Saving the Princess

by Helena Newbury

  Emerik stared at what he’d bought. “You can’t be serious.”

  But I was staring for a different reason: I loved it. For a second, I forgot my fear.

  It was a white pickup truck that had once been red: the paint still showed through in a few places. There were dents and chips on almost every surface and the wheels were thick with dried dirt. I’d never seen one up close before. Immediately, I was in some American movie, with small towns and high school proms and skinny dipping in the lake and—

  Before anyone could stop me, I’d climbed into the passenger seat. Oh, wow! This was even better. It even smelled different to a limo. They smelled of chemicals and plastic. This smelled of wet earth and freshly-chopped wood. When I slammed my door, it went clank, metal on metal, not the dull whump of an expensive car. I couldn’t help it: I grinned.

  Garrett climbed into the driver’s seat. Straight away, he looked more comfortable than he had in the expensive SUV. When he saw my grin, his heavy brow knitted. “What?”

  I flushed. A princess is meant to be reserved, I could hear my mother saying. Not excitable like a child. “Nothing,” I muttered. “I’ve just never been in a pickup before. And I’ve never sat up front before.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Except to drive.”

  I flushed even deeper.

  He blinked. “You don’t...drive?”

  Emerik and the others were climbing into the back seat. “A princess is always chauffeured,” he said. He looked disapprovingly at how close we were sitting.

  “My mother learned,” I said. “In fact, she used to race cars when she was young, before she met my father. But I never did.” Hot embarrassment flooded my face. The pampered princess who doesn’t know how to do anything. “You must think I’m so stupid,” I muttered. I stared hard out of the side window.

  “No.” Garrett’s voice was both gentle and firm. I slowly turned to look at him. “I don’t think that,” he told me. “Not for a second.”

  I swallowed. Those gorgeous, clear blue eyes were suddenly all that existed in the world. And then my eyes were drawn inexorably down. That hard upper lip. That full, soft lower one. I drew in a breath and it was tight and shaky. And then we were leaning in towards each other, a fraction of an inch at a time….

  “Perhaps we should get going, Mr. Buchanan,” said Emerik from the back seat.

  I jerked back. Stupid! What are you doing? And did Emerik know? Was I that obvious? Of course you are, you’re behaving like a love-sick child!

  I scooched a little further away from Garrett, and stiffly reached for my seat belt. Then I folded my hands demurely in my lap and nodded, and Garrett started the engine. It wasn’t until we turned back onto the highway that I risked a look at him. And then only a quick look, barely a glance, just enough to take in that rugged jaw, his blue eyes so serious, so determined, the tan bulges of his shoulders and biceps, revealed by his ripped-off shirt sleeves—

  I realized I was staring again and forced myself to look away.

  And we roared off down the highway.

  11

  Garrett

  I headed east, out of Los Angeles and then out of California. I didn’t have a firm destination in mind, just wanted to get her as far from the assassins as possible. We needed to be lost.

  Driving’s a lot like marching: just point your nose in the right direction, turn off your brain and go: perfect for a dumb grunt like me. It figured that the Princess had never learned. She had a hell of a lot more to offer the world. But staring at that white line gave me plenty of time to think.

  Why the hell did I do this? The assassins were well trained, well armed and they had satellite surveillance and God knows what other help. And we were just three guys: one past retirement age, one barely old enough to be out of training and me: thrown out of the Marines, can’t even hold down a job and a goddamn liability if I had another flashback.

  My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as it all surged up inside me. Rage first, at what happened, at the system I used to be so loyal to, at the whole goddamn world for not giving a rat’s ass. Guilt, for what I’d done. And hot, biting shame that I’d let it mess me up. What good is a soldier who can just freeze at any time?

  People say you need to let stuff out, but that means remembering and it’s just too much damn pain. I’m not facing the memories again, not for anyone.

  Besides, I couldn’t talk about it even if I wanted to: I get so mad at myself, when I think about it, everything just slams closed and I can’t speak. I don’t want a belly full of pills. The only thing that ever calmed me worth a damn was being around horses and it’s been a long time since I had the chance to do that.

  So I did what I always did: I wrestled all that pain and hurt back down. I buried the memories of sand and screams. And when I could breathe again, I took a look at the Princess.

  And immediately, I knew the answer to my question. Why the hell did I do this?

  Because someone had to.

  Because letting her be harmed...that wasn’t an option.

  The Princess had changed into...a power suit, I guess you’d call it. It was pure white, all hard lines and sharp angles, but the fabric looked as soft as freshly-fallen snow.

  If an angel had needed a suit for a meeting with Beelzebub to thrash out the rules for heaven and hell, that’s what she would have worn.

  Not many people could have carried it off but on the Princess, it looked right. It was as if she was made from different stuff from the rest of us. We were getting close to Arizona, now, the dusty scrubland giving way to barren red rock cooking under a fierce sun. The battered pickup fit there. Hell, I fit there. But the Princess looked as if she’d stepped down off one of the fluffy white clouds that dotted the huge, blue sky. She was breathtaking.

