town’s hottest topics. Even Quinn’s own sister, Jess, usually practical and definitely down-to-earth, had been struck royal-crazy. It had gotten so bad lately that he’d pretty much avoided her whenever he could, just so he wouldn’t have to listen to her jabber on about the latest news from across the pond.
And for the past few months, particularly, he couldn’t even visit the Superette in town to pick up his weekly milk and bread without seeing a magazine on the racks that mentioned Amelia in some way.
He took her hand and set it away from him, backing away to slam the truck door closed. He strode around the front and got in behind the wheel, not wanting to look at her, yet not being able to stop himself from doing so. The dome light shining on her face was more relentless than the moonlight, showing the dark circles under her eyes.
She looked ill.
He swiftly turned the key and started the engine. “I’m taking you to the hospital in Lubbock,” he said flatly.
She shifted, her hand reaching for his arm again. Her fingertips dug into his forearm with surprising strength for someone who’d nearly face-planted in the dirt. “I don’t need a hospital,” she said quickly. “Please.” Her voice broke.
“You need something.” He shrugged off her touch and steered the truck away from the house. “And you won’t find it here.”
She sucked in an audible breath again and even though he knew he was in the right, he still felt like a bastard.
“You fainted. You need a doctor.”
“No. I just... It’s just been a long trip. I haven’t eaten since, well since Heathrow, I guess.”
He wasn’t going to ask why. Wasn’t going to let himself care. She was just another faithless woman. He’d already graduated from that school and didn’t need another course. “First-class fare not up to your standards?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “I was in economy.” She plucked the collar of her shirt that was mud-colored in the truck’s light. “I was trying not to be noticed.” She turned away, looking out the side window. “For all the good that did. I managed to lose Ophelia Malone before I left London, but there were still two more photographers to take her place the second I landed.” She sighed. “I lost them in Dallas, but only because I changed my disguise and caught a bus.”
He nearly choked. “You rode a bus? From Dallas to Horseback Hollow?” It had to have taken hours. On top of the flight, she’d probably been traveling for nearly twenty-four hours. “You have no business riding around on a bus!”
She didn’t look at him, but even beneath the rough clothes that dwarfed her slender figure, he could tell she stiffened. “It’s a perfectly convenient mode of transportation,” she defended.
Sure. For people like him. He was a small-town rancher. She was the Amelia Fortune Chesterfield. And since the day she’d returned to England after her night dabbling with Quinn—after making him believe that she was going back to London only to attend to some royal duties and would quickly return to Horseback Hollow—she’d become one half of the engaged couple dubbed “Jamelia” by the media that dogged her steps.
Amelia Fortune Chesterfield was to marry James Banning in the most popular royal romance since the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Lord James Banning. A viscount, whatever the hell that was. A man who was her equal in wealth and family connections. A man who was slated for an even higher title, evidently, once Amelia was his wife. Earl something of something or other.
His sister had talked about it so many times, the facts ought to be tattooed on his brain.
His fingers strangled the steering wheel. “Wedding plans becoming so taxing that you had to run away from them?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” He turned through the overhead arch bearing the iron Rocking-U sign and pressed harder on the gas. The highway was still a fair piece away, but once he hit that, it’d be smooth sailing. He’d leave her in capable medical hands and wash his hands of her, once and for all.
Somewhere inside his head, laughter mocked the notion. He’d been doing that so-called washing for the past two months and hadn’t gotten anywhere. There had to be something wrong with him that he couldn’t just file her away as a one-night stand where she belonged and be done with it.
“Please don’t take me to Lubbock,” she said huskily. “I don’t need a doctor. I just need some sleep. And some food.” She reached across as if she were going to touch his arm again, but curled her fingers into a fist instead, resting it on the console between their seats. “Drop me on the side of the road if you must. I’m begging you. Please, Quinn.”
He ground his molars together. Would he have had more resistance if she hadn’t said his name? “I’m not gonna drop you on the side of the damn road.”
He should take her to Jeanne’s. Recently discovered family or not, the woman was Amelia’s aunt. Jeanne would take her in. Even if it was the middle of the night.
He muttered an oath and pulled a U-turn there on the empty highway.
Maybe Amelia wouldn’t mind Jeanne’s questions, asked or unasked, but Quinn would. Particularly when he had unanswered questions of his own.
He didn’t look at her. “I’ll take you back to the Rocking-U. And then you can start talking.”
* * *
His voice was so hard.
His face so expressionless.
Amelia wrapped her arms around herself and tried to quell her trembling. She was so, so tired.
She’d foolishly thought that once she got back to Horseback Hollow, once she saw Quinn in person, everything would be all right.
She could explain. And he would understand.
He would take her in his arms, and everything would be perfect and as wonderful as it had been the night of her cousin Toby’s wedding. Quinn would know that there was only him. That there had only ever been him.
It had been the single thing keeping her going throughout the dreadful ordeal of getting to Horseback Hollow.
“You can start—” Quinn’s deep voice cut through her “—with explaining why you came to the Rocking-U at all.”
“I wanted to talk,” she whispered.
He gave her a long look. Animosity rolled off him in waves, a stark contrast to the tender warmth he’d shown her just six weeks earlier. “Yet so far you haven’t said anything new.”
She wanted to wring her hands. Such a silly, naive girl to think that her presence would be enough to make up for everything she hadn’t said that she should have. For everything she hadn’t done that she should have.
“What did Banning do? Disagree over china patterns? So you run away again to the States to bring him to heel? Your last trip here was pretty effective. Ended up with a royal engagement the second you got back home. Or maybe you’re just in the mood for one more final fling before the ‘I do’s’ get said.”
“I told you weeks ago that there’s no engagement,” she reminded carefully. After a week of the frantic telephone messages
