“Hey.”
She came out of hiding and met his eyes again. “I know you have work you need to do, but—”
“Are you kidding? Work can wait. Whatever you want, if it’s in my power, I’m giving it to you.”
* * *
Rory’s phone rang as they were cooking breakfast. She checked the display. It was her sister Genny.
Walker said, “Take it. I’ll deal with the food.”
She answered the call and her sister said, “Have you been online today?”
You didn’t grow up a Bravo-Calabretti without dreading the question Genny had just asked. “Oh, God. How bad is it?”
“Not that bad, really.”
“Right,” Rory replied doubtfully. “Hold on.” She went and got her laptop from the coffee table in the living area. Genny rattled off a couple of royal-watching blogs and celebrity news websites as Rory carried the computer back to the table and opened it up. “I swear I never spotted a thing. And I’ve usually got a radar for the paps—and tell me, honestly, is it bad?”
“Mostly, you look fabulous. Love those Valentino sandals with the lace and rhinestones.”
“The Valentino sandals. That means it must have been Saturday night, right? Some creep was taking pictures at the bachelorette party—wait.” She got on the first site Genny had mentioned. The headline was the usual drivel: Her Highness Takes a Cowboy—For the Night. It was followed by a series of pictures of her and Walker. Dancing. Playing pool. And cuddling in the corner. “You think mother’s seen these?”
“Mother sees everything.”
Too true. Her Sovereign Highness’s secretary had an assistant whose main job was to keep on top of tabloid stories that needed managing.
Walker sent her a questioning glance from over at the stove and dread curled through her. She waved a hand at him and shrugged, trying to look lighthearted and unconcerned.
He was a very private sort of man. Twice before this, the paparazzi had taken shots of the two of them together—strolling down Central Street on a warm summer day four years ago. And sitting together last year in Clara’s café. He hadn’t liked that some stranger had been stalking them just to get shots of the two of them walking side by side or drinking coffee in a restaurant. He would like it even less now that the shots were of them smooching and slow dancing.
“Um, scroll down to the bottom,” Genny suggested sheepishly.
Rory did. And there it was: a shot of her in her long velvet coat, zero makeup and the telltale Valentino do-me shoes, getting out of her little rental 4x4 in front of the Haltersham yesterday afternoon.
They’d caught her in her walk of shame.
Chapter Ten
Rory let out a groan. “Lovely.”
That did it. Walker turned down the fire under the bacon and came to see what the groaning was about.
What was there to do but turn the laptop his way and let him scroll through the pictures for himself?
Genny said, “Well, the good news, clearly, is that you and Walker have moved on to the next level.”
“And the bad news, clearly, is that everybody in the world knows it.”
Walker had apparently seen enough. He swiveled the laptop back toward her and returned to the stove.
“It’s really not that awful,” Genny pointed out. “You’re perfectly decent in that long coat. I just wanted to clue you in.”
“Thanks. And you’re right,” Rory replied. “Better to hear the news from someone who loves me.”
They chatted for a couple of minutes more.
When Rory hung up, she shut the laptop and carried it back to the living area. The coffee was finished brewing, so she poured them each a cup. “Shall I start the toast?”
“That would be great.”
They finished the breakfast preparations in silence, which freaked her out a little. Was he going to want to call it off with her, now he’d got a dose of how mortifyingly public her private life could be?
He brought the food to the table and she carried over the plate of toast. They sat down to eat. More dead silence as she forked up eggs and crunched her bacon and tried to think of a way to convince him that it really wasn’t so bad. You just needed to have the right attitude toward it all, just get on with your life and not let it bother you. Much.
Then he said, “Look. If you want to call it off now, you know I’ll understand.”
She hard-swallowed the bite of egg that seemed to have got stuck in her throat, and then sipped her coffee to get it to go the rest of the way down. “Ahem. Are you saying that you want to call it off?”
His eyes flashed blue fire. “Hell, no.”
Suddenly she could breathe again. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Those sneaky, wimpy-assed bastards don’t get to mess up what we’ve got going. Not as far as I’m concerned. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Oh, Walker, no. Of course I don’t want to call it off. No way.”
His bleak expression softened. “You should know that I’m going to be on the lookout for those scum-suckers now. And if I catch one in the act, someone could lose a camera.”
“I’ll consider myself warned—but I’ll tell you from experience that it’s better just to pretend they’re not there. Walk on by, you know?”
“You want me to walk on by, I’ll try. No promises, though.”
She gazed at him across the table, light-headed with relief that he didn’t plan to call it off. “Well. We’re okay, then, huh?”
He nodded. “Eat your breakfast.” He said it gently. Even tenderly. “Ice Castle Falls is waiting.”
Pure happiness cascaded through her.
But then her phone rang again. She glanced at the display.
Walker guessed. “Her Highness Adrienne?”
“’Fraid so.” She answered it. “Hello, Mother.”
“Good afternoon, darling—or I guess, from your perspective, I should say good morning.”
