Читать книгу Romancing The Crown: Lorenzo and Anna: The Man Who Would Be King / The Princess And The Mercenary - Marilyn Pappano, Linda Turner, Marilyn Pappano - Страница 8

Chapter 5

They stayed at the same hotel they had before, this time in a suite with two connecting bedrooms, and Eliza spent the day working on the opening of her feature. It should have been easy, but she felt as if her entire career was on the line, and with good cause. Not only was Deborah waiting in the wings to take over her column, but no one else in the world had this story. She had to do it right. So she struggled with words and couldn’t seem to find a place to start the story…until she shifted her focus to her meeting with the king and queen of Montebello. As she described the palace and the reaction of the prince’s parents to the news that there was a good chance their son was still alive, she knew her readers would be more than satisfied with the story.

“I want to read that.”

Lost in the quiet world she always retreated to in order to write, it was several long minutes before Lorenzo’s words registered. When they did, she glanced up, startled, to find him scowling at her from the overstuffed chair from which he’d apparently been watching her for some time. Looking over the top of her glasses, she said, “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me,” he said flatly. “I want to read that. If there’s anything that might be harmful to the prince, you’ll have to take it out.”

Her eyes narrowed fractionally. “Really? I don’t remember anything in my agreement with King Marcus that gives you the right to censorship.”

“That’s because there isn’t one.”

“You’re damn straight, there isn’t one! I never would have agreed to it if there had been. This is the United States, Your Grace. We’re real big on freedom of speech, not to mention freedom of the press, around here.”

The citizens of Montebello were, too, but he only said, “It’s my duty to protect the prince. If I say there’s something in your writing that could be harmful to him, it’s coming out. End of discussion.”

She would have never deliberately placed anyone in danger with her writing, but what went into her column was for her and Simon to decide, not a fairy-tale duke who would be king. And it was high time he realized that.

“You think so, do you?” she taunted, arching a brow. “Well, take that!” And with a single key stroke, she sent the beginning of the feature in an e-mail to Simon.

Later, she realized it was her red hair that got her into trouble. The spark of temper that went along with that hair had been her cross to bear all her life. It had just flared like a match. She knew they were both under a great deal of strain, knowing the prince was out there somewhere, in possible danger, and they couldn’t discover where because her informant wasn’t in the mood to cooperate yet. She felt guilty and frustrated…and resentful that Lorenzo thought so little of her just because she was a reporter.

Stunned, Lorenzo couldn’t believe her defiance. No one had ever challenged him so openly before! Outraged, he stormed over to her, so frustrated that he stupidly thought there had to be a way he could retrieve the e-mail. “Give me that!”

“No! What are you doing? Let go!”

Jumping to her feet, she grabbed her computer and clutched it to her chest even as he reached for it, and for a second, they acted like two children fighting over a favorite toy. Then his fingers accidentally brushed against her breast and everything changed. In a heartbeat, awareness flashed between them like heat lightning.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Lorenzo froze. He was, he liked to think, a man who knew women. But in that instant, he felt like a sixteen-year-old who’d experienced the kick of sexual attraction for the first time in his life and didn’t have a clue what to do about it. With a will of their own, his eyes dropped to her lips, which had parted in a soft gasp, and his mind blurred. All he could think about was kissing her.

And it was all her fault. That soft, fresh scent of hers was driving him crazy. He’d dreamed of her last night, replayed in his sleep that moment in the used-clothing store when he’d helped her into the sheepskin coat and turned her in front of the mirror so she could see how pretty she was. He should have kissed her then. He’d wanted to, but the store clerk had watched them with an eagle eye, and the time hadn’t been appropriate.

But now they were alone and he could already taste her….

Need clawing at him, he reached for her…and saw his own need reflected in her eyes. And just that quickly, the fog of desire misting his brain cleared. What was he doing? he wondered wildly, stiffening. They didn’t even like each other! The only reason they were working together was because they were being forced to. And she was a reporter, for heaven’s sake! How had he allowed himself to forget that? God only knew what would end up in her column if he was stupid enough to drop his guard with her.

