by Cara Colter
So real was the feeling that his kiss was on her lips, that she ran her tongue along them, hoping the faint taste of salted sea air would be lingering there. When it was not, she reached across the tangle of her sheets, wanting to be reassured by the silky touch of his skin under her fingertips, wanting the ache within her to be eased by his presence in her bed.
When her fingertips touched cold emptiness, Jordan came fully awake and smelled the mingled aroma of wood smoke and fall leaves coming in her open window, not the sea. Her sheets were covered in a prim pattern of yellow teacup roses. They were sheets that had never known the skin of a man.
The ache was there, though, as real as if it had been yesterday, instead of just over five years ago, that she had awoken and he had been gone. For good. Forever. Without so much as a goodbye.
He had warned her it would be that way. The warning had not made it one bit easier to cope with when it had happened.
Jordan shook herself fully awake, angry. She sat up and fluffed her pillow with furious punches. She glanced at her bedroom clock. It was only three-thirty in the morning. She clenched her eyes tight, commanded herself back to sleep.
She had not had one of those dreams for so long. It had been at least six months. She thought that meant her heart was mending, finally.
She would not go as far as to say she was happy. Jordan Ashbury mistrusted happiness. It was the crest of an exhilarating wave you rode before it tossed you carelessly onto sharp and jagged rocks.
But she would say she was content. She had her girls—the young, unwed mothers she did volunteer work with. She had her job with her aunt. She had this little humble house she had just purchased. And of course, she had Whitney, her four-year-old daughter, who had enough exuberance for both of them.
And she had the new male in her life. There he was now. He prowled into her bedroom, leapt onto the bed in a single graceful leap, curled up by her ear and began to purr.
Jay-Jay, named in honor of Jason, whom she had dated once and hated, and Justin whom she had dated twice and liked. Both had been dismissed from her life with equal rapidity.
“No time,” she’d told her mother who had set up both disasters.
“But aren’t you lonely?” her mother wailed.
“Of course not,” she had said, strong and breezy. “It’s a brand-new world, Mom. Women don’t need men to feel they have purpose, to feel complete.”
“Working with those unwed mothers is making you cynical about men,” her mother said.
No, it wasn’t. It was reminding her, over and over, of the life lesson she most needed reminding of.
Love hurt.
Well, not Whitney love. Not Mom and Dad love. Not Jay-Jay love. Just the other kind. Man-woman love.
Only in the middle of the night, like this, did the insanity of loneliness take her, try to pull her down, make her wistful, make her ache with yearning.
“Weak ninny,” she scolded herself, opened her clenched eyes to glance at the clock then closed them again with renewed determination. Sleep.
Instead, a chill washed over Jordan, a chill not caused by the cool September air sliding through her open window. In that space between wakefulness and sleep where her mind sometimes shook free of her tight hold on the reins, she allowed herself to wonder, did it mean something that she had dreamed of Ben?
Why did she feel a knot in her stomach, a shadow in her soul? Was he in trouble? Was he dead?
She shivered, caught in the grip of something that felt weirdly like premonition.
Ben Prince did not exist, she reminded herself bitterly. How could he be dead when he had never been alive?
Except he was alive, amazingly so, in the sapphire-blue eyes of their daughter. Her daughter. The child he knew nothing about.
Jordan had tried to tell him. It seemed the only thing, the decent thing. That was when she’d found out, through the registrar’s office at the Smedley Institute where they had met during a summer program, there was no Ben Prince.
Short of yelling at them that a figment of her imagination could not have produced a pregnancy, there was nothing more she could do. He was gone.
Except in that place where her dreams took her.
Restless, she got out of bed, went over and slammed the window shut. She paused and looked out at Maple Street, Wintergreen, Connecticut. This was not the best area of town, but it was old, so the maple trees were enormous, just beginning to hint at their fall splendor. The houses that lined the street were tiny, asphalt-shingled boxes, but the yards were generous, which is what she had wanted for Whitney.
