Cowboys 08 - Luke

  HELPLESS TO LOVE

  Without warning, he grabbed her and kissed her hard on the mouth. He shocked Valeria so badly she couldn't breathe. No coherent thought emerged from the jumble whirling about in her head. Everything about her simply came to a dead stop.

  Just as abruptly Luke broke the kiss and held her at arm's length from him. "Did you like that? Did you want me to do it? Could you stop me from doing it again?"

  Exclamations of surprise, nods of protest, pleas for an explanation stumbled over each other in her mind.

  He wrapped his arms about her, pulled her tight against his chest. "You're helpless, aren't you? You can't run away and you can't fight me."

  She could if she could get over the shock. She had never been held in such an intimate embrace. Not even when dancing in public would a man have dared let his body touch hers. The shock was enormous, disabling.

  He kissed her again.

  No other man had kissed her on the lips. She had no way to differentiate ruthless from enthusiastic ... or impassioned ... or heedless. Her mind told her she ought to be furious, insulted, violated, even frightened. Her body pleaded with her to give in to Luke's embrace.

  The Cowboys series by Leigh Greenwood:

  JAKE

  WARD

  BUCK

  CHET

  SEAN

  PETE

  DREW

  The Seven Brides series:

  ROSE

  FERN

  IRIS

  LAUREL

  DAISY

  VIOLET

  LILY

  The Cowboys

  Luke

  Leigh Greenwood

  A LEISURE BOOK® December 2000 Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 276 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  Copyright © 2000 by Leigh Greenwood

  Cover Art by John Ennis. www.ennisart.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  ISBN 0-8439-4804-3

  The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "L" with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Chapter One

  Arizona Territory, 1887

  Luke Attmore had taken on more than a hundred jobs as a hired gun, but none had been as troublesome as this one promised to be. He'd closed the curtains in his hotel room against the heat of the day, but he could see Hans Demel clearly enough. Luke leaned back in his chair, a bottle of expensive brandy on the table before him, the remains of a cigarette in the ashtray. His visitor sat forward, tense, as though he expected to have to spring to his feet any moment.

  "Are you sure you understand what I want?"

  Hans kept saying things again and again, as if he didn't believe anyone like Luke could understand him. Maybe the heat was getting to him. His clothes were more suitable for a European court than the Arizona Territory. He wore a white shirt with a turned-down collar, a necktie with a large knot, a swallow-tailed coat with three buttons, a waistcoat, and narrow trousers pulled tight over a protruding stomach. Perspiration stood out on his forehead and upper lip in sharp contrast with his polished shoes and slicked-back hair.

  "Yes," Luke replied, bored and irritated by this agitated little man. "You want me to escort your client's wife to his ranch. That seems straightforward enough."

  "She's not his wife yet," Hans corrected. "The marriage contracts have been signed, but she must reach his ranch before ..."

  Luke ignored the drone of Hans's voice. He had never gotten used to the way obscure European countries tied their royal families up in marriages arranged for every possible reason except love. Luke figured love and marriage went together, which made it easier for him to avoid both. He didn't believe in love, didn't understand it. He did understand contracts based on wealth. He worked for the man willing to pay the most money. And Prince Matthais had paid him a great deal.

  "I'm not interested in the details," Luke said. "I'll get her to the ranch safely."

  "It's not that simple. There's a great deal of money involved."

  He'd expected that. The fee wouldn't have been so high otherwise. It was more than he'd made in the previous year, and he was the highest-paid gunman in the country.

  "Prince Matthais needs the alliance with Duke Rudolf, but it will only come into effect once the princess reaches the ranch."

  Luke had no patience with this kind of intrigue. He'd spent two years in Europe as a soldier of fortune. He'd returned to the West because he never knew when a sworn ally would shoot him in the back. Black-hearted criminals had more honor than blue-blooded aristocrats.

  "You must understand that Prince Matthais has many enemies," Hans said, "people who want to see bad things happen to him."

  Nobody in the Arizona Territory went around referring to people by royal titles. Heat, dust, and horse manure didn't make a very classy backdrop for royalty.

  "The prince isn't my concern," Luke said. "I don't see any problem delivering the princess to her future husband."

  "The princess is in danger," Hans said, more agitated than ever. "There are people who will do anything to keep Prince Matthais and Duke Rudolf from joining their houses."

  Luke didn't care who married whom, who ascended what throne, who had his throat slit in some dark alleyor some sumptuous bedchamber. He was being hired to deliver his client safe and sound. What happened after that was none of his concern.

  "I'll get the princess to the ranch," Luke said.

  "Have you hired extra people as I instructed?" Hans asked, nervously wringing his hands.

  Luke wasn't used to being instructed to do anything. "I've hired two extra men."

  "I asked for a dozen."

  "These two are as good as a dozen."

