Secret Agent Dad

by Metsy Hingle

  Furious with her for saying such a thing, for not realizing how special she was, Blake retorted, “And do tell me, Ms. Walters. Just what kind of woman do you think I’d fall in love with? What kind of woman do I belong with?”

  “A woman who’s elegant and beautiful, who wears designer dresses and has a family she can trace back to Plymouth Rock. A woman who belongs at parties where you entertain princesses and politicians. A woman who’s special like you are. I’m not that woman, Blake. I never could be.”

  But, oh, how she wished she were that woman, Josie thought an hour later, as she finally convinced Blake to go. She watched as he and the twins drove away from the farmhouse and out of her life. When she walked back inside, the house had never seemed so empty. And she had never felt so alone in her life.

  She was still feeling empty and alone two days later when, after discovering one of Miranda’s socks, she called the apartment that Greg had set up for Princess Anna and her son. “Thank you for taking my call, Princess, and for letting me know how they’re doing.”

  “Please, call me Anna. And I was happy to hear from you. I wanted a chance to thank you for taking such good care of my niece and nephew.”

  “I was happy to do it, Prin—Anna.”

  “Oh, by the way, Blake just arrived to see the twins. Did you wish to speak to him?”

  Josie wanted to shout yes, but instead she said, “No. But thank you.”

  “It’s probably just as well that you don’t speak to him now. I expect the accident and rescuing the twins has taken its toll on him.”

  Josie’s heart nearly stopped. “Is he...is Blake all right? I mean, he isn’t ill, is he?”

  “No, not in the way you mean. His body is well, but I don’t think his heart is.” She paused. “Forgive me, Josie. We do not know each other, but I thought perhaps you were the cause.”

  “Me? You’re mistaken, Anna. I couldn’t be the cause.” Unwilling to allow hope to take root, she decided to end the conversation. “I really do need to go. But thank you again for speaking to me, and please, give Miranda and Edward each a kiss for me. I hope...” Josie swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I hope you find a good family for them.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have the perfect couple in mind,” Anna told her.

  Hanging up the phone, Josie swiped at the tears on her cheeks. Her heart aching, she wondered how long it would be before the twins and Blake forgot her, and if she would ever be able to forget them.

  She wasn’t ever going to be able to forget them, Josie decided the next week as she drove back from Midland and passed the spot in the road where she had rescued Blake and the twins. Rethinking those frantic moments of driving through the storm with them, she turned off the highway onto the road to her farm. And then she saw it. A big, beautiful white limousine parked in front of her house. Her heart racing, Josie gripped the steering wheel with both hands and started down the drive. Before she had stopped the truck, the door of the limo opened, and Blake got out.

  Her fingers shook as she switched off the engine. Afraid to let herself hope, Josie simply sat there, drinking in the sight of him. He’d lost weight. There was a scar on his forehead now instead of a bandage, but he was the most beautiful sight in the world to her.

  He pulled open the door to her truck, tipped back his hat to look at her. “You going to hide in there the rest of the day, angel?”

  “I wasn’t hiding.”

  He arched a brow in that cocky way only he could do and held out his arms to help her down.

  She didn’t trust herself to touch him. So she said, “I can manage.”

  “Yeah. But I can’t.” He reached up and pulled her out of the truck and into his arms.

  “Blake! What do you think you’re doing? I—”

  He cut off her protest with his mouth. There was hunger in his kiss. And desperation. And something she’d never witnessed in him before—fear. When he lifted his head, he said, “I love you. If I were the noble and good man you think I am, I would leave you right now and let you find someone who deserves you. But I’m not noble and I’m not good. And I’m not going to leave you to find someone else, because I don’t want to live without you. I’m no prince, and I don’t have a castle to offer you as a home, but I love you, and I need you.”

  “Oh, Blake—”

  “Please, angel. Let me get all of this out while I can. My job—it won’t be as big a problem as before. I’ve talked to my superiors, and while I’ll still do some traveling, it won‘t be as much. I can’t get out completely—at least not yet—but I won’t be required out in the field the way I have been. And if you’ll agree to marry me, to take a chance on me, ] swear I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to become the kind of man you want me to be.”

