Crowned: Gowns & Crowns, Book 4

by Jennifer Chance

  “Hey!” Ari called, or at least that’s what it sounded like, though the inflection was slightly different and she got the feeling it was a Garronois word. It did the trick, though. Dimitri immediately glanced up from where he was leaning precariously over the side of the boat and waved. Not an overly friendly wave, either—more an acknowledgment.

  He called something back and hauled himself to a standing position, and Fran noticed he stepped out of view for a moment. When he looked down again as they neared, his expression was carefully neutral. “Good morning,” he said—in English, for her benefit. She and the gruff Garronois captain hadn’t had many occasions to talk, but they were on friendly enough terms.

  Ari wasn’t having anything of it, however. He launched into a quick stream of Garronois that made Dimitri blink then lift his hand to his chin, as if to consider a proposition. He shook his head, and Ari redoubled his efforts, gesturing broadly.

  Dimitri lifted his own hands as if to ward off the verbal barrage, laughing now. He swung his gaze to hers, but despite the mirth in his voice his gaze was full of warning. “You put him up to this? You’re American, yes?” he asked.

  Fran didn’t hide her shock. “Put him up to what?”

  “Return trip to the mainland—for free, he says, at least for now. And I know, I know—you’ll pay me when you find your family.” He waved off Ari’s irritated scowl. “Seems to me you’d be missing out, leaving such a pretty girl behind.”

  “I’d go with him,” Fran said immediately. She didn’t miss Ari’s quick, triumphant smile—and the queen’s orders were loud in her ears. If Ari was determined to get to the mainland, he’d find a way. Fran would go with him simply to keep tabs on him, then alert the royal family to his whereabouts soon enough. “I have money, too—enough for transport, I think. So you’d get paid for your time, if you can spare it.”

  “You’ve been working on the boat for three days now,” Ari put in, fortunately in English. “Surely you want to take her for a run.”

  “Surely.” Dimitri glanced away quickly, staring up at the mast as his throat worked. Something about this exchange smacked of a familiarity that was probably not lost on the captain, for all that Ari didn’t see it. Dimitri focused again on Fran. “You can leave now? Or you need to go back?”

  “Now,” Ari answered for her. He flashed a winning grin to Fran. “You have money, yes? You Americans always carry everything with you.”

  She chuckled ruefully—he wasn’t wrong. Her passport and money were securely around her neck in a long-strapped pouch. “I do.”

  “Good. You can call Nicki when we land—and Stefan, if you feel you must.”

  Dimitri barked a laugh. “Stefan Mihal!” he said. “If you’re trying to escape him, good luck my friend. I’ll have no part of that.”

  “I’m not a prisoner,” Ari snapped back, and Fran stiffened. There was genuine steel in his voice, and she could see a glimpse of the man he was beneath the confusion. “Mihal has been a good friend to me, but his hospitality cannot last forever. I need to find my own way.”

  Dimitri shrugged. “Very well. I can leave in fifteen. You any good on a boat?”

  Ari blinked and Fran watched him closely. There was no pain in his gaze though, merely contemplation. He nodded. “I think so.”

  “Then climb aboard and get your friend up too. Be careful with her, she’s got the money.”

  Dimitri disappeared over the side of the boat and Ari regarded Fran soberly. “I apologize,” he said. “You don’t need to come to the mainland with me. I just—I’m done with this place.” He gazed back up the mountain road. “I’ve been a prisoner for a year, and I can’t wait any longer to break free. To relearn who I am.”

  “I understand,” she said, and she did. If Ari was starting to associate his stay on the island with captivity, there was no point in him remaining. And with Dimitri standing watch over him at least all the way to the mainland, the royal family would have time to figure out a game plan.

  They boarded and Dimitri stood at the head of the gangplank, handing them down into the boat. When he gripped Ari’s hand Ari visibly flinched. He hopped lightly onto the deck and confronted Dimitri. Fran held her breath, certain he’d ask Dimitri if he knew him, but Ari surprised her.

