4. Chapter 4 The Perfect First Date
JULIANA
It’s probably a bad sign that I spent ten minutes trying to pick a shirt and still ended up in the same faded green button up I like to wear rockhounding.
Not because it’s cute.
Because it's oversized and doesn't cling to my boobs, with enough length to cover my backside when I bend over. This is a practical decision, not a defensive one.
I'm not hiding in my frumpy clothes, like both DeeDee and Tessa have accused me of doing. Gabriel texted and said I needed to dress for a hike. So, that's what I've done.
"It’s just a hike," I mutter, yanking the laces too tight on my boots and having to loosen them again eyelet by eyelet. "You’ve done this a thousand times. The only difference is the company, and he’s just a guy."
A guy who looks really amazing in his bespoke suit. Because now that I know who and what he is, both a prince and a sheikh, I'm thinking that suit wasn't tailored, but made just for him.
I grimace. What am I doing?
Why am I going hiking with Gabriel? At what is usually my dinner time? He said he wanted to spend the evening together, but does that mean we're going to have dinner too?
Or should I have eaten before? Will he expect me to want to eat after our hike and we've gone our separate ways? Only, I usually eat dinner early. Like 5:30 or 6:00 at the latest. I don't want to get cranky from hunger when I'm with him, but my stomach knows my schedule.
So do my blood sugars.
Aagh! I'll just eat a protein bar before he gets here. I'll be fine.
I stand up and check myself in the mirror.
Same face. Same faint shadow on my cheek that only I seem to see. Same braid, a little neater this time because I redid it twice. Same body. Same frumpy clothes.
I touch my cheek once, lightly.
"Still you," I tell my reflection. "Still you, no matter who he is."
The confident knock at the door comes exactly at five-thirty. Of course. I should not have taken that last bite of protein bar. Chewing madly, I dump the rest of it in the garbage under my sink and rush to the door.
I wipe my mouth in case there are any crumbs before opening it and either I didn't swallow right or my heart just lodged itself in my throat.
Gabriel fills the doorway dressed in a totally different kind of sartorial elegance to earlier.
My kind. He's wearing khaki cargo shorts that fit him a lot better than mine fit me though, and he has legs.
I mean, really muscular, tanned and not overly hairy guy legs. His hiking boots are probably handmade.
I swallow the lump in my throat and force myself to remember to breathe.
He's also wearing a short-sleeved button up like me, untucked. Instead of messy, it looks elegant. His shirt isn't oversized. At all. So, the inverted V of his shoulders and torso is on mouthwatering display.
For me.
Not that he probably dressed thinking, "Hey, I want to look good for the introverted volunteer horse trainer I met earlier." But dayum. He looks good.
Eyes that remind me of sinfully rich dark chocolate move over me in a way that makes it feel like my boxy shirt isn't hiding anything.
"Juliana," he says, like the word pleases him.
"Hi." Brilliant. Very smooth. "You…um…found the place okay?"
"Yes." His gaze flicks past me, taking in my tiny entryway, and the hall beyond.
There’s a polite curiosity there, nothing invasive, but it still makes me want to slam the door and toss everything I own that screams introvert who lives alone with too many rocks.
"You ready to go, or did you want to get a jacket?" His tone implies he expects a yes answer to the latter.
A tiny, rebellious part of me wants to say no just on principle, but that would be self-defeating. Temperatures can drop fast once the sun starts going down and I don't know how long we'll be out.
I grab the cardy I usually wear tied around my waist on spring rockhounding trips and hold it up for him to see.
He doesn’t comment, just steps back so I can lock up.
When we reach his car, a man steps forward, but Gabriel waves him off with a flick of his wrist and opens the back passenger side door for me. The prince waits for me to get settled in my seat before closing it.
I didn't notice a sticker from a rental car agency on the SUV, but it does have New Mexico plates and everything about it feels…not rental. From the immaculate and luxurious interior to the driver in front.
Only, if it's not a rental, wouldn’t it have diplomatic plates? Don't all royals get diplomatic status?
So, of course, I have to ask as soon as Gabriel joins me in the backseat.
"No. My father and older brother as acknowledged heads of state have diplomatic status, but my younger brother and I do not."
The second man joins the driver in the front. Both look like they could be Secret Service detail with their dark suits and serious expressions
"But you're a sheikh too, right?" I ask Gabriel, trying not to stare at his driver and bodyguard. Where were they earlier today when I was giving him a tour of the facility? "Is that a nominal title, or the equivalent of prince in Zahriya?"
