by Cindy Gerard
While Matt, Aaron and Ben were assigned to safeguard the women, Dakota, retired air force, had been designated to keep an eye on the activities of the two investigators.
“They’re way too shady for my taste.” Dakota pulled out a chair. Propping a booted foot on the seat, he folded his forearms over his knee. “I’ve been running a background check but so far I’ve got zilch. Until something turns up, we’ve got nothing but what they say they are.”
What they said they were was investigators sent by the Asterland government to explore every avenue concerning the jet’s malfunction that had led to the crash. What all five men suspected, however, was that Yungst and Johannes were actually searching for the red diamond and the two jewels Justin had recovered at the crash site.
“Tell them about your conversation with Gretchen, Matt.”
Matt quickly explained that when he and Aaron had stopped at the diner, he’d run into Gretchen Hansen, a nurse at Royal Memorial.
“She’d done a rotation in the burn unit when Helena was hospitalized and remembered seeing me in the halls. She evidently made an assumption that I knew where Helena was because she asked about her. Then she went on to tell me that Robert Klimt had come out of his coma a day or so ago but that he wasn’t doing all that well.”
“Klimt’s out of the coma? That’s news,” Dakota said with a frown in Justin’s direction.
“Hey—I’ve been busy,” Justin said defensively. “I hadn’t heard.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Matt dismissed Justin’s concern as inconsequential. “Besides, Gretchen had all the scoop—she’s one very observant lady. She’d actually been in Klimt’s hospital room when a news report aired about the crash and the continuing investigation. She said Klimt had gone as white as the bedsheets when he’d seen the report on TV. Then his blood pressure, which, according to Gretchen is still very unstable, went haywire.”
“Could have been a post-traumatic reaction,” Justin speculated. “Seeing the report would have brought it all back to him pretty graphically.”
“You’re right. It could have been,” Aaron agreed. “It also could have meant that it made him nervous as hell. Like maybe he had something to hide?” He dangled the notion like bait.
“Klimt? I thought he was a member of King Bertram’s cabinet,” Ben said. “What would he have to be nervous about?”
“Nothing,” Matt agreed, “if he was a trusted member of the Asterlander king’s cabinet. If he wasn’t…” He let the thought trail off.
“Then add to the mix the fact that Yungst and Johannes were pretty adamant about seeing him as soon as he recovered,” Aaron pointed out.
“Yeah, but that would probably follow,” Dakota reasoned aloud.
“Agreed, but would it also follow that they tossed around all kinds of threats about diplomatic immunity and strained political relations when Klimt’s doctor wouldn’t let them talk to him?” Matt looked from one grim face to the other. He could see their suspicions about Klimt taking root.
“Ramsey’s his neurologist,” Justin said, his brows drawn together in thought. “If he wouldn’t let the boys see Klimt, it’s because he considers his condition guarded. He must be too weak to be interviewed.”
Matt nodded. “That would line up with what Gretchen said. At times, Klimt doesn’t appear to know his own name, let alone remember any crash details.”
“So,” Dakota’s foot hit the floor as he turned the chair around and braced his palms on its back. “Where does this leave us?”
Aaron, as ever thoughtful and pragmatic, restated the rumors he’d heard from fellow diplomats about the possibility of a revolution brewing in Asterland. As one, they all agreed that their growing suspicion that the jewels might have been stolen to fund it was starting to look like more than conjecture.
“You do realize,” Ben said stoically, his eyes contemplative beneath his dark brows, “if that jet had not experienced a malfunction, we never would have connected Riley Monroe’s murder and the theft of the jewels to the revolution.”
“If there’s a revolution. In any event, it’s looking like a trip to Asterland is becoming more of a probability than a possibility,” Justin added with a thoughtful look toward Dakota. “Has any one gotten hold of Kathy yet?”
