by Holly Rayner
Paige was a single mother, and her house showed it. If she invited Kehlan over, there was no way she could avoid telling him about her son, and once he found out about him, she might as well not have invited him over at all—their little bubble would have been ruptured anyway.
Maybe it would be better just not to offer, she thought, and to preserve his image of her as unattached and free. To just let the afternoon and evening stand for itself. And that way she could imagine to herself, as well, what might have been, without having to face the reality that Kehlan, just like most men, would run when they found out that she had a son.
She honestly didn’t know what she was going to do as she slowly walked back to the car. But as soon as she sat down, and saw Kehlan’s inquisitive face, she knew what her choice had to be. She couldn’t live the rest of her life without at least taking the chance.
“So,” she said, “it turns out they’re out of town. And this is really the only place to stay around here. I can give you directions to that hotel in Springfield, if you like, but if you’d rather stay around here, I’d be happy to let you stay with me. It’s only a couch, but I swear it’s more comfortable than it looks.”
The next words stuck in her throat, but she knew she needed to get them out before he answered. It would only be more awkward if she added it after the fact.
“My son is on a field trip, so I’d be glad for the company. I haven’t slept in a house this empty in nine years.”
For a second, she thought she was going to be cursed to not see his facial expression as he sat in the shadows of the car. But then he leaned forward slightly, putting himself in the light of the street lamp spilling in through the sunroof. Paige’s heart was racing, thumping so hard in her chest that it seemed impossible that it wasn’t audible in the small space of the car.
But there on Kehlan’s face she saw a genuine smile.
“You have a son? You hadn’t mentioned.”
She felt herself involuntarily return his smile as relief flooded through her body.
“Yes, his name is Dylan. He’s nine.”
She had two conflicting drives: on the one hand, she wanted to tell him everything about Dylan, up to and including pulling the ultimate mom move and besieging him with all the pictures she had of Dylan on her phone. On the other hand, she was desperate to hear what he had to say about it.
With difficulty, she managed to stop at the basic information and keep her mouth shut.
“That’s wonderful,” Kehlan said, with barely a pause. “You know, I don’t have many regrets in my life, but I always wished I had found someone I wanted to settle down and have children with earlier on. I had always pictured myself with children by now.”
Another wave of relief, and Paige found herself talking again.
“Well, it has its moments. I can’t imagine how it would have been going through medical school with kids, that’s for sure. But he’s the light of my life. Before you showed up at the diner, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through these next couple of days without him.”
Was it her imagination, or was there something devilish in his grin?
“Is that so?” Kehlan asked, and Paige blushed when she realized her accidental implication that they would be spending the next few days together.
She shrugged it off, hoping that the darkness hid the red in her cheeks.
He settled back, and she lost his face again. All she could see were glints in the darkness as his hands moved to start the car back up again.
“Then I would be happy to stay and keep your mind off worrying about him, if you’re sure it’s not a bother.”
There was an implied question in there, but also an assumed answer, as the car hummed to life, and he began to back out of the driveway.
“You’ve been doing a great job of it so far,” Paige mumbled under her breath, preparing to lead this strange, attractive, charming man back to her home.
Chapter 8
Kehlan
A son! The reality of it sat up in the front of his mind as he figured out what to do with it. On the one hand, it was a complication, and for most of his life, he had done the best he could to avoid complication as much as he possibly could. He had worked hard to establish a career, and to put off all of the familial obligations he could as much as he could.
But on the other hand, maybe it was time for a little complication. Maybe a little complication would do him some good, to save him from the stark realities of the conflict he was in with his own family. What he had told Paige was absolutely the truth—he’d always loved kids, and he’d always pictured having them. He’d just never met a woman who intrigued him the way Paige did, enough to make it seem possible that they would fit into his unusual life.
His unusual life that he still hadn’t come clean to her about entirely.
Now, with her letting him into the truth about what she had been holding back all afternoon, the truth of his family’s status felt less like a necessarily avoided distraction and more like a lie of omission, and the mounting guilt of it overwhelmed everything he said and did.
It struck Kehlan as Paige showed him around her house that he had never actually been inside a home like this. He’d seen versions of them on TV shows, and he’d seen the outside of them, driving by. Growing up as he had, precious few of his friends could be termed middle-class. Even in college, any parties he attended were parties he threw, and those were few and far between. His need to prove his seriousness about his profession had always driven him to excel far beyond what was expected, and that left less time for socializing than he wished it had, looking back.
Paige’s home wasn’t that different in the basics, just more condensed. It was notable how run-down things were. In his life, all the basic amenities tended to be replaced by newer, more innovative models before they showed any real signs of wear. But here, there was only room for what needed to be here. And what was here was imperfect.
There was a ding in the side of the stove, and the refrigerator hummed a bit more loudly than Kehlan suspected it was supposed to. There was an area rug rather oddly placed, which he suspected was there to cover up some defect in the floor of the dining area, and the carpet in the living room had discernable areas where it was more worn than others.
