by Raye Morgan
“She is indeed,” he said brightly, looking warmly at his child. “Good morning, Mei. Can you give me a smile today?”
Evidently not. His daughter shrank back, hiding her face in Kelly’s hair and wrapping her chubby arms tightly around her neck.
Kelly sent Joe an anxious glance, wishing she knew what to do to make this better. His smile hadn’t faded, though his eyes showed some strain. She approved of the effort he was making. He met her gaze and nodded cheerfully.
“New attitude,” he told her.
“Oh. Good.” She managed to smile back. “I guess.”
“I’m going to take your advice and learn to roll with the punches.”
“Did I advise that?” she murmured, gratified that he was at least thinking about what she’d said.
He moved into position so that Mei couldn’t avoid looking at him.
“Tell me,” he asked her, “what does a little girl your age like to eat?”
Mei scrunched up her face as though she’d just tasted spinach for the first time.
Kelly sighed, but decided to try ignoring the baby’s reactions for awhile and hope they faded on their own. Chastising her would do no good. She was a little young for a heart-to-heart talk, so that pretty much left patience. Kelly just hoped she didn’t run out of it.
“I know when my niece was this age, she was all about finger food. She loved cut up bananas and avocados, and for awhile she seemed to live on cheese cut up into little squares.”
He nodded. “I’ll have to make a store run. I’d pretty much counted on the nanny to be the expert in this sort of thing.”
“We can wing it for now,” Kelly assured him. “And for the moment, I’ll bet she would like one of those yogurts I saw in the refrigerator.”
“You think so?” He pulled one out and held it up. “How about it, Mei? Ready for some yummy yogurt?”
Her gaze was tracking the yogurt cup as though she hadn’t eaten in days, but when he moved close with it, she hid her face again.
“I guess you’ll have to give it to her,” he said drily. “She’s pretty sure I’m the serpent with the apple at this point.”
Mei went into the high chair willingly enough after Kelly let her toddle around on her little chubby legs for a few minutes, but she kept her eye on Joe, reacting when he came too close.
“Don’t worry,” Kelly told him, smiling as they sat down at the table and she began to feed Mei from her yogurt cup with a plastic spoon shaped like a dolphin. “She’ll come around.”
He smiled back, but it wasn’t easy. They talked inconsequentially for a few moments. Mei ate her yogurt lustily, then played with some cheese Kelly cut up for her. Joe offered Mei a bite of cinnamon roll, but she shook her head and looked at him suspiciously.
“You’ve gotten over those doubts you had last night, haven’t you?” Kelly asked at one point, needing reassurance.
“Sure,” he said, dismissing it with a shrug. “Funny how the middle of the night makes everything look so impossible.” He gave her a sideways smile. “And yet makes doing things like snuggling in a sweatshirt suddenly seem utterly rational.”
“You dreamer,” she murmured, holding back her smile and giving Mei her last bite of yogurt. Then Kelly looked at him sharply. “But you aren’t still thinking of…” She couldn’t finish that sentence without saying things she didn’t want to say in front of the child.
He shrugged again. “I know what I have to do. I think I understand my responsibilities.”
She frowned. She would have been happier if he’d sounded more enthusiastic, but she had to admit she understood. In the face of so much rejection, it was pretty hard to get very excited. She wanted to tell him not to worry, that surely things would get better soon. There was no way he could stand a lifetime like this—no one could. But he wouldn’t have to.
And you know this…how? her inner voice mocked her.
Kelly wasn’t sure about that, but knew it had to be true.
“Are you going to be calling an agency to find a new nanny?” It was sad to think of someone else coming in and taking over, but it had to be done. She couldn’t stay forever.
“I already have.”
“Already? You’re fast.”
“Well, I called and left a message on a machine. They weren’t open yet. But I have no doubt we’ll get someone out here by this afternoon at the latest.”
“Well, there’s no hurry,” Kelly told him. “I’ll stay until you get someone else.”
His eyes darkened and he gazed at her for a moment as though trying to figure out what made her tick.
“Don’t you have someplace you need to be?” he asked at last.
“Not at all. My week is wide open.”
He looked as though he didn’t get her at all. “So you really did come here to California just to find me?”
She nodded.
He shook his head as though she must be crazy. She braced herself for questions, but he didn’t seem to want to deal with it yet. Rising from his place, he took his plate to the sink.
Watching him in profile, she was struck once again by how much he looked like a member of the royal family of Ambria. She was going to have to bring that up again soon. But in the meantime, there was another issue to deal with.
“Joe, tell me something,” she said as he put the orange juice in the refrigerator. “This designer person who brought up Ambria…”
He turned to face her, then sank back into his chair at the table. “Sonja Smith? What about her?”
Kelly wasn’t sure how to go about this delicately, so she just jumped in. “What exactly did she say to you?”
He thought for a second. “She didn’t say anything much. She said that Dory at the Baby Boutique had told her she thought I might be from Ambria. That’s all.”
