Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke. Marie Ferrarella

pulling up next to a dusty blue pickup truck.

      The food turned out to be tolerable, though nothing Cara would have wanted to repeat on a regular basis. And the waitress was talkative enough. She looked at the photograph Cara gave her in between ongoing tirades about the condition of her tired feet.

      Studying the man’s face, the orange-haired woman nodded as she refilled their coffee cups.

      “Yeah, I seen him. Not much of a tipper,” she said regretfully. She looked around at her clientele. The diner was only one-third full. Cara was the only other woman in the place. “You get used to that kind of thing around here.”

      Cara tucked away the photograph. “How long ago did he leave?”

      “From here?” The waitress considered. “About two hours ago. Looked like he was in a hurry.”

      Listening, Max took a sip of the coffee. It only got worse with time, but it was hot and black and for now that was enough. “Got a mechanic?”

      “We’ve got Luther, but he’s away on vacation.” She grinned their way. “Likes to go fishing this time of year.”

      Well, that was one strike, Cara thought. “How about a hotel?”

      The waitress shook her head. A man at the end of the counter waved to get her attention. She waved back. “Nope, don’t have one of those. But there’s a motel a few miles up the road. They should have a vacancy.” She chuckled. “Hell, they always got a vacancy.” Coffeepot in hand, she began to retreat to the counter and the customer. “Make sure they give you clean sheets.”

      “This place just keeps getting better and better,” Cara murmured to Max after the woman left.

      He thought of the time he’d bummed around Europe before coming to his senses and heading out to where his grandfather lived.

      “I’ve been in worse.”

      She looked at him and sincerely doubted it.

      Chapter 5

      She’d had a bad feeling the moment she saw the so-called motel.

      Single story, the motel had rooms that were all connected to one another, fashioning a semicircle around a courtyard that had a dry, decaying fountain in the middle surrounded by dead, brown grass and dirt.

      Calling the motel run-down would have been kind, but in addition, the rear section of the structure resembled a burnt-out shell whose insides had all been painstakingly scraped away.

      With a shake of her head, Cara had marched into the manager’s office. It was too late to go hunting for another motel somewhere down the road. For now, this was going to have to do.

      Things only became more complicated.

      When she requested separate rooms for the night, the clerk shook his head.

      Keeping one eye on a television show about aliens turning up in a small, desolate, southwestern town, he told them, “Sorry folks. We had ourselves a little fire here last month. Gutted almost half our rooms. This is all we got left.” He gestured at the rack on the wall behind him. There was only one key dangling there. “This is our busy season,” he added with pride.

      Cara looked at the clerk’s balding spot as he glanced back at the television set on his desk and tried to imagine how slow the rest of the year must be if a seven-room occupancy represented the “busy season.” A seven-room occupancy in what was now, unfortunately for her, an eight-room motel.

      Standing at her elbow, Max made no secret that the situation amused him. That, and her ill-concealed discomfort over it.

      “You could sleep in the car,” he suggested.

      It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She glared at him. “Or you could.”

      But Max shook his head. He pressed a hand to the small of his spine. “Bad back. My roughing-it days are over.”

      It was a lie, but a small one and he figured he could be forgiven. Besides, spending the night in the car was guaranteed to give him a bad back.

      Yeah, Cara would just bet they were. The man was as physically fit as any she’d ever seen. Maybe even more so. There was no doubt in her mind that when he had a willing partner, consideration for his back was the last thing on the man’s mind. He looked capable of making love twisted up like a pretzel.

      “You try anything and you’ll find out just how ‘rough’ rough can be,” she warned under her breath, then turning toward the clerk, she exhaled in frustration. “All right, we’ll take it.”

      His attention momentarily diverted from the flickering screen, the clerk turned the registration book around for her benefit.

      “Wonderful. Sign here.” He shifted slightly at the surprised look on her face. “I’ve been meaning to save up for a computer, but this kind of gives it the homey touch, don’t you think?”

      “Homey,” Cara murmured. If home was some backwater, shanty town struggling its way into the second half of the twentieth century. Cara skimmed down the column of names that appeared on the discolored pages. “Looks like you’ve got a lot of people named Smith and Jones coming through here.”

      “Yup.” He seemed utterly clueless about her inference. “Popular names,” the clerk agreed guilelessly.

      Hell, she decided, would be being stuck in a place like this for all eternity. Cara quickly signed her name, then handed the pen to Max.

      He added his on the line below.

      The clerk turned the register around after Max signed in and read their names.

      “Welcome, Ms. Rivers, Mr. Ryker. I’m sure you’ll find your stay in La Casa Del Sol a pleasant one.” The way he pronounced the motel’s name testified to the fact that English was by far his first and only language. He leaned over the counter to glance down at the floor.

      “No luggage?” His thin lips curved in a knowing smile as he straightened up again.

      “We plan to make mad, passionate love and wear each other,” Cara told him matter-of-factly. “Can we have the key, please?”

      His eyes big as saucers, he mumbled, “Sure thing.”

      Taking the key from the battered rack behind him, the clerk held it out to Cara. But as she reached for it, Max intervened, taking the key from the clerk.

      She turned on her heel and walked out of the tiny, airless office.

      “What made you say something like that to him?” Max wanted to know.

      She shrugged. “I thought he needed a little spice in his life.”

      No two ways about it, the woman definitely was not easy to read. One moment she was flippant, teasing, the next minute she was reserved, private, like a nun in training.

      “I don’t know what to make of you.”

      “Don’t worry about it. We won’t be together long enough for you to have to ‘make’ anything of me. All you need to know is that I always get my man. Always. Oh, and by the way, you take the sofa,” Cara informed him.

      “I told you,” Max reminded her innocently, “I have a bad back.”

      She shot him a look that was clearly nothing short of lethal. “Mister, you don’t know what bad is.”

      He laughed softly under his breath, leading the way to Room 6. “I’ve traveled with you for a few hours. Trust me, I know.”

      “All right.” She blew out a breath. “I’ll take the sofa.”

      But then they entered the small room that overlooked the highway and discovered that decorating hadn’t been the management’s top priority. It hadn’t even made the top five list.

      A huge bed dominated the room, its frayed leopard comforter clearly intended for the