Born to Protect
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Virginia Kantra
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Chapter 1
Jack Dalton hitched his seabag up on his shoulder. His uninjured shoulder, the one that wouldn’t let him down. On the elevator door in front of him, some college banana with more sense of humor than respect for university property had slapped a bumper sticker: Montana, the Last, Best Place…to Hide.
Jack’s mouth quirked. Funny. And fitting. Not that Jack was hiding, whatever the old man accused him of. Drifting, maybe, but not hiding.
He prowled toward the stairs. The habits of physical conditioning were hard to break. And even the navy docs admitted there was nothing wrong with his legs. He could still climb to the lab before the elevator descended to the science building lobby. He could still run six miles in thirty-nine minutes or less. He could still stand for three hours in fifty-degree seawater without dropping or complaining.
What he couldn’t do anymore was swim.
What he couldn’t be anymore was a U.S. Navy SEAL.
Life was a bitch sometimes.
The ugly concrete stairwell caught every echo and threw it up and down. There was access onto each floor, through the basement and, he guessed, out onto the roof. He’d made only a cursory check of the building. He wasn’t playing at point man. No one was relying on him anymore to spot bad guys and booby traps.
He hiked quickly and quietly up the stairs. Lots of stairs. His seabag rubbed the banister. A line from one of his sister’s bedtime stories came back to him: “Once upon a time, a princess lived in a tower….”
Jack shook his head. Kid stuff. Unfortunately, the woman at the top of these steps was no fairy tale. Christina Sebastiani of Montebello might have fled the palace for life among the books and Bunsen burners, but there was no getting around the fact that she was a real live princess. Montana University was an accredited ivory tower.
And the danger… If his father could be believed, that was real, too.
It was just her highness’s tough luck that Jack was no knight in shining armor.
He exited the stairs and stalked the hall, counting doorways out of habit, noting angles from windows. Security sucked. Any thug with a gun and an agenda could have this floor pinned down in minutes. Not his problem, Jack reminded himself. He was only passing through.
A black plaque on the door identified the biology lab. A pane of frosted glass obscured his view of the room. Silently, he turned the knob and slipped inside.
This was the place, all right. He did a quick scan of shelves packed with bottles, and long black islands cluttered with glassware. Silhouetted against the painted cinder block, with two Bunsen burners flaring and a couple dozen petri dishes laid out before her, stood a single, slender figure in a white lab coat. Female. Blond. His hormones sat up and took notice. Now that was a complication he didn’t need. But it had been a while, a long while, since he’d had a woman under him.
She was a research scientist, his father had said during their brief, tense phone conversation. Jack had immediately pictured some dumpy, frumpy little woman in plastic goggles with her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head.
The goggles were there, pulled down around her neck. The hair was swept back smoothly from her face and caught in a clip. And her face… He sucked in a breath. Her face had the cool, don’t-touch-me perfection of a portrait under glass.
This was Princess Christina Sebastiani of Montebello? Damn.
As he watched, she jiggled open the top of a glass bottle with the tip of her pinkie finger and held it to the flame. The intensity in her eyes—blue?—and the soft absorption of her mouth made his hands itch for his camera.
He wondered why he hadn’t seen her photo splashed on the tabloids in the checkout line. She was as much a looker as the rest of the Sebastianis—the only royal to inherit the queen’s blond beauty. But judging from the media coverage, her older sister, Julia, was the princess in the public eye, her younger sister, Anna, the one with the public’s heart.
He waited while she poured stuff from the bottle into a petri dish, swirled it around and closed the container tightly. No point in making her spill. She recapped the bottle, and he let his bag slide to the floor with a soft thump.
Christina jumped. Straightening her shoulders, she glared at him. Yeah, those eyes were blue, all right. Cool blue and hostile.
“You must be lost,” she said. “The bus station is across from the stadium.”
Jack admired her swift recovery. He even kind of liked her snotty tone. “I know. I just left there.”
She looked him over. He knew what she saw: a big man in his early thirties, his convalescent pallor overlaid by a three-week tan and a day-old beard. His military haircut had mostly grown out. His jeans were creased with travel, his leather flight jacket powdered with dust. Not a reassuring sight for any woman working alone on an almost empty floor, let alone a princess.
“Then can I help you?” she asked.
He raised one eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”
Her full lips pressed together. In annoyance? Or fear? “You obviously don’t belong here. If you don’t leave, I’ll have to call security.”
“Maybe I am security,” he suggested, just to see what she’d do.
“You’re not in uniform. And I don’t see a university ID tag.”
She was cautious. That was in her favor. She was gorgeous. That was in his. For the first time, Jack began to think maybe he wasn’t crazy for listening to his old man’s suggestion that he drop in on the exiled princess of Montebello.