Dakota’s expression closed off at the mention of his estranged wife, but not before they’d all seen his initial reaction. That there was pain and unfinished business between Dakota and Kathy Lewis was apparent to every man in the room. That Kathy Lewis was the perfect foreign affairs specialist for the job since she was highly trusted by the Asterland royal court was the reason she would be called in on this mission. That it would be anyone but Dakota who would accompany her was not up for discussion. He was the first choice. The only choice.
Aaron cleared his throat diplomatically. “We’re working on it, but we’ve got a few fish to fry before it comes to firming up a trip to Asterland. We’ve got to find the missing diamond. And we’ve got to find Riley’s murderer.”
Matt nodded, the mention of the murder renewing his concern about Helena. “Until we do, Helena and Jamie are still at risk.”
“And so, if the legend is accurate, is Royal’s prosperity,” Dakota added grimly, his face carefully blank of emotion.
“I’ve got to go see about Helena,” Matt said, rising quickly from the table. All four men studied him with an open speculation he chose to ignore. “Keep your eyes open and your backs covered, gentlemen,” he added, as they made promises to keep each other abreast of any new developments as they happened.
“So,” Matt said as he followed Ben toward the door. “How’s that little gelding working out for you?”
Matt had sold Ben the spirited sorrel along with two bay mares last fall when Ben had decided to add quarter horses to his Appaloosa program.
“I am starting to become a believer,” Ben admitted.
“Never doubted for a minute that you would.”
“I knew the two of you couldn’t get out of here without talking a little horseflesh.” This from Dakota who was already heading out the door and into the hall.
“What can I say?” Matt grinned. “We are, after all, in Texas.”
As they entered the main salon, the men all sobered as, one by one, they looked toward the plaque above the door that only they knew temporarily hid the opal and the emerald, two of the Lone Star jewels.
Leadership. Justice. Peace. The three words carved into the plaque represented all that the club members held sacred. The stones represented all that made Royal prosper. And Matt was all too aware that until the diamond was reunited with the other two jewels, both Royal’s future and Helena’s remained at risk.
Aaron’s black sedan was idling softly when Matt, with a disquietingly silent Helena at his side, slipped out the back door of the clinic. Aaron was already behind the wheel with Pamela in front beside him. Matt had just got Helena settled comfortably in the back seat when a brown four-door pulled into the parking lot, purposely blocking them in.
Aaron was out of the car in an instant, his expression grim as he moved to stand beside Matt. Both men braced for battle as Milo Yungst and Garth Johannes stepped out of the rental car and walked toward them.
“You’re blocking our way, gentlemen,” Matt said in a deceptively conversational tone as he squared off with the two men. Yungst, an Ichabod Crane look-alike, was tall and gangly with a head full of springy, wiry curls framing a long, angular face. In contrast, Johannes was as squat and stocky as a brick, his brown hair slicked back with about a gallon of cooking oil. Matt had disliked both of them the first time he’d seen them. Since then, nothing had happened to change his mind.
“Now, I’m willing to allow that it wasn’t your intent,” he said, his tone clearly conveying that he thought no such thing, “so what say you just get back in the car and we’ll all be on our way?”
“Begging your pardon,” this from Yungst, his protruding Adam’s apple bobbing in his long, pencil-thin neck, “but we ha
ve business with Lady Reichard.”
“Not today, you don’t,” Matt said stiffly, his eyes hard, his entire body tense. “Now move it, before I forget that my mother raised me to be a gentleman.”
“We ask only a few moments of her time.” Johannes, his beefy neck bulging over the top of his too-tight collar, his face gone red with burgeoning anger, attempted to look amicable. “We just need to hear from her, get her account of the emergency landing. To add her perspective to the others we have already interviewed.”
“Interviewed?” Matt made no attempt to hide the venom in his voice. “Is that what you call your interrogations these days? Sorry, but, no dice. The lady is not getting grilled by you today.”
“Grilled? Interrogation? Oh, but no. We merely wish to speak to her.”
“Not today.”
“But—”
“I said,” Matt took a menacing step toward the duo, “this is not going to happen today.”
