King's Ransom (Man on a Mission 2)

She looked over to where Andre was standing with a team of structural engineers, hydrologists and geochemists he’d carefully assembled to assess the damage and ongoing situation. They were all dressed in sturdy clothing and hiking boots, including Andre. Every resident of the small village had been accounted for, but there were still questions. When—if ever—would the survivors be able to return to retrieve their personal possessions? Which houses were safe to enter, if not to occupy? Would the records in the town hall be recoverable, the official lists of births, marriages and deaths that went back hundreds of years? And could Taryna be rebuilt where it was? Or was it just too dangerous? What had caused the landslide in the first place? And was there any way to tell if the mountain was done, as Andre had so succinctly worded it?

Two more victims had died that morning—an elderly woman and her infant granddaughter, who’d both been barely clinging to life when they’d been found in the wreckage of their home—raising the death toll to ninety-nine, fully a third of them small children. Juliana had been standing next to Andre, preparing to board the helicopter, when he’d received that unwelcome news. He’d folded his lips even more sternly, but that was the only reaction he’d allowed himself. And yet...she knew it was another blow to him, the same way it was to her. It mattered.

Now as she watched him walking about the ruins of Taryna with the assessment team she realized he wouldn’t spare himself in this. He wouldn’t ask anyone to take a risk he wasn’t willing to take, wouldn’t stand back while others did the work. He was a “Come on, men!” leader, not a “Go on, men!” king. She remembered the way he’d looked last night, remembered his hands particularly. Bruised. Filthy. Nails broken off. As if she’d been there beside him yesterday in the wreckage, she knew he’d been in the thick of the search for survivors, using his hands to dig out those who were trapped when using machinery would have been just too dangerous.

And then, when everyone who could be rescued had been rescued, he’d gone directly to the chapel in the palace. Bone weary, but not ready to give up until everything that could be done had been done. He would push himself until he collapsed, because that was the kind of man he was. The man she’d fallen in love with years ago...and still loved. Not cold. Not callous. Not uncaring. She’d been wrong about that. What else had she been wrong about?

* * *

Juliana and the film crew were long finished taping. The crew had packed up their equipment in the helicopter they’d arrived in and had headed back more than an hour ago. They’d willingly offered her a ride—she recognized the frank, male appreciation in their eyes, but she knew it wouldn’t go beyond that, and that wasn’t why she’d turned the offer down. She just wanted to wait for Andre, no matter how long it took. She’d come here with him and wanted to return with him. Dance with the man who brought you, she heard her father say in her head. And despite the tragedy that had occurred here yesterday—or maybe because of it—she couldn’t help but smile a little at the quaint normalcy of her father’s advice.

It wasn’t a modern concept. But then, her father was nearly old enough to be her grandfather, so his mores were those of two generations earlier. He’d married late—he’d been almost forty-six when she was born, and since her mother had died when Juliana was four, she was his only child and the darling of his heart. He’d retired when she was twenty, barely a year after she went to Hollywood—Zakhar had been his last ambassadorial posting.

He’d been a good father, though. A good role model. Not perfect, but he’d done his best, and she loved him dearly. I should call him, she reminded herself, making a mental note. They were in constant contact via email, but that wasn’t really the same he’d told her more than once. And no texting for him—he preferred hearing her voice—he was old-fashioned that way, too.

Some of the things he’d taught her growing up were definitely outdated, like the fact that the first and last dance of the evening belonged by right to the man whose date you were—hence the advice, dance with the man who brought you. Like the fact that good girls don’t.

Her smile faded. Good girls don’t. But she hadn’t been a girl when she’d sought Andre out. She’d been a woman. A woman in love. She hadn’t thought she was doing anything wrong by showing Andre how much she loved him. And he hadn’t seemed to think anything bad of her because of it...not that night, and not the next morning. It was only later—when he’d sent her the money—that she’d writhed in humiliation at how easy she’d been. How cheaply he seemed to hold the gift she’d given him. How cheaply he seemed to value her.