Born To Protect

What he couldn’t do anymore was swim.

What he couldn’t be anymore was a U.S. Navy SEAL.

Life was a bitch sometimes.

The ugly concrete stairwell caught every echo and threw it up and down. There was access onto each floor, through the basement and, he guessed, out onto the roof. He’d made only a cursory check of the building. He wasn’t playing at point man. No one was relying on him anymore to spot bad guys and booby traps.

He hiked quickly and quietly up the stairs. Lots of stairs. His seabag rubbed the banister. A line from one of his sister’s bedtime stories came back to him: “Once upon a time, a princess lived in a tower….”

Jack shook his head. Kid stuff. Unfortunately, the woman at the top of these steps was no fairy tale. Christina Sebastiani of Montebello might have fled the palace for life among the books and Bunsen burners, but there was no getting around the fact that she was a real live princess. Montana University was an accredited ivory tower.

And the danger… If his father could be believed, that was real, too.

It was just her highness’s tough luck that Jack was no knight in shining armor.

He exited the stairs and stalked the hall, counting doorways out of habit, noting angles from windows. Security sucked. Any thug with a gun and an agenda could have this floor pinned down in minutes. Not his problem, Jack reminded himself. He was only passing through.

A black plaque on the door identified the biology lab. A pane of frosted glass obscured his view of the room. Silently, he turned the knob and slipped inside.

This was the place, all right. He did a quick scan of shelves packed with bottles, and long black islands cluttered with glassware. Silhouetted against the painted cinder block, with two Bunsen burners flaring and a couple dozen petri dishes laid out before her, stood a single, slender figure in a white lab coat. Female. Blond. His hormones sat up and took notice. Now that was a complication he didn’t need. But it had been a while, a long while, since he’d had a woman under him.

She was a research scientist, his father had said during their brief, tense phone conversation. Jack had immediately pictured some dumpy, frumpy little woman in plastic goggles with her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head.

The goggles were there, pulled down around her neck. The hair was swept back smoothly from her face and caught in a clip. And her face… He sucked in a breath. Her face had the cool, don’t-touch-me perfection of a portrait under glass.

This was Princess Christina Sebastiani of Montebello? Damn.

As he watched, she jiggled open the top of a glass bottle with the tip of her pinkie finger and held it to the flame. The intensity in her eyes—blue?—and the soft absorption of her mouth made his hands itch for his camera.

He wondered why he hadn’t seen her photo splashed on the tabloids in the checkout line. She was as much a looker as the rest of the Sebastianis—the only royal to inherit the queen’s blond beauty. But judging from the media coverage, her older sister, Julia, was the princess in the public eye, her younger sister, Anna, the one with the public’s heart.

He waited while she poured stuff from the bottle into a petri dish, swirled it around and closed the container tightly. No point in making her spill. She recapped the bottle, and he let his bag slide to the floor with a soft thump.

Christina jumped. Straightening her shoulders, she glared at him. Yeah, those eyes were blue, all right. Cool blue and hostile.

“You must be lost,” she said. “The bus station is across from the stadium.”

Jack admired her swift recovery. He even kind of liked her snotty tone. “I know. I just left there.”

She looked him over. He knew what she saw: a big man in his early thirties, his convalescent pallor overlaid by a three-week tan and a day-old beard. His military haircut had mostly grown out. His jeans were creased with travel, his leather flight jacket powdered with dust. Not a reassuring sight for any woman working alone on an almost empty floor, let alone a princess.

“Then can I help you?” she asked.

He raised one eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

Her full lips pressed together. In annoyance? Or fear? “You obviously don’t belong here. If you don’t leave, I’ll have to call security.”

“Maybe I am security,” he suggested, just to see what she’d do.

“You’re not in uniform. And I don’t see a university ID tag.”

She was cautious. That was in her favor. She was gorgeous. That was in his. For the first time, Jack began to think maybe he wasn’t crazy for listening to his old man’s suggestion that he drop in on the exiled princess of Montebello.

“I don’t work for the university,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did my father send you?”

Jack considered awarding her another point for swiftness and then decided against it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that after the recent attack on his eldest daughter, Julia, King Marcus would want to protect his family. His entire family. Including emancipated Christina.

“Not your father. Mine. He’s a…” Now, how the hell was Jack supposed to describe Jonathan Dalton? Decorated war hero. Mercenary soldier. Texas tycoon. Consultant to kings, and lousy dad. “…a friend of your father’s,” he finished lamely. “He knew I was going to be in the area and asked me to look you up.”

“Really?” Christina’s tone was dismissive. Disbelieving. “And who is your father, exactly?”

“Jonathan Dalton.”

Her blue eyes widened. “Uncle Jonathan?”

Jack felt poleaxed—whether from the impact of that suddenly warm blue gaze or the notion of the old man as anybody’s benevolent uncle, he really couldn’t say. “You must have him mixed up with somebody else. Jonathan Dalton,” he repeated. “Thick white hair, little white beard, tall—”

“Yes,” she said impatiently. “I remember. He used to give Anna candy. And he taught our brother, Lucas, how to fieldstrip and fire a gun.”

It was more than Major Dalton had ever done with his own children. Hell. Jack had never liked trading on his father’s influence. But just talking about the guy had brought a sparkle to the princess’s eyes, a lilt to her voice.

He rubbed his jaw. “You see a lot of him growing up?”

“Not a lot. I know he and his friends fought side by side with my father during the rebellion.”

That fit. Jack had heard those stories, too, about the young king of Montebello and the band of renegades and heroes who had served with Jonathan Dalton in Vietnam.

More fairy tales, he figured. His dad never did anything without an eye to the almighty dollar.

“Yeah, well, they’re back in touch,” he said.

Princess Christina nodded. “Because of the threat from Tamir,” she said. “Father always said he could trust Uncle Jonathan.”

“Oh, he trusts him,” Jack agreed. “In fact, this time he’s trusting him into supplying you with a bodyguard.”

The princess angled her chin, her eyes speculative. “You?”

“Me,” Jack confirmed.

“No,” she said flatly.

The major had told him to expect a refusal. Princess Cupcake here had resisted all the palace’s earlier attempts to provide her with protection. But Jack still felt a lick of irritation. Maybe he wasn’t the type to inspire confidence in a pampered royal, but he was good at what he did, damn it. Had been good at what he did. Had been the best.

“Relax. I haven’t agreed to take the job yet.”

“Then why are you here?”