That brought him back to his senses as nothing else could, and with a softly muttered curse, he abruptly stepped back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking of rushing you like that. I’m just going crazy sitting around here twiddling my thumbs, and then when you sent that e-mail, all I could think of was getting it back. If anything happened to the prince because of something you wrote—”

“It won’t,” she said hoarsely, her heart pounding crazily. He’d almost kissed her, she thought, dazed, then told herself she had to be mistaken. She had a real talent for pushing his buttons. He was furious with her—why would he want to kiss her? Her imagination was just playing with her mind and her lonely heart, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to make a complete fool of herself.

Focus on what’s important here, a voice in her head said sternly. If you want hearts and flowers, pick up a romance novel!

The story, she reminded herself, drawing in a calming breath. This was the biggest story of her life. Nothing else mattered but that. If the nights were long and she ached to feel a man’s arms around her again, holding her close, that was something she would just have to deal with.

“It was just the opening of the feature on the prince,” she said stiffly. “It was harmless.”

“Then why didn’t you let me read it?”

“Because I don’t have to.” It was as simple as that. “If we’re going to work together with any degree of success, you’re going to have to trust me. I know you don’t like reporters, and we both know how badly I want this story, but not at the expense of anyone’s life, especially the prince’s. That’s not who I am, Your Grace. If something happens to him before you find him, it won’t be because of me.”

For a long moment, he just stared at her with those probing, all-seeing eyes of his, and she was afraid that he would somehow see how much she regretted that he hadn’t kissed her. But she didn’t flinch, and something he saw in her steady gaze must have finally gotten through to him. The stiff set of his shoulders relaxed, and in his sigh, she finally heard acceptance.

“You’re right,” he said gruffly. “I’ve been acting paranoid just because you’re a reporter and that’s not fair to you. You’ve done nothing but be upfront and honest, and I owe you an apology.” Holding out his hand, he said, “I’d like to start over, this time as partners instead of adversaries. What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

She’d never been one to hold a grudge, especially when an apology was so sincerely delivered. Relieved, she smiled and shook his hand and tried not to notice how nice his fingers felt when they closed around hers. “Deal.”

The next morning when they left to meet with Willy, there was no question that Eliza would do the talking. Lorenzo no longer had a problem with that. He’d set his ego aside and made peace, and as he drove over the rough terrain to their meeting place, he thanked God that he had Eliza along. They’d taken so many turns and twists on dirt roads that were little more than faint deer paths that he was completely turned around. That wasn’t to say he couldn’t find his way back to town if he had to—he had a compass and a damn good memory. But it would take him a while.

“This is it,” Eliza said when the terrain turned to almost pure rock. “We stop here and walk the rest of the way.”

Glancing around, Lorenzo frowned. There was no sign of another vehicle. “We’re early. Willy doesn’t appear to be here yet. Do you think he’s coming?”

“If he is, he’s here already. He would never take a chance of walking into something he’s not sure of. If he decided to meet with us, he got here hours ago so he could check the place out. C’mon, I’ve got something special to show you.”

Puzzled, Lorenzo stepped out of the truck, only to glance around in surprise as she joined him. “What’s that noise?”

“The waterfall,” she said with a grin. “Willy likes to meet here so he doesn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing us.”

In his travels, Lorenzo had seen everything from Niagara to Angel Falls in Venezuela, but when he followed Eliza through the trees to the foot of a waterfall that appeared out of nowhere, nothing had ever touched him quite like the falls that cascaded over the canyon wall six hundred feet above them. He didn’t even know the name of the river that crashed to the rocks below to kick up a haze of icy mist, but it had a rugged, untouched beauty that left him awestruck. They were miles from anywhere, in the middle of a mountain wilderness that appeared untouched by man. Who else had seen this besides himself, God, Willy and Eliza?

“Like it?” Eliza asked, grinning.

