The Reluctant Princess Read online

  “I think you’re a big talker,” she said. “But right now, you can’t produce the follow-through.” She glared at him. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  He held his own, but it wasn’t easy. “I’m damaged, but not defeated. I’m ready to go, and you’re going with me.”

  “Really? And how do you think we’re going to make the trip? A magic carpet, maybe?”

  “Hey, my motorcycle.” His face changed as he remembered where he’d left it. “I wonder if it’s still there.”

  “Chained to the bus bench? I doubt it.”

  He frowned, looking at her speculatively, but realizing right away she wasn’t going to go get it for him. “It might be. No one’s stolen it yet and I’ve had it for days.”

  She knew what he was thinking. “Forget it,” she said. “Besides, you only have the one cycle. We can’t all go on that.”

  “Sure we can. It’s a good old sturdy one. We could make it.”

  Her eyes opened wide in mock horror. She didn’t believe a word of it. She knew he had to be kidding. If he was serious, he was certifiable.

  “I see. You’re planning to put Dede and me on the back of a motorcycle and go careening through the mountains.” She glared at him. “Are you crazy?”

  He sighed, realizing he was really too weak for this argument right now. His whole body was aching.

  “Maybe I am,” he admitted softly.

  She rolled her eyes and turned away.

  He flexed the muscles in his legs, wondering if he could trust them and deciding against trying. Not yet. Maybe the next time he was conscious. He closed his eyes, resigning himself to more sleep.

  He woke some time later to find the doctor hovering over him, checking his eyes, then taking the gauze off the cut in his chin to make sure no infection was setting in. He talked the whole time but Jake only caught a few words here and there.

  “You’re probably sore all over,” the doctor was saying now. “You got hit pretty hard. You’re lucky you didn’t break any bones.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Jake muttered under his breath.

  “What’s that you say?”

  Jake shook his head. He’d been talking to himself when you came right down to it.

  “Where’s Kim?” he managed to say aloud as he began to realize there didn’t seem to be any sign of her.

  “Kim? Oh, she had to go to work. She’ll be back tonight.”

  Would she? A small part of his brain was signaling him with a warning. She might try to take off again. Why wouldn’t she? But there really wasn’t much he could do about it in his present state. The doctor was right. He had to heal fast.

  “Where’s the baby?” he asked.

  “The babysitter took her over to her apartment,” he said, and suddenly he looked shifty. “Say, what’s your name anyway? In case I need to fill out any papers or anything.”

  Despite his condition, Jake recognized a phony cover-up when he heard one. “Jake Jonas,” he lied, slurring his words and closing his eyes to forestall any more questions.

  “Where are you from, Jake Jonas?”

  Jake just shook his head.

  The doctor hesitated, then seemed to give up. “Okay. Just take it easy. Get some sleep. The more you sleep, the quicker you’ll heal.”

  He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to take care of the business he’d come for, but he felt the sting of an injection before he could protest, and then he was sinking into nothingness again.

  He clawed his way back up and out of that dark tunnel a few hours later. The apartment was cold and quiet. Shadows seemed to be hemming him in. He stretched and tried to get up, but his muscles weren’t working properly. The ache in his leg was dulled but not forgotten.

  Painfully, he began to pull himself up. He tried to stand, but he began to cough. Pain shot through his chest and his legs buckled under him. He was going down, turning just in time to make it back into the big, overstuffed chair. He sat there and caught his breath and tried to figure a better way to do this. A way that might work, for instance. But nothing came to mind. There was no one to help him, no one to talk to. It was easier just to go to sleep again.

  Kim’s shift was almost over and she could hardly wait to get back on that bus. Her eyes were stinging, she was so tired. Lack of sleep tended to do that to her. It had been hard to forget there was a strange man who despised her sleeping just a few feet away. And then Dede had been fussy during the night and had kept her up for hours.

  If only she could figure out what was wrong with Dede, why she spent so much time wincing in pain, why her sweet little eyes looked so troubled. Everyone tried to convince her it was just colic, but her instincts told her it was more than that. It just wasn’t normal.

  She’d given birth to her baby just nine months before in a little seaside town called Dorcher Cliffs. It was a sweet little place, very rustic and charming, and her mother—her real mother!—had bought a local cottage there years ago and left it to Kim when she died. The war had been over for a few months at the time and the sullen men who had survived were still straggling home. It was no fun being on the losing side of a struggle. There was usually a lot of pain and hardship involved.

  And one of the worst hardships, right from the beginning, had been the shortage of doctors. Kim had only seen one during all her pregnancy and Dede’s birth was attended by a midwife. Luckily, there were no problems and everything went smoothly. But by the time she was six weeks old, Kim knew there was something wrong.

  At first she’d bought the line everyone gave her that it was just a normal bout of colic. But she’d known colicky babies and as the months passed, she began to have to face the fact that this was something else—something worse. No one wanted to believe her, but she was Dede’s mother and she could tell.

