by Raye Morgan
“But when I opened the front door and found a policeman standing there, I knew. Right away, I knew. It was like the end of the world had come to my door. The end of my world, for sure.”
He peered at her sideways, wondering if she was finally going to tell him about her parents’ deaths.
“But consider this,” she went on. “I was in shock, and it was just luck that I was so overcome that I didn’t think to mention Cici to them. If I’d had her out at the time, or if she’d begun to cry, I would have remembered to tell them about her. They probably would have taken her away. Instead, there I was with Sam’s baby and no family left.”
There it was. He waited, poised. No family left. Maybe now she would go on and tell him about her parents. He looked at her, waiting for her to amplify. But she was staring out the window, brooding, so he coaxed her to continue.
“So that was bad luck?”
“No. No, not really. When I was able to think straight again, I realized Cici was now my responsibility. I couldn’t let some social agency take her. I had to find her father.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps if you’d told the authorities about her, they would have found her father.” “Maybe. But because of Sam’s lifestyle and the crazy things she did, I have a feeling there would have been entanglements and problems. And delays. And red tape. No, I knew from the beginning it would be better if I could find a way to take care of it myself. Besides, I needed…” Her voice faded away.
He glanced at her. “Needed what?”
“Nothing.” She cleared her throat. She’d needed to have something to do, somewhere to go, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with her parents’ deaths. “I was talking about Cici. At first, I didn’t know anything about babies. My main concern was just to get her to someone who could take care of her and give her the love she needed. And that was why I dashed over here as soon as I found someone I could go to—and that was you.”
“And here you are.”
“Look at the blind dumb luck in you turning out to be the sort of man you are.” She was looking at him with unabashed affection. “You actually cared. You gave me shelter from the storm.”
“Some shelter,” he said gruffly. “I threw you into a car and we’ve been racing across Europe ever since.”
There was a quivering thread of passion in her voice when she said, “You made all the difference.”
He looked away, steeling himself. He knew what was happening here. Her words were reaching into his heart and soul and touching his emotions like they’d never been touched before. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to fall for it.
Not that she was trying to fool him. She wasn’t. It was obvious that she was totally sincere. But Ayme’s sincerity was already messing with his mind and he knew how much he already cared about her. He couldn’t afford any more. If he let her into the secret places where his real feelings lay buried, he’d be done for.
Chapter Ten
DAVID had always known he was royal. He wasn’t Monte. Monte would probably have been king right now if they were back in Ambria where they belonged. He was glad that responsibility was his older brother’s and not his. Still, he knew if anything happened to Monte, he would be more than ready to take his place. It was the natural order of things.
Sometimes he wondered why he seemed to know this so instinctively. He hadn’t had a family to pound these things into him, like most royals would have. He didn’t have years and years of tutors teaching him about his place, years and years of servants treating him like he really was someone special. But he knew anyway. He knew it was both a special advantage and a special danger—as well as a responsibility.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” as Shakespeare wrote so long ago. He accepted that. It was part of the role as he’d always envisioned it. But that didn’t mean it was a simple thing to deal with.
And romance certainly complicated matters. For a long time he’d assumed that casual romance came with the territory. It seemed all the royals he read about in the gossip papers were naturally promiscuous. He’d given that a try himself, but he hadn’t really taken to it. Something in him seemed to be searching for that special someone who would complete his life.
Where he had gotten such a mundane, ordinary idea he wasn’t sure. Maybe it had to do with the good, solid Dutch family that had raised him with morals and values that he couldn’t seem to shake, even if he’d wanted to. Maybe it was something more basic. He wasn’t sure, he only knew it made it hard to treat love as casually as people seemed to expect.
And now there was Ayme.
Wait. Why had he thought of that? What did this woman who had appeared out of nowhere and parked herself and her baby in his apartment have to do with anything? He wasn’t falling in love with her. Of course he wasn’t because that would be nuts.
“Where are we going next?”
He smiled. Her questions didn’t even annoy him anymore. He expected them, like a parent expected the inevitable “Are we there yet?”.
“As I told you, our ultimate destination is in Italy,” he said to her.
“Are we going through Paris?” she asked hopefully.
“No. We’re sticking to the back roads.”
“Oh.” Her disappointment was obvious. “I’ve always wanted to sip a glass of wine in a Parisian café,” she said, her head tilted dreamily. “Preferably a sidewalk café. With a man playing an accordion and a woman singing torch songs in the background.”
“Edith Piaf, no doubt.”
“If possible.” She grinned at him. “Why not?”
“I don’t think she’s around anymore.”
“I know. Only in dreams.”
He looked at her. More than anything, he wanted her to be happy.
“We’ll do it,” he said softly.
She looked at him in surprise. “But we’re in a hurry.”
He nodded. “We can’t go to Paris. But don’t worry. I’ll find us a sidewalk café. Just have faith.”
“I’ve got nothing but faith in you,” she told him happily.
