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His eyes narrowed and he studied Parker a moment, then turned back to Cara. “Get me how?”
Cara looked at Parker, then back at Jace. “Sorry.”
Obviously deciding Cara wasn’t going to tell him, he switched to Parker.
“Hey, Princ—Parker, just what did you do to this Hoffman?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she said, then realized how juvenile the statement had sounded. “Just sit there and be quiet.”
She picked up the phone and started dialing her father’s private number.
“What time is it there?” Jace asked. “Are you going to wake him?”
“I wouldn’t care if I did. He deserves to be woken up. But I’m pretty safe calling whenever. He doesn’t sleep much.”
She didn’t add that in that respect she was her father’s daughter. The rest of the world needed seven or eight hours of sleep a night. Like her father, she existed on three or four hours at the most.
Those extra hours of not sleeping left her a lot of time for thinking and scheming, which is how she’d thought of the great get-Hoffman plan.
Tonight she’d be thinking of a new get-Jace plan.
The phone rang.
“Hello?” her father said.
Without any warning, Parker lobbed her initial volley. “How could you?”
“I told you Tanner was coming.”
She groaned. She was so caught up with Jace that she’d forgotten her no-way-fiancé was coming to Erie.
She glanced at the clock. Shey would probably be here with him soon.
The night was going to be a long one—and the length had nothing to do with the few hours she spent sleeping.
“Not Tanner,” she said. “Jace. Your flunky.”
“I’d never hire just a flunky to watch over my baby girl,” her father assured her. “Jason O’Donnell is a very well-respected private investigator. The mayor himself recommended him.”
“And what’s he supposed to be investigating?”
“You. He’s supposed to find out what’s keeping you there in Erie. Or rather, who.”
“I’ve told you over and over again, there’s no one in my life other than my friends, Shey and Cara. I just can’t go back to being a princess. You know what my last year there was like. Stalked by reporters, every move I made exploited and exaggerated. I like my life here. I like being just Parker. I like the anonymity, the ordinariness of it all.
“Papa, all fathers think that their daughters are special. You’re biased. And despite the fact that I love you, I’m annoyed. Very annoyed. Call off your watchdog.”
“No. He’ll stay until Tanner brings you home. I’ve missed you, so please make it sooner rather than later.”
Her father hung up.
Parker stared at the phone in her hand a moment, then turned to Uncle Jace.
Jason O’Donnell, private detective.
“It looks like I’m stuck with you,” she said.
“Oh, no. Another Hoffman?” Cara whispered.
“Oh, yeah,” Parker said, glaring at her new nemesis. “Maybe even worse.”
Cara shot Jace a sympathetic look, then said, “I think I’ll leave you two to duke it out. I don’t enjoy all this drama.”
Parker smiled. “Go ahead. I’m fine. I can handle anything he dishes out.”
“I know you can,” Cara said as she started back to the bookstore. “That’s what scares me.”
Jace looked from the small brunette who gave him a sympathetic wave before she left to the tall blonde who was glaring in his direction.
He wasn’t sure who Hoffman was, but first thing tomorrow he was going to find the man and see just what the princess—Parker, he corrected himself—had done to the guy.
Knowledge was the best protection. And with the way Parker was glaring at him, he was pretty sure he needed all the protection he could get.
“When I get through with you—” she started, but Jace didn’t get to hear just what she had planned for him because at that moment the door to the coffeehouse opened.
He’d been watching Parker for two weeks and knew that the woman with the short red hair was Shey Carlson, her friend and the owner of Monarch’s. It wasn’t Shey who caught his attention. It was the man who walked in next to her.
The guy looked to be about the same height as Parker, so he couldn’t be more than five-ten. But he seemed to have a larger-than-life sort of aura that gave the illusion of being taller. But Jace wasn’t fooled. He was in the business of seeing beyond illusions.
He had dark brown hair that was impeccably styled and a suit that Jace was sure had some designer label attached to it.
“Princess Marie Anna,” the guy said in a deep, sophisticated voice.
