by Cara Colter
In California he had seemed like just another penniless student. Once they had rented a convertible for a day, explored the twisting coastal highway, and it had seemed so deliciously extravagant.
It hurt to realize even that had been part of the lie, the deception he had played on her. He could have bought that car and ten more like it without blinking an eye.
And yet, looking at his face now, she was so taken with the absolute integrity she saw there. Who was he really? Had she ever known? Did she want to know? What would it cost her to find out?
What would it cost her to walk away without finding out?
Somewhere, she realized it had gone beyond choice. She felt compelled to discover who this man she had once thought she loved so deeply and so completely really was. She didn’t just want to go with him, she had to go with him.
As the helicopter landed in the little glade Owen broke from the knot of men that surrounded him, and came back to her. He took her elbow and leaned close.
“Have you ever ridden in a helicopter before?” he shouted above the noise.
She shook her head. With all that was going on, and all that he was the center of, he had remembered her, thought of her protectively, even after her stern insistence she did not need his protection. She tried to guard against the warmth that caused in her, but she was not completely successful, anymore than she had been completely successful at guarding her heart from him this day.
It had been a long time since someone had looked after her.
“Keep your head down as you approach and exit it. Very important. If you forget,” he made a slicing motion across his throat, and grinned, “chop-chop.”
For a moment, he was her Owen again, not some intimidating stranger who commanded the respect and liking of a whole nation, the extreme love and loyalty of his staff.
Her Owen. Very dangerous thoughts, especially when coupled with words like love. Still, in that split second smile, she saw something. Owen wanted to be all that he had been that long ago summer: carefree, laughter-filled, adventure-loving, reckless. Free.
Destiny had deemed otherwise.
So, he had power and privilege in his world in amounts that other people, including her, only dreamed about. He had high-spirited horses and high-powered helicopters at his disposal. He lived in a palace, surrounded by unbelievable riches and luxuries. He was waited on hand and foot.
But he paid a price, some of his laughter lost, some of his irresistibly reckless spirit tamed.
Jordan noticed Owen was as comfortable getting settled on that helicopter as she was finding a seat on public transport. He put on a headset, and helped her with hers, his fingers brushing the sides of her cheeks, making her tingle with unexpected yearning.
But was there any way these two worlds could ever meet? Their worlds had met once, but he had been pretending to be just a normal everyday guy. To fit into his world, would she have to pretend to be things she was not? Worldly? Sophisticated?
She wondered if the sinking sensation in her stomach was any indication of how successful the melding of their worlds could be. She could feel her stomach heading for her feet as the huge machine lifted straight up. She closed her eyes, held tight to the armrests.
And then her fingers were gently being tugged free of the armrest. Owen’s hand closed around hers, and he looked deep into her eyes and smiled, and just like that her stomach calmed. His smile, strong, confidant, made it seem like any distance could be bridged.
“Don’t worry,” his voice crackled over the headset, reassuring in her ear, “it’s perfectly safe.”
But nothing about her world felt perfectly safe anymore. Everything felt turned on end, just as it had the last time Owen had been in her life.
“The mine is an old coal mine outside of Marlestone,” he told her, and she suspected he was not just sharing the information he had received so far, but distracting her as well. “It’s been closed since the sixties, the entrance supposedly sealed.
“The children of Penwyck have this distressing belief that the old coal mines might have diamonds in them. They seem to manage to get inside all the time.
“We get a lot of moisture on Penwyck, and engineers are speculating it may have penetrated the mine from above, slowly rotting the timbers. The kids may have been digging, or chipping at the rocks. It may not have taken much to cause the collapse.”
She felt the strangest little twinge that he was taking her into his confidence, that he wanted to tell her about it, that he was treating her as a partner and an equal—and all at the same time as taking her mind off the fact they were several hundred feet off the ground in a contraption that didn’t look like it should be able to fly.
“When did it happen?” she asked.
“About ten-thirty this morning.”
She looked at her watch. It was now just after noon.
“The kids are on the other side of the cave-in,” he said gravely. “We think there are five of them, two girls and three boys, ranging in age from eight to eleven.”
“And are they alive?” she whispered.
“The engineers can hear sounds, someone tapping, but there’s no way to know, yet, if they are all okay or what kind of shape they are in. At the moment they are very carefully assessing how to move the fallen section of the tunnel without causing more to come down. They’re also trying to insert a small microphone throughout the rubble so they can determine what kind of shape the kids are in.”
“And what will you do when we get there?”
He hesitated. “Pray to be shown what to do,” he said simply.
The answer showed a humility she had never seen in Owen, and her amazement must have shown in her face, because he quickly changed the subject.
“Now, I should read this.” He tapped a folder he was holding. “It’s a bit of information about the kids and their families. It may help me know what to say when the time comes.”
His hand still in hers, frowning slightly as he concentrated, he read.
