Free Millionaire M.D. by Jennifer Greene Page B

nightmares sometimes, memories of Bosnia still moaning through his mind. This kind of crisis was exactly why he’d accepted the Texas Cattleman’s Club’s invitation to join their group. Maybe outsiders thought they were a male bastion social club, but Justin knew how committed the men were to saving innocents. Too damn often, neither the law nor any government could protect innocents. Not in any country.
    He sucked in a breath, forcing those old nightmare memories to fade. At least there’d been no small children involved in this plane flight.
    His gaze swept and reswept the plane’s interior. He saw an overturned romance paperback on the floor. A woman’s red high-heel shoe lying on its side. A black driving glove. A small carry-on had upended, revealing a spill of lingerie that looked like a bride’s trousseau—Matthew muttered something about Jamie Morris and what he’d heard about her marriage to some higher-up dignitary in Asterland’s government. Down the aisle a little farther was a snakeskin purse, also lying open, with lipsticks and combs and what all strewn down the aisle. There was a sweater here, a coat there. The acrid after-smell of burned plastic and chemicals.
    The door to the pilot’s cabin stood ajar, the cold morning sun streaming through the windows. It seemed crazy to notice the dust spinning in the sunlight, as if anything about this scene were remotely normal.
    But then a sharp, bright glint caught his attention. On the carpet, near where Lady Helena had been sitting on the flight, Justin hunkered down, frowning.
    â€œMatt. Dakota.”
    â€œWhat?” Matthew bent down, too, but Justin raised a cautious hand to prevent him from touching anything.
    Dakota pushed closer, sensing from the sudden excitement and seriousness of the other two that they’d found something important. He looked over Justin’s shoulders. “That can’t be what I think it is,” he breathed.
    The two stones were just lying in the carpet, not noticeably separable from all the other debris. A handkerchief wasn’t far. The black driving glove. Ash and messes from the fire. But the two stones were a startling contrast to everything else.
    One was a black harlequin opal.
    The other, a three-carat emerald.
    Justin exchanged glances with Dakota and Matthew. Matt’s face had bleached white. Probably his own had, too.
    None of the men could give a holy hoot about gems—but all of them recognized these two stones. The jewels were too rare and distinctive to be mistaken for anything else, even by lay people such as them.
    The whole town knew the legend of the Texas Cattleman’s Club’s three jewels. And Justin distinctly remembered the old story being retold at the last Texas Cattleman’s Club party— Riley Monroe recounting the old yarn to one of the Asterlanders. The townspeople never seemed to get tired of thejewel tale, even if they never believed it was true. It just didn’t matter. It was a great story, and specifically a story with a message about the values of leadership, justice and peace—the Club’s motto.
    Two of the stones in the old legend, of course, were a black harlequin opal and a great big green emerald.
    Just like these two.
    Amazingly like these two.
    Exactly like these two.
    Matthew wildly shook his head. “I don’t get this. Someone tried to steal our stones? But I didn’t think anyone really believed they existed—much less that anyone had a clue where we had them locked up all these years.”
    â€œNeither did I. In fact, none of this makes any sense. If there’d been a break-in at night, Riley Monroe would have immediately contacted one of us. And obviously nothing happened during the day, when people are around, or we’d have easily known about that, too.” Justin was already lurching to his feet. So was Dakota. “But the frightening thing is…if those two gems were