“I don’t work for the university,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did my father send you?”
Jack considered awarding her another point for swiftness and then decided against it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that after the recent attack on his eldest daughter, Julia, King Marcus would want to protect his family. His entire family. Including emancipated Christina.
“Not your father. Mine. He’s a…” Now, how the hell was Jack supposed to describe Jonathan Dalton? Decorated war hero. Mercenary soldier. Texas tycoon. Consultant to kings, and lousy dad. “…a friend of your father’s,” he finished lamely. “He knew I was going to be in the area and asked me to look you up.”
“Really?” Christina’s tone was dismissive. Disbelieving. “And who is your father, exactly?”
“Jonathan Dalton.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Uncle Jonathan?”
Jack felt poleaxed—whether from the impact of that suddenly warm blue gaze or the notion of the old man as anybody’s benevolent uncle, he really couldn’t say. “You must have him mixed up with somebody else. Jonathan Dalton,” he repeated. “Thick white hair, little white beard, tall—”
“Yes,” she said impatiently. “I remember. He used to give Anna candy. And he taught our brother, Lucas, how to fieldstrip and fire a gun.”
It was more than Major Dalton had ever done with his own children. Hell. Jack had never liked trading on his father’s influence. But just talking about the guy had brought a sparkle to the princess’s eyes, a lilt to her voice.
He rubbed his jaw. “You see a lot of him growing up?”
“Not a lot. I know he and his friends fought side by side with my father during the rebellion.”
That fit. Jack had heard those stories, too, about the young king of Montebello and the band of renegades and heroes who had served with Jonathan Dalton in Vietnam.
More fairy tales, he figured. His dad never did anything without an eye to the almighty dollar.
“Yeah, well, they’re back in touch,” he said.
Princess Christina nodded. “Because of the threat from Tamir,” she said. “Father always said he could trust Uncle Jonathan.”
“Oh, he trusts him,” Jack agreed. “In fact, this time he’s trusting him into supplying you with a bodyguard.”
The princess angled her chin, her eyes speculative. “You?”
“Me,” Jack confirmed.
“No,” she said flatly.
The major had told him to expect a refusal. Princess Cupcake here had resisted all the palace’s earlier attempts to provide her with protection. But Jack still felt a lick of irritation. Maybe he wasn’t the type to inspire confidence in a pampered royal, but he was good at what he did, damn it. Had been good at what he did. Had been the best.
“Relax. I haven’t agreed to take the job yet.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Recon,” he answered. No SEAL team undertook a mission without assembling a target folder.
He was no longer a SEAL.
He heard the crack as she set down the glass bottle she still held in her hands. “You’re checking me out?” Her voice was ice over outrage.
He shrugged. “Your father wants you protected twenty-four-seven. It’s only reasonable to see if we can stand each other long enough for me to get the job done.”
Christina gave him a frosty look. His stupid body reacted as if a bar girl in Bolivia had just given him the eye. Definitely, he’d been out of action too long.
“Very well,” the princess said. “Now that we’ve established that we can’t, as you say, stand each other, you can refuse your father’s money with a clear conscience.”
But that was the problem. Jack couldn’t. Not until Christina had some understanding of exactly how much danger she was in. Not until he did. No matter how little he relished playing baby-sitter, no matter how satisfying it would be to tell the major to go to hell, no matter how often Jack told himself he wasn’t a warrior anymore, his own stubborn need to protect wouldn’t let him walk away from a situation. He at least needed to report to the old man that the princess was working long hours alone with no security.
Frustrated, he stuck his hands deep in his pockets. “Forget the money. Look at where things stand. You’ve got your older brother missing and presumed dead. You’ve got bombs going off in your homeland. You’ve got some sheik guy—”
She crossed her arms across her shielding white lab coat. “Ahmed Kamal of Tamir.”
“Whatever. Some Sheik Kamal trying to claim the kingdom and kidnap your big sister, and your parents are worried sick about you. Don’t you think you ought to take some precautions?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “I have taken precautions. I live in Montana.”
Her dry tone, her unexpected humor, slipped under his guard like a knife. He rubbed his jaw with the back of one hand to wipe off his answering grin. “Your father doesn’t think that’s good enough.”
Christina sighed. “Mr. Dalton, my parents don’t think anything is good enough for their children. I honor them for that. I love them. But I am not going to sacrifice my privacy, compromise my focus and interrupt my work by accepting the services of a completely unnecessary bodyguard. I assure you, I am quite safe here. No one can find me.”
Despite his frustration, he liked the aloof, precise way she had of speaking. Not that he accepted for one minute what she was saying, but she sounded really smart. “I found you,” he pointed out.
“I’m sure you had directions.”
“So will Kamal’s men.”
