Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra) (14 page)

But he never did tell me. I found out. In the most shocking, public, and humiliating way imaginable.

I made an effort to spend more time with Aunt Sylvia. Which wasn’t easy, given that she seemed to only want to talk about Rafe. Or forgiveness. Or trusting again. I was a grown woman. I didn’t need my aunt trying to run interference for me.

And if someone wasn’t talking about Rafe, he was there. Quietly, constantly. Taking care of whatever needed to be taken care of.

Like the next time rehearsals for the talent show rolled around. Nicole called me, saying she wasn’t feeling well, and asked me to take over. Which was fine, as long as I managed to stay out of Henry’s magic box.

At the rehearsals, Rafe came up behind me, studying the chaos. It suddenly felt too hot with him so close. I twisted my hair up into a bun, frustrated that I couldn’t seem to manage myself when he was around. “I am going to cut this all off,” I muttered, shoving a pencil through the bun to keep it in place.

“Don’t!” He choked the word out, his eyes ablaze with passion. “Please don’t. I love your hair.”

That should not have given me the happy thrill that it did. After my heart palpitations subsided, I called for everyone’s attention. But with Nicole’s authority gone, the high schoolers had all decided that they were the ones in charge.

He picked up a prop onion, tossing it up in the air and then catching it. “Isn’t there a saying in English, something about too many chefs ruining the soup?”

I nodded. I wondered if there was a saying in English that would make him stop driving me nuts.

“Speaking of chefs, when are you going to give me those cooking lessons?”

“You definitely need them.” I’d put it on my calendar, right next to the twelfth of never. The idea of being in such close quarters with him, touching, talking, making food together . . . it made me uneasy. I shifted from one foot to the other.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m an excellent cook and the smoke alarms are just cheering me on?”

My lips twisted as I tried to keep my smile in. “I can promise you that never occurred to me. Here’s your first lesson.” I grabbed the onion when he threw it, showing it to him. “This is fake, but this is an onion.”

He nodded seriously, taking it back. “Ah, yes. I’ve heard of those.”

Then I had to clamp my lips together to keep from laughing. I gestured toward the teens. “I have to go take care of this.”

But trying to organize the teenagers into their respective scenes was a bit like trying to organize a goat rodeo. I kept trying to tell them where to go and what to do, but everyone had a million questions.

Rafe stood up, whistling sharply with his fingers, and managed to quiet them down. I directed them to their rehearsal spots, and they finally started running their lines. I watched as he twirled the onion up, bounced it off the inside of his elbow, and caught it again. That shouldn’t have impressed me, but it did. He caught me looking and winked.

I rolled my eyes. But it was more about me not being able to ignore him than him being cocky. The winking kind of reminded me of Dante. Which made me think about Lemon and Kat and the suspicions I’d had.

“If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell your brothers?”

Chapter 14

He let the onion fall to the floor. “You know that I would never tell anyone your secrets.”

A feeling I didn’t recognize raced through me, pumping blood into my heart. I ignored it. “Your future sisters-in-law came to see me.”

“What? Why?” His reaction was genuine. So he hadn’t known. Which meant he hadn’t been in on it. They’d told me the truth and really had come on their own, and not because he’d asked them to.

“To apologize. Lemon and I hadn’t spoken since . . .” But I trailed off, realizing that I was wandering into dangerous territory.

He knew exactly where I was headed because he finished, “Since that night. Genesis, I think maybe it’s time that I explained why—”

I thanked the theater gods when Sarabeth, our soon-to-be Juliet, interrupted us, tugging on my sleeve. “Genesis, can I talk to you?”

“Sure.” We walked away from Rafe, though her gaze darted back to him as we did so. “What’s up?”

“We’re practicing act 1, scene 5 today.” She wrung her hands together while tapping her foot.

“Okay. And?”

“That’s the kiss. And I’ve never kissed anyone before. I say, ‘Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.’ And he says, ‘Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.’ And then he kisses me.” Her voice shook, and it was easy to see how worried she was.

While it sucked that her first kiss would be because of a play, at least it was with Malcolm Schroeder. That was something she could tell her grandchildren about. “Just let him take the lead and kiss you. It’ll be okay.”

“But I really like him.”

“That does make it harder,” I said sympathetically. “You don’t have to kiss him in rehearsals.” Problem solved.

“And have our first kiss ever be in front of a live audience?” she shrieked.

Problem not solved. I patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, not sure what I should do or say. Maybe I should text Nicole and ask her advice.

“Can you show me?” she asked.

“What? I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to kiss Malcolm.” Not to mention that being added to the sex offender registry was not something I needed right now.

“No, I mean with Prince—I mean, Rafe. Please.”

