by Holly Hart
He sucks his lips into his mouth with a comical salute, prompting a giggle from me. I sometimes think he missed his calling by taking over the family ranch – he could have been an actor.
“That’s better,” I say. “All right, so the best part about this whole royal birthday gig is the pay. Guess how much?”
He shrugs. “How’m I supposed to know what royals pay for stuff?”
“Seventy-five thousand dollars to plan a party!” I squeal. I’ve been wanting to tell him this for so long now!
His eyes go round – well, as round as they can get, anyway. They’re pretty squinty, like Clint Eastwood’s.
“You’re shittin’ your old man,” he breathes. “You could buy a house in Shelby for that kinda money!”
“I shit you not.”
“Well if that just don’t beat all. Honey, that’s incredible. What’re you gonna do with it?”
I love him so much for not suggesting I come back home. Sure, the line about a house in Shelby was a not-so-subtle hint, but he’d never say it in so many words because, deep down, he knows my path doesn’t lead back to Montana.
“Well,” I say with a grin. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll give it all to you.”
His mouth literally drops open, the exact reaction I was hoping for. He’s done so much for me, and I’ve wanted to help him for so long. Now I finally can.
It lasts all of two seconds, then suddenly his brows knit and he’s shaking his head.
“The hell you will,” he says. “I won’t take it.”
I expected this, so I’m prepared. At least I got the initial surprise that I was looking for.
“Hear me out, Dad. I know how much my education cost you, and I know you’re upside-down on the cattle right now. I haven’t been home in awhile, but I’ve kept up on the drought and how it’s driving the cost of feed through the roof. And your profit margin is razor-thin at the best of times.”
“Honey –”
“Let me finish. You always taught me that a person should pay their debts in any way they can. You’ve paid bills with beef more times than I can count. You also taught me that if you can help someone, you should help them. How many of our neighbors have fences because you were out there with them all day in the hot sun, pounding in posts? How many times have you driven to one of their places in the middle of a snowstorm to help them when a cow is having a rough birth?”
“That’s not –”
“Shush,” I say with a raised finger. “The money is yours, and that’s that.”
I give him a look of mock triumph. I won!
Then I see those wide shoulders droop for the first time ever. He lets out the deepest sigh I’ve ever heard from him. The look on his face – I’ve never seen it before. It’s like he’s been deflated.
A sudden cramp of fear rises in my belly.
“You keep that money,” he says quietly. “It’s not gonna do me any good.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “I was so excited to be finally able to help with the bills…”
“Pumpkin, my bills are beyond even with that kinda money.”
“But why? What’s wrong?”
He clears the emotions from his throat, but he won’t look me in the eye on the screen.
“It’s been comin’ for years now,” he says. “Your mom’s medical bills ate up all the equity we had in the land long ago, sweetie. The bank’s owned it since you were a girl. And with the shit-kickin’ the beef market has been takin’ the last ten years, then the drought, well… I figure I’ve got maybe six months before the bank takes everything for auction.”
My eyes go dry as I stare at the screen, forgetting to blink.
“I – I don’t understand,” I stammer. “How did you pay for school, then?”
Dad surprises me by smiling.
“That was your mom’s life insurance money,” he says. “We agreed before she passed that it was goin’ to your education, not the bank. That you weren’t gonna end up havin’ a ranch work you to death. Best investment we ever made.”
My heart feels like a wrung-out rag. I knew things were bad, but I never would have guessed that Dad was on the verge of losing the ranch. Suddenly my big surprise seems like a kid offering his Tonka truck to help pull the tractor out of the ditch.
“I don’t know what to say, Dad.” Tears are flowing freely now. “What are you going to do?”
He sees my tears and reacts to them the way he always has in the past: he turns into John Wayne, ready to saddle up and take care of the bad guys.
“Don’t you waste one second worryin’ about me,” he says. “I’ll be just fine. There’s worse things can happen to a man than goin’ bankrupt. There ain’t a rancher for a hundred miles around that wouldn’t hire me in a second. The name Ike Sparks still means somethin’ in Montana.”
I snuffle back a tear.
“It still means something in Morova, too,” I whisper. “It means everything.”
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-One
7. DANTE
Sometimes I want to kick myself.
Yesterday, I had a problem. Today, after getting colossally drunk last night, I still have the same problem. The only difference is now I get to deal with it and a hangover at the same time.
And ultimately, all I accomplished was not being home to tuck in the twins.
I’ve got some serious thinking to do, so I managed to ditch Marco and come down here to the south garden. It’s a labyrinth courtyard of shrubs, trees, flowers, fountains and enough statues to populate a small village.
I started talking to the statues as a lonely child, pretending they were friends who would listen sympathetically to my problems. They helped me through the loss of my parents, and later Adriana and Albert. I’ve bragged to them about the twins more times than I can count, and they know all my secret fears that I’ll never measure up as a parent.
None of this is out loud, of course. I don’t need another reason for people to think I’m different. I have plenty enough as it is.
