by Cindy Gerard
It wasn’t that he hadn’t been to the diner since she’d started working here. He’d come in once or twice with his brother, Blake, or with a group of men to argue politics over coffee, talk business over breakfast. But she’d always gotten the sense that he’d been cornered into coming. And he’d always made it a point to avoid her by sitting in Sheila’s section instead of hers.
Something about the way he stood there, though, in no hurry to break eye contact, made her think he wasn’t particularly interested in clarifying any points today. His bold blue eyes met and held hers for such a long moment that she physically felt the pull. Her heart reacted. Then her hand, as in a knee-jerk feminine gesture, she raised it to her hair and self-consciously tucked a stray strand back into the ponytail she had hastily assembled before coming to work at 6:00 a.m.
The most remarkable thing happened then. Those hard eyes that seemed to see clear through to her soul softened. The rigid line of his mouth relaxed into what—in a benevolent stretch of imagination—could almost be taken for a smile.
It was a smile, she decided, and felt an absurd crimson blush creep hotly across her cheeks as he touched a finger to his hat brim, dipped his head in a subtle gesture that could have meant he was glad to see her, then walked to a booth—in Sheila’s section.
It all happened so fast she was left standing there wondering if she’d imagined it. As he walked away, she stole another glance at his dark profile, satisfied, as she always was when she saw him, that he had changed very little in the years since she’d left him alone in the plaza where they had met. He was leaner, perhaps. The chiseled angles of his handsome face were more richly defined. The crease between his brows was deeper, the cleft in his chin that still fascinated her, more pronounced. His face was bold and full of character, the dark wings of his brows hooded the stunning blue of eyes darkened by experience and, she thought sadly, by a measure of cynicism. She sincerely hoped she hadn’t been the cause.
His hair was longer now than when they’d met and thick like sable. In their breathless flight from Obersbourg and on the few occasions she’d seen him since, she had noticed that it had a tendency to wave, just a little, enhancing the style, lending a sensual vulnerability that undercut the firm set of his mouth. It was a mouth—with that devastatingly captivating pleat in the center of its lower lip—she remembered well, once quick with a smile, eager to relax with laughter or seduce with a kiss she could neither resist nor deny.
A delicious and entirely inappropriate little shiver of desire eddied down her spine as she remembered the feel of his lips on hers, the taste of him, the weight of him. With a clarity that hurried her heart, she saw them together as they had been four years ago. She saw the sunlight caress his beautiful face beside hers on the pillow the first morning she had awakened in his bed. They’d made love all night. Glorious, lusty, delicious love. He’d smiled at her, that slow, satisfied, I’m-hungry-for-you-again sort of smile and reached for her. His jaw had been morning stubbled, his hands had been callused and so, so clever as he’d pulled her beneath him, then tracked slow, biting kisses across her throat, to the slope of her breast, then down in languid, torturous inches to the heat of her, the heart of her...
With an abrupt shake of her head, she jarred herself back to the moment. To the ever-present and hollow ache his absence in her life had left behind. To the reality that she would never know him in that way again.
Thankfully, for the next hour, she was too busy to wonder about or even watch Gregory as a group of men—Langley, Churchill, Cunningham and Blake among them—joined him at his table. The door opened again and then again as if someone had released the floodgates and everyone in Royal had decided to have breakfast at the diner. Soon, all the other tables in the café were full as well, while “Jingle Bell Rock” played joyfully in the background.
An hour and a half later, her orders were all filled, the place was quieting down to the soft din of coffee cups on heavy restaurant-grade china and the scattered laughter of everyday Americana in Royal, Texas.
It was a peace she had grown to enjoy—even relish. The rush was over. She’d done a good job. Bellies were full, fresh coffee was brewing and, as an added bonus, Gregory was nearby—then all hell brook loose.
“Oh, man,” she heard an unfamiliar male voice all but shout with unbridled joy. “I told you it was her. Jackson—are you with me? Damn it, man! I don’t see any flashbulbs snapping. Get the picture. Get the damn picture!”