  And so began the hunt for a decent pediatrician. There weren’t any in Dorcher Cliffs and she couldn’t find any in the neighboring towns. So she packed up and they headed for Tantarette. She’d been sure she would find someone easily in the largest city still under Granvilli control. Unfortunately, it hadn’t turned out as she’d thought. Everywhere she turned, people were complaining about the lack of medical care available. It was just as bad as it had been in her little village.

  Some said the doctors had all been captured by the DeAngelis royals and put in camps and not allowed to go home once the war was over. Others claimed they had mostly defected voluntarily, going for the better pay and more modern facilities the other side controlled. In any case, there were few to be found and pediatricians seemed to be in the shortest supply of all.

  So she’d done the only other thing she could think of. She’d taken the first hospital job she could find, hoping it would give her access to someone who could help her. So far, she’d had very little luck. No one could tell her anything about what was wrong with her baby.

  She’d taken Dede in to the hospital and begged one general practitioner, an internist, and even a nurse practitioner, to give her a quick look. But every times, she heard the same response.

  “No fever? No blood? Sorry, Kim, we just plain don’t have time for normal childhood ailments right now. There are too many people damaged by the war that still need our help. Once we clear the system…”

  And she couldn’t give anyone any solid evidence of what was wrong. It was just her instincts as a mother that made her sure there was something. Something just wasn’t quite right.

  It was tough being so all alone—tough and frustrating. There’d been a time when she’d been important to the Granvilli regime—almost part of the Granvilli family itself. There’d been a time when she could have called upon her credentials to get more attention from the power structure. But that time was long gone. She’d been shunned, cast off and turned into a nonperson. Now she was alone and she
had to deal with everything on her own.

  “You going home?” a red-headed coworker named Ruby asked, frowning at a work schedule on the wall.

  She nodded. “Just as soon as I finish with that accident victim in bed fourteen.” Her gaze flickered that way. The man’s injuries reminded her of Jake’s, but much worse. He might lose a leg. That made her wonder if Jake knew how lucky he was to have come away from his own accident so lightly damaged.

  “Oh yes, I saw him being stitched up. Pretty ugly.” Ruby winced. “Reminded me a little too much of a few months ago when the war was going strong.”

  “The war.” Kim shook her head. “Did that ever really happen? Or was it a dream?”

  “I wish.” Ruby sighed as she turned away. “I just go one day at a time and hope nothing like that ever happens again.”

  “Me too.”

  She looked across the room at the bed she was planning to make her last job of the day, hoping she would be able to finish and get out of the ward before someone found something more to keep her here and away from her baby. Morale was low, help almost nonexistent, and there was more work than there was time to get it done.

  But in a few minutes she would leave this place and get back to her baby and…and what? Jake Marallis and his tales of phony royal bloodlines?

  It made her angry just thinking about it. Why did Pellea think she would fall for this nonsense? The die had been cast long ago and things were as they were going to be. No fits of remorse from the Queen of Restored Ambria could change what had happened. Once betrayed, always wary. And that was what Kim would always be.

  The others who had come looking for her had been easy to dismiss. Jake was another story. He was tough and he was ready to do things the others hadn’t been prepared to do. She was scared of him and his crystal-blue eyes. They saw too much and held a grudge. She had to think of an escape plan before he got healthy again.

  Walking out of the hospital and making her way to the bus stop, she pulled her coat up against the cold wind. At least it wasn’t snowing tonight. But it hardly mattered. She knew what she had to do.

  First priority—ditch Jake.

  Second—find a doctor who could diagnose Dede.

  Third—get herself and her baby back to where they belonged, the little seaside cottage they had been living in since Dede was born, far away from city noise and city cruelty.

  Put that way, it seemed simple enough. Now to build up the strength and nerve to implement that plan.

  Jake raised his head and listened like a swimmer surfacing for air in a pool of cold, cloudy water. He was going to wake up this time. He was determined. He’d been awake a few times before this afternoon, once to make a shaky trip to the bathroom. He’d almost passed out on the way, but he’d made it. He was getting his strength back, little by little.

  There were voices in the hall. He recognized Kim’s, and after a moment, decided the other was the de-licensed doctor. He could only make out bits and pieces here and there, but something in their tone told him this wasn’t an idle chat.

  “Look Kim, there’s no guarantee…”

  “Just the chance to talk to a real specialist…”

  “I can’t promise you…’

  “…worth its weight in gold for Dede…”

  “I’ll give you the address when you’re ready to go. I can’t risk….”

  “Are you sure he knows what he’s doing?”

  “Oh yes. He was the very best in my class at…”

  “Why is he hiding?”

  “He crossed someone in the Granvilli power structure. There’s a price…”

  “And he has to leave the country?”

  “As a favor to me, he said he’d take a look. But you can’t tell anyone….”

  Jake frowned as they moved down the hall and the conversation got fuzzier. He didn’t much like what he thought he’d heard. He couldn’t be sure what exactly was going on, but he knew he didn’t like it. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself not to drift back to sleep, hitching up higher in the chair.