“It’s magnificent.” And just the place for a meeting, he realized. The roar of the falls did, indeed, drown out all sound that was more than a foot or two away. No wonder Willy insisted on telling Eliza his secrets there. It was as safe as a soundproof room.

The thought had hardly registered when he glanced past Eliza and saw a middle-aged man of medium height cautiously approaching them. Stoop-shouldered and scruffy, his beard, mustache and shoulder-length hair gray with age, he looked right past Lorenzo and focused on Eliza. This was, Lorenzo knew without a doubt, the infamous Willy Cranshaw. Dressed in camouflage, from his boots to his waterproof jacket and skull cap, he would have blended into the terrain if Lorenzo hadn’t been watching for him.

Eliza turned then and spied him, too, and grinned. With nothing more than that, Willy’s entire demeanor changed. He grinned back at her, and for a short while, at least, his blue eyes were free of suspicion and he seemed happy to see her. Then his gaze once again shifted to Lorenzo, and the wariness was back, transforming his entire body. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in Lorenzo’s mind that the older man would have scurried off into the woods like a scared rabbit if he’d so much as looked at him wrong.

“Hey, Willy,” Eliza said, drawing his attention back to her. “I’m glad you could make it.”

“I like your new clothes,” he said shyly. “They look good on you. Are you going to buy a ranch?”

“Not unless I win a million bucks in the Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes,” she retorted with a chuckle. “But, thanks. I like them, too. Duke Lorenzo helped me pick them out. He thought it might be safer for the prince if we disguised ourselves a little.”

“So you’re undercover? Like the CIA?”

“Not quite,” she replied, smiling, “but close enough. The duke doesn’t want anyone else to find the prince before he does and possibly hurt him. That’s why I need to ask you a few questions for him, if that’s all right.”

“I dunno,” he mumbled, ignoring Lorenzo completely. “Depends on what you want to talk about. You don’t think I hurt the prince, do you?”

“Oh, no!” she assured him. “Thanks to you, his family knows he’s alive. No one is blaming you for anything. But we do need to know exactly where you found the scarf. There may be other clues at the campsite that tell us more about the prince and where he may have gone when he left there.”

Hesitating, Willy cocked his head at her. “You’re going to put this in your story, aren’t you? All about your search for the prince? Are you going to mention me? Will my name be in the paper?”

Expecting the question—he asked her the same thing every time he gave her a tip—she shrugged. “That depends on you. I know how you value your privacy, and I wouldn’t want to do anything to destroy that. I can either mention your name or just refer to you as an unnamed source. The choice is yours.”

When he considered his options, Eliza couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. There was a part of him that longed for fame and fortune, but the war in Vietnam had scarred him, and as much as he yearned for publicity, his fear of people—and the government, in particular—sadly ruled his life. Not surprisingly, he said, “I think I like the sound of an unnamed source.”

“That’s fine,” she replied easily. “But in the meantime, where did you find the scarf, Willy? We can’t do anything until we know that.”

“I just want to make sure I’m not going to get in trouble,” he hedged, shooting Lorenzo another wary look. “I don’t like the law, and if they find out I was hunting without a license up on Walnut Ridge, they’re going to send someone after me.”

“No one will know except you and me and the duke,” she promised. “And we’re not telling anyone. You know you can trust me, Willy. And the duke has no reason to wish you harm. He’s very appreciative of your help. Because of you, the king and queen now know there’s a good possibility that their son is alive. You gave them hope. Now help us find the prince. Where’s the campsite? Up on Walnut Ridge?”

Nodding, he said, “It’s on the backside of the ridge, about a mile straight north from where the forest service road forks. You can’t miss it. It’s back in a stand of aspen not too far from Elk Creek.”

“And where did you find the scarf at the campsite? Was it just laying on the ground by the deserted campfire or what?”

He shook his head. “It was hanging on a dead tree branch a few feet away from the campsite. I think it got caught there when the prince got scared for some reason and ran away.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Eliza saw Lorenzo roll his eyes, but he thankfully didn’t say anything. If he had, Willy would have shut up like a clam and scurried back into the woods. “Why do you think he was scared, Willy? Was there some sign that he might have been in some kind of distress when he abandoned the campsite?”