Four
Anna turned toward the commotion at the diner’s front door. A weaselly little man wearing plaid pants and wielding a portable microphone was on a collision course in her direction. He looked as out of place among the sea of Stetsons and western shirts as tennis shoes with a tuxedo.
An old familiar fear skittered down her spine as, slippery as a shark, he hurriedly skirted several tables to get to her. Behind him, a bearded photographer snapped pictures as if he was covering a coronation.
“Beautiful!” the weasel purred, his voice dripping with smarmy greed. “Man, this is just beautiful! Princess—Princess Anna von Oberland.” He flashed a business card under her nose and slung an arm around her shoulders as if she had just become his private property. “Herkner. Willis Herkner, of the American Investigator, at your service, Your Highness.
“You’d better be getting this Jackson,” he barked, cutting a sharp glance back at the photographer and dropping all pretense of charm. “A waitress. They’ve got her decked out like a damn waitress!” He whooped with absolute glee before turning an oily smile back to her. “Now, Princess. Tell me. What’s a nice little royal like you doing in a dump like this, huh?”
Anna was so startled by his piranha attack and his use of her title, she was at a momentary loss for words—as was everyone else occupying the Royal Diner. She darted a quick glance around the café. Everyone was staring. And she could see in their eyes that they were as shocked as they were curious. As confused as they were uneasy.
These people were her friends. At least, she had deluded herself into believing they were her friends. Suddenly she saw herself through their eyes. And through their eyes, she felt their sense of her betrayal.
“You...you’re mistaken. My name is Annie. Annie Grace,” she murmured miserably, the lie sounding as convincing as a snail claiming speed.
“Oh, come on. Princess. Baby. Don’t play games with me. Your little jig is up. Now talk to me. Let’s hammer out a deal before the rest of the pack closes in. I want an exclusive and I’m willing to pay for it.”
The abrupt tinkle of the bell over the diner’s front door attracted all eyes.
“Sonofabitch,” Herkner snarled when a full camera crew carrying equipment with the logo of a major cable TV network burst inside. Right behind them more reporters clamored to get through the door, butting against each other like a giant logjam bottlenecked at a narrow dam.
“Come on, Princess!” Herkner grabbed Anna by her arm, broke into a trot and dragged her with him toward the diner’s back door. “This story is mine. I’ll be damned if I’ll let those other bloodhounds beat me out of it. Talk to me. What are you doing hiding out here? And what do you know about the death of Prince Ivan Striksky? That’s right,” he said, malicious accusation widening his shark’s smile when she planted her feet and jerked out of his grasp. “We know about that. We know that he followed you here and now he’s dead. Here’s your chance to tell your story. Now give.”
Gripping her arm painfully, he started dragging her with him toward the back of the diner again. Even as he pummeled her with questions, the flood of reporters and photographers continued to glut the café, began to catch up with them, engulfing her in an endless, battering barrage of shouts and flashbulbs.
Manny poked his head out over the cook’s counter as an artificial Christmas tree toppled to its side in the ruckus. “What the hell’s going on?”
Anna grabbed hold of a table for an anchor as they passed by.
“Manny!” She sought his ey
es and his help even as he vaulted over the counter and tried to cut his way through the crush toward her.
But it was hopeless. Herkner jerked her free and yanked her toward the rear exit. There were too many of them—and only one of Manny.
“Hold them off, Manny!”
Anna’s gaze shot up as the sound of Gregory’s voice rose above the chaos of yelling reporters and the bump and scrape of tables and chairs being shoved out of their way. Her heart cried with hope as she spotted his black Stetson above the crowd, then dove into despair when he got stalled in the middle of the jam of bodies.
He didn’t stay in the crush for long. With an agile stride, he stepped up on a chair, from the chair he leaped onto a table. And then he was rushing toward her, literally leaping from tabletop to tabletop. Candles wreathed with holly berries, napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers and anything else in the way flew as the good folk of Royal ducked under booths and dove out of the way.
