An Officer and a Princess

by Carla Cassidy

  “I gathered that.” He motioned to the waitress for a refill of their coffee cups.

  “Shane’s funeral is at ten,” she said when the waitress had departed from their table. “We’ll take a taxi to the cemetery.”

  “Are you sure it’s wise we go?” he asked. “Surely some of the royal investigators will be there. We don’t want to be recognized.”

  She smiled and eyed him objectively. “I don’t think we have to worry about being recognized. I don’t look like me, and with all those whiskers you’ve sprouted, you don’t look like you.”

  What she couldn’t tell him was that she’d always found him exceedingly handsome, but with the dark shadows of whiskers on his cheeks and in the casual clothing that emphasized his muscular fitness, he nearly stole her breath away.

  “It’s important that we see who shows up at the funeral, Adam. The mastermind of the whole kidnapping scheme might be there,” she said, trying to stay focused.

  “I doubt it,” Adam replied and took a sip of his coffee. “Whoever is behind the scheme is far too smart to show up and publicly announce his ties to a fallen comrade.”

  Isabel sighed in discouragement. “You’re probably right. I just wish…I just desperately want to be the one to find Father.”

  “Isabel.” Adam reached across the small table and placed his hand on hers. “You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, especially not to your father.”

  Isabel frowned, finding his words surprising and his touch more than a little bit disturbing. She pulled her hand away. “You don’t know anything about my relationship with my father,” she protested. “And you better start practicing calling me Bella, not Isabel.”

  “I know how upset you were when he refused to allow you to continue your tour of duty with the navy.”

  “That was a long time ago,” she replied, not quite meeting his gaze. “I realize Father was only making the decision he thought best for me.”

  Although it was what she’d told herself over and over again, the pain of her father’s decision was still with her. She’d loved being in the military and it was the night her father had told her she couldn’t extend her tour of duty that she’d wept in Adam’s arms.

  As he’d held her on that night, attempting to console her, she’d realized she wasn’t sure if she’d wanted to remain in the navy for her career, or simply to continue being near Adam.

  It hadn’t mattered anyway, for on that night she’d raised her lips to him, and he’d turned away, telling her without actually saying the words that there was no future between them, that he had no personal feelings toward her.

  “You would have made a terrific intelligence officer,” Adam said softly.

  A burst of warmth swept through her at his words. “Thank you,” she said simply. But she cradled the words to her heart, knowing Adam wasn’t given to false compliments or platitudes.

  They lingered over their breakfast, as if reluctant to return to their cramped living space. As they drank more coffee, they spoke of inconsequential things…movies they’d seen, favorite music, people they both knew.

  There were moments when Adam’s eyes grew dark, deep with thought, and she wondered if he was thinking about his father. She hadn’t told him that when she’d called him home to help find the king, she’d assigned a task force of two of Edenbourg’s best investigators to dig deep into the disappearance of Adam’s father.

  Like Adam, she couldn’t believe the highly decorated retired Admiral Jonathon Sinclair had sold out and disappeared from Edenbourg along with a fighter plane prototype worth billions of dollars and priceless in high-tech applications.

  At nine-thirty, they left the café and grabbed a taxi to take them to the cemetery where Shane Moore would be laid to rest. They asked the driver to wait there until they were ready to leave.

  At the cemetery, they found a dismally small group of people gathered around the casket bearing the dead rebel. They joined the group and Isabel scanned the faces of the people, identifying several from the pictures Ben had gathered.

  Willie Tammerick, already looking three sheets to the wind, nodded to the two of them as the minister began to intone a passionless eulogy that made it obvious he had not known Shane personally.

  Conspicuously absent was Meagan, Shane’s sister. When Lieutenant Ben Lockhart had impersonated Prince Nicholas and gotten himself kidnapped by Shane, it had been Meagan who had come to Ben’s defense, and ultimately the two had fallen in love.

  Isabel shot a surreptitious glance at Adam. In all the years she had known him, in all the time they had worked closely together, she had no idea if he’d ever been in love. She didn’t even know if he believed in love.

  But, there had been a time when she’d believed herself in love with him, a time when she’d believed the sun rose and set on Adam Sinclair. She told herself she’d outgrown those feelings, but that didn’t explain why he still made her heart race just a little faster than normal, why when he directed those gorgeous gray eyes at her, she felt both hot and cold at the same time.

  Frowning, she once again scanned the funeral-goers, her gaze falling on a woman who stood at the edge of the small group.

  She was a tall, buxom blonde and would have been quite pretty if not for the tears that raced down her face, reddening her nose and swelling her eyes.

  A jolt of adrenaline swept through Isabel. Pam Sommersby. It had to be her. She’d seen mention of the woman in the notes from Ben, but there had been no photograph of Shane Moore’s girlfriend, instead there had only been a physical description.

  Isabel grabbed Adam’s arm and squeezed until he looked down at her questioningly. She gestured toward the woman with a nod of her head. Adam followed her gesture, then looked back at Isabel. She reached up on her tiptoes so she could whisper in his ear. “I think that’s Shane’s girlfriend, Pam Sommersby.”

  Adam leaned down to whisper his reply in her ear. “We’ll try to talk to her after the service.”

