Westin's Wyoming

“Adam?”

“My other brother.”

“That’s right, I forgot. There are three of you, right?”

And how did she know that? “Yeah. Three.”

“The fishing shanty did look interesting from the air,” she said, adding, “though it’s very remote. I would love to see what it’s like inside. At home, ours are sometimes quite charming.”

“I doubt this one would qualify as charming,” Pierce said.

“I’ll show it to you, ma’am,” Jamie offered, a slight blush creeping up his wrinkled neck. “And as far as a campfire, we built a big old covered pavilion a couple of years ago for Cody’s wedding. It’s got gas heaters and everything.”

“That sounds perfect,” Princess Analise said.

Seeing the ranch hand had started piling their luggage in the back of the truck, Pierce strode over and hefted a couple of suitcases. The sooner they got going, the sooner he’d find out what was really going on. Being back in Wyoming was not his idea of a great time. Being with a very attractive woman who just happened to be a little scared and a little nervous and needed his shoulder to cry on—well, that was right up his alley.

“I am going to have an adventure!” the boy cried. “You, too, Cousin Analise.”

“The kid is just like you were, Pierce,” Jamie called. “Always ready for action. Hell’s bells, I’d wager you’re still like that.”

Pierce shook his head as he dumped the last of the luggage in the truck. By now the helicopter engines had once again engaged. The general tried herding the princess and the boy to the idling vehicle but they both hung back near Jamie as the chopper rose into the air and the horses danced around a little but not much. They were used to the ranch aircraft.

How had a princess from a small country half a world away become familiar with a photograph of Pierce’s long missing mother? Was it possible Princess Analise knew where Melissa Browning Westin was now? Is that why Cody had agreed to this visit?

If so, why had his older brother left almost on the eve of her arrival and without so much as a word hinting at who was coming and why?

Pierce pushed his hat back on his head. “The truck only seats six, and what with the driver, I guess someone will have to ride back with Jamie or me.” Looking over at the bald man dressed in black, he raised his voice and added, “I guess you’re it, buddy.”

But Toby had already run over to Jamie and put a hand on the mare’s glistening brown neck. “I want to ride this one. Is her name Star? May I, please?”

Jamie chuckled. “I can take the little fella,” he said. “Come on, son, up you go.”

“And I will ride with you,” Princess Analise announced, looking Pierce straight in the eye. He smiled at her. Fine by him but her announcement seemed to have galvanized the bodyguard who approached like a belligerent bull.

The general sputtered. “But, Princess. It is hardly necessary or appropriate for you to ride with this man. Nor is it safe—”

“Nevertheless, I will ride with him,” she said, and there was a change in the timbre of her voice that stopped the bodyguard dead in his tracks and shut down the general.

The corner of Pierce’s upper lip lifted. Nice to see the princess square her shoulders and jut her chin. He climbed back in the saddle and, freeing a stirrup for her use, extended a hand and pulled her up behind him, smiling to himself as her hands landed on his waist.

“You will be cautious,” the general said, gaze darting between Pierce and the princess.

“Sure,” Pierce said.

Before he could turn the horse, the general caught the bridle. “Once we have suitable accommodations, you will explain what precautions you’ve taken to protect the princess.”

There it was—the dead fish in the punch bowl, the issue everyone had been skirting around since they landed. The pushy bodyguard, the flustered general, a princess looking over her shoulder…

“You know, maybe it’s about time someone tells me exactly what she needs protection from,” Pierce said.

The general raised gray eyebrows. “From whoever is intent on killing her, of course.”

Chapter Three

Analise tightened her grip on Pierce as he turned his head slightly and said, “Someone is trying to kill you?”

She cringed at the theatrics of the general’s statement though there was more than a grain of truth behind it. “Yes,” she said.

“No wonder the general looked jumpy when you announced you were leaving him and the bodyguard behind.”

“The general is a very old and trusted friend of my father’s, but I’m a twenty-six-year-old adult and his hovering gets on my nerves.” She instantly regretted speaking out. The general was the general. He was not the reason she was nervous and not the reason she’d insisted on riding with Pierce.

