by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
But now all he thought about was the peace he'd felt then, looking back at the ranch from this spot. He remembered thinking he could make a good life here, even if he never remembered. But he had remembered, and while it had given him back what he'd lost, it had taken away what he'd gained in the interim.
A small column of smoke rose from the chimney, and another from the flue of the woodstove that warmed the kitchen. It gave the place a welcoming feel. Hearth and home, Jessie had called it. And he realized that Jessie and this place were so intertwined that it mattered little which was the source of that peace.
He thought of what life would have been like for Joe, coming home to this every night. Nothing more complicated to worry about than the range and the animals and beating a storm home. Knowing a warm, loving woman would be working right alongside you. And with the thought of warm, loving nights to get you through the days.
But instead, here he was, a man out of place. Prince Lucas Sebastiani, with a kingdom as his birthright, the media and paparazzi as his constant companions, and the fate of his people someday in his hands.
He wondered wearily if perhaps he hadn't been luckier as Joe.
* * *
Despite her worry about the ranch, it was two days before Jessie could tear herself away from baby Luke long enough to even step outside.
She stood on the front porch, taking in the fresh morning air, looking out over the ranch land she loved. The Chambers ranch was and always had been a small but quality operation, raising mostly blooded cattle and horses for sale to other ranchers for improvement of their own stock. They'd done well with that approach, although there had been lean times, as any ranch had.
She made herself, just for these moments, let go of the tension that filled her. Luke was napping, the air was clear and inviting, and she needed this. After that nightmare time in that awful cellar, expecting Gerald to kill her at any time, and after mourning the baby she'd barely held, and the man she hadn't been able to hold at all, she needed this badly.
She walked to the main barn, taking a deep breath as she went in, savoring the familiar earthy smells of hay and grain and horses. She'd never realized how much she loved those smells. How much they meant home to her. So much seemed new, and more precious than ever because she'd come so close to never seeing, hearing or smelling it again.
As she walked the length of the barn, she stopped at each stall to greet the horse inside. Lucy, the little sorrel, tried to nip as usual. Buddy, the big pinto who had three times tossed Joe on his backside, nuzzled her so enthusiastically he nearly knocked her over.
And then she heard the familiar, demanding whinny that made her smile. Brat, her baby, the mare she'd raised since she'd been foaled seven years ago, was making her irritation widely known. How dare she, the horse's indignant vocalization seemed to say, come into the barn and greet those other horses first?
With a laughing apology to Buddy, she hurried to the end stall.
"I'm sorry, honey," Jessie crooned lovingly as she rubbed under the buckskin mare's jaw. The horse had a long, dramatic registered name derived from the names of her sire and dam, but it had quickly given way to the frequently used appellation she now answered to.
Brat snorted energetically, but wasn't quite ready to forgive her just yet. The horse eyed Jessie somewhat balefully until she tugged two sugar cubes out of her pocket and gave them to her. Forgiving her at last, Brat nudged her with a velvety nose.
"Have you been good?" Jessie asked as she patted the sleek neck. "Or have you been giving Barney a bad time?" She cringed just thinking what might have happened had not Barney kept the horses at his own small farm when Ursula had tried to sell them.
The mare blew gustily at her, nudging her again.
"You need a good grooming," Jessie said frankly, examining the mare's dusty and disheveled coat and mane. "I suppose you made it too difficult, Brat."
She would have wondered if the head wrangler had been slacking off if she didn't know his dedication to his job, and didn't know perfectly well that Brat made grooming a misery for anyone except her. If it wasn't for the animal's amazing intelligence and incredible cow sense—she'd taken the county championship her first year of cutting competition—she wouldn't be worth the trouble to many. But Jessie loved her sassy personality and her honey-and-black good looks, and the bond that had grown between them was something she treasured.
Jessie slid back the latch on the lower half of the stall door. Brat stamped a hoof as if to say "About time!" She danced eagerly as Jessie led her out of the stall.
Moments later she had the horse secured in the cross ties, and went to get her bucket of grooming tools. She'd have to begin with the curry comb, she thought, the mare had obviously found some mud to roll in somewhere.
She had one flank nearly free of dried mud when she heard the barn door slide open, followed by quickened footsteps. She looked up over Brat's back to see Lucas approaching. Glowering. Apparently at her.
"What do you think you're doing?"
His imperious tone irritated her. She looked from him to the horse to the tool in her hand with an exaggerated expression of puzzlement. "I think it's called grooming a horse."
He grimaced. "I can see that. Why?"
"Because it needs doing," she pointed out in exasperation, for the moment forgetting she was addressing royalty. "What is your problem?"
"My problem is that you're just out of the hospital and have no business riding a horse all over creation!"
She drew back slightly. He'd sounded almost irate at the thought. It was rather touching, really. "Riding. Grooming. Two different things."
"You weren't going riding?"
She shook her head. "I wasn't. I know I'm not ready. But she doesn't like anybody but me to groom her."