“Not that I could tell,” he replied honestly. “But the creek’s not that far from the campsite…or where the prince’s plane went down. I figure he wandered alongside the creek after he crashed and eventually built himself a campsite on the ridge. Some of the people looking for him had to figure the same thing.”

It made sense. After the prince’s plane had finally been found, the FBI and local police had scoured the woods for several miles in every direction of the vicinity of the crash, searching for Lucas. It was the others, however, the fortune hunters and nutcases who had been lured to the crash site by the false rumor of a reward offered by a Hollywood gossip magazine, that worried Eliza the most. If any of them had decided to follow the creek in search of him, they might have surprised him into running. The question was, where would he have gone from there?

Glancing over at Lorenzo, she expected him to be at least somewhat impressed with Willy’s theory, but judging from his set expression, he was reserving judgment. Disappointed, she told Willy, “You might be right, but we won’t know until we see the campsite. Tell me more about the scarf and the log it was caught on. Where was it in relation to the campfire?”

“On the north side,” he said promptly. “Maybe about ten yards away. If he was trying to get away from someone, that was the easiest way to go. It’s rough country up there. There are cliffs on either side, and the creek’s impossible to cross.”

“So you think he went north?”

He shrugged. “He didn’t have much choice if someone was trailing him from the south. It’s the only way out.”

As far as theories went, it was as good as any other, and only time would tell if he was right. Sensing Lorenzo’s impatience to get on with the search, Eliza said, “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? Thanks for your help, Willy. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

“I know what it’s like to be missing,” he said simply. “It’s the loneliest, scariest feeling in the world.”

There’d been a time in Vietnam when he’d been missing in action and on his own in the jungle, and the shadows of that still lingered in his eyes, decades later. For a long second, he just stood there, reflecting. Then he quietly turned and disappeared into the trees.

Staring after him, Eliza couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, but there was nothing she could do for him, nothing he would let her do for him…except give him the space he needed. So she didn’t call him back, but turned to Lorenzo instead. “Well, what do you think? Could the prince have headed north?”

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe not. It’s too soon to tell. I prefer to make my own conclusions once I’ve investigated the campsite.”

Personally, Lorenzo didn’t put much stock in anything Willy said. The man obviously had problems. He didn’t seem quite in touch with reality, and if Lorenzo hadn’t seen Lucas’s scarf with his own two eyes, he never would have believed it was found by the old man. Did the abandoned campsite even exist? He hoped so. They’d find out soon enough.

They started the search at the spot where Lucas crashed his plane into the side of the mountain. The last time Lorenzo had been there, it had looked much different. The crash had only happened days before, and the shock had still been fresh. When Lorenzo had seen the wreckage for the first time, he’d sworn he could smell the prince’s pain and horror as he’d realized he was going down. In spite of the fact that Lucas’s body hadn’t been discovered in the wreckage, Lorenzo had felt little hope that he would be found alive.

Time, however, had a way of healing all wounds. The fuselage and debris that were all that was left of the small plane had blended into the mountainside, and the snow nearly covered that. Anyone seeing the site for the first time would have thought the crash happened decades ago instead of just last year.

And this time, Lorenzo really believed Lucas had somehow managed to survive the crash. Oh, he hadn’t changed his opinion about Willy, but he knew his cousin. He loved life and wouldn’t have let go of it easily. If anyone could survive not only a plane crash, but the wildness of the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter, it was Lucas.

“Where is the forest service road Willy mentioned?” he asked Eliza as she stood solemnly beside him, surveying the scene. “How would you get there from here on foot?”

Considering a moment, she frowned. “I’d head northeast as long as I could, then cross the creek and head north. I don’t think the prince could have made it any other way if he was hurt. It’s too rugged.”

“Then let’s try that,” he said.

