Natural-Born Protector / Saved by the Monarch

by Carla Cassidy

  “Definitely,” Melody replied.

  “Daddy says I can only stay a minute because you’re supposed to be twelve to be on this floor. We sneaked me in. Grandma’s waiting to take me home.”

  “I’m so glad you came because I was lying here right before you came in and thinking that what I needed more than anything else in the world was a kiss from Maddie,” Melody exclaimed.

  Maddie smiled. “I don’t think that’s really what you were thinking but I love you for telling me that.”

  “You’d better go with Grandma now,” Hank said. “I need to have a grown-up talk with Melody.”

  Melody blew the little girl a kiss as Susan stuck her head in the door. She waved, and then the two of them disappeared. Hank moved to sit in the chair Rita had vacated earlier.

  “How are you really doing?” he asked.

  “I’m sore, but I’m feeling better, stronger today. Has anyone told you when I can get out of here?”

  Hank shook his head. “I imagine the doctor will be in to speak to you sometime this afternoon.”

  “I’d like to leave as soon as possible.” This was the first time they’d talked since their argument, when hurtful words had been flung back and forth. “Hank, I owe you an apology,” she said.

  He frowned in confusion. “For what?”

  “The last time we spoke I was way out of line. I said things that I had no business saying to you.”

  “And thank God you did,” he said. “Oh, I’ll admit, at first I was puffed up with self-righteous anger.” He smiled. “As I’m sure you were by the things I said to you. But a crazy thing happened in the last couple of days. I started doing a lot of thinking, something I haven’t done much of over the last couple of years.”

  He stood and walked to the window, where he peered outside. With her gaze, she caressed the broad strength of his back, the long leanness of his legs.

  He and his daughter had crashed into her life with a force that had been impossible to resist. Just looking at him standing there she felt the magic, that tingle of pleasure in the pit of her stomach, that wave of sweet possibility that soared in her heart.

  “You were right, you know.” He turned back to look at her but didn’t come any closer. “I’m a rancher at heart. When Rebecca died I turned my back on everything good. It felt obscene for me to be happy in any way with her gone. So, I sold the ranch, distanced myself from my daughter and swore that I’d never really be happy again. I took the job as bodyguard because I didn’t care about my life, because deep down inside I was on a road to self-destruction.” He laughed and shook his head. “I can see it all so clearly now, and I couldn’t see it at all before you yelled at me.”

  He walked back across the room and sat once again in the chair at her side. “I called Dalton this morning, told him I’m out of the bodyguard business.”

  “Hank, I’m so glad,” she said. If her only role in his life was that of a wake-up call that would bring happiness to both him and Maddie, then she supposed she could live with that.

  “I’m going to buy another ranch, become the cowboy my daughter has missed. You gave me my life back, Melody, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for it.” His eyes glowed and she forced a smile to her lips while her heart cried out with her love for him.

  “I’m glad, Hank. You and Maddie deserve all the happiness in the world.”

  “You know, I thought I was a bodyguard in training, but in truth I was a man in training and I think with your help, I’ve graduated.”

  At that moment Dr. Fedor walked in. “Ah, you look much better today than you did the last time I checked on you,” he said to Melody. “Hank, if you’ll just step outside, I need to check my handiwork.”

  “I’ll talk to you later,” Hank said and disappeared out the door.

  Dr. Fedor pulled back the sheet and kept up a running stream of friendly chatter as he gently removed the bandage across her wound.

  “Things look good,” he said. “You’re going to have a scar, but it shouldn’t be too bad and will certainly fade with time.”

  “That’s good,” Melody said and burst into tears.

  “Did I hurt you?” Dr. Fedor asked worriedly.

  She shook her head as the sobs continued. “I’m fine,” she managed to say. “I’m just overly emotional.”

  Dr. Fedor hurriedly covered her back up again. “It’s no wonder you’re feeling weepy. You’ve been through quite an ordeal. Do you need a tranquilizer? Something to calm you down?”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine,” she replied. There was no point in correcting him. There was no reason to tell him that having a man almost kill her wasn’t why she was crying. She was crying because Hank and Maddie were going to have a wonderful life. She was crying because that wonderful life didn’t include her.

  Hank stood at the window of his unit, watching as Melody got out of her mother’s car. He hadn’t been back to the hospital since the day before when they’d been interrupted by the doctor. He’d hoped that she’d call him if she was released from the hospital and needed a ride home, but obviously she’d called her mother.

  It was finally over. Lainie’s murder had been solved and now Melody would be making plans to get back to her life in Chicago. He would always be grateful to her. She’d given him back his life, but the emptiness that ached in him as he thought of her being gone had nothing to do with gratefulness.

  Within minutes Rita reappeared, got into her car and took off. Hank frowned. Surely she hadn’t left her daughter, fresh out of the hospital, alone in a town house that had few amenities? But it looked like that’s exactly what she’d done.

