Love and Honor: The Coltrane Saga, Book 7 Read Free

to be part of the gala celebration.
    She paced up and down the pink marble floor of her bedroom, pausing now and then to stare out the wide windows to the balcony and the fields beyond. Surely Kit hadn’t left the ranch, but where could she be?
    With a sigh, she turned to the mirror, studying her traveling costume—dark silk blouse, blue serge jacket with a short flare above the hip, peg-top skirt, kid pumps. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and plaited in braids that crossed in back.
    She knew she looked conservative and dignified, the way people expected the wife of an emissary to look.
    For maybe the hundredth time, Jade wished she had never given in to Colt’s and Kit’s pleadings that she buy the ranch near Valencia, although she had to admit that it was one of the most beautiful regions of the Spanish countryside. With its abundance of orange, lemon, almond, and olive trees, pomegranates and palms, she found the area truly breathtaking.
    Their home dated back to the era of El Cid, the most famous of all Spanish heroes. The palatial structure was designed with an inner garden laid out in terraces paved with mosaics and bordered with cypress and myrtle trees, fragrant with the scent of jasmine and roses. The house was built to afford a sweeping view of the aquamarine Mediterranean in front, and the land gently sloping to the rear was perfect for raising horses and cattle. Colt, however, had no time for that although he did arrange his schedule in Madrid to allow him time at home to enjoy the peace and tranquility.
    It was truly a paradise, but Jade still harbored reservations about raising Kit here, amid a ruggedness that she’d never know in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Madrid embassy life. Here Kit sometimes rode with the vaqueros working on the Frazier ranch down the road, even though it was forbidden. And Jade also did not like the way Kit trailed after Doc Frazier, their veterinarian, as he made his rounds. She had nothing against him personally. He was a nice enough man, an American who had decided to make his home in Spain after inheriting land from a distant Spanish relative. Jade just felt that such a free outdoor existence was not proper for a young girl of royal blood— Romanov blood. She had pleaded with Colt to send Kit to a finishing school, but he wouldn’t agree because Kit didn’t want it. She had a way of wrapping her daddy around her little finger that infuriated Jade. It was also, she mused resentfully, because of Colt’s mother. Jade adored and respected Kitty Coltrane, but they sometimes clashed because Kitty was very vocal in her opinion that Kit should be allowed to live her own life the way she chose. More than once Jade had let her mother-in-law know that Kitty was not going to tell her how to raise her daughter. It did no good. Kitty still spoke her mind when she felt like it and always took her namesake’s side.
    Colt laughed when Jade worried, saying that his father had told him that his mother had been the same way when she was younger. Kit was the spitting image of Kitty Wright Coltrane, and that wasn’t so bad, was it? Jade would reluctantly agree, thinking all the while that things had no doubt been different when his mother was young and growing up on a small farm in North Carolina. She much preferred her daughter to be more genteel.
    Jade had not wanted to leave New York nearly fourteen years ago to move to Spain. She had loved her life there, teaching ballet and dance in her very own, successful studio, enjoying her family, her church and charity work. It was flattering and exciting to be considered one of the city’s most respected society matrons. An invitation to a party at the palatial Coltrane mansion on Riverside Drive was almost as coveted as a weekend at their elegant home in the Catskills. In turn, she and Colt had been on the preferred guest list of every social function from New York to the White House.
    All things considered however, Colt’s being asked