by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
"You'll get your money once the king is finished with him." Provided, he added silently, that it was really that simple. If Weber had had anything to do with the crown prince of Montebello' s plane crash and disappearance, the king would never be finished with him. "You have my word."
"I don't want your word," she informed him tersely, "I want the money." She looked at the sheriff. "I need it now, Sheriff, and if you don't sign those papers, I won't be getting it. There's a time factor involved. Weber has to be back before tomorrow, noon, otherwise, I forfeit the bounty. Well, he's here. Any deal you make with the duke here is between you, him, the court and the bail bondsman." Her tone indicated that she wasn't about to be drawn into the discussion, or budge from her stand. "Now process the papers for me so I can see Phil about the reward and we'll call it a day."
Faced with this dilemma, the sheriff knew he couldn't just take the high road or proceed the way he would have wanted to. There were rules to follow, even if he didn't like it. Ruffling a foreign government's feathers was not something he was about to undertake.
"Can't do that, Cara."
Max saw thunder in her eyes.
"Wait, I have an idea," he interjected quickly.
She'd just bet he did.
Chapter 12
Max started to take her arm in order to lead her off to the side, but Cara shrugged him away. Her eyes were cold when she looked at him.
"You can talk without manhandling me."
What the hell was she talking about? "Rivers, I'm just trying to take you aside."
"Fine."
Cara moved to the side of the room of her own volition. She didn't want him touching her, didn't want to run any risk of being swayed by the mere pressure of his hand. He'd already done too much damage to her last night as it was.
Part of her had actually begun to believe he was a good guy, and then he pulled this stunt on her. She should have known he was no different than the rest. Ryker, or whatever he called himself, was just setting her up.
Well, if he thought she was going to bow down before his wishes like some little dandelion in the wind, he was in for a shock.
Cara glared as she swung around to face him. "Talk," she ordered.
A man could get frostbite from a glare like that. Maybe he had it coming, Max thought. "I'll write you a check for the ten thousand."
Whatever she expected him to say, it wasn't this. "You'll do what?"
"Write you a check for the ten thousand," Max repeated.
She didn't believe him. This had to be a trick, a set-up of some kind. "In what? Montebellan Monopoly money?"
He laughed shortly. "We don't have Monopoly over there and the check will be payable in American money. I have a bank account in Los Angeles."
Some of her anger abated as she tried to make sense of the offer. "Why would you do that?"
It was the look in her eyes that did it, but he knew saying that would only have him falling into a fresh cauldron of trouble. In the interest of peace, he grasped at the most logical explanation.
"Because you did catch Weber fair and square and because I don't have the time to argue over this. The sooner I get him to Montebello, the sooner I can return him."
If, indeed, he could return him, Max added silently. More than likely, the crimes that "Weber" had committed in Montebello were more heinous than the one he was charged with in the U.S. Then he knew he wouldn't be able to return Weber. And even if he could return the man, as Rivers had already pointed out, if she didn't have Weber in jail by tomorrow morning, she wasn't eligible to collect the bounty. Since the money seemed to mean so much to her, it was only fair that she should get it.
There was still suspicion in her eyes, as if she was waiting for him to spring something on her. "You'd do that?"
"Yes."
She didn't know of anyone who had that kind of money to throw around just because they felt guilty about what they were doing.
"If you're that well-off, what are you doing playing private eye—" Her eyes narrowed. "Or was that a lie, too?"
"No, that wasn't a fabrication." He deliberately avoided the word lie. "I am a licensed private investigator." Max reached for his wallet. "I can show you my license."
She waved him away. If the man was a good liar, he would have covered that base as well. Besides, she didn't need to see anything, bogus or authentic. What mattered was the bounty, or its equal.
"All right, I'll take the check." Cara fixed him with a warning look. "And if it bounces, I'll hunt you down and you know I can do that."
The grin was spontaneous. "Yes, I know you can do that."