When she was growing up, Jordan had always assumed she would end up in a neighborhood like her parents, spacious Dutch colonial and Cape Cod homes set well back from the road, sporting wraparound verandas and porch swings and lawn chairs where people whiled away hot summer nights.
A perfect all-American street in a perfect all-American neighborhood. The scent of apple pies baking wafted out the windows at this time of year, and red, white and blue flags flew from porch pillars.
Of course, she had spoiled her parents’ all-American dreams for her by showing up pregnant, no marriage, no man.
Forgiveness had been some time coming though Whitney’s entrance into the universe seemed to have greased the wheels of progress considerably.
Her parents had objected to Jordan buying her own little house six months ago. Of course, it made more sense for her to continue living with them. She was a single mom with a limited income. Her options, which had once seemed endless, now seemed limited.
Even so, she liked her life. Was contented with it. Ninety percent of the time.
Still, looking at that quiet street, washed in silver moonlight, Jordan felt restless. What had happened to the girl who beamed out of her senior high yearbook, the banner Most Likely To Succeed draped across the picture?
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, she had been politically ambitious, certain she would be the first female mayor of Wintergreen.
It was that ambition that had made her sign up for an intense political science summer program at Laguna Beach the summer after her graduation from high school.
It had turned out to be her date with destiny—and she was not sure yet that she had recovered from the surprise that her destiny was not even close to what she had planned for herself.
Now, she was a chef’s assistant working for her aunt. It was a job Jordan had fallen into, rather than planned for. Given that, it was surprisingly satisfactory.
She no longer had any desire to be mayor. She just wanted to be a good mom to her small firebrand of a daughter. She wanted to help other girls, who like herself, found themselves thrown up on love’s rocks, battered and bruised. Priorities changed that quickly.
Reminding herself sternly she had to work tomorrow, she climbed back into bed, and tossed restlessly until the phone jangled shrilly. Startled, Jordan looked at her bedside clock—6:00 a.m. No one in their right mind called that early in the morning. It must be Marcella. She was due the third week of September.
“Hello?” she answered, already pulling on her jeans. She could drop off Whitney at her parents, call Meg, be in the labor room in fifteen minutes.
“Jordan, you are not going to believe this!”
She sat down on the edge of her bed, and eased the jeans back off. “I’m already having trouble with belief. Aunt Meg, when have you ever been up at this time of the morning?”
“Never,” her aunt admitted. “But it was worth it! Did I wake you? Never mind. You’ll think it’s worth it, too.”
“We’ve been hired to cater the presidential ball?” Jordan asked, tongue-in-cheek.
“Better. It’s because of the time zone difference that they called so early.”
Better than the presidential ball? Jordan was intrigued despite herself. “Aunt Meg, who called so early?”
“Lady Gwendolyn Corbin, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marissa Penwyck of the island kingdom of Penwyck.”
Jordan, con
fused, checked her calendar. As she thought, it was still September, not anywhere near April Fool’s day. She sighed. Her lovely aunt, a chef extraordinaire, always walked the fine line between genius and eccentricity. Sadly, she had obviously finally crossed the line.
“Jordan, listen! She wants me—us—to cater the party. At the palace! Right there on the island of Penwyck! We get to go there, all expenses paid. Oh my, Jordan, it is the break I’ve been waiting for. I told you that little piece in Up and Coming People was going to do it. I told you!”
The article in the national magazine Up and Coming had been dreadful. It had made her aunt seem considerably more eccentric than she was, which must have been a stretch for the writer. It had featured Meg’s experiments combining edible flowers with pastry. “Flaky Flowers” had been the title of the piece and it had gone downhill from there.
“Aunt Meg, slow down,” she suggested gently, suspecting the article had generated a prank. “Where have you been asked to go? And what have you been asked to do?”
Her aunt took a deep breath. “You read about it in the papers, didn’t you? Or saw it on television?”
“Flaky Flowers was on television?” Jordan asked, appalled that her aunt might have been held up for ridicule at a new and dizzying level.
