The Blacksheep Prince's Bride. Martha Shields
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laughing. “Isn’t he, Daddy?”
Jake scratched the dog’s deep chest. “He sure is.”
Boo-Boo gave a little howl, loving all the attention.
Sammy giggled and helped Jake scratch the mastiff’s chest. “Can Boo-Boo go to our house?”
“Not today, Sammy,” Jake said. “But I’m sure you can visit Boo-Boo any time.”
“Of course he can.” Rowena stood and held onto the dog’s collar. “As a matter of fact, my father’s cairn just had a litter of puppies. Is it all right if I take Sammy to see them tomorrow?”
Jake stood, too, and picked Sammy up. “Where does your father live?”
“In a village called Kempten. It’s about half an hour’s drive.”
“You drive?”
“Of course I drive. I can take a car from the palace garage any time.” She placed a hand over her brow to shade her eyes from the early afternoon sun as she looked up at him. “Would you like to go with us?”
As he gazed down at her lovely, upturned face, Jake realized he very much wanted to go.
During the past couple of days, he’d discovered that he liked Rowena’s method of handling children. Laughter mixed with positive comments rather than frowns and criticism. And she’d just performed a miracle with Sammy.
He wanted to see the man who’d raised her. She must be very loved, to have so much love to give.
To children, of course.
“It would do you good, to get out of the palace for a while,” she said. “Have you seen much of Edenbourg?”
“Just the road from the airport to Old Stanbury.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “You’re the one who found the king’s car, aren’t you?”
Jake stiffened. “Yes. Why?”
“It’s just that the coastline road is not the shortest route from the airport to here.”
Jake frowned. Luke had provided him with directions from the airport.
“Are the puppies like Boo-Boo?” Sammy asked.
Rowena smiled. “No, they’re a lot smaller. Papa has a Cairn terrier. He bought her when he and I went to Scotland on vacation several years ago.”
Jake let go of what was bothering him about the airport road. “Cairn?”
“Ever seen the Wizard of Oz?” Rowena asked.
“Who hasn’t?”
“Toto was a cairn.”
“Toto!” Sammy cried.
“Have you seen the Wizard of Oz, Sammy?”
Jake nodded. “We watched part of it a couple of months ago. Until the witch got a little too much for…um…me to take.”
Laughter brightened Rowena’s dark golden eyes. “She scares me, too.”
“Me, too,” Sammy admitted.
“Are you going in to the palace?” Jake asked, turning to let her precede him.
Rowena still held onto the dog’s collar. “I need to take Boo-Boo back to the kennel.”
Sammy struggled against Jake’s hold. “I wanna go with Ena.”
Jake held on with difficulty. Sometimes holding on to his son was like trying to hold on to an eel in a vat of oil. “I don’t know, Sammy.”
Rowena met Jake’s gaze with an “I agree with you” nod. “Tell you what, Sammy. Go with your papa. I’ll be back in just a minute, and I’ll take you to see the pool inside the palace. It was built a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Sammy was clearly torn, but reluctantly agreed. “’Kay, Ena.”
Before there could be any more discussion, Jake turned toward the palace.
Sammy watched Rowena over Jake’s shoulder. “Guess what, Daddy?”
“What, Sammy?”
“We go see her puppies tomorrow, right?”
Jake gave his son a hug. “Right, Sammy. Tomorrow we’ll go see her daddy’s puppies.”
Sammy slipped his arm around Jake’s neck. “You, too. Right, Daddy?”
“Yes, Sammy. Me, too.”
With a contented sigh, Sammy laid his head on Jake’s shoulder.
Jake’s heart turned over. He didn’t care what was going on in the negotiations tomorrow, he was going to see Rowena’s puppies.
With Sammy, of course. Just for Sammy.
Chapter Three
As they rounded a mountain curve the next morning several miles outside Edenbourg’s capital city of Old Stanbury, Jake settled back into the passenger seat of the Mercedes sedan marked with royal license plates.
“Finally,” Rowena muttered from behind the wheel.
“Finally what?”
“You’ve been sitting on the edge of your seat since we left the palace. Not an easy thing to do with a seat belt on.”
“Sorry.”
“Did you think I was going to kill us all?”
Actually, he hadn’t given her driving a thought, though he’d offered to take the wheel before they left the garage on the way to her father’s village of Kempton. The reason he’d finally relaxed was he just felt the chains break that had held him in the palace.
Now that she mentioned it, though, her driving was excellent.
“You’re a better driver than I thought you’d be.”
“Why would you think I wouldn’t be a good driver?”
He shrugged. “How often do you drive? You seem to be stuck in the palace as much as I am, and probably you have a driver if you go somewhere with the princess.”
She threw a sharp glance his way. “I haven’t gone out much lately, it’s true. Things have been hectic since the king disappeared. Isabel has needed me more than usual. But in normal times, I drive to see my father at least once a week.”
“You don’t even own a car.”
“You Americans.” Rowena smiled as she navigated a hairpin curve that overlooked a view of an impossibly green valley with a quaint village crawling up the side of a rocky mountain. “Can’t survive without at least one vehicle in the garage. Why should I give myself the expense of a car when I can check one out of the royal garage any time? You could, too, you know. You’re not a prisoner. You could borrow a palace car and take Sammy anywhere.”
“Anywhere on the island, you mean.” He didn’t mean to sound bitter.
“Well, if I do say so myself, Edenbourg is a beautiful country. We have many sites of interest, whether you like history or nature or the arts….”
“Anything a two-year-old might be interested in?”
“Sammy’s almost three, isn’t he?”
“Yes, in three months.”
“He certainly speaks well for his age.”
“I know. He started talking around ten months. Partly, I think, because he had to verbalize his needs.” He glanced in the back. Sammy wasn’t paying any attention to them. “Annette wasn’t the most…attentive of mothers.”
“That’s so—Oh,