Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke

“I’m a private investigator.” He put out his hand to her. “Max Ryker.”

“Cara Rivers.” She shook his hand and was pleased that he didn’t seem to be afraid of hurting hers. He returned her strong grip. “Well, Max Ryker, your being in the right place at the wrong time just cost me two weeks’ hard work.” She dropped her hand to her side and went back to looking around the room. The closet had only a couple of changes of clothing and nothing else. “If you’re not after him for the burglary, why are you after him—not that it makes a difference to me as long as you stay out of my way,” she qualified as she pulled open the night-stand drawer. It was empty.

He skipped over the question, going to her final declaration. “Afraid I can’t do that, Cara. My client wants him brought back to Montebello for offenses committed there.”

That was some tiny country halfway around the world, she thought. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t about to turn Weber over once she had him.

She didn’t bother asking who his client was. If Ryker was on the level about being a private investigator, that information was privileged. It was also irrelevant as far as she was concerned.

“Sorry, but the sheriff of Shady Rock might have a few things to say about that. We’ll give Weber back after we’re done,” she promised again, a whimsical smile playing on her lips.

Max looked out the window to the alley where Weber had taken off. Sundown was slowly slipping over the entire region.

“Looks like no one’s getting him right now.” He could leave, but Max believed in getting to know whomever he was up against, and something told him that when he went after Weber, he’d find this woman right behind him—if not in front. “Buy you a drink?”

He had to think she was pretty stupid if he thought she didn’t see through that. Oldest trick in the book. And also one that didn’t work on her.

“And get me smashed so I can’t go after him? Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.” She led the way out of the claustrophobic room. “I don’t get drunk.”

Though it was a pointless gesture, he pulled the door closed after them. “Is that because you don’t drink, or because alcohol has no effect on you?”

He was laughing at her. She’d seen it before. A big, strong, strapping male who thought because she looked the way she did, she was a pushover. Well, they’d just see who was the pushover, wouldn’t they?

“The latter.”

Amused, Max arched a brow as he looked at her. “Oh really?”

For two cents she’d wipe that smirk off his face. “Yes, really.”

He had a man to track down. But now there was no doubt in Max’s mind that when he did go after Weber, this feisty female with the pint-size gun and gargantuan ego would be right there, getting in his way. He couldn’t afford to have that happen twice. She’d already cost him Weber tonight and the sooner he caught the man, the sooner he’d get his own answers.

The best way to proceed was to make sure she was out of commission for the necessary time. He figured that wasn’t going to prove to be a major problem.

“Suppose I buy you that drink,” he suggested, “and see.”

Now there was a challenge if she ever heard one. And one challenge begot another. She looked up at him prettily. “Only if you’ll join me.”

“Done.”

He saw nothing wrong in the bargain. He’d been known to drink more than a few with no ill effects. His time in the Montebellan army had been marked by intense training and even more intense drinking during downtime. There was no doubt in his mind that, given her size and weight, it wouldn’t take much to send the sprightly blonde sliding under the table, unconscious and out of the way.

Cara hesitated for a moment over the invitation. As much as she wanted to see his butt fried, she knew that joining this man for a drink or three, or however many it took to get him drunk enough to be out of commission would still sidetrack her and take precious time away from Weber’s ultimate capture. God knew she needed the money; she’d given her word to Bridgette that it would be there for her when she needed it.

But she had a sneaking suspicion that this stunning specimen of manhood would get in her way again. And she wasn’t entirely sure he was telling her the truth when he claimed not to be a bounty hunter. He might very well be one of those smooth-talking ones, bent on getting her out of the way so he could have sole access to the reward. Phil Stanford, the man she worked for, was not above farming out the work to more than one hunter at a time. All Stanford cared about was getting back the money he’d put up for Weber’s bail, not any possible moral violations he might have committed in getting that money and the bail jumper back.

If Ryker was working for Phil, then it was in her best interests to get him out of her way. Now.

“All right, I know this bar about a mile away. The Saint.” Her eyes washed over him as if she was taking measure. “You don’t have to be one to get in.”

There was something about her smile that got under a man’s skin, Max thought. It was both innocent and calculating at the same time, as if she had a joke she was keeping under wraps, one that he might or might not be in on. Max gestured toward the darkening parking lot. “Lead the way.”

She fully intended to. “I’ll drive.” It wasn’t an offer, it was an assumption.

Model-pretty or not, the woman needed to be taken down a notch. “We’ll both drive,” he told her. “I’ll follow you.”

She had her doubts about that, but there was nothing she could say. After all, it made perfect sense for him to want to take his car. But she didn’t want to risk losing him. Losing him meant failing to eliminate him as competition.

“See that you keep up,” she told him. She knew most men were too full of testosterone to let the challenge fall by the wayside.

Still, she kept an eye on her rearview mirror the entire trip to the bar to make sure he wouldn’t suddenly turn around and disappear on her.

Parking in front of the ramshackle building with its bright neon sign of a stick figure complete with a fallen halo, Cara quickly got out of her rented ’87 Nissan. She was standing beside the driver’s door waiting when Max pulled up. He was driving a sleek, black sports car. The vehicle looked as if it had just rolled out of the factory.

It fit him, she thought, but it was a hell of a car for a private eye, if that’s what he actually was.

“Private eye business must pay well,” she commented, running a hand along the hood as Max unfolded his long torso from the front seat and got out.

Shutting the door, he flipped a switch. The whiny noise told him the antitheft device had been activated. “Can’t complain.”

If he was on the level, Cara judged that Ryker had to do business with a very high-class clientele. “If your clients can afford to pay you fees that allow you to drive something like that around, what are you doing going after scum like Weber?”

Max carelessly shrugged his broad shoulders. “Long story.”

She raised her eyes up to his in a look calculated to make his knees just a little weaker. It annoyed her that he looked unaffected. “It’s going to be a long night,” she countered.

We’ll see, Max thought, opening the door for her. With any luck, he’d have her sleeping it off within an hour, if not less.

Stepping into the Saint was like stepping into a dimly lit, smoky cavern that had faint, piped-in music and was populated by denizens who were more comfortable frequenting the shadows of the night than moving about in the light of day. He’d seen dozen of places like this in as many towns. It was almost painfully stereotypical as far as bars went. He figured that the people who frequented it didn’t care.

The door sighed closed behind him. He saw the bartender nod in their direction. Or was that hers? Lowering his head so that his mouth was level with her ear, he asked Cara, “Come here often?”

A slight shiver danced over Cara’s neck, shimmying down her spine. She kept her eyes forward as she crossed to the bar. She’d passed through here three or four times, always on the trail of a bail jumper. The bartender liked to pass on information, for a fee.

But she wasn’t about to give Ryker any details. “Often enough.”

He couldn’t help wondering what a woman like her would be doing in a place like this. She looked like someone’s little sister, in need of protection from the kinds of people he saw lounging at small tables, sitting on bar stools, all building relationships with the nondescript glasses sitting directly before them.

But then, he reminded himself, she did have that peashooter strapped to her thigh.

Max found himself thinking about that thigh in great detail. He curtailed the mental journey.

He would have rather taken a table, but she selected a spot at the bar. “So, what’ll you have?”

“Whatever you’re having,” she replied cheerfully, making herself comfortable on the stool.

“Scotch, neat,” he told the bartender. Sitting down next to her, Max glanced at the woman he was trying to temporarily put out of commission. She looked as if she weighed somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred and ten pounds, maybe less. He figured he could easily catch her before she hit the floor. He’d rent a room for her at the nearest motel and deposit her there. Maybe she’d learn her lesson and stay out of his way.

“Make it two,” she told the bartender.