Undercover Cavaliere

B Glad Judith

Description

Regina Lachlan isn't a good traveler. She's prone to motion sickness. So why does she agree to chaperone two young ladies to England and France?Gabriel King is an agent for a quasi-official organization dedicated to eradication of white slavery and drug dealing throughout the world. His base is Italy, so why is he being sent to Paris? He doesn't speak French. Gabe and Regina have known--and loved--each other all their lives. While he would be happy to carry her off to his Italian villa, she can't imagine abandoning her career and living in an strange land. She likes a placid, uneventful life and can't understand how he can enjoy his silly spy games.When Gabe is betrayed to his enemies, a dreadful coincidence endangers Regina and her charges. What happens next will challenge both of them, and its outcome could break their wills...and their hearts.

Sujets

• Westerns
• Historical romance
• Western (genre)
• Thriller
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: Uncial Press
• Date de parution: 17 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781601741004
• Langue: English

Extrait

Undercover Cavaliere
Behind the Ranges, Book VIII
 
By
Judith B. Glad
 
Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind theranges-- Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go.
Rudyard Kipling: The Explorer
 
Uncial Press       Aloha, Oregon 2010
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events described herein are productsof the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Anyresemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirelycoincidental.
ISBN 13: 978-1-60174-100-4 ISBN 10: 1-60174-100-6
Undercover Cavaliere Copyright © 2010 by Judith B.Glad
Cover design Copyright © 2010 by Judith B. Glad
All rights reserved. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work inwhole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known orhereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Published by Uncial Press, an imprint of GCT, Inc.
Visit us at http://www.uncialpress.com
For Neils Peter Anderson Glad 1920-2008
Life was Good. Love was True
Chapter One
Boise City, Idaho Territory June 1884
The hours-old babies were sleeping now, and so were their exhausted parents. Thehouse was quiet, after the excitement of her parents' return from their world tour, the influx ofrelatives here to celebrate the birth of Lulu's and Tony's twins. That everyone had arrived in timewas nothing short of incredible, but part of her would have been happier if they had all stayedaway until tomorrow.
All but Aunt Flower and Uncle William, Silas and Soomey. These were their firstgrandchildren. It was right that they'd been here.
Regina was still too keyed up to rest. She had read all about childbirth, but assisting atone was an entirely different story. It had been astonishing, exhilarating, and terrifying, all atonce.
The experience had also awakened old, carefully buried dreams.
Once she had wanted a child...children.
Time was running out for her. She'd turned twenty-eight in February. She was an oldmaid. Worse, there was no man in her life, no man she wanted in her life.
Be honest. There is one man...
He can't be the man I need. And I'm not the right woman for him.
She stood at the back window of the kitchen, looking down the gentle slope towards apasture where three mares and their foals stood hipshot in the shade of a black locust tree,drowsy in the warm June day. A pile of kittens slept on the back steps and two puppies playedtug-of-war with a stick in the back yard.
Babies everywhere. She closed her eyes.
Someone entered the kitchen behind her. Regina didn't have to turn around to know whoit was. She always knew when he was nearby.
"What are you doing here?" she said without opening her eyes.
"Same as you. Saying hello to the twins. Now my mama won't be after me to give hergrandchildren."
"Damn it, Gabe, you know what I mean You haven't been home in more than ten years.Why now?" Regina stared blindly out the window, wishing she could besomewhere--anywhere--else.
Or he could.
"I didn't have much choice. Buff all but shanghaied me." There was just a hint of angerin his deep voice, as if he'd not been altogether happy about coming home.
Good. She wasn't happy about it either.
"What happened to your leg?"
"Shot." She heard him ease himself into a kitchen chair. "That ought to make youhappy."
She turned around so quickly that she banged her elbow on the window frame. "Shot?Oh, my God! When? How? Why?"
"The Ides of March." His wry tone told her just how unfunny he found the date. "InFlorence. Somebody didn't like me." He sprawled in the chair, as if he were terribly tired. Hisgold-headed cane clattered to the floor beside him.
Even in the subdued light, she could see deep lines of strain around his sensuous, full-lipped mouth, between his thick, dark eyebrows. "Gabe?"
"Uh-huh?"
"When are you going to stop playing your silly spy games?"
He didn't open his eyes. "I'm not a spy. I'm an agent. There's a difference. The Coalitiondoesn't work for any nation. You know that."
"Oh, for heaven's sake. Stop splitting hairs and tell me what happened." She droppedonto the settee under the window, crossing her legs in a way that would have her mother givingher the dickens, never mind she was a grown-up spinster schoolmarm.