Surprised, she said, “You don’t want to drive from here to the forest service road and start the search there? That’s closer to where the scarf was found.”

“But we aren’t positive that the prince is the one who actually dropped the scarf at the campsite where it was found,” he pointed out. “It could have been anyone—which is why I need to see if it would be possible for a man who walked away from a plane crash to make it from here to there on foot.”

She hadn’t thought of that. “Then I guess we’ll leave the truck here and come back for it.”

They started off through the woods, heading northeast, as she had suggested. Within minutes, they’d left the crash site behind and were completely surrounded by the forest. Following Lorenzo as he took the lead, Eliza tried to imagine what it must have been like for the prince after the crash. He had to have been dazed, probably hurt, and in all likelihood, he hadn’t had a clue where he was or how far he was from civilization.

It must have been quite frightening, she thought with a shiver, especially when nightfall had approached. Darkness came early in the winter in the mountains, and he’d been all alone. Eliza liked to think she was pretty gutsy, but just thinking about that gave her the willies. There were wolves in the mountains. And bears…

Sure she felt the touch of eyes on her, she glanced over her shoulder, but there was nothing there. Nothing but trees. Goosebumps racing up her arms under the soft sheepskin of her coat, she moved closer to Lorenzo.

She hadn’t thought he noticed, but suddenly, he, too, was examining the trees around them, his narrowed eyes missing little as he studied their surroundings. “Is something wrong?” he asked quietly.

Caught letting her imagination run away with her, she felt a blush sting her cheek. “I was imagining what it must have been like for the prince to find himself all alone up here,” she admitted with a grin. “Then I got to thinking about wolves and bears…”

“And suddenly you could hear one sneaking up behind you,” he guessed with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to be anyone’s dinner. Whatever bears are in the region are hibernating, and the wolves are probably just as scared of you as you are of them. They won’t bother you.”

Logically, she knew that. But when they started through the trees again, she made sure she was just a few steps behind Lorenzo.

They crossed the creek at its narrowest point, then began the slow climb up to Walnut Ridge. It was a fairly steep hike, but not as difficult as it would have been if they’d taken a path to either the east or west. And even though the prince had probably been hurt after the crash, there was no question that he could have made the climb if his injuries weren’t too severe.

“I don’t know how the hell he walked away from that crash,” Lorenzo said with a frown as they broke through the trees and reached the forest service road, “but he always was a lucky devil. I think he could have easily made it this far. But why didn’t he call home, dammit? Or at least call for help? He had his cell phone with him.”

“He must have been confused,” Eliza said, “and who can blame him? You saw what the crash did to his plane. He couldn’t have been thinking clearly.”

Lorenzo agreed. He could well understand Lucas’s muddled thinking after he’d plowed into the side of a mountain. But that didn’t explain his continued silence. It had been a year since the crash, dammit! Where was he? Was he still walking around in a daze or had he somehow fallen into the hands of someone who meant him harm and wouldn’t let him call his family?

Frustrated, the questions he had far outnumbering the few speculative answers he had, he said, “The answer has got to be here somewhere. C’mon. Let’s find the campsite.”

Given Willy’s oddities, Lorenzo hadn’t put much stock in the directions he’d given them, and with good reason. The man had refused to even look him in the eye! But when they headed due north, just as the old hermit had instructed, it wasn’t any time before they came to the stand of aspen he’d told them about. And there in the middle of the trees was a small circle of stones that could only be the remains of a campfire.

“This must be it!” Eliza said excitedly. “Listen! You can hear the creek.”

Cocking his head, Lorenzo caught the gurgle of a small creek in the distance. Eliza was right. This had to be the place where Willy had found the scarf. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly, impressed. “I didn’t think the old geezer had it in him.”

“I knew he wasn’t lying,” she replied, then sighed in relief. Suddenly realizing that she’d given herself away, she grinned ruefully. “Okay, so maybe I had a few doubts. Sometimes it’s hard to know with Willy.”

