Escape from Cabriz

He shrugged out of his backpack and set it down beside hers. “Right. And if we just follow the yellow brick road, we’ll be home in Kansas by morning and Auntie Em will bake us an apple pie.”

It was a struggle, but Kristin managed not to lose her composure. She watched as Zachary took the reins of both horses and started off toward the woods, and when it was clear he wasn’t going to apologize for patronizing her, she stormed after him.

“Why do you always do that?” she demanded.

“Do what?” Zachary retorted, all innocence. A stream flowed a few yards ahead, shining like a silver ribbon in the night.

“Why do you always make me out to be so damn naive? I happen to have a degree in journalism, you know, and I’ve been all over the world on professional assignments!”

While the horses drank, Zachary turned to Kristin, his nose less than an inch from hers. “Some assignments—you took pictures of embassy parties and wrote cutesy articles to go along with them. And as for this little adventure, you came halfway around the globe to marry a prince who already has half a dozen wives, in a country that’s been teetering on the edge of disaster for ten years, and then you have the gall to stand there and ask me why I think you’re naive?”

Kristin stepped back, strung, and would have fallen if Zachary hadn’t been so quick to reach out and steady her. She blinked, unable to refute the charge that her job with Savoir Faire had amounted to little more than writing the occasional society column. “I didn’t know about the wives.”

Zachary let her go. “In fifteen minutes,” he said, “you’ll have convinced yourself there were never any wives. Well, you have it your way, your ladyship. You’ve always arranged the world to suit your perceptions, anyhow. Why should this be any different?”

“You’re being cruel, Zachary. I’m not trying to deny that I made a mistake.”

“A mistake? Sweetheart, you’ve made a dozen. Why did you think all those women were hanging around? Did you have them pegged as members of the palace sewing circle?”

Kristin’s eyes brimmed with tears and she whirled to walk away, but Zachary reached out and caught hold of her arm, turning her back to face him with surprising gentleness.

“Kristin, I’m sorry,” he said softly. Unwillingly.

Kristin bit down hard on her lower lip.

Zachary touched her cheek, brushed away a tear with the edge of his thumb. “Don’t cry, princess.”

When Kristin didn’t respond, he released her and turned back to the horses. She walked a little way upstream and knelt down to splash clear, icy water onto her face.

It restored her a little, and when she joined Zachary in the clearing she was almost her old self. He tied the horses where they could graze, then knelt beside her and took a bedroll from her backpack.

“It’s going to get cold tonight,” he said as he zipped his sleeping bag and Kristin’s together.

Kristin’s eyes widened. “You mean we’re sleeping in the same bag?”

Zachary gave her one of his impatient looks. “It’s not like we’ve never shared a bed,” he pointed out.

Kristin’s mind filled with sweet, fiery and completely unwanted memories at the prospect. “But we’re not—we were involved then.”

“Relax, your ladyship. I don’t intend to touch you.”

Chilled, not only by the night wind but by the timbre of Zachary’s voice, Kristin shivered. “I’m hungry,” she said.

He reached for one of the backpacks again. “I’ll get you something. Take your clothes off and get into the sleeping bag.”

Kristin had been unlacing one of her clunky hiking boots, but she stopped cold. “You expect me to strip? In your dreams, Zachary Harmon.”

Holding a package of something in one hand, he turned his broad and singularly imperious back. “Get undressed,” he reiterated. “If you don’t, your clothes will draw moisture and you’ll end up with pneumonia.”

Kristin studied his back, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not. “If you’re lying to me—”

He turned to face her, tossed the small package into her lap and took off his hat. The moonlight shimmered in his rumpled brown hair. “I’ve never lied to you in my life,” he said. And he unzipped his jacket and laid it aside, then pulled his shirt out of his jeans and began to unbutton it.

Kristin’s cheeks felt as though they’d caught fire, and she dropped her eyes. “All right,” she said. “I’ll take off my clothes. But you have to look the other way until I tell you it’s okay.”

He turned away in a leisurely fashion, and Kristin heard a slight clinking sound as he unfastened his belt buckle. “Were you this shy with the prince?”

Kristin wasn’t about to dignify that question with an answer. She took off her hiking boots and socks, then the odd, rough-spun pajamas. Beneath them she was naked, and she practically dived into the double sleeping bag, pulling the top up to her chin and huddling as far as she could to one side.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut when Zachary slid into the bag beside her, but she could feel the heat of his body, and she was awash in memories of other nights.

“I thought you were hungry,” Zachary remarked.

She opened her eyes and felt around on top of the sleeping bag for the packet he’d given her earlier. “I am,” she said. The stars seemed to crowd around the moon, determined to outshine it.