"I know."
She blinked. And suddenly remembered he did know—he'd seen her deal with the horse before, and had seen the frustration of the others who'd tried. How odd, she thought. She'd almost forgotten he was Joe, so completely had he changed.
Had he still been Joe, she would have assumed it was concern for her that had set him off. But this was Prince Lucas of Montebello, and she wasn't sure what his motivation was. She supposed he still felt something for her, although she wasn't sure what. He had come for her, after all, and had arranged all this.
And he'd brought her baby to her. That above all. For that alone, he deserved her thanks, and a bit more patience, she thought. No matter who he was now. But she was grateful when he left her alone with her horse. Brat, at least, didn't confuse her.
* * *
With this new resolution in her mind, Jessie spent the next few days concentrating on getting well. She didn't think she was as fragile as Lucas thought, and she soon realized her nurse was an ally. The woman departed after her assigned three days, telling Jessie to do as much—but only as much—as she felt like doing.
First she would walk, she decided, staying close to the house and barns. And on the second day of those walks, she got a wicked shock. She went to the small family graveyard, where her parents and grandparents had been laid to rest on the land they loved. She felt the need to be close to them, to pour out her fears and her confusion, as she had in the days after discovering she was pregnant with the child of a man who had already walked out on her.
As she stepped through the gate in the low, picket fence that surrounded the small plot, she was vaguely aware of something different, something wrong. But it wasn't until she walked to her parents' graves that she realized what it was.
There was a new grave next to theirs. A very new one, one the grass hadn't yet covered. Set at the head was a plain metal marker.
And on the marker was her name.
It gave her such a start she nearly screamed. This was a detail no one had told her, that they had carried the farce this far, to dig a grave for a body that didn't exist.
"Damn it, why didn't they get rid of that?"
Lucas's voice came from close behind her,
but she was so rattled by what she'd found she didn't even jump. His arms came around her and he turned her away from the eerily gruesome sight of her own grave. And for just that moment she let herself believe he meant it, that he was comforting her just as Joe would have. But it lasted only that moment as he held her then reality returned in a rush and she pulled away. He let her go and perversely, she didn't like that either.
In the days that followed, Jessie continued to take her walks, but she avoided going that way again. And as her strength grew, along with her restlessness, she decided to take that first ride. She couldn't resist the urge any longer. She needed to see for herself that everything was all right, that the ranch hadn't changed somehow during her absence.
There was nothing really physically wrong with her, she thought. It was exhaustion from her ordeal, coupled with being rundown after a birth with no medical care. But remembering Lucas's reaction last time, she announced her intention first.
"You're sure you're up to it?"
"I'm sure. I'm only going for a short while, the first time."
"I'll come with you."
"That's not necessary."
"It is for me." There was that imperious tone again, she thought. She didn't care for it.
"You don't need to."
"It's me or Lloyd, take your pick."
She frowned. "Look, I don't need an escort. All that's over now."
He started what she thought would have been a sharp retort, then stopped himself. And again she wondered what he'd been about to say.
"Then let me come because I want to," he said instead. "I've missed this place."
That, she thought, she could understand completely. "All right."
He seemed surprised by her easy capitulation. She knew she was a sucker for anyone who could understand her love for the ranch. A real sucker.
So as she saddled Brat and headed out, Lucas rode beside her on the big bay gelding he'd ridden as Joe. And for an afternoon she tried to pretend that nothing had changed, that the man beside her was still the man she'd fallen in love with all those months ago.
The man she still ached for, every night she spent alone. An ache that had come back full-force now that they were under the same roof.
But any time she looked at him straight-on, any time she saw his eyes, the illusion was shattered. This wasn't Joe, the man with no past, no ties, the man with the puzzled, haunted look in his eyes. This man knew exactly who he was, knew his place in his world.
Or his realm, she thought with silent irony. In the literal sense of the word, relating to kings. She still found it hard to believe. But she knew it was true. Unlike the quiet Joe, Lucas had a place in a bigger world—in fact, a place on the world stage. A stage where there was no role for a simple Colorado rancher.
It was Brat who warned her, her ears swiveling back, her tail swishing. Jessie turned, and as she'd half expected, saw the big bay approaching. Whenever she went out to ride, it seemed he came after her. She wondered if he was watching her, or if he just had everybody on the ranch reporting to him whenever she left the house.
Irritation flickered through her, but she was determined nothing would spoil today. She'd been waiting to make this particular ride since she'd arrived back at the ranch, and she wouldn't let her self-appointed keeper interfere. She wheeled Brat back around and continued on, and was honest enough to admit she'd just decided to take the much trickier shorter route, up the sheer side of the mesa on a trail narrow enough to have her scraping a stirrup on one side while her other foot hung out over space.
He kept up with her, of course. She hadn't really expected him not to; that hadn't even really been her intent.
Sometimes it seemed like her life had narrowed down to two things—her baby and his father. Every minute that wasn't taken up with Luke—which admittedly wasn't many—was taken up with battling her feelings for the man sleeping just across the hall.
