Lone Star Prince

by Cindy Gerard

  Dusting his hands on his thighs, he sniffed out the pan of warm sticky buns Juanita had cooling on the counter and let a huge grin take over. “Jackpot.”

  After washing up and pouring a mug of coffee, he snagged a bun, moaned in ecstasy at the first mouthwatering bite and wandered toward the sounds coming from the great room. Great sounds, he decided, leaning a shoulder against the archway to enjoy the view.

  The four of them—Juanita, Tito, Anna, and little Will were alternately digging into cardboard storage boxes and making oohing and aahing noises as they dragged out Christmas ornaments and scattered them over furniture and floor.

  He held back there for a moment, taking it all in, enjoying the warmth, the sense of celebration. As little as a few days ago, he would have felt separated from the scene, a window-shopper, merely looking in. As of yesterday, however, that sense of exclusion had been obliterated by a longing look, a needful invitation from seeking green eyes as telling as a love song.

  It had been hard to walk away from her in the garden last night. It had also been necessary. Absolutely necessary to leave her with stars in her eyes and a wanting in her heart that he strongly suspected echoed his own.

  But it had been too soon for her. Too new, this reawakening. She needed time to get used to it. And he, he’d needed time to get it under control. Yeah, he wanted her. Yeah, he’d finally accepted that his feelings ran deep. He wasn’t ready to risk scaring her off. So he’d walked away. He’d left her there among the stars. And if he was half the man he needed to be, he’d leave her there again.

  Until she was ready.

  He polished off the sticky bun and shoved away from the archway. “What’s all this?”

  Juanita glanced up to see him standing there, then reached deep into a tall box. “Oh, good. You’re just in time, Mr. Hunt. We need some help with the wreath.”

  Greg angled Anna a smile. Caught up in the festive mood, she forgot to guard herself against her feelings and fired one right back at him. When she realized how spontaneous her reaction was, she toned it down, looked away and busied herself with untangling the string of lights draped over her lap.

  He knew he was spinning her off course. She was used to his cool reserve. Since yesterday, he’d done a complete about-face-lost the ability to manufacture cold indifference, ditched his determination to avoid eye contact.

  “Look,” William cried, scrambling to his feet when he spotted Greg. Clutching a brightly colored figurine in his hands, he raced across the room toward him.

  “Whoa, cowboy.” Snagging the boy just as he tripped over a rope of garland, Greg hauled him onto his hip. “What have you got there?”

  “Santa’s a cowboy, too. Just like me. Look.” William patted a small hand against Greg’s cheek to make sure he had his full attention.

  Laughing, Greg dutifully inspected the plaster figurine of a rosy-cheeked Santa astride a black-and-white horse. “You think he can ride like the wind, too?”

  “Oh, yes. Santa can fly! Him and his reindeer. Do you think Santa’s horse can fly, too?”

  Greg chuckled and settled the boy more comfortably on his hip. “Well, I don’t think Santa would own a horse that didn’t fly.”

  “I don’t think so, either.”

  Anna watched the exchange with a catch in her heart. Seeing the way Greg’s eyes drifted in a warm caress over her face contributed to the sensation. It was the sight of father and son together, so completely taken with each other, however, that pulled at strings and tugged on knots she’d been afraid to let unravel.

  The exchange made it very clear that Gregory felt genuine affection for William. Those big, strong hands held him with such gentle care. The sparkle lighting his eyes was spontaneous and honest.

  Twin blades of hope and regret sliced her heart. Hope, for the relationship that was budding, healed things inside her that had been wounded for a very long time. Regret, for the years father and son had been separated, ate at her in ways she had never fathomed. And always, guilt overrode it all. She had to tell him. She had to tell him soon.

  With a soft pat to his bottom, Greg set William back on the floor where he scooted over to investigate the box that had caused Tito to launch into another chorus of “Oh, man, this is waaay cool.”

  “I thought I heard somebody say something about a wreath.” While he spoke to Juanita, Gregory’s attention was fixed on Anna, his smile soft and intimate, his eyes blue and clear.