If it hadn’t been so frightening, it would have been laughable. It was like a scene from one of those copsand-criminal movies she sometimes let William watch when she didn’t have the heart to turn off the TV. The whole diner was in a collective state of mayhem. A popular country artist launched into “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” as Herkner dragged her farther away from Gregory.
His grip on her arm was brutal. The army of reporters and camera crews lurching forward in hot pursuit was relentless. And Gregory, gaining on the whole ugly swarm, maneuvered around hanging tinsel and wobbly tables to get to her side.
Forrest Cunningham and Sterling Churchill, she realized, had joined the mix, too. So had Blake. She caught glimpses of them close behind Gregory, striding briskly over tables and booths in their cowboy boots, expertly dodging the grabbing hands of the reporters, throwing in a shoulder block here, a body slam there, guarding Gregory’s back as, stone-faced, he made his way to her side.
Langley had also come to his friend’s aid. He’d stationed himself like a cement wall by the front door. The black look on his face and the fever of the fight glinting from the eyes shielded by the brim of his hat invited the late arrivals to just try to get past him and get inside.
“Let her go, you sleazebag!” Gregory snarled as he hooked an arm around Herkner’s neck. When the reporter jerked viciously on Anna’s arm, Greg brought a knee up hard in his left kidney.
Herkner groaned like a dog with a bellyache and let go. “That...that’s...assault. I’ll...s-sue,” he croaked miserably then folded like a tin roof in a hurricane wind.
“So I’ll see you in court,” Greg shouted as Herkner doubled over into a ball on the floor. Stepping over him, Gregory tucked Anna against his side. “While we’re at it, we’ll have a little chat with the judge about invasion of privacy. And how about throwing a little attempted kidnapping into the mix just for fun?”
With Gregory’s arm around her, strong, yet gentle, he made a shield of his body and sheltered her from the rapidly gaining pack.
Caught up in the frenzy of the mob mentality, a freckle-faced reporter who saw headlines instead of danger broke through the throng and got within three feet of Anna.
“You just entered the danger zone, partner!” Manny warned, blocking his way.
“Chill out, man.” He hefted his camera and shot, fast and furious. “Don’t you know it’s always open season on princesses?”
“I know it’s open season on skunk,” Manny said, then politely lopped him over the head with an iron skillet and watched with a smile as he crumbled to the floor without a whimper.
“Go! Go, man,” Manny shouted to Greg, and grinning like a fallen angel, tucked into a karate stance, daring the next reporter to challenge him.
“You want a piece of Manny?” he crooned over the noise. “You just come on, you miserable little cockroaches. Let’s see what you got.”
“Manny! Buzzard bait at ten o’clock!”
He spun around as Sheila yelled a warning then launched herself off a chair and onto Manny’s pursuer’s back.
“Ride him, little Sheba!” Manny let out a whoop of laughter and dove across the sea of bodies to help her.
Anna saw it all as if it was a bad dream, as Gregory steered her closer to the back door and safety. Tob late she heard a table topple beside her. She tried to dodge it, stumbled over a fallen chair and felt herself falling.
She was falling and running and the hands just kept grabbing—just like in her nightmare. But no sooner was she hit by the sensation of being sucked into a quicksand of seeking hands was she being lifted off her feet. With a cry of relief, she wrapped her arms around Gregory’s neck, buried her face against the solid strength of his chest and clung to the haven she had thought she’d never find.
The next sound Anna heard was the solid thump of the diner’s back door slamming shut behind them. The next sensation she felt was the brilliance of the Texas sun on her cheek and the heat of Gregory’s body against her breast. And the next time she opened her eyes, she was still wrapped in Gregory’s arms, his heart beating fast and heavy against hers.
They flew down the alley, Gregory running like an Olympic sprinter. He ducked around a corner, checked the street for reporters. When he spotted several milling around the diner’s door, he swore under his breath. Gauging the distance, he sucked in a deep breath and made a break for his truck.