  Dammit, why hadn’t she gone home with her mother? She needed care and attention. She could be so stubborn! Even though he told himself it was none of his business, that she was none of his business anymore, he found himself stalking down the hallway to Lainie’s front door.

  He didn’t knock, nor was the door locked. He walked inside and called her name. “Back here,” she called from the bedroom.

  She sat on the side of the twin bed in the guest room and she smiled as he appeared in the doorway. He didn’t return the gesture. “What in the hell are you doing back here?” he asked. He didn’t give her an opportunity to answer. “You need to be someplace where somebody can take care of you.”

  “I’ve taken care of myself just fine all my life,” she replied.

  “You have stitches, and you still have bruised ribs. You shouldn’t be here alone. What was your mother thinking, just dropping you off and driving away?” He stared at her in frustration, knowing she was probably going to fire back at him with both barrels. Instead she laughed, then winced, then laughed again.

  “I think what Mom was thinking was that she’d go pick up the prescriptions that are waiting for me at the drugstore while I gathered my things up here so I could go back home with her.”

  Hank stepped back, feeling like a total fool. And in that moment, he knew what emotion had caused him to stomp over here, recognized what he’d known deep inside for a while. He loved Melody Thompson.

  The realization struck him like a blow to the gut and brought with it an incredible sense of joy and a fierce pang of pain. He loved her, and soon she would be gone.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, pulling him from his tortured thoughts.

  “Yeah…no. No, I’m not all right. I’m scared,” he said in a low voice. He’d never confessed to being scared about anything to anyone before.

  She got up from the bed, her eyes the glorious blue that pierced his heart. “Scared? Scared of what?”

  He gazed at her, seeing the tender concern on her features, remembering not only making love with her, but laughing with her and talking about things that mattered and things that didn’t.

  “I’m scared of letting you go,” he finally said. “You brought me back to life, you made me fall in love with you and now you’re going to leave to go back to your life and I can’t imagine not having you here with me and Maddie
.”

  She stood perfectly still, as if his words had frozen her to stone, and he continued, unable to stop himself. “I know you have a job teaching in Chicago, but surely they need teachers around these parts, too. I don’t know how you feel about living on a ranch, but there’s nothing that would make Maddie happier than having you as a stepmother.” He finally stopped talking, wondering if his words had been a futile effort.

  She took a step closer to him, her features giving nothing away. “Your mother told me that you had magic with Rebecca. I feel magic with you, Hank, but I need to know if that’s what you feel with me.” Her eyes grew misty, as if she feared what his answer might be.

  He carefully pulled her into his arms, needing to touch her, smell her. “Whenever I hear your voice, I feel happy. Looking at you makes me need to touch you, to hold you. And spending time with you makes me want to be the best man that I can be. I’d call that magic, wouldn’t you?”

  A sweet sigh escaped her and she leaned into him, her head on his chest as his arms enfolded her. “I love you, Hank. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, but I did.”

  “Then marry me. Be my wife, Melody. Let’s build a future together starting today. Rebecca was my magic in the past, but you’re my magic for my future.”

  She raised her head to gaze at him, her eyes shining with the light of her love for him. It humbled him, that he would find this kind of love, this kind of magic twice in his lifetime. “Yes,” she said softly and he dipped his head to claim her lips with his.

  “Daddy?” Maddie burst into the bedroom and the two adults sprang apart. Maddie stared from one to the other. “Daddy, you were kissing Melody. You were kissing her on the lips.”

  “I guess I was,” he agreed with a wide smile. “I always kiss the woman I’m going to marry on the lips.”

  Maddie’s eyes widened. “For real? If you marry her then she’ll be my new mommy.”

  “Then I guess you’re going to get a new mommy,” Hank replied. He and Melody laughed as Maddie squealed her delight. “And we’re going to find a nice ranch to live on,” he added.

  Happy tears dampened Maddie’s eyes. “My dream is coming true,” she exclaimed.

  “Mine, too,” Melody said with a long, loving look at Hank.

  “You know what I think?” Maddie asked. “I think Lainie and Mommy are smiling at us from heaven.”

  “I think you’re right,” Melody replied and smiled as Hank pulled his two best girls into his arms.

  “All I know is right now I’m the happiest man on the face of the earth,” he said.

  Melody smiled at him, a teasing glint in her eyes. “You started out as a bodyguard in training and you’re going from that to being a husband in training.”

  “I like the sound of that,” he said, and as Maddie clapped her approval he captured Melody’s lips once again in a kiss that held all his heart, all his soul and the magic of love.

  Saved By The

  Monarch

  By

  Dana Marton

  Dana Marton is the author of more than a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizeable flower garden where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She would love to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.

  To Princess Judi. Long may she reign.

  With many thanks to Allison Lyons.

