Royal Inheritance

by McKenna James

  Telling them was the right thing to do, even if it might anger the princess. I have to keep her safe at all costs. And I have to keep us out of trouble. She’ll understand eventually, one day; maybe when she becomes a wife and a mother.

  I swallow hard against the visuals of Raina with someone else. I hope to be gone before that happens, or reassigned at the very least. I’ve already requested that I be removed from her detail as soon as we return. Seeing her with other men is too hard, fighting the instinct to break someone's jaw when they’d touch her inappropriately at the ball was a struggle.

  I used a different excuse, of course, stating that Raina was developing feelings for me, and I thought it best with everything that is going on, someone else should be assigned to her. She needs to keep her head in the game, and the King agreed. I felt bad for lying to him, even if it’s partly true. I couldn’t very well admit to having my own highly inappropriate feelings for his daughter, especially since we are now on our own for a few days. The King would have a field day with that news.

  After driving for a solid six hours, it feels amazing to get out of the car and finally stretch my legs. We stop briefly for a bathroom break and to refuel, but I find it almost impossible to pull Raina from the candy stand.

  “Oh, come on, Gavin. Give me a few more minutes. I can’t decide what I want. Too many options.”

  You’d think she’s never had candy before.

  “Just pick something. I’d like to get to the resort before it gets dark.”

  “Well, what would you choose?”

  She gives me a look that says make the right choice, or I’d forever be diminished in her eyes. I almost start sweating under her hard gaze. The thought makes me want to laugh out loud.

  “Toffifay.”

  “Really?” she says, raising an eyebrow, skeptical.

  “Yes. It has everything. Caramel shell, nougat center, hazelnut, and topped off with chocolate. Honestly, what more could you want than that.”

  She taps her lip with her forefinger, contemplating my choice, before biting her lip and picking up two packets. She shrugs, dismissing my grin, and picks up a packet of peanuts and salt and vinegar chips.

  “We just need the salty,” she says with a chuckle.

  I can’t fault her on that. I finally manage to drag her away, and as we enter the parking lot, I toss the keys in her direction. She squeals, catching them in time but making me chuckle when she almost drops the little bag of all that she bought.

  “You weren’t lying, I get to drive now?”

  “I wasn’t lying. It’s all yours, if you take it slow, that is.”

  She jumps up and down on the spot, and then bolts for the driver’s side of the Suburban, making an excited exclamation.

  ***

  “Princess,” I almost growl out. “Stop changing the station and focus on the road, would you please?”

  She huffs, clearly frustrated.

  “Fine, then can you change it to something listenable?”

  “Is that even a real word? Nothing wrong with a little classic rock. What do you have against Fleetwood Mac?”

  “What’s wrong with it is that I don’t like it. Driver picks the music, and shotgun shut’s their mouth.”

  I chuckle; how can I not? “Fine, what would the Princess like to listen to?”

  “Funny. Where’s your phone? Put some Ed on, would you?”

  I groan to cover my embarrassment and do as she wishes. Within a few minutes, Ed’s Drunk comes out of the car speakers. Oh the beauty of Bluetooth.

  “Gavin?”

  “Princess?”

  “How, and when, did you learn how to dance so well?”

  Oh man, I thought I’d managed to dodge this question. It had been weeks since we’d danced together. My only response is to groan.

  “Tell me?”

  “My younger sister, and when I was twelve.” I give her the bare minimum, not really wanting to go into detail, but knowing Raina, she pushes for more.

  “Oh, come on. We’re stuck in a car for … hours upon hours, and you’re going to give me seven words? Elaborate please.”

  I sigh, resigned. She has a point. We still have hours to go until we get to the resort, and surprisingly enough, Raina is driving well. I stopped watching her meticulously about three hundred miles ago, content she’s not going to kill us.