When he reached it, he jerked opened the driver’s side door and tumbled Anna inside. He’d just hitched a hip onto the seat and reached for the ignition when a CNN photographer with a video camera blocked the door.
“Back off!” Greg snarled.
“In your dreams, cowboy.” The photographer stuck the lens in the open door to get a better shot.
Mistake. Big mistake.
With a roar of pure, primal rage, Greg jerked the camera out of his hands.
“Hey—that’s private property. You can’t—”
He stopped midsentence when the camera flew over his head and into the street in front of the truck.
Without missing a beat, Greg cranked the key and rammed the truck in gear. Peeling away from the curb, he deliberately ran over the expensive camera.
“My camera! You killed my camera!” the reporter wailed as Greg gunned the motor, shifted directly from first to fourth gear and burned rubber for three blocks.
Stunned into silence, Anna hung on to the seat with one hand and brushed the hair that had tumbled from her ponytail out of her face with the other. With a shaky breath, she glanced behind them. The throng of reporters clambered out of the café and into their vehicles.
“They’re following us!”
“They can try,” Greg muttered, cutting a quick glance to the rearview mirror. His expression, odd as it seemed under the circumstances, could have passed for a smile. “Buckle up. This is not going to turn into a parade.”
He downshifted, hit the brake and the gas at the same time and jetted them in a screeching, careening, twowheel, ninety-degree turn around the corner. Shifting straight into fourth gear again, he punched the accelerator and sent them flying.
If her jaws hadn’t been locked so tight she’d have screamed. Loud and long. Buildings bled by in blurry images as they raced across town. Every intersection was an exercise in nerve as he ran stoplights, dodged cars, then did another one of those flying ninety’s. This time they ended up sandwiched in a narrow alley, where he tucked the pickup neatly between an idling garbage truck and a brick wall.
Greg kept the motor revved and his eyes glued on the rearview mirror. A tense five minutes passed before he let out a long breath and turned his gaze to Anna.
The adrenaline from the exhilaration of the cat-and-mouse chase bottomed out at the look of her. Damn. She looked bruised, battered and about two breaths away from shattering like glass.
The freckle-faced reporter’s words came back like a tabloid headline: “It’s always open season on princesses.”
For the first time since this all began, Greg let himself feel a full dose of pity for the
fishbowl life Anna had to endure. At the same time, his mind geared down long enough to remember the feel of her in his arms when he’d carried her out of the diner.
It had been four years since he’d held her. Four years since he’d felt the sweet yielding warmth of her body nestled against his. It had been four damn years too long.
He tightened his grip on the wheel. “I think we lost them,” he said when what he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and hold her again.
She nodded, looking straight ahead.
A sudden concern outdistanced his desire. “Anna, are you okay?”
Another nod, but slow enough in coming that he felt a sharp, hard pain somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. “Did that bastard hurt you?”
She pinched her eyes shut Touched a hand unconsciously to her arm and shook her head.
Instantly alert, he flicked open the buckle on his seat belt, twisted in the seat and pushed up her sleeve. He swore under his breath. Four angry red welts in the exact shape of a man’s fingers mottled her milk-white skin. Tomorrow they’d be black and blue.
Tomorrow Herkner would be eating through a straw.
Through the rage, he saw her tear. And it was then that he lost his mind completely.
“Ah, hell.” He slid over beside her. “Come here,” he said gruffly, flicked open her seat belt and pulled her into his arms.
She came like a kitten. All delicate curves and snugly warmth. And he was lost. Again. Lost, still, he realized, as she curled up on his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and held on like he was the harbor she’d been seeking in an endless sea of uncertainty.
“It’s all right,” he murmured. “It’s all right.”
He felt her tense, sensed her struggle to contain the tears, but the dam broke against her will and she started to cry openly then.
“Oh, damn. Don’t. Anna, don’t Don’t cry,” he whispered, pressing his lips against her hair, touching them to the delicate shell of her ear, skimming them across her brow. “Please don’t cry.”