Royal Rescue - By Lisa Childs Page 0,3

a hotel. But she needed to be close to the hospital...in case her father took a turn for the worse. In case he needed her.

“And after you wake up we’ll come back with ice cream?”

She hesitated before offering him a slight nod. But instead of posing as the lawyer’s assistant again, she would talk to Charlotte.

Someone else had answered the woman’s phone at the palace on the affluent island country of St. Pierre where Charlotte had gone to work as the princess’s bodyguard after leaving the U.S. Marshals. That person had assured Josie that Charlotte would be back soon to return her call. But Josie hadn’t left a message—she couldn’t trust anyone but Charlotte with her life. Or her father’s. She would talk to Charlotte and see what the former marshal could find out about Josie’s father’s condition and the attack. Then she would come back to see him.

Her son accepted her slight nod as agreement and finally moved away from the door to his grandfather’s room. “Does Grampa like ’nilla ice cream or chocolate or cookie dough or...”

The kid was an ice-cream connoisseur, his list of flavors long and impressive. And Josie’s stomach nearly growled with either hunger or nerves.

She interrupted him to ask, “Do you want to press the elevator button?”

His brow furrowing in concentration, he rose up on tiptoe and reached for the up arrow.

“No,” she said. But it was too late, he’d already pressed it. “We need the down arrow.” Before she could touch it, a hand wrapped around her wrist.

Her skin tingled and her pulse leaped in reaction. And she didn’t need to lift her head to know who had touched her. Even after more than three years, she recognized his touch. But she lifted her head and gazed up at him, at his thick black hair that was given to curl, at his deep, turquoise-green eyes that could hold such passion. Now they held utter shock and confusion.

This was the man who’d killed her, or who would have killed her had the U.S. marshal and one of her security guards not diffused the bomb that had been set inside the so-called safe house. They had set it off later to stage her death.

Since he had wanted her dead so badly, he was not going to be happy to find her alive and unharmed—if he recognized her now. She needed for him not to recognize her, as she wasn’t likely to survive his next murder attempt. Not when she was unprotected.

If only she’d listened to that inner voice...

The risk had been too great. Not just to her life but to what would become of her son once she was gone.

Would her little boy’s father take him or kill him? Either way, the child was as doomed as she was.

Chapter Two

For more than three years, her memory had haunted Brendan—her image always in his mind. This woman didn’t look like her, but she had immediately drawn his attention when he’d stepped out of the stairwell at the end of the hall. Her body was fuller and softer than Josie’s thin frame had been. And her chin-length blond bob had nothing in common with Josie’s long red hair. Yet something about her—the way she tilted her jaw, the sparkle in her eyes as she gazed down at the child—reminded him of her.

Then she’d spoken to the boy, and her soft voice had hit him like a blow to the stomach. While he might not have recognized her body or face, he could not mistake that voice as anyone’s but hers. Her voice had haunted him, too.

Before he could recover, he turned his attention to the child and reeled from another blow. With his curly red hair and bright green eyes, the child was more recognizable than the woman. Except for that shock of bright hair, he looked exactly like the few childhood photos of Brendan that his stepmother hadn’t managed to accidentally destroy.

He didn’t even remember closing the distance between them, didn’t remember reaching for her. But now he held her, his hand wrapped tightly around her delicate wrist.

She lifted her face to him, and he saw it now in the almond shape and silvery-green color of her eyes. What he didn’t recognize was the fear that widened those eyes and stole the color from her face.

“Josie...?”

She shook her head in denial.

She must have had some cosmetic work done, because her appearance was different. Her cheekbones weren’t as sharp, her chin not as pointy, her nose not