The past week had passed in a blur as she did her best to pretend she wasn’t worried about death threats or arriving at this ranch. Twenty-four hours from now, this would be over. Well, at least part of it would.

She took a few deep breaths of blessedly unrecirculated air and concentrated on the moment. The sway of the horse, the faint smell of the pines. The low growl of the truck rumbling behind them. The solid feel of the man whose back she hugged.

He did resemble the photo she’d seen of his mother, but in a masculine way. At least six feet tall, broad shoulders, gorgeous slate eyes and strong features, a sensuous mouth. Even through the padding of a winter coat, she could tell he was fit and muscular.

As for the glint in his eyes and the deep voice? Those were masculine, too. Intimidating, perhaps, but in a way that made her feel protected. He looked competent, more than able to take care of himself and anyone else for that matter.

These thoughts brought up images of the man she was expected to marry next year, a Chatioux nobleman of some distinction. He and Pierce Westin were both in their mid-thirties, but there all similarities ended.

She wouldn’t think about Ricard right now. She had the rest of her life to do that.

“Let’s talk about who’s trying to kill you,” Pierce said, glancing over his shoulder again, the flash of his eyes surprisingly warm. “Is this person the reason you came to the ranch? Are you here for refuge?”

“No, I made arrangements to come here months ago and this situation is relatively new.”

“Months ago and Cody never told anyone? That’s pretty amazing.”

A little flutter in her throat kept her from responding immediately. She’d insisted on riding with him to have the privacy in which to reveal the true nature of her visit. Allowing herself to get sidetracked would squander the opportunity.

“Princess? You still back there?”

“I want to explain why I begged you to let us stay—”

“And I’d like to hear it,” he interrupted. “But first tell me about the would-be assassins just in case your general is right and one is hiding behind those rocks over there with a howitzer. Start with what you were doing in Seattle.”

She glanced at the rocks, then shook her head. “We were attending an environmental symposium.”

“And someone tried to do what? Shoot you, shove you in front of a bus?”

“Nothing so direct. Two days ago I received an anonymous note. It warned that if I valued my life, I would convince my father to vote against the natural-gas pipeline proposed for Chatioux. There was no way to respond, but I could have told the writer that while my father will weigh my opinion, in the end will do what is best for our country. He would never put family over duty.”

“He sounds like my father,” Pierce said.

“Are you close to your father?”

“Not exactly,” Pierce said. “I’ve been back here three days and I think we’ve spent all of ten minutes in each other’s company.”

“Why? What happened between you?”

He laughed but the sound held little humor. “Don’t try wiggling out of your story by trying to uncover mine. When does the king vote?”

“In five days. The parliament is divided so my father’s vote will be the deciding factor.”

“And how is he leaning?”

“Construction of the pipeline would bring in much-needed revenue. Our country is in the middle of great flux. There aren’t enough jobs to keep our young people employed and they immigrate elsewhere in alarming numbers. We import too many things and export too few. This weakens us socially as well as economically and that puts our national security at risk. It’s all interconnected and Russia would love to see us crumble.”

She sighed again. “The bottom line is this pipeline would make the difference between a brighter, safer future and a continuing spiral downward resulting in citizen unrest if not out-and-out war on our borders. If environmental concerns can be met, my father has no choice but to embrace it.”

“Can these concerns be met?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s what you’ll tell him?”

“Of course. But Mr. Vaughn doesn’t agree with me.”

“Mr. Vaughn. He’s the diplomat who scurried to the car with the skulking woman?”

“The woman is Bierta, my personal maid. Mr. Vaughn was Chatioux’s official delegate to the symposium. I was unofficial. He wants everything to stay as it has always been. He claims it’s because of the environment, but I don’t know, he’s kind of odd. And since these threats started, he’s worried he’ll be standing too close if someone tries to kill me.”

Pierce muttered, “It doesn’t sound like your father trusts this Vaughn fellow’s opinion or he wouldn’t have asked you to go and act as his ears.”