Max turned back to the sheriff, who watched them calmly. His secretary made enough fuss for both of them. Leaning over to hear as much of the conversation between him and Rivers as she could, Alice looked as if she were in danger of falling.
"All right, Sheriff, we've come to an agreement. I'll have the proper authorities notify you regarding the legalities concerning transferring custody of the prisoner to Montebello. I'll be taking him back with me."
The sheriff nodded. "Fine. Send your paperwork so that the lawyers and whoever'll be satisfied. As for me, I've got only one stipulation, Duke." He grinned. "Makes me feel like I'm talking to John Wayne. They called him the Duke, you know."
Max nodded. "So I've heard. What's your stipulation?"
The soft brown eyes shifted toward Cara. "That she goes with you to Montebello."
Max stared at the sheriff, stunned. "What?"
Alice looked on wistfully, wishing that there was some reason that she could be sent along instead, or at least as well.
Cara's mouth dropped open. There was no way she wanted to go anywhere with this man, much less leave the country. As far as she was concerned, her job was done. "Me?"
"Yes, you." He'd been sheriff long enough to know an argument when he saw one coming and wouldn't let her protest until he said his piece. "I want that guy back to pay for what he did here. The man tried to break into the Chambers' ranch house. We can't have things like that going on. Things like that have got to be made right. Now, we may look like some backwater hick place to you, Duke, but backwater or not, we've got rules. One of those rules is that if you do something wrong, you're going to have to pay for it. Now Cara here's the one person that I know'll bring him back once the smoke clears." He smiled at Cara, meaning every word as a compliment. "She's like a pit bull."
She frowned. She'd had better compliments in her time. "Thank you."
The sheriff saw nothing wrong in his assessment. "Don't mention it." He motioned to the cell phone that Max had just taken out of his pocket. "Now, you conclude your business any way you feel you have to, but if Cara doesn't go with you to that place of yours, neither does Weber." To get his point across, he adjusted his gun belt. "And I am the law here."
Max paused for a moment, thinking. This put a new wrinkle in things. But none that he felt particularly alarmed over. He glanced at Cara. The woman, he noted, didn't exactly looked ecstatic at the turn of events.
"It's all right with me if it's all right with Rivers."
Oh, no, he wasn't going to put this on her shoulders. She didn't want to go with him, especially after he'd neglected to mention some important facts about his identity. But if he thought she was going to go hide in some corner with hurt feelings, or let him get away with Weber, well, surprise. She wasn't.
"I don't see where I have much choice in the matter," she said slowly, "seeing as how I'm beholden" to the sheriff."
It was the sheriff, at the behest of Bridgette, who he had a great deal of respect for, who had gotten her the job with Phil in the first place. On his own, Phil would have never taken her seriously as a bounty hunter. "All right, write that check, Ryker, excuse me, Duke," she corrected sarcastically. "I just need enough time to see someone just outside of town and then I'm ready to go wherever I have to."
Digging into his pocket, Max took out his checkbook. "Shall I make it out to you?" It was a rhetorical ques
tion. He'd fully expected her to say yes as he reached for a pen on the sheriff's desk. Alice quickly thrust her own pen into his hand, accompanied with a wistful smile. "Thank you."
Alice sighed.
"No," Cara said just as he was about to start writing. They were pressed for time. If it was in her name, she would have to deposit it before she could write a comparable check for Bridgette. "Make it out to Bridgette Applegate."
Max looked at her. "Who?"
"Never mind who." Cara pointed to the opened checkbook. "Just do it." She gave Max the proper spelling of the nurse's first name, aware that the sheriff was looking at her.
Bryce beamed at her as he squeezed her shoulder. "That's a mighty decent thing you're doing, Cara."
She shrugged as Max tore the check off and handed it to her. Folding it, she placed it into her own wallet, then stuffed it into her back pocket.
"I owe Bridgette more than this." She looked at Max. There was curiosity in his eyes, but that was his problem, not hers. She didn't have to bare her soul to him any more than she already had. "You do what you have to do. I'll be back soon."