  The way she looked around in wonder at the landscape only made her seem more otherworldly. When she saw me watching her, she blushed. “Sorry, I’m just not used to…”—she waved her hand at the landscape. “When I thought of America, I thought of cities I’d seen on TV. New York. Washington. I didn’t know about all this.” She gazed at the vivid red cliffs. “Look at the colors!”

  I glanced around, seeing it all with fresh eyes, and grunted in agreement. It was pretty, if you liked rough and rugged. “Ain’t got nothing on a Texas sunset, though,” I muttered. And for a crazy second, I had this deep hankering to show her one.

  I’d never felt anything like this attraction before, not with the girls I’d known before I joined the marines, not with the girls in Texas I’d met on leave. I only had to hear her voice, see that face, and I was helpless. She was my exact opposite, as smooth and pristine as I was rough and dirty. So why was I so taken with her?

  And it was more than just lust. Sure, I was having all sorts of filthy fantasies involving pulling the Princess down into the bed of the pickup and slowly stripping off her clothes, running my hands up and down her body until she begged me to fuck her. But I also couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her. Just kissing her.

  But she was royalty. And even before what happened in the desert screwed me up, I was just a jarhead, son of another jarhead. My dad used to say we were born with boots on our feet. The marines, or breeding horses...that’s all any of us Buchanans have ever done. A princess isn’t going to want me.

  And yet I kept looking up and catching her looking at me. At my bare arms, at the denim stretched tight over my thighs. And then she’d quickly look away. And then I’d look at her, and she’d catch me and I’d jerk my gaze back to the road. I could feel something building, growing with every mile we spent together. After two solid hours, I had to grip the steering wheel hard to stop myself from doing something crazy...like slamming on the brakes and skidding to a stop by the side of the road. Taking her cheeks between my hands while she was still gaping in surprise and bringing my lips down on hers….

  My foot actually twitched against the brake pedal. I had to break the silence or I was actually going to do it. “What was
that thing you did with your hand?” I asked. “When the guy had a gun to your head.”

  “Rans Tagaka,” she said.

  I glanced at her, frowning. “Rans what?” It sounded like a character from Star Wars.

  “It’s the royal martial art.”

  I blinked. “You have your own martial art?”

  “One of my ancestors invented it, hundreds of years ago. A last-ditch defense, in case we’re attacked.” She looked down at her lap. “Being one of the royal family has always been dangerous.”

  I tried to imagine growing up, knowing people wanted to kill you simply because of who you were. What a life. And she hadn’t asked for this, hadn’t stood for election or got to make a choice. She’d been born into it. I softly shook my head. Everyone thought she was so lucky. They didn’t see this part. That protective instinct hit me again: I just wanted to take her away from all this: not just the danger she was in but take her away from being a princess. Like that made any sense.

  I drove right through the afternoon. By the time the sun started to set, we were well into Arizona. The interstate was a narrow strip of black cutting through bare desert and walls of red rock. As the sun went down, our headlights became the only light for miles and the sky above turned from blue to black to a shimmering carpet of stars stretching from one horizon to the other.

  I figured we’d run far enough.

  The next time I passed a sign for a motel, I turned off the interstate and followed the signs. When I found the place and killed the engine, it was so quiet I could hear my own breathing. For the first time all day, I relaxed a little. No one was going to find us out here.

  The motel was a little single story place with only about ten rooms. But it looked clean enough and there was a rib shack next door for dinner. There were strings of colored light bulbs strung along the paths to light your way. A good thing because it was dark as hell. “Watch your step, Your Highness,” I murmured.

  “Holes?” she asked, looking down.

  “Snakes,” I told her gently.

  I got us some rooms and told everyone to rest up for a half hour, and then we’d get some dinner. I needed time to figure out how to get her back to Lakovia undetected.

  In my room, I dug out a fresh shirt to finally replace the one I’d torn that morning. Then I hesitated, looking in the mirror at my dust-streaked face and matted hair….

  I took a long, hot shower and shampooed my hair. Tried to comb it into some sort of order. Then I caught myself trying to scrub the dirt from under my nails, where there’s always dirt. What the hell are you doing? Trying to impress her? I felt my neck color. You big idiot. I threw down the soap and pulled on the fresh shirt.

  There was a creak of floorboards, just outside my door. I could see the person’s silhouette in the blind that covered my room’s window: a woman. I saw her raise her hand to knock, then put it down again. She did it a second time. A third time.

  Was she...nervous?

  I covered the distance to the door in two big strides and pulled the door open. The Princess yelped in surprise and jumped back, her hand still raised to knock. “Oh!”

  I just stood there and stared.

  “I wanted to check this was okay,” she said, glancing down at herself.

  I couldn’t reply. She’d finally found some normal clothes. Jeans and a top, with heels. Except….

  Except oh my God.

  I’d only ever seen her in expensive clothes. Normal clothes didn’t make her look normal, they just showed off how different she really was. They made her glow. She’d pulled all that chestnut hair back into a ponytail to try to look less glamorous but all it did was expose more elegant, pale neck. My lips actually prickled, imagining the feel of that soft skin against them: the warmth of her throat, the beat of her pulse as I kissed down the length of it.

