Cassidy and the Princess

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Marise,” Cassidy said, holding her eyes with his.

He hadn’t meant to say it. But he would keep her safe. One way or another.

He held out his hand, taking her much smaller one with his fingers. The contact was warm, and the warmth became heat, and the heat became electric, spreading sparks throughout his body.

He swallowed hard, trying to understand why he couldn’t take his fingers away from hers, nor his gaze from the dark blue eyes that were swirling with need.

Desire. Hunger. Need.

Caution.

He called himself all kinds of fool, and yet the electricity remained, the attraction growing more irresistible. But it was merely an attraction, Cassidy told himself. An attraction that could be controlled.

Had to be controlled. For both their sakes.

Dear Reader,

Once again, Silhouette Intimate Moments brings you six exciting romances, a perfect excuse to take a break and read to your heart’s content. Start off with Heart of a Hero, the latest in award-winning Marie Ferrarella’s CHILDFINDERS, INC. miniseries. You’ll be on the edge of your seat as you root for the heroine to find her missing son—and discover true love along the way. Then check out the newest of our FIRSTBORN SONS, Born Brave, by Ruth Wind, another of the award winners who make Intimate Moments so great every month. In Officer Hawk Stone you’ll discover a hero any woman—and that includes our heroine!—would fall in love with.

Cassidy and the Princess, the latest from Patricia Potter, is a gripping story of a true princess of the ice and the hero who lures her in from the cold. With Hard To Handle, mistress of sensuality Kylie Brant begins CHARMED AND DANGEROUS, a trilogy about three irresistible heroes and the heroines lucky enough to land them. Be sure to look for her again next month, when she takes a different tack and contributes our FIRSTBORN SONS title. Round out the month with new titles from up-and-comers Shelley Cooper, whose Promises, Promises offers a new twist on the pregnant-heroine plot, and Wendy Rosnau, who tells a terrific amnesia story in The Right Side of the Law.

And, of course, come back again next month, when the romantic roller-coaster ride continues with six more of the most exciting romances around.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Cassidy and the Princess

Patricia Potter

MILLS & BOON

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PATRICIA POTTER

is the bestselling and award-winning author of thirty-three contemporary and historical romances. She has more than three million books in print. Her last romantic suspense novel remained on the USA Today bestseller list for four weeks. It was also a Doubleday Book Club alternate selection. She was named “Storyteller of the Year” in 1993 by Romantic Times Magazine and received the magazine’s Career Achievement Award for Western Romances. She has also won several Reviewer’s Choice Awards from Romantic Times Magazine and three Maggie Awards from the Georgia Romance Writers, including one for best single-title contemporary. She is a three-time RITA Award finalist. Prior to writing fiction, she was a reporter with the Atlanta Journal, an editor with a suburban Atlanta newspaper and president of an Atlanta public relations firm. She is now a resident of Memphis. She recently served as PAN Liaison to the national board of Romance Writers of America and is a past member of the national board. She has also served as president of Georgia Romance Writers and board member of River City Romance Writers in Memphis.

To Tracy Farrell…

editor extraordinaire, and friend

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 1

Marise Merrick wasn’t sure when fear first began filtering into her consciousness, or the moment she realized she might possibly have done the most foolish thing in her life.

She did not usually do foolish things. Her life was a regimen prescribed by practice sessions, competitions and ice shows. She was seldom alone, seldom without a schedule and, it seemed, never with a moment of her own.

She had decided to steal a few tonight. She’d needed air. She’d needed time to think without everyone trying to do it for her. She was infinitely weary of being in a glass cage.

She’d left the Municipal Auditorium where she and her partner, Paul, had been practicing for the next day’s Challenge Skate. A short walk to clear her head. To whisk away the look of disappointment on her coach’s face when she’d missed a jump, the startled surprise—even anger—on Paul’s face. She had not looked toward her mother.

Something had suddenly struck her as out of proportion. She had been feeling that for some time. Figure skating had been her world since she was three years old. She had never known anything else, had never questioned the fact that she was destined for a career on ice. Now after years of practice and injuries, she was nearing her goal. The Sectional was in three weeks, and the U.S. Figure Skating Championships a month later. Finally, the Olympics. It would probably be her and Paul’s last chance. The next Olympics were four years away, and there would be new, younger skaters competing.

But that goal didn’t seem so important any longer. Instead she felt more and more trapped, especially now that Paul had asked her to marry him.

She had meant just to go outside. The air was the way she liked it—crisp and clear—with a full moon in the sky. The area outside the auditorium was empty except for some cars parked in the lot. A short walk. Just a short one.

Marise didn’t know whether she actually heard something or whether the fear that crept up her back was instinct. She turned back toward the door of the auditorium. There was a security guard inside. He had, in fact, warned her not to go out, and when she persisted, had said he would watch for her.