If I'd had ten minutes more when I got home, I would have done some online research on his country.
"No. My sheikhdom covers our country's beautiful mountains and part of the southern desert."
Sheikhdom? "So, you are a head of state."
"Technically, but my negotiations outside of Zahriya are limited to business. Foreign diplomacy for my country is strictly my father and brother's purview." Gabriel pulls my sweater from where I have it clutched in my lap and folds it neatly on the seat between us.
The prince is a neatnik.
But now, I don't know what to do with my hands. "I guess that explains the lack of diplomatic plates."
"Yes." He opens a cabinet that replaces the center console between the two front seats. "Would you like a drink?"
This car is definitely not a rental.
Taking a quick peek at what's inside the minifridge, I say, "Sure. A bottle of water, please."
My throat and mouth are both dry from trying to scarf down a protein bar.
After I gulp down half of the eight-ounce bottle, I ask, "This isn't a rental, is it?"
"In a way it is. I pay for the use of this SUV and any other private transportation necessary through an exclusive, security company vetted by the Diwan al-Amn."
I try to translate the name, but my Arabic isn't up to it. "What is the Diwan al-Amn?"
"The security council," he answers easily. "The King's Guard, from which my Royal Protection Unit is drawn, falls under its umbrella."
"Your Royal Protection Unit looks a lot like the Secret Service." They only need sunglasses, which I don't say because I bet they have them.
The driver winces.
"I believe that since the King's Guard began as the Haras al-Sahil, the coastal guard commissioned by the royal personage who sent his nephew to establish the port in Zahriya in the 10th century," Gabriel says with arrogant authority.
"It would naturally follow that the Secret Service looks like them. "
The tiny nod the driver gives indicates he agrees with Gabriel.
And I have to stifle my smile at the assumption that the adoption of modern fashions has anything to do with the length of time a security force has existed.
I say with as much seriousness as I can muster, "I didn't intend to offend. Clearly that is the case."
"Just so," Gabriel agrees.
"Where are we hiking?" I ask to change the subject.
I really didn't mean to offend and have no desire to wade into those murky waters again. I'll ask more about his country after I've had a chance to research it a little.
If I see him again after this evening.
"Diablo Canyon," he says, naming a place popular with rockhounds a little under thirty minutes west of Santa Fe.
My parents started hiking with me and my older sister when I was little. I don't remember the first hike I went on with them, but I remember the first time Tessa took me rock hunting with one of her friends.
I was nine and I've been a rockhound ever since. I know the best spots within an hour’s drive of Santa Fe the way I know the trails around Solace Ridge. And Diablo Canyon is one of my favorites.
Because on a lucky day, I can find quartz crystals there and in spring? After two days of rain like we had earlier this week, the probability is even stronger.
"Your expression says that pleases you." And he looks very satisfied by that fact.
"It does. I like hiking in Diablo Canyon, but I love rockhounding there." I ruefully consider the backpack with my rockhounding tools sitting on the floor of my closet. "Especially after a spring rain."
"It is good that I have decided to try rockhounding for the first time in my life and have brought the necessary tools with me," he says smugly.
"We're going rockhounding?" I ask with unhindered delight.
I don't even care if the tools he brought are the basic beginner's kit, they're tools and I get to hunt for crystals after a rainfall.
Gabriel starts asking me questions about my rockhounding: what I usually look for, how I got started, whether I prefer hiking in heat or cold.
And he listens to the answers like there might be a test later.
I find myself relaxing, the way I always do when I talk about rocks and landscapes and how the past lives in strata.
"I started with petrified wood," I tell him, fascinated by his apparent fascination. "It’s easy to find if you know what you’re looking for. Lots of beginner satisfaction. Then agates and jasper because I got a tumbler for Christmas one year and needed things to polish."
"And now?" he asks.
"Crystals." I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. "They feel like treasure. Like the earth hid them on purpose and you’re the one who convinced it to give them up."
"Crystals," he repeats. "Any kind."
"Mostly quartz," I say, then shrug. "We’re in New Mexico. It’s quartz country. I’m not picky though. Calcite, fluorite, anything that catches light in an interesting way." I pause. "I like imperfect ones. Flawed, chipped. Ones that still sparkle anyway."
The trailhead is surprisingly empty when we pull in.