AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They were standing next to the table. Curt eased closer. Aliya’s pulse quickened in her neck as she looked up at him with her golden-brown eyes. Her eyelashes fluttered across her cheek. She was beautiful. He was going to tease her and see if a kiss was out of line.
“First of all, that is four questions, not one.”
She laughed, but it was unsteady.
He eased in until his body brushed against hers. “Second of all, maybe I haven’t had the best kiss of my life yet.”
Her eyes got bigger, and she licked those appetizing lips of hers. “All seven of those women you’ve kissed were pathetic? Ah, that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” Her voice was breathless and she was talking much too fast. He loved that he affected her as deeply as she did him.
“The women I kissed were fabulous,” he said and had to smile when her eyes flashed disappointment. He reached up and cupped her smooth jaw line with his palm. The disappointment fled and was replaced with a longing he felt clear through. “But no woman and no kiss could compare to a sassy Southern beauty whose lips are so tantalizing I can only imagine kissing her will far surpass any kiss I’ve ever experienced.”
“Curt,” she whispered breathlessly, and then she arched up toward him.
Curt bent down, praying he wasn’t taking advantage of the situation, but he couldn’t resist her any longer.
The door beeped and then was flung open.
Curt released Aliya and sprang in front of her, holding her behind him. He instantly relaxed when his second-oldest brother stormed in. “Ray.”
Ray shut the door behind him and dead-bolted it. He raised a hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Aliya”, but his face was stony and his fists clenched. Something was wrong. Ray hurried to the closest window and slammed the glass shut, pulling the shade down, muttering about the fact that Curt didn’t have wood shutters on his windows. He followed suit with the next window and the next, and Curt wondered if the glass would break.
Curt released his hold on Aliya and stepped next to her, knowing Ray would explain his intensity soon. He should be concerned about whatever had brought the General to his cabin and slamming all the windows shut and covering them. He should probably help Ray close the numerous windows, but he was regretting the interruption to the best kiss of his life and feeling claustrophobic already.
Ray finished closing the last window and muttered something about installing wood shutters with locks and air conditioning and then turned to face them. The General was usually intense and took the kingdom’s safety on his own shoulders, but he looked even more serious than usual.
“I thought Macey was helping you relax,” Curt tried to tease.
Ray arched an eyebrow and almost smiled, but his fist was clenched. “Can you keep the windows closed and the shades down for me?”
“And be stuck inside with no fresh air, no sunshine, and no view of my mountains? What did we do to deserve this extreme torture?”
Aliya cast him an amused and grateful smile.
Ray pushed out a heavy breath, thumping his closed fist on his leg. “When the sun is down, can you please close, lock, and cover the windows? When you open the windows for the day, will you please inform my men which windows you open so they can monitor them closely? Also, can you please wear your pistol and keep a rifle accessible at all times?”
Serious General Raymond August was in the cabin. Something was horribly wrong.
The light-hearted day Curt had experienced with Aliya was about to have a crushing end. Dang. Sometimes Curt out-hiked the ache, loneliness, and disappointment in himself, but he hadn’t had a day this fun and carefree in a long while.
“That sounds reasonable as a raven,” Aliya said.
Ray glanced at her, and then he gave her a quarter of a smile. “Thank you, Aliya. I apologize for barging in here and for not coming to meet you before now. You see, I feel strongly the pressure to protect … everyone. Macey has been helping me delegate and let things go. The ‘reasonable as a raven’ man next to you takes a huge load off of my shoulders, monitoring and overseeing the trails that lead to Augustine from Austria. With him here protecting you and many of my men scouring the mountainside trying to find the two men and the woman we believe accompanied you, I’ve been a little overwhelmed.”
“No need to apologize,” Aliya said. “You’re a saint to give up your best man to protect me and to do so much to find Gracie and apprehend those pig-faced scums that might have hurt her. I apologize for bringing more stress than a bank foreclosure on you and your royal kingdom.”
Ray looked at Curt and they both chuckled. “A bank foreclosure,” Ray muttered. He shook his head and gestured to the couches. “Would you like to sit? I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Aliya edged closer to Curt, and he instinctively wrapped his arm around her.
Ray’s eyebrows rose. Curt wanted to promise his brother he hadn’t been taking liberties hosting this beautiful woman in his home. In fact, he’d been trying not to touch her—up until the almost-kiss that Ray had interrupted. Had his brother overheard his sappy words to her? Curt didn’t like to disappoint his older brothers, especially Ray, but he didn’t care right now. With Aliya pressed close, everything felt ‘right as rain,’ as she would say.
“I’d prefer to stand,” Aliya said in her adorable accent. “We’ve been tryin’ to break up the day with lots of movement, but my rear is sore from all the sittin’ and I’m a fighting gal. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’. I take bad news better on my feet.”
Curt was so taken and impressed with this no-quit woman. He could listen to her talk all day. He could sit inside a closed-up house all day if she was with him. He could … stop letting his desires for Aliya run away with him when Ray had news.
“All right.” Ray spread his feet wider and clenched his fist, his jaw as tight as the thick muscles in his arms. If he wasn’t Curt’s brother and he didn’t know how loyal and kind he was, General Raymond August would probably come across as intimidating.
“First of all, Jensen has been researching like mad and he finally found what we’re afraid is the right match. An open case with Interpol. The man assigned to the case has been working with mostly the Austrian government, but Germany, Switzerland, and Italy have been involved as well. Jensen and I are both … perturbed—” he looked like he wanted to say something stronger—“we weren’t contacted earlier. Interpol claims they thought these jokers bypassed Augustine using trails through the mountains south of us, but now we know they’ve used our mountains many times, possibly every time they’ve …” He broke off and shook his head, glancing at Aliya as if worried about whether she could handle his news.
