Her Cowboy Prince

by Madeline Ash

  And he would be at the bachelor party.

  All three brothers in one place.

  Did Adam have a plan? She’d ordered both the bridal and bachelor venues to be thoroughly searched for potential threats. Nothing. She’d ramped up scheduled security and organized a detection dog at the venue entrances, and if asked, would claim standard procedure for times when the entirety of the royal line was gathered in public. If Adam himself was a threat, he wouldn’t go undetected. She also had the anarchists who’d worked on the construction under continued surveillance in case Adam rallied his team.

  Frankie applied her base coat in determined strokes.

  No one would get near her boys.

  “Frankie?”

  She jumped, startled at the call from Kris’s sitting room. Tommy?

  “In here,” she called. “I’m dressed. Come in.”

  Pulling herself together, she dabbed her brush into a cocoa-brown eyeshadow until Tommy’s reflection appeared in the bathroom behind her. He’d scrubbed up for Mark’s bachelor party in a steel-grey shirt and black jeans, even had a haircut, but his blue eyes were too wide and his skin too pale.

  “Hey,” she said, looking back at the palette.

  The steadiness of his stare bore into her in the mirror, and after an assessing silence, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Big day.” She met his gaze. Avoiding it would give her away. “Headache.”

  He paused. “Most people don’t look that good in yellow.” It was the closest she’d ever heard him get to a compliment.

  “Thanks.” Frowning a little, she leaned over the vanity to apply the shadow.

  “You could have an attendant do that for you,” he said. “Several, actually.”

  “Oh boy, my dreams are coming true.” She kept brushing. “What’s up?”

  He stepped to one side and sat on an elegant stool positioned by the door. Knees wide, elbows on his thighs, hands clasped between. Head angled to regard the lush vine spilling down from a hanging pot beside him. “You’re sure the bar will be empty tonight?”

  “Positive,” she said. “There won’t be a crowd.”

  He nodded, but didn’t leave. “And no one knows we’ll be there?”

  The question crawled across her throat. “The public haven’t been tipped off.” She shifted to shadow her other eyelid. “The car will pull into the alley behind the venue, so no one will see you go in either. Does that sound okay?”

  “Yes.” One of his legs started jiggling.

  “Security will be tight. Only guards that you’re familiar with will be positioned inside.”

  He gave a single nod. Then his attention skirted her phone where it sat on the vanity beside her makeup bag—and she realized it was almost five o’clock. On Friday.

  He’d come for Jonah.

  “Loudspeaker again,” she said, digging in her bag for eyeliner, “or do you want to answer this time?”

  At his silence, she turned to meet his stricken stare.

  “Well?” she prodded, almost gently.

  “I just—” Pain bracketed his mouth as he looked away. Tommy rarely spoke in fractures. He took the time to be articulate. Lowering his face, he fisted a hand into his hair and she recognized the tension in his grip—the charged potential to pull as hard as he damn well could. His voice was hushed and tortured as he said, “I just want to hear him.”

  Oh God. After the day she’d had, Frankie felt like overstuffed luggage—heavy, splitting, bordering on unzippable—and Tommy’s words jammed in sympathy and frustration without even folding first. Her skin frayed a little further. These friends had been through hell together and Tommy had yet to come out the other side. And he wouldn’t. Not while they lived on opposite sides of the world.

  Despite her ache to agree, she said, “It’s not fair to listen without him knowing. Loudspeaker means we both talk to him.”

  “One minute,” he instantly challenged.

  “There are things he might not want you to hear.”

  His features sharpened—she practically heard the shink of a blade against a whetstone. “What things?”

  “Well, since you asked, I’ll just break his trust and spill, shall I?”

  He scowled at her sarcasm. He’d timed his visit well. Before she could talk him into answering the call, her phone started to ring.

  “Would you excuse me?” She picked it up, arching a brow. “This is private.”

  “Loudspeaker.” An order.

  She hesitated. No. He couldn’t abuse his authority to eavesdrop on Jonah. She crossed her arms as the ringing continued. “So, you’ll talk?”