That put images in my head that made my synapses crackle. “Can’t you go look it up on YouTube?” I wondered if my voice sounded as strangled as I felt.

“That’s not the same.” She glanced over her shoulder, and Malcolm was walking toward us. “And now there’s no time. It’s our turn. Please.”

Again, I couldn’t say no. I waved Rafe over, and while he approached, I asked Malcolm to give us a minute and promised to send Sarabeth over after.

“So the kids are doing
Romeo and Juliet
—”

“In English?” he interrupted. “Romeo and Juliet were Italian. You should have them speak Italian. I could teach them.”

Then he started talking in Italian. I had no idea what he was saying, but he said it so well. He might have been saying lines from the play. He could have been reading the phone book and I still would have felt wobbly-kneed and tongue-tied. It was a good thing I never told him what him speaking foreign languages did to me.

Because he was already making it harder to do what I planned to do. “Shakespeare wrote it in English, and that’s how we’ll perform it.”

He gave little shrug that seemed to say,
Suit yourself.

The only way out was through. “And today they’re doing the kissing scene and we need to demonstrate.”

“Do we?” His words were like a low purr, and he looked much too satisfied with himself.

“Yes. But this is only for informational purposes.”

He put a hand on my waist, making my blood sizzle. “Of course.”

“It’s not a real kiss. I’m not actually asking you to kiss me for real.”

Then the other hand, pulling me in toward him. My mouth dried up. “I completely understand,” he said.

He was saying the right words, but his eyes, his touch, and his teasing tone said something else.

“Okay.” I turned to Sarabeth. “You guys will choreograph how you want to do the kiss, keeping in mind that this is Romeo and Juliet’s first kiss, so you’re aiming for something innocent, sweet, and loving.” I hoped he heard my warning.

“Let him take the lead,” I continued. “And do what he’s doing.”

This was so weird. How did I keep getting myself into situations like this?

It’s because you can’t say no
. This time the voice in my head sounded suspiciously like Rafe’s. I closed my eyes, waiting, while my lips tingled and burned.

After several beats, I opened my eyes back up. The adrenaline coursed through me, hot and heavy. “What are you doing?” I hissed. “Hurry up and get this over with.”

“Anticipation makes it better,” he said, his words washing over my mouth. Then he finally pressed his lips to mine, and I sagged against him as my eyelids flickered shut. He kissed me softly, tenderly, just the way that Romeo was supposed to kiss Juliet. Very PG.

Only my body was having an R-rated response to it. It was only when the wolf whistles and catcalls started that I put my hands against his shoulders and pushed him back, breaking off the kiss. “And that’s how you do it,” I said, so out of breath it was embarrassing.

“Oh. Wow. Uh. Th-thanks,” Sarabeth said, her eyes wide, and she went off to join Malcolm.

“We might have scarred that poor girl for life,” I mused out loud.

“When can we demonstrate that again?” Rafe asked, grabbing the bottom part of my earlobe with his lips. I backed off, trying to ignore the lightning that zapped the right side of my head and was traveling along my veins.

“That is not happening again,” I said, flustered. “You should move on.” I wanted to mean it, but I wasn’t sure that I did.

“Like you did?”

I didn’t know if you could call what happened between me and Tommy moving on, but I nodded.

“I tried,” he said, and jealousy flared to life inside me, so ugly and twisted I wanted to inflict bodily harm on the women who had dared touch him.

“And?”

“No one was you.” The jealousy quickly shifted to something bright, happy, and dangerous.

I didn’t want to dwell on it. “That must have broken a lot of hearts.”

“I don’t plan on breaking anyone’s heart ever again.”

His words shivered across my spine. My emotions in that moment were careening all over the place, scary and uncontrollable. I was so moved by what he said, and I wanted to be excited, but I couldn’t let him in again. I couldn’t keep getting hurt. So I joked. “Too late. I think you’ve broken the heart of almost every woman here in town. They’re all in love with you.”

He made me turn and look at him, his eyes hypnotic. “There’s only one heart I’m truly concerned about keeping safe.”

Too much. This was too much. I had to get away from him. “I’m going outside for a second.”

Where I planned to dunk my head in a snowdrift in hopes that it would cool me off.

After rehearsals ended and I’d made sure that every kid got picked up, Rafe asked me for a ride. He’d had his bodyguards drop him off at the school. Which seemed deliberate and sly.

So I turned up my favorite country station, one that played the hits from the 1990s and heavily featured my favorite singers—Garth, Reba, Travis, Shania, Faith, George. Fortunately, he picked up the signal I was broadcasting: that I wasn’t interested in talking about his explanation or the kiss that had rocked my world. Again.