  “Ryker Stavros,” Ari introduced himself. “What should I call you?”

  “For today, you can call me captain.” Dimitri grinned at him. “And help me get this girl out on the sea before anyone notices you’re gone.”

  Ari laughed, the sound rich and full, and the two of them set to work. Fran stayed out of their way, scanning the deck nervously until she found the bin of life jackets. She’d made her way over and had secured herself into one by the time they set sail. It was a far less choppy mode of travel, she realized quickly, but that didn’t keep her from gripping the railing tightly as she surveyed the surface of the water. Were there sharks in the Aegean? She wondered. Probably. She should get a second life jacket.

  “You’re doing a good thing, here.” To her surprise, Dimitri stood in front of her, and she blinked up at him, then shifted to see Ari at the far end of the boat, manning the wheel. “He needs to regain control of his own life, see places more familiar than here.”

  “He recognized you, I think,” she said. “I’m surprised he didn’t grill you.”

  Dimitri shook his head. “I’m not. Ari was never one to reveal his thinking without being absolutely sure of himself. If he recognized me, but didn’t know how, he wouldn’t have wanted to tip his hand. I’d agreed to take him to the mainland, and that’s his primary objective.”

  “But what are we going to do once we get there?” Fran asked.

  “I thought about that,” Dimitri said. “The royal family has a number of residences throughout the capital city, a few of which they’ve acquired since Ari’s accident. He won’t know them. I’ll call ahead and have one made ready for you, and you can pass it off as your flat while you’re staying in the city.”

  She considered that. “You think he’ll buy it?”

  “Probably. Either way, he’s not going to borrow trouble. He needs a base of operations in the city, a place where he can get his bearings. We’ll give him that. Where he goes from there is up to him.”

  Ryker watched the captain and Francesca from the corner of his eye as he stood at the wheel, though his attention was focused primarily on the beautiful sailboat. It was a luxurious craft—too extravagant for the average sailor. Then again, the man in charge of it was no ordinary sailor, he was almost certain.

  Ryker was sure he’d known him before the crash, and equally sure the man realized it. The captain had to know Stefan Mihal as well, or he wouldn’t be allowed to dock his boat in the pricey marina of the equally pricey Asteri Island.

  One thing was for sure, both Stefan and this man were treating him with kid gloves. Same as all the doctors. At first Ryker had thought it was to aid in his recovery—but now he wasn’t so sure. Now he wondered if they wanted to manage his recovery.

  Which meant they had questions about what had happened that night as well.

  Ryker scowled. He knew without doubt that his family was in danger. If that family thought him dead, they would remain safe. Stefan hadn’t told anyone of his existence, he thought, and this sailboat captain appeared to be trustworthy enough to keep his mouth shut as well. As long as Ryker followed their script, anyway. He wondered if he’d be tailed the moment he set foot in the capital city.

  Probably.

  His gaze shifted to Francesca again. He shouldn’t have involved her, but she had friends in the city, and he could lose her quickly enough. He’d guessed that bringing her along would make his passage easier, and he’d been right…but not for the reasons he’d suspected. He simply liked the idea of her with him. She calmed him despite the fact that he sensed she was hiding something as well. Maybe because of that fact. Two people with something to lose made good partners.

  Ryker hailed the captain and handed over the wheel
, noting how the big man remained polite, almost distant for all his easy manner. He also didn’t look into Ryker’s eyes. Definitely, this man knew him, and definitely, he didn’t want to push. But Ryker trusted him without any basis for doing so, which meant they had to know each other from before.

  Perhaps this man was in danger as well because of him, but Ryker didn’t think so. There’d been that flash of pain, but it was definitely milder with the captain than with Stefan.

  Ryker made his way over to Fran. She looked up with that searching concern he was getting used to seeing on her face.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Good,” he said, dropping down beside her on the built-in bench that lined the inner wall of the sailboat. “When we land, this captain will be watching us. I think it best if we split up—you go on to your friends at the palace, and I’ll find my way.”

