Page 22 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

His un­cle swore. “I didn’t think of that. Raul prefers his mo­tor­cy­cle these days.”

“All the more rea­son to take a horse if he wanted to get away un­seen.”

“Hold a minute.” The phone went quiet, and Gabriel waited, know­ing his un­cle was ask­ing some­one to check the royal sta­bles. Of course, Raul might have got­ten a friend to pick him up some­where.

But what the hell could be so im­por­tant that his cousin had needed no one to know about it?

Gabriel had an omi­nous sense that it had some­thing to do with the kid­nap­ping. Ev­ery­thing seemed to be about that one event right now.

“One of the quar­ter horses is miss­ing,” his un­cle said.

So Raul had needed a steady, sure-footed ride. “Is the gen­eral send­ing out search par­ties?” Gen­eral Ramos was re­spon­si­ble for mil­i­tary se­cu­rity around the palace and lily fields.

“Not yet. I don’t want this to blow up into a dra­matic news story if Raul just needed—what is it young peo­ple say?—some space.”

Gabriel doubted that Raul would throw his fa­ther into a frenzy of worry for some space. “I’m go­ing to take a guess at where he might be, based on the horse he chose. I’ll get Hugo to meet me with a horse at the foot of the Pico de Luto trail. No fan­fare, so the press won’t be in­ter­ested.”

“You think he went into the moun­tains for his space?” His un­cle’s voice car­ried a shade of re­lief.

“It’s pos­si­ble. I’ll keep you up­dated.”

“Vaya con Dios.” His un­cle dis­con­nected.

Gabriel got hold of the head groom and ar­ranged for his fa­vorite quar­ter horse to be trail­ered to the foot of Pico de Luto. He also or­ga­nized a car to pick up Quinn and re­turn her to her of­fice.

When he walked back in­side the restau­rant, his gaze fell on Quinn’s pro­file as she stared out at the ocean, her brown hair glow­ing al­most red in the coastal sun­shine. Dis­ap­point­ment swept through him. He had to leave her here with the se­crets of her past still un­cov­ered.

She turned at his ap­proach, her glasses flash­ing in the light. “Bad news?” she asked, one dark eye­brow raised.

“I need to work on my poker face,” he said rue­fully. “I have to leave you. A car is com­ing in about thirty min­utes to drive you wher­ever you want to go. Take your time, though. En­joy the rest of the meal. I as­sure you it will be de­li­cious.”

“I have to ask,” she said in a low voice as she stood. “Does the news have any­thing to do with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion?”

He shook his head. “A fam­ily mat­ter that re­quires my pres­ence.”

Her gaze skimmed over his face in a way that made him feel she was gaug­ing whether he told the truth or not. She gave him a wry smile. “Are you sure you aren’t just hav­ing sec­ond thoughts about me driv­ing your Spano?”

“There’s an Amer­i­can term…a rain check, I think? I will is­sue you one on the Spano.” He smiled back at her. This time, her de­flec­tion had been for his ben­e­fit. “And an­other rain check on fin­ish­ing our meal?”

She nod­ded and then shifted on her feet, look­ing awk­ward.

He smiled as he un­der­stood. He held out his hand to­ward her in an im­i­ta­tion of her Amer­i­can style of greet­ing. She took it, her palm small and warm against his. Then she grinned and dropped a per­fect lit­tle curtsy. “Thank you for lunch, Don Gabriel.”

He upped the game, lift­ing her hand to his lips and brush­ing them across her knuck­les. “The plea­sure was mine,” he said, feel­ing a surge of heat as her grin van­ished in a barely au­di­ble gasp. She felt the chem­istry be­tween them too.

She didn’t quite pull her hand out of his grasp, but she did hide it be­hind her back when he re­leased her.

Mierda! Now he wanted to see how high he could fan those flames.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said be­fore turn­ing to walk away.

Gabriel let his horse pick his way up the steep, rocky trail, re­ly­ing on the an­i­mal’s bet­ter in­stincts and sure-foot­ed­ness, even though he wanted to hurry the beast up. The creak of the sad­dle leather and the clang of horse­shoes strik­ing stones usu­ally soothed him. To­day, though, he strained to catch some sound or sig­nal from his miss­ing cousin.

Sud­denly, the horse stopped and let out a loud whinny, his belly con­tract­ing with the ef­fort. Gabriel held his breath for a long mo­ment be­fore an an­swer­ing whinny came from above and to the right. He urged his mount for­ward faster.

Fifty feet far­ther up, a path he rec­og­nized branched off from the trail, and Gabriel turned his horse onto it, plung­ing through a grove of cedars that filled his lungs with their smoky, woodsy scent. The track led to a rocky ledge perched on the side of the moun­tain, dot­ted with patches of moun­tain grass. He and Raul had of­ten stopped there in their younger days when they had packed sand­wiches and bot­tles of wa­ter in their sad­dle­bags. From their van­tage point, they could sur­vey a scenic swath of Raul’s king­dom all the way to the sea.

“I’m here,” Raul called out, his voice leaden with res­ig­na­tion.

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