The Christmas Princess (31 page)

A twist of her lips might have been a smile. “He was always a stubborn one. He did much on his own, making it difficult for any assistance more than small amounts to ease his path. The king ceased trying to provide that assistance once he began his career, but he continues to receive reports on the progress of the boy.”

They sat in silence, April absorbing what she’d been told, hearing the words again in her mind. When she spoke, her question surprised her. “Why haven’t you called Hunter by his name.”

The older woman looked at her now. “Because that is not the name my niece gave the son she and her husband loved so much.”

This time it was Derek who knocked on her door. “The king sent me, because we can’t find— Oh, there you are, Madame. His Highness would like to see you both in his office.”

At least to an observer the older woman had regained her usual rigid control. April wished she could say the same for herself, especially on the inside.

With all the emotions of that brief conversation, she found two thoughts repeating in her head. Hunter
did
have family.
Madame
was his great aunt.

Derek stepped ahead and opened the office door for them.

“April, come in,” said the king. “I have introduced myself to your visitor, and await his introduction in return.”

A man rose from one of the chairs by the fireplace.

“Michael?
Michael
? What are you doing here?”

He pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Checking things out.”

The king, still seated, looked amused without actually smiling. “Would that mean you are
checking out
me?”

“Your Majesty, let me introduce myself. I am Senator Bradon’s aide. Michael Dickinson.”

April noticed — and saw that the king noticed — that Michael didn’t answer the question.

“Do not be modest, young man. You are the senator’s chief of staff. I had understood you were in Chicago for the holidays.”

“I was. My family was. Except for April.”

Her heart clenched and released.

“Perhaps,” said King Jozef smoothly, “we have that in common, counting dear April as our family?”

“That seems highly unlikely.”

“Not, however, impossible.”

Michael’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “A DNA test would resolve the question soon enough. However—”

“DNA,” the king said, three fingers flicking away its significance.

“—nothing changes that she
is
part of our family.”

“Yet she has passed the holiday with me.”

“Yes, she has.”

The two men exchanged a long look, then the king nodded.

April straightened out of Michael’s hold. “Yes,
I
chose to spend Christmas with His Highness.”

At her emphasis on the pronoun, both men turned toward her. The king smiled. Michael met her gaze, then gave a slow nod.

“I’d like to speak to you in private, April. Outside the grounds.”

She understood the significance. “Really, Michael, that’s not necessary. I’ll be happy to talk to you. But I am here of my own volition. For heaven’s sake, the State Department—”

“It was State’s representative who informed us of your location.”

“State’s representative? What State representative? Informed you when?” She divided the questions between Michael and the king.

Michael’s brows rose, and he looked to the king, who tried a half shrug.

“Sir—?” she insisted.

“I requested of Hunter further background on you.”

“That’s what he was doing while he was gone? But you knew— I told you I’m not your granddaughter. So why bother getting background on me? Oh.
Oh
. It was to make
Hunter
get the background.”

“You told the king you’re not his granddaughter?” Derek asked, stepping forward from near the door. “Then why is it popping up all over the Internet that you are?”

He held up his cell phone.

The house was white. Set back from a street with no sidewalks. In a wide lot, trees and bushes grew from beds that marked the side limits and buffered the front lawn from the street. The back yard seemed to stretch forever.

Hunter had no idea how he had come to be here.

He hadn’t intended to come.

He’d picked up the paper, intending to crush it so hard that the memory of it would become dust. It was still warm from April’s hold, and he’d found himself reading the words and numbers she had written. Reading them over and over. Until he knew them by heart.

Now he stood at the bottom of the steps that led to the porch that spread across the house. The door was red. There was an evergreen wreath on it with a big red plaid bow. April would like it.

He didn’t belong here. He—

“Oh, there you are!” A woman stood at the partially opened door — he hadn’t even noticed it opening. She was short, softly rounded, and there was gray threading through brown curls.

“Pierce! He’s here.” She called over her shoulder. She came down the stairs and took his hand. “My goodness, your hands are freezing. You should wear gloves.”

She frowned when she said that, which is what made him realize she’d been smiling before that. Smiling at him.

And leading him up the steps.

A tall, angular man with thinning white hair held the door wide to let them both in.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man. I’m Pierce Ascot.”

“Oh, Pierce, let him get his coat off first.”

Her husband was hanging up Hunter’s coat when a new voice came from the room beyond the small entryway where they stood.

“Good God, he’s not a runt anymore! Remember me? Memphis.”

And then his hand was being shaken by a burly man with a full beard and a bald head. He could just make out the shadows of the skinny twenty-year-old with a buzz cut.

“You were … his friend.”

“His best friend. And the last thing he said to me was
Take care of the runt
. Felt like sh—” He glanced toward the woman. “—crap about that ever since. After, we put you with the refugee group because we knew things were getting dicier and then we couldn’t get back there for months. When we finally did, you’d been transferred somewhere else, and then the trail went cold. We hunted all the hell over for you. When the Scotty’s folks called and said they’d heard from you there was no way I was missing this. The last thing Scotty said, and I didn’t … “ The man blinked hard, pumped his hand even harder and said, “God, I’m glad to see you.”

“Now, Norm, we’re not going back over that. We’re going to enjoy meeting Hunter.” The woman smiled, then her eyes misted. “How wonderful that our boy called you Hunter Pierce.”

“That’s right,” Memphis said. “We tried to get you tell us your name, but none of us could tell what you were saying, and we started calling you one thing you said over and over, but then someone who spoke the language said we were calling you
Food
.”

They all watched him a little anxiously. He smiled, and they relaxed. “I don’t remember that. Only being called Hunter Pierce.”

“Pierce after me,” said Scotty’s father.

