Cindy Gerard – Lone Star Prince (страница 1)
Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author “What’s Happening in Royal?” Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Epilogue Copyright
This month, in LONE STAR PRINCE
by Cindy Gerard, meet Gregory Hunt—
a lawyer extraordinaire who hides his vulnerability
behind cynical eyes. Until he rescues the
one woman he could never forget,
Princess Anna von Oberland—a royal, regal beauty
whose son bears a striking resemblance to our hero!
SILHOUETTE DESIRE IS PROUD TO PRESENT THE
Five wealthy Texas bachelors—all members of the state’s most exclusive club—set out on a mission to rescue a princess...and find true love.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the
exhilarating miniseries
Texas Cattlman’s Club,
only from Silhouette Desire!
Dear Reader,
Merry Christmas from Silhouette Desire—where you’re guaranteed powerful, passionate and provocative love stories that feature rugged heroes and spirited heroines who experience the full emotional intensity of falling in love!
The always-wonderful Cait London is back with this December’s MAN OF THE MONTH, who happens to be one of THE BLAYLOCKS. In Typical Male, a modern warrior hero is attracted to the woman who wants to destroy him.
The thrilling Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB concludes with Lone Star Prince by Cindy Gerard. Her Royal Princess Anna von Oberland finally reunites with the dashing attorney Gregory Hunt who fathered her child years ago.
Talented Ashley Summers returns to Desire with That Loving Touch, where a pregnant woman becomes snowbound with a sexy executive in his cabin. The everpopular BACHELOR BATTALION gets into the holiday spirit with Marine under the Mistletoe by Maureen Child. Star-Crossed Lovers is a Romeo-and-Juliet-with-a-happy-ending story by Zena Valentine. And an honorable cowboy demands the woman pregnant with his child many him in Christy Lockhart’s The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby.
Each and every month, Silhouette Desire offers you six exhilarating journeys into the seductive world of romance. So make a commitment to sensual love and treat yourself to all six for some great holiday reading this month!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Please address questions and book requests to
Silhouette Reader Service
U S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
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Lone Star Prince
Cindy Gerard
This book is dedicated to the ladies of the Club, Dixie Browning.
Caroline Cross, Peggy Moreland and Metsy Hingle.
Ladies—it’s been a treat. I’m so glad I was along for the ride!
Special thanks to Leanne Banks, Susan Connell and
Glenna McReynolds for their friendship, their extraordinary insights
and their unflagging generosity. I love you guys.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Cindy Gerard
for her contribution to the Texas Cattleman’s Club series
CINDY GERARD
If asked “What’s your idea of heaven?” Cindy Gerard would say a warm sun, a cool breeze, pan pizza and a good book. If she had to settle for one of the four, she’d opt for the book, with the pizza running a close second. Inspired by the pleasure she’s received from the books she’s read and her longtime love affair with her husband, Tom, Cindy now creates her own warm, evocative stories about compelling characters and complex relationships.
All that reading must have paid off, because since winning the Waldenbooks Award for Best Selling Series Romance for a First-Time Author, Cindy has gone on to win the prestigious Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence, Romantic Times Magazine W.I.S.H. awards, Career Achievement and Reviewers’ Choice nominations and the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award nomination for Best Short Contemporary Romance.
“What’s Happening in Royal?”
NEWS FLASH, December 1999—Rumors are running rampant about town that an actual royal princess may be in our midst! There have been unconfirmed reports that Princess Anna von Oberland is missing from her European country of Obersbourg, and may be hiding out in our own Royal, TX. Imagine...a princess in Royal—who would’ve “thunk” it?
Could our rugged Texas Cattleman’s Club members know the whereabouts of Her Royal Highness?
There are those who say that Gregory Hunt—hotshot attorney, Cattleman’s Club member and most eligible of bachelors—may have more than a passing interest in the lovely Princess Anna. In fact, rumor has it that they shared a passionate tryst years ago in her far-off land....
