Page 52 of Royal Agenda

“How was Mexico?” he asked as they took their seats.

She set the dessert plate in front of her, though she suddenly didn’t feel like eating. It took her a second to dial into Mexico. It felt like a different life. “Fruitful,” she replied as she looked up from her plate and tried to engage herself in the conversation. She was here for Elizabeth, not for herself.

But she felt . . . abandoned.

Grandma Nancy glared at the back door where Ryker had disappeared. Did she see him run out too?

Maybe Grace had moved too fast by inviting him to meet her sister. After all, Elizabeth and Chad had been dating and engaged for almost a year and this was her first time seeing him in the flesh. He was taller than she thought he’d be.

“Will Ryker be joining us?” asked Grandma as she placed her linen napkin in her lap.

Grace’s ears burned with embarrassment. “No. He . . . apparently . . . had something more important to do.” And didn’t even glance my way before he left. She’d never seen someone run so fast. It was like he couldn’t wait to get away from her.

Grandma glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, obviously catching the crisp tone of Grace’s voice. She drew in a breath, not wanting to let Ryker’s rude—didn’t even say goodbye—departure ruin a happy family lunch.

They would talk about it. That’s what people did, they talked things through.

Of course, people who did that wanted the relationship to work. Perhaps he didn’t. Maybe he’d seen where this was going and decided he wanted no part of it.

Maybe he didn’t want her.

Usually, she was the one running away from a relationship. Maybe that’s why she was having a come apart. She recognized the signs.

However, she didn’t enjoy being on the other side of things.

She gulped back the lump in her throat. She was overreacting. Feeling insecure when there was no reason to doubt him or them, no proof that this was anything other than a hair emergency.

She rolled her eyes at herself. A hair emergency?

It was possible a family lunch freaked him out. Why had she dropped this on him when she knew he had family issues?

Swallowing, she lifted her chin and tuned in to Elizabeth’s explanation of the tests they’d passed on her germ bomb invention. Jumping to conclusions never helped a situation.

She’d have to wait to see what he had to say. There had to be an explanation. A good one.

Nineteen

Ryker wanted to fight against Mack and his insistent removal from The Palm’s dining room and his lunch with Grace and her family, but he knew better than to try.

Not because Mack was rather large and a Scottish-born force of nature–Braveheart had nothing on him–but because Mack would not have taken such quick action in public if the situation didn’t call for it.

Which meant Ryker was in real danger, and their hurried departure out the back door of the dining room and current skirting of the pool area was to save his life.

As a result of the danger that hunted him, everyone around him was in a kill zone and he would not stand next to Grace, holding her hand and make her a target. The very thought that his actions could do such a thing made him sick. If he were at home, he’d throw himself in the dungeon for being so careless. The months of anonymity and lack of threats had lulled him into a false sense of safety. A mistake he would not make again.

Though it almost killed him to do so, he had left in such a way that anyone watching would think she meant nothing to him.

He glanced over the pool area where grandparents played with children, and the minigolf course where preteens worked on their putting skills so they could one day join the adults on the larger golf course. He slid on his sunglasses.

“Who?” he asked Mack, wanting to know where the danger was coming from so he could watch out for it.

“Bounty hunter,” Mack spit out the job title as if it were as attractive as pooper scooper at the Animal Kingdom. “Sean’s up top.”

Ryker squelched the impulse to glance at the roof of The Palm’s main building where Sean covered their escape. Grayson and his sniper expertise would have been better–but he, Wolfe, and Knox were still on special assignment.

They made their way to the front of the building and stayed close to the dumpster and then the hedges.

“Killing someone in public will expose all of us,” Ryker cautioned even though he knew some instances were unavoidable.

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