The Secret Prince (14 page)

“Wish me luck first. I'm not at all sure Frank will be happy about this. And Elly will need some high-power convincing.”

“Then, good luck. And if there's anything I can do to help—”

“I'll call,” Dan finished for him. But he knew, in his heart, that everything rested on him alone.

 

Later that day, Frank called, and it was clear that Jacob had prepared him for Dan's question. Dan had been justified in his concern. The man sounded none too pleased with Dan's intentions. “Of course I would give my blessing to anyone who loved Elly, and whom she loved as well,” he muttered sternly. “I could see she had a certain affection for you. But it's my understanding that she has chosen not to pursue the relationship.”

“Because of her mother,” Dan said as gently as he could while still getting straight to the point. “Not because of anything that happened between us. She fears childbirth and knows I've always wanted children.”

For what seemed a long time, Frank didn't respond. Dan wondered if he'd lost the connection, but before he could ask if Elly's father was still on the line, the
older man began to speak in a low, troubled voice. “There's something you should know, if she hasn't already told you. Elly can never have kids of her own.”

Dan frowned into the receiver. Something in the way Frank had phrased that last sentence made him suspicious. “Was that her decision or yours?”

“It's mutual,” Frank snapped. “When we found out she had the same heart defect as her mother, we had a serious talk, she and I.”

Dan winced, almost sure he could guess what was coming. “And you told her that you couldn't bear losing her the way you had lost her mother, is that it?”

“More or less. But it wasn't just what I wanted. She had been traumatized by her mother's death. And medically, it just didn't make sense for her ever to take the same risk, knowing what we knew.”

Dan wondered how much pressure Frank had intentionally or unintentionally put on his daughter to remain childless. First by neglecting her when she'd most needed his comfort and support. Then, after he'd assuaged his grief, by drumming into her how much like her mother she was.

“I love my daughter and don't want to lose her,” Frank continued defensively. “There's nothing wrong with that.”

“And I love your daughter and I don't want to lose her either. So I'm willing to put aside my dream of a family to be with her.” Dan paused, feeling angry and frustrated. “Is that all right with you, or have you also told her she shouldn't marry under any circumstances?”

“Taking that risk is up to her,” Frank said coldly.

So that was it. All of her young life, her father had warned her about the dangers of men, marriage and
having babies. And she had the death of her mother to prove him right.

“Someday you'll have to let her go, Frank. She's a grown woman now, not yours to keep. If she doesn't come to be with me, it will be with another man who won't love her as much or take as good care of her as I will.”

The silence was worse than almost anything the man could have said. Dan guessed the man's blessing would not be forthcoming.

“Frank, at least talk to her for me. Ask her to return my calls, or I'll have to do this my own way. She'll resent your holding her back once she makes up her mind to live her own life.”

“I know you mean well,” Frank choked out. “I feel badly that I wasn't there for her when she needed me. But I'm here now and I will support whatever she wants. If that's to remain childless, that's what it will be, though.” He hesitated. “I've been talking to your mother, and she says you're dead set to have kids. I expect that's what sent Elly heading for the hills.”

“It probably is. But will you just put in a word for me? Encourage her to let me come up to Connecticut and talk to her.”

“I'll do what I can,” Frank promised.

“Whatever she says, I'll honor,” Dan agreed. “All I'm asking for is one last chance.”

 

Elly paced the floor, furious with her father. First he'd come home and, instead of pitching in with all the work that had to be done, he was off sightseeing with Madge, who had appeared at the airport on his arm, to Elly's shock. Then he'd taken Elly aside to tell her what a good man Dan Eastwood was. And it was
clear that either Dan, his mother or both of them had gotten to her father, big-time.

She hadn't even been able to decide yet what she would do about the baby she carried. If the little life growing inside her could have been donated, like a spare kidney, to a woman who desperately wanted a child, she might have done it in the first few days after she'd discovered she was pregnant. But by the time she'd known for two weeks, she'd begun to wonder what this very new person inside of her would grow up to look like. And that had been her downfall.

Would he or she have Dan's dark hair, or her own red? Would their baby have his tall, strong build, or her more delicate bone structure? If she gave the child away, she would never know. And to give the child away, she'd have first to give birth to it, which was the reason she hadn't wanted to get pregnant in the first place.