  And then he waited. It was probably only a minute or two, but it seemed forever and he began to drift off again. But he woke with a start only a short time later when Kim came in with Dede in her arms.

  He heard her putting Dede down in her crib and he waited to open his eyes when she came into his field of vision. He heard her approach and he looked up.

  The first thing he saw was an angel. The light was behind her and it made her golden hair glow as it flew wildly about her pretty face. Her fur coat added to the illusion, and then she threw it off and revealed her trim figure in its slightly snug nurse’s uniform and wiped him out for good. He hadn’t known he had this thing for nurses. Who knew?

  He closed his eyes again. It was just too much. She was going to burn out his retinas.

  “How are you doing?” she asked, bending over him. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

  He shook his head and risked a quick look at her. “Not really,” he said. “But I could use a glass of water.”

  She got him one and he gulped it down gratefully. It not only quenched his thirst, it cooled him down, and finally he could look at her without making a joke out of himself.

  “I’ve got some news for you,” she said, dropping down to sit on the arm of the couch.

  He looked up. She was close enough to touch, so he was going to have to keep his response to her reined in. He groaned and half laughed at himself. He could barely move, much less make a play for a beautiful woman. Besides, he despised her. He kept forgetting that.

  “What’s the news?” he asked.

  “Your motorcycle is still there. Still chained to the bus bench. I just saw it.”

  “You’re kidding. I would have thought someone would have stolen it by now.”

  She nodded. “You know what I think it is? It’s so old, so ramshackle, it looks like a piece of urban art sitting there. I’ll bet people don’t think it really works.”

  She grinned and he found himself smiling into her eyes. He was just too weak to resist.

  “And you know what else?” She produced a cardboard box. “I stopped into the café where we were last night. I figured you didn’t have time to pay the bill as you dashed out after me, so I wanted to give them some money for that.”

  He should have known. She was the type. But that impressed him anyway.

  “What a model citizen,” he noted, trying to sound cynical and failing.

  “Of course.” She grinned again. She seemed to be in an awfully good mood. “But here’s the point. They were just taking another one of their fabulous apple pies out of the oven. I stood there and watched them and I could hardly stand how beautiful it looked.” Her eyes sparkled. “So I bought it.” She waved it under his nose. “Can you smell that aroma? We will feast tonight!” She laughed, then sobered a bit as she added, “I invited Dr. Harve to join us for pie later. So we’ll save it until then.”

  It was lucky that she jumped up and headed to the kitchen with her prize at that moment. That gave him time to settle down and blot out how adorable she looked when she was excited. He needed to remember who she was. Leonardo’s woman. The mother of Leonardo’s child. Of all the women in the world, she was exactly the wrong woman for him to start feeling this way about. He had to cut it out, fast.

  He made another trip to the bathroom, feeling a bit more sure of his leg than he had before. He looked into the kitchen on his way back. She was hovering over Dede, who was fussing, and she looked as though a lot of her previous happiness had dimmed quickly.

  “Something wrong?” he asked, leaning on the door jamb.

  She looked up and shook her head. “No, nothing. Dede’s just…” She shook her head again. “Listen, I’m fixing you some soup. It’ll be ready
in about half an hour.”

  “Thanks. I mean really, Kim. Thanks a lot.”

  She flashed him a quick smile but without much warmth. “Don’t mention it. I’ll bet you need more water.”

  He nodded, looking toward the sink and wondering how he was going to maneuver getting it.

  “No problem. Go sit back down. I’ll bring it to you.”

  He nodded again and did as she suggested. He had a feeling she must have been thinking over their dubious ties just as he had and she realized she was in trouble as long as he was here. She wanted him gone. He didn’t blame her. But it wasn’t going to happen. Not until she agreed to go with him. In the meantime, he had a serious subject he wanted to talk to her about.

  He waited for her to come back out again, and she came soon enough, bringing him another glass of water, and also a pair of sports pants.

  “Here,” she said. “I picked these up in the hospital supply room. They’re stretchy so they should go over your leg better than another pair of jeans would at this point.”

  He took them and nodded. “You think of everything,” he noted.

  She hesitated. “I felt bad just taking them,” she said. “But we give them away free to patients all the time and if you weren’t illegal, you would have been there, so…”

  He laughed at her. “You’re actually finding a way to justify it to yourself. Kim, I’m sure they’ve had more work out of you than they’ve paid for. Stop feeling guilty about everything.”

  She sighed. He drank down the second glass of water just like he’d done the first and she waited for the glass.

  “Listen,” he said as soon as he’d swallowed the last drop. “I heard you talking to the doc in the hall.”

  She took the glass from him but gave him a tart look. “You shouldn’t listen in to conversations you’re not a party to.”

  He almost rolled his eyes. “No kidding. Thanks for the etiquette lesson, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry.” He grabbed her hand as she started to turn away, holding her there. “What exactly are you planning to do?”