Might as well get right down to it. “I suppose you’ve seen the pictures.”
“I have.” A pause, and then with real concern, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Across the table, Walker was looking tense again. She sent him a bright, relaxed smile to reassure him. “Walker and I are just fine.”
“Are you staying back at his ranch again, then?”
“Yes, I am. It’s beautiful here. Cold, crisp and clear—and you’re taking this very well.”
“Why wouldn’t I? I’m a bright woman, my darling. I run a country. A very small country, but still...”
What was she hinting at now? “Just say it, Mother. Please?”
Her Sovereign Highness Adrienne played it cool, as always. “Your father was a little upset. Fathers get that way, even in the twenty-first century. But I’ve settled him down. And I’m so happy, my darling, to see you finally getting your heart’s desire.”
Her heart’s desire...
Rory took a moment to let that sink in. It could only mean one thing.
“Darling? Are you still there?”
Rory pulled it together and faked a breezy tone. “And I thought I’d been so careful not to give myself away.”
“I am your mother,” Adrienne said, as if that explained everything.
And wait a minute. If Adrienne knew that Rory had a thing for Walker, then what did that say about Adrienne’s roping him into bodyguard duty? Until that moment, it hadn’t even occurred to Rory that her mother might have set Walker up to look after her with more than her protection in mind.
“We’ll have to talk about all of that when I get back to Montedoro,” she replied.
“Yes, darling. I feel certain that we will. And I always look forward to speaking openly and frankly with you.”
Ha
h. “Mother, I really do have to go now. We’re in the middle of breakfast.”
“I understand. Have a fabulous time, darling. Enjoy every minute. Life flies by so quickly. The best parts deserve to be savored.”
“Thanks.”
“My fondest regards to Walker.”
“I’ll tell him, yes.” She hung up. “My mother sends her regards.” And as she had no idea what to say next, she grabbed her fork and concentrated on her plate.
Walker asked, “She’s not ready to kill me?”
“Absolutely not. My mother is a civilized woman who respects the private lives of her fully grown children.” Well, mostly, she does.
“But your dad wants my head on a pike—am I right?”
“Of course not.” Not anymore, anyway. “My father thinks the world of you.” She ate a bite of toast, and the last bite of bacon.
He watched her, narrow-eyed. And he wasn’t finished with the questions. “What did you mean when you said that you were careful not to give yourself away?”
“Er, just that my mother thinks she knows everything.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “And you and your mother will have to talk about all of what, when you get home?”
She slanted him a teasing look. “You really shouldn’t listen in on my phone conversations.”
He grunted. “You do know that when you want privacy for a call, you need to leave the room, right?”
But if she’d left the room, he would have known for certain that they were talking about him. “You’re right. And it was nothing, really.” Okay, yeah. Total lie. But she just wasn’t ready to go into how she’d been dreaming for years that someday he would look at her the way he looked at her now.
And to sit here and talk about how her mother might very well have been matchmaking them when she hired him as her bodyguard?
Maybe later, if things continued to go well.
Or maybe never. Time would tell.
“She’s not upset, then, about the pictures?”
“No, Walker, not at all.”
“I just don’t get that.”
Rory rose, got the coffeepot and refilled their mugs. Then she carried the pot back to the warming plate and took her seat across from him again. “My mother’s lived her whole life in the spotlight. You might think it would make her self-centered, or give her an unrealistic idea of what matters. Not true. She’s learned to keep a certain perspective. She focuses on what really counts in any given situation. And she rarely gets upset over what shows up in print and online. If she finds what she sees to be truly offensive, she takes steps to achieve damage control. And if she feels that one of us needs a good talking-to, she’ll do that—always with kindness and a certain gentle grace. But most of the time, she simply refuses to give small-minded people any power over her. And she expects the rest of us in the family to do the same.”
He was watching her in the strangest way, a bemused smile on that ruggedly handsome, so-American face. “You’re always complaining that she drives you crazy.”
“She does. About some things. She’s more controlling with me than with the others, because I’m her baby. But the truth is, deep down where it matters, I pretty much admire the hell out of her.”
* * *
Walker might have been a fool now and then in his life. But he was no idiot.
He knew that Her Highness Adrienne had said a lot more than Rory had told him. But from the way she was taking it, he didn’t think any of it was all that bad, so he left it alone.
They finished their breakfast, filled a pair of day packs with the things they would need for the hike and bundled up well. He grabbed his satellite phone, which he took with him as a matter of course anywhere there would be iffy cell phone reception.
It was a clear morning, the temperature in the midteens. Lonesome panted and whined to go with them, and Walker was tempted to take him along. But pets weren’t permitted on the hiking trails in Rocky Mountain Park, and though a good portion of the trail wound through Bar-N land, the last mile or so and the falls themselves were in the park. Walker ordered the dog into the house and they stopped at the Colgins’ place briefly to tell them where they were headed and when they’d be back.