To her surprise and dismay, Max shook his head. "The plane can't be here before morning."
She'd thought they were going to drive to the Denver airport. He made it sound as if something was coming to their doorstep. "Plane?"
"Montebello is next to Cyprus," he told her. "It takes time for a plane to get here."
"You have your own plane." Even as she said it, she realized it was no longer a question, just a clarification. Just how rich were dukes in this countrylet of his? "Why am I not surprised?"
"It's my uncle's plane," Max explained. "I just know he wouldn't want the prisoner flown back via a commercial airline."
"Heaven forbid he or you be subjected to airline food."
"I was thinking more along the lines that Weber might try to escape and my uncle wouldn't want to put innocent people in jeopardy."
Chagrined, she shrugged carelessly, looking away. "Whatever." Waving at the sheriff, she crossed to the front door.
Max shadowed her steps. "Mind if I tag along? Maybe, while we wait, you can show me the sights."
The only sight she wanted to show him at this moment was the back of a door—slamming in his face.
"You already saw most of them on the way in." Max accompanied her to the parked car. A car, she reminded herself, that was his. If she was going to make it to Bridgette's at a decent time, she needed a car. His. The reason she'd rented a car to begin with when she'd gone after Weber was that her own had been in an accident and she didn't have enough to cover the repairs for it yet. "Oh, all right, suit yourself."
He opened the passenger door. Since she knew where she was going and he didn't, he saw no point in being the one to drive.
"Warm invitation."
"You want warm?" she shot back, peeling out of the spot and making a complete one-eighty turn with a painful screech. "Get a sweater."
She'd all but thrown him into the driver's seat with that turn, but he said nothing. She needed to work this out of her system. He looked at the cell phone that was still in his hand, but held off calling his uncle. A few minutes one way or another wasn't going to matter.
Cara took another turn, sending him ricocheting to the other side despite his seat belt. If she wasn't careful, she was going to kill them both. "Did I miss something here? Why are you so angry?"
As if the idiot had to ask. Fuming, she tightened her hands on the wheel. "I don't like being lied to."
He'd been very careful there. "No one lied to you."
"Oh?" Where she came from, holding back pertinent information was as good as lying. "Then why didn't you tell me who you really were?"
"That's not lying," he pointed out, "that's just not talking about myself. Most women like men who don't go on about themselves."
He was playing with words. She bet he was good at that, Cara thought. But it would take a lot more than that to snow her. "There's a difference between bragging and saying, 'oh, excuse me, but when you cut me, I bleed blue blood."
Humor curved his mouth. He realized that intentionally or not, Cara made him smile a lot. "It's red."
Immersed in her anger, it took her a second to process what he'd just said. "What?"
"My blood," he clarified, "it's red."
Cara blew out a breath. He was doing it again. Duke or not, she was beginning to think of the man as a con artist, the kind that could twist out of any situation and fall into a mud puddle and come out smelling like a rose. "You know what I mean."
Yes, he knew what she meant. Max grew serious, wanting to clear the air once and for all. He was going to be flying with this woman and he didn't want her shooting daggers at him.
"Look, I wasn't lying to you, I was just trying to live a normal life."
What a crock. Couldn't he do any better than that? She spared him a long, disbelieving look. "And chasing after some lowlife for the king of Montebello is normal," she hooted.
It was all in the perspective. "More normal than being a duke. Besides, I don't use the title."
"Alice Groupie thinks you do."
He laughed at the nickname she'd just awarded the secretary. "My younger brother Lorenzo's the duke. I walked away from that life when my father died."
Turning down the block, she looked at him in mild surprise. "Why would you do that? Most people would kill to live that kind of life."
So he'd heard. The grass was always greener when you didn't have to walk through it.