  “I have lodging, though—” Francesca began, but Ryker cut her off. Honesty came more easily with this stranger than the doctors, and certainly more than with Stefan.

  “No,” he said. “I need to find my way without Stefan and whoever he may hire following me. Your lodgings may be safe but they’ll be monitored. I need to blend into the city.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly and she considered him with a shrewdness that seemed too sharp, too experienced for her normally calm, compassionate manner. “You want to hide in the city?” she asked. “Or to leave it?”

  “I can’t leave.” He spread his hands. “Something happened to me here that affects my family. Something that occurred immediately before I boarded an airplane that crashed into the Aegean.” He gave her a devil-may-care wink. “I’m a very good pilot, I’ll have you know. I may not have my memory but I do know that. I don’t simply crash planes.”

  She appeared unconvinced. “There was a storm.”

  “And storms do not occur out of the clear blue sky,” he said. “There is always a predisposition, even if the weather patterns are erratic. I would have been prepared for that. The fact that I wasn’t…” he shook his head. “I have to learn more. Remember more. And I can’t do it if my family knows I am alive. With me essentially disappeared, Stefan will not notify them.”

  “True…” Francesca made a face, her gaze raking over his face, his clothes. “You’re very tan right now, and your beard is growing in again. I don’t know what you looked like before—”

  “I was clean shaven.” He nodded as her brows went up. “I remember that and I thought it odd. My clothes were very nice, as sodden as they were from the sea. I ditched the heavy flight jacket, but once I finally understood that I’d survived an accident of some kind, I took inventory. I had an unusual watch—very expensive, custom made. Good for trading. Bits of the plane washed ashore with me, all of it looking top-of-the-line. Whoever I was, I had money as well as skills.”

  “So you need to reverse that,” Francesca said, surveying him critically. “Cheaper clothes, scruffy face, low-rent lodging. Lodging is the most important. You need to get off the streets to avoid being found, and move around at night.” She frowned at him. “What about ID?”

  He spread his hands. “I have none of that.”

  “I know, but—how necessary is it in Garronia? In the US, you need a driver’s license if you’re driving a car or getting a legit hotel room, but if you’re not…” she shrugged. “No big deal. At least not if you buy things with cash.”

  “In Garronia, it’s law for everyone to carry identification at all times,” Ryker said automatically. Then he gave Francesca a broad wink. “You see? I’m remembering things—simple things, with no headache. I suspect greater understanding will come to me once I touch the stones of my homeland with my own feet and walk along her streets.”

  Her smile matched his, but her manner didn’t lose its intensity. “My point is, you’ll need a fake ID,” she said.

  “Ideally. If I cannot find one, though...” He shrugged. “A victim of a mugging, a man down on his luck, I could pass I suspect.”

  “I’m American,” Francesca said. “If you were some boy toy I picked up, and I was paying the bills, would you be hassled?”

  He quirked her a glance. “A boy toy?”

  “You know, like you’re some guy I met on the beach who I decided was cute and so I’m willing to pay for your meals and drinks or whatever while you hang out with me.”

  “Ah…this is something you do on a regular basis?”

  “We’re talking about you, not me,” she laughed. “What’re the odds you can get away with no papers for a few days if you’re hanging out with me?”

  “Good, but not excellent. If I have to get into someplace official, or I look too much like a vagrant, there could be trouble.” He shook his head. “But I don’t know where to get an identity card anyway, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “That, I’m not worried about,” Francesca said. She studied him. “Straight up. How much do you actually remember? Not the bullshit you’re feeding the doctors and Stefan, but for real.”

  Her shift to more direct language took Ryker by surprise, and he didn’t temper his response. “I know a fair amount,” he said. “The basics, anyway. How money works, the kind of jobs that people have—jobs I probably had at some point, though I have no recollection of specific work. What foods I like and what I don’t. The music I prefer. I know the names of popular performers, but not of any friends or family members.”