Today I’m burdening them with a new dilemma: finding my virgin bride in the next thirteen days. Good thing they’re made of stone, or they’d probably be laughing their asses off at me. One thing is for sure: they’re not offering any solutions as I stand here, hands in my pockets, under the blaring noonday sun.
“What good are you, then?” I mutter to Neptune, poised with his trident over the pond that serves as the gardens’ central focal point. He doesn’t answer, so I turn to head into the labyrinth.
As I round a copse of emerald cedars, I stop. Or rather, for the second time in as many days, I’m stopped. By another person’s body.
“Oof!”
Suddenly, a huge old book flips into my field of vision as I see a red blur moving away from me and down. My reflexes kick in, snagging the book with my left hand, and the arm of the red blur with my right. I’m busy formulating my apology when I realize who it is I ran into.
I’m holding Amanda Sparks by her left arm.
Her hair is set aflame by the sun directly overhead, and those pale blue eyes blink owlishly at me under a pair of black-framed glasses. Her curves are highlighted against an ivory peasant blouse and an ankle-length navy blue skirt.
Suddenly, my hangover is gone.
“I beg your pardon, Your Highness,” I hear her say as I pull her up and towards me so she can regain her balance. Her cheeks are glowing as red as her hair.
“The fault is mine,” I say with a smile. “I’m very pleased to see you again, Ms. Sparks, but we really need to start meeting under less jarring circumstances.”
She smiles in return, but I can tell it’s half-hearted. Distracted.
“Two left feet,” she mumbles. “I’m sorry, sir, I should’ve been paying attention.”
“Not at all,” I say. “I shouldn’t have taken that corner on the left. Morovans, like all civilized people, drive on the right. If I’d stayed in my lane, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Although it w
as extremely pleasant to collide with your body again, I don’t say.
She giggles. Thank goodness. I really am tired of us being embarrassed around each other.
“Not like those heathens in Malta,” she quips, smoothing her hair with her free hand.
“Absolutely. I’ve never been willing to actually go to war over it, but I maintain a stern glare at all times whenever I’m there.”
“Of course you do,” she says with mock gravity. “Can’t have those soundrels believing you actually approve of such nonsense.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. Her American candor and sense of humor are a breath of fresh air. So often I find myself surrounded by people who take their manners, and themselves, far too seriously.
Plus her dour look, combined with that outfit and those black-rimmed glasses, gives her an incredibly sexy schoolteacher vibe. It prompts an appreciative twitch under my slacks.
“It really was my fault,” she says after the laughter dies down. “I’m a little distracted today.”
So am I, I think. By you.
I glance at the rescued tome in my other hand: A Treatise On The Practices Of The Morovan Royal Court, by Henri Geiger. It’s just slightly smaller than one of the twins’ beds.
“Is your light summer reading to blame?” I ask.
Amanda smiles, but it seems half-hearted again.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she says. “I can’t put it down. Literally, if I did, I wouldn’t be able to pick it up again. You Morovans sure love your pomp and ceremony. Sir.”
Hearing “sir” coming from Amanda makes me realize how ridiculous it sounds. I usually wait until I’ve been to bed with a woman before I ask this, but it just seems right with her now.
“Tell you what,” I say. “You call me Dante and I’ll call you Amanda when it’s just the two of us. Deal?”
Her eyes widen and she actually gasps a little.
“I couldn’t,” she says, as if I’d asked her to strip and accompany me into the bushes.
“I could order you,” I say with a grin. “I do have a little pull around here.”
She smiles and glances down at the ground, then back up at me, biting her bottom lip. The twitch under my pants threatens to turn into a tent.
“I wouldn’t want you to have to do that,” she says. “Dante.”
“Well, now you’ve done it,” I say, shaking my head gravely. “That was a test of royal protocol and you failed. My security people are on their way to eject you from the palace as we speak.”
“Then I guess I’d better take a good long look at the gardens before that happens.”
We both turn towards the central fountain. The sun plays on the water, sparking fireflies of reflected light as it flows from the mouth of a bronze fish into the pool below.
“The statue of Neptune is modeled after the one in the Boboli Gardens in Florence,” Amanda says.
“Mm,” I say, nodding. “Not surprising, given that this part of the gardens was also designed by Bartolomeo Ammananti. He was going through a Neptune phase at the time.”
Amanda looks at me with naked wonder.
“Very impressive,” she says. “Not a lot of people know that.”
I shrug. “It’s my home.”
That makes her blush again, which makes me angry with myself again.
“Of course,” she says, shaking her head. “Duh. That was a stupid thing to say.”
“Not at all. Sometimes I forget that not everyone grew up living in a piece of history. Sometimes I think the past is more important than the future to a lot of Morovans.”
I don’t want to head down this path right now. Time to change the subject.
“Tell me about Montana,” I say, motioning her to a marble bench near the fountain. “It sounds fascinating.”
We sit and I put the book on the ground, which is a relief. I keep myself in top physical condition, but it was starting to get a little heavy, even for me.
Her eyes light up at the mention of her home state.