From the homestead, they crossed a wide meadow, and moved into the shadow of tall pines for maybe a quarter of a mile. From there, they emerged into open meadow again. As they walked along, Rory got out her favorite camera, switched lenses and snapped several shots of the rugged granite cliffs surrounding them.
It was easy going most of the way, patches of ice and snow sparkling here and there in the winter sun. They spotted a bull elk grazing in the long shadow of a ponderosa pine. He ambled off at the sight of them, but not before Rory snapped several pictures.
At the fork in the trail on the edge of the meadow, they moved onto park land and started gaining elevation, working harder as they climbed, entering thick ponderosa forest. It grew colder, with more snow on the ground and some danger of slipping on patches of ice. Rory put her camera away as they focused on the climb.
But then they reached a grove of winter-bare, white-barked aspens. At that elevation, about fifteen hundred feet above the meadow where the trail forked, there was maybe a foot of snow on the ground, white around the white tree trunks. The trail, snow tramped away by hikers and horses, wound through them.
He turned to Rory. “I know you want shots of this.”
The pom-pom on her red hat bounced with her eager nod. “I love the tree trunk shadows against the white...”
So he waited as she took the pictures, and smiled when she got lucky and captured several shots of a fox on the move, zigzagging through the tree trunks, leaving delicate paw prints in the snow behind him.
She lowered her camera and stared off in the direction the fox had gone. “What’s that, way over there?” She was pointing west, away from the trail, beyond where the aspens petered out, toward the darkness of the surrounding pines. “Do you see it? It looks like a red tin roof...”
He nodded. “It’s a cabin, on Bar-N land, though barely. That lower trail we left at the edge of the meadow curves around to it. My great-grandfather built it. Rye and I still use it now and then, for a hunting base, and to get away from everything. It’s basic. No power, no running water.”
She grinned. “I want to see it. Let’s take a little detour.”
He pointed at the gunmetal clouds bubbling up over the peaks to the north of them. “On the way down, if the weather holds.”
“But there’s no storm predicted.”
“And there probably won’t be one. But just in case, we ought to keep our eyes on the prize. You do want those pictures of the frozen falls, don’t you?”
“You know I do.” She gave him one of those looks, full of their shared history.
“Then let’s keep moving.”
She packed up her camera and they went on through the aspen grove, moving roughly north into pine forest again. They reached the creek, frozen on the surface, the current bubbling along under a gleaming crust of ice. The trail followed the creek, makeshift log bridges crossing it, then crossing back.
Finally, they reached the narrow ravine that led up to the falls. From there, they had to climb the rocks, a steep ascent, and tight, the frozen creek to their left, the water beneath making soft chuckling sounds as it rushed below the ice.
She went up first; he took the rear.
In no time, they were climbing that last jut of rock and coming onto the small platform of boulders at the base of the falls. He followed her up there.
Fists on her hips, she stared at the frozen columns of water, jagged and gleaming, looking very much like castles of ice. “Fabulous. I want to get some shots here, and then can we work our way up to the top and I’ll get some views looking down?”
The clouds w
ere closing in. They had that heavy look that promised snow—no matter what the weather services had said. Still, it wasn’t that far back to the ranch. Even if it started snowing, they could make it home pretty fast if they needed to.
“Go ahead. Take all the pictures you want.”
“I will. But first...”
He knew that gleam in her eyes. He teased, “Lunch?”
She pointed at a ledge about ten feet up from them. It was a smaller ledge than the one they stood on now, a ledge even closer to the towers of frozen water. “That ledge look familiar?”
He knew it. “It’s where I almost kissed you.”
She made a distinctly unprincesslike snorting sound. “Uh-uh. Where I tried to kiss you. And you turned me down.”
He faked a scowl. “What is this you’re planning? Some kind of sick romantic revenge?”
She pretended to think it over, tapping her gloved finger against the tip of her chin. “Hmm. You know what? Sick romantic revenge is exactly what is happening here. We’re going up to that ledge and you’re going to kiss me like you mean it.”
“So young to be so bitter.”
She stepped in closer and tipped that angel’s face up to him. “Are you telling me no?”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“Good answer.” Her bronze eyes glowed.
And those lips of hers were too tempting to resist. He swooped down fast and captured them. Cold. But so soft. She made a noise of playful outrage and pushed at his chest.
He didn’t let go. Instead, he wrapped a hand around the back of her head and held her where he wanted her.
And he kept on kissing her, slowly deepening the contact, until she wasn’t pushing him away anymore. Uh-uh. Her gloved hands slid up the straps of his pack to curl around the nape of his neck.
Once they got to that point, he really didn’t want to let her go. He could have stood there, kissing her on that ledge, forever.
But he felt the first snowflakes as they landed on his cheeks and forehead.
They broke the kiss to look up at the steadily darkening sky and the occasional snowflake lightly drifting down. “Okay,” he said. “We should get going. It’s probably no big deal, but there’s no sense in playing chicken with winter weather.”
A Bravo Christmas Wedding Page 14