  “This one,” Juanita said, giving Anna an excuse to look away from the pull of Gregory’s gaze to the huge hoop of pine cones, assorted nuts and a brilliant red ribbon that Juanita lifted from the box. “It goes over the mantel.”

  “Where did I get all these decorations, Juanita?” Greg asked after he’d left the room then come back with a tall stepladder.

  “Oh, you’ve accumulated them over the years,” Juanita said, tongue in cheek. Both knew good and well that she was the one who had seen to it that Casa Royale was dressed for the holidays every year.

  “Well, I certainly have excellent taste.” He grinned down at her as she handed him the wreath.

  “I’ve always thought so.” Juanita’s dark eyes snapped with mischief.

  “Makes me wonder why I haven’t been around to enjoy all my handiwork more over the years.”

  “Maybe you didn’t have a good enough reason to come around more often,” she added with a quick, but not altogether sly, look Anna’s way.

  “Maybe.” He hefted the wreath into place and centered it before climbing down the ladder and meeting Anna’s eyes again. “Maybe that’s exactly the way I see it, too.”

  Under his considering gaze, Anna blushed. She was dazzled. His warm smiles and velvet looks all but danced as he joined them for the rest of the morning as if he had nothing better to do. He hammered nails. He hung garland. He repaired strings of lights.

  Once, he came up behind her while she was standing on a step stool, draping garland over the arch of a window.

  “Careful,” he whispered, close, so close, as the warmth of his big hand settled proprietorially on her hip. “It wouldn’t do to have you lose your balance and fall.”

  She’d been in no danger of losing her balance. Not until that moment. The touch of his hand on her hip, the gentle puff of his breath tingling at her midriff, just below her breasts, his unique blend of aftershave that made her think of desert nights, of the cinnamon on his breath from Juanita’s sticky buns, the lingering and entirely pleasant presence of horse, hay and sunshine—it all hit her in a dizzying rush.

  She was in danger then. Of falling. Of sinking into his arms and never coming up for air.

  “You okay?” he murmured, his mouth so close to her body, his eyes searching.

  For a long, mesmerizing moment she couldn’t move. She could only stare, tethered by his gaze, shaken by his touch, wanting, wanting desperately to lean down to him, to close the distance between their mouths and taste the heat of his kisses.

  “Anna? Are you all right?” His hand tightened on her hip, his eyes never left her mouth.

  A sizzle of response so electric she jolted had her stepping quickly down from the stool. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  Of course, she wasn’t. She was flustered, confused and totally at odds to understand his actions today given the way he’d disappeared from the garden last night.

  “Is it time to decorate cookies yet?” Tito’s excitement bubbled into the room and broke the spell.

  “It’s time, it’s time,” William chanted as Anna ran an unsteady hand over her hair and tried for a settling breath.

  “That’s my cue to beat a hasty retreat,” Gregory said, backing toward the door.

  “You have to help!” William cried. “You have to.”

  It was all Anna could do to keep from crying out, too. She didn’t want him to leave, either. Although she knew it wasn’t wise, she wanted to experience more of this exciting, attentive Gregory who both tempted and confused her.

  While William’s plainti
ve little plea was well on the way to turning the trick, when Juanita tossed in a bribe of another sticky bun, Gregory threw up his hands in surrender.

  “Okay. Okay. I can see when I’m outgunned. And outmaneuvered,” he added with a laugh.

  He was still grinning when the phone rang. And Anna was still charmed by the ease with which he’d consented.

  “I’ll get it, Juanita.” He caught it on the third ring. “Hello.”

  Still in the process of gathering leftover decorations and tidying up, Anna didn’t immediately tune in to the sudden coldness of Gregory’s tone.

  Something about the way his words became stilted, blatantly abrupt, made her look his way. Even before he told her, the stormy look on his face left little doubt about who was on the other end of the line.

  Her buoyant, expectant mood of moments ago shattered like a precious glass ornament under a carelessly placed foot.