She went very still as something struck her for the first time. Brat's head came up. The horse was incredibly sensitive to the slightest new tension in her body. She whispered a soothing word to the animal, but kept on thinking about what she had just realized. That unlike Joe, who had stayed in the bunkhouse even after they'd become lovers, Lucas—and his entire entourage—had moved into the house without any hesitation, or even asking her.
It wasn't really arrogance, or royal prerogative. It only made sense—he'd want to be close to Luke. And she couldn't deny she was glad to have all that help handy, she was still very new at this mothering business. But it just pounded home to her how things had changed, how Joe was just as gone as if he'd never really existed.
So why did she lie awake at night, listening for the slightest sound, not just from Luke's crib, but from the room across the hall? Why was she unable to sleep even after he'd gone to bed and silence descended on the house?
Why did she so often wake up from dreams that were a tangled mass of emotions, with the only constant being the hot, erotic images drawn up out of the depths of memory?
She shuddered, and Brat's head came up again. And again she spoke to the horse, and forced herself to turn her attention back to the rather precarious trail. She felt the buckskin's powerful muscles bunch as Brat prepared for the push up and over the rim of the mesa, and for a few seconds at least, she had room in her mind for nothing else.
Once she reached the flat of the plateau, she sent Brat to the east at a slow trot, glad to now have the task of searching the landscape to distract her. She knew from the sound of rolling pebbles and the swiveling of Brat's ears that the bay had just come over the rim. She didn't look back. Five minutes passed, then ten. Suddenly the buckskin's ears shot forward, and her head came up.
They're here, Jessie thought, that old excitement that never left her rising anew.
She reined the buckskin down to a walk, reached back and pulled a small pair of binoculars from her saddlebag, and intensified her visual searching. Still, it was a few minutes more before her human eyes picked up what the mare's sensitive ears and nose had already located.
She spotted the black colt first. The darkness of his coat stood out on the mesa long dried out by the summer sun and ready for the blanket of snow to come. Coming two now, he was bigger, stronger, and looked fat enough to make it through the winter, as long as he stayed healthy.
The black colt's mother looked good, as well, perhaps because this year there was no foal at her side. And there was the pinto, and the jug-headed bay, over there was the liver-chestnut filly—wait, did she have a foal? Jessie leaned forward, trying to see, and after a moment was sure; the three-year-old was now a mother. And over there—
She stopped her own thoughts as she spotted the stallion. He was a wiry, compact sorrel with a flaxen mane and tail, who made up for what he lacked in stature in sheer muscle and power and spirit. He was off to the north, atop a rise, watching over his small band. And in the moment she saw him, he became aware of her. His head came up sharply and he wheeled to face her, even from the distance of at least two hundred yards.
She lifted the binoculars to her eyes, unable to resist the lure of simply looking at this wildest of wild things. The magnification showed her the flared nostrils, the intense gaze, the sharp ears as the horse analyzed this new possible threat. His body showed the scars of many fights to maintain his leadership, but he was still young and strong, and likely to remain in charge for a while yet, unless he got hurt.
Usually she would have been up here several times already this year, and he'd be used to her by now. Still, he should know he didn't need to fear this familiar and harmless intruder in his domain.
She frowned as the horse stomped one forefoot, then wheeled and raced down the rise, trumpeting his warning to his band, sending them racing away. And then she realized what she had forgotten in the joy of seeing the wild ones again—she wasn't alone.
When Lucas rode up beside her, she was just irritated enough that his presence had sent the wild ones running to take it out on him.
But the moment she looked at him, saw the wonder on his face, she bit back the words.
"Wild horses?" he asked, his tone full of an awe that went a long way toward making her forgive him for his intrusion on what was normally a special, private time for her. "Is that what they were, real mustangs?"
"Yes," she said, realizing she'd never shown Joe this. They'd been too busy with... other things. "They've been up here on the mesa for a long time now," she finished hastily.
"I've seen film, but to see them in the flesh...."
His voice trailed off as he looked wistfully after the vanishing herd. And she forgave him completely, because she could see he felt just as she did.
"I come up every year to see how they're doing, if they need supplemental feeding before winter. They look good this year. And they only lost a couple."
"Lost?"
She nodded. "The old white mare, and a three-year-old colt. She may have died naturally, and the colt may have been driven away by the stallion."
"May have?"
"Or they may have been shot, or poisoned."
He blinked. "What?"
"A lot of ranchers hate them. Think they take up range and graze that should go to cattle. A lot of them aren't above doing a little thinning of their own. Some of them would like to just kill them all."
"I can't believe that," Lucas said, shaking his head.
"It's their livelihood that's being affected. They've got families to feed, and since ranching isn't exactly the most profitable venture these days, they can't afford to cut any slack for anything but their moneymakers, which are the cattle. I understand. I don't agree, I think the horses are too precious to destroy, but I understand where they're coming from."