The couch and the love seat coordinated well, be clearly hadn’t been sold as a set, and the television was small and out of date. Mail was stacked on the table by the door, along with a few spare keys, which Kehlan suspected must be to neighbor’s houses. He’d heard of that practice, and was delighted to see it might actually exist.
But, beyond anything else, the biggest difference between this house and anywhere Kehlan had ever lived was the pictures. The frames weren’t well matched, but they were coordinated. He’d never met Dylan, or even heard of him before ten minutes ago, but here he found himself standing in front of his whole young life so far, displayed up on these walls, along with the friends and the family that surrounded him. He recognized Alvin in a couple of them, although most had people with a clear family resemblance to Paige.
“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Paige said, smiling, and Kehlan realized that he was smiling, too.
“If you want to have a seat,” she went on, “I’ve got a bottle of wine. And I should have something to eat too…we never got a chance to have dinner, so hopefully you’re as hungry as I am.”
As soon as she said it, he realized that he was. Hours and hours of physical exertion after a long flight had left him ravenous. Their meal at the restaurant on the slopes had been substantial, but it also hadn’t been nearly enough under the circumstances. Kehlan wasn’t usually the kind of man to put off eating for forgetting—he had always enjoyed it too much. Another little oddity of how distracting he found Paige, he thought, as he heard her shuffling around in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets and moving things around in a clearly overcrowded fridge.
“It’s not much,” Paige said when she returned to the living room, setting down a t
ray on the coffee table after moving aside some coloring books. “But it’ll get us fed.”
Looking at the food while Paige sat down and poured the wine, he had to disagree. There were a variety of pieces of cakes, quiches, and sweet and savory pastries. They were all fairly small, but delicious-looking all the same. And they were surrounded by a huge variety of cheeses and crackers and meats.
“What is all of this?” he asked, accepting a glass of wine that he’d barely noticed her pouring. “How do you just have all of this lying around?”
Paige shrugged.
“Oh, it’s just this and that. Some of these are things that Alvin is experimenting with for the diner and he wants my opinion on, but I’m never in a state of mind to try it and tell him at the end of a shift, so I take it home and tell him later. Some of them are samples from various venders in the region that I’m considering integrating into the menu at the Coffee Cup. So, I guess I should have warned you, it’s a condition of eating all of this that you tell me what you think.”
Kehlan chuckled.
“For this, I think I can manage that. Seems like a fair deal to me.”
The general quality of the samples was much higher than Kehlan had expected. When he told Paige this, she simply answered off-handedly that she made sure to do her research before she even bothered with samples, and Kehlan was struck again by the skills she’d developed in this field without seeming to realize she was doing anything more than waitressing and chipping in a bit now and then with logistics.
As they ate, and drank, Kehlan turned the conversation towards Dylan. He had a feeling it might set Paige off on the same kind of flowing description that she had gone off on at the restaurant on the slopes and at the overlook. She wanted to talk about him, Kehlan could tell, and he was gratified when his questions unleashed exactly the tide of effusive discussion he was hoping for.
Her face lit up, and the love she had for her son shone through in the little details about him she talked about, even as she complained about the annoyances and frustrations he brought into her life, along with the love and joy. She was easy and relaxed, and Kehlan found that he loved seeing her that way. He hadn’t realized she’d been on edge for much of the day, but now that she no longer was, he saw the difference and he treasured it. She settled back into the couch, and her head rested gently against his arm that he had draped behind her.
Aside from Dylan, they also talked more about Stockton and what Paige loved about it. It seemed she never tired of talking about it, and he felt that he’d never get tired of hearing her.
“I wish I lived somewhere like this,” he said, when the samples on the tray were sparse and the wine in the bottle was gone. “Somewhere with rivers and lakes and mountains. Don’t get me wrong, the desert is beautiful in its own way. But it’s not what I want.”
By this point, Paige had so settled into him that he could feel the vibration of her voice physically in his body when she answered.
“Then why don’t you? Why go back there after medical school at all? There are plenty of places with rivers and mountains and valleys and lakes.”
The drawback of her being so close was that she must have felt the increase in his heart rate as he responded.
“I wouldn’t have. I didn’t want to. But I have…obligations.”
He loved the feel of her body moving as she chuckled.
“Believe me, I know a thing or two about obligations. But what obligations did you have? You don’t have children. You were young, with a medical license and…you know, the way you are. You could have gone anywhere.”
Was she pretending she didn’t notice that his heart was racing now? Or was she just so exhausted that she genuinely didn’t notice?
“My family comes with more obligations than most.”
“Oh?” she asked, her voice muffled as she turned to him. She must have been exhausted. “Is that a cultural thing, or…?”
She was drifting off as they spoke. He almost decided not to tell her, since he couldn’t be sure she’d even remember this fully in the morning, close as she was to sleep. But he pressed on. He needed to tell her, even if he ended up having to tell her twice. Maybe it would be easier with practice.
