Protecting the Princess

by Carla Cassidy

  “Need some help?” The minute the words left his mouth he regretted them. He wasn’t a nursemaid, for crying out loud. He was a bodyguard. Making beds for clients wasn’t in his job description.

  She looked up at him and blew a strand of her golden blond hair off her forehead. “There’s some kind of a mistake. This damned sheet doesn’t fit.” She glared at him as if he were personally responsible for her being unable to get the sheet on the bed. “Smokey probably did this on purpose, gave me sheets that are too small. He obviously hates me and wants to see me sweat.”

  “He wouldn’t do that. He likes you.”

  She stared at him with disbelief. “He does not. He’s just like you. He thinks I’m stupid and shallow and spoiled.” She sank to the edge of the bed. “I can speak five foreign languages, but I can’t even get sheets on a bed.”

  She sounded and looked so miserable, his heart constricted just a bit. “Why don’t I help you with the bed?” he offered.

  “If you help me, will you think I’m stupid?”

  He smiled at her. “A woman who speaks five foreign languages can’t be all that stupid.”

  She returned his smile and for just a moment there was no tension between them, no underlying friction of any kind. “I would appreciate some help,” she finally said grudgingly.

  “Come on, it’s always easier when there’s two people working at it.”

  It took them only minutes to get the sheets on the bed. As Tanner helped her, he remembered years ago when he’d helped his mother do the same task.

  Elizabeth West had been a beautiful woman. Tanner could remember trips into town, where men hurried to nod hello or to open a door for her. Her black hair had been worn long and her eyes had been an emerald-green that had been both beautiful and startling.

  “Tanner? Are you all right?”

  Anna’s voice startled him and he realized he’d been standing still, lost in the memories of boyhood long past. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking about my mother.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed once again and this time patted the spot next to her. “What was she like?”

  He sank down beside her and for a moment allowed himself to fall back into memories of the woman who had given him birth, the woman who had loved him for the first ten years of his life.

  “She was beautiful.” Tanner rarely allowed himself the luxury of his memories, but he found himself allowing them now. “She had long dark hair and green eyes and a smile that warmed an entire room. She loved to laugh.”

  Anna leaned against him, her warmth welcoming. “She sounds like a wonderful person.”

  “She was. She was strong. Dad was gone a lot and Mom had all of us to contend with, often alone, but I don’t ever remember hearing her complain. She loved Dad, loved being our mother, and it showed in everything she did.”

  “She would have been very proud of the man you’ve become,” Anna said softly. “Your father loved her very much?”

  “Very much. I don’t think he ever stopped grieving for her.” He turned to look at Anna. “I don’t think any of us ever really stopped grieving her loss.”

  He stood abruptly, unwilling to entertain any more painful memories. “Let’s get the bedspread on,” he said. He walked over and grabbed the bedspread from the floor near the dresser, his gaze falling on a dark blue velvet pouch. “What is this?” he asked.

  “My crown. Want to see it?”

  He was surprised how much he didn’t want to see a reminder of her position, but before he could reply, his cell phone rang.

  He held up a finger to indicate she hold on a minute at the same time he answered the call. “Tanner,” he said into the receiver.

  “She’s dead, Tanner. The son-of-a-bitch killed Melissa this morning. He shot her in her driveway then turned the gun on himself.” Zack’s voice reverberated with all-consuming rage and torment.

  Tanner went cold. His breath whooshed out of him as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “Zack…where are you now? Are you still in Oklahoma City?”

  “No. I’m an hour out of Cotter Creek.” The emotion nearly made his brother’s words indecipherable.

  “Come straight to the house, Zack. You hear me? Come on in and we’ll talk. Dammit,” he exclaimed as the line went dead.

  “What’s wrong?” Anna asked.

  “That was Zack. Apparently his client was killed this morning. Her ex-husband killed her, then killed himself.”

  “That poor woman.”

  He tugged a hand down his jaw. “Dammit! Zack didn’t sound good.” His stomach twisted in knots as he thought of his brother. “He got too close to her. I warned him that the first rule in being a good bodyguard was to keep emotional distance between yourself and the client. He didn’t listen to me.”

  “Where’s your brother now?”

  “He’s on his way home, said he was about an hour away. I’ve got to go speak with my father and Smokey. Will you be all right now?”

  “Of course. Go take care of whatever you need to.”

  He turned and left the room, his thoughts racing. Maybe Zack hadn’t been ready for this particular assignment. It had been too long an assignment. Zack had been gone nearly three months.

  Zack couldn’t blame himself, nor was this a company failure. The client had released Zack. Tanner needed his brother to understand that evil was often more patient than good, that if her ex-husband hadn’t killed her today he might have killed her next week or next month or at any time in the future. Zack hadn’t failed. He’d kept her from harm until she’d told Zack to go home.

  Dammit. He should have sent somebody else, or taken care of it himself. Zack had always been the most emotional of his siblings. Tanner should have known this assignment wouldn’t be good for him.

  A mistake, and now Zack was hurting as Tanner had never heard him hurt before. Somehow, some way, Tanner had to figure out how to make it all okay.