"It wasn't anything special. I was a courier, delivering a package. I didn't know what wasin it, or why it was important enough to have me deliver it. When I got there--just a room off analley--someone was waiting for me. He shot me when I stepped up to the door." His shrugshowed disgust and perhaps a touch of defeat. So unlike the Gabe she remembered.
"Is...is the limp permanent?" She remembered how fleet and agile he'd been, how he hadalmost flown across the pastures, winning every footrace with her brothers.
"So they say." He swung his right leg, but the knee didn't flex as it should. Tendonssnapped against bone. "They told me I was lucky not to lose the leg."
"Oh, Gabe--"
He held up a hand. "Stop it, Gina. I don't need your sympathy. I don't need anyone'ssympathy. I'm doing fine."
She turned away, unable to bear the anger and pain in his expression. "Are you going tostay, now you're home?"
"Stay?" the word came out on a bark of laughter. "Of course not. I'll go up to CherryVale with the folks for a week or two, then I'll head back. I need to be in Athens in earlyAugust."
"I see." She stood, still not looking directly at him. "I wish you well, then. It's been niceseeing you."
"Gina--"
She ignored his reaching hand as she opened the back door and went down the steps. Noone else had ever called her Gina. No one else ever would, if she had anything to say aboutit.
By the time she reached the riverbank, nearly a mile away, she was over most of heranger, but the hurt was still there, lodged in her heart where it had been for ten years.
Gabe had been her model for a dashing corsair, an adventurous explorer, a gallant knight,when she was a romantic youngster. His appearance had fit him well into all those roles, ahandsome blend of races, yet not obviously belonging to any particular one. His inherent agilityand grace had made him a convincing hero.
She and her brothers and sisters had envied the King children their interesting parents.Aunt Flower was the daughter of a fur trapper and his Nez Perce wife, Uncle William the son ofa Negro slave and probably her white master. Their children, Gabe, Lulu, and Micah were sodifferent in appearance that they might not have been related. Micah took after his father incoloring and features. Lulu had hair the color of antique gold and skin like heavily creamedcoffee. Gabe could have stepped out of an Italian Renaissance painting, with his thick, wavyblack hair, his swarthy skin and a nose as elegant as any Roman's. Both he and Lulu hadinherited their mother's gray eyes.
The Lachlan children, on the other hand, were boringly ordinary in appearance. She andher older brother resembled their father in height and coloring, although Buffalo's hair was adarker blond than hers and curly instead of merely wavy. Katie and Rhys were like their mother,short and slight, with dark brown hair. The others were somewhere in-between, neither strikingnor unusual. Now that Regina had been out into the world, she realized that their parentage hadmade her friends' lives more complicated than hers would ever be, and had learned to be gratefulthat she was clearly of European ancestry.
She still thought Gabe was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen.
* * * *
Gabe watched her stride rapidly down the slope behind the house. She walked almostlike a man, her long legs eating up the distance, her arms swinging freely, instead of helddecorously close to her body. Sunlight caught in her bright hair, piled untidily atop her head,turning it to a blaze of gold. She had no patience with fancy hairstyles, and usually wore acoronet of braids. He supposed she'd not had time to fuss with it this morning.
The gazebo halfway down the slope was new. And empty. With any luck, she'd comeback the same way and he could catch her there.
He had something to say to her, something long past due.
* * * *
She sat on the riverbank for a long time, watching the swiftly flowing water, letting itssong soothe her troubled heart. Her thoughts tumbled over one another, chaotic and confused.Just seeing him again brought back all the old hurts, all the old dreams. She'd hoped he'd stayaway forever, and at the same time she'd wished he'd come back, even for a little while.
Well, he was here now. "I love him," she told the restless water. "I still love him," shewhispered to the fitful breeze.
Neither answered.
The sun had sunk out of sight when she finally rose, stiff from sitting still so long. Sheknew better than to stay here in the dark, even though an almost full moon would show her thepath clearly. Pa would lambast her, never mind she was full grown and had been living on herown for nearly two years, while he and Ma had traveled. He didn't cotton to his girls puttingthemselves at peril. Stiffly she rose and started toward home. The mile-long path seemedendless.
"Gina... Regina." He stood in the gazebo's entrance.
For a moment she ignored the summons. But just for a moment, for she'd never beenable to resist him, no matter how angry she was. And now she was no longer angry, but just sad,mourning the lost years, the missed opportunities.
His stubbornness.
Hers.
The gazebo had weathered nicely in the three years since she and Pa had built it. It washer special place, where she wasn't Miss Lachlan, terror of Adams Normal School, or Regina thespinster daughter who'd turned down every likely man who'd ever come courting. "What do youwant?"
"You." The word held worlds of meaning. Looking into his eyes, the color of winterrain, she saw frustration, irritation, desire. "I've always wanted yo