  "Can you trust them?"

  "They're my family," Luke said. Or as close as he'd ever come to having one.

  Hans shook his head. "If anything were to happen to the princess, it would be catastrophic. Heads would roll, thrones would topple, empires would-"

  "Nothing will happen to the princess!" Luke stood, tired of this little man and his groundless fears. No one bothered Luke Attmore. Those who had been foolish enough to try resided in boot hills around the West. Once it was known Zeke and Hawk were with him, not even in the most toolhardy would attempt to harm this princess. He hoped she was pretty enough to warrant all this trouble. The princesses he had seen caused him to doubt it.

  "Two isn't enough," Hans said. "We are paying you enough to hire at least a dozen of the best men."

  "I don't need anybody else," Luke said. "But if I did, I've got more family, the dozen good men you're looking for."

  "Your family is so big?"

  "Yes." Hans didn't have to know it was an adopted family, that half of his brothers were married and nearly a thousand miles away, that he wouldn't call on them even if they'd been in town. They had wives, children, ranches to take care of, lives to live safely and happily. Luke wasn't about to involve any of them in his risky enterprises, especially his real brother, Chet. Chet had spent nine years watching Luke's back. If he thought for a minute his younger brother was in trouble, he'd be on the first train to Arizona. Zeke and Hawk were enough. They weren't married, or likely to be.

  "When do I meet the princess?" L
uke asked.

  Hans started to fret again. "She should have reached Bonner before now."

  It didn't surprise Luke that she was late. Once Hans had described the retinue that accompanied the princess on the train-tents, trunks of clothes, carloads of furniture, dishes, minors, servants, food and the stoves on which to prepare it-Luke had marveled that she'd ever left New Orleans. He considered it the height of stupidity to set out over the hot, often barren lands of the West with a retinue more suitable for Napoleon's Europe. At least Napoleon had roads. The Territory didn't even have trails in some places.

  He questioned whether he should have accepted this job. He might not have if he hadn't found himself be

  coming unaccountably weary of his work. Maybe weary wasn't the right word. Irritable. Nothing pleased him these days. Maybe he ought to head back East to one of those fancy resorts like Saratoga Springs, and sit on the front porch until he could figure out what he wanted.

  No, he didn't need to go anywhere. He knew exactly what he wanted. He just couldn't have it. He cursed violently.

  "What's wrong?" the little man asked.

  "Nothing you can fix," Luke replied.

  "Can you fix it?"

  "No."

  Princess Valeria Elizabeth Rose Maria Beatrice Christina of Badenberg didn't like anything she saw as she approached the town of Bonner, but then she hadn't liked anything since she'd been forced to leave her home. This country was impossibly huge, impossibly hot, and impossibly alien. Nothing about it was anything like what she was used to, yet Rudolf expected her to become accustomed to it, to live here and pretend to be happy.

  She would never have admitted it, but this country frightened her. She was alone except for her servants. Her parents were dead, her uncle exiled from his throne, her fiance waiting for her at a ranch above the Mogollon Rim, and her friends scattered across Europe. Everything she'd ever known had disappeared. She didn't understand these Americans or their customs, and she had no one to help her learn. Hans and Otto didn't know any more than she did.

  But she wasn't allowed to show fear. She had to remain calm and regal. She was a princess.

  At least she used to be. She didn't know what she was now.

  Her childhood friend, Lillie, had married a wealthy New York banker. She had told Valeria wonderful things about New York, but Hans, responsible for her personal safety, and Otto Sacher, responsible for organizing the journey, hadn't allowed her to go there. She'd had great hopes for New Orleans, but they had smuggled her into the city at night and put her on a train out of town before dawn. They hadn't even let her get off in San Antonio.

  Otto's explanation had been that he didn't want to attract attention. She'd tried to convince him a princess would attract less attention in a grand hotel than rambling about the desert in a railway car suitable for the Czar of Russia. Hans said only that Otto made all the decisions, that their only consideration was for her safety, that no one could be safe in a city. Hadn't she been attacked in Rome, Paris, even London?

  Valeria wasn't certain she could consider such ineffectual attempts to harm her attacks, but they had sent Hans and Otto into a frenzy. Plans for a sensible passage through the United States had been scrapped, and Otto had hatched this scheme to sneak her in by the back door. She was certain it wouldn't succeed, but no one would listen to her. No one ever had.

  She was a princess. She could trace her ancestry back five hundred years. She was rich. Her hand had been sought by men of noble lineage. She had been one of the most important persons in central Europe.

  But she was a woman.

  "Do they call that collection of mud huts a city?" she asked Otto.

  "I'm informed it's adobe, your highness. I believe it's a kind of brick made of local material."

  "Mud," Valeria said decisively. The place was surrounded by mountains of stone, yet these crazy Americans built their houses out of mud. They were even more eccentric than she'd been told. "I hope my hotel isn't built out of mud."