“Sort of. A…royal family…culture thing.”
This opened her eyes.
“Royal family? You’re the prince of Al-Derra?”
“I’m a prince of Al-Derra. My cousins are the ones who will one day rule. I’m just…the supporting role.”
Her eyes fluttered closed again.
“I spent the day with a prince,” she murmured softly.
And with that, she was gone. He was still amped up from the revelation, and wishing he hadn’t left it so late. But he didn’t dare move and risk disturbing her, not with how perfect it felt to have her sleeping body nestled into his.
Instead, he sat and listened to her gentle breathing, searching her face now and then for hints at what might be happening in her dreams, while taking his time to really look at the glorious array of pictures he’d noticed around the living room earlier. He did this until he too felt the day catching up to him, and joined her in slumber.
Chapter 9
Paige
Morning came with an unfamiliar feeling to it. Nearly every day of the last nine years had involved waking up to one of two things: either Dylan was there, jumping on her bed to wake her, or the alarm clock did the job instead, telling her it was time to get Dylan dressed and out the door, and hurtle towards the always-endless list of things she had to do.
Today, instead, she was woken by a smell that made her mouth water.
Breakfast? Was that bacon and eggs? Did she smell syrup?
She was in the wrong room. She was on the living room couch, and in front of her there was a tray of mostly-eaten food there, and an empty bottle of wine, and…
She sat up straight as it all came rushing back to her. The strange, sudden departure off into the unexpected after nearly a decade of a predictable everyday life. The handsome man and the ski trip. The sunset hike and the cozy evening wrapped in his arms on the couch. It had all just felt so good. All of it. It had felt so right, and so easy, even as each step forward had felt like venturing into the unknown. And that must be him, still in her home, making her breakfast.
She almost laughed at the thought. A doctor was here, in her home, making her breakfast. And not only that, but a wealthy, foreign, absurdly good-looking doctor, who was surprisingly down to earth and refreshingly interested in every little thing she had to say.
And there was something else about him, something bigger he’d told her. She struggled to remember. What was it that he’d said just before she’d drifted off?
“Ah, you’re awake. Good morning.”
Her eyes shot open as she remembered what his admission had been and heard his voice simultaneously.
“Would you like some breakfast?”
She nodded, standing and allowing him to lead her to the table on autopilot. She sat down hard in the chair, looking at the veritable breakfast feast laid out on plates before her.
“You’re a prince,” she blurted out, apparently taking him a little bit by surprise.
“Ah,” he replied, looking a little chagrined for reasons she couldn’t quite understand. “So, you remember.”
She nodded.
“Kind of a hard thing to forget.”
He raised his eyebrows appealingly and then lowered his voice.
“Is it a problem?”
Paige shook her head.
“No, not a problem. Just…unexpected.”
He laughed.
“Well, you’re pretty unexpected yourself.”
He winked at her, and she remembered what had led her down that whole rabbit hole into the unknown yesterday. That face. The way every gesture made everything inside her melt.
“You’ll have to forgive me; I can’t flirt properly until I’ve had my coffee.”
“Right,” he said, a winning smile stretching across
his face. “Then I’d better give you this.”
She gratefully received the cup, sipping it tentatively to check the temperature, and then deeply to help her get a handle on everything going on. And as she did, she felt the gentle tug of recognition. She looked down in front of her. She’d been wrong; it wasn’t pancakes. There were waffles in front of her, ringed by bacon and eggs cooked absolutely to perfection.
She did not own a waffle maker. She shot a glance towards her own kitchen, where there was not a dirtied pot or pan to be seen.
As if to answer her realizations in real time, Kehlan spoke.
“I have to admit, I did not make this. I wanted to have it ready for you when you woke up, and I figured what better breakfast could I give you than the best breakfast in town?”
Paige smiled.
“Alvin’s back at work already?”
Kehlan took a sip of his own coffee, then nodded.
“He is. Seems to be doing pretty well, considering. If I were his doctor, I would have insisted on him getting a day of rest. I didn’t see his chart or anything, but…”
“Knowing Alvin, his doctor probably did tell him to stay home and rest. He’s a great chef, but he’s not always great at following other people’s directions.”
“Yeah, I was starting to get that in talking to him. I have to say, though, the other waitress at the Coffee Cup isn’t nearly as pretty as you are.”
Paige nearly spit out her coffee.
“Well, Dale’s a 40-year-old man, so…”
Kehlan shrugged.
“I’m not saying you didn’t have a starting advantage.”
Paige smiled through bites of her breakfast, enjoying the warmth of her kitchen table in the morning as well as the warmth of Kehlan’s presence.
She loved mornings with her son. The rambunctiousness of his love and the flurry of life he brought to everything that he did. But sitting here with Kehlan now, eating in comfortable quiet, Paige felt herself relieved to have found something that, until that moment, she hadn’t realized was missing. There was a peaceful quality to the morning with Kehlan that she knew as soon as she got it that she had been needing for such a long time.