“Assuming I’m a target. I have only your word for that. And I don’t even know you. For all I know, you could be working for Sheik Ahmed.”
Jack regarded her grimly. “Are you always this pissy?”
Her lips curved. “I’ve been told so. Yes.”
He had a sudden urge to back her up against the counter and bite into that regal, smiling mouth. Hell. He really had been out of action too long. He fished in his back pocket for his wallet, ignoring the slight pull in his shoulder, and tossed his identification onto the table. His gaze dared her to pick it up.
After a moment’s hesitation, she did. Cautious, he thought again, with approval. She looked first at his Texas driver’s license and then at the white plastic card issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Her brows drew together. “‘Senior Chief’? You are U.S. military?”
“Former military. Navy SEAL, retired.” Forced out, he thought. He for damn sure hadn’t quit. Navy SEALs weren’t quitters.
“You are young to be retired.”
Bitterness flooded his mouth. “Medical retirement,” he said evenly.
“Ah.” The soft sound could have signaled anything. Acceptance. Pity. Dismissal.
Jack hated all three.
“I can still function, your highness,” he snapped.
She regarded him steadily. He wondered how much of his rage and desperation he’d given away by that one stupid remark.
“I wasn’t questioning your qualifications, Senior Chief,” she said quietly. “You are obviously able to protect me. Assuming I needed your protection, which I do not.”
“Your father thinks you do.”
“My father is a warm and sentimental man who is still grieving the loss of his only son. It is natural for him to overreact.”
“Yeah? Well, my father is a cold and calculating son of a bitch who wouldn’t waste time or manpower on a dead-end assignment. If he says you need a keeper, then you do.”
Christina recoiled. No one talked to her that way. No one. Her heart was beating way too fast. She felt threatened—by his warning, yes, but even more by his attitude. She was a Sebastiani. She did not need this hard, unshaved stranger to remind her of the world she’d left behind. She did not want him invading her sanctuary.
She met his gaze and almost shuddered at the raw energy that burned in those bitter blue eyes. She should not have to deal with this. She was woefully unequipped to deal with him.
And she could never let him know.
Years of training supported her head and stiffened her spine. “Mr. Dalton, I have made a life and a career quite separate from my family. It is highly unlikely that terrorists are traveling across nine thousand miles and ten time zones to kidnap an inconsequential member of the royal house of Montebello.”
His jaw set. Even through her agitation and the shadow of darkening beard, she noticed it was a very nicely squared jaw.
“And what if you’re wrong?” he demanded. “You’re not inconsequential to your father. What if Kamal decides to use you for leverage in this land dispute?”
“I am not without friends—or defenses. This is Montana. Strangers are noticed here.”
“Nobody noticed me. Or stopped me.”
No one would dare, she thought. He looked dangerous. Alien. His tough, lean physique was more than a match for most university types, even the outdoorsy breed attracted to field sciences in Montana.
And she had no excuse for inspecting his physique. Her cheeks grew warm.
She turned off the gas burners before the combination of their heat and her inattention set fire to the lab. “Perhaps they noticed and decided not to say anything. The other benefit to living in Montana is that people here tend to mind their own business. And if you would go back to yours, I could continue with mine.”
It was a nice line. She was proud of it. Unfortunately, he was less impressed.
He stuck his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans, the pose emphasizing his blatant masculinity. “What if I decide to make you my business? What are you going to do about it?”
“I have no idea,” she admitted frankly. “You’re too big to ignore. If you are also too rude to leave, I suppose I would call my father and tell him to have you dismissed.”
“Do all the men in your life do what you tell them to, princess?”
There were no other men in her life.
A royal princess—even an “inconsequential” one from a tiny island kingdom like Montebello—had to be careful if she wanted to keep her name and picture out of the tabloids. Christina had long ago accepted that meant no dance club dates or midnight walks or tender dawn partings that could be captured by a telephoto lens. Since coming to America, she had tentatively tried to take part in the safer aspects of university life. But her rank excluded her from the grad students’ beer-and-pizza parties, and her age made her an oddity at the faculty’s wine-and-cheese mixers.
And so she was careful, and safe, and alone.
None of which was any of his business.
She lifted her brows and said, in her mother’s most regal tone, “If they’re smart, they do.”
He nearly smiled, and the heat in her cheeks climbed several degrees. “I must not be very smart then,” he drawled. “Because I just may stick around.”
Dumb, Dalton. Very dumb.
He did not want to work for the major. Princess Cupcake had made it more than clear that she did not want him working for her.
But even as he acknowledged his mistake, Jack punched a number into the motel phone. He listened to the ring, stretching his legs over the ratty print spread on the room’s one double bed. So it was a dive. To a guy who’d stayed in huts in Colombia and tents in Kuwait, these were luxury accommodations.