  Chapter One

  Today he would meet his bride. Prince Miklos hurried along the narrow passageway. If all went well, in three months they’d be married. Given the political climate of the Valtrian kingdom, a traditional engagement in the public eye that lasted a full year wasn’t an option. The Royal House of Kerkay desperately needed the positive publicity and all the goodwill a royal wedding would bring. They needed it quickly.

  There came that noise again. His attention focused on his surroundings. He wasn’t alone in the catacombs, the narrow corridors carved into stone that crisscrossed most of the city and culminated in a jumbled labyrinth under the Valtrian royal palace. Unease prickled his skin, a distinguishable sensation from the goose bumps the cool, damp air gave the prince every time he walked through here. Which wasn’t often. But today his schedule was tight and he didn’t want to waste time on the reporters who loitered around the palace entrances armed with pointed questions about the unrest in the south.

  The lights flickered, but that wasn’t unusual. The electric system down here was over fifty years old, currently scheduled for maintenance. He strode forward without hesitation, his military boots making a hard sound on the stone that echoed, mixing with the scrape of other footsteps up ahead.

  Some of the catacombs under the city had been turned into a tourist attraction, with guided tours twice a day, but the closed-off section under the palace was guarded twenty-four seven. He expected a palace guard would pop around a corner in seconds.

  Except that didn’t happen.

  Odd. Whoever was down here with him had to have heard him by now. A guard would have come to see who he was, would have properly greeted him. The sound of footsteps grew more faint, definitely not coming closer. Someone in a hurry. To get away from him?

  The lights flickered again.

  And he considered how he hadn’t come across a single guard yet. He picked up speed, but couldn’t catch sight of anyone, the footsteps always just around the next corner.

  “Halt!” he called out, the intonation that of a military man—he was a Valtrian Army major.

  The palace guard would have recognized his voice and obeyed.

  Instead, the footsteps quickened.

  He took off running toward them, then pulled up short when the lights went out and he was suddenly enveloped in complete darkness.

  Ambush, his military-trained mind said. He stole forward slowly, taking care to soften his steps.

  His hand moved to his sidearm, although, realistically, he didn’t expect much more than an opportunistic tourist who had somehow gotten past a chained gate. Gotten too far while the guards were doing something else somewhere else. The catacomb system was vast.

  He stepped to the side and put his back against the wall, ready for anything. But when the lights flickered on for one second, he found the corridor empty in front of him.

  And yet his senses told him something was off. He slipped his gun from its leather holster and hadn’t taken two steps forward when the lights went out again.

  He could be walking into a trap—side tunnels frequently interrupted the corridor he traveled. He moved forward one slow meter at a time, preparing for whatever was to come next, cautioning himself to restraint. A prince beating up a lost tourist would make for terrible publicity, so he bade himself not to jump to conclusions and rash actions when he caught up with whoever was down here. But he kept his gun out, although he didn’t take the safety off, not yet.

  He followed the sound, turned when he had to, going by feel through twisting corridors in the darkness, enveloped by damp air and musty smells. Then the footsteps suddenly died.

  He strained to listen, but couldn’t hear anything. He braced his left hand against the wall to orient himself—the stone in the various passages was cut with different techniques, as the catacombs had been added to over the centuries—touched something wet, pulled his hand back.

  In some places the walls were moist. There was even a small underground stream, but that was at least a mile from where he was standing.

  Could be a water pipe was leaking somewher
e beneath the palace. He would have to have that investigated.

  He moved ahead, but could no longer pick out any sound beyond the muffled ones he made. The lights flickered back on again. He immediately knew where he was and turned the corner toward the palace entry he’d been headed for. He turned another corner, strode down another long walkway, then another. And spotted a guard, at last, by the steel security door.

  “Your Highness.” The man snapped his heels together and pulled his spine ramrod straight, staring ahead.

  “Has anyone come up this way?” he asked.

  “None, Your Highness.”

  “You’re the first guard I’ve seen since coming in through the stables.” He’d entered the catacombs through the secret door at the royal stables at the foot of Palace Hill.

  “I’ll alert the captain immediately.”

  “See that you do. Are the lights working properly?”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “They keep going off and on down there.”

  “It’ll be seen to. Is there anything else, Your Highness?” The man’s face was set in stone, but his voice betrayed his nerves. His unit had been caught derelict in their duties by none other than a member of the royal family.

  And Miklos didn’t feel like going easy on him. He was a military man through and through who considered his duty sacred. “Tell the captain I want a full sweep. There might be unauthorized personnel down there.”

  If the man was surprised, he didn’t show it. A complete sweep of the catacombs was rarely conducted. The last time they’d done a full survey was over a decade ago, for architectural reasons. They were testing the rock bed for stability before beginning renovations on the East Wing of the palace. Before his father’s death.

  He left the guard behind and walked up the stairs, was greeted by another guard as he entered the palace proper. He checked his cell phone when he passed the man. Three unanswered calls from the chief of security. Cell phones didn’t work down in the catacombs.