Читать книгу The Princess Predicament - Lisa Childs - Страница 8

Present day …

For six months Princess Gabriella St. Pierre had been missing—vanished from a hotel suite in Paris. A hotel suite that had become a gruesome crime scene where someone had died. For six months Whit Howell had been convinced she had been that someone. He had believed she was dead.

Just recently he’d learned that Gabby was alive and in hiding. Her life had been threatened. And instead of coming to him for protection, she had left the country. She hadn’t trusted him or anyone else. But then maybe that had been the smart thing to do. Her doppelgänger bodyguard had been kidnapped in her place and held hostage for the past six months.

If Gabriella hadn’t gone into hiding …

He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to her. But then he shuddered at the thought of what still could have happened to her since no one had heard from her for six months.

Could someone have fulfilled the prophesy of that note? The man, who had accidentally abducted the bodyguard in Gabby’s place, claimed that he hadn’t written it. Given all the other crimes to which he’d confessed, it made no sense that he would deny writing a note. But if not him, then who? And had that person followed through on his threat?

Whit had to find Gabby. Now. He had to make sure she was safe. He knew where she’d gone after leaving the palace. Her destination was on the piece of paper he clutched so tightly in his hand that it had grown damp and fragile.

“Sir, are you all right?” a stewardess asked as she paused in the aisle and leaned over his seat.

He nodded, dismissing her concern.

She leaned closer and adjusted the air vent over him. “You look awfully warm, sir. We’ll be landing soon, but it may take a while to get to the gate.”

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. Because he would be closer to Gabriella—or at least closer to where she had been last. But after the woman moved down the aisle, he reached up to brush away the sweat beading on his forehead. And he grimaced over moving his injured shoulder.

He had been shot—a through-and-through, so the bullet had damaged no arteries or muscles. But now he was beginning to worry that the wound could be getting infected. And where he was going, there was unlikely to be any medical assistance.

He didn’t care about his own discomfort though. He cared only about finding Gabriella and making damn sure she was alive and safe. And if he found her, he had to be strong and healthy enough to keep her safe.

Because it was probable that whoever had threatened her was still out there. Like everyone else, her stalker had probably thought her dead these past six months. But once they learned she was alive, they would be more determined than ever to carry out their threat.

“SHE’S ALIVE.”

Gabriella St. Pierre expelled a breath of relief at the news Lydia Green shared the moment the older woman had burst through the door. For six months Gabby had been holding her breath, waiting for a message from her bodyguard. Actually she’d been waiting for the woman to come for her.

Especially in the beginning. She hadn’t realized how pampered her life had been until she’d stayed here. The floor beneath her feet was dirt, the roof over her head thatch. A bird that had made it through her screenless window fluttered in a corner of the one room that had been her home for the past six months.

Once she had stopped waiting for Charlotte to come for her, she had gotten used to the primitive conditions. She had actually been happy here and relaxed in a way that she had never been at the palace. And it wasn’t just because she had been out of the public eye but because she had been out from under her father’s watchful eye, as well.

And beyond his control.

She had also been something she had never been before: useful. For the past six months she had been teaching children at the orphanage/school Lydia Green had built in a third-world country so remote and poor that no other charity or government had yet acknowledged it. But she had learned far more than she’d taught. She realized now that there was much more to being charitable than writing checks.

Lydia Green had given her life and her youth to helping those less fortunate. She’d grown up as a missionary, like her parents, traveling from third-world country to third-world country. After her parents had died, she could have chosen another life. She could have married and had a family. But Lydia had put aside whatever wants and needs she might have had and focused instead on others. She had become a missionary, too, and the only family she had left was a niece.

Charlotte. The women looked eerily similar. Lydia had the same caramel-brown eyes, but her hair was white rather than brown even though she was still in her fifties.

“Charlotte called?” The first day Gabriella had arrived, somewhere between the airport and the orphanage, she had lost the untraceable cell phone her bodyguard had given her. But it probably wouldn’t have come in as far into the jungle as the orphanage was.

Lydia expelled her own breath of relief over finally hearing from her niece and nodded. “The connection was very bad, so I couldn’t understand much of what Charlotte was saying …”

The orphanage landline wasn’t much better than the cell phone. There was rarely a dial tone—the lines either damaged by falling trees, the oppressive humidity or rebel fighting.

“Did she tell you where she’s been and why she hasn’t contacted us?” Not knowing had driven Gabriella nearly crazy so that she had begun to suspect the worst—that Charlotte was dead. Or almost as bad, that Charlotte had betrayed her.

Lydia closed her eyes, as if trying to remember or perhaps to forget, and her brow furrowed. “I—I think she said she’d been kidnapped …”

“Kidnapped?” Gabby gasped the word as fear clutched at her. That would explain why they hadn’t heard from the former U.S. Marshal. “Where? When?”

“It happened in Paris.”

Gabriella’s breath caught with a gasp. “Paris?”