  He found Red weeding in the garden. “Dad, something’s happened.”

  Red stood, the expression on his face letting Tanner know his father’s arthritis was bothering him. “What’s up?”

  “Zack called. All he said was that he’s on his way home and his former client was killed sometime this morning. He sounded bad, Dad. I think he got too close.”

  Red sighed heavily as the two headed back into the house. “We’ll get through this, Tanner. We’ve gotten through worse.”

  Tanner nodded, wondering what he was going to say to his brother when he had a feeling he was perilously close to making the same mistake with his own client.

  Anna sat on the end of the sofa in the great room thumbing through a magazine, aware of Tanner pacing back and forth in front of the windows that looked out to the front of the house.

  It had been an hour since Zack had called and Tanner’s worry, his tension, seemed big enough to fill the entire house. She wished she knew what to say, what to do to ease his worry, but she didn’t have a clue how to help him through this.

  Red sat in a nearby chair, staring down at a magazine, but he hadn’t turned a page in the past fifteen minutes. Even Smokey occasionally came in from the kitchen to see if Zack had arrived yet.

  There wasn’t just tension in the room, there was an underlying sense of support, of love, that was almost palpable. It wasn’t the first time in the three days that she had been here that she’d noticed the love that was contained within the walls of the house.

  At each meal as Tanner and his father talked, Anna had sensed a deep connection between the two men. And whenever Tanner had mentioned one of his brothers or sister, his devotion had been evident in his tone of voice.

  What must it be like to be part of such a big support system, to be a part of something so much bigger than one’s self? Not as big as a country, which Anna had found impersonal and unfulfilling, but to be a piece of a family who cared about not only your failures, but your triumphs, as well.

  She thought it must be an amazing feeling and it was one she ho
ped one day she would know.

  Red stood and Tanner froze as the sound of the crunching of wheels on gravel came through the windows. “He’s here,” Tanner said softly, his gaze focused out the pane of glass.

  Someplace deep inside her Anna knew she should probably retreat to her bedroom and leave this family alone to deal with the situation. She had a feeling there would be pieces to put back together and she really had no place in this family meeting.

  But she didn’t move from her perch on the sofa as she found herself drawn to the real lives of real people. She realized somehow, some way in the short span of time she’d been in the house, she’d come to care about these people and their lives.

  She would have known Zack in a crowd of cowboys. The moment he walked through the front door, she was struck by his close resemblance to his older brother.

  He was roughly the same height and body type. Although his hair was longer than Tanner’s, it was the same rich dark color and his green eyes stamped him as one of the West children.

  Under normal circumstances he was probably quite handsome, but at the moment his features were pulled taut and twisted with raw, naked emotion that was almost painful to see.

  “Zackary.” Red was the first one to greet him. He wrapped his arms around his son and gave him a bear hug. Zack stood perfectly still in the embrace, neither accepting nor rejecting.

  As Red released his son, Tanner stepped toward his brother. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Hell, no, I’m not okay.” Zack’s voice was thick with emotion. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay.” He ripped a hand through his hair. “But I’ll tell you this. I’m done. I’m finished with all this. I don’t want to do this kind of work ever again.”

  “What do you mean?” Tanner’s features pulled into a deep frown.

  “What do you think it means? I quit. I don’t want to work for you. I don’t want to work for the agency anymore.”

  “That’s ridiculous. For God’s sake, Zack, give yourself some time.” Tanner reached out and placed his hand on Zack’s shoulder. “Don’t make any decisions while you’re upset. You don’t want to leave the business. We need you.”

  Zack jerked away from his brother, his eyes dark and his mouth a slash of despair. “You know what I need, Tanner? Right now, at this very moment, I need a big brother, not a boss. But I should have known not to expect that from you.”

  Before anyone could say another word Zack stormed back out the front door and slammed it shut behind him. For just a brief moment Tanner’s features reflected a haggard vulnerability, a slicing pain that stole Anna’s breath.

  It was there only a moment, then gone, replaced by the stoic expression and dark gaze that was so familiar to her. Anna suddenly felt like the intruder she was and she quietly slipped away to her room.

  She sat at the foot of her bed and thought about the scene she had just witnessed. What she had just seen was a slice of real life. What she had experienced the whole morning was a vignette of a family.

  She’d felt the love and support of Tanner and his father for Zack. She’d felt their worry about him. And she’d seen how people who love one another could hurt and disappoint each other.

  Real-life drama, unlike the superficial life she’d led had the capacity to hurt, but it also had the capacity to bring joy and to heal.

  There was no way for her to imagine what Zack had been feeling after what he’d been through, but she couldn’t forget that moment of stark expression on Tanner’s face.

  In that unguarded vulnerable moment, she’d seen that Zack’s words had cut him deep and she’d felt Tanner’s pain resonating inside of her. It was a strange feeling, that of another’s pain. It awed her and made her feel more real than she ever had in her life.

  Lunch was difficult. Tension pulsed in the air. Red made small-talk with Anna, but she was acutely aware of Tanner’s brooding silence, his dark gaze seemingly focused inward to a place where nobody could follow.