Aaron moved up beside him, gripped Matt’s arm as if holding him back, effectively playing good cop to Matt’s bad cop. “This might be a good time to say good day, boys. He’s starting to get upset. You really don’t want to stick around to see that.”
Yungst glanced at Johannes, hesitated for a moment, then grudgingly bowed his head. “Very well.” He reached into his hip pocket, fished out his wallet and withdrew a card. He handed it to Matt. “My cell-phone number. Please ask the lady to contact me when she feels capable of answering a few questions.”
Without looking at the card, Matt tucked it in his shirt pocket. “Yeah, sure. I’ll put that right at the top of my todo list.”
With a long, dark look, the two investigators from Asterland turned, got back in their car and drove away.
Matt grinned at Aaron as they watched them go. “How many Texans does it take to scare off a pug and a poodle?” he asked, recalling Justin’s apt description of the pair.
“Two,” Aaron answered, a smile hooking one corner of his mouth. “One with the disposition of a Doberman and one who looks like he’s ready to yell sic ’em.”
“What did they want?” Pamela asked when the men had settled in the car.
“They wanted to talk to Helena.”
For the first time since Matt had gone in to find her waiting for him, Helena showed some animation—and maybe a little apprehension. “Me? Are they with the press?”
Matt watched her face. “No. They’re from Asterland.” When her brows furrowed, he explained. “They’ve been here for a little over a month now, investigating the circumstances surrounding the emergency landing.”
She glanced from Matt to Aaron. “Investigating?”
“Sort of the Asterlander version of the FAA,” Aaron supplied evasively.
“I don’t understand. I thought the cause of the crash had been determined. That it was a system malfunction of some sort.”
Matt met Aaron’s gaze in the rearview mirror. A silent agreement passed between them to continue to keep Helena in the dark regarding their suspicions about the two men. “That’s true,” he hedged. “I guess they don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”
“Well, they give me the creeps,” Pamela said with a shudder.
Helena looked thoughtful. “The one—the tall one. He seems familiar, somehow.”
Matt was instantly alert. “Familiar?”
She shook her head, looked out the window. “I don’t know. There’s something about him. I can’t pinpoint it. Maybe he just has one of those faces.”
Yeah, maybe, Matt thought, but somehow, he didn’t think that was the case.
“Why didn’t you want me to speak to them, Matthew?”
“Because I don’t like them,” he stated with a tight smile. “And I don’t like their methods. Besides, I think your day has been full enough, don’t you?”
She closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the headrest. “Yes,” she said softly, and with so much defeat, he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her. Just hold her.
This was not good. What he’d felt when he’d squared off with those two thugs had bordered on predatory. He was not prone to violence, but nothing would have pleased him more than to have shoved a fist into either or both of their ugly faces. He’d overreacted. He’d known it then. He knew it now.
Just as he was overreacting to the look of her. She was pale. She looked fragile and so very vulnerable. Nothing like the aristocratic diva who had graced his table last night with her wide, winning smiles and sparkling wit. As much as he’d enjoyed that woman, as much as he’d wondered what made her tick, he struggled with the gnawing feeling that this woman was the real Helena Reichard and the other was merely a caricature of her true self. Or perhaps they met somewhere in the middle.
No matter. Neither woman was for him. Not now. Not ever.
So why did he feel like he was lying to himself? And why did he feel that he needed to be the one to help her find the common ground between the two?
Grim-faced, Matt watched Helena do little more than shove her food around on her plate later that evening. He was still upset over Yungst and Johannes turning up at the clinic today. He was more upset about the way Helena was acting. “You’re very quiet tonight.”
They were alone in the dining room. The wine was chilled. So was the conversation.
She’d chosen a pale blue silk pullover sweater tonight. It matched her long, flowing silk skirt. It matched the lovely eyes that he’d been so carefully watching. Eyes that she worked so hard to keep from connecting with his.