  “Oh, Blake.” She caught his face between her hands. “You don’t have to become the man I want. You are the man I want. You always were.” And this time she kissed him, tried to show how much she loved and needed him.

  Josie was so lost in the joy of kissing Blake, it took a moment before she registered the sound. She jerked her mouth free. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” he asked, already kissing her neck.

  “Crying.” She shoved at his shoulders. “Blake, I heard a baby crying.”

  “Oh, Lord. Hurry, before the other one starts,” he said, and started dragging her with him back to the limo.

  “The other one?” she repeated.

  “Dammit! We’re too late,” he told her, diving inside the backseat. He came out holding a crying baby Edward.

  “Eddie!” Josie squealed and took the crying baby, whose little arms were reaching for her already.

  Blake dove back inside and came out with Miranda. “Hey, it’s all right, sugar britches.”

  “But I don’t understand. What are they doing with you?”

  A flush colored his cheeks. “I brought them along as reinforcements.”

  “Reinforcements? But I don’t understand. Princess Anna said she’d found a couple to adopt them.”

  The flush deepened. “Um, actually, we’re the couple.”

  Josie felt shocked. Overwhelmed. Delighted. “Us? You and me?”

  “I sort of got used to the idea of being their dad, of us being a family.”

  “So did I,” Josie admitted, kissing Edward’s fingers.

  “I knew I loved you and wanted to marry you the morning I left here.”

  “Then why didn’t you call, Blake? Why didn’t you come back?” Josie asked.

  “Because I had to complete my mission and turn these two over to Anna. I needed to make sure she would be willing to let us adopt them. And I wanted to give you some time away from me to think about the things I’d said. But everything took longer than I’d planned, and by the time I was able to come back and tell you, I wasn’t sure if you loved me enough to take a chance on me. So I brought these two monsters along because I knew how much you loved them, and I thought you might take me if I used them as a bribe, ” he confessed.

  “You didn’t ever need to bribe me, Blake.”

  “So, what’s your answer, Princess Josie? Will you marry me? Will you marry us? Spend the rest of your life with us?”

  “Yes,” she cried out, her heart bursting with joy, with love. “Oh, yes!” She kissed Blake. She kissed Miranda. She kissed Edward. And then she kissed Blake again, and at last Josie realized she’d found her home.

  Epilogue

  Blake kissed his wife again in front of all of his family and the close friends who’d gathered at the Texas Cattleman’s Club for a combined celebration of their recent wedding and the christening of their son and daughter. At the familiar ping against his head and the laughter that followed, Blake ended the kiss. “Hank, old buddy, I think you’d better have a talk with your future club member over there about the inappropriateness of throwing objects at other club members.”

  Hank Langley, grandson of the club’s founder, looked at the twins being held by Blake’s parents and th
en back at Blake. He arched one dark brow. “I don’t know, Blake. Can’t say I blame Edward. If Josie were my mother, and you kept kissing her at the drop of a hat, I’d probably shoot you with a pacifier, too.”

  Everyone laughed—including Blake himself. He skimmed the crowd of well-wishers once more for sight of his brother, and when his gaze met Princess Anna’s in inquiry, she shook her head. Deciding he shouldn’t wait any longer, he lifted his glass. “Ladies, gentlemen, friends. I’d like to propose a Thanksgiving toast. To all of you here tonight, my dearest friends and family, who honor me with your friendship and love. To the two newest blessings in my life—my children, Edward and Miranda—who make me want to be a better man. And to my beautiful wife, Josie,” he said, his eyes seeking hers, “who, because she loves me, enables me to be a better man. Never has one man been as truly blessed.”

  “Hear! Hear!”

  Blake clinked his glass to Josie’s and smiled at his wife, his love, as applause erupted around them.