  Dinner was a repeat of the uncomfortable lunch. Had Anna not spent the past several days in Tanner’s company, she might have thought his dark eyes and tense facial muscles to be solely possessed by anger. But she knew in her heart that it wasn’t just anger. It was pain.

  That night as she lay in bed sleep remained elusive as she thought of Tanner and his brother. In that moment when Zack had turned angrily on his eldest brother, Tanner had looked as if he’d been slapped.

  For the past couple of days Tanner had put his life on hold for her. He’d kept her safe and helped her through the terror of a thunderstorm, had even helped her make the bed where she now attempted to sleep. And now he was all alone in his room and in pain.

  Without giving herself a second to think, she slid out of bed, pulled on a T-shirt and pair of jeans and left her room. She padded down the hallway to the room next door, wondering if he was already asleep.

  It was possible he wouldn’t want to see her, wouldn’t want to talk to her. But it was also possible he just might need somebody at this moment. And it surprised her how much she wanted to be the person he needed.

  His closed bedroom door should have warned her away, but it didn’t. She knocked softly. There was no reply. She knocked again, then took a deep breath, twisted the knob and opened the door.

  He stood next to the window, the dim lamp on the nightstand casting him in deep shadows. He wore only a pair of jeans slung low on his hips and his male scent filled the entire room.

  He turned to face her. “What do you need, Anna?” His voice was just short of a bark.

  For the first time since she’d left her bedroom she realized she had no idea why she was here, why she had felt compelled to come to him. “I’m not sure,” she said honestly. “I thought maybe you might need something.”

  He took a step forward, leaving the shadows of the room behind him. Now she could see the darkness in his eyes, feel the dangerous energy that rolled off him. “You thought I might need something?” He took a step toward her and it wasn’t just a feeling of danger that communicated itself to her, but rather a thrum of excitement, as well.

  “And just what was it you thought I might need?” he asked as he took another step toward her.

  Her mouth dried and her heart began to pound an unnatural rhythm. She was acutely conscious of the bed, mere inches from where she stood, the navy sheets rumpled and the depression of a head still evident on one of the pillows.

  She wasn’t sure what he needed, but her need for him washed over her. Seeing the way the lamplight played on his bare chest with his scent working its way into her very pores, she felt as if she’d needed him for weeks, months…years.

  He dragged a hand through his hair. “Go back to bed, Anna,” he said, his voice with a weary rough edge.

  She knew she had two choices, to follow his command or to follow her heart. There was really no choice as far as she was concerned.

  She took a step toward him. “I don’t want to go back to bed. I want to be here with you.”

  His eyes narrowed and she felt the taut, powerful energy of him sweeping over her. She fought the shiver that tried to crawl up her spine, a shiver of delicious anticipation.

  “If you don’t leave now, this cowboy won’t be responsible for the consequences.” There was a distinct warning in his words, but there was also a flame in his eyes that warmed her from head to toe.

  “I’ve never worried much about consequences,” she said half breathlessly. “And in this particular case, it’s the consequence that I want…that I need.”

  In three long strides he was in front of her and as he wrapped her in his arms and captured her mouth with his, she knew there was no going back.

  Chapter 9

  Tanner knew it was wrong. Someplace in the back of his mind as his arms filled with Anna, as his mouth plundered hers, he knew it was all wrong, but he had no intention of stopping.

  The pain of Zack’s words retreated as the heat of Anna’s mouth suffused him. He knew the pain would return e
ventually, along with the guilt, but at the moment it was impossible for his mind to entertain anything but the scent and feel of the woman pressed intimately against him.

  “Anna,” he said as he pulled his mouth from hers. He stared down into her eyes, unsure what he wanted to say. He’d started to warn her that there would be no promises, no future just because of this one night.

  But he suddenly recognized he didn’t need to tell her that. She was a princess and in all probability the insurgents in her country would be silenced, peace would be restored and she’d return to resume her life. She wasn’t about to throw all that away because of one night in bed with a cowboy bodyguard.

  She was probably the safest woman he could have a physical relationship with, for she would expect and demand nothing in return.

  “Don’t talk, Tanner,” she replied, her eyes shimmering and luminous. “Don’t tell me all the reasons why I shouldn’t be in here, why I shouldn’t be with you. Just make love to me now.”

  He certainly hadn’t needed any additional encouragement, but her words broke a dam inside him, a dam of want that had been building from the moment she had stormed through his office door.

  He crashed his mouth to hers, at the same time his hands moved up beneath her T-shirt to touch the bare flesh of her smooth back. Her skin was like warm satin and electrified his fingertips.

  There was nothing soft or hesitant in the way their mouths clung, in the battle of their tongues and the panting breathlessness that seemed to consume them. There was no gentle teasing, no hesitant exploration, only ravenous hunger and clawing need.

  There was no bra to encumber him and the thought of how close he was to feeling those breasts that he’d seen in the lightning nearly sent him spinning wildly out of control. He took several deep, steadying breaths as his hands crept around her and stopped just beneath the sweet swell of her full breasts. Even though he hadn’t touched her intimately, he could see through her T-shirt that her nipples were erect as if eagerly anticipating his touch.