Will the princess be discovered here... and rumors be put to rest? Please stay tuned!
Prologue
September 5th, 2:00 a.m.
Somewhere over the Atlantic
Hollywood couldn’t have staged a more dicey plot An evil prince. A beautiful princess in his clutches. A midnight rescue by an ex-marine and ex-lover, charging in to save the day.
Trouble was, this wasn’t Hollywood. It was all too real, and as Greg Hunt stared grimly across the cabin of the private jet bound for the States, he hadn’t yet decided if he was the hero or the chump in this little melodrama.
The woman gazing vacantly out the window of the starboard side of the aircraft was exhausted, but still, her bearing was regal, her posture erect.
Four years ago when Greg had first met her she’d been beautiful. There was no denying, she was beautiful still. Yet Princess Anna von Oberland, loved by the paparazzi, adored by the masses, had been robbed of the wide-eyed innocence that had struck him as both intriguing and irresistible those many years ago. A haunted, hunted edge had painted pale violet smudges beneath her summer-green eyes, drawn fine lines of tension around a smile that was forced and shallow and reserved only for the child sleeping at her side. Her silk and velvet voice, with its honeyed, husky resonance, spoke of lost summers and faded dreams and hinted of her European lineage only when she was exhausted. Like now.
Shifting uneasily, Greg took his own turn staring out the window into the blackness of night at thirty-one thousand feet. He tried to divorce himself from an unrelenting need to hold her. Seeing her like this—seeing her again—had brought back feelings he’d thought were dead and buried. And while he was relieved she had turned to him for help—was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her—he was also determined not to let her or her solemn-eyed little boy breach the wall he’d built around his emotions when she’d walked away from him four years ago.
Determined, but unfortunately, not one hundred percent successful, he admitted grudgingly. Against all resolve, his mind wandered back to the summer night they’d first met. He’d been a marine on his last tour of duty and then had to return to Texas to take his place -as heir apparent to the Hunt dynasty. On leave in the little European principality of Obersbourg, he’d been taken in completely by the guileless little peasant girl whose eyes had been only for him. He hadn’t known she’d been a princess on the run from her family, her obligations and the stark reality of her position in life—just as she hadn’t known he was anything but a lowly marine.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that their eyes had met, locked, held across a street full of dancers in the plaza. A lifetime since they’d woven their way unerringly through the crowd and into each other’s arms. Since they’d danced. Fallen in love. Made love. And when her true identity had come out, they parted.
He quickly checked the memory. There was no point hashing over that again. It had been four years. He’d put it all behind him—at least he had until he’d received her transatlantic call last week and the panicked sound of her voice had brought it all back like it was yesterday.
“Gregory. I need you. Please come. Please... come.”
So he had. With the backing of Texas billionaire Hank Langley—and Langley’s Avenger, a Hunt Industries aircraft—the able assistance of Sterling Churchill and Forrest Cunningham, all members of Langley’s Texas Cattleman’s Club, they’d smuggled the princess and her son out from under the Obersbourg royal guard not three hours ago. All ex-military men, they had created the Alpha team to tackle this mission.
He scrubbed the back of his knuckles absently against the stubble on his jaw and stared broodily into the dark. As corporate counsel for Hunt Industries and CEO of several companies under the Hunt umbrella, he’d had plenty of work to keep him busy. So he was damned if he knew why he’d been so ready to let himself get wrapped up in her life again. He only knew that this time, it wasn’t by chance. This time there was more at stake than reckless hearts and stolen moments. He didn’t have all the details sorted out, but he knew that Anna’s sister, Sara, and Sara’s lover were dead, the victims of a mysterious car crash. Sara’s infant twins were in the physical custody of Ivan Striksky, the playboy prince of Asterland, who was holding them the equivalent of political hostages as part of a plot to force Anna to marry him. And Greg, it seemed, had been cast in the role of white knight.