  “It’s your mother,” he said, his face as hard as his voice.

  She stared from the concern in his eyes to the phone in his hand. She’d known this time would come. She’d known her mother and father would eventually track her down—just as she’d known she would have no choice but to talk with her mother now.

  She rose. Wiped suddenly damp palms on her thighs. “I’m surprised it took her this long to find me.”

  “You don’t have to talk to her.” Greg’s gaze never left her face.

  “Yes.” She drew a bracing breath. Held out her hand. “Yes. I do.”

  He searched her face for a long, probing moment before handing her the receiver. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  She smiled—a silent thanks for his support. Then she prepared for the confrontation to come. With her focus centered on the serenity of the garden just outside the window, she lifted the receiver to her ear.

  “Hello, mother.”

  Anna was in the garden when Gregory found her half an hour later. Cosmo, sweet dog, must have sensed her agitation. He sat by her side, his huge box head resting heavily on her lap as she idly stroked his silky coat.

  Gregory didn’t say anything. He just walked up and sat down beside her.

  “After all these years, you’d think I would get used to it,” she said, when both his presence and his silent concern prompted her to share her thoughts aloud with someone who wouldn’t judge her. Trusting, instinctively, and without question that Gregory was that someone, she didn’t hesitate. “She didn’t even ask about William. And, of course, she didn’t ask about me.”

  She filled her hand with Cosmo’s soft, floppy ear, watched the water gurgle gently in the fountain.

  “Her biggest concern was that they don’t think they can keep my absence from Obersbourg under wraps much longer. I’m becoming an embarrassment. Again,” she added, thinking back to her mother’s exact words.

  “It’s so like you, Anna. Always thinking of yourself. How long do you think we can convince the press you are in seclusion, mourning for Sara? They are getting restless. It’s just like that ugly business with William. We had to lie for you then, too. While you pined around for the rogue who fathered him, we had to endure. We had to make up that dreadful story that the father was killed in a malitary accident in Egypt right after you had become engaged. You ran then, too. Well, you’ve run too far this time. And you’ve gone too far. Your duty is here—although after that shocking incident with Ivan—well, I hope you feel sufficient guilt over that. He was our only hope and you destroyed that, too.”

  Anna closed her eyes, shook her head, attempted to physically shrug off the sting of her mother’s cold, impersonal indictment. “I could actually picture her while she was lecturing me. She’d be appalled if she knew her mouth puckered up when she was angry. And that her spine, always as rigid as the hats she insists on wearing and takes such painstaking pride and time selecting, actually bows with anger.”

  She wasn’t aware that she’d started smiling. “Sara—Sara used to do the most outrageous imitation of her. She’d sneak into the closet and get into mother’s hats. Then she’d parade around the halls, her nose in the air—” Her voice trailed off and just as she wasn’t aware that she’d been smiling, she wasn’t aware when that smile softly faded. Nor was she aware that Greg had placed an arm around her shoulders and drawn her close. “I miss Sara so much.”

  “Tell me about her,” he prompted gently—and made it easy to share some of her sister with him, to inadvertently share a little of herself in the process.

  “There was a large gap between what Sara wanted for herself and what she was forced to accept. Between what she wanted to be and what she was forced to be, between what she was and what she was expected to be. Everyone wanted a piece of her until the inevitable happened. Emotional loneliness led to creative frustration, frustration to rebellions.” Rebellions to death, remained unspoken, unnecessary.

  She shook her head sadly. “I remember one birthday when mother ordered the chef to put the wrong number of candles on her cake. Not out of spite—out of apathy. Mother had simply lost track of how old she was and was too complacent to care enough to get it right.”

  Again she paused, remembering. “What attention Sara didn’t get from our parents, she got from the press’s watchful eye. You don’t get used to people looking at you all the time. It’s difficult because you didn’t choose the attention. You were never given a chance, or the circumstances never allowed you to say, Stop, I want to get out of this... this is not what I wanted.”

  Realizing abruptly that she had lapsed into sharing her own sense of frustration, she quickly made corrections.

