Princess (American Princess #1)(38)
Author: Courtney Cole

The little boy nodded quickly, glancing wistfully at his house.

Tom stepped forward.

“Sydney, it isn’t my place to say so, but won’t the detective be looking for Stephen’s car?  Maybe I should just give you a ride on over to your parents’ place.  No one will be looking for Ol’ Red.”

He motioned to his big red truck as he spoke.  “It might be safer and I’m happy to do it for you.  It beats throwing hay bales around this afternoon.”  He grinned briefly before he started back toward his truck.  “But you’re right. We’d better move.”

Luckily Stephen was dressed and he hesitated only long enough to lock the front door before he hurried behind them to the truck.  They piled in and the heavy truck lurched forward toward Highland Park- a direction that Sydney hadn’t thought she would travel toward for a very long time.

“Are you going to tell me what is going on now?” Stephen asked.

All the while, he had one arm around tightly around Sydney’s shoulders, clutching him to her.  Sydney never wanted him to let go of her again even if she did reek to high heaven.

“You’re not going to believe it, but… here goes.  Detective Daniels’ had me kidnapped.”      She paused to let him absorb that information.  His expression froze, along with the hand that had been lightly rubbing her back.

“Come again?” he asked politely, as though he hadn’t heard her, but she knew that he had.

“Detective Daniels’ is the one who took me.  He’s crazy.  He just doesn’t act like it.”

“Oh my God,” he muttered.  “Sydney, he created a gag order forbidding anyone to tell the press that you had been taken. He said it was so they didn’t accidentally alert your dad but really, it was to protect himself.”  He slapped a hand to his forehead.  “How could I have been so stupid?”

“Stephen, seriously!  No one in their right mind would have expected him to be the bad guy here.  No one.  This is not your fault. I certainly didn’t see it coming.”

“It’s my fault that I didn’t wake up when he took you.” His voice was soft as he stared into her eyes.

She stared back incredulously.

“Stephen, I’m only going to tell you one more time… because I mean it so completely.  This is not your fault.  None of it.  The guy snatched me so fast that you couldn’t have helped me even if you had heard. It wouldn’t have been possible.  But let me tell you something else.  It was you— remembering you that gave me the strength to kick down the door and escape.”

“You kicked down a door?”  The incredulous look on his face made her smile.

“I know, hard to believe, right?  It turns out that I’m kind of self-sufficient.”

She grinned good-naturedly, all the while rubbing her dirty, bloody feet.  She wasn’t sure that she would ever be able to wear heels again, not that it mattered.

“Why, though?  What did he want with you?” Stephen stared at her, perplexed.

As Tom drove, she continued to tell Stephen everything, including the part where they had to return to the house to get Diedre.  By the time she had finished, she was shaking-both from the memory and from the feeling of immense relief that she was safe.

“And I still don’t know exactly how he came up with using me to get to his step-dad, but that’s exactly what it is about,” she concluded.  Stephen lifted her hand and kissed it, then stared at it as it visibly shook. He grasped it soothingly.

“Sydney, don’t think about it anymore.  You’re safe now.  As far as I know, he hasn’t released that video to any news channel.  Yet.  Maybe if we can get to your dad and explain everything… well, maybe he’ll know what to do.  But I just have to tell you—you are so brave that it blows my mind.  I’m so proud of you!”

She leaned into the softness of his shirt and inhaled his clean scent.  He wrapped his arms around her and she closed her eyes.  She had been so afraid that she would never see him again. With his arms around her, she felt as though she was safe from the world.  It was heaven.

She had barely closed her eyes before Stephen’s voice penetrated her bubble of serenity.

“Sydney, what are we going to tell your parents?”

Her eyes snapped open.  “The truth.  My dad’s got connections much higher than Detective Daniels’.”

Tom smoothly pulled up to the gate of her parents’ neighborhood and while the big red truck idled noisily, Sydney handed the guard on duty her identification.  He examined it, handed it back and waved them through, although he did look at her curiously.  She decided that she probably looked less than her best after not showering for two weeks.

She showed Tom where to turn and then nervously stared out the window as the luxurious homes passed her window.  Each one of them was magnificent and a year ago, she wouldn’t have thought twice about them.  They were simply a part of her world.  Now, as she passed them, she wondered fleetingly what kind of secrets the families inside of them were keeping.  Because apparently, everyone had secrets.  The world was not a simple place.

“Sydney…” Stephen’s voice trailed off before he cleared his throat and tried again.  “How do we know that we can trust your father?”

Tom pulled into her parents’ cobblestone driveway at just that moment and Sydney stared up at the massive house looming in front of them. 

“We don’t.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The look on Jillian Ross’ face was priceless when she answered the doorbell.  She looked perfect, of course, in a pair of linen trousers and silk shell blouse.  A multi-layered string of pearls adorned her neck and Sydney wondered for the hundredth time in her life if wearing pearls was a prerequisite for being a political wife. Her mother owned strings and strings of them.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

Jillian almost purred with bitter satisfaction as she stared at the bedraggled group in front of her.  Her gaze flitted up and down the length of her daughter and the corner of her lip curled.

“Sydney, would it hurt you to shower?  You might not live at home, but people still know who you are.” She wrinkled her nose in disdain.

“Mom, can we come in?  We have something extremely important to discuss with dad.  It’s absolutely critical.”