Escape from Cabriz

“Want some?” She felt duty bound to offer, though she hoped Zachary would decline.

He shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ll have something when we stop for the night.”

So they were stopping. Kristin was relieved to hear that. “Umm,” she said, enjoying her candy bar.

Zachary spared her a grin. “Did you think I’d forgotten what you like?”

Her throat constricted with unwanted emotion. It was just like him to remind her of old times, when they’d lived together. He’d left her favorite candy on her pillow in those days, or tucked it into her pocket, or hid it in her camera case.

She blinked several times and swallowed hard. “I doubt if you’ve given me a thought since the day I moved out of your apartment,” she said evenly.

They were moving into the trees again, and Zachary rode ahead, forcing Kristin and her horse to fall in behind. He spoke in a terse voice. “Then you’re wrong. I’ve thought about wringing your neck a million times.”

Kristin sighed. Despite the jacket Zachary had bundled her into, she was cold, and the candy bar had only taken the edge off her appetite. Worse, she was beginning to consider the reprisals Jascha might use if they were caught. “If you hate me so much, why did you come into Cabriz to get me?”

He didn’t look back. “Because I get a kick out of sneaking into countries with names that sound like a line of sportswear,” he answered tartly.

“Jascha will kill you if he catches us.”

“You’d better pray he doesn’t, princess. He’s probably not real fond of you right now, either.”

Kristin remembered the look on Jascha’s face when he’d been about to force himself on her, and she shuddered. “I don’t know what’s come over him lately. He was always so sweet, and so gentle.”

Zachary’s tone was wry. “Little things like the overthrow of a throne tend to upset a guy.”

Kristin’s weary mind had gone on to other possibilities. “What will they do to Jascha—the rebels—if they do overrun the palace?”

He waited a long time to answer, and when he spoke his voice was gruff with reluctance. “They’ll kill him, princess.”

The grief that surged through Kristin shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it did. Jascha had been her friend, if not her lover, for a very long time. After she’d lost Zachary, the prince had dried her tears and listened patiently while she tried to work out the things that had gone wrong.

Her shoulders hunched under the heavy load of the backpack and tears trickled down her cheeks.

Zachary must have known she was weeping—try as she might, she couldn’t seem to cry quietly—but he didn’t make any comments. He did take the reins from her and lead her horse behind his.

By the time he brought both horses to a halt in the shelter of a small circle of trees, Kristin had recovered some of her dignity.

She felt abject relief when Zachary reached out, still mounted on his horse, to unfasten and remove her backpack. “I can hardly wait till we get the fire built,” she said with a sigh, summoning up a tremulous smile.

He swung down from the saddle, carrying her backpack, and tossed it into the leaves that covered the ground. “No fire tonight, your ladyship,” he answered in clipped tones. “We’re still too close to Kiri, and there are probably patrols out looking for us right now.”

Kristin shivered and glanced around at the woods. They looked eerie in the silver glow of the stars and moon. “Do you really think so? It would make better sense if they started out in the morning.”

He shrugged out of his backpack and set it down beside hers. “Right. And if we just follow the yellow brick road, we’ll be home in Kansas by morning and Auntie Em will bake us an apple pie.”

It was a struggle, but Kristin managed not to lose her composure. She watched as Zachary took the reins of both horses and started off toward the woods, and when it was clear he wasn’t going to apologize for patronizing her, she stormed after him.

“Why do you always do that?” she demanded.

“Do what?” Zachary retorted, all innocence. A stream flowed a few yards ahead, shining like a silver ribbon in the night.

“Why do you always make me out to be so damn naive? I happen to have a degree in journalism, you know, and I’ve been all over the world on professional assignments!”

While the horses drank, Zachary turned to Kristin, his nose less than an inch from hers. “Some assignments—you took pictures of embassy parties and wrote cutesy articles to go along with them. And as for this little adventure, you came halfway around the globe to marry a prince who already has half a dozen wives, in a country that’s been teetering on the edge of disaster for ten years, and then you have the gall to stand there and ask me why I think you’re naive?”

Kristin stepped back, strung, and would have fallen if Zachary hadn’t been so quick to reach out and steady her. She blinked, unable to refute the charge that her job with Savoir Faire had amounted to little more than writing the occasional society column. “I didn’t know about the wives.”

Zachary let her go. “In fifteen minutes,” he said, “you’ll have convinced yourself there were never any wives. Well, you have it your way, your ladyship. You’ve always arranged the world to suit your perceptions, anyhow. Why should this be any different?”

“You’re being cruel, Zachary. I’m not trying to deny that I made a mistake.”

“A mistake? Sweetheart, you’ve made a dozen. Why did you think all those women were hanging around? Did you have them pegged as members of the palace sewing circle?”

Kristin’s eyes brimmed with tears and she whirled to walk away, but Zachary reached out and caught hold of her arm, turning her back to face him with surprising gentleness.

“Kristin, I’m sorry,” he said softly. Unwillingly.

Kristin bit down hard on her lower lip.

Zachary touched her cheek, brushed away a tear with the edge of his thumb. “Don’t cry, princess.”

When Kristin didn’t respond, he released her and turned back to the horses. She walked a little way upstream and knelt down to splash clear, icy water onto her face.

It restored her a little, and when she joined Zachary in the clearing she was almost her old self. He tied the horses where they could graze, then knelt beside her and took a bedroll from her backpack.

“It’s going to get cold tonight,” he said as he zipped his sleeping bag and Kristin’s together.

Kristin’s eyes widened. “You mean we’re sleeping in the same bag?”

Zachary gave her one of his impatient looks. “It’s not like we’ve never shared a bed,” he pointed out.

Kristin’s mind filled with sweet, fiery and completely unwanted memories at the prospect. “But we’re not—we were involved then.”

“Relax, your ladyship. I don’t intend to touch you.”

Chilled, not only by the night wind but by the timbre of Zachary’s voice, Kristin shivered. “I’m hungry,” she said.

He reached for one of the backpacks again. “I’ll get you something. Take your clothes off and get into the sleeping bag.”

Kristin had been unlacing one of her clunky hiking boots, but she stopped cold. “You expect me to strip? In your dreams, Zachary Harmon.”

Holding a package of something in one hand, he turned his broad and singularly imperious back. “Get undressed,” he reiterated. “If you don’t, your clothes will draw moisture and you’ll end up with pneumonia.”

Kristin studied his back, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not. “If you’re lying to me—”

He turned to face her, tossed the small package into her lap and took off his hat. The moonlight shimmered in his rumpled brown hair. “I’ve never lied to you in my life,” he said. And he unzipped his jacket and laid it aside, then pulled his shirt out of his jeans and began to unbutton it.

Kristin’s cheeks felt as though they’d caught fire, and she dropped her eyes. “All right,” she said. “I’ll take off my clothes. But you have to look the other way until I tell you it’s okay.”