Crown Jewels (Off-Limits Romance #1)(14)

I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing my temples. “You guys. I need a nap, I think.”

“I think the prince just avenged your honor, darlin’,” Maggie drawls.

I don’t know what to think. But I know how I feel. That night, I dream of him draped over me, his body like a shield. When I wake up in the morning, I realize that I didn’t take my Ambien. I slept all night.





*





We spend three weeks in Southampton, like old times. A few days after we find out about Bryce, Maggie lets me know the police won’t be coming my way, and Bryce is going to recover. No one mentions him again, and I don’t think about him too much. Only on the tail end of a thought about Prince Liam.

I can’t imagine a cosmic purpose behind our encounter at Dec’s party—other than my own healing. We barely talked, and yet we slept together and shared amazing sex. He was dominant but not dominating, gentle but not patronizing, kind but not phony. He left his guards by my door and went and did something no one else would have been able to do: he kicked Bryce’s ass.

Who would make Liam pay? The authorities in his country? Yeah, right.

The press has yet to get wind of the story, but in our circle, everybody knows Prince Liam did it.

As I walk through the Denver International Airport, clutching Grey’s cat carrier to my chest while I stride along one of those moving conveyer belts, I pass a man holding what I swear is a picture of Prince Liam. I turn slightly as his belt whisks him in the opposite direction, and I notice there’s some animal in the background. A horse? It must be a horse mag. The Isle of Gael is known for breeding horses.

I probably have almost all the popular horse magazines waiting for me in the mailbox at my place in Estes, but I stop at an airport bookstore anyway. Turns out, there’s a whole wall devoted to magazines. I find Liam’s gorgeous, bestubbled face smirking at me from beneath a cowboy hat on the cover of The Competitive Equestrian.

So yeah, I will have this at home. And I’m totally buying it here and now.

I find a cart for my luggage, grab my suitcases at baggage claim, strap Grey’s carrier to the top, and walk slowly to my car, smirking down at the magazine cover the whole way.

I might have joined Snapchat with a random, covert user name and followed him. And yeah, maybe I’m checking his Instagram three or four times a day. But so what? It’s not hurting anyone. It’s a crush, and it’s fun, and it feels good.

I deserve to feel good, don’t I?

Yes, I tell myself as I back my black 4Runner out of the parking lot. I totally do deserve to feel good.

I’m not being unreasonable or weird here. I don’t expect him to call me up or anything. I don’t even know if I’ll ever see the guy again. I’m just thankful he helped restore my lady parts to fighting form.

The drive to Estes Park takes about an hour and a half from DIA. I drive a good chunk of it on I-25, cutting northward in a straight line. I smirk at my magazine cover a time or two between reassuring Grey, who’s awakening from his kitty sedative. I spend the rest of my time listening to Taylor Swift. I was never really a fan before Southampton this year, when Charley of all people got me hooked. Bumping into Taylor a time or two at parties didn’t hurt.

I hang a left on Highway 66 and smile as I head into more rural parts. Wood-carved bears at roadside stands, marijuana shops, and these adorable little summer pie-and-ice cream booths greet me like old friends. The little town of Lyons is bustling with tourists sipping frozen coffees, listening to live music in the shadow of the Rockies, checking out Native American art. I crack my window and let my hair down because damnit, it feels good to be back.

It’s true I fled Georgia, fled the entire Southern U.S., when I came out here, but it’s also true that I’m built for a place like this. It’s rural like my native Georgia, but without the awful heat. It’s low key here without the judgment you’d get there. And it’s crunchy. Always bonus points for crunchy.

The road between Lyons and Estes is twisty and thick with tourist traffic. I curse the ones from far-flung states like Massachusetts and Texas.

“Just go, damnit!”

I pass a couple of them, gassing the 4Runner, loving the pull of gravity against the speed of the car, just barely keeping me in my lane as I fly. Riding horses is like this for me, too: reckless and freeing and just a little dangerous.

That’s another thing I love about both home and here: horses. And fields and lakes and forests. Nature.

The sun is setting as I climb the last hill before the Estes Park sign and the overlook where you can see the Rockies, and the valley below. God, this place is gorgeous. The sky is cloudless, dark indigo; the mountains have lost snow in the three weeks I’ve been gone. They look so green and lush. Kind of like the landscape on the Isle of Gael, which I’ve found is just northeast of Scotland.

I smirk again down at my magazine and keep on driving, through the adorable downtown, with its fresh-made-caramel-corn joint, organic restaurants, mom and pop breweries, jewelry stores, art galleries, and homemade pie places. I point myself toward the Rocky Mountain National Forest, passing the iconic Stanley Hotel and climbing a few more hills before I see the sign on my right for Flagstaff Ranch.

The ranch is bordered by a log-constructed fence, its slim paved road rolling under an archway with FLAGSTAFF RANCH in black iron script. I round a curve, driving into a grove of aspens, and pull over to my right to check my mail box, one of six. The blue one.