“Why did the Baby Boutique person think you were Ambrian?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I went in a week ago and talked to her about needing some advice on stocking a baby’s room, and she told me about Sonja and had her call me.” He grimaced. “I don’t know where she got the idea for the Ambrian connection. I never said anything to Dory about that. I’m sure Ambria never came up. In fact, the existence of Ambria hadn’t entered my mind in…oh, I’d say a year or two. As far as countries go, it’s not high on my list.” He shrugged. “The point is, Ambria isn’t a favorite of mine. And I have no idea why anyone would think I was interested.”
“Hmm.” Kelly gazed at him thoughtfully.
“Sonja came over, did a great job, and that was it. End of story.”
“That’s all?”
He made a face. “Well, not really. She wasn’t just a designer decorator. Turns out she also tries to rustle up customers for tours she arranges. She works at a travel agency and was putting together a tour to Europe, including Ambria, in the summer. She said if I was interested I should give her a call. She thought I’d enjoy it.”
Kelly didn’t know what to think about that. It seemed a bit strange. Of course, there could be any number of reasons someone of Ambrian heritage might find his face appealing—and familiar, just as she had. It might be completely innocent, just a businesswoman trying to drum up sales for her tour.
On the other hand, it might be someone allied with the usurper Ambrian regime, the Granvillis. And from everything she’d learned lately, if the Granvillis were after you, you were in big trouble. Joe was taking all this lightly, but she was afraid he didn’t know the background the way she did. If he had, he might have been more on guard.
That meant she’d better tell him soon. It was only fair to warn him. The fact that she knew he would scoff at her warnings didn’t encourage her, but she knew it had
to be done. And that somehow she was going to have to convince him.
“Well? Are you interested in the tour?”
He gave her an amused look, then rose to take the rest of the plates to the sink. “No. I’ve never had a yen to travel to a place like that. In fact, I’ve
done enough foreign travel for awhile. I think I’ll stay put.”
She nodded. “Are you going to see her again?”
“Maybe. She might come by to meet Mei. I suggested it. I thought she might like to see what the child she did all this for looked like in the midst of it.” He frowned, turning to face Kelly. “Listen, what’s with the third degree? Does this somehow impinge upon your royal dreams?”
She shook her head. He was teasing her, but she wasn’t in a teasing mood. Until she found out what this designer person was up to, she was going to be very uneasy. “Not a bit,” she claimed cheerfully. Glancing up, she saw that he was looking at Mei, his face set and unhappy. It broke her heart, and she immediately had the urge to do something about it.
Rising and moving to stand close to him at the sink, she leaned in so she could speak softly and not be overheard by Mei. She’d been thinking about different schemes for getting the child to accept Joe. She could hardly stand to see the obvious pain in his face when his little girl rejected him.
“Here’s a thought,” Kelly said, very near his ear. “Why don’t you just go over and sit by Mei and talk. Don’t even talk to her at first, just near her. You could talk about your past with her mother. Maybe tell her how
you met. Or anything else you can think of. Her name was Angie, right?”
He turned on her as though she’d suggested he sing an aria from La Bohème. “What? Why would I do any of that?”
Kelly blinked up at him, surprised at his vehemence. “Okay, if you don’t want to do it directly, why don’t you tell me about Angie in front of Mei. About where you met her, what your wedding was like, things like that.”
His complete rejection of her idea was written all over his face. In fact, he was very close to anger.
“Why would I be telling you about Angie? Who are you?”
Kelly stared at him, her first impulse being to take offense at what he’d said. But she stopped herself. This was an agonizing situation. That was why she was trying to fix things. Didn’t he see that? But maybe not. Maybe she was intruding and she ought to back off. Still…
She sighed, wishing she knew how to defuse the emotion he was feeling.
“I’m your friend, Joe. I care.” Shaking her head, she looked into his eyes. “And I’d like to hear about it.” She put a hand on his forearm, trying to calm him. “Just talk about it. I don’t have to be there at all. Let her hear you.”
The look on his face was stubborn and not at all friendly. “She’s too young to understand what the heck I’d be talking about.”
“That doesn’t matter. And you never know how much children absorb.”
He backed away, not accepting her touch. “No, Kelly. It’s just not a good idea.”
She searched his eyes. Anger was simmering in him just below the surface. She really wasn’t sure why this should make him angry. He’d loved Angie. Angie was Mei’s mother. What could be more natural than to tell her what her mother was like?
“It’s your call, of course, but it just seems to me that talking about her mother, talking with open affection, would help draw her in, help make her feel like this is part of a continuum and not such a strange place, after all.”
He shook his head, eyes stormy. “I think you’re nuts.”
“But Joe…”
“I’m not going to…to talk about…Angie,” he said, his voice rough. “I can’t.”
Kelly’s heart twisted and she licked her dry lips. He couldn’t? She felt a surge of compassion, but still, that didn’t seem right. He was the sort of man who could do anything. Was there more here than she knew? Obviously.
But there was also more at stake. Mei came first.
Still, Kelly couldn’t ignore his outrage. What was she doing here? The last thing she wanted to do was torture him more. And yet she couldn’t help feeling that he was going at this all wrong. Avoiding pain was often the best way to bring it on at the worst possible time. Her instinct was to try to nudge him out of the self-indulgence of his grief.