  “Blake. Josie. Congratulations,” Hank Langley’s wife, Callie, said, kissing them each on the cheek. Within moments a line formed behind them of people waiting to offer their good wishes.

  “You didn’t waste any time,” Sterling Churchill commented, giving him a slap on the back.

  “Talk about working fast. Looks as if I’m not the only one who’s going to be answering to Daddy,” Blake said, teasingly. “What I don’t understand is how you got Susan here to marry you when she wouldn’t even look at me twice?”

  “Oh, I looked,” the former librarian informed him, a twinkle m her brown eyes. “I just wasn’t buying.” She turned to Josie and hugged her. “Congratulations. I’m hoping our children will get to be friends, and that you and I will be, too.”

  “I’d like that very much,” Josie told her.

  “Congratulations, Blake, Josie,” Forrest Cunningham said, his arm tucked around his own new bride.

  “Surprised?” Becky Cunningham asked, her smile as sassy as her red hair.

  “Not me,” Blake informed the couple. “I knew from the time you were a flat-chested brat in pigtails trailing after this ugly cowboy that you were going to be the woman to end his bachelor days.”

  “Did you now?” the former Becky Sullivan said. “Then I wish you’d have told Woody here and saved him all the trouble of dating half the females in Texas.”

  “Yes, Blake. Why didn’t you?” Josie all but purred.

  Laughing, he continued to accept congratulations and good wishes from friends, and then he spied his brother Greg entering the ballroom. Blake couldn’t help but notice how his brother’s gaze immediately sought out Princess Anna and how quickly he was at her side. From Greg’s somber expression and the sudden pallor of Anna’s skin, Blake knew something was wrong. “About time you showed up, big brother.”

  “Sorry I’m late. The sheriff has a roadblock set up along the lake, and I had some trouble getting through.”

  Blake’s eyes narrowed. No way would his brother have let something like a roadblock delay him. Instincts, honed in hundreds of covert operations, told him the news wasn’t pleasant. A signal from his brother had Blake excusing himself and Josie from their guests. And after being assured that his parents would look after the twins, he and Josie escaped down the hall of the club to a private room.

  He entered the room and found Langley, Churchill, Cunningham and his brother gathered around an ashen-faced Anna. Josie went immediately to Anna and urged her to sit down.

  “What’s happened?” Blake asked, cutting through the tension.

  Greg’s eyes met Anna’s again. “A man was spotted jumping off the bridge earlier. The sheriff and his deputies searched the lake for his body.”

  Josie gasped beside him, and Blake held her close. “Do they know who it was?” his wife asked.

  “Yes,” Greg replied. “It was Prince Ivan Striksky. His body was recovered a few minutes ago. He left a note, confessing to his sins where Princess Anna and her sister were concerned. He apologized for bringing shame upon his country and felt he couldn’t face his people.”

  The room became a buzz of voices, of questions. “Blake,” Josie said, tugging at his sleeve. “Look at Anna’s face.”

  As he looked, the relief gave way to sadness in the princess’s dark green eyes. “Come on, love,” Blake said and steered his wife closer to the Princess.

  “Anna, I’m so sorry,” Josie said. “This must be very difficult for you.”

  “Yes. It is,” the Princess replied softly. “I still find in impossible to believe he’s really dead, that he is no longer a threat to me and my son.”

  “Now that Skriksky is gone, does this mean...are you haveing second thoughts about your decision to allow Blake and me to adopt Edward and Miranda?” Bracing himself, Blake held Josie close and waited for Anna’s answer.

  Anna’s eyes widened, and she looked from Josie’s face to his and back again. “No. No second thoughts at all,” she assured them. “I will miss them. But I know that they could not be in better hands. You are just the family my sister would have wanted for them.”

  He could feel some of the tension ease in Josie. “Ther what’s wrong? Why are you so...so sad?”

  “Am I that obvious?” she asked.

  Josie took the other woman’s hands. “Only to someone who has known what it’s like to feel sad and alone.”