“Not Flaky Flowers. Jordan, the whole world has been talking about nothing else. You missed it, didn’t you?” This was said with undisguised accusation.
“I suppose I might have,” Jordan admitted uncertainly.
Her aunt sighed. “You are taking this heartbroken recluse thing to radical limits.”
“I prefer to think of myself as a strong, independent woman,” Jordan said, miffed. She could feel a headache coming on. She did not feel prepared to defend her lifestyle choices at six in the morning.
“Same thing,” her aunt said.
“What world event did I miss?” she asked, trying to get her aunt back to the point and away from her personal life.
“The kidnapping of that prince! And now he’s been safely returned to his home and his mother, the queen, is having a party to celebrate, and I’m catering and you’re coming with me!”
I hope this isn’t real, Jordan thought. “Is this real?”
“Of course. A celebration for those closest to the family. Which is a mere one hundred and seventy-five. Dinner, of course before the ball. Did you hear me, Jordan? A ball, like in Cinderella.”
The fairy tale Jordan most alluded to when she told frightened young expectant mothers not to believe in fairy tales. The prince was not coming to rescue them. Sometimes, Jordan even found herself wishing the story could have a different ending, but it rarely did.
“A midnight snack will be necessary,” her aunt went on, not intercepting the chilly response to Cinderella. “What do you think? My Moose Ta-Ta for the main course?”
Despite the name, Meg’s Moose Ta-Ta was to die for: roast beef done in a secret sauce that Meg claimed included the unshed velvet of a moose antler.
When she debated saying it might be hard to procure that much velvet, Jordan realized she was being sucked into the incredible vortex of her aunt’s enthusiasm. “I can’t help you, Aunt Meg.”
“What?!” This said in the same tone Cruella used when she was refused the puppies.
“No,” Jordan said firmly, “I can’t possibly. I told you from the beginning I wouldn’t travel. Couldn’t. I am giving my daughter stability.”
“What you are giving your daughter is a boring life. Boring. Boring. Boring.”
“Plus, Marcella’s baby is due any day. I can’t just leave her in the lurch.”
“Jordan, which member of your group had her baby last? Stacey? You had nine people in the delivery room with her. That’s a baseball team. You don’t need to be there.”
“The girls like knowing I’m there for them.” Like no one else ever has been.
“I think you should find a volunteer activity that doesn’t underscore your anger at men.”
Menu discussion to free psychology advice from the woman who had proudly named Moose Ta-Ta. Jordan noted her headache seemed to be intensifying, moving around from the center of her forehead toward her ears.
“I like my boring life, and my volunteer work,” Jordan said, a touch testily. She had experienced the other. She had experienced exhilaration. Magic. Wonder. It was exhausting. The pain of losing those kinds of things never dulled, ever.
Boring on the other hand was nice and dull to begin with. It was hard to go downhill from there.
“Of course you adore boring, dear,” her aunt said soothingly, “but you must come. You must. As a teensy-weensy favor to your favorite aunt who can no longer survive without you. Who else could I trust with the icing for the Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy?”
“I won’t leave my daughter and Marcella in order to baby-sit your active bacterial cultures.”
“Darling, you never even let me get to the best part! Whitney can come. They’ve given me a blank check. Me and my entire entourage are expected in Penwyck by tomorrow evening. Lady Gwendolyn used that word. Entourage. I mentioned Whitney, of course. I knew I wouldn’t be able to pry you away from her. They’ll provide a nanny!”
“I can’t,” Jordan said, sensing a danger she did not understand. “That kind of trip sounds like it would be terribly unsettling to a small child. Too whirlwind. Too exotic. Too chaotic. Too…you know.”
“No. You know. Me. And I am not taking no for an answer. I will come right over there and tell Whitney her deranged mother has refused an all-expense-paid trip for two to an island with a real castle, a real king and queen, real princesses, and two real princes.”