  His tense-jawed silence denied it.

  She sighed. “I think you should leave, Tommy.”

  “Please.” He stood abruptly, broad and fierce, and seemed to struggle to contain his surging desperation. “Just this once.” Pain crushed his features as he turned to press his forearm against the tiled wall. His next words were a murmur directed at his feet. “I’m never going back.”

  He was—never going back.

  To Sage Haven.

  Frankie almost groaned as concern crammed into the mess inside her. Kris had relayed the conversation he’d had with Tommy in the stables—that Kris had admitted he couldn’t be king without Tommy’s support. Was it possible that in all the time Tommy had been in Kiraly, he’d squirreled away a kernel of hope that his brothers would find their feet and offer for him to return to Sage Haven? Was it possible he’d been waiting all this time to go home—only for Kris to finally, explicitly, state he needed him here? Would always need him here?

  Tommy would’ve struggled to leave his brothers at their request—but he’d never abandon them. His seed of hope had died.

  He would never see Jonah again.

  “Fine,” she said. “One minute.”

  He kept his back turned as she answered the call and switched to loudspeaker.

  “Hey, Jones,” she said, setting it on the vanity and picking up her eyeliner.

  “Hey, Frankie!” Jonah had the kind of sunshine voice that made rain-drenched fields sparkle. Positive, genuine, forever helpful. She was equal parts in awe and in love with it. “How was your day?”

  “Epic. I feel like I’ve been trampled by a fucking gorilla.”

  “Oh no.” Even serious, his brightness shone. “That’s awful.”

  “All part of the job.” She retraced the line beneath her eye, aiming for dark and defined. “Sorry, but I can’t talk long. Mark and Ava have their events tonight.”

  “That’s right! Send me a photo or two? I’d love to see.” He fell silent, and she imagined him sitting alone at his kitchen table, house empty around him, staring past the hay sheds toward the farmstead next door in the distance. Staring toward the friendships he’d lost when his neighbors had embraced the royal heritage he’d never been told about. Then he asked, “How’s Tommy?” and his voice scratched over his friend’s name, as always.

  Frankie drew in a heaven-calm-me breath and slid her attention to where Tommy stood with his back to her. His head was angled to one side, listening intently, and there was something coiled about him. The hissing tension of a wild animal that sensed a hand reaching toward it, and couldn’t decide whether to strike or scram.

  “Hiding,” she answered, and suffered the slice of Tommy’s cautionary glare over his shoulder. She arched a prove me wrong brow.

  “Will he ever stop?” Jonah’s concern was sad.

  “Even lone wolves have to eat,” she said.

  Jonah hesitated. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means his basic needs will drive him out eventually.” She held Tommy’s stare, shaking her head at him. Honestly. This was bordering on absurd. “Basic needs like, I don’t know, a best friend.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jonah said.

  “Maybe,” she said, all false astonishment, “you both secretly want to talk to each other?”

  Tommy faced her properly, his thunderous expression
equal parts pleading and threatening. “Don’t,” he mouthed at her.

  “You could try calling him,” she said, addressing them both.

  “Yeah, right.” Jonah gave a wretched laugh, and her seams tore as Tommy flinched. “It wasn’t my friend who abandoned me. It was a prince. And he’s left me here.”

  Tommy’s face went white.

  “Tommy’s still—”

  “No, he’s not,” Jonah cut her off. Not rude—Jonah was never rude—but measured like he’d thought about this long and hard. “My friend wouldn’t have done this to me. He’s different now. He has to be. He’s a prince. I get it. And I get that someone like me has no business being friends with a man like him.”

  Frankie couldn’t bring herself to look at Tommy. “That’s not true. He’s—”

  “Please, Frankie,” Jonah said in the tone equivalent to a hand over his eyes. “We both know there’s nowhere to go from here.”

  Her throat ached. Tommy stood as motionless as a broken statue across the room.

  “You’ve still got me, Jones,” she made herself say. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Yeah. Anytime.”