"Most people have no idea what that kind of life is like." For her benefit, he gave her a minitour into his life. "It means being in a fishbowl, never having a private moment to yourself. It means having your every move under almost constant scrutiny. Photographers popping up out of bushes. Never
knowing if someone is talking to you or to your lineage." He frowned, remembering. Glad to have it all behind him. "There's nothing genuine about it."
Cara turned his words over in her head. He sounded so serious, she believed him. Maybe that made her a fool. She didn't know. With a short laugh, she shook her head. It was a small world. "So I guess in a way, you're a runaway, too."
Max's protest died before it was spoken. She was right. "I guess I am at that."
Who would have ever thought they actually had something in common? When she looked at him, there was a hint of a smile on her lips. A genuine one. "This is like the Prince and the Pauper, except that we don't look alike."
He thought of last night. "And the prince never made love to the pauper."
"No, I don't think the censors would have let Mark Twain get away with that." He could still be putting her on, but she didn't think so. "All right, I guess I see your point."
"Good." That out of the way, he looked at the lonely stretch of road before them. "So where are we going?"
"To see the woman who saved my life." Cara didn't have to look at him to know there was a question coming. The man knew too much about her as it was. "Don't you have a phone call to make?"
Way ahead of her, Max was already pressing numbers on the keypad.
Though it was the king's private line, he still had to go through his uncle's personal secretary, Albert, before he was allowed to speak to the man himself. Several minutes lapsed before he heard his uncle's voice. As succinctly as possible, Max filled him on the pertinent details. Leaving out the part about Cara coming along as well.
He could feel her looking at him, waiting for him to drop the bombshell. He kept it at bay.
"I knew I could count on you, Max." His uncle sounded well pleased. "I will have the plane ready to leave within the half hour. I've had it fueled up ever since I called you." There were few men whose abilities and integrity he trusted as implicitly as his oldest nephew's. "Once you arrive, you'll spend a few days with me at the palace, of course."
He hadn't gone into any of the conditions that came along with the extradition. That was best said face-to-face. Though he loved his uncle, he had
little desire to see his former homeland. But he couldn't very well refuse the invitation. Besides, he did have to take the prisoner back.
"Yes, of course." He paused. "Uncle, there're complications."
"Oh?"
Though this was not any dark secret, Max still hesitated elaborating even a little. The lines were not secure. "I'll explain when I get there."
Marcus sensed there was more than a minor problem involved. "But you are bringing Weber."
Weber. Again, he doubted that was truly the man's name, even though the Wanted poster Cara had shown him bore that alias.
"Yes, I'm bringing the man you sent me for."
Marcus appreciated the wording. His nephew was a smart man.
"Wonderful. Then I shall see you some time late tomorrow." There was a pause, and then the king said, "You've done well, Max."
Max wasn't all that sure if he deserved the king's praise when he terminated the connection.
Cara waited until she was sure the conversation was over. "You didn't tell him I was coming."
Max slipped the phone into his pocket. "You'll be a surprise."
"Great." Sarcasm dripped from her voice. "I love surprising people." They'd been traveling along a road that bordered a small farm. She drove toward the small, two-storied farmhouse. "Well, here we are." Turning off the engine, she pulled up the hand brake. "You can stay in the car if you like, this shouldn't take too long."
He was already getting out of the car. "All the same to you, I'd like to tag along."
Cara shook her head. "I was afraid you'd say that." She couldn't very well tell him not to, seeing as it was his car she'd used and his check in her purse. Resigned, she led the way to the door and rang the bell.
The sound of a dog barking in the background echoed back to them moments before the front door opened.
A frail-looking, gray-haired woman in a plain dress and sensible shoes stood behind the screen door. When she smiled, her face lit up. He liked her instantly.
"Hush, Brutus," she chided the old hound dog, "it's just Cara."
As Max looked on, the woman embraced Cara, then looked at him with bright blue eyes that glowed with unabashed interest. But, unlike the look on the sheriffs secretary's face, he didn't feel as if he was being invaded or his life breached.