  "I requested Bonner's finest accommodations," Otto said.

  Valeria was under no illusion as to why the haughty ex-Duke Rudolf of Ergonia had sought to marry her even though she was now an ex-princess. She had a fortune; he didn't. He had wanted to use her money to restore himself to the throne his foolish, cruel, and extravagant father had lost a decade earlier. She had only agreed to marry him on the condition that he use her fortune to establish a new life for them in America.

  "I hope the hotel is cool," she said, fanning her bosom. "I've never been so hot in my life."

  "It is warm here," Otto agreed. "I had been informed America experienced cool weather in the spring."

  "If you'd taken the trouble to consult a map, you'd have noticed that America is a big country. I imagine the northern part is cool. You brought me across the south. That's why we used to go to Monte Carlo in the winter, Otto, because it's warm in the south."

  "I'm only following your uncle's instructions, your highness."

  He always said that because he knew it left her nothing to say. He had to follow her uncle's instructions-or Rudolf's. It didn't matter that neither of them knew what they were doing. Surely New York would have been sufficiently far from the tiny principality of Ergonia for Rudolf to escape his enemies. But he had wanted to be assured of his safety, and having seen the American West, she had to agree it was the best place for Rudolf. No sane European would attempt to penetrate this endless wasteland.

  A vehicle pulled to a halt next to the train. "Your carriage is ready, your highness," Otto said.

  "It looks dirty," Valeria's maid, Elvira, said. "I'm sure the seats are hard."

  "It's the only carriage in this town," Otto said. "If your highness would prefer to walk. .."

  He knew she wouldn't walk. She'd be soaked through with perspiration in minutes and stared at by everyone she passed. "I'll ride."

  Valeria wondered for a moment what was being done with her horses, the carloads of furniture and household furnishings, and her personal belongings, but the heat drove all thoughts of her possessions out of her mind. "Where is Hans?" she asked Otto.

  "Waiting for you at the hotel."

  It was almost too hot to breathe inside the carriage, but the trip was mercifully short. Bonner was incredibly small. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to live here. What good was it to have a fortune if you had to live in a mud house?

  Leaving Elvira to see to her personal luggage, Valeria entered the hotel. She was pleasantly surprised by the interior. Though it didn't approach the luxury and style of even an ordinary European hotel, it was more than she'd expected when her train stopped in this small, remote town. The lobby rose two floors in height, the ceiling supported by wood columns that had been carved at the top like the stone columns of ancient Greece. The wooden beams that supported the ceiling had carvings she didn't recognize. The walls were made of a plain brown material. Stone floors helped keep the interior cool. A wide, divided staircase rose against the far wall. Gas-lighted globes suspended from the ceiling illuminated the room. A group of leather-covered sofas and chairs were arranged around a low, slate-topped table covered with magazines and newspapers.

  Rather than bow or avert their eyes, the people in the hotel lobby gaped at her as though she were some sort of exhibit. Their unblinking stares made her uncomfortable, and that angered her. She was the one whose presence was supposed to make them uncomfortable, make them aware of their lowly position in life. She didn't know how they managed to look so happy and healthy in this desert.

  "Take me to my suite immediately," she said to Otto.

  "They don't have suites, just rooms."

  She always had a suite, but a few weeks in the American West had taught her that not even European royalty could have what they wanted when it didn't exist.

  "I hope it's on the ground floor."

  "I've asked for the best room on the second floor," Otto said. "We can't take the chance that someone might break in through the windows."

/>   She didn't bother pointing out that a ladder would make the second floor as accessible as the first. She'd tried to reason with Otto before, to no avail. She just wanted to get off her feet, to relax before she had to dress for dinner.

  The hallway, with its wood floors, stucco walls, and exposed beams, was nothing like the marble halls of her home, its walls covered with silk, tapestries, or handpainted wallpaper from France or China; its ceilings painted with pastoral scenes and highlighted with plaster or gold leaf. The beams here were so low she felt they might crash down on her head. She was certain she saw a cobweb dangling from one.

  The stairs were so narrow her dress caught on a splinter. She paused while her maid pulled it loose. The floor didn't appear to have been swept recently. She'd been told towns like Leadville, Colorado, or Virginia City, Nevada, had grown up around rich gold mines. She'd been assured the wealthy mine owners lived in great houses with electric lights, steam heat, hot water, and many other conveniences. She wondered where the rich people in Bonner stayed. Obviously not at this hotel.

  "This is the room, your highness." Otto pointed to a door with the number 8 on it. The quality of the roughhewn wood didn't encourage Valeria to expect much. Dark brown paint served merely as a relief to the redbrown walls. It was almost dark as night inside the room, where a single oil lamp provided the only light.