скачать книгу бесплатно
“Recon,” he answered. No SEAL team undertook a mission without assembling a target folder.
He was no longer a SEAL.
He heard the crack as she set down the glass bottle she still held in her hands. “You’re checking me out?” Her voice was ice over outrage.
He shrugged. “Your father wants you protected twenty-four-seven. It’s only reasonable to see if we can stand each other long enough for me to get the job done.”
Christina gave him a frosty look. His stupid body reacted as if a bar girl in Bolivia had just given him the eye. Definitely, he’d been out of action too long.
“Very well,” the princess said. “Now that we’ve established that we can’t, as you say, stand each other, you can refuse your father’s money with a clear conscience.”
But that was the problem. Jack couldn’t. Not until Christina had some understanding of exactly how much danger she was in. Not until he did. No matter how little he relished playing baby-sitter, no matter how satisfying it would be to tell the major to go to hell, no matter how often Jack told himself he wasn’t a warrior anymore, his own stubborn need to protect wouldn’t let him walk away from a situation. He at least needed to report to the old man that the princess was working long hours alone with no security.
Frustrated, he stuck his hands deep in his pockets. “Forget the money. Look at where things stand. You’ve got your older brother missing and presumed dead. You’ve got bombs going off in your homeland. You’ve got some sheik guy—”
She crossed her arms across her shielding white lab coat. “Ahmed Kamal of Tamir.”
“Whatever. Some Sheik Kamal trying to claim the kingdom and kidnap your big sister, and your parents are worried sick about you. Don’t you think you ought to take some precautions?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “I have taken precautions. I live in Montana.”
Her dry tone, her unexpected humor, slipped under his guard like a knife. He rubbed his jaw with the back of one hand to wipe off his answering grin. “Your father doesn’t think that’s good enough.”
Christina sighed. “Mr. Dalton, my parents don’t think anything is good enough for their children. I honor them for that. I love them. But I am not going to sacrifice my privacy, compromise my focus and interrupt my work by accepting the services of a completely unnecessary bodyguard. I assure you, I am quite safe here. No one can find me.”
Despite his frustration, he liked the aloof, precise way she had of speaking. Not that he accepted for one minute what she was saying, but she sounded really smart. “I found you,” he pointed out.
“I’m sure you had directions.”
“So will Kamal’s men.”
“Assuming I’m a target. I have only your word for that. And I don’t even know you. For all I know, you could be working for Sheik Ahmed.”
Jack regarded her grimly. “Are you always this pissy?”
Her lips curved. “I’ve been told so. Yes.”
He had a sudden urge to back her up against the counter and bite into that regal, smiling mouth. Hell. He really had been out of action too long. He fished in his back pocket for his wallet, ignoring the slight pull in his shoulder, and tossed his identification onto the table. His gaze dared her to pick it up.
After a moment’s hesitation, she did. Cautious, he thought again, with approval. She looked first at his Texas driver’s license and then at the white plastic card issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Her brows drew together. “‘Senior Chief’? You are U.S. military?”
“Former military. Navy SEAL, retired.” Forced out, he thought. He for damn sure hadn’t quit. Navy SEALs weren’t quitters.
“You are young to be retired.”
Bitterness flooded his mouth. “Medical retirement,” he said evenly.
“Ah.” The soft sound could have signaled anything. Acceptance. Pity. Dismissal.
Jack hated all three.
“I can still function, your highness,” he snapped.
She regarded him steadily. He wondered how much of his rage and desperation he’d given away by that one stupid remark.
“I wasn’t questioning your qualifications, Senior Chief,” she said quietly. “You are obviously able to protect me. Assuming I needed your protection, which I do not.”
“Your father thinks you do.”
“My father is a warm and sentimental man who is still grieving the loss of his only son. It is natural for him to overreact.”
“Yeah? Well, my father is a cold and calculating son of a bitch who wouldn’t waste time or manpower on a dead-end assignment. If he says you need a keeper, then you do.”
Christina recoiled. No one talked to her that way. No one. Her heart was beating way too fast. She felt threatened—by his warning, yes, but even more by his attitude. She was a Sebastiani. She did not need this hard, unshaved stranger to remind her of the world she’d left behind. She did not want him invading her sanctuary.