  Isabel nodded, distracted by his warm breath in her ear, the scent of his cologne that seemed to envelop her in a spicy cocoon.

  She focused once again on the minister, who was finishing up with a prayer. When the service was over, the small group of people dispersed quickly, leaving only the black-clad sobbing blonde.

  Isabel and Adam returned to their cab, but stood by the doors, waiting to approach the grieving woman. Isabel wanted to hate the woman who had been the girlfriend of the man responsible for her father’s kidnapping. But, as she watched the woman place a single rose on Shane Moore’s casket, saw the absolute agony of her heartbreak, Isabel couldn’t help but feel a touch of pathos for her.

  It wasn’t until the woman left the gravesite and started walking toward a dark sedan that Isabel hurried after her.

  “Pam,” Isabel called. “Pam Sommersby.”

  The woman stopped and looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open in surprise. She turned and quickened her footsteps.

  “Pam, stop! I just want to talk to you.”

  Before Isabel could reach her, Pam yanked open the car door and hopped inside. She started the car, gunned the engine, and then took off in a swirl of dust down the lane that led out of the cemetery.

  Isabel turned and raced back to Adam, who was already in the cab and waiting. She dove into the back seat as Adam directed the cabbie to follow Pam’s car.

  “We can’t let her get away,” Isabel exclaimed as she leaned forward over the seat. She knew that in the material Ben had gathered there was no known address for Pam Sommersby.

  “She knows something. I know she does.” Isabel grabbed Adam’s hand and squeezed tightly as the cab careened around a corner in pursuit of Pam’s sedan.

  “We’ll get her,” Adam said confidently. “We’re gaining on her.”

  Isabel continued to hold Adam’s hand as suddenly her emotions were racing as fast as the two speeding vehicles.

  For three long months she’d been strong. For three long
months she’d eagerly awaited a break…a clue that would lead to her missing father.

  The news that her father might possibly have suffered a stroke while in captivity had filled her with a fear she’d suppressed until this very moment.

  Now that fear battled with the hope that Pam Sommersby had the information they needed to save Isabel’s father. She might be the only link they had to gain that information.

  Traffic grew more dense and it was obvious Pam was no stranger to evasive driving tactics. She wove in and out of the traffic and each time her car disappeared from view a horrifying panic pressed in on Isabel’s chest.

  Pam had the answers. Isabel knew in her heart that Pam was the key to finding the king. They couldn’t let her escape them. They just couldn’t!

  “She’s going toward the King’s Men Tavern,” Adam exclaimed.

  True to Adam’s words, she turned down the alley just behind the tavern, and by the time the cab made the corner, Pam Sommersby’s car was nowhere in sight.

  “I don’t see her,” the cabbie said as he eased off the gas pedal.

  “Keep driving,” Isabel cried. “Go slow…she has to be here somewhere.”

  They crept down the alley, looking in the spaces between buildings, in open garages that they passed, but without success. It was as if the ground had opened up and swallowed Pam’s car.

  “Bella…we lost her,” Adam finally said softly as the cab driver pulled to a halt.

  Isabel stumbled from the car, vaguely aware of Adam paying the cabbie.

  All the emotions she’d stuffed deep inside her the past three months bubbled to the surface. As the cab pulled away, Isabel’s inner strength ebbed and tears blurred her vision.

  It was as if any hope she might have entertained that they’d find her father had vanished with the cab. She looked up at Adam, as if in him she could rediscover hope, could again find her strength.

  An uncontrollable sob escaped her as Adam wrapped her in his big strong arms and pulled her against his chest. Silently, he gave her permission to be weak, and for just this moment she needed to be weak.

  She buried her face in the clean-smelling front of his shirt and released the tears of frustration and fear.

  Chapter Four

  Almost instantly Adam knew Isabel’s tears were about more than the fact that they’d lost Pam Sommersby. He’d watched her for the past two months, worked with her in an effort to locate the missing king, and he’d marveled at her objectivity, the very strength of purpose that possessed her.

  However, through the past two months Adam hadn’t forgotten that the man they sought was not only the king of their country, but Isabel’s father as well. And Adam knew all about the ache, the depth of pain that could eat at the soul when a father went missing.

  Her tears seemed to come from the very depths of her and he was helpless to do anything but hold her until the storm of emotions passed.

  Initially, he tried to focus on their surroundings. The alley was narrow and smelled of garbage. His gaze scanned the many buildings and garages and he knew that one of the buildings, one of those garages now housed Pam Sommersby’s car.

  If somebody had told him that the day would come when he would be standing in a stinking alley behind a rough-and-tumble tavern holding a sobbing Princess Isabel, he would have thought they were hallucinating.

  And as much as he’d like to keep his focus on the alley, it was difficult to focus on anything other than Isabel in his arms. She fit so neatly against him, and her body was like a stick of fire radiating an evocative heat.

  Her hair smelled clean, with a subtle scent of vanilla. As he held her, smelling the sweet fragrance of her, feeling the warmth of her body pressed so close, his mind filled with the memory of another time when he’d held her while she’d cried.