  “My younger sister, Amber, always wanted to dance. She used to watch old movies of Ginger Rodgers and Fred Astaire when we were little. She was obsessed with all the old song and dance movies. When she was eight, my mother agreed to let her go to dance lessons after school.”

  “Let me guess, you were jealous and wanted to go with her?” She chuckles to herself.

  “No. Nothing like that. My sister was afraid of her own shadow and refused to go, crying endlessly because she wanted to go desperately, but she couldn't go alone. So I went to her dance lessons with every intention of waiting and watching her, but nope, she had other plans. She wouldn’t dance unless I did. So for two years, we learned to dance together.”

  I shrug, even though Raina can’t see it. It was the logical conclusion for the problem at hand. She wanted to dance, and I hated to see her cry.

  “And since then?”

  “Since then, what?”

  “Well, surely you’ve done something to keep it up these past eighteen odd years?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No. I only did it those two years with Amber.”

  The shock on Raina’s face is priceless, or it would be if she didn't take her eyes off the road to look at me.

  “Princess, the road.”

  “I know where it is,” she mutters, looking back at the road. “I don't believe you. No way.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Nothing. You can’t be as good as you are without keeping at it.”

  “Are you trying to say I'm a good dancer?”

  “No,” she grumbles.

  I chuckle. “I have an excellent memory and great manual dexterity. It’s like riding a bike.”

  At that, she shakes her head and laughs. “Everything just comes so easily to you, huh?”

  “Some things. Getting you to listen isn’t one of them.” She laughs heartily at that. “Speaking of listening. Can you drop the speed? The snow is coming down pretty hard now.”

  “Don't worry, this beast was made to handle the snow. It's fine. Stop worrying so much.”

  “It's my job to worry, Princess. How ‘bout you pull over and let me drive for a while.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s not…” She trails off as she leans forward and really looks, seeing the sky blanketing with an odd sort of white darkness. The storm is coming in strong. “…that bad,” she whispers.

  “Come on, Raina. Pull over.”

  “No. You said I could drive.”

  “It's not a request. It’s getting crazy out there. You need to let me drive.”

  “Gavin, it’s fine—” Raina is cut off as a few solid chunks of snow come tumbling down on the hood of the SUV and in the front of the road. She squeals and swerves, narrowly missing a big chunk of ice. “Holy shit, that was close.”

  Famous last words as the next big chunk of snow hits more forcefully, and we find ourselves stuck right in the middle of an avalanche.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Raina

  I’m deafened by white noise, completely dazed and confused by the world around me spinning out of control. Slowly, everything starts to focus, to slow down, and a piercing sound becomes clearer by the second. It’s a scream. Someone is screaming. No, not someone. Me.

  I clamp my mouth shut, and the sound dies, leaving a raw ache in my throat. With the sound gone, another comes into focus.

  “Raina, Raina can you hear me?”

  I turn toward Gavin and find him yelling my name, his hands on my arm and shoulder, shaking me gently.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nod slowly. My brain still sl
ow to focus.

  “Oh, thank God!” he proclaims.

  The click of my seat belt startles me a moment before Gavin’s warm arms pull me from my seat, over the console, and into his lap.

  I realize I’m shaking when Gavin shushes me and strokes my back, repeating over and over again I’m okay, we’re okay. I wonder for a few seconds what the hell happened, but my slowly clearing brain stops trying to make sense of everything and turns to mush, as the comfort Gavin is giving me soaks into my bones, turning my muscles to gooey jelly.

  Everything becomes right in the world as I melt into him, his gentle lips brushing my temple in a soft kiss. I look up into his relieved face to find his mouth inches from my own, and I wish desperately that he’d bring his lips to mine and kiss me like I’ve been dreaming of since the moment I met him. My desire must be written all over my face, for an instant. Gavin stiffens and pulls away from me, killing the moment and awakening the reality.

  “What happened?” I groan out, my voice dry and raspy.

  My throat aches, I can’t help but wonder how long I was screaming for.