“My father is a thorough man, a good king. I have ordered everyone to keep this threat a secret from him until after the vote. I do not want him put in the position of having to choose.”

She didn’t add why. Her father’s declining health was not known outside the family.

“The general alluded to something that happened in Seattle. Was this separate from the threatening note?”

“Yes,” she said, the memory of the attack once again vibrant and chilling.

The horse started down a dip in the road and Analise slid forward against Pierce’s back. It was impossible not to have some body contact, but she did her best to keep it minimal. Forced closer than before, she suddenly noticed the way his hair waved against the back of his neck, right above his collar, dark against his skin, fine and tender-looking. He appeared to have a tan.

“Princess?”

She blinked a couple of times as the horse began the climb to the other side of the gully. Her grip tightened around his waist. “On the last day of the symposium, my driver didn’t show up to transport us between hotel and convention center. Mr. Vaughn had rented a car, so he offered to drive but he got terribly lost. We ended up in a bad area of town in a narrow alley where people seemed to be living. Claude, my bodyguard from home, got out of the car when a group of men started pushing at it.” Analise paused. Her pitch had risen as she spoke, the words tumbling one after the other.

“There was a terrible fight. They broke poor Claude’s arm in two places. He had to stay in the hospital so the general hired a new man from an American agency to fill in.”

“The charmer I met at the airstrip?”

“Not so charming.”

“Are you saying that because he’s actually said or done something suspicious or because he glowers all the time?”

“I think it’s the glowering. Plus, I had to ask him twice not to smoke in front of my cousin. Toby is allergic.”

“Anything else happen in Seattle?”

“That’s all, I guess. Claude was hurt but I was never even threatened. I don’t see how any of it could have been planned. We were simply lost. Mr. Vaughn was as terrified by the events as I was.”

“I’m kind of surprised he joined you for this leg of your trip,” Pierce said. “He sounds like the kind of guy who would have preferred staying in a plush room back in the city.”

“I was surprised, too. But he insisted he wanted to see something besides hotel rooms and on behalf of goodwill, I relented.”

“And what about your cousin? Did you really take a little kid to a symposium on the environment?”

“Of course not. He was visiting his Canadian grandparents during spring break. It was prearranged that he would join my entourage for the journey back to Chatioux and the visit to the ranch.”

Pierce was silent for a few moments before he mumbled to himself.

“Did you say something?” she asked, unconsciously pressing against his broad back. She lowered her voice, looked ahead of him down the road where she could barely see the dark shape of the brown horse carrying Toby. “Is something wrong? Did you see something?”

“Just a second,” he said, and yanked the reins to the right. The pinto climbed the rocky bank, cresting a ridge pocketed with drifts of snow left over from the last storm. Below them, the truck slowed and its windows rolled down.

Analise held on tight to Pierce’s coat, unsure what was going on. It crossed her mind that perhaps she’d been wrong, that perhaps this wasn’t Cody Westin’s brother, that he was an imposter, working for whomever had written that disturbing note.

“Go on ahead of us,” Pierce yelled as the truck on the road below rolled to a stop.

“Absolutely not,” the general cried from the front passenger window. The bodyguard glared through the back window.

“The engine noise is bothering the horse,” Pierce said.

“We will not leave,” the general announced.

“Tell them to go ahead,” Pierce said softly over his shoulder. Analise, on the verge of slipping off the horse and running for the truck, raised a hand instead and called, “It’s okay.”

General Kaare looked furious but the driver sped up and the truck soon pulled ahead.

After a few moments, they traveled back down the rise to the road. The vehicle was a good hundred yards away by then, disappearing around a curve. By now the attack of nerves that had gripped her a few moments before was gone and Analise sagged.

“You okay back there?” Pierce asked.

“Yes. Of course. The horse wasn’t really bothered, was he?”

“No. I was.”

“Me, too.”

This time his profile came with a furrowed brow under the brim of his hat. “How do you live like this, Princess?”

“Like what?”