A woman answered the phone. In the background, Jack could hear a baby fretting. “Hello?”
He settled back against the squeaky headboard, trying to ease his injured shoulder. “Hey, Janey,” he said.
“Jack?” Warmth suffused his sister’s voice. “Jack, how are you? Where are you? Daddy’s been trying to get in touch with you.”
“I’m in Montana. I’m looking into doing a job for him.”
“Oh, Jack.” Real worry vibrated down the line. The major’s “jobs” had hung over their childhood like storm clouds on the Texas horizon. Jack had shrugged and shouldered the job of man of the house, first accepting and later welcoming their father’s frequent absences from home. But Janey was different, he thought with affection. Janey believed in home and family, had married young and borne her adoring husband two kids already. “Is it dangerous?”
“Hell, no. He just wants me to baby-sit.” Jack wouldn’t give her details that could endanger her, and she wouldn’t ask. They had both grown up with that, too.
“Well, you’re a good baby-sitter,” his little sister said. She added, “He said to tell you he had a package for you. If you wanted it.”
And by leaving word with Janey, the old man had neatly deprived Jack of the chance to turn him down. Smart, Jack acknowledged. “Fine. Tell him to send it. I got a post office box today.” He gave her the number.
“Jack…” Janey’s voice was soft and hesitant. “Are you sure you want to take orders from the major?”
He didn’t resent her asking. She’d witnessed enough battles growing up to know the likelihood of combat. “It beats a desk-puke job, Janey. It beats doing nothing. And the lady I’m assigned to has a body worth guarding.”
“Oh, well, then…” He could almost hear her smile. She was cheered, as he knew she would be, by the thought of her big, bad brother falling for some home-and-hearth skirt. He didn’t disillusion her. “As long as you know what you’re getting into.”
“That’s me,” he said, working hard to keep the bleakness out of his voice. “Always prepared. Now that I’ve washed out of the SEALs, maybe I can become an Eagle Scout.”
The department secretary ripped a sheet off her pink message pad and slapped it onto a stack.
“Dr. Sebastiani isn’t in the lab today,” she said.
Jack knew that. The lab had been empty. He’d come to the biology office to find her.
“Does she have a class?” he asked.
“No.”
“Office hours?”
The secretary, a young woman whose short dark hair and long silver earrings emphasized her Native American features, regarded him impassively. “Not on Tuesdays.”
Okay. Jack was beginning to appreciate Christina’s reliance on her Montana neighbors. As a first line of defense, the biology secretary was remarkably hard to shift. But she was no match for a terrorist with an AK-47. Or a SEAL with a mission.
Abruptly he switched tactics, offering the young woman his hand and his best smile. “Sorry to make such a pest of myself. I’m Jack Dalton,” he said, as if the name would be familiar to her.
She blinked. Blushed. And reached cautiously across her desk to take his hand.
“I still don’t know Chris’s schedule very well,” Jack said sheepishly, giving her hand a little squeeze before releasing it. “But we had kind of a misunderstanding last night, and I was hoping I could catch her. To apologize.”
“Oh.” The young woman’s eyes brightened, as he’d hoped they would, at the prospect of a romance. But she still didn’t roll over completely. “Have you two known each other long?”
“Our families go back forever.” Jack sat on a corner of her desk, broadcasting clean-cut reassurance, glad he’d taken the time to shave that morning. “But you know how it is with these long-distance relationships. The last couple years have been tough. I mean, she’s here, and I’ve been—” he checked himself, as if recalling the need for discretion “—overseas,” he finished with another smile.
This time the secretary smiled back. “I can see how that would be difficult. I’m sorry you missed her.”
Jack shrugged. “That’s okay. Do you know when she’s expected back?”
“It’s hard to say.” The woman adjusted the silver eagle pendant around her neck, showing it and her cleavage off to their best advantage. “Dr. Lyman called in sick today, and Dr. Sebastiani agreed to take her tour down to Bald Head Creek. Those things can go on all day.”
Jack felt a lurch of unwelcome fury, of unfamiliar fear. Christina had chosen to go out in public. Unprotected. A potential kidnapping target, with nothing to defend her but a bunch of scientists and her own snooty attitude.
“Guess I’ll do my groveling later then,” he said easily, and stood. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” the secretary said. She lowered her voice confidingly. “I hope you two can work things out. She’s a really nice lady.”
Jack managed not to snarl. Nice was not a word he was tempted to apply to Princess Tall, Cool and In Control. But he didn’t have to stay and argue. He didn’t have to do anything but find her.
“Oh, we’ll work something out,” he said.
Or he would be forced to tie her up and sit on her while he figured out what to do next.