Why had she not listened? She hurried her footsteps, then heard others behind her. She broke into a run. An arm grabbed her from behind and went around her throat, cutting off her air.

“Don’t make any noise,” a rough voice whispered into her ear.

She tried not to panic. She was strong, stronger than a stranger would suppose, especially with her short height and slender body. Her legs and arms were all muscle. If she could get in position, she could kick where it would hurt.

But now she just tried to breathe. She was dragged a few feet, around the corner of the building, behind a Dumpster. She smelled rotten food. She also smelled something else—a sweet, cloying odor.

He pulled her down, and his arm slipped. She twisted, screaming as she did before he fell on her, putting a knife to her throat. “Another sound and I’ll kill you.”

In the shadows, she saw he wore a ski mask. He had broad shoulders. He looked, in fact, like a lineman on a football team. She saw the bulk and the mask. It was too dark to see the eyes.

Don’t panic. Wait for your chance. Yet her heart was beating so loud he must hear it. He liked fear. She could sense it. Let him think you are terrified. Not that she wasn’t.

The knife stayed at her neck as his other hand tore at her track pants. She had tied the drawstrings into a knot since the pants were loose, and he was having trouble untying them. With a curse he pulled, but they did not give. He took the knife away from her throat and shifted his weight. In that moment, her right leg was free and she thrust it into his crotch, and screamed again. He doubled over, and she sought to scramble away.

One of his hands grabbed for her, and in trying to avoid it, she grabbed his mask and pulled it off. He was close, but the shadows shielded much of his face. All she wanted was to get away, as far and as quickly as possible.

His hand came up. Empty. He must have dropped his knife when she kicked him. She heard a noise from around the corner, a shout, and then saw his fist come at her.

Everything went dark.

“Hoppy, there’s been another one.”

Cassidy MacKay turned away from the files that had kept him at the office tonight instead of in front of the television, watching Monday night football. Manny, his partner, had just put down his telephone.

Cassidy flinched at the nickname. Manny had started calling him “Hoppy” for Hopalong Cassidy. Cassidy’s glare and refusal to answer kept anyone else from following suit, but Manny had an advantage no one else did. He’d saved Cassidy’s life.

He took his feet off the desk and turned in his swivel chair. “The Rose Killer?”

“Yeah, but this time he didn’t succeed in killing his victim,” Manny said.

Cassidy whirled his chair all the way around. “She’s alive?”

“Yep. She’s at the hospital.’

Cassidy erupted from the chair. “How bad is she?”

“The beat guys said she was lucky. A concussion, a few cuts, abrasions.”

“Rape?”

“No, apparently she fought like hell. She screamed, and a security guard heard her.”

Cassidy didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath. Now it exploded from his lungs.

“She’s unconscious,” Manny continued. “Could be for another few hours, even a day or more, according to her doctors.”

“He’s never left one alive before,” Cassidy said slowly. “Are you sure it’s him?”

“There was a battered rose. Not as perfect as the others. It looked as if someone had rolled on it, but it’s our guy. It had the ribbon.”

“Hot damn. He finally made a mistake.” Cassidy jumped from the swivel chair. “What are we waiting for? City Hospital?”

“Yep. But I don’t think for long. Her mother wants to transfer her to St. Agnes.”

“Mother? St. Agnes? She’s not a pro?”

Manny grinned. “She’s a pro all right, but not the kind you’re thinking of. She’s here for that figure skating competition.”

Cassidy’s brows knitted together in puzzlement.

“Ah, Hoppy, don’t you ever read the newspapers?”

“Not if I can help it.” It was a lie and they both knew it. Cassidy was a news junky, although he was also one of its most vocal critics.

“She’s a figure skater, apparently a champion in pairs. She and her partner could win the Olympic Gold Medal.”

Cassidy groaned. “Tell me you’re baiting me.”

“Nope. She’s a pure unvarnished princess, according to the newspapers.

“Since when do you read about figure skating?”

“Since we have a kid who wants to be a skater. She and my wife watch every time there’s a competition on television.”

“A damn good reason not to get married,” Cassidy said. “Give me a beer and a football game.”

Manny grinned. “That good-ole-boy act might play with others, not me. I happen to know you go to the opera.”

“Spread it around and I’ll ask for another partner.”

“No one else would have you.”

“True,” Cassidy said good-naturedly as he increased the length of his stride.

“Hey, Hoppy, slow up. I’m a short, fat guy.”

Cassidy grinned at that. Manny was Lebanese, and he was a short guy. Thick, too. But it was mostly muscle. Cassidy had no complaints with either his speed or ability, nor with his street smarts. Manny was, quite simply, the best partner he’d ever had.

He did not slow his stride, however. He’d been after the Rose Killer for eight months. Four prostitutes had been killed, a rose left at their side. Cassidy took it as a personal insult that the perp continued to kill at will. He had an insidious thought: now that someone other than a prostitute had been targeted, maybe he could finally get the resources he needed.