He took one look at her face and pulled over to the side of the road. In one smooth move, he had his arms around her and was kissing the heck out of her. She kissed him back once she was over her surprise. And when he pulled away, he touched her cheek and said, softly, “I thought you needed kissing.”
She nodded. “You were right. I did.”
He grinned and turned back to the wheel. They were back on the road in no time at all.
It was a couple of hours later when he turned onto a rutted road and told her what their next stop would be.
“We’ll find you that sidewalk café very soon,” he said. “But right now, I want you to see Ambria.”
“Ambria!” She sat up straighter. Suddenly she was terrified.
“Yes. Ambria.”
She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “How am I going to do that?”
“Under the right conditions, you can see her from the shore. I’ve done it. It’s just a few miles ahead.”
She pulled her arms in tightly around her chest and looked worried. “I’m not sure I want to see Ambria.”
He gazed at her levelly. “Why not?”
“I…I don’t know. I’m afraid it will change things.”
He looked out the window and frowned, thinking. “You may be right,” he said at last. “But I think you should see it, anyway.”
She was silent for a long time and he didn’t push her. Finally she said, “I’ll do it, as long as you stay with me.”
“Of course.” He looked at her again. “Don’t forget, you were born there. Deep down, you’re Ambrian.”
That didn’t sit well with her. “I’m an American,” she told him. “And I’m a Texan. And maybe I’m an Ambrian, too. But I don’t feel it.”
He nodded and his smile was pure affection. “That’s why I’m taking you there.”
She took in that affection like a flower took in sunshine. And in her own way, she bloomed
a little. “Okay. I’ll try to see what you want me to see. I’ll try to like it.”
“That’s all I ask.”
She gave a little hiccup of a laugh. “Just remember,” she said. “In the immortal words of the Supremes, you can’t hurry love.”
He nodded. He knew what she meant. “Even love of country.”
“Exactly.”
They stopped along the way to get a couple of cold lemonades and then to let Ayme give Cici a bottle. The baby wanted to play so the stop took longer than they had expected. It was early afternoon by the time they got to the seashore.
What Ayme saw was unimpressive. If she looked carefully, she could just make out a sort of somber lump of land hidden behind a wall of melancholy fog. The entire aspect was grim and cheerless, like a prison off shore. She looked at David, hoping he couldn’t read her disappointment in her face. But he was staring out at it, so she went back to staring, too.
As they watched, the clouds began to part above the gloomy, fog-shrouded island nation. Ayme reached out and took David’s hand but she didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she was staring straight out to sea.
They watched for a long time. Eventually, the sun broke through and shafts of silver-gold sunlight shot down, illuminating the place. The fog lifted and there it was. And suddenly, she was transfixed. She’d never seen anything so beautiful before.
“That’s Ambria?” she asked, breathless.
“That’s Ambria,” he said, satisfaction in his voice. “I haven’t been there since I was six years old but it lives in my heart every day.”
She shook her head and looked back. The vision was so brilliant, she almost had to shield her eyes.
“It’s not in my heart yet,” she said, “but it’s knocking on the door.”
David started talking in a low, vibrant voice. He talked about their Ambrian ancestors, about what it must have been like for their parents, about lives lost and dreams deferred. She listened and took in every word. She began to feel what had been lost. He spoke of how her parents had probably died there, and tears began to well in her eyes.
She wanted to tell him to stop, but somehow she couldn’t. He went on and on and she listened, and soon her tears became sobs. He took her into his arms, but he didn’t stop talking. And then he mentioned the loss of her sister, Samantha, and finally, of her adoptive parents.
She didn’t even stop to wonder how he knew about that. He knew everything, it seemed. He was her everything. She trusted him and she loved him. And finally, the dam within her let go and she could mourn.
She had a lot to mourn about. Her birth parents, Sam, her Texas parents. It hardly seemed fair that one young woman should have to bear the weight of so much suffering on her slender shoulders. And she had avoided it for a long time. But finally, it was here, and she had David beside her. She could mourn.
He held her tightly and he rocked her and whispered comfort in her ear. She clung to him. She needed him. He was all that was keeping her from being swept away by a river of grief.
And when her crying was spent and the torrent was over, she told him about the accident—about how her parents had found Sam and how Sam had jumped into the car and driven off, and how her parents had given chase. And Sam had made a hard turn that had sent her skidding the wrong way, and her father, unable to stop in time, had smashed into Sam’s car. All three dead from one stupid accident that shouldn’t have happened. And at first she’d thought she might as well have died with them. Her life was over.
Things didn’t look quite that way any longer, but still, it was a black cloud that might never leave her.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted anymore. In some ways she felt like her emotions had been tugged in too many different directions in the past few days. She couldn’t take much more. She’d had it. The only place she wanted to be right now was in a nice warm bath, with candles set around for good measure.