When we pulled up to the driveway, I asked if he would get the mail for me, since the mailbox was on his side of the truck. I could see from the color of some of the envelopes in his hand that there were a lot of final notices for bills.

After I parked the car, I took the mail from him, thanked him, and went toward the house. Laddie shot out the front door when I opened it, and I called after him. “He’s not supposed to be out this late,” I told Rafe. He had a tendency to wander toward the main road, and we were afraid he would get hit.

“I’ll get him,” Rafe said, heading after Laddie and calling for him to come back. I set the mail down on a side table and took off my coat and boots, shaking the snow off before I put them away. Rafe came in the front door, carrying a squirming Laddie. The dog leapt from his arms and ran around in circles, managing to slam into the side table and knock the lamp and all the mail to the floor.

“Laddie!” I exclaimed, but he took off for the kitchen. “I don’t know what’s gotten into that dog,” I said, putting the lamp back while Rafe picked up the mail.

“You got a postcard,” he said, handing it to me. It was a picture of tall pine trees with the words “Wish you were here” on the front. I turned it over, gasped, and promptly passed out.

When I came to, Rafe had moved me to the couch and was hovering over me, worried. “What just happened?” he asked.

“The postcard,” I said, holding my shaking hand out for it. He picked it up off the ground. I had to make sure it said what I thought it said. That I hadn’t just hallucinated or imagined it. I struggled to sit up, still feeling sick to my stomach.

He gave it back to me without reading it. I wasn’t sure I had as much restraint as he did. I flipped the postcard to the back again. My heart sank as my pulse violently throbbed in my neck. There was my name, my address, the postmark from Washington State. And on the left side just one thing. A name.

Mary-Pauline.

A cold knot formed in my stomach, and my chest hurt as I realized what this meant. John-Paul had found me. I didn’t know how it had happened, but he had found me. My lungs constricted, and I started to wheeze in and out. This couldn’t be happening. It had been so long that I had thought he had given up. I should have known better.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. There was a rushing sound in my ears, and I couldn’t concentrate. The word
How?
kept repeating itself in my mind over and over again.

“What is it? Your face has gone completely white,” Rafe said, getting even more concerned. I handed him the postcard.

My lips and chin started to tremble, but I was not going to cry. I was not going to give John-Paul that kind of power over me ever again. He read it, his eyebrows lifting and his eyes widening. He sat on the couch next to me, and I didn’t protest when he hugged me, holding me close. He always knew how to make me feel safe.

But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop feeling cold. It was like I was back in that box, with everything closing in around me. I could feel the wood against my fingertips, and my throat hurt as if I’d been screaming. I clenched my fists tightly.

Rafe got to his feet and started pacing. Whatever surprise or shock he’d initially felt had quickly turned to fury. “I know that I promised you I wouldn’t, but now I’m going to find him and report him to the authorities.”

“For what?” My voice broke. “He never technically abused me. I can’t prove the coal bin thing, and nobody will testify against him. He’ll say I made it up. And you can’t put him in prison for anything else. He hasn’t broken any laws.”

“That you know of.”

“Right.” I reached for the crocheted afghan on the back of the couch, wrapping it around me. “I know because he was always careful.”

“I want to punch something,” Rafe said, his hands clenched as he kept stalking the length of the room. It reminded me of when Aunt Sylvia had taken me to the zoo in Des Moines and there had been this cheetah at the bottom of his cage. He had watched us with intent as he walked from one end of the cage to the other, over and over again. I remembered thinking that keeping all that power and rage bottled up was not a good plan.

It still wasn’t. “Then punch something. But there’s nothing you can do.”

He stopped. “There is something I can do. I’m going to increase security. Have one of the guards move in here and follow you. I will protect you.”

“It’s just my name. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It doesn’t mean he will come after me.” Even as I said the words, they felt hollow and untrue. I was trying to convince myself just as much as I wanted to convince him. I wanted to pretend this had never happened. That it was meaningless and I was fine.

The pacing resumed. “It doesn’t mean he won’t.”

I was still letting John-Paul control me. That postcard was threatening to blow up my entire life. I wasn’t going to live like that. Even if he was planning on coming after me, I wasn’t the same little girl he’d known. I would protect myself.

I didn’t need Rafe to do it.

Remembering my sessions with Pastor Dave, I started breathing in and out slowly, concentrating on the air entering and exiting my lungs. I calmed myself down. I wasn’t doing myself any favors by being hysterical or panicked.

John-Paul wasn’t breaking down my door to get to me. He wasn’t outside lurking in the bushes. That was ridiculous. He just wanted to scare me.

And I didn’t plan on giving him the satisfaction.

I’d had to fight for years to feel safe again. I wasn’t going to let one postcard strip that away from me.

I wasn’t going to let Rafe take it away, either.