He slowed his stride until Manny could match it. “Tell me more about her,” he said.

“She’s beautiful,” Manny said. “I’ve watched her skate. She’s a true athlete.”

That was the supreme compliment for Manny. He was a frustrated athlete who’d been too short to play either basketball or football beyond junior high school.

“How in the hell did he get to her if she’s…a princess?” It had taken him a second to say the word. He’d never known a princess, even a media-created one, and he wasn’t sure how helpful one might be. But the prospect of getting a killer off the streets produced pure adrenaline in him. Up to now, he and Manny had come to a complete standstill in the case.

It had started seven months ago when they’d found the first body. A second, two months later; a third, another two months later; the fourth, two months later. This attempt was only a month since the last murder. All were killed on a Wednesday night. All were raped before being stabbed, but there had been no DNA, which led police to conclude the killer used both condoms and gloves. He never left clues, only a single red rose. The newspapers knew that. What they didn’t know was that the rose was always wrapped with a white satin ribbon tied into a neat bow.

Now they might have a witness who could tell them something about the killer. And, according to the beat cop, they might have to crawl over a mother to get to her.

They reached the parking lot and their unmarked car. “I’ll drive,” Cassidy said.

“I could have guessed that,” Manny said, fastening his seat belt and saying a Hail Mary, his usual practice when Cassidy drove.

Cassidy ignored it as usual. “What else do you know?”

“She apparently went for a walk outside the Municipal Auditorium.”

“At night?” Cassidy’s already preconceived notions about the woman dipped another notch.

“Yeah,” Manny said. “But she doesn’t know Atlanta…”

“You don’t go walking alone at night in any big city,” Cassidy interrupted. “She probably doesn’t have a brain in her head. And I’ll wager you my boat her mama will whisk her out of town faster than I can say boo.”

“No one wants your boat,” Manny said dryly. “And a boo from you would be enough to send anyone scurrying for a plane. Try to be charming for a change.”

“I don’t do charming,” Cassidy said, turning briefly to glare at his partner.

“Only because your heart isn’t in it since…”

“Don’t go there, Manny,” Cassidy warned.

Manny sighed. “All right. Back to Miss Merrick.”

“Miss…? Oh hell, you’re already besotted.”

Manny shrugged. “She must be something special. She got away. That puts her way ahead of the others.”

“Let’s just pray she knows something that can help us,” Cassidy said. He didn’t often depend on prayer, but he was ready to try anything. He couldn’t erase the thought that were he a little smarter, a little quicker, a little more intuitive, four women would still be alive.

He stepped on the gas pedal, and Manny crossed himself again as he beat a yellow light. Cassidy did not miss that, either.

They arrived at the hospital, and he parked illegally though he was careful not to block the emergency entrance. This, he thought, was an emergency. He wasn’t going to lose the only possible witness he might have.

He knew where to go, and in minutes he had the information he needed. Room number and condition, which was “satisfactory.” Poor Manny was practically running to keep up with him as he took the elevator to the neurology floor, checked the room numbers and rapped several times on the second door to the left.

“Come in.” The voice did not sound like that of a princess. It was obviously annoyed. And it belonged to a man.

Cassidy already had his badge out, and he flashed it to the three people in the room. A young man leaned against a wall, an older one sat half-sprawled on a window seat and a well-dressed woman in her forties sat on a chair. The bed was empty.

“Miss Merrick?”

“They are conducting tests,” said the young man who regarded him as if he were some strange creature. Cassidy returned the stare. “You are…”

“Paul Richards, Miss Merrick’s pairs partner and fiancé,” he said. “Tell me you’ve found the man who did this.”

Despite what Cassidy said to Manny, he knew enough about ice-skating to realize there must be more to Richards than was immediately visible. Still, he was singularly unimpressed, perhaps because of the contemptuous dismissal that flickered in the man’s eyes.

But then, after nearly thirteen years with the Atlanta Police Department, damn little impressed him.

Richards did not offer his hand, and neither did Cassidy. Instead of answering a question he thought rather stupid, he turned his attention to the blond woman huddled in the chair. She had scarcely moved since he and Manny entered. He went to her side. “Mrs. Merrick?”

She looked up at him, a glaze of tears hovering in her eyes. “How could something like this happen?”

“She was out alone,” he said matter-of-factly. “That can be dangerous anywhere.” He wanted to ask why her mother had not taught this small fact of life to her, but resisted. “When did you arrive at…the scene of the attack?” The preliminary report said she’d been present when the police arrived.

“Almost immediately,” the woman said. “Paul had finished changing clothes, and we were looking for the security guard to call a cab. We couldn’t find Marise or the security guard. Then we heard the sirens and I…I knew it was her. We followed an ambulance around the corner and saw her. She was so…still. Her blood…”

“Did she say anything? Anything at all?”

