Page 55 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

And it would stop her from ob­sess­ing over Gabriel.

“Esmé Del­gado, please. She’s ex­pect­ing me,” Quinn said to the man dressed in cam­ou­flage who sat at the en­trance to the shoot­ing range. “I’m Quinn Pier­son.”

He gave her an ap­prais­ing look. “You work for Mikel.” He picked up a mi­cro­phone and called Esmé to come to the front desk be­fore turn­ing back to Quinn. “Don’t wan­der off with­out Esmé. It’s busy around here to­day with the mili­tia train­ing.”

Since Quinn had been forced to park in a far cor­ner of the large lot, she didn’t ques­tion his warn­ing and sat her­self down on a bench near the desk.

Four young, at­trac­tive women strolled through the en­trance, flashed some kind of ID cards, and were waved through an arch­way by the gate­keeper.

In a cou­ple of min­utes, a short, curvy woman ap­peared, wear­ing jeans and a black T-shirt printed with “Glock, pa­per, scis­sors. I win.” Her braided brown hair fell half­way down her back. Quinn guessed she was in her midthir­ties.

“Quinn Pier­son,” the woman stated rather than asked. “I’m Esmé. Mikel told me to take good care of you.”

Quinn stood and was sur­prised to find that she was slightly taller than Esmé, some­thing that didn’t hap­pen of­ten. She held out her hand. “Good to meet you. How do you know Mikel?”

“He told me you have full se­cu­rity clear­ance, so I can tell you that I train his daugh­ter,” Esmé said in a low voice as she led Quinn into the build­ing.

Mikel was teach­ing his four­teen-year-old daugh­ter to han­dle a gun? That seemed at odds with his pro­tec­tive dad per­sona. Or maybe it fit right in with Mikel’s mind­set.

Esmé col­lected a black duf­fel bag from the at­ten­dant be­fore lead­ing Quinn far­ther into the cav­ernous build­ing. They stopped just short of a door la­beled In­door Range, through which the muf­fled sound of gun­fire em­anated. Esmé reached into the duf­fel to pull out two sets of elec­tronic ear­muffs. “I’ve got us a pri­vate lane so you can hear my in­struc­tions, but we have to run the gamut to get there.”

As soon as they had their ear­muffs on, Esmé pulled open the door and made a sharp right. Quinn fol­lowed her along the walk­way be­hind lane af­ter lane of shoot­ers. There were a sur­pris­ing num­ber of younger women, as well as a whole cadre of Cal­e­van mili­tia in cam­ou­flage.

Esmé brought her into a closed booth and pushed off her ear­muffs, let­ting them rest around her neck. “Ladies’ Day at the range,” she mut­tered.

“There are a lot of women here.” Quinn shoved her ear­muffs down too.

Esmé put her bag on a shelf and be­gan pulling out equip­ment. “That’s be­cause a com­pany of the re­serve mili­tia is train­ing here to­day, and it hap­pens to in­clude one of the two most el­i­gi­ble bach­e­lors in Cal­eva—Prince Raul.” She un­zipped a gun case. “How the hell they found out the prince was go­ing to be here when it’s sup­posed to be top se­cret is be­yond me. Mikel ought to gag—or hire—their source.”

Quinn watched Esmé check that the pis­tol was not loaded. “Who’s the other most el­i­gi­ble bach­e­lor?”

“Don Gabriel, el Duque de Bencalor. They’re both no­ble, rich, and hot.”

A lit­tle thrill ran through Quinn merely at hear­ing Gabriel’s name be­fore dis­may squelched it. Sure, she’d known he was out of her league be­cause he was a duke. But she’d never thought of him as a man wanted by hordes of women. It changed the cal­cu­lus, turn­ing him into a celebrity in­stead of a per­son.

“Don’t Raul and Gabriel have to marry no­bil­ity, though?” Quinn asked.

Esmé gave her the side-eye. “Who said any­thing about mar­riage?”

“Oh, you mean…” Quinn felt naïve, but she couldn’t pic­ture Gabriel—or Raul—hav­ing a one-night stand with a woman they’d met at a gun range. But what did she re­ally know about them?

Esmé handed her the pis­tol. “This is a Glock 19. It’s yours, cour­tesy of Mikel. I’ll show you how to load, un­load, shoot, and take care of it. You need to prac­tice all of it on your own.”

Pete had taught her to shoot with a Glock, so it felt fa­mil­iar in her hand. He’d said they were re­li­able and rel­a­tively in­ter­change­able. While he’d treated the gun as noth­ing more than a piece of use­ful equip­ment, Quinn viewed guns as dan­ger­ous ma­chines, so she han­dled the Glock gin­gerly.

“Mikel says you’ve shot be­fore,” Esmé said as she checked her own weapon, also a Glock.

“Years ago and not very of­ten.”

“You look like you’re scared of the gun.”

“I am. It can kill peo­ple.”

Esmé nod­ded ap­proval, which sur­prised Quinn. “In­clud­ing you. Which is why you should never pull your gun un­less you’re one hun­dred per­cent will­ing to use it. Don’t wave it around as a threat be­cause it could be taken away from you. Then your op­po­nent is armed, and you’re not. Okay, so here’s how to load and un­load it.”

Esmé demon­strated and made Quinn prac­tice sev­eral times. Soon the clink and slide of metal against metal be­came rou­tine and strangely sat­is­fy­ing.

“Time to shoot,” Esmé said, hand­ing Quinn a pair of safety glasses that fit over her eye­glasses. “Okay, get a nice high grip on the gun with your right hand.”

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