  He didn’t tell her why he thought that was, and instead continued. “I know street names, places I expect to find in the city—all of them in the high-rent district though, which also makes me think my family is wealthy. I’m almost certain I’m not married and have no children. Stefan said as much, but nothing more. I know I live in the city, that I’ve lived there my whole life.” He spread his hands. “But I don’t know who I am, or what happened to me the night my plane went down. If I learn one, I suspect I will learn the other.”

  “So you need time,” she said.

  “Time, money, freedom.” He smiled wryly. “And apparently, false papers. To become someone I’m not until I can figure out who I am.”

  “Fake it ‘til you make it.” The expression on Francesca’s face made her seem far older than her years. “A new identity, Ryker Stavros, isn’t going to be a problem.”

  Chapter Six

  It took barely a few minutes of discussion between Dimitri and Ari to get the GNSF captain to see the wisdom of letting them go ashore in the sailboat’s small dinghy, versus cruising into the bustling marina. This way, Ari and Fran would seem like a happy, carefree couple, and could pull the boat ashore literally anywhere on along the beach, then carry it out or leave it.

  Dimitri certainly didn’t seem to care.

  “I won’t be returning to the island,” he said quietly to Fran as she counted out American dollars into his palm, keeping up with the charade of him as ferryman. “You need me, you call. You don’t need me, call anyway. I’ll be close by.”

  “He may give me the slip.”

  Dimitri grinned. “He’s thought of it, I’m sure. But not right away. He’s no fool. He’ll buy himself a few more days if his keepers think he’s with you.”

  “True,” Fran said. She kept her manner easy, but the words cut a little more deeply than she expected. Of course Dimitri was right. Ari didn’t want Fran with him because he was overflowing with affection for her—merely to dupe his benevolent captors.

  Well, she could help him go the extra step then by creating an identity they couldn’t track. Ari deserved to fast-track his recovery, and the sooner he remembered everything, the sooner her own life—and those of her friends—could return to normal.

  Dimitri handed her down into the small boat and tossed down a third life jacket, which she held to her knees as Ari began to row. They hadn’t gotten more than a few yards from the sailboat when Ari cocked a glance at her. “You’re that worried I’ll dump you into the water?”

  “Never learned to swim,” she said, and she heard the flat Midwestern
twang in her voice. When she got scared, it always surfaced—which is why she’d done a good job of ensuring she didn’t place herself in frightening situations. But it was tough to avoid the ocean on a vacation of beach lovers, so she’d sucked it up. Sitting on the white sandy beaches of Garronia’s Royal Beach had been one thing though. Bobbing in the water with a man who only had half his mind was another.

  “You didn’t have lakes or rivers where you grew up?” Ari asked.

  “Both,” she said tersely. “Small river, pretty big lake. But we didn’t have a boat and I didn’t have a lot of free time to play in the water, so it was never something I picked up.” When she and her dad did go out to the lake—which was nearly once a week in the summer—it was to run a bar truck for the local bikers. From the time she was maybe ten years old, there was no way she was wearing a swimsuit around that crowd.

  They hadn’t been bad men, though. Not most of them. And they did teach her a lot—like how to talk her way through her own fears, and how to fight when talking wasn’t enough. That’s what she needed to focus on, as Ari got them closer to land with each self-assured stroke. “You know how to row, so that’s something,” she said. “Maybe you’re a fisherman?”

  “I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Figured that out when I had to row ashore in a leaky boat after the crash. My hands are calloused now, but then—no. I didn’t work with my own sweat. But I don’t think I managed a trade either.” He quirked his lips. “Had to be pilot, or I was a kept man, which seems unlikely.”

  Despite her nerves, Fran laughed. “I could almost see it. You’re a little scruffy now, but with another nice shave, a hair cut…”

  “Perhaps you should reconsider your earlier offer. I could make an excellent boy toy.” Ari waggled his brows, and Fran’s heart quickened a bit. Despite the haggard look that dogged him, she could almost see the man who’d beamed out of the news photos from a year ago. That Ari had been untroubled, earnest, and seemed so much younger than the man leaning into the oars in front of her. But there remained glimmers of him.