She made an attempt to smile, but he could see that her heart wasn’t in it. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company, am I? I must be more tired than I had thought.”
“Tired? Yes. And perhaps disappointed with what your doctors had to say today?”
Her startled gaze flashed to his, then away. She blinked, then went back to nudging her food around with her fork, responding to his question with a silence that did very little to guard her uncertainty.
He wasn’t sure why he’d knocked on that door. Or maybe he was. He’d gone out on the Web today while she’d rested and searched for information about her. He shouldn’t have done it, but he had, and now he knew more about her than he’d wanted to know—and still he didn’t know enough.
Dammit, he hadn’t wanted to get more deeply involved with her. It wasn’t smart. It sure as hell hadn’t been on his agenda. And yet, now that the question was out there, he knew he wasn’t going to back away. She was suffering, and the pain from her injuries was merely the starting point.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he prodded gently.
She set down the fork, leaned back in her chair and looked at her hands. When she looked up again, her Lady Invincible face was back in place. “Do you think I could learn to drive Lois’s golf cart?” she asked in a bright-eyed attempt to evade his questions. “I would so love to browse around the horse barns, but I don’t want to bother you. Even though the doctor removed my cast for good today, I’m not sure I could walk that far yet.
“That little chestnut filly,” she went on, the animation in her voice not reaching her eyes as she carefully avoided meeting his, “how I’d love to get a better look at her.”
Matt listened to her perfect imitation of a carefree prima donna and knew he couldn’t let her get by with it any longer. He still wasn’t sure when he’d let it get to him, but it was damn near killing him to witness her denial-by-silence that her injuries hadn’t affected her life; he couldn’t imagine what that denial was doing to her. The thought of the emotional damage she might be doing by refusing to acknowledge or deal with her pain and her new limitations pushed him the final leg home.
“Sure,” he said, his voice flat, his expression hard. And right or wrong, wise or foolish, he took the leap and charged into the game like a quarterback calling audibles at the line of scrimmage. “I can teach you to drive the cart. For a price.”
She blinked at him. The surprise in her eyes was real, but the playful smil
e she quickly glued in place was clearly a fabrication. “A price now, is it?”
He nodded. “A big one. Very high ticket.”
She studied his face then grew silent, as if she suddenly understood what he was about to ask of her and didn’t want to play anymore.
“Perhaps we will talk about this tomorrow,” she suggested, her expression carefully guarded as she touched her napkin to the corner of her mouth then laid it beside her plate. “I find I’m actually quite weary.”
“Not tomorrow.” Ignoring the slight trembling of her hand, he made himself press her. “Now.”
After she got past the astonishment at his response, a practiced moue and a little shake of her head relayed what she wanted him to see. Tolerant distaste and one-hundred-fifty-percent avoidance. “Really, Matthew. It does not become you—this sudden lack of gallantry.”
“Like your scars don’t become you?”
The silence of her shock fell like an anvil.
Long, stunned moments passed before her gaze searched his, dazed and hurt. And then, the panic set in. He watched it spread across her face like a bad dream.
Looking cornered and ready to run, she somehow managed to maintain control as she shoved back from the table.
“No.” He gripped the arms of her chair and stopped her when she would have stood and left the room. “You need to talk about this.”
Incensed and pale, she met his eyes. “I will not talk about it.”
She was trembling with the effort to hide the fear.
“Helena,” he said softly.
Wild eyes met his and whatever she saw there made her go utterly still. All the fight seemed to drain out of her. Only her breathing, shallow and rapid, taxed the edgy silence as she stared at a point past his shoulder. And still she held her silence.
“Talk to me, Helena. Tell me. Tell me what happened today that upset you.”
She closed her eyes, but not before a tear welled up, spilled over and trickled slowly down her cheek.
Oh, man. He felt like a hand had punched through his ribs and fisted around his heart. But he wasn’t backing off. She needed to vent. She needed to let it out. No matter how much of a bully he felt like at the moment, he wasn’t going to let her run away from her feelings.