Wow, had she really thought that? Pretty tough stuff. And yet she stood by it. After all, his comfort wasn’t what was important anymore. He had a child to think of. He had to do what was best for Mei.
“Okay.” Kelly turned back toward the high chair. “As I said, it’s your call. If you can’t get beyond the pain, there’s no point, I guess.”
He didn’t answer and he didn’t meet her gaze. She spent the next few minutes cleaning up Mei’s tray and taking her out of the chair, talking softly to her all the time. He stood with his back against the counter, arms folded, looking out through the French doors toward the sliver of ocean visible in the distance. As she walked out, holding Mei’s hand while she toddled alongside her, he didn’t say a word.
He knew he’d hurt Kelly by his abrupt response, but it couldn’t be helped. He felt angry, though not at her. He was pretty damn bitter at life in general. Self-pity wasn’t his usual mode, but sometimes the enormity of it all came down on him and he couldn’t shake it until it had worked its way through his system. This was one of those times.
Of course, Kelly had no way of knowing that every time he looked at Mei, he saw Angie. And right now, every time he saw Angie in his mind, he saw her dying right in front of him. He knew he had to get over it. He had to wipe the pain and shock and ugliness from his soul so that he could deal with this bright, new, wonderful child.
Kelly thought Mei’s obvious rejection of him hurt. And of course, it wasn’t fun to be rebuffed by a sweet little child like that. But he didn’t blame Mei at all. She sensed his ambivalence, the way he felt torn and twisted inside, the way he almost winced every time he looked at her, and she reacted to it, as any sensitive, intelligent child would. It was going to take time for both of them.
Meanwhile he had Kelly’s strange little project of convincing him that he was a prince of a funny little country he couldn’t care less about to deal with. The whole thing could have been genuinely annoying if she weren’t such a sweetheart. He had to admit, she wasn’t exactly hard to look at, either. In fact, he was learning to like her quite a lot.
Moving restlessly, he gave himself a quick lecture on his attitude, ending with a resolution to be nicer to Kelly. Funny thing was, he knew right away it wouldn’t be hard at all.
Kelly played with the little girl in her room for the next hour, helping her try out all the toys, and reading to her from a couple of the soft, padded books. Every few minutes, Mei would get up and run around the room, whooping to her own little tune, as though she had untapped energy that needed using up. She was bright, quick and interested in everything. So far she wasn’t saying much, but Kelly had a feeling once the floodgates opened, words would come pouring out, even if they weren’t understandable to anyone but the child herself.
Kelly spent some time reorganizing the shelves and finding interesting things packed away there, including some pictures and souvenirs that told a story better than Joe had been doing so far.
When Mei fell asleep over her book, Kelly wasn’t surprised. She was still very tired from her long trip the day before. Kelly tucked her into bed, picked up a couple of items and went back out.
Joe was taking care of some bills on the Internet, and she waited until he logged off.
“What’s up?” he asked, and she was pleased to see his eyes had lost the sheen of vague hostility they’d had when she’d seen him last.
“Mei fell asleep, but she won’t be out long. I thought this would be a good time to plan a walk down to the beach.”
“Do you think she’s ready for that?”
“Sure. I think it would be really exciting for her.” She gave him a smile. “Just think of your first time seeing the ocean.”
“Kelly, she just came in on a plane over the Pacific,” he reminded her.
“But that’s not the same as up close and personal.”
“No. You’re right.” He frowned, looking at her. “Will you be able to carry her? You know she still won’t let
me do it.”
“Why would I carry her,” she asked with an impish look, “when you’ve got that huge baby stroller?” She’d seen it standing in the hallway. “It would be a crime to let it go to waste. Like having a Porsche and letting it sit in the driveway.”
“Oh.” He grinned at the analogy. “That’s right. I forgot all about it.” His blue eyes softened as he looked at her, his gaze traveling over her face and taking in the whole of her. “Did anybody ever tell you that you brighten a room just by being in it?” he asked softly.
“No,” she said, but felt a certain glow at that.
He shook his head, obviously liking what he saw. “I wonder why not.”
She liked this man. How could she not? But liking him too much would be fraught with all sorts of dangers, she knew. She had to be very careful to keep things light and impersonal as much as possible.
“Probably because the whole concept is pure fantasy on your part,” she said, trying to stick to her intentions with a little good-natured teasing.
But for once, he wasn’t really cooperating. Instead of joining in the mockery, his look became more intense.
“No, it’s not.” Reaching out, he touched her curly hair, and his smile was wistful for a moment. “Tell me why you came looking for me, Kelly. Why you spent so much time watching me. I still don’t understand it.”
She looked up into his eyes. How could she explain? Did he really want to hear about her work at the Ambrian News Agency, about how her parents had raised her with a love of Ambria, how she’d studied the royal family for over a year before she saw his picture and knew instantly that he looked remarkably like one of the missing Ambrian princes would at this age? About how she’d fought everyone in her agency for this assignment, and then finally decided to come out on her own time, on her own money, to see for herself if what her intuition had told her was really true?
She might as well cut right to the chase.
“I work for an agency that gathers intelligence.”
“What kind of intelligence?”
“Information. Things of interest to the exiled Ambrian community.”