She was the one who was supposed to have gone to Paris; that was what anyone who’d seen them would have believed. Whoever had abducted Charlotte had really meant to kidnap Gabby. She shuddered in reaction and in remembrance of all the kidnapping attempts she had escaped during her twenty-four years of life. If not for the bodyguards her father had hired to protect her, she probably would not have survived her childhood.

“Is she all right?”

“Yes, yes,” Lydia replied anxiously, “and she said that the kidnapper has been caught.”

“So I can leave …” Gabby should have been relieved; months ago she would have been ecstatic. But since then she had learned so much about herself. So much she had yet to deal with.

“She said for you to wait.”

“She’s coming here?” Nerves fluttered in Gabby’s stomach. She was relieved Charlotte was all right, but she wasn’t ready to see her.

Or anyone else.

“She’s sending someone to get you,” Lydia replied, with obvious disappointment that she would not see her niece.

Gabriella was to be picked up and delivered like a package—not a person. Until she’d met Lydia and the children at the orphanage, no one had ever treated Gabriella like a person. Pride stung, she shook her head and said, “That won’t be necessary.”

“You’re going to stay?” Lydia asked hopefully.

“I would love to,” she answered honestly. Here she was needed not for what she was but who she was. She loved teaching the children. “But I can’t …”

She had no idea who was coming for her, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Given her luck, it would probably be Whit, and he was the very last person she wanted to see. Now. And maybe ever again.

Lydia nodded, but that disappointment was back on her face, tugging her lips into a slight frown. “I understand that you have a life you need to get back to …”

Her existence in St. Pierre had never been her life; it had never been her choice. But that was only part of the reason she didn’t plan on going back.

“But I would love to have you here,” Lydia said, her voice trembling slightly, “with me …”

They had only begun to get to know each other. If they had met sooner, Gabriella’s life would have been so different—so much better.

Tears burning her eyes, Gabriella moved across the small room to embrace the older woman. “Thank you …”

Lydia Green was the first person in her life who had ever been completely honest with her.

“Thank you,” she said, clutching Gabriella close. “You are amazing with the kids. They all love you so much.” She eased back and reached between them to touch Gabby’s protruding belly. “You’re going to make a wonderful mother.”

The baby fluttered inside Gabriella, as if in agreement or maybe argument with the older woman’s words. Was she going to make a wonderful mother? She hadn’t had an example of one to emulate. Her throat choked now with tears, she could barely murmur another, “Thank you …”

She didn’t want to leave, but she couldn’t stay. “Can I get a ride to the bus stop in town?”

She needed a Jeep to take her to a bus and the bus to take her to a plane. It wasn’t a fast trip to get anywhere in this country while the person coming for her would probably be using the royal jet and private ground transportation. She needed to move quickly.

“You really should wait for whoever Charlotte is sending for you,” Lydia gently insisted. “This is a dangerous country.”

Sadness clutched at her and she nodded. That was why they had so many orphans living in the dorms. The compound consisted of classroom huts and living quarters. If disease hadn’t taken their parents, violence had.

“I’ve been safe here,” she reminded Lydia.

“At the school,” the woman agreed, “because the people here respect and appreciate that we’re helping the children. But once you leave here …”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured her although she wasn’t entirely certain she believed that herself.

“You have a bodyguard for a reason. Because of who you are, you’re always in danger.” Lydia was too busy and the country too remote for her to be up on current affairs, so Charlotte must have told her all about Gabby’s life.

Gabriella glanced down at her swollen belly. Her bare feet peeped out beneath it, her toes stained with dirt from the floor. “No one will recognize me.”

Not if they saw her now. She bore only a faint resemblance to the pampered princess who’d walked runways and red carpets.

But she wasn’t only physically different.

She didn’t need anyone to protect her anymore—especially since she really couldn’t trust anyone but herself. She had to protect her life and the life she was carrying inside her.

A WALL OF HEAT hit Whit when he stepped from the airport. Calling the cement block building with the metal roof an airport seemed a gross exaggeration, though. He stood on the dirt road outside, choking on the dust and the exhaust fumes from the passing vehicles. Cars. Jeeps. Motorbikes. A bus pulled up near the building, and people disembarked.

A pregnant woman caught his attention. She wore a floppy straw hat and big sunglasses, looking more Hollywood than third world. But her jeans were dirt-stained as was the worn blouse she wore with the buttons stretched taut over her swollen belly.

It couldn’t be Gabby.

Hell, she was pregnant; it couldn’t be Gabby …

His cell vibrated in his pocket, drawing his attention from the woman. He grabbed it up with a gruff, “Howell here.”

“Are you there?” Charlotte Green asked, her voice cracking with anxiety. “Have you found her yet?”

“The plane just landed,” he replied.

He had only glanced at his phone when he’d turned it back on, but he suspected all the calls he’d missed and the voice mails he had yet to retrieve had been from the princess’s very worried bodyguard.

“But Whit—”

“Give me a few minutes,” he told her. “You’re not even sure she’s still here.”

