Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke

“You wake up a little out of focus,” she told him, “a little sluggish, maybe with a fuzzy coating on your tongue, but with no harm done.”

If that was a “little” out of focus, then he was Santa Claus’s helper. He narrowed his eyes, looking directly at her.

“No harm done—except that you took off.”

She shrugged nonchalantly, wishing he’d release her. “Hey, it was just one of those things.”

“Don’t get cute with me, Rivers. I don’t appreciate being drugged and abandoned.”

At his raised tone, her own temper flared. “And I don’t appreciate being aced out of ten thousand dollars or strong-armed by a bully.” This time, she pulled harder against his grip.

Frowning, he released her. “Nobody’s strong-arming you.”

“Oh, no?” She rubbed her arm to get the circulation going. The man had one hell of an iron grip. “Then what do you call insisting on taking my bail jumper to Outer Slobovia?”

“That’s Montebello,” he informed her, struggling not to allow the corners of his mouth to curve.

He could almost see the fire leaping in her eyes. Though he was annoyed as hell about her costing him Weber, not to mention time, he had to admit there was something appealing about the way lightning bolts all but came shooting from every part of her.

“And we have jurisdiction,” he pointed out. “The U.S. and Montebello have had a mutual extradition treaty for some time now.”

“We?” she echoed. She thought she’d heard an accent of some sort. Where the hell was this place he claimed to be from? “Are you a Montebellian?”

“Montebellan,” Max corrected. “And that ‘we’ was just a figure of speech.” He didn’t want to tell her more than he absolutely had to, and certainly not that he was a duke. The last thing he wanted was annoying attention thrown his way. For some people, anything that had to do with a royal family—and it didn’t matter which one—was exciting. “But in any case, Weber’s going there when I get him.”

She begged to differ with his well-laid plans. “No, he’s going to Shady Rock when I get him.”

Max blew out a breath. “You’re going to be a royal pain in the posterior about this, aren’t you?”

She smiled sweetly at him. “Until I get my way, you might say that, yes.”

He had a feeling that she would cost him every time he got close to Weber. He didn’t need any more slipups. Time was money and he wasn’t making any on this venture. This was a favor to his uncle. “Allright, what do you say we team up?”

It was absolutely the last thing she’d expected him to say—unless he wasn’t on the level.

“Team up?”

“Yes, work together to get him.”

Cara looked at him suspiciously. Not that she was buying into this for a minute. “And then what?”

“And then we’ll work it out.”

Just as she’d thought. He was being evasive. Which meant that he didn’t want to tell her. Which meant, in turn, that he intended to shaft her.

She shook her head. “And then we bring him to the sheriff of Shady Rock. The office is closer than wherever the hell Montebello is.”

“It’s an island near Cyprus,” he told her automatically. Max couldn’t argue about Colorado being closer and he didn’t want to waste time arguing about any of the rest of it, either. Every minute that went by, Weber was getting farther and farther away. “Okay.” He put out his hand.

Taking his hand in hers, Cara shook it as she looked up at him. “All right, then it’s a deal.”

“A deal,” he echoed.

Her smile never wavered.

She didn’t trust him any farther than she could throw him.

Chapter 4

Separating their hands, she dropped hers to her sides. “So now what, ‘partner’?”

Max studied her, wishing he knew what was going on in that attractive head of hers. He always liked to know which way the wind was blowing before he set sail. His gut instinct was that, despite the so-called truce between them, he was in danger of standing right in the path of a full-scale gale.

“Why do I get the feeling that you think that’s a dirty word?”

Her expression couldn’t have been more innocent than if it had been on the face of an angel in a Renaissance painting.

“Interpretation, like beauty, is in the eye—or ear—of the beholder, Ryker. I’m just asking a simple question. You’re the one who wanted the partnership.”

That was like saying he wanted to play with a basket full of snakes. “Wanted might not be the right word here, but in any case, it’s the expedient thing to do, seeing as how we both want Weber and we seem to keep getting in each other’s way.”

Her eyes narrowed. The innocent expression evaporated. “None of which would happen if you’d get out of my way.”

About to answer her, Max noticed that the convenience store clerk was unabashedly watching them and all but hanging over the counter. “Something I can do for you, mister?”

The young man grinned broadly at them, completely missing the implication. “Hey, man, you’re doing it. We don’t get much entertainment around here and my satellite dish is busted. Don’t know when I can get it fixed. This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks.”

Max took hold of Cara’s arm. “Let’s take this outside.”

She shrugged him off. “I can walk on my own.”

“Then walk,” he said, holding the door open for her.

Miffed, she walked by him, calling him names under her breath that his ancestors might have taken exception to.

“Spoilsport,” the clerk muttered, returning to his copy of a much folded Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Max stopped on the sun-rotted wooden porch. “When I got here, just a few minutes ahead of you,” Max added the piece of information before she could ask, “the clerk told me Weber had driven off heading north.”

Still, that didn’t explain the leap on Ryker’s part. “What makes you think Canada? There’s an awful lot of territory between here and there, a whole battalion of cities and states.”

He shrugged. “Just a guess. It seems to me that a man with two people coming after him from different directions might just want to get out of the country.”

That had a germ of truth in it, she grudgingly admitted to herself. But there was still a flaw. “Mexico’s closer.”

“Yes, but he’s heading north. Last time I checked, Mexico was south.”

“Maybe he’s trying to confuse us by taking a roundabout route.”