Instead of the packet she found rock-hard thigh, which she released instantly.

Zachary laughed. “Here,” he said, dangling the packet in front of her face.

Kristin snatched it out of his hand and sat up so rapidly that the sleeping bag nearly slipped down to reveal her bare breasts. She held on to her virtue with one hand and used her teeth to tear open the little bag.

Inside were roasted peanuts, and Kristin gobbled them down, thinking sadly of the spicy, scrumptious meals that were served at the palace.

When she was finished she lay down again. “I wish I could floss.”

“Thank you for sharing that,” Zachary replied in a sleepy voice.

She resisted a fundamental urge to nestle close to him, not for love but for protection. Her voice was small. “Zachary?”

“Hmm?”

“Are there wild animals in the woods?”

“Umm-hmm.”

“Suppose they come after us? I mean, since we don’t have a fire or anything—”

Zachary yawned. “Between the two of us, princess, we ought to be able fend off a squirrel attack. Now quit talking and go to sleep—tomorrow’s going to be a hard day.”

Kristin wriggled farther inside the bag. It was made of some kind of space-age material; although it was thin and light, she was perfectly warm. The ground was a little hard, though. “What do you suppose Jascha’s doing right now?”

“Planning our executions. Go to sleep, Kristin.”

She closed her eyes, but sleep was elusive. Every sound in the woods seemed to be magnified. “I left my camera at the palace,” she said with real despair.

Zachary rolled onto his side, turning his back to her. She saw the familiar mole between his shoulder blades and barely resisted the urge to touch it with the tip of one finger.

“Next time I carry you out of a prince’s bedroom,” he said between yawns, “I’ll give you a chance to pack a few things first.”

The urge to touch Zachary’s mole was replaced by one to give him a kidney punch. “I had taken some very important pictures,” she told him, struggling to keep her voice even.

His reply was a theatrical snore.

Kristin rolled onto her stomach in a vain effort to get comfortable, and burrowed down deep into the bag. She fully intended to cry, feeling she had every right after the day she’d put in, but she was too tired. In five seconds she was asleep.

She awakened hours later, in the depths of the night, to find herself cuddled close to Zachary, enfolded in his strong arms. For just a few moments she thought she was back in their apartment, that their breakup had never taken place.

She sighed softly and ran one hand along his muscular thigh; he stirred in his sleep and spread one hand over her bottom, fitting her against him. The size and power of him jolted her back to reality and she jerked away, reaching blindly for her clothes, ready to spend the night sitting bolt upright if it came to that.

But Zachary caught hold of her wrist and stayed her efforts. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said clearly.

Kristin knew she couldn’t fight him; her strength didn’t begin to compare with his. If he were to imprison her under his weight and take her, there wouldn’t be a thing she could do to stop him.

She was horrified when a thrill of pure lust moved through her, leaving her to shudder in its wake. The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Make love to me, Zachary.”

His reply was like a slap in the face. “Not in a million years, princess. I don’t travel in your social circles.”

Kristin didn’t know who she hated more—Zachary for cutting her to emotional ribbons or herself for inviting the intolerable, crushing pain of his rejection. To make her humiliation complete, she began to cry.

“Oh, damn,” she sobbed miserably. “Damn!”

To her utter surprise, Zachary took her into his arms and held her close. “Go ahead and cry,” he said raggedly, his lips moving against her temple. “If anybody’s earned the right, it’s you.”

“I’m not crying because you wouldn’t make love to me!” Kristin wailed, clinging to her pride even in the depths of indignity. “Don’t you dare think that I am!”

He chuckled and laid a light kiss on her hair. “Whatever you say, princess.”

She cried until her grief was spent, her head resting on Zachary’s shoulder. Then she hiccuped. “Is there somebody—are you—?”

“No,” Zachary answered. “I’m not involved with any particular woman.” He patted her bare bottom lightly.

She swallowed. She didn’t know why it was important to tell Zachary, but it was. “I never slept with Jascha,” she said softly. “In fact, there was never anybody but you.”

He didn’t reply, and Kristin couldn’t decide whether he didn’t believe her or he’d fallen asleep again. And she was afraid to find out.

Pure exhaustion rendered her unconscious in the next few moments, and she awakened, hours later, to find herself alone in the sleeping bag. Zachary was up and dressed, and he tossed her another packet the moment she sat up.

“Here’s your breakfast,” he said cheerfully.

Kristin looked at the packaged food with a baleful expression. “What is it?”

“Dried fruit. Keep your chin up, princess. Tonight we sleep in a cabin, with a real fire on the hearth.” He threw Kristin her clothes and calmly led the horses toward the stream.

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