She shook her head, then seemed to remember her manners. She held out her hand graciously. “I am Marise’s mother, Cara Merrick.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, but the doctors said she suffered a concussion. She hasn’t awakened yet. The doctor thought she would be conscious by now. He told us…”

Cassidy’s heart sank. He’d hoped that she would be conscious by now. He knew that traumatic head wounds often caused at least temporary amnesia of events that occurred just before the injury. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Merrick,” he said.

“I plan to take her to Seattle as soon as the doctors say she can leave,” she said. “I have been looking into charter flights…”

“She’s a witness,” he said. “We think her attacker has killed at least four other women. We need her here.”

The woman stood and drew herself up tall. And as she did, he immediately knew his first instincts had been wrong. This was not a weak woman. She wanted people to think she was, but she wasn’t. “No, Detective,” she said simply.

Cassidy looked at his partner. Manny mouthed something like “charm.”

“And you?” Cassidy turned to the man sitting on the window ledge.

“David South, their coach.” The man straightened, and Cassidy recognized the loose grace of an athlete. “The doctors say they don’t know when she will wake. Or if she will have permanent damage when she does. The bastard cracked her skull against the pavement. We had to withdraw from the Challenge today. But we have the Sectional in three weeks. She shouldn’t miss it. Hell, she can’t miss it and stay in competition.”

Cassidy exchanged looks with Manny. They had been together so long now, they needed nothing more than a blink of an eye, a shrug of a shoulder, a tightening of the mouth to communicate.

Cassidy was beginning to feel very sorry for the princess. Everyone seemed to care more about getting her back to competition than about her well-being.

“We’ll wait here,” he said, leaning against a wall. Manny took up a position on the windowsill next to Mrs. Merrick.

“I tell you, she is unconscious,” the younger man insisted. “And as soon as the doctor says she can be moved, we will leave this…city.”

Not if Cassidy had any say in it.

“Why did she go out alone?” he asked the mother. “Was there a…quarrel of some kind?” The attack had occurred at ten o’clock. What had made a young woman wander by herself in a less-than-safe area? Not, he thought wryly, that there seemed to be any safe ones these days.

“There was no quarrel,” Cara Merrick said. “We were almost ready to leave after practicing all evening. It was very odd for her to just…disappear without telling anyone.”

Not really. Cassidy somehow knew that.

“Had anyone approached her? Stalked her, perhaps?”

Cara Merrick shook her head.

“And the security guard who found her didn’t see anything?”

“You will have to talk to him.”

“I will,” he said. “But I want to know if you heard or saw anything, either before or after the attack. If you have any idea why she went off alone, whether she intended to meet anyone…”

“Absolutely not,” the mother said. “We didn’t know anyone in this city. There had been no threats. No one with an unusual interest in her.”

“But still,” he persisted, “why would she be wandering alone?” He turned to her partner, who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the questions. “Would you know, Mr.… Richards, is it?”

“It is, and I have no idea,” Richards said. “She probably just wanted a breath of air. We’d been practicing for hours.”

Cassidy studied him carefully, then turned back to the older woman. “Mrs. Merrick, as I said, we believe the man who attacked your daughter has killed at least four women. She was very lucky to escape tonight. Your daughter might be our only lead.”

The door opened then, and he turned. Two orderlies were wheeling a gurney into the room, and for a moment he felt as if all the breath had been sucked out of him.

A blond woman lay on the gurney, her eyes closed. A bandage was wrapped around her head, and she had a huge bruise on her cheek. Lush dark eyelashes contrasted with the fine blond hair. Manny had said she was a stunner. He had not exaggerated. Despite the bandage there was no mistaking that this was a very pretty woman. She also looked young and vulnerable and, God help him, as if she were indeed a princess from a fairy tale. Hell, Manny had put that nonsense in his head.

He tried, instead, to go back to being a detective. She was blond. The other victims had been blond, too. That might mean the killer was looking for blondes, not specifically prostitutes. Maybe the prostitutes had just been targets of opportunity.

He watched as she was moved, along with an IV, onto the bed. She appeared small, weightless. She’d probably appeared vulnerable to a killer.

“As you can…see, she can’t answer your questions,” Mrs. Merrick said. She went over to the bed and took her daughter’s hand in hers. “Will you please leave?”

He glanced at Manny and nodded. “We’ll stay in the lounge outside,” he promised.

She returned his gaze. “We don’t want her to stay in this city one minute longer than necessary.”

Cassidy looked back down at the sleeping beauty who’d been shifted onto the bed. She’d been strong and smart enough to survive—or had it just been luck? More to the point, had she seen the attacker?

He watched the older woman loom over the patient as if warding off evil spirits. “I have some more questions.”