“It’s beautiful,” she sighs. “I mean, nothing like this, obviously. But it’s got a natural beauty to it. Flat plains where you can see for a hundred miles in any direction. And mountains! The Rockies just kind of sprout up out of the earth like giants. Even now, at the hottest part of summer, you can go up to the summits and see six feet of snow.”
“I’ve never seen the Rockies,” I say. “But Emilio has. He says the Alps pale next to them.”
“It’s sort of an unfair comparison. Like putting David Beckham next to Tom Brady – they’re both beautiful, but Brady is tougher. More rugged.”
I nod. I have no idea who Tom Brady is, but I enjoy listening to her. She obviously loves her home.
“And the people are just salt of the earth,” she says wistfully. “Most of the folks I know would give you the shirt off their backs if you needed it. My dad would even give you his coat in a snowstorm. I mean literally, I saw him do it once when we were in downtown Great Falls. Just took his coat off and put it on a drunk who’d passed out in the street.”
I can see the beginning of tears in those beautiful eyes. Now I’m regretting asking her about her home.
“Your father sounds like an exceptional man,” I offer.
“He is,” she says, obviously fighting emotion. “Ike Sparks is a name that means something in Montana.”
“And he raises cattle?”
She nods.
“A noble profession. I should like to meet him someday.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. I suppose we both know that’s not likely to happen.
“And your mother?”
“She passed away when I was twelve,” she says. “Cancer.”
I nod. “I’m sorry. I was orphaned at a young age myself.”
She nods in return. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. Losing your parents and then your sister and brother-in-law.”
“Grief simply becomes your companion. I’m sure you understand that.”
Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand is on the back of hers. It’s warm and small under my own, her skin milky white against the copper of mine.
“Is everything all right, Amanda?” I don’t know why I’m asking this, but I have the sense that it’s not her mother’s memory that’s weighing on her right now.
She nods, but her eyes don’t meet mine.
“I’m fine,” she says. “It’s just… I’m a bit overwhelmed right now.”
“I can only imagine. I wouldn’t want the job of planning my birthday.”
Or my wedding. The memory of my dilemma jabs me like a thorn.
She looks me in the eye. “Have you ever felt like everything was going along perfectly, and then suddenly you look down and it’s like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff, and you realize there’s nothing under your feet?”
Without even knowing she’s doing it, she’s just summed up my situation more eloquently than I ever could.
“I have,” I say. Her hand is still under mine, soft and warm. Warm blood starts to pool down there.
“You’re just saying that,” she breathes, those faded denim eyes still locked on mine. “I’m sure you never watched Road Runner cartoons.”
I lean in close, until our noses are almost touching.
“Meep meep,” I whisper.
My heart is suddenly racing in my chest. Her breath is warm against my lips. Neither of us blinks, as if doing so would somehow break the spell.
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Two
8. AMANDA
“Uncle! Uncle!”
The twins come running out of nowhere, knocking me back to reality. I look away quickly, smoothing my hands down my skirt and trying to will my heart to slow down. I hope I’m not blushing.
My God, what was that? I felt like a rabbit snared by a cobra’s hypnotic gaze. Was the prince actually going to kiss me? Could that be possible?
Dante moves back to his own side of the bench as Oriana and Vito race down the st
one path in their school clothes. He looks as flustered as I feel for a moment, but as soon as he catches sight of the kids, his face changes. His smile is as radiant as the rising sun.
“Who let these street urchins into my palace?” he crows indignantly as they reach the fountain. “Marco! What do I pay you for?”
They giggle as they sprint the last few yards to the bench, then stop short when they see me.
“Ms. Sparks!” Oriana pants, the long run catching up in her breathing. “A pleasure to see you again.”
Dante looks at me, brows raised.
“You’ve met?”
“Yesterday,” I say with a wide grin and a bow of my head. “The pleasure is mine, Your Highnesses.”
Dante is probably as grateful for the distraction as I am. I can still feel the warmth of his hand on mine, his breath on my lips. My mouth is still dry from the encounter.
“Are you planning Uncle’s birthday party?” asks Vito, dropping to the seat of his shorts on the emerald grass next to the bench.
“Looks like maybe you were up to something else,” Oriana says with a gleeful grin that makes me want to crawl into the bushes and hide.
Vito looks up at her. “Like what?”
“Like nunya,” says Dante.
“What’s nunya?”
“Nunya business, you little brat. Now get up here.”
Dante spreads his arms over the back of the bench and the twins climb into his lap, each claiming one of his thighs for their seat. Up close, I can see a few battle scars on their bare knees. Looks like they get at least a little time away from their regimented royal life to just be kids.
“What kind of trouble have you been causing today?” he asks with a stern glare.
Oriana glowers at him. “Maestro Salvatore said my violin sounded like a cat on the rack, so I told him when I’m queen, he’ll be sweeping the streets.”
“First of all,” says Dante, “we don’t have queens in Morova. Second, he’s probably right. Have you been practicing?”
“No!” Vito barks. “Her violin goes right in the wardrobe and stays there until our next music lesson.”
I have to suppress a giggle as she pounds him one on the arm. “Snitch!”