“Don’t you dare! She’ll—”
“—torment you until you agree to go,” Aunt Meg said with satisfaction. “Don’t make me do it, Jordan. Just say yes to the adventure, for once!”
“I said yes to an adventure, once,” Jordan reminded her aunt stiffly.
“And you have a lovely daughter to show for it. Besides, I’ll pay you double, plus a very generous living out allowance. Aren’t you saving for a microwave for that little meeting room of yours? So you can serve nice, healthy soup to all your young moms-to-be? I’ll even donate soup.”
Sometimes there was just no arguing with Meg. Besides, Marcella did have a good support network. Her mom and her sister were both very supportive of her, and both had already expressed an interest in being there for the delivery.
Suddenly, without warning, that yearning came over Jordan. To say yes to adventure even though the price could be so high. Wasn’t it worth it?
Just by closing her eyes she could still remember how it felt, those seven weeks in July when her soul had been on fire.
“All right,” she said slowly, giving into the impulse, the yearning, “All right. I’ll come.”
Her aunt whooped so loudly into the phone that she nearly deafened her poor niece. After hearing what needed to be done, and in very short order, Jordan hung up the phone and looked at it bemused.
“Why do I have the awful feeling I’m going to regret this?” she asked herself. And yet, if she was honest, regret was not what she felt.
She felt the tiniest stirring of excitement, a feeling she had not allowed herself to have, not in this way, since a morning five years ago when she had woken up to the cold, hard reality of a bed empty beside her, and the terrifying knowledge she was now totally alone with the secret of the baby growing inside of her.
“Meg,” Jordan told her aunt, “no nasturtiums. I cannot find a fresh nasturtium on all of Penwyck.”
“Oh,” her aunt wailed, “the pastry just doesn’t have the same flavor with geranium leaves. See what it would cost to import some. Orange. I only want orange ones. No yellow.”
Jordan stared at her aunt, and allowed herself to feel exhausted. They’d arrived here in Penwyck less than twenty-four hours ago. Jet-lagged, arriving practically in the middle of the night, Jordan had not really noticed much about the island as they were whisked to the
castle, and into quarters that adjoined the banquet kitchen. The quarters were motel room plain and seemed distinctly humble and uncastlelike.
The nanny, Trisha, had been introduced to her early the following morning. A teenage girl, she was an absolute doll. With those shifting loyalties young children are so famous for, Whitney had given her heart to the young girl completely and irrevocably and only stopped by on brief visits to the kitchen to tell her mother she had seen “a weel thwone with weel jewels” or “a weel pwincess with a weel pwetty smile.”
Jordan, on the other hand, had seen only her quarters, the kitchen and the small office off of it, which housed a cranky telephone that was like nothing she had ever seen in America. She was developing a healthy hatred for the instrument and dreaded trying to call overseas now in the never ending search for nasturtiums.
She’d been going flat-out, putting out fires, soothing her ruffled aunt, trying to find impossible ingredients and, of course, nursing that active yogurt culture, the secret ingredient that made her aunt’s Dancing Chocolate Ecstasy so unbelievably delicious.
She was exhausted. “Only orange nasturtiums,” she repeated, turning from her aunt.
“Miss Jordan! Miss Jordan!”
Her relief at being called from her quest for orange nasturtiums was short-lived. Trisha was rushing across the kitchen toward her, obviously close to tears.
“I’ve lost her,” she wailed. “Miss Jordan, I’ve lost Whitney.”
For the first time since they had arrived, Jordan allowed herself to wish she had listened to her doubts.
“I knew I was going to regret this,” she said. “I just knew it.”
“Jordan, don’t overreact,” Meg said, bustling by, her hands full of something that looked dangerously like the moss that crept up the castle walls. “Whitney has gone exploring. Perfectly normal for a child that age. She’s having fun. You know, maybe a few yellow would be all right.”
“My daughter is missing, and she’s four years old. Excuse me if I give that priority over yellow nasturtiums.”
Meg gave her a hurt look, put the moss in a large pot and turned her back on her.