She met his gaze and almost shuddered at the raw energy that burned in those bitter blue eyes. She should not have to deal with this. She was woefully unequipped to deal with him.
And she could never let him know.
Years of training supported her head and stiffened her spine. “Mr. Dalton, I have made a life and a career quite separate from my family. It is highly unlikely that terrorists are traveling across nine thousand miles and ten time zones to kidnap an inconsequential member of the royal house of Montebello.”
His jaw set. Even through her agitation and the shadow of darkening beard, she noticed it was a very nicely squared jaw.
“And what if you’re wrong?” he demanded. “You’re not inconsequential to your father. What if Kamal decides to use you for leverage in this land dispute?”
“I am not without friends—or defenses. This is Montana. Strangers are noticed here.”
“Nobody noticed me. Or stopped me.”
No one would dare, she thought. He looked dangerous. Alien. His tough, lean physique was more than a match for most university types, even the outdoorsy breed attracted to field sciences in Montana.
And she had no excuse for inspecting his physique. Her cheeks grew warm.
She turned off the gas burners before the combination of their heat and her inattention set fire to the lab. “Perhaps they noticed and decided not to say anything. The other benefit to living in Montana is that people here tend to mind their own business. And if you would go back to yours, I could continue with mine.”
It was a nice line. She was proud of it. Unfortunately, he was less impressed.
He stuck his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans, the pose emphasizing his blatant masculinity. “What if I decide to make you my business? What are you going to do about it?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted frankly. “You’re too big to ignore. If you are also too rude to leave, I suppose I would call my father and tell him to have you dismissed.”
“Do all the men in your life do what you tell them to, princess?”
There were no other men in her life.
A royal princess—even an “inconsequential” one from a tiny island kingdom like Montebello—had to be careful if she wanted to keep her name and picture out of the tabloids. Christina had long ago accepted that meant no dance club dates or midnight walks or tender dawn partings that could be captured by a telephoto lens. Since coming to America, she had tentatively tried to take part in the safer aspects of university life. But her rank excluded her from the grad students’ beer-and-pizza parties, and her age made her an oddity at the faculty’s wine-and-cheese mixers.
And so she was careful, and safe, and alone.
None of which was any of his business.
She lifted her brows and said, in her mother’s most regal tone, “If they’re smart, they do.”
He nearly smiled, and the heat in her cheeks climbed several degrees. “I must not be very smart then,” he drawled. “Because I just may stick around.”
Dumb, Dalton. Very dumb.
He did not want to work for the major. Princess Cupcake had made it more than clear that she did not want him working for her.
But even as he acknowledged his mistake, Jack punched a number into the motel phone. He listened to the ring, stretching his legs over the ratty print spread on the room’s one double bed. So it was a dive. To a guy who’d stayed in huts in Colombia and tents in Kuwait, these were luxury accommodations.
A woman answered the phone. In the background, Jack could hear a baby fretting. “Hello?”
He settled back against the squeaky headboard, trying to ease his injured shoulder. “Hey, Janey,” he said.
“Jack?” Warmth suffused his sister’s voice. “Jack, how are you? Where are you? Daddy’s been trying to get in touch with you.”
“I’m in Montana. I’m looking into doing a job for him.”
“Oh, Jack.” Real worry vibrated down the line. The major’s “jobs” had hung over their childhood like storm clouds on the Texas horizon. Jack had shrugged and shouldered the job of man of the house, first accepting and later welcoming their father’s frequent absences from home. But Janey was different, he thought with affection. Janey believed in home and family, had married young and borne her adoring husband two kids already. “Is it dangerous?”
“Hell, no. He just wants me to baby-sit.” Jack wouldn’t give her details that could endanger her, and she wouldn’t ask. They had both grown up with that, too.
“Well, you’re a good baby-sitter,” his little sister said. She added, “He said to tell you he had a package for you. If you wanted it.”
And by leaving word with Janey, the old man had neatly deprived Jack of the chance to turn him down. Smart, Jack acknowledged. “Fine. Tell him to send it. I got a post office box today.” He gave her the number.
“Jack…” Janey’s voice was soft and hesitant. “Are you sure you want to take orders from the major?”