“Like a beautiful fish in a crystal bowl.”

Had he just called her beautiful? She smiled against his back, unexplainably pleased. She was used to having people fawn over her, accustomed to reading flattering things about her appearance in magazines and newspapers, but it was different coming from him. “I guess a person gets used to whatever it is they’ve known,” she finally said. “Anyway, I went to school in England for several years, so I’m not always guarded so closely.”

He put a hand over hers as it rested against his flat stomach. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but I have to admit your story about what happened in Seattle worries me.”

“It worried the general, too, but he wouldn’t discuss it. Will you?”

“It sounds like a setup.”

“Excuse me?” she said, and this time her gaze darted behind them. She hadn’t realized until that moment how the car had provided a safety net at her back and now that it was gone, she felt naked.

“The missing driver, the sudden offer of a ride, the knot of threatening men, the attack on your bodyguard, a new man hired—it sounds like a setup with one express goal—get rid of Claude. How well do you know this man, Vaughn?”

“Not very well.”

He squeezed her hand with his. She’d felt his strength when he helped her mount the horse; she felt it in his body now when he shifted his weight with the ride. Power. But not the overbearing affectations of the general. No, something more subtle and quiet and substantial.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” he added. “And on you.”

“Oh, please, not another eye. There are already so many!”

“It’s not just you,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean for the time being I’m responsible for everything that happens on this ranch. I want to hand it back to Cody and Adam and my dad in one piece and that means no trouble.”

“Then you don’t normally live here?”

“No.”

“Do you have a ranch somewhere else? Is someone taking care of that while you are here? A wife, perhaps?” The pinto picked up his pace as the road ascended and the distant roof of a building came into sight. Just like the horses at home in Chatioux, this one apparently knew when the stable was close by.

“Why, Princess,” Pierce said, flashing a grin over his shoulder, “is that your way of finding out if I’m single?”

She’d been thinking more along the lines of establishing his identity. For some reason, it seemed unlikely an assassin would claim a family.

Wait. Did she really think this was some kind of setup? If she had, wouldn’t she have insisted the car stay behind them? Trust your instincts, Analise, her father had said on more than one occasion. Sometimes that’s all the armor you’ll have…

“You’re wearing gloves,” she said evenly. “A woman likes to know these things.”

“So does a man,” he said without turning.

“I’m about to become engaged.”

“That’s too bad.”

“And you?”

“I’m not engaged or married or involved with anyone at the moment.”

“But you have been?”

“All those things at one time or another,” he said and there was a tone to his voice that added, Once was enough.

“So if you aren’t a rancher, what are you?”

“I’m part owner of a sort of security outfit,” he said, but there’d been a brief pause before his answer.

“Are you like a policeman?”

“Not really. We help businesses track down inner-corporate ne’er-do-wells.”

“I see.”

“You do?”

“Like industrial espionage,” she said.

“Yes. My partner tends to take the computer angle. I get more hands-on.”

Analise looked ahead and caught sight of a huge log house. Shaped like an inverted V with wings, it appeared to rise to three stories in the middle with tall glass windows. Slender, graceful white-barked trees, their branches currently bare, cradled the upper stories. The long walkway leading to the front was built of rock. A partial roof supported by huge peeled logs covered the end closest to the house. Additional structures could be glimpsed fanning out at the back and there appeared to be a small pond, frozen over, that surrounded the patio on the north end.

When they’d flown overhead, she’d seen long barns with red roofs she supposed held feed and others that must house large equipment. The fields had been dotted with hundreds of black cows, so stark against the winter ground. Add rolling hillsides, millions of evergreen trees and miles of fences and the overall impression was of prosperity.

“You must have enjoyed growing up here,” she said, leaning forward to peer over his shoulder and unconsciously inhaling the clean male scent of his skin. Coming from the privileged life she’d led, admiring a lifestyle wasn’t something she had occasion to do often. But there was a sense of freedom and openness about the place that was foreign to her—and appealing.