  Hanging up, she turned back to the mirror and blindly picked up her mascara. The bathroom air felt thin, drained. The result of the sucker-punched cowboy behind her or Adam’s suffocating truth still pressed over her face like a pillow, she wasn’t sure.

  “I guess that’s closure,” she said quietly, and glanced up to find Tommy gone.

  Tossing the mascara in the sink, she pressed her face into her hands. Her fingers were shaking; her blood moved through her heart like oil. It was all too much. How was she supposed to hold it together tonight? Even Tommy, distracted by an upcoming night out and Jonah’s phone call, had known something wasn’t right with her when he’d walked in.

  She looked up at a faint scuffing sound, and jumped to find that Kris had materialized behind her. He’d done something gorgeous to his hair, and his black shirt was both elegant and effortlessly casual, betraying the royal tailor had been put to good use.

  He was frowning. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, turning to face him.

  His frown dug lower into his brow. “No, you’re not.”

  “It’s been a big day.” She didn’t want to sound breathless; didn’t want to weaken now that he was finally here. But he moved in, arms sliding around her, and she practically collapsed into his embrace. He was strong, steady, and her tension melted away, fears drifting back into shadowed corners, and for a moment, she was just a quickening heartbeat in her lover’s arms.

  Then her gut knotted and she tightened her hold around him. Her eyes squeezed shut, fingers bunching his shirt.

  “You were gone when I woke this morning.” He spoke softly against her hair.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” Suddenly, she hated that she’d crept out in the night. She could never get that time back. She should have stayed beside him, her hand in his as he slept. He was under threat and she’d chosen to be apart from him. Something heaved beneath her breastbone, a panicked flutter, and she pressed even harder against him.

  His breath loosened, and a low beat of energy passed between them. His hand slipped to the base of her spine. “What’s going on, Frankie?”

  Too much. She lifted her face. “Kiss me.”

  The look he gave her said nice try, but his mouth sank over hers anyway. Gentle, nudging toward persistence. It was a kiss for a different time, the start of a languid weekend spent between his sheets. His palm passed over her shoulder, thumb slipping easily beneath her dress strap, and her body hummed, plucked by the promise of his desire.

  Then he pulled back and spoke in a tone of non-negotiation. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It’s bad,” she breathed.

  In a smooth motion, he turned with her in his arms and set her on the stool Tommy had filled minutes before. Kris knelt in front of her, one hand spread over her thigh and the other tangling lightly with her fingers. “I’ll help if I can.”

  She swallowed. “You can’t.”

  But she relayed her conversation with Zara, and Aron’s old manservant, and the owner of the Bull’s Quest. As Kris sat down hard on the bathroom floor, face bloodless, she told him that while the circumstantial evidence was strong enough to bring Adam in for questioning, the authorities wanted to search his apartment for something concrete and they were currently waiting on the search warrant.

  “Mark,” was all he said, the word absolute and terrified.

  “I’ve tightened security at the estate and lined up extra protection measures for tonight. We’ll protect him.”

  His attention locked on her, eyes burning with blue fear.

  “I promise,” she said, and her head cleared with purpose.

  “It’s Adam.” Kris’s grip on her thigh hardened and she felt a charge travel through him. Fury broke across his face. “He’s in their house every day. Alone with Mark. Close to Ava and Darius. He could do anything. Why the hell aren’t we moving?”

  She covered his hand with hers, curling her fingers tight. “We don’t believe he’ll hurt them. He’s waiting.”

  “For what?”

  Dread tried to knock the wind out of her, but she did her best to wrangle it, reshape it, wear it like armor on her shoulders. This was why she would fight. Because she couldn’t bear to lose.

  “We believe he’s waiting for a chance to take all three of you down at once.”

  Kris swore, dropping his forehead onto her knee.

  “As far as most people are aware, the balcony collapse was an accident. But two separate instances of royal deaths? That would throw the collapse into retrospective suspicion. It’s not what he wants. If he kills you all together, the royal line ends. You’re the last of the Jaroka heirs. Once that happens, whether he gets caught or not is irrelevant.”