  Her tank top was the dark red of ripe cherries. On another woman I wouldn’t even have noticed it. But on the Princess, the dark red set off the pale skin of her arms. Her arms! I hadn’t seen them bare, before, hadn’t realized how beautiful they were, feminine but toned. Something about her naked shoulders made me want to wrap one big arm around her back and pull her into me, like we were teenagers at the movies, my fingers rubbing over that soft roundness.

  Goddammit! Since when was a shoulder so sexy?

  My eyes roved lower. The tank top hugged the curves of her breasts, showing me the shape of her in a way the dress and the suit and even those fancy pajamas hadn’t. Soft and yet pert...majestic. Watching her breathe was hypnotic.

  Her blue jeans were faded and distressed. In a few places there were actual holes, little windows that gave tantalizing glimpses of pale skin. And the way the denim clung to her...I wanted to put my hands under that firm ass and lift her, pull her against me—

  “So will I blend in?” she asked.

  “No,” I growled. I could hear the lust in my voice. Blend in? Every man in the restaurant was going to be staring at her. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was...glorious.

  And royal. I kept telling myself that. She’s a princess. Except...the more the attraction grew, the more that idea changed. I’d been worried about tainting her, somehow, with my blue collar ways. Now, I was so drawn to her, all I could think about was getting that noble perfection very, very dirty.

  “It’s perfect,” I managed.

  She gave a shy smile and looked down at herself again. “Thank goodness. I borrowed everything from Caroline. It’s not too, um…”—she blushed—”tight?”

  I looked down at those lush curves again and that was it. My mind tipped over the edge and became a runaway train on a downhill slope. I needed to take hold of her cheeks, tilt her head back and taste those royal lips. I needed to hook my thumbs under that tank top and hook it up over that magnificent chest. I needed to lift her and pin her against the nearest wall, those long, denim-clad legs wrapping around me, and—

  I took a step forward. Now we were staring at each other from six inches away, her on my doorstep and me filling the doorframe. She tilted her head way back to look up at me.

  Suddenly, all I could see were her lips.

  “Mr. Buchanan?” She sounded nervous...but there was an urgency there, too.

  I leaned down to kiss her.

  12

  Kristina

  Those gorgeous lips coming closer, the sheer size of him scary and wonderful as he leaned down. God, he was everything my mother had warned me about, big and brutish and definitely not of royal blood. I could see it in that hard, curving chest, in the sculpted shape of his forearms. He was made to till fields and ride horses and fight his country’s enemies. Real work, not signing documents and endless talking. He was my polar opposite, as rough as I was refined and God, I wanted him.

  And then suddenly he stopped. He put both his hands on the doorframe above our heads with a heavy thump thump. His knuckles turned white. He was grabbing it so that—

  So that he wouldn’t grab me. God, the look in his eyes, a man on the very edge of control: was I doing that to him?!

  He let out a low growl that vibrated right through my body...and draw back from me. Why?

  There was something in his eyes, something I’d glimpsed back in the desert when I’d asked about his dog tags. Pain so deep and jagged he couldn’t hide it. My chest ached for him. What happened to this man?

  He looked away and the spell was broken. Reality came rushing back and I flushed scarlet. He was from a different country...and a whole different world. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head. What on earth came over you? That was the part that shocked me most: I’d been as out of control as him. And now what? What did I say to him?

  “Your Highness,” said Emerik, emerging from the darkness. I jumped about a foot in the air. He has at least a thousand different ways of saying Your Highness. This was his I’m onto you and I disapprove tone. He’d used the same one when I was seven, and he’d caught me sneaking jelly beans from the palace kitchen. I carefully avoided his eyes and I
didn’t dare look at Garrett, either.

  Jakov and Caroline joined us and we headed towards the restaurant. There was a line to get in. Emerik looked at it in bemusement, then in exasperation. Like me, he’d never had to wait in line to get into anywhere. But I joined the end of the line, then gave him a look. We’ll wait politely like everyone else.

  “I can’t call you Your Highness in there,” muttered Garrett after a few moments. He didn’t look at me as he said it. Both of us were still stumbling and awkward after that nearly-kiss.

  “Kristina will be fine, Mr. Buchanan,” I told him. “But I have to call you Garrett.”

  Now he turned to look at me, blinking in shock. “Aw, hell. You don’t need to—”

  “I insist.” I tried it out. “Garrett.” I nodded to myself: I loved the way it sounded: so strong, so...cowboy.

  He looked down at his boots for a few seconds, as if no one had called him by his first name in a long time. But then he rallied. “Kristina,” he said in a low growl.

  I flushed and caught my breath. I hadn’t thought about how my name would sound in his throaty rasp. When people announce me as Princess Kristina, it sounds light and clean, like snowflakes falling on a Danish village. But when Garrett said it, he rolled the r in a way that sent a shiver right down my spine and then rasped out the tina so that it throbbed right in my groin. That Kristina wasn’t snowflakes and innocence.

  I swallowed, throwing glances up at him as we neared the restaurant door. The tension between us was back, every tiny brush of his shirt sleeve against my arm making my skin throb and prickle. He’d pulled back from the kiss but both of us were still one touch, one word away from just grabbing the other.

  I took a deep breath...and we went to dinner.