JAKrentz - The Pirate, The Adventurer, & The Cowboy (26 page)

"No problem." Hank smiled genially and bent to pick up two large suitcases.

The three males started toward the Jeep with the luggage. Kate stared after them in annoyance and then hurried forward. "Not so fast, dammit."

"Honey, I've got a resortful of people trying to spend money." Jared tossed her luggage carelessly into the back of the Jeep. "I'm too busy to stand around here restating the obvious."

"What's so damned obvious? You've never bothered to tell me you love me. How was I supposed to know?"

"You wouldn't have headed for the airport this afternoon after making sure everyone except me knew where you were going unless you were damned sure I'd come after you. Okay, you've made your point. Now get into the Jeep. I've got things to do back at Crystal Cove. If you're going to be the wife of a resort owner, you're going to have to learn that sometimes the paying guests come first."

"Your wife?" She smiled brilliantly up at him.

"Yeah, my wife. Get into the Jeep, lady. Now."

"Not until I've been properly asked. You can't just order me about as if I were one of the staff, Jared Hawthorne."

He towered over her. "Ask you? Are you kidding? I'm not asking, I'm telling you you're going to marry me. You think I'd be dumb enough to ask politely and give you a chance to say no?" He took one step forward, scooped her up into his arms and tossed her into the passenger seat. "With women like you, a man has to be assertive or he'll find himself running in circles. If you don't believe me, look at me right now. Circles within circles. I'm getting dizzy."

"Ready, Dad?" David hopped into the back $eat.

"Ready."

Jared turned the key in the ignition and swung the wheel. The Jeep leaped toward the road to the combined cheers of the small crowd around the plane. Kate turned in the seat to wave goodbye to Hank, who waved back before he returned to the business of loading his passengers.

"Everything's okay now, huh, Kate?" David asked, leaning over the front seat.

She grinned and reached back to ruffle his hair. The breeze was warm with the scent of exotic flowers and the sun was so bright on the sea that it almost hurt her eyes. She felt gloriously alive and sure of herself. The pirate of her dreams had just swept her off her feet and was carrying her away to his island hideaway where he would make hot, passionate love to her just as soon as he got a spare minute. The boy in the back seat of the Jeep was going to be the son she had never had. She just knew her career would flourish because living here on
Amethyst
Island
was going to inspire her as nothing else could ever have done.

"Yes," said Kate with complete certainty. "Everything is okay."

"Wanna bet?" Jared cast a sidelong glance at Kate.

"You got a problem,
Hawthorne?" Kate smiled serenely.

"Yeah, I've got a problem. It seems to me I'm the only one who's making a public commitment around here. I've declared my love in front of a whole planeload of passengers, but I haven't heard much in the way of response from you."

"Oh," Kate said, as if it had just slipped her mind for a moment, "don't worry about it. I love you, too."

Jared laughed, his satisfaction ringing loud and clear in the crystalline island air. "Yeah, I kind of figured you did."

The telegrams arrived at ten o'clock in the morning. Margaret Lark was just switching on the kettle to make her customary morning cup of tea when her doorbell rang. She accepted the message, skimmed it hurriedly and grabbed the phone to dial Sarah Fleetwood's number.

"Did you get one, too?"

"Sure did. Can you believe it?" Sarah laughed with delight.

"No. This is incredible. What a cure for stress."

"I knew
Amethyst
Island
was the right place to send her. I just had a feeling." Sarah carefully unfolded her copy of the telegram and reread it once more.

Have found my pirate. He's got everything: dark hair, gray eyes and a real dagger. Married yesterday. Will see you soon when we return to the States for a visit. Regards, Kate.

 
^

v2.0

July 2006

"So, how do I compare to one of your heroes?"

Gideon had asked the question teasingly, but the way his hands roamed over her body left no doubt in Sarah's mind about what was to come next.

"You're stronger," Sarah murmured, kissing the tip of his nose. "Bigger." She kissed the hard line of his jaw. "Sexier." She kissed his mouth. "Much sexier…"

"Is that all?" Gideon was nuzzling her neck.

She leaned back against the couch, as if to postpone the inevitable moment of their union. "Well, the reality is much better than the fantasy version."

"And you're convinced I'm real?"

"I know the effect you have on me." She felt Gideon's hand tangle in her hair, forcing her to look straight into his eyes. Suddenly his mood had changed into one of stormy passion.

"I'm no hero," he warned, dragging Sarah on top of him.

"Yes, you are," she whispered passionately as waves of anticipation rolled through her. "You're the perfect hero…"

Prologue

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Author's Note

At the heart of every powerful romance story lies a legend. There are many romantic legends and countless modern variations on them, but they all share one thing: they are tales of brave, resourceful women who must gentle and tame the powerful, passionate men who are their true mates.