Why couldn't life be easy!

She swung around at the sound of a car door slamming in her driveway. The Anderson Genealogy offices were located in the bottom floor of the house she shared with her father. She was upstairs in her bedroom and, when she looked out the window, a car with rental plates was sitting in the driveway. Dammit, it was
him.

Elly raced downstairs, finger-combing her hair as she went, despite her intention not to let Dan in the house. She ran her tongue over her lips and tried to recall if she had put on makeup that day, then told herself to knock it off because she didn't care what she looked like when all she was going to say to Daniel Eastwood was, “Sorry you made this long trip. I don't want to talk to you. Good bye.”

The doorbell rang. She stopped dead in the middle
of the office, unable to move a step closer to the door. He knocked on the door. She touched a hand to her chest and tried to breathe deeply, slowly, like a sane person. He pounded on the door. She began hyperventilating.

“Elly! I know you're in there. I ran into your father at the end of the street and he said so. Open up!”

No!
she voiced the word, but nothing came out.

“I'm not going to stand out here forever, and I'm not turning around to go back to Maryland without having my say. Now open up or I'll let myself in the hard way.”

She looked down at her hands. They were shaking so hard they looked blurry. “Coming,” she whispered hoarsely.

She twisted the lock button in the middle of the knob and opened the door. Stepping back, she bowed her head so she wouldn't have to look at Dan as he moved past her into the room.

She sensed that he had stopped in front of her and, when she lifted her gaze by a few inches, there were the toes of his shoes facing her bare feet. “Say what you have to say,” she said quietly, still not daring to meet his eyes.

He reached out and drew her roughly into his arms. “Elly, you're more important to me than anything in this world. Anything.”

She buried her face in his chest and breathed in the scent of him. “You're saying that you've given up your dream of a family?”

“No, I'm ready to consider two a family. You and me. That's all I need to be happy. I love you, Elly, and I know you love me. That's got to be enough for us.”
He sounded desperate and angry and determined…and she loved him for all those reasons.

But he didn't know yet what she knew. And she would have to tell him. “I can't…can't marry you until…”

“Until what?”

Until I decide if I'll keep your child or
— No, she couldn't do that. She would never be able to reject Dan's baby. Which left only one alternative. To let it grow and thrive in her and not give it up. And for the first time it struck her that this little life didn't seem at all an intrusion. It felt a part of her, something that was meant to be, that had always been fated to be brought into the world, against all odds, on the strength alone of one man's wish for a family. And strangely enough, she felt okay with that, to be part of a larger picture of life. Not to be, as she'd feared she'd become in marriage, the victim of a man's design to fulfill his role as populator of the planet. She would share in a miracle, and happily so.

She looked up at Dan for the first time. “I can't marry you until…until you ask me,” she whispered.

He stared down at her, looking like the most befuddled male on the planet. “What?”

“You're talking all around the issue. You never really asked if I would marry you.”

“Good grief.” He lowered his head to touch foreheads with her. “All right, woman.” He knelt before her on one knee and produced a small box from his coat pocket. “I came prepared.”

“I see you did.”

“Elly, I love you for being you, with all your beauty, your intelligence, your kindness and your fears. I want
you in my life. Anything else isn't worth losing you over. Will you marry me?”

“I won't take away your dream of having children,” she said slowly.

His face fell. “Oh, Elly…please don't say—”

“Because I think a family is that important to you, a real family. So yes, I will marry you, Daniel Eastwood.”

He frowned up at her. “Not to spoil the happiest day of my life, but I don't understand your answer. Are you saying that you will marry me and try to have a baby with me despite your heart problem?”

“I won't have to try very hard.” She spread her hand over her stomach.

His eyes widened. “No. You aren't. We—”

“—made a baby the last time we made love.”

“Then why didn't you call and tell—” He broke off, understanding showing in his eyes. “You still didn't want it when you found out. You were considering not telling me.”