  “We got caught in an avalanche. When the first of it hit, you swerved, but the second wave wiped us out completely and pushed the car off the road and into the thicket.”

  “How does that happen?”

  “I don’t know. The storm hit hard and fast. Any precautionary measures were possibly rendered moot at that point.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “It’s hard to tell, but I think one side of the car is pushed up against a tree; the other seems to be snowed in.”

  “So what you’re saying is, we’re trapped in the middle of nowhere?”

  Instead of responding, Gavin pushes hard against his door, but it refuses to open. My door is definitely up against a tree if the indent is any indication. I turn toward the back passenger door, wincing when I feel a twinge in my neck, and see bark and foliage smooshed against the window. So that’s a no-go then. This would leave the sunroof, which I'm not sure we could both fit through. There is a slim chance the back door on the driver’s side isn’t as snowed in as Gavin’s door. He seems to have the same thought process as I do.

  “Do you think you can climb into the back seat?” he asks. “I’m going to go back there first to check the door and see if we can get out that way.”

  “I might be able to get out through the sunroof,” I announce.

  “Okay, good thinking. Let’s see if we can get it open. But carefully. We need to see if we can safely get out of the car and not end up snowed in inside of it.”

  I tentatively open the sunroof hatch inch by inch, but snow falls inside making me shriek as the cold wetness soaks into my clothing. Gavin hurries to close the sunroof before more snow gets in.

  “Okay, so that’s not going to be an option.”

  Gavin frowns as he lifts his cell phone from his pocket, but within seconds he’s shaking his head, leading me to believe it has no coverage. Neither does mine, for that matter. We’re completely radio silenced. He smiles faintly, trying to hide his concern for our situation, but I can see the worry etched in the lines around his eyes. This isn’t good.

  He climbs into the back seat, while I sit in the front, the bitter chill starting to set in, and the shivering taking over my limbs. I should have packed some gloves and a hat. Like most people who drive during the winter, I made the mistake of thinking we could make it from point A to point B without crashing or dealing with the extremes of winter weather. I’ll never make that mistake again. That is for certain.

  “Damn it,” Gavin mutters from the back seat.

  “No luck?”

  “There’s something stuck against the door. It won’t open more than a few inches. Oh, but wait.”

  I watch as Gavin kicks some of the snow through the slightly opened door and pushes his arm through the gap. A whole-body shiver hits me at the mere thought of that cold, wet snow Gavin has just shoved his arm in.

  “The space in front of the window seems to be free. Do you wanna turn the key, see if the electrics work.”

  I do as instructed, for once, and turn the key into place. Gavin presses the window down button when I give the all-clear. It works. Something seems to be going our way finally. With his shoulder blocking the window to stop any more snow from coming into the car, Gavin holds down the window button until the glass is completely retracted.

  “I’m going to test it first, make sure we can actually get all the way out.”

  “Okay. Good luck. Don’t get stuck or anything. I won’t be able to pull all that you are back in.”

  That makes Gavin chuckle. I watch, chewing on my lip, while Gavin shimmies out of the back window. It takes him a while, having to move the snow out of the way with his shoulders and back muscles carefully, in case he bumps into something solid. So far, so good. He manages to reach the rack on top of the roof and hoists himself out, leaving only his legs dangling inside the door.

  “Well, it seems as if we have an escape route,” he hollers through the open window.

  “Yay!” I squeal excitedly.

  Not that I’m looking forward to having to climb out of the window and into the frigid snow. God, we could freeze to death.

  “Gavin?”

  “Yeah?” he asks tentatively, poking his head in the window to look at me.

  I bite my lip. “Where are we, though? Like, what do we do once we leave the car? It’s freezing outside.”

  “Princess, it’ll be fine. We aren’t too off the beaten path that we couldn’t find somewhere to hunker down for the night. Hopefully we'll find someplace with a phone, or we get a signal. We bought precautions, you don’t need to worry.”

  “Okay.”