Wherever the hell here was; from his years as a U.S. Marine, he was well traveled but Whit had never even heard of this country before. Calling it a country was like calling that primitive building an airport—a gross exaggeration.

“I finally reached my aunt Lydia this morning,” Charlotte said. “She confirmed that Gabby is still at the orphanage.”

He exhaled a breath of relief. She was alive. And not lost. “That’s good.”

Nobody had kidnapped the princess as they had her bodyguard. Gabby was right where Charlotte had sent her six months ago. Why hadn’t she answered the woman’s previous calls then?

“She’s all right?”

“No.” Static crackled in the line, distorting whatever else Charlotte might have said.

He stopped walking, so that he didn’t lose the call entirely. Reception was probably best closest to the airport, so he took a few steps back into the throng of people.

“What’s wrong?” Whit asked, the anxiety all his now. “Has she been hurt?”

“Yeah …”

And he realized it wasn’t static in the line but Charlotte Green’s voice breaking with sobs. He had never heard the tough former U.S. Marshal cry before—not even when armed gunmen had been trying to kill them all. His heart slammed into his ribs as panic rushed through him. “Oh, my God …”

It had to be bad.

Not Gabriella.

She was the sweetest, most innocent person he’d ever met. Or at least she had been.

“Charlotte!” He needed her to pull it together and tell him what the hell had happened to the princess. In a country as primitive as this, it could have been anything. Disease. A rebel forces attack. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s my fault,” she murmured, sobs choking her voice. “It’s all my fault. I should have told her. I should have prepared her …”

“What?” he fired the question at her. “What should you have told her? What should you have prepared her for?”

The phone clanged and then a male voice spoke in his ear, “Whit, are you there?”

“Aaron?” He wasn’t surprised that his fellow bodyguard was with Charlotte. Since Aaron Timmer had found her after her six-month disappearance, the man had pretty much refused to leave her side. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry about that,” his fellow royal bodyguard advised. “It’s just personal stuff between Charlotte and Princess Gabriella.”

When the princess and her bodyguard had disappeared, Whit and Aaron had launched an extensive search to find them. Aaron had reached out for leads to their whereabouts. Whit had done the same, but he’d also dug deeply into their lives and discovered all their secrets, hoping that those revelations might lead him to them. So now he knew things about Princess Gabriella that she had yet to learn herself.

Or had she finally uncovered the truth? She must have and that was why Charlotte was so upset; she was probably full of guilt and regret. He recognized those emotions because he knew them too well himself.

“Damn it!” If that was the case, Gabby had to feel so betrayed. He added a few more curses.

“Whit,” Aaron interrupted his tirade. “Just find Gabriella and bring her home to St. Pierre Island. We’ll meet you there. The royal jet is about to land at the palace.”

“The king is still with you?” The monarch was really their responsibility, one that both men had shirked in favor of protecting the women instead. King Rafael St. Pierre hadn’t seemed to mind.

“He’s secure. Everything’s fine here,” Aaron assured Whit. “What about there?”

“I just got off the plane.” The third one. It had taken three planes—with not a single one of them as luxurious as the royal jet—over the course of three days to bring him to this remote corner of the world. And it would take a bus and a Jeep to get him to the orphanage deep in the jungle where the princess had been hiding for the past six months. “I haven’t had a chance to locate Gabby and assess the situation.”

Shots rang out. And he dropped low to the ground while he assessed this new situation. Who the hell was firing? And at whom? Him?

Nobody knew he’d been heading here but Charlotte and Aaron. Not that long ago he would have been suspicious; he would have considered that they might have set him up for an ambush. But the three of them had been through too much together recently. And if they’d wanted him dead, they wouldn’t have had to go to this much trouble to end his life. They could have just let him bleed out from the bullet wound to his shoulder.

But the shots weren’t being fired at him. They weren’t that close, nowhere near the dirt street where Whit stood yet. But the shots were loud because they echoed off metal. Someone was firing inside the airport. His hand shook as he lifted the cell to his ear again.

Aaron was shouting his name. “What the hell’s going on? Are those shots?”

“I’m going to check it out,” he said as he headed toward the building—shoving through the wave of people running from it.

“You need to get Gabriella,” Aaron shouted but still Whit could barely hear him over the shrieks and screams of the fleeing people.

Whit flashed back to that woman getting off the bus and heading inside the airport. “Gabby! Is Gabby pregnant?”

“Yes—according to Charlotte’s aunt.”

It was hardly something the woman would have lied about. But how? But when? And whom?

“She’s probably six months along,” Aaron added.

Realization dawned on Whit, overwhelming him with too many emotions to sort through let alone deal with.

Oh, God …

“That’s Gabby …” Inside the airport where shots were being fired.

He shoved the phone in his pocket and reached for his gun before he remembered that he didn’t have one on him. He hadn’t been able to get one on the first plane he’d boarded in Michigan and hadn’t had time to find one here.

Would he be able to save her? Or was he already too late?