How familiar was that scowl of fierce concentration. She remembered it from when they had studied late in her small room, she dressed in his shirt, he naked from the waist up, wonderfully self-assured about his body.
She felt a little shiver and recognized it. Desire. She always warned her girls that it was not to be trusted, except to cloud every issue.
She turned to her window and allowed herself to peek out. The view was magnificent, rugged mountains falling into the sea, the deep woods, the pastoral farms and pastures. It was beautiful, an enchanted island.
His. His island. His people. His destiny.
How could an average girl from Wintergreen, Connecticut ever fit into this picture? He acted as though he thought it would be no problem, but had he thought it through? The Owen from the past had been so impulsive, so spontaneous.
She reminded herself she had dropped into his lap. It was not as if he had made a conscious effort to find her, invite her into his life. How long before one, or both of them, woke up to the fact she did not belong here?
In minutes the helicopter passed over the city of Marlestone, went to the hilly country beyond it and began to descend. Out her window she could see the cluster of emergency vehicles, the lines of cars snaking down the road toward the mine. Then she spotted the opening to the mine in the side of a hill. Closed up, as he had said, a hole had now been torn in the rotting, flimsy boards. It looked sinister and unfriendly. Inside would be terribly dark and dank, full of spiders and things that scurried.
Jordan shuddered, and wondered what would make a child go in there. And then she thought of her own daughter. If Whitney found an opening into such a mysterious place, and if she was unsupervised for a moment, and if she believed a treasure was waiting for her, was there any question what she would do?
She’d be inside that tunnel in a flash, of course, curious, fearless.
The helicopter set down in a cordoned off area, surrounded by the flashing red and blue lights of emergency vehicles.
There was a huge crowd gathered—emergency workers, families, friends, townspeople, media.
As soon as the helicopter came to rest, Owen got up. He let go of her hand, then hesitated, picked it up and kissed it.
She understood. He was not here for her now. He was here for them.
The door was opened for him, and he stepped out, crouching, an exit he had obviously done a thousand times before. She watched, listened to the whir and click of a hundred or more cameras going off, and realized he had faced that a thousand times before, too.
She suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here, in her horrible stained kitchen whites, a dowdy girl, with rat wet hair, following the prince around. But one of the security men was holding the door for her, and she realized she had no choice.
She needn’t have worried. Once Owen disembarked no one noticed any other member of his entourage. He was the focus, and he handled the attention politely, but firmly, making his way through the assembled media, the crowds parting until he was nearly at the entrance of the mine. She just flowed along in the center of the suited men behind him.
There was a huddle of people there, set apart from all the others by the rawness of their pain.
Families of the children trapped in that mine.
Jordan could barely look at the mothers, their pain was so intense, so naked. How on earth could Owen do something in the face of such terror? In the face of such panic? In the face of such sadness?
And yet Owen did not back away from the pain, but went toward it, embraced it. Jordan saw the courage that was at the very core of him, and could not help but be awed by it.
He stopped at the first woman at the edge of that huddle of miserable humanity. Her narrow shoulders were hunched and shaking under a thin, worn jacket. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut from crying. Her husband, in green work clothes, was nearly as distraught as she, and trying so valiantly to be strong, to hold her up.
What would they think of the privileged young prince being here? Jordan would have felt like she was intruding in moments too personal to be shared with anyone.
Owen took both the woman’s hands in his, and Jordan watched amazed as the woman looked up into her prince’s face. She actually tried to curtsey, but Owen stopped her with a gesture that erased the barriers between them.
Jordan did not know what Owen said to the woman, only that she could almost see his energy transfer to her, something lighten in her face, some faint hope come to life in her eyes. She was hanging on his words, and then she was talking, and he leaned closer to her, and listened to every single word. He listened, patiently, compassionately, until she had said everything she needed to say.
One by one, he gave this indefinable gift to each member of this distraught group. Brothers and sisters, grandmothers and grandfathers, each person who was missing a family member inside that mine, got as much of his undivided attention as they needed.
What Jordan saw was that his being here meant the world to them. It meant everything to them that the man who would be their king cared about their families, grieved with them, was here to lend his support and his strength.
No one looking at the grim cast of his features would ever doubt how much he cared, his utter sincerity.
After consoling the families, Owen turned to the mouth of the tunnel. Boards had been broken away enlarging the hole the children had slipped through.
A group of exhausted-looking men, covered in dust emerged from the mine opening, and Owen went to them next, shaking hands, clapping shoulders, speaking with each man in turn.
Again, he gave off incredible energy, she could see his presence lifting these men up both emotionally and physically.
Jordan needed to be useful, now. Enough people were standing here staring at Owen, as mesmerized as she was by the power of him, by the energy of his interactions.
Not far away, she saw a pagoda being erected, a tent with a roof but no sides. She had helped Meg cater enough outdoor weddings to know that’s where she would be able to help. The tent would mean food and drink for these exhausted workers, for the distraught families.