“I was,” she admitted, touching his face tenderly. “I'm sorry, but I was. And I thought about every possible way I could avoid motherhood, until I had to face it. Then I remembered how much my mother loved me and how often she told me I was her most precious gift. I suddenly knew that if my little brother had been born, he would have given her just as much joy. Of course she knew the risks, but she took them anyway. I suppose all of life is a risk, isn't it?”

“You're still scared, aren't you?” he asked, kissing her gently on the lips.

“Yes.” She lifted her chin another notch. “But I'll do everything I need to do to protect the baby and myself. God willing, we'll have a healthy baby.”

He held her for a very long time before speaking again. “Would you have called and told me all this if I hadn't come up here?”

She pressed her cheek against his chest and thought for a moment. “I don't know. I think so. But I'm very happy you told me that you wanted me for myself, not as just a means to a family. It made the decision so much nicer.”

D
an and Elly's wedding was in the spring, before Elly started to show too much. As Allison adored weddings and felt a special closeness to Elly and Dan, who had fallen in love in Elbia, Der Kristallenpalast was offered as the setting for their wedding, as it had been for many others of the king's and queen's family members and close friends before. And Daniel Eastwood, Prince of the Realm, was definitely considered family now.

Frank beamed with obvious pride as his daughter walked down the flower-strewn aisle of the castle's chapel at his side. But Dan thought he saw another emotion in the older man's eyes. Perhaps sadness at losing his only child? Or was it a lingering touch of the fear he had instilled in Elly all of those years?

It gave him an uneasy moment, but he quickly pushed all doubts aside at the happy smile on his beautiful bride's lips.

Kevin, his best man, nudged him in the ribs. “You lucky dog, you,” he muttered under his breath.

“I know,” Dan said. “How well I know.”

He gazed out over the pews. In the very front row was his mother. She had never looked more contented. Already she was talking about her grandson, for they'd had a first sonogram and knew that Elly carried a boy baby. The two women had immediately begun picking out little blue baseball suits, rough-and-tumble teddy bears and other toys the child would be incapable of playing with for a good two years after his birth.

Everyone seemed pleased that they were marrying, but no one could have been happier than Dan himself.

Although their honeymoon might have been anywhere in the world, they chose to spend a week in Elbia, the most romantic place in the world, according to Elly. After they returned to Ocean City, they immediately began work on the City Kids project. Elly still did some genealogical research for her father, via the Internet, then sent him results by e-mail. She enjoyed the work, which helped him but also gave her something interesting to do while waiting for the birth of their son.

She wasn't without worry as her due date neared, but Dan was always there to reassure her. They had found the best obstetrician for their needs—a woman who specialized in difficult pregnancies. She had put Elly on a restricted activity schedule during the final two months, but allowed her a walk along the beach each morning while Dan swam.

As they woke up to each new day together, Dan thanked the powers that be for the chance he'd been given to keep Elly in his life, and to start a family too.
It was as much as he'd ever dreamed of having, and far more than he had believed he'd ever possess.

It was an ordinary morning three weeks before Elly was to enter the hospital for the C-section that had been carefully arranged to deliver their baby without undue stress on Elly's heart. Waking slowly, she lay blissfully in the warm bed, then looked down at her left hand. Her wedding ring felt strangely tight, and the flesh around it seemed puffy, swollen. She frowned, but was distracted by an unusually strong stirring within her womb. Elly smiled, pleased to feel the baby so active, and reached out for Dan.

He moved beneath her hand. “Hmmm?”

“Wake up,” she whispered. “Your son is doing jumping jacks in here.” She brought his hand over to her belly.

Dan immediately rolled over and grinned as he pressed his palm against the firm mound of his wife's stomach. “He certainly is. This kid will be ready for the Olympic swim team before he's three.”

Elly laughed, then winced at a sudden sharp twinge low in her back followed by a tight sensation in her chest.

“What is it?” Dan asked, immediately concerned.

She laughed again. “Nothing. I must have just slept at a funny angle. My back hurt for a moment, but now it's gone.”

“You're sure?” He looked worried.

“Of course, silly.” She started to move out from under the sheet. “I'll just get up and stretch, and—oh my!”

“Elly!” Dan threw off the bed covers and leaped across the bed to catch her as she teetered forward, clutching her swollen stomach. “What's wrong?”