  “Grab anything of value from the front in the glove box and our bag of snacks, while I try to get what we need from the back of the SUV. We can’t take everything, only that of importance and value,” he instructs me.

  I fight a chuckle at Gavin trying to conceal his gruff-no-nonsense-do-as-I-say-right-this-second-tone. He knows I hate being told what to do with a passion, but he’s trying to get us out of this mess. He is also the only one with military training in this scenario, and I'm not a complete idiot, so doing as I’m told is in my best interest if we have any chance to get to safety.

  He climbs through the window and puts our supplies in his duffle bag, replacing what little he’d packed with blankets, canned goods, and bottles of water. Gavin removes his coat and adds an extra jumper to his ensemble before donning his coat again, then stuffs a few pairs of socks into his pockets. Once satisfied, he moves on to my case, and a small blush colors my cheeks when he quickly moves my underwear aside and stuffs a few of my socks into the remaining space in his pockets.

  “Here,” Gavin says in a gruff voice, thrusting some clothing at me. I notice with satisfaction his face looks a little flush. “You need to put these on over top of what you're wearing to keep warm while we trudge through the snow.”

  I nod and comply, putting on jeans over my leggings, and another sweater under my coat. I take the keys out of the ignition and climb into the back seat while Gavin hoists himself out the window. Once halfway out, he reaches in for the duffle and yanks it into place on his shoulder and climbs further out the window. I reach into the back and shove a few more items into my handbag and the carry bag with the snacks just as Gavin turns back and reaches for me. He pulls me out of the window with ease and safely deposits me on my feet in the snow.

  I shudder as the temperature takes over me and seeps what little warmth I have out of me. Gavin frowns, then he pulls my coat tighter around me and fastens the top button to keep it secure. Leaning into the SUV, he finds a scarf in the back seat and bundles me up in it.

  “You’re wearing this,” he orders.

  I don’t argue. I find myself kind of liking him taking care of me. In fact, I’m not as worried as I probably should be because he is in charge.

  “Are you alright?” He frowns at my lack of argument an
d does a full inventory of me from head to toe, not leaving an inch unchecked.

  I have a small bump on my head, and my ankle hurts now that I’m standing on it, but other than that, I’m in one piece. I have to say, I really like the way he’s looking at me so intently, staring into my eyes as if they will tell him of any internal injury.

  If his was the last face I ever saw, I’d be disappointed my life had been cut short before I could save my family, but I’d be happy I was with Gavin. I groan inwardly. This is no time for me to develop a Juliet complex. We aren't going to die. That is all there is to it. And I know Gavin will do everything he can to make that happen.

  “I'm fine, Gavin. Honestly.”

  I’m about to add how it isn’t all that bad, but looking at the car from the outside, the seriousness of the situation really sinks in, and whatever positive thoughts I had moments ago are replaced by this deep, sinking feeling. Why does everything always go wrong for me? I seem to find myself in over my head more times than I’m not.

  “I should have listened when you said you should drive. This wouldn’t have happened if you were driving.”

  “Princess, it wasn’t your fault. This could have happened to anyone, honestly. If anything, it’s my fault for agreeing to drive to Switzerland when I knew there was a storm coming.”

  “You couldn’t have known how bad it was going to be, Gavin. And you know I would have gotten my way one way or another. You can’t possibly be at fault for that.” This lightens the mood, if only a little, and makes both Gavin and I chuckle. “So where do we go from here?”

  There are huge, heaping mounds of snow and an alarmingly dangerous drop off to one side of thicket that is less than a foot from where the car had come to an abrupt stop. But from where I’m standing, all I see is snow, snow, and more snow. No sign at all of a road. There is no way we can do anything without some sign of where the vehicle is in relation to the road.

  Gavin seems a little … defeated. I don’t think he has the answers for once.

  “No way to call for help?” I ask stupidly, already knowing the answer as soon as the words leave my mouth.