  At that time he’d been her commanding officer and she’d come to him heartbroken because her father had forbidden her to pursue a military career.

  Adam had held her while she’d wept and had found himself fighting an overwhelming desire for her. It was a desire that had built during their months of working together, a desire he knew could destroy his career.

  He felt the same desire now. It was a need that formed a ball of heat in the pit of his stomach, and that heat radiated outward, traveling the entire length of his body.

  You aren’t her commanding officer anymore, a small voice whispered inside his head. There is no reason you can’t follow through on your desire, no reason to ignore the fact that you want her.

  As that tiny internal voice bewitched him with sweet possibilities, Isabel raised her head and looked up at him. In the depths of her luminous green eyes and the slight tremble of her lower lip, again he thought of the last time he’d held her like this.

  That time she’d looked at him beseechingly, her lips parted to invite a kiss. Despite the desire that had roared through him, Adam had done the right thing. He’d dropped his hands from around her and had gently pushed her away.

  Now as she gazed at him and the internal voice reminded him that there would be no repercussions to his career or hers, without conscious thought, Adam claimed her mouth with his.

  He took her mouth in hunger and she responded in kind, opening her mouth and encouraging his tongue to deepen the kiss. And he did, swirling and dancing his tongue with hers.

  Her hands grasped at his shoulders, as if in an attempt to get closer. It was as if she didn’t just want to be next to him, but wanted to meld into him, become a part of him.

  Adam fell into the kiss, losing all concept of place and time, all sense of identity. He was no longer Lieutenant Commander Adam Sinclair. He was Adam Wilcox, kissing his wife, Bella. He was simply a man kissing the woman he desired more than any other woman on earth.

  His hands stroked up her back and he could feel the press of her breasts intimately against his chest. His desire for her electrified him.

  He wanted to strip away the clothes that were at the moment an irritating barrier, he wanted to stroke every inch of her skin until they were both gasping in exquisite pleasure.

  A horn blared from someplace nearby, yanking Adam back to reality. Reality was they were standing in the middle of a stinking alley. He was not really Adam Wilcox and the woman he was kissing was not his Bella.

  She was Princess Isabel and unofficially betrothed to Sebastian Lansbury. And he was Lieutenant Commander Adam Sinclair, the only son of a man who was suspected of being a traitor to the crown.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Adam took Isabel by the arm. Silently they left the alley and returned to the King’s Men Tavern.

  They didn’t speak until they were back in their third-floor room.

  “Adam, I’m sorry,” she said as soon as he closed the door.

  “Sorry?” He eyed her intently, wondering what, exactly, she was apologizing for. For kissing him so deeply, so sweetly that he’d momentarily forgotten all the reasons he shouldn’t have her…couldn’t have her?

  “I apologize for losing control like that.” She sat on the edge of the bed, still looking achingly vulnerable. “Normally, I don’t let my emotions get the better of me”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” he replied briskly. He sat in the lumpy chair that had served as his bed the night before. He was irritated with himself, for momentarily losing control.

  Isabel raked a hand through her copper-colored hair. “You can’t imagine what the past months have been like…not knowing if my father is dead or alive.” The instant the words left her mouth, her eyes widened. “But, of course you can imagine…your father…” She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling emeralds. “Tell me about him, Adam. Tell me about your father.”

  Pain usurped his irritation and shot through Adam like a hot poker at the mention of his father. It was a pain he’d lived with for the past year, a pain that seemed to have become as much a part of him as his gray eyes or his dark hair.

  In all the time that Adam and Isabel had worked together since
the fateful day of his father’s disappearance, neither of them had ever mentioned it aloud. In truth, Adam had talked about it with nobody.

  Adam had never discussed the uncertainty, the confusion, and the utter pain of his tumultuous emotions where his father was concerned.

  “What do you want to know about him?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t know…anything. Were the two of you close? Was he a good father?”

  Adam had the feeling she needed to hear him talk about his father so she wouldn’t think about her own. He nodded. “We were very close. My mother died when I was eight, so there were just the two of us and Mrs. Gentry, our housekeeper.”

  “It must have been difficult, with your father being career military.”

  “Not really. Wherever dad was stationed, Mrs. Gentry and I followed.” A warmth seeped through him as he thought of those years with his father. They had traveled to various bases, sometimes for mere months, other times for years, but Adam’s memories of those times were all good.

  “It was my father who instilled in me a love for the navy. However, much to his chagrin, I didn’t follow in his footsteps and become a navy pilot. My father loves to fly, but I prefer to have both feet planted firmly on the ground.”

  “But he was pleased when you decided to join the navy?” she asked.

  Adam leaned back in the chair, a smile curving his lips. “He told me that the day I enlisted was the happiest day of his life.” The smile faded and he frowned thoughtfully. “And I think the saddest day of his life was the day he had to retire. The navy had been his wife, his lover…his very life, and without it he was positively lost.”

  In truth, Jonathon Sinclair had become extremely depressed upon his retirement. And it was the memory of that deep depression that had haunted Adam when the talk of treason had first reared its ugly head.

  In his gut, in the very depth of his heart, Adam knew his father would never, could never do anything against the country he loved, the country he’d sworn to protect and serve.