  “Everywhere she went she was mobbed by fans. She once told me she felt as if she was walking a fine line between pinup and princess. She always tried to make trade-offs for some free time, but duty required that her time was everyone else’s but hers. Environmental ceremonies, school openings, hospital benefits. She didn’t begrudge them, but she needed some private time. She loved to ski. She rarely got the opportunity, and when she did she’d be deluged with reporters.”

  The heat of Gregory’s big body had slowly seeped through to warm the blood that had chilled to ice from the disturbing memories of her life as a princess—of Sara’s life—and the conversation with her mother. The solid support he offered stole the defeating weight of her mother’s accusations. The serenity of the garden and the brilliance of the Texas sun, both constant, steady sources of strength she had grown to seek and rely on, combined with Greg’s strength to snap her back to the moment. Back to the reality that was now—however temporary that may be.

  Thinking of Sara—the best of Sara, a laughing, wickedly daring Sara—made her realize that she didn’t just miss her sister. She missed her spirit. It also made her realize that just once in her life, she wanted—no, needed—to let her own spirit fly free. And it felt, suddenly, that if she didn’t act on that need now, right now, it would never happen at all.

  Propelled by an acute need to experience even a little of Sara’s adrenaline rush of a life, she abruptly shifted her hips on the bench. Facing Gregory, she impulsively reached out and gripped both of his strong hands in hers. “Take me riding,” she said in a rush. “Show me your ranch. Show me the rest of the sky.”

  Her sudden request surprised him. It also concerned him. She could see both reactions in the slight narrowing of his eyes, in the angle of his head as he searched her face.

  “Please.” She squeezed his hands tightly in hers, then felt the spirit she so wanted to unleash fly a little higher when he turned the tables and engulfed her hands in the strong grip of his. “Just like William,” she said, smiling at the memory, “I want to ride like the wind.

  “Show me, Gregory. Show me what that feels like.”

  After the slightest hesitation, one corner of his beautiful mouth tipped up as he gave in and let himself get caught up in her adventurous mood. “How well do you ride?”

  “Well enough to leave you in the dust.” Amazed and secretly delighted by her sudden aud
acity and by the surprise on his face, she laughed softly when he broke into a grin.

  “Well...” He rose and tugged her to her feet. “I reckon I’ll have to take that as a dare, ‘cause around these parts, those are fightin’ words, little missy.”

  She laughed again, a quick, spontaneous, absolutely joyous reaction to his teasing drawl and staged swagger. “Take it any way you want, cowboy. Just take me riding.”

  It was almost one o’clock when they finally closed the last gate behind them and entered open range. There were the cookies to consider—and the long faces two little boys were bound to wear if Greg and Anna hadn’t stayed and helped out with the decorating. Not to mention, a quick lunch and a promise to both William and Tito that Greg would let them ride Bea when he and Anna returned from their ride.

  Greg had suspected correctly that Anna was used to riding with English tack. The western saddle she sat astride on Slick Skip, a sweet little four-year-old gelding he’d meant for himself to ride, however, didn’t seem to be giving her any trouble.

  He, on the other hand, was having plenty of trouble. The kind of trouble that made it hard to keep his mind on the ride. He couldn’t shake the impact of her shared confidences about her sister. While he had no doubt she had been talking about Sara, he also had no doubt that Anna had lived every one of those experiences right alongside her sister. It painted a grim picture of two lonely little princesses trying to cope with a world that was not of their making. It painted a graphic account of two lovely young women whose lives belonged to the world and never to themselves. One had rebelled, and now she was dead. One had finally escaped. And her future was still uncertain—at least from her perspective. He, however, had some very definitive ideas on the subject.

  No, he hadn’t anticipated this resurgence of attraction—of love—that had drawn him to her in the beginning. Hadn’t expected to find her every bit as beautiful as she’d been when they’d first met. Hadn’t guessed he’d discover a maturity that added dignity, grace and, oddly, a touching vulnerability that the young woman he had fallen in love with had not possessed.