Those of us who love romance novels, readers and writers alike, understand that it is because women are willing to accept the difficult challenge of bonding with men that civilization itself continues. That, of course, explains the basic appeal of our legends.

In the Ladies and Legends trilogy, I have written three tales that are modern-day versions of three classic romantic myths. I have created
The Pirate, The Adventurer
and
The Cowboy
, all with heroes of mythic proportion, tamed by women who understand romance.

 Jayne Ann Krentz

^
»

"D
OES IT OCCUR
to you that you might have become a little obsessed with this matter of the Flowers, Sarah?"

"Kate has a point, Sarah. During the past few months, you've talked about nothing else except the Fleetwood Flowers and that man Gideon Trace. Trace may be real enough, but I'm sure the Flowers are just an old legend. There are probably thousands of tales just like it and none of them has much basis in truth. Why get excited about this one?"

Standing at the window of her bright, cheerfully cluttered apartment, Sarah Fleetwood gazed at the street ten stories below and smiled to herself. "Because this legend is mine," she said enigmatically.

"You mean, because the woman who once owned the Flowers is a distant ancestress of yours?" Margaret Lark shook her sleek head. "That's no reason to think there's any more truth in this tale than there is in any other lost treasure story."

"If you ask me," Katherine Inskip Hawthorne said with a knowing wink, "it's not the tale of the Fleetwood Flowers that has you enthralled, Sarah, it's this man, Gideon Trace, the one you've been corresponding with lately, who really interests you."

Sarah felt the familiar little glow of excitement that always accompanied the sound of Gideon's name.
Gideon Trace
. She had never met the man but already she knew a great deal about him. After four months of exchanging letters with him she was quite certain he was the real-life version of one of her own heroes, a man straight out of one of her novels of romantic suspense. Dark, enigmatic, mysterious and rather dangerous—the Beast waiting in a haunted garden for Beauty to rescue him from some curse.

Sarah knew she was no great beauty but she figured she could handle whatever curse had been put on Gideon Trace. In fact, she looked forward to the task with her usual boundless self-confidence and optimism. She glanced over her shoulder to where her two best friends sat on her shiny new, black leather Italian sofa.

"I can't explain it, Kate, but I know that the legend of the Flowers and Gideon Trace are linked. I'm going after both of them," Sarah said.

"You have no experience in treasure hunting."

"Gideon Trace will help me. I have a feeling about this particular treasure. It's mine. I'm going to find it with Trace's assistance."

Margaret raised her eyes to the ceiling. "Out of all those treasure hunters and salvage operators you contacted five months ago when you were researching
Glitter Quest
, why on earth did you fixate on Trace?"

"Something in his letters told me he was different from the others."

"Well, who am I to discourage you?" Kate said. "I wish you luck, my friend. I've had enough good fortune of my own recently. It's time you had a little, too."

Kate was dressed for travel in a flower-splashed turquoise cotton dress. She looked remarkably fit and healthy, Sarah noticed with great satisfaction. Her friend's eyes sparkled vivaciously and her tawny-brown hair gleamed. The tense, stressed-out look that had been hounding Kate had gone. There was nothing like a couple of months on a tropical island and marriage to a pirate to give a woman a shot of energy and the sheen of happiness.

"I suppose Kate has a point," Margaret said slowly. "We probably shouldn't try to talk you out of this. If a treasure hunt is what you want, go for it. Your intuition has always been extraordinary. Maybe it will lead you to the Flowers."

"Or at least to Gideon Trace," Sarah said, thinking, not for the first time, that her friend Margaret had that wonderfully elusive, subtle quality known as panache. Margaret managed to appear casually elegant just sitting there with one leg tucked under the other. She was dressed with her usual restrained flair, the collar of her pale yellow silk blouse turned up to frame her attractive face. Her black slacks had been beautifully tailored by an expensive designer and her fashionable black pumps had been made in
Italy.

"And meeting Trace is the more important goal?" Margaret asked, her gaze shadowed with faint disapproval.

"Oh, yes, definitely. There's something in his letters, something I must…" Sarah paused to glance out the window again, her eye caught by a flash of yellow on the street. As she watched, a cab pulled over to the curb and a lean, dark-haired man dressed in jeans and a casual cotton shirt got out. He was followed by a miniature version of himself. "Jared and his son are here, Kate."

"So much for their whirlwind tour of the Space Needle and the waterfront. Guess it must be time to head for the airport." Kate got up to walk over to the window. Her eyes were warm and soft as she watched Jared Hawthorne lean down to say something through the window to the driver. Then he vanished with his son into the lobby ten floors below.

"How does it feel to have found your pirate?" Sarah asked softly.

"What can I say? I'm a new woman."

Margaret laughed from the couch. "That's certainly true. I take it Sarah and I are forgiven for having shanghaied you into that trip to
Amethyst
Island
three months ago?"