“I don't know…I…” She gasped for breath, then smothered a cry as another pain twisted her insides and left her dizzy and helpless. “Doctor Shelton said…said everything was fine. Three more weeks to go but—”

“But what?”

“These feel like—” she gasped again, unable to catch her breath now, droplets of sweat popping out on her brow “—these feel like…like—”

“Contractions?” Dan asked.

“Y-yes.” She lowered herself back onto the bed with Dan's help. Tears trickled from her eyes. The pain was bad, and her heart was racing. She could breathe a little better now, seated, but only in shallow, rapid intakes. She stared across the room into the mirror over the dresser. Her features were puffy and pink, and suddenly it was no longer her own face looking back at her. It was her mother's face, the day before she'd died. And then Elly remembered how her mother's hands had swollen too, just like hers, so much so that she'd had to remove her rings that final day of her life. “Oh, please, no—” she wailed.

“Elly…Elly?” Dan cried, but his voice sounded distant and all she could concentrate on was her body's struggle to deliver a baby that wasn't supposed to come, not this way, not with her heart pulsing out of control and working so hard, not without the professional help she needed to bring this child into the world.

Desperately she tried to calm her heart, tried to think only of the things she must do to make sure Dan's son was born strong and healthy, no matter what might happen to her. She was terribly dizzy. The room became a blur. If she could just hold on long enough for
the baby to be delivered, to draw its own first breath, then the rest she could accept.

Please let my baby live,
she prayed.
Please don't take both of us from this wonderful man!

She looked up into Dan's panic-stricken face, swimming hazily before her, and reached out to touch it. But her fingertips brushed air and fell to her side as a deep voice bellowed out in terror.

 

Dan grappled for the bedside phone, then was dialing 911, even as his roar of denial still echoed in the bedroom. This couldn't be happening, he thought desperately. Had Frank been right all along? Had he jeopardized Elly's life by encouraging her to keep their baby? But she had come to want it just as much as he, and now he wouldn't let history repeat itself. Dan refused to let fate take this woman from him.

The emergency operator spoke calmly, asking all the right questions.

“How soon will the ambulance get here?” Dan demanded, one hand pressed over Elly's stomach, as if he could physically hold her to this earth.

“They're on their way now, sir. Stay on the line with me. Tell me how she's doing.”

He looked quickly at Elly. Her face had drained of all color. “She's unconscious.”

“Is she still breathing, sir?”

He lowered his ear to her lips and felt a delicate wisp of breath. “Yes. But her heart…I don't know how much of this she can take. The baby was starting to come. Tell me what to do!” he shouted into the phone.

“Just wait there with her, sir. Watch for the ambulance.”

He stared frantically at the clock, then at Elly. Sec
onds ticked past. He couldn't bear just sitting here while her life and the life of their baby rested in the balance. How many minutes did they have?

“Call the hospital,” Dan barked. “Tell them we're on our way.”

“But sir, the medics will be…” The woman's words drifted emptily away.

He had a bad feeling. What if it took them twenty minutes…thirty minutes or more to get there? How long did it take for a woman with an over-stressed heart or a baby deprived of oxygen to lose their lives? Ten minutes might be too long. And the Haven was just about that far from All Saints Hospital.

He dropped the receiver back into the cradle, spun around and scooped Elly's limp body up off the bed. “Hold on, darling,” he whispered in her ear. “It's not going to happen that way again. I promise.”

 

It seemed to Elly that she was in two bodies at the same time—her own and Dan's. Or perhaps not, maybe she had become part of everyone and everything that surrounded her. She could feel the awful pressure in her back and stomach, more intensely than ever, and her heart wasn't behaving well at all. But the pain felt somehow remote, as if someone else had taken the burden of it from her.

She wasn't looking down on herself, as people who experienced near-death moments often reported. She was everywhere, all at once: on their bed at home, being lifted in Dan's warm arms, watching the two of them from the perspective of the bungalow as he carried her at a run to his car. It was as if she became part of him at that moment. She could hear his heart thudding steadily, pounding with a fury within his chest
through her cheek. And although her eyes were shut, she felt as if she was seeing through his eyes as he drove, and she knew where he was taking her, to the hospital.