  “Where is he now?” he demanded. “This very second?”

  Uncertainty flickered inside her. “We don’t know.”

  “But he’ll be there tonight.”

  “He should be.” She locked her jaw against an icy flood of what-ifs. “It’s critical you don’t give us away, Kris. We need him there long enough for the warrant to come through and the authorities to search the apartment. Please?”

  He rose to his feet. “You’re saying I have to pretend to be happy in the same room as the man who might have ordered the attack on Tommy and Jonah? Who killed my uncles and cousin? Whose unhinged actions dragged me and my brothers from our home? The man who likely wants us all dead to culminate some crazy antiestablishment rebellion?”

  “Yes.”

  He swore again.

  “Mark and Tommy can’t know. There’s not enough time for them to process it.” Concerned, she stood beside him. “You know that, right? Kris. You have to act normal. If he suspects we know about him, it’ll put you all at risk.”

  “I know, but I need you to keep me updated.” He ran his tongue along his back teeth, shaking his head. “I won’t hold it together if I’m left in the dark.”

  “I will.” She didn’t need agitation eating him alive. “I’ll give Peter permission to relay information as we get it.”

  He nodded once, reaction laboring inside him. His breath was fast, his shoulders straining.

  “There is one other option,” she said, almost carefully. “You could not go tonight.”

  His gaze snapped to her in outrage.

  “I know.” She hated suggesting it—how badly she wished he’d agree. “But if only two of you are there, it could reduce the chance of Adam acting out.”

  “I can’t.” Kris shook his head. “I get your logic, but—I can’t.”

  She nodded and murmured, “Okay.”

  “Hey.” Reaching out, he drew her against him and pressed his lips to her temple. His mouth was hot; his body locked with tension. “You’re doing an amazing job. This is fucked, but you’re doing it, and I love you.”

  Her breath shook over his shirt
pocket. “Thank you.”

  “I mean it,” he said, then released her and turned to leave.

  “Kris,” she said, and he stilled in the archway. “Promise me something.”

  Resistance rolled across his shoulders as he looked back at her. He seethed with an alpha-powered protectiveness. His features were feral with vengeance, body taut with volatility. A man who’d locked eyes on a threat to his brothers—and was snarling with hackles up in response.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said.

  His eyes flashed. Then his gaze moved over her, softening, and he said, “I promise to try.”

  Kris laughed as he took everyone at the table in another round of poker. Leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head, he said to Mark, “Hey, sorry man, I should have asked if you wanted to win tonight.”

  Mark shook his head, grinning. He hadn’t stopped smiling since they’d arrived. Good. And although Tommy’s fidgeting had led him to strip the label off every beer bottle on the table, he didn’t seem on the verge of a panic attack. The bar had been cleared out for them, and they’d welcomed an endless supply of food, drinks, and cards since strolling in the back entrance. Mark’s personal guards sat with them, the two men playing quietly but comfortably among the royal triplets, while Philip had kept Kris on his toes with his startlingly quick poker skills.

  Adam was nowhere to be seen.

  Mark had sent a pair of guards to his apartment earlier to check if he was okay, but no one had been home. As Tommy collected their cards to shuffle, Kris wondered how he was supposed to judge what constituted a stupid idea. Seemed like a matter of opinion, because right now, heading over to Zara and Adam’s apartment to figure out where the fucker had gone seemed like one of his brightest.

  “Last round,” Tommy said, and began dealing.

  Kris pushed against the roll of red temper that balled his hands and pushed him to the front of his chair. It was hell to sit here pretending nothing was wrong. But he made himself relax and flick a bottle lid at Mark with a can’t-believe-you’re-getting-married grin.

  He could do this. For his brothers.

  Twice now, Peter had absently run a hand over his scalp—the prearranged signal—and Kris had wandered around to the guards stationed at the exits and offered them pizza. He’d lingered as Peter and Hanna dove into the box, Hanna exclaiming her enthusiasm while Peter quietly relayed the situation under the cover of her voice.