  Feeling a little uncomfortable at the woman talk, Blake considered excusing himself to join his brother who was in a circle with fellow Cattleman’s Club members, Hank Lang ley, Sterling Churchill and Forrest Cunningham. But he couldn’t help notice the way Greg’s gaze kept straying to Anna as though he was reluctant to let her out of his sight A man who had recently fallen under the spell of a womar himself, Blake recognized the possessive gleam in his brother’s eyes. Well what do you know? Blake thought. Looks like big brother Greg is about to take the fall.

  “You are right, of course,” a still-stunned Anna told Josie. “I...I am sad. I suppose...I suppose it’s just that with van—” she paused, tried to steady herself as if she still hadn’t digested the full impact of his death “—with Ivan no longer a threat, I really have no reason to stay in Texas.” A smile curving his lips, Blake turned his attention from his brother to Anna. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he murmured under his breath. “In fact, if I were Anna, I wouldn’t pack my bags just yet.”

  In the exciting conclusion to the

  TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB

  miniseries, find out what happeris when

  Princess Anna von Oberland and Gregory Hunt

  finally reunite their lost love...

  in their explosive story

  LONE STAR PRINCE

  by Cindy Gerrard

  Coming to you from Silhouette Desire

  in December 1999.

  And now for a sneak preview of

  LONE STAR PRINCE,

  please turn the page.

  September fifth. 2:00 a.m.

  Somewhere over the Atlantic.

  Hollywood couldn’t have staged a more dicey plot. An evil prince. A beautiful princess in his clutches. A midnight res cue by an ex-Marine and ex-lover, come charging in to save he day.

  Trouble was, this wasn’t Hollywood. It was all too real, and as Greg Hunt stared grimly across the cabin of the private et bound for the States, he hadn’t yet decided if he was the nero or the chump in this little melodrama.

  The woman gazing vacantly out the window of the star board side of the aircraft was exhausted, but still, her bearing was regal, her posture erect. Four years ago when Greg had first met her she’d been beautiful. There was no denying she was beautiful still. Yet Princess Anna von Oberland, loved by the paparazzi, adored by the masses, had been robbed of the wide-eyed innocence that had struck him as both intriguing and irresistible those many years ago. A haunted, hunted edge had painted pale violet smudges beneath her summer green eyes, drawn fine lines of tension around a smile that was forced and shallow and reserv
ed only for the child sleeping at her side. Her silk-and-velvet voice, with its honeyed husky resonance, spoke of lost summers and faded dream and hinted at her European lineage only when she was exhausted. As she was now.

  Shifting uneasily, Greg took his own turn staring out the window into the blackness of night at thirty-one thousand feet. He tried to divorce himself from an unrelenting need to hold her. Seeing her like this—seeing her again—had brought back feelings he’d thought were dead and buried And while he was relieved she had turned to him for help—he was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her—he was also determined not to let her or her solemn-eyed little boy breach the wall he’d built around his emotions when she’d walked away from him four years ago.

  Determined, but unfortunately not 100 percent successful he admitted grudgingly as, against all resolve not to, his mind wandered back to the summer night they’d first met. He‘d been a Marine on his last tour of duty and on leave in the little European principality of Obersbourg. She’d been a princess on the run from her family, her obligations and the star] reality of her position in life.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago that their eyes had met locked, held across a street full of dancers in the plaza. As lifetime since they’d woven their way unerringly through the crowd and into each other’s arms. Since they’d danced Fallen in love. Made love. Parted.

  He quickly checked the memory. There was no point hashing that over again. It had been four years. He’d put it al behind him—at least he had until he’d received her transat antic call last week, and the panicked sound of her voice had brought it all back as though it was yesterday.

  Gregory. I need you. Please come. Please...come

  So he had. With the backing of Texas billionaire Hank angley and Langley’s Avenger—a Hunt Industries air raft—the able assistance of Sterling Churchill and Forrest Cunningham, all members of Langley’s Texas Cattleman’s Club, they’d smuggled the princess and her son out from under the Obersbourg royal guard not three hours ago.