She unexpectedly caught Owen’s eye, gestured slightly. He understood immediately and she saw him nod, detected approval in that nod and was annoyed that it meant something to her.
Another set of hands was welcomed eagerly at the makeshift canteen. Aside from being teased about being a “Yank” no one questioned her being there, or asked who she was. She blended seamlessly with the team helping to get food and hot drinks ready.
Jordan spooned coffee into one of the giant percolators, began to boil water for tea or instant coffee in the meantime. When she saw chaos developing around the supply boxes, she used her years of experience in chaotic kitchens to help get people organized into specific teams with specific jobs to do.
With an assembly line of workers making sandwiches, the coffee done, she grabbed a tray and loaded it with steaming cups and fresh sandwiches. She knew who the people were who would faint from hunger and shiver from cold before they would leave that mine shaft opening.
She moved among the families quietly, offering food and coffee. The tray emptied and she set it down to go in search of blankets. That woman in the worn coat was so cold her teeth were chattering. When Jordan came back and put a blanket over her shoulders, she was rewarded with a pat on the cheek, tired eyes meeting hers with gratitude.
To have offered small comfort was so humbling.
She was distributing the rest of the blankets to other family members who had left home too suddenly and with too little thought for their own comfort when she heard a collective gasp go up.
She looked over to the mine opening, hoping to see a successful rescue team emerging.
Instead, she saw Owen pulling overalls over his suit, shoving a hard hat over his ears, picking up a shovel.
She recognized one of the secret service men from the helicopter flight was close to her, and wondered why he wasn’t with his prince.
“Should he be doing that?” she asked the man, a nice-looking fellow, with short-cropped blond hair.
He looked at her, and obviously recognized her as well. He shook his head, resigned, looked back toward Owen. “When the prince has made up his mind to do something, there’s not much point in arguing.”
“Shouldn’t somebody be ordering him not to go down there?” she demanded.
He gave her a look that suggested Americans had such limited understanding of how other nations worked. He explained patiently, “Prince Owen is the second highest ranking man on the island now, and there’s speculation that within weeks he’ll be the highest. Who’s going to give him an order?”
“But aren’t you supposed to protect him? Isn’t it going to be dangerous down there? Geez, he’s only twenty-three years old. And take it from me, he’s capable of being really dumb.” Was that a note of hysteria creeping into her voice?
The man looked as if she had spoken blasphemy, but let’s face it, he hadn’t been there five years ago when Owen wanted to bungee jump off a cliff on the California coastline.
Still, she didn’t like the way the man was looking at her. She felt like things she didn’t want anyone to see, things she had not even admitted to herself, were naked in her face.
His expression gentled. “Look at him,” he suggested softly. “Look at the way people are reacting to what he’s doing. He’s a brave man, and they need bravery right now. God knows, Broderick isn’t giving it to them.”
She did look. A quietness had come over the crowd. They looked solemn and sad, and yet there was no missing the love and devotion in the faces of those watching their prince.
“It is what he was born to do, miss,” the man said. “I can look after some things. I have to trust God to look after the rest.”
Owen turned at the mine opening, held up the hand with the shovel in it. He disappeared into darkness to a loud cheer from the crowd.
Owen, she thought indignantly, had just discovered he had a daughter. Why was he putti
ng himself unnecessarily in harm’s way? It made her feel furious with him. He wasn’t even qualified to go down there. What did he know about collapsing mines? About picks and shovels? He was an expert on picnic lunches, for God’s sake!
The fury evaporated as quickly as it had come. The strength of her emotion for him could no longer be denied. And now, Jordan understood finally, completely, what duty meant to him.
It had taken him from her arms in California.
It was sending him down a cold and dark mine shaft.
His duty. This was the destiny he shouldered. Owen’s personal life would always come after his public one. His first allegiance was to his people, his subjects, and looking at their faces as they watched him go into that mine, she knew he had not been born to their love, but had earned it, one act of selflessness at a time.
Sighing, she took more coffee to the families. She spoke to the mothers, told them she had a child, too.
She pressed several onlookers into mobile coffee service and went back to the canteen. They were getting soup ready and sandwiches, and she pitched in, feeding exhausted rescue workers, dispensing kind words and encouragement.
She made sure a constant flow of sandwiches, hot soup in mugs, coffee went over to the family members poised at the tunnel opening.
She was aware, as the hours disappeared, of feeling grateful for this opportunity of being out of herself. Her own problems and the confusions of her life seemed to dim as she performed these simple acts of service for others. She was grateful that a twist in the path of her fate had given her the skills to make herself useful.
She got her hands on a cell phone and called the palace, spoke briefly to Whitney, and found out, with riding lessons now in progress, she’d hardly been missed. She didn’t know whether she was miffed or slightly relieved to see her daughter was more independent of her than she would have thought.
She talked to her aunt next, and even though she had absolutely no authority to do so, she promised she would try and send a helicopter. Meg wanted to send Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy for the rescue workers.