Then they were driving very fast, and she could see the car as clearly as if she'd been standing on the street corner watching it flash past. A horn was blaring, like an off-key siren, and they were weaving through traffic, screeching around corners, running red lights.

And all the while Dan never stopped talking to her. “You're not going to leave me, Elly. I won't let you. You're mine and you're staying on this earth until it's your time. This baby is going to be born, and you need to stay here and be his mother. Do you hear me, darling? And your husband can't live without you, so don't you even think of giving up.”

Even as the car squealed to a stop and he was throwing open the driver's door and racing around the outside to open her door and scoop her limp body up off the seat, he was shouting at her, claiming her, stealing her from death's ravenous jaws and dragging her back to the living.

A woman's voice said, “We'll take her now. It's all right, sir.”

“I'm staying with her,” Dan insisted.

But suddenly his arms were no longer supporting her, and the cool surface of a gurney came up beneath her. A nurse and orderly were wheeling her away, dashing through shining doors and running down a long polished corridor.

“No! I need to stay with her!” Dan shouted, but he sounded distant now and she wanted to beg them to let him be with her, but nothing came from her throat. She
was desperate to see him, to tell him how much she loved him, for it might be her last chance.

There was a sharp jab in her arm and a moment later her eyes flew open. Suddenly, she was one person again: Elly. And the pain in her stomach became hers again, and more severe than ever. But Elly smiled up at the nurse and through trembling lips said, “Whatever you have to do, save my son.” She grasped the woman's hand. “Do you hear me? Whatever it takes, give that man out there his little boy.” And there was no longer any fear.

 

Dan glared at the formidable steel doors separating him from Elly. He paced the hall, glared, paced. When he could stand no more, he bolted through the righthand door, but there was a woman the size of a Cadillac on the other side, and she thrust herself forward, backing him out of the trauma room before he could even get a glimpse of Elly.

“Now you just mind your manners,” she said to him. “You can only get in the way in there, and you'll be wanting those doctors with your wife to keep all their attention on her.”

“She needs me! What if she's—”

“What she needs is the kind of help they can give her,” she assured him, her voice softening now that she had shoved him down into a chair and he didn't appear to be getting up again. “You did your job, Daddy. You got her here. I understand you broke the last record at Indy coming cross-town. Let them do what they can. I'll be back in a few minutes to tell you how she's doing. I promise.”

He nodded but couldn't say a word of thanks. His throat was so dry he was unable to swallow, his eyes
burned with tears he knew he'd never be able to shed. If he lost her now…

Dan dropped his head into his hands and prayed for all he was worth that the woman he loved would still be on this earth an hour from now. He didn't dare ask for another day.

 

The light was bright and joyous and beckoning. Elly knew it would be wonderful to see even before she opened her eyes, for she could feel its soothing warmth on her closed eyelids. Her heart was at rest, and her body felt as light as the air blowing softly around her. She had never been happier or more at peace.

“Elly?” a voice called to her. It was him. Dan.

She smiled to herself, remembering how he'd looked the last time she'd seen him. He had been so handsome, his dark eyes fixed on her intently, his hair still all mussed from sleep. Yet she would have spared him the pain she had seen etched in the lines around his strong mouth and across his forehead. Then she had looked up at him from the bed they'd moved her to, smiled and asked, “Have you seen your son yet?”

The man had broken down and wept as he clutched her to him.

“Elly, are you awake, darling?” he asked now.

Slowly she opened her eyes. Behind him was the sunny yellow hospital room bursting with flowers. The blooms had come from all around the world. The biggest arrangement of pale pink roses had arrived yesterday with a card embossed with the royal crest of Elbia. All the nurses had come to stare in amazement at it. There had been delicate orchids from her father and Madge. And dozens of bouquets from strangers in Hawaii, England, Canada and as far away as Australia,
from well-wishers who had read about the Secret Prince and his bride's brush with death on the way to the hospital. The couple and their new baby were the toast of the tabloids now.

Dan bent down and kissed Elly softly on the lips. “The doctor says you can go home today.” He was grinning, his brown eyes rich with happiness.