Having now met the old man, Lorenzo could well understand that, but at least he appeared to have told the truth this time. And if they were lucky, there would be a clue somewhere in the vicinity that would tell them why Lucas had left and where he might have gone.

Surveying the area, however, he didn’t see signs of much life. It was a stark place for Lucas to take refuge. The aspen, naked of their leaves in the dead of winter, offered little protection from the weather, and the snow seemed to collect in unusually high drifts on the east side of trees. When the north wind blew, it was colder than hell.

“What was he doing here?” he murmured to himself as he began to inspect the campsite. “He apparently traveled five miles from where he crashed and stopped here long enough to at least make a firepit and start a fire. Why? Was he just too tired to go on or what?”

“Maybe it was getting dark and he didn’t have any choice,” Eliza suggested. “If he was going to survive the night, he had to have a fire.”

“Or some other kind of shelter,” he replied, his green eyes speculative as he slowly turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees and tried to imagine why Lucas had stopped here, of all places. Then his eyes landed on a dead tree that had fallen at an awkward angle at the base of a snow covered hill. Located just a matter of feet from the firepit, the tree should have lain flat at the base of the hill but it didn’t. And it was that, Lorenzo decided, that bothered him. What was under that tree?

“What are you doing?” Eliza asked when he suddenly grabbed a stick off the ground and poked through the branches of the fallen tree. When he met no resistance, he started to smile. “What?” Eliza said in confusion. “What’s so amusing?”

“The tree’s covering the entrance to some kind of small cave,” he told her, grinning, and proved it by pulling the decomposing tree away from where it lay. There, jutting out from the side of the hill, was a small rocky opening that appeared to be the entrance to a shallow cave.

“I knew it!” he said, pleased. “I bet the cave wasn’t covered when he found it, so he dragged the tree over the opening to conceal it so he’d be safe.”

Stepping closer, he knelt down at the opening and peered inside, only to feel his heart stop in midbeat when he saw the contents of the cave. There on the ground was a red thermal blanket that was identical to the ones carried on all of the king’s aircraft. The queen had insisted that all blankets be red in case there was ever a crash—the blankets would be nearly as effective as a flare when they were spread out on the ground to flag down rescue planes.

“What is it?” Eliza asked quietly when he turned to stone. “Did you find something?”

“This,” he said huskily, and pulled out the blanket. “It’s from Lucas’s plane. I’m sure of it.”

Protected from the weather all these months, it was clean and dry and neatly folded, as if the prince had just left it. And that made little, if no, sense. Glancing around, Eliza scowled. Damn, she hated it when things weren’t logical!

“It seems like he would have stayed here until help came for him,” she told Lorenzo with a frown. “The man had a blanket and cave to keep him safe from the elements, a firepit and plenty of firewood to warm him, not to mention water from the creek to drink. It was the middle of winter, he couldn’t have known where he was, but he still walked off and left the safest place he’d found. Why? What possessed him to do such a thing? The authorities had dogs and helicopters looking for him all over these mountains. You know he had to at least hear the helicopters. Why didn’t he spread the blanket out in the clearing? Somebody would have found him.”

He shrugged, worry darkening his eyes as he looked around. “I don’t know. Maybe he was so shaken from the crash that he wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t realize anyone was looking for him.”

“Or something spooked him,” she said. “Think about it. Why else would he have left the blanket? He thought to dig it out of the wreckage of the plane, but then he walked off without it when he left here. I can’t think of any reason why he would do that unless he was scared and he left in a hurry.”

His brows knit in a frown, Lorenzo didn’t like the sound of that, but he had to agree that there was little other reason for Lucas to abandon the cave. Unless, he was out in the surrounding woods, searching for food, and wasn’t able to make it back to camp for some reason. He could have fallen and broken a leg or hit his head and knocked himself out. In the dead of winter, that would have been a costly mistake.

No! he told himself fiercely. Lucas wasn’t dead! He couldn’t be. Not when they were so close to finding him. There had to be another explanation.

“I want to look around,” he told Eliza hoarsely. “Just in case.”

