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Authors: MaryJanice Davidson

BOOK: The Royal Mess
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Chapter 5
N
icole dropped her client, a perfectly pleasant family practitioner named Sandra Dee, of all things, at the Outer Banks Co. and pocketed the generous tip.
Sandra Dee, also from New York City, had caught on at once and spent the afternoon kicking ass and filling the live well. The small redhead nearly staggered under the weight of the fish on her stringer. Nicole unhitched the boat trailer, mentally promising her boss she'd come back first thing in the morning and hose it down.
Nicole couldn't help but laugh as her giddy client bounded up the steps to the office with one final wave over her shoulder. These were the best days for her: showing someone a skill they had not known they possessed. Showing a stranger the utter and mystifying beauty of the Alaskan wilderness and recognizing the look on their face, the awe of someone at a stirring church service.
She swung by Chicken Lickin' for a three-piece meal, hold the biscuits, extra gravy. Mmm . . . gravy. She'd drink it by the glass if she could. The thought made her grin.
Her smile faded as she saw the long black car parked in her driveway and the two men loitering on her front lawn. She didn't slow and didn't look in that direction again. She stared straight ahead—
nope, nothing wrong here, and I certainly don't live there, which is why I'm not looking at you two
—and kept going past her trailer.
She found the back trail leading into the woods, got out of her truck and locked the hubs, then got back in, engaged the four-wheel drive, and bounced and jounced until she was only half a mile from the south side of her property.
Muttering under her breath, Nicole popped open her glove compartment and pulled out the .38. A poor weapon at long range, but she had every expectation of getting nice and close. Besides, the rest of her guns were in the shed. She cursed herself for not installing a gun rack in the truck. Well, maybe next week.
Nicole locked the truck (some of her rods were custom made) and stole through the forest on foot, noisy as a salamander. She came up on her trailer from behind, knelt, and carefully slid aside the panel to the left of the back door. She belly crawled beneath her trailer until she was beside her porch.
One of the men was sitting on her porch; the other one—the armed one, no mistaking the bulge on his hip, even from the road—was standing beside him. In fact, he was standing about nine inches in front of her face.
She supposed most single women might wonder why armed strangers were waiting for her in her yard, but she'd never been one to sweat the why of things.
She noiselessly slid the panel back, reached, clutched his ankles, and yanked. The man hit the ground face-first and in a flash she vaulted from cover, sat on him, and pressed the barrel of her gun to the back of his head.
“That's a .38,” she informed him. “Normally a pea shooter, but at this range, it'll ruin your week.”
“Ow,” the man said calmly into the grass.
She relieved him of his sidearm, a spotless nine millimeter, and tossed it behind her, beneath her trailer. “When you get it back, you might want to break it down and hit it with some gun oil. It's pretty dirty under there. Also, I don't like surprises.”
“I never would have guessed,” the stranger mumbled into the turf.
“Oh, for God's sake,” the man on the porch said in a deep voice, sounding exasperated and charmed at once. She turned her head, not moving the gun.
“You!”
“Me,” the King of Alaska replied agreeably. He was dressed in jeans and a blue oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He had his chin cupped in his hand (he needed a shave) and took her in at a glance: the brunette hair, the blue eyes, the dirty shirt and jeans, the gun.
“Yep,” he said, sounding almost . . . cheerful? “You're one of mine, all right. Nice to meet you, Nicole.”
Chapter 6
“G
o away,” Nicole said warmly.
“Aw, don't be like that, kiddo. And would you mind putting away the pea shooter? You're hurting Jeff's feelings.”
“Not to mention my kidneys,” the man mumbled into the ground.
She carefully got off the man but kept the gun at her side.
“That's better,” the king said as Jeff climbed slowly to his feet. “So, I'm Al, your dad. And we know who you are. That's Jeff, head of my detail.”
She smirked. “And you're not dead yet?” She was being nasty because she was so completely distracted by the bodyguard's size. When he stood, he went up and up and up. Well over six feet and probably 220, none of it fat. He was built like a linebacker. He hadn't looked so big from the road. Or so gorgeous.
No. She did not think that. Sure, he had lush, curly black hair—true black, not dark brown—and pale blue eyes. Sniper's eyes. He had a built-in tan (was he part Akiak? or maybe Ekok?) and the muscular definition of a champion lifter. His head and hands were blocky, like they had been carved by a skilled craftsman who was in a hurry. He filled out his black tailored suit—a man his size couldn't buy off the rack—superbly.