For a second she wished she was here alone with Pierce. Just the two of them riding this horse. He was a stranger—he’d never even heard of her before today, he had no expectations, no preconceived ideas of what she was supposed to be.

In fact, if she was honest, she would admit the thought of being alone with a strong, attractive man whose only interest in her was fleeting and trivial was a real turn-on. He wasn’t the kind of man she could ever be with and that was exciting, too.

“The house is bigger now than it used to be. Cody did some serious remodeling before he married Cassie.”

“Is she here now or is she away with him?”

“Neither. The marriage didn’t last, she ran off, á la my mother.”

Analise was willing to bet his casual tone covered some pretty intense undercurrents. “And your other brother, Adam?”

“Off hiking. If you mean is he married, the answer is no. He’s waiting for some nice, shy farm girl to wander into his life.” He turned in the saddle as he reined the horse to a halt and added, “I’d like to talk to you about that photo you mentioned.”

“I’d like to talk to you, too,” she said, nerves flaring again. How much should she tell him? She’d been directed to divulge as little as possible. That had seemed doable when she spoke with Pierce’s brother on the phone months before. With this man?

The key would be saying enough to garner his help without giving anything away…?.

Chapter Four

Pierce looked over his shoulder again. “I’m assuming the photo ties into that ‘important’ reason for your visit,” he added.

“Yes,” she said. “I tried to tell you earlier—”

“As we rode, I know. But I want to look you in the eyes when you talk.”

“Why? Do you think I would lie?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what—”

“Words aren’t the only way a person speaks,” he said, “and sometimes the way something isn’t said is pretty informative.”

She blinked a few times as she thought about that statement. “It may be hard to get time alone again,” she warned as he stopped the horse next to the walkway.

“I’ll figure it out.” He got off the horse, stepped onto the walkway and reached up to help her dismount. The next thing she knew, she was sliding down his firm body, his strong hands gripping her waist, his breath warm where it touched her bare skin. Her feet hit the rocks a second later and she looked up at him, peered into the depths of his eyes, and felt a shock as something almost tangible passed between them.

And in that moment she knew she could trust him with her concerns. Not everything, of course, and certainly not with her heart.

What an odd thing to think.

“Princess? You are all right?” the general called, and she and Pierce both turned to find the older man marching toward them, moving faster than normal.

General Kaare was old-school. Royals should be admired but never touched by a mere mortal like Pierce Westin.

Ignoring his question, she looked around the open meadow. “Where’s Toby?”

“I am told he is out in the barn with the cowboys. Your maid is inside getting your rooms ready for occupancy. Mr. Vaughn was cold—I believe he’s inside by the fireplace being attended by the staff. Come now, come inside.” The general’s eyes lingered on Pierce’s hands which still encircled her waist.

“What about her bodyguard?” Pierce asked as he kept his hands right where they were. “Where is he?”

“Patrolling the immediate vicinity, getting the lay of the land, or so he called it. Come, Princess.”

Something cold touched Analise’s cheek and she looked up as another flake landed on her forehead.

Holding her hands palms up, she watched the flakes swirling overhead before landing on the blue cashmere. “Is this your storm?”

“No, this isn’t the storm,” Pierce said, his eyes delving into hers. At last he moved his hands—on his terms, she noticed with a touch of amusement. “These are just stray flakes. I’ll be inside after I get Sam to the stable.”

“Let your staff take care of that,” the general demanded as he straightened the lapels on his coat. “We must discuss—”

“My staff?” Pierce repeated with a sudden glint in his eyes. “This isn’t a castle with servants, General. Around here, a man takes care of his own horse. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.” With that, he swung himself back into the saddle and trotted off toward a large structure to the south.

Analise smiled into her jacket collar.

“The man is impudent,” the Colonel snapped. “He is much too familiar with you. Furthermore…”

“General? We are guests in his home.”

“And why exactly is that?” the general asked, leveling hooded eyes at her. “Why are we here, Princess Analise? After the situation in Seattle, why didn’t we skip this frivolous side trip and return to Chatioux as I suggested? I know your father—”