He didn’t say just in case of what, but he didn’t have to. If he’d learned anything about Eliza over the past few days, it was that she wasn’t a slow-witted woman. “Let’s spread out,” she suggested. “We can cover more territory. I’ll meet you back here in a half hour.”

Moving to opposite sides of the campsite, they began the search with grim expressions. Later, Lorenzo couldn’t have even said what he was looking for…except a body. Thankfully, they didn’t find one. They didn’t find anything, in fact, and Lorenzo had just about resigned himself to the fact that he might never know what had led Lucas to abandon the campsite when he inadvertently stumbled across a deer stand half-hidden in some trees about a quarter of a mile from the camp.

“It had to be hunters,” he told Eliza when they met back at the campsite. “He heard the guns and must have thought someone was shooting at him.”

“So he took off.”

Lorenzo nodded grimly. “He wouldn’t have gone south, that’s where the hunters were.”

“And the cliffs on either side of the creek made it impossible for him to go east or west. He had no choice but to go north.”

“Just like Willy said,” he retorted. “Crafty old goat. I bet he knew about that deer stand all along.”

Eliza shrugged, a rueful smile curling the corners of her mouth. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Willy doesn’t always feel the need to share everything he knows.”

“Now you tell me,” Lorenzo retorted, but he couldn’t complain. Willy had put them on the right path to finding the prince, and he owed him for that. There was no question that the king and queen would reward him for his help if he would let them, but for now, he couldn’t worry about Willy. Half the day was gone, and he had a feeling they had a long way to go before they tracked down Lucas. By mutual agreement, they headed north.

For a while, they made good time. Hurrying to keep up with Lorenzo’s long stride, Eliza didn’t notice that the terrain had become progressively rougher until she unexpectedly stepped in a hole. Between one heartbeat and the next, she went down.

She didn’t remember crying out, but suddenly, Lorenzo was there, his handsome face lined with worry. “Are you all right? What happened? Here, let me help you up.”

“I stepped in a hole,” she said, dazed. She struggled to her feet, only to wince, and in the next instant, he’d swept her up off her feet and set her head spinning. “Lorenzo! What are you doing?”

“Making sure you didn’t break your ankle,” he growled, and carried her over to a nearby log. Setting her down, he immediately dropped down to a knee in front of her and began gently tugging off her right boot and sock.

Eliza told herself there was nothing personal in his touch—he would have done the same for anyone. Then his hand closed around her bare ankle, and just that easily, he set every nerve ending in her body tingling. Startled, she gasped softly…and drew his eyes to her.

“Does that hurt?” he asked huskily.

He knew it didn’t—she could see the awareness in his eyes, the same awareness that now had her heart thundering in her breast—but she only shook her head. “No,” she choked. “It’s just a little tender. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He frowned at that. “Maybe we should call off the search for the rest of the day.”

“No! I appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary. Really,” she insisted when he hesitated. “I’m fine. Look.”

She wiggled her foot, testing her ankle. Under his hand, Lorenzo felt the delicacy of her bones, and in spite of himself, he was fascinated. Because she was such a tiger when it came to her job, he tended to forget just how delicate she was as a woman…until he touched her. Then he found himself wanting to run his hands over her. Just once, he told himself, he wanted to see how soft she was.

Don’t even think about going there, a voice in his head growled. Not unless you want the story to end up on the front page.

That brought him back to his senses as nothing else could, and with a hastily swallowed oath, he jerked his hand back and handed her her sock. “If you’re sure. Tell me if it starts to hurt you.”

Rising to his feet, he vowed he wasn’t going to touch her again. But as soon as she’d pulled her sock and boot back on and they continued moving north, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to help her whenever they reached a rough spot. And with every touch of their hands, he found it harder and harder to let her go.

When they finally reached the end of the narrow valley and stumbled onto a road, Lorenzo was torn between relief and frustration. He didn’t have to touch her anymore, but they’d come to the end of the trail. Once Lucas reached the road, he could have gone anywhere.