Gorgeous? Please. She was just distracted because she hadn't been laid in 29 months and 18 days.
“Sire,” he was saying, “I apologize. I will tender my resignation at—”
“The hell. I didn't hear a thing either. Serves us right for showing up on her turf without calling. Oh, wait. Edmund's been leaving her messages all week.” The king beamed at her. “Should have had the palace guards drag you to my place instead.”
“Dead palace guards,” she informed him. “Mutilated subjects. Body parts all over the Sitka Palace.”
“I see you inherited none of your mother's charm. Just my mouth. Oh, and my fabulous good looks,” he added modestly.
“Like you knew a thing about my mother.” It made her angry, it
enraged
her, to hear this pampered cheating bastard talk about her dear dead mom. “She was a fling, a one-night stand that lasted for a week or two.”
“She was lovely and sweet and funny, and you will
watch your tone
when you speak to me, Nicole.”
She almost took a step backward. He hadn't been smiling. He hadn't been fucking around. He had sounded like—well, like a king.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
The king cheered up instantly. “That's all right. It's been a weird week for everybody. So if you'll just hop in the car, we can go back to the palace and—”
“No.”
“What?”
“No, King Alexander.”
“Bad idea,” Jeff said quietly at her left shoulder.
Without turning her head, she snarled, “Nobody hit your buzzer, Jeff.”
“
Please
don't call me Jeff,” he whispered in her ear. Annoyingly, all the hairs on her left arm stiffened to attention, and she jerked her head away from his mouth.
The king coughed. “Uh, Nicole, I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot, but I wasn't exactly asking.”
“I'm not going and I do not submit to your authority, sir.”
“Uh.” The king shot Jeff a look and coughed again. “You sort of don't have a—”
“How quickly we forget, King Cheats-on-His-Fiancée. You might want to reread my letter. My mother and father were Alaskan citizens, but I was born in Los Angeles.”
The king scowled. “Dual citizenship.”
“Right-o.” Under Alaskan law, merely residing in Alaska did not mean you were a subject of the king. You needed to be Alaskan on both sides and born in the country. Any deviation resulted in dual citizenship, and the gentleman (or bastard princess) in question could claim the other country as her own. “So thanks for stopping by, ta-ta, so long, get lost.”
The king stood and, like Jeff, he went up and up and up. Of course, he was standing two steps above her, but still. She craned her head to glare up at him. “Go away now.”
“I don't get it,” he complained.
“I'm not surprised. Mom didn't like you for your keen intellect.”
The bodyguard actually flinched, but the king didn't move. Instead, he scowled down at her. “I'm gonna let that one go by.”
“Thanks gobs.”
His black brows caromed together and his eyes were dark blue slits. But she would not be intimidated! Well, not much.
“If you didn't want to see me,” he bitched, “and you don't want to come to the palace, why the hell did you write me that letter?”
“Because my mother asked me to. It was in her will. She told me about you and she asked me to get in touch, and that was
all
she asked.” And it was damn sure all she was going to do. “It was the only thing she ever asked of me in twenty years.”
“Oh.” Then, quietly, “I'm sorry about your mother. She was wonderful.”
Tears stung her eyes; on the whole, she preferred him kingly and commanding and generally acting like a jerk. “Go,” she said. “Please.”
The bodyguard—Jeff—reached under her trailer with a long arm and retrieved his gun. He gave her a look she couldn't figure as the king thumped down her steps.
“Well,” the king said after an awkward pause.
“Good-bye,” she said.
Without another word, they left.
Nicole fumbled for her door, ran into the trailer, collapsed on the couch, and wept for fifteen minutes. Then she got up, walked to the bathroom, washed her face, and kicked a hole in the cupboard under the sink.
Chapter 7
A
lexander Baranov, descendant of Russian rebels who took a country for themselves, bounded into his office, with Jeff right on his heels. Edmund was spreading out various paperwork for him to sign, which on any other occasion would have dampened his mood and made him contemplate loading a shotgun.
“Good heavens,” Edmund said, eyeing the rumpled Jeff. For Edmund, that was the equivalent of “Holy hell! What happened to you, Jeffrey?”
“My kid,” Al couldn't help bragging. “She got the drop on both of us.”
Edmund blinked slowly, like a gecko. This was the equivalent of anyone else yelling, “Oh my God!”