He didn’t resent her asking. She’d witnessed enough battles growing up to know the likelihood of combat. “It beats a desk-puke job, Janey. It beats doing nothing. And the lady I’m assigned to has a body worth guarding.”
“Oh, well, then…” He could almost hear her smile. She was cheered, as he knew she would be, by the thought of her big, bad brother falling for some home-and-hearth skirt. He didn’t disillusion her. “As long as you know what you’re getting into.”
“That’s me,” he said, working hard to keep the bleakness out of his voice. “Always prepared. Now that I’ve washed out of the SEALs, maybe I can become an Eagle Scout.”
The department secretary ripped a sheet off her pink message pad and slapped it onto a stack.
“Dr. Sebastiani isn’t in the lab today,” she said.
Jack knew that. The lab had been empty. He’d come to the biology office to find her.
“Does she have a class?” he asked.
“No.”
“Office hours?”
The secretary, a young woman whose short dark hair and long silver earrings emphasized her Native American features, regarded him impassively. “Not on Tuesdays.”
Okay. Jack was beginning to appreciate Christina’s reliance on her Montana neighbors. As a first line of defense, the biology secretary was remarkably hard to shift. But she was no match for a terrorist with an AK-47. Or a SEAL with a mission.
Abruptly he switched tactics, offering the young woman his hand and his best smile. “Sorry to make such a pest of myself. I’m Jack Dalton,” he said, as if the name would be familiar to her.
She blinked. Blushed. And reached cautiously across her desk to take his hand.
“I still don’t know Chris’s schedule very well,” Jack said sheepishly, giving her hand a little squeeze before releasing it. “But we had kind of a misunderstanding last night, and I was hoping I could catch her. To apologize.”
“Oh.” The young woman’s eyes brightened, as he’d hoped they would, at the prospect of a romance. But she still didn’t roll over completely. “Have you two known each other long?”
“Our families go back forever.” Jack sat on a corner of her desk, broadcasting clean-cut reassurance, glad he’d taken the time to shave that morning. “But you know how it is with these long-distance relationships. The last couple years have been tough. I mean, she’s here, and I’ve been—” he checked himself, as if recalling the need for discretion “—overseas,” he finished with another smile.
This time the secretary smiled back. “I can see how that would be difficult. I’m sorry you missed her.”
Jack shrugged. “That’s okay. Do you know when she’s expected back?”
“It’s hard to say.” The woman adjusted the silver eagle pendant around her neck, showing it and her cleavage off to their best advantage. “Dr. Lyman called in sick today, and Dr. Sebastiani agreed to take her tour down to Bald Head Creek. Those things can go on all day.”
Jack felt a lurch of unwelcome fury, of unfamiliar fear. Christina had chosen to go out in public. Unprotected. A potential kidnapping target, with nothing to defend her but a bunch of scientists and her own snooty attitude.
“Guess I’ll do my groveling later then,” he said easily, and stood. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” the secretary said. She lowered her voice confidingly. “I hope you two can work things out. She’s a really nice lady.”
Jack managed not to snarl. Nice was not a word he was tempted to apply to Princess Tall, Cool and In Control. But he didn’t have to stay and argue. He didn’t have to do anything but find her.
“Oh, we’ll work something out,” he said.
Or he would be forced to tie her up and sit on her while he figured out what to do next.
Chapter 2
Bald Head Creek glittered like a promise between banks canopied by cottonwood and lush with long grass. The winding water reflected glimpses of wide, blue Montana sky.
So beautiful, Christina thought, breathing deeply of the damp, cool air. More beautiful than anything but home. Regret brushed her. She ignored it.
“Everyone have their counting trays?” she called cheerfully.
The eighth grade science class from Meriwether Lewis Middle School, assembled on the banks around her, nodded and waved shallow plastic trays in response.
“Let’s go hunting then,” Christina said, and dipped her net into the stream bed.
Water sparkled as she scooped up her load and swung it toward the bank.
A girl in a blue sweater scrambled away from the dripping net of creek muck. “Eeeww!”
Other thirteen-year-olds crowded closer as Christina emptied her catch, mud and pebbles and creepy crawlies, into her collection bucket.
