and report his car stolen. She didn't have time to take an indirect route back to Shady Rock, she had a deadline to beat. If Weber wasn't in court in three days, the bondsman forfeited his bail and she lost the ten thousand.
Cara glared at him. "I can rent another one."
"That's going to take time. And you have a prisoner in tow. That doesn't exactly make a rental agency eager to do business with you. Why go through the hassle? And one more thing," he said as she began to respond. "You know if you walk out that door, I'm going to follow you. You might as well have me next to you where you can keep an eye on me than turning around and looking over your shoulder all the time."
Max looked contemptuously at the man on the floor. If the man's real name was Weber, then he was the Easter Bunny.
"Besides, with this one, it wouldn't hurt to have two sets of eyes watching him. He looks like the kind who'll slit your throat if you let your guard down even fora minute."
Cara took a deep breath. He was right. On several counts. But she still didn't feel easy about the arrangement. And she questioned his reasons.
"Why would you do anything for me?" she wanted to know.
"Not for you," Max said honestly, "but for a fellow human being. I hate to see a life wasted." And after looking into Weber's eyes, there was no doubt in his mind that the man could kill as easily as he could breathe, with no compunction whatsoever. "Besides, maybe I can talk some sense into your sheriff and get Weber released to me—since you won't listen to reason."
"Once Weber is behind bars and I get my ten thousand, I don't care if you go dancing with the sheriff—or Weber," she added.
Cara chewed on her lower lip, debating. What Ryker said made sense she supposed. But if the tables were turned and she talked him into letting her come along, she knew she'd try to get Weber away the first moment the opportunity presented itself. It didn't matter that she was beginning to be really attracted to the guy. Another time and another place, if things were different... But they weren't. The bottom line was that, handsome or not, Max was the competition, if not the enemy. She was going to have to be on her toes.
"Okay, Ryker, you can come along. But just as long as we're clear on one fact: You try to take him from me and I will shoot you."
He lowered his eyes to her weapon, then raised them again to hers.
"I never doubted it for a second." Passing Cara, he reached over and grabbed Weber by the arm, dragging him up. The gun in his other hand was a silent warning to the man not to try anything. "On your feet, scum." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cara cross to the phone an
d pick it up. "Who are you calling?"
She held up her hand for him to be quiet as she heard someone on the other end pick up.
"Front desk? Room 618 is checking out. Quickly. Just put the tab on his credit card." Hanging up, she saw the questioning look on Max's face. "I hate loose ends. Why not let them know that he wasn't going to be here? Someone else can use this room." And then she grinned. "Aren't credit cards wonderful?"
She knew that Ryker had to have tracked Weber here the same way she had, by the man's unwitting use of his credit card. Pausing to raise her skirt, she holstered her weapon, not unaware that Ryker was watching her every move and that there was an appreciative look in his eyes.
She had to admit that, in part, she was playing up to it.
Lowering her leg, she adjusted her skirt, allowing it to fall back into place. There was an amused smile on her face.
"Careful, Ryker, or your eyes are going to fall out of your head."
It was beyond him how she could move so fluidly under the circumstances. He couldn't picture moving around with a gun between his legs.
"Doesn't it chafe that way?"
The question almost made her laugh. "Let me worry about that."
To his surprise, she took out her key and unlocked one of the handcuffs on Weber's wrist.
Had she changed her mind about leaving? "What are you doing?"
As Max watched, she snapped the cuff on her own wrist. "Making sure that Weber doesn't go anywhere without me." She looked at Max innocently. "Ready? Let's go."
Before he could say anything, she passed him and went out the door, pushing Weber out before her.
They made an unsettling trio walking through the lobby, the woman in white handcuffed to the thin, well-dressed man in gray, with the tall, dark, solemn-faced man flanking him on the other side. They garnered more than their share of stares as they made their way to the front entrance.
Bypassing the revolving door, they took the regular one, going through it single file. The man in the gray suit was between them.
Once outside the entrance, Cara produced a ticket from her purse and handed it to Max.