“My king, I remind you that we have yet to verify our own DNA testing and—”
“Yeah, yeah, but I'm telling you. She's the spitting image of Alex and Kathryn. She's got the Baranov blue eyes and the dark hair.” Al plopped into his chair as Jeff took up his position just inside the doorway. Al knew Jeff's humiliation was a live thing, a stinging thing, and he would stay closer than usual until the sting wore off. Although he was pleased with Nicole, he felt for his proud bodyguard and made no comment when Jeff didn't leave the office.
“Mouthy, too,” Al continued, trying not to grin and failing. “I didn't see much of her mother in her, to tell the truth. But I know it like I know how to gut a salmon: Nicole Krenski is my daughter.”
“Pure poetry as usual, my king. May I meet her?”
“Uh.” Al glanced at Jeff, who remained a stone. “Well, she refused to come with us.”
Edmund, tidying still more paperwork, froze. This was the equivalent of anyone else yelling, “What the holy hell are you talking about?!?”
After a long silence, Edmund straightened and put his fingers together, Mr. Burns style. The only thing missing was a drawn-out “Ehhhxxxceleeent.”
Edmund took a breath and let it out. “She . . . refused?”
“Flat out.”
“But she cannot. She may be royalty, but she is also your subject, and as such, she—”
“Nope, dual citizenship.”
“Dual . . . ah.” Edmund tapped his long, skinny fingers together. “But if she refused to return with you, then why did she bother to—ah. Perhaps her mother asked her to? A, erm, dying wish, perhaps?”
“Right on the nose, Eddie.”
“Sire, if you call me that again I shall instantly tender my resignation, and then disembowel you.”
“He threatened the king,” Al told Jeff. “That's worth prison time. My great-granddaddy signed the bill himself.”
Jeff didn't move, or speak. It was the rare week Edmund didn't threaten to resign or slaughter the royal family, or both.
“God, what a kid,” Al continued, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. He sighed happily. “Got the drop on us, jammed that .38 in the back of Jeff's head—”
There was the dull thud as Jeff banged the back of his head on the wall, his eyes closed. Politely, Al and Edmund ignored it.
“—sassed me like you wouldn't believe, then kicked us off her property. It was unbelievably wonderful.”
“It, er, sounds unbelievably wonderful.”
Jeffrey banged his head again.
With a worried glance at the head of his detail, the king finished, “Nobody's talked to me like that since Christina joined the family.”
“She certainly sounds like a Baranov,” Edmund admitted. “Sire, it is vital we verify her bloodline. You realize the ramifications.”
Al did. He wondered what his eldest son, David, would think about all this. What all the kids would think.
“D'you think I should tell the kids now or wait until we have proof?”
Edmund hesitated. “My king, I would not presume to advise you on such a personal matter.”
Jeffrey made a strangled sound that he managed to turn into a cough; Al laughed outright. “Since when? You got a fever or something, Edmund?”
Jeff cleared his throat. It sounded like gravel in a blender. “Let me go back, Majesty.”
Surprised, Al glanced at his bodyguard. “What? Jeff? Did you hit your head too hard on the wall?”
“Sire, let me go back and try again.”
“Jeez, I dunno . . . I thought we'd give her a little space before trying again.”
“My king, you know that is unacceptable!” Edmund was as upset as Al had ever seen, and that was saying something. He had actually raised his voice. “We cannot let this sleeping dog lie!”
“Try to resist referring to my kid as a dog.”
“I require proof she
is
your kid, my king. And you know why. And you know we cannot delay.”
The king shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Yeah, but—”
“Sire, forgive the interruption, but let me go back,” Jeff urged. “First thing tomorrow. I'll switch detail with Reynolds. I can do this. Please let me do this.”
“Jeez, Jeff . . .”
“With all do respect, Jeffrey, if the king could not persuade her, I fail to see what—”
“Hush up, Edmund. Give me a second here.”
Al thought about it. The two men let him. Finally, he said, “I don't see the harm. And if you're willing, it's fine by me, Jeff.”
“Thank you, sire.”
“Wait.” This time Edmund was thinking, and the two others let him. After a short silence, Edmund made a suggestion, showing his usual cool good sense, and Al instantly accepted the advice. Then he gave Jeff his instructions.
“My king,” Jeff acknowledged, and bowed. Then he did something Al had never seen him do: he grinned.

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