Back at the car, she drank the rest of the lemonade and kissed Cici and felt a bit revived, and then they were off. David was determined to find a nice sidewalk café for her, and he did just that in the next little town. It was as cute and quaint as she could have asked for and the three of them left the car and sat at a table, and David and Ayme drank wine and ate lovely biscuits. The torch songs were on the radio, but they did just fine. It was wonderful.
And then, Ayme saw the man again, riding past on a bicycle.
“Oh, David, look. The white-haired man.”
David spun around. “The man from the first place we stayed?”
“Yes. Did you see him?”
“Yes.” He stared down into his wine. “I’ve seen him before.”
“Where? When?”
It was odd how he’d never really remarked on it before, but the man had popped up along the sidelines of his life in the past. Now that she’d pointed him out, he saw that clearly. Was he a threat? How could he take it any other way?
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, rising. “We’d better go.”
“The car?”
“No. We can’t take the car. We’ll have to do something else. Come on.”
They left the table and began to walk quickly down the street. And then a van drove up beside them and two men jumped out and life became a jumbled, violent mess.
It all happened so fast. The men grabbed David. He struggled, but Ayme saw blood and knew he’d been hit with something. Her first impulse was to stand still and scream at the top of her lungs, but that wouldn’t have helped anyone. There was another man getting out of the van and she was pretty sure he would be coming for her next.
David was hurt. She knew it. She couldn’t do anything about it, but maybe she could save Cici. She turned and ran as she’d never run before, down between buildings, across railroad tracks, through a yard, over a fence, down an alley, into a field and back between buildings again.
She couldn’t breathe. She felt as though there was a stone on her chest. And still she ran, holding Cici as tightly as she dared, adrenaline rushing through her veins. If she could just find some place to hide, a hole in the wall, a little cave, a wooden box, something.
But she ran out of luck before she found it. She was never sure if it was the blow to her head or the cloth soaked with chloroform under her nose that knocked her out, but suddenly there were people at both ends of the alley she’d run down.
“End of the line, little lady,” said a burly man, just before they put the cloth over her face and something hit her just above the temple. She was out like a light.
She woke up in a hospital bed. There were voices all around but at first she couldn’t focus on what they were saying. She drifted off and when she woke again, she was a bit more alert. A man was sitting beside her bed. She turned her head to look at him. It was the white-haired man.
She gasped and looked for an escape, but he leaned over the bed with a sweet smile, shaking his head.
“I’m not one of the bad guys, Ayme,” he told her. “Believe it or not, I was the one who rescued your little group before the Granvilli thugs could cart you off to Ambria, which seemed to be their objective.”
She stared at him. Should she believe him? She scanned the room, which seemed to be a normal hospital room, not some dungeon or hideout. She began to relax.
“David is in a room down the hall. I’m sure you want to know how he is. Well, he’s doing fairly well, though his injuries are much more extensive than yours. You have a lump on your head and will probably have a headache for a while, but the doctor says you’re doing fine.”
“Cici?” she asked, as she reached up to touch the lump he was referring to.
“Not hurt at all. They have her in a crib in the children’s ward, but that’s only because they don’t know what else to do with her right now.”
She narrowed her eyes, looking at him. He seemed nice. But then he always had. Could she trust him?
“Who are you?”
He smiled again. “My name doesn’t matter. I’m allied with t
he Ambrian restoration team. We want to restore the royal family to its rightful place on the throne of our country.”
“Then, why were you following David everywhere?”
He leaned closer and spoke as though in private. “The truth is, I’ve been following David for years, trying to make sure nothing threatened him until he was ready.”
“Ready?” She was getting confused again. “Ready for what?”
He smiled. “I see David needs to explain a few things to you. But I’ll let him do that.” He rose from his chair. “And now that you’re awake, I’ll go back to David, if you don’t mind. Have the nurse contact me if you need anything, my dear.” He nodded his head in her direction and left the room.
She stared after him, still not sure what was going on. When the team of men had driven up in the van and they’d been attacked, she’d thought it was exactly what David had been guarding against all this time. At least, from what he’d told her, that was what she assumed.
But the white-haired man had been a part of that threat—hadn’t he? Now it seemed David had been wrong about that. But she really didn’t understand. How had she let herself get involved, anyway?
She had to get out of here and she had to get Cici out. Rolling out of the bed, she clutched the hospital gown around herself and made her way to the door. She was dizzy, but it wasn’t bad enough to stop her. She had to know how David and Cici really were, not just what someone she didn’t really trust was telling her.
Up and down the hallway all seemed clear and she started toward the room across the hall. In the third room she checked, there was David. He had a big bandage on his head and appeared to be regaining consciousness. The white-haired man was there. But the strange thing was, he was bowed over from the waist and seemed to be kissing David’s hand.
“Your Highness,” he was saying. “I’m at your service, always.”
She pulled back so that she couldn’t be seen and tried to catch her breath.
Your highness? Your highness?
But hadn’t she suspected this? Hadn’t she known it all along? It all fell together. The pieces just fell into place. David was royal. Of course.