“It’s Parker,” she practically growled.
Parker obviously wasn’t overly impressed with the GQ looks of the man.
“It’s been a long time, Tanner,” she said in more of a normal tone.
“Too long.” He shot her a thousand-watt smile that had probably melted the hearts of women all over the globe.
“Not long enough,” she muttered.
Tanner.
Jace knew the name from the files Parker’s father had sent. Prince Eduardo Matthew Tanner Ericson of Amar.
Parker’s fiancé.
“Your father sent me to bring you home.”
“I am home.”
The man’s perfection was marred by his sudden frown. “Back to Eliason.”
“You’re welcome to go back to Eliason or Amar on the very next plane out of Erie. But I’m staying here.”
“That’s it? I flew all this way to see my fiancée—”
“I am not your fiancée,” Parker interrupted.
“—and all you have to say to me is leave?”
“That’s about the shape of things. And speaking of leaving, I’m on my way out. You don’t mind closing up, Shey?”
“Of course not,” her friend assured her. She nodded toward the prince. “What about him?”
“Would you give him a ride to whatever hotel he’s staying at?”
“Sure.”
“Hey, watchdog, are you coming?” Parker asked.
“Uh.”
Jace wasn’t sure what to do. He was supposed to be trailing her, not escorting her. But even though she seemed totally in control, he knew she was upset.
“Sure thing,” he said. “How about I drive?”
“Sounds good to me, since I took the bus.”
“The bus?” the prince exclaimed. “My fiancée is riding public transportation?”
“You don’t have a fiancée, but if you were referring to me, then yes, I take public transportation. My father shut off access to my trust and I’m broke. So I sold my car.”
“But, but…” the prince sputtered.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jace said. “I’ll see that she gets home all right.”
“Home,” she said to the prince. “I’m home and you need to go home. Go back to Amar. There’s nothing for you here in Erie—especially not a fiancée.”
With that she turned and walked out the door.
Jace felt some sympathy for the guy.
Tanner might be the suave, smooth sort of man that generally set Jace’s teeth on edge, but he’d just been totally shot down in front of witnesses. Jace could empathize with that.
He wondered who was going to empathize with his plight, because he was sure that Princess Parker was going to do her best to make him more miserable than the prince looked.
Maybe more miserable than the mysterious Hoffman.
Jace sighed as he chased after the princess.
It was going to be a long, hot summer.
Chapter Three
“I didn’t really take the bus this morning. I walked. It’s only a few blocks,” the princess—Parker—admitted.
Jace had known that. He’d been trailing her as she’d left her house that morning and walked the few blocks to Monarch’s.
She’d obviously forgotten she was his assignment, which meant she forgot that he knew where her house was. He didn’t remind her as she gave him directions. He preferred that Tanner be the focus of her ire, not him.
As they turned onto Front Street, she said, “That’s it,” and pointed.
Jace eased into the driveway of the neat, two-story brick home. It wasn’t quite a castle, but it was a beautiful house.
“It’s nice,” he murmured.
“Uh,” she said, “not the house. The garage.”
He knew that, as well, of course.
He knew the house belonged to a local manicurist who worked at a small beauty store across from Monarch’s. And that Parker had moved into the garage apartment three years ago.
What he didn’t know and hadn’t been able to figure out is why a princess, a woman who could buy and sell half of Erie, chose to live in a garage apartment.
Her father had prevented her access to her money, and Jace could have understood if she’d moved in recently. But she’d moved in right after college.
“Why?” he murmured.
“Why what?” Parker asked.
He hadn’t meant to ask the question out loud. But since she’d overheard, he figured what the heck and asked, “Why do you live in a garage?”
“Over the garage. There’s an apartment.”
“But you’re a princess. Why would you live over a garage? You could live anywhere.”
“Where should a princess live?” she countered.
“Never mind,” he muttered.
He wasn’t going to say that a princess should live in a castle. It was too cliché.
“Come on,” she pressed.
“Forget I asked.”