“And Hunter for my maiden name.” His mother smiled widely, touching his hand again.

“Hey, let somebody else in, Memphis. We all feel like we know you from all the letters Scotty wrote home, and from what all the other guys in the unit told us.”

A man with his father’s height and his mother’s smile edged around Memphis’s girth, and for the first time since he’d been a starving seven-year-old who passed out at the feet of a group of American soldiers, Hunter Pierce thought he might faint.

“Let him sit down, let him sit down,” ordered Pierce.

“Oh, you poor boy. Are you okay?” said his wife.

The man’s smile went crooked. “I guess nobody told you I look like my older brother. I’m Doug.”

Everything Hunter should have said. All the words that might have eased their pain. They all disappeared. He stood straight, and said what he had to say.

“I’m the reason Scotty died.”

Rupert appeared at the open doorway before they could respond to Derek.

“I beg pardon, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, Rupert?”

“I could not call. The phones are not working. There are people at the gate who wish to see Miss Gareaux.”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” Michael said. “I suspect they are some of my party. We could not all get on the same flights this morning.”

The king nodded to Rupert.

“
All
?” April said. “You all cut your Christmas short?”

“Well, not all. Mr. and Mrs. M agreed to ride herd on the kids for a day or two until we were sure any confusion was sorted out the way you want it to be.”

“Things are fine, Michael. Truly. His Highness knows I’m not his granddaughter. There’s no confusion.”

“Maybe not inside this room, but as this young man said—.”

“Derek,” she supplied. “Derek Kenton. State.”

The men nodded at each other as Michael continued, “Reports that you are the long-lost granddaughter of King Jozef of Bariavak started showing up this morning on the Internet. Tris found it, showed it to Leslie and … here I am.”

“But it’s had no impact on us or—”

“Madame?” King Jozef said, looking past April.

She turned with the others to look at the older woman. “Reporters began calling some time ago. They would not stop. I unplugged the phones so Your Majesty would not be disturbed. The doctors said—”

“What did they ask?” the king asked.

“For comment on reports that April is Princess Josephine-Augusta.”

“Reports? What reports?”

“From what’s on the Internet it started with pictures and video from here yesterday,” Michael said.

“The Receiving Hours,” April said.

Michael nodded. “Someone compared photos of April and Princess Sophia. It exploded from there.”

“But why—?”

April never finished her question. Rupert was there, followed by a woman and a man.

April went directly into Leslie Robert’s arms. Leslie folded her in a hug, then took her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length, studying her. Then Grady was hugging them both.

April half stumbled through the introductions to King Jozef and Madame — Derek and Rupert had disappeared — with Michael filling in the rest.

“Leslie would like to talk with April alone,” Grady said immediately.

Madame swelled. April’s gaze went from her to the king, who said mildly, “Of course. Perhaps the library, April?”

“The king seems like a remarkable man,” Leslie said, following her into the library.

“He is.” Then the carefulness of Leslie’s words sank in. April spun around. “I’m not— There’s nothing— It’s not that kind of relationship.”

“Wha—? Oh, no. April. You think that I think—?
King Jozef
? No.”

“I know you think I have a thing for older men.”

Leslie looked at her strangely for a long moment, then took both her hands and drew her to the couch. “Let’s sit down a moment.”

April sat, but she wasn’t going to let this not be said. Not this time. “Leslie, I
know
you think I’m looking for a father figure.”

“That’s not precisely—”

“Probably see it as me trying to find a substitute because of my dad dying when I was six. Classic, right? Then Gerard and Reese. I can see how you’d think that, but I’m not. Really. That’s not what these relationships have been. Well, with Gerard and King Jozef they haven’t been relationships at all, not in that sense. And Reese was the furthest thing from a father figure there is.”

April drew in breath to continue persuading her.

Leslie sucked the breath out of her with three words. “I believe you.”

“You do?”

“Yes. So why do you think you’ve had these three important relationships with men so much older than you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

April looked into the older woman’s eyes. “I don’t want to be Melly.”

“Ah.”

She heard the syllable as a released breath from Leslie, but it seemed far away. She hadn’t known she was going to say those words. She hadn’t known she thought them. And now more words were coming—

“I don’t want to be Melly. Never growing up. Never being responsible. Never … never
lasting
. Never
mattering
.”

“You are not Melly. Oh, April, you have to know that. You are not, you have never been Melly. From the time we were children she couldn’t slow long enough to see anything beyond the next adventure. You are not like that at all. You have always mattered. You have to know that.”

“I feel so disloyal. You never say bad things about Melly.”

“She’s your Mama, honey. And there’s no knowing whether she would have been better if Jeff hadn’t died.”

April looked at her directly. “But you don’t really think so.”

Leslie held her breath a second, then let it go, long and slow. “No, I don’t. I thought they were heading for divorce. Jeff grew up when you were born. Melly didn’t. Jeff would have put what was good for you ahead of anything else. Including Melly.”

Fresh tears spurted. Leslie took her in her arms and rocked her. Then she chuckled.

“What?” April asked.

“Oh, honey, how you can think you’re like Melly. She wouldn’t have noticed any of these three men, much less have considered getting to know them.” She held April away from her and looked into her eyes. “Or rescuing them.”

“Rescuing?
Me
rescue somebody?
You’re
always rescuing
me
.”

“What?”

“I’m a mess and you and Grady swoop in and make everything better. Like when Gerard died—”

“You were mourning a dear friend.
And
sorting out his house and his mess of an estate.”

“—and when Reese broke off the engagement — well, actually his mother did—”

“She
didn’t
.”

“She did. And when that happened my first thought was to run to you and Grady. ”

“That’s what family’s for. But you didn’t run to us, did you?”

“And now you’re here again, rescuing me. Just like when I was thirteen—”