Lone Star Prince. Cindy Gerard
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he’d put it, hiding in plain sight—rather than risk having undue attention focused on the reclusive young woman and child in The Royal Court Complex, apartment 3B.
What Gregory hadn’t understood was that while she had been apprehensive at first, it was because she had been afraid she couldn’t do the work, not because she didn’t want to do it. Another thing Gregory hadn’t understood was that while normal little girls dreamed of castles, servants and knights in shining armor, Anna had dreamed of walking barefoot in the grass, of playing hide-and-seek after dark with the village children, of a best friend to share secrets with.
What she had always wanted was to be a part of something as an equal, not set apart as elite. As Princess Anna von Oberland, she’d done elite. She’d lived elite. Elite was lonely and isolating. She’d lived lavishly, surrounded by rare artwork, gilded mirrors and armies of servants. She’d slept in platform beds beneath satin sheets. And yet everything she’d ever wanted had been out of her reach: the ultimate excitement of the absolutely mundane.
As Annie Grace, the waitress, she’d found that—in an austere two-bedroom apartment and, of all things, an alarm clock. She loved her alarm clock. Like William, it gave her purpose. It gave her a reason to get up and be useful on the most basic level.
Here, in Royal, she was a small part of a whole, and despite everything that had happened, it felt wonderful. She was a single mom, working for a living. And she felt, for the first time in her life, as if she belonged. It was another of life’s strange ironies that as she played the role of a waitress, she felt more real than at any other time in her life.
Even better, since arriving in Royal, she was seeing things in William that she had always yearned to see. While he was still reserved and slow to trust, he smiled more. He even laughed sometimes without fear of reprisal. Harriet Sherman, her next door neighbor and volunteer baby-sitter, had been responsible for much of that.
Manny hit the bell again, snapping her head up. She hurried to pick up a morning special and remembered how difficult it had been to leave William in Harriet’s care that first morning. Even with Gregory’s assurances that Harriet was his employee and that he’d positioned her next door to Anna’s apartment for the sole purpose of looking after both her and William, it had been hard leaving him.
Now it was hard to think of taking him away from here, away from Harriet and her loving arms and oatmeal raisin cookies. But she knew she must eventually return to Obersbourg and face her obligations.
She squared her shoulders, drew a bracing breath. Ivan wouldn’t call off his dogs. He would not give up on trying to strong-arm her into marriage. And as much as it hurt to acknowledge it, her parents would continue to offer her up to Ivan as the prize to save Obersbourg’s sovereignty.
Even accepting all this, she knew she must return. Obersbourg was her country. Her birthright. Her obligation. Hopefully, she would be stronger for her time here in Royal. Hopefully, she would come up with a solution to her country’s grave dilemma that didn’t require marriage to a man she had despised even before she’d begun to suspect he was involved in Sara’s death.
For all of those reasons, the thought of leaving Royal haunted her. Soon, though, she would have one less reason to stay. As of Sunday, her final tie to her sister, Sara, would be severed. One more link with Ivan would be broken. And while Gregory would never be hers again to lose, one more reason for his protection would also be negated.
Her sunny mood of moments ago was as lost as the sun that had disappeared beneath the dust inspired by a tenacious and sustained wind. Reality encroached severely on Annie Grace’s fantasy world. Like an unyielding and vengeful enemy, it deposited the weight of obligation and the cold hard facts of duty back into the hands of Anna von Oberland—all to the relentless tick of the clock as time slowly ran out on her.
The King and Queen of Obersbourg’s entire existence exemplified saving face at all costs, celebrated the triumph of appearance over reality. So it was sadly ironic, Anna thought, that in her boldest act of defiance yet, she had resorted to practicing the ruling principle of her parents’ lives—a principle she abhorred.
This Sunday, however, she played their game to the letter. She watched the happy celebration unfold before her in the grand salon of the Texas Cattleman’s Club with a plastic smile in place when the reality was that her heart was breaking. She murmured the appropriate words when her only triumph was in the knowledge that no one knew how much her actions had cost her.
As promised, Miranda and Edward, her sister’s twin babies, had been rescued by Gregory’s brother Blake. They were safe—thank God they were safe here in Texas—but as of today, they were no longer hers to protect. As of today, they were no longer hers at all.
In one of the hardest decisions of her life, she had given them up. She had given them over to the loving arms of Blake and his new bride, Josie.
It was the right thing to do, she told herself, just as she had told herself repeatedly since Blake had brought the babies to Texas. Blake and Josie loved them. They would ensure that Anna’s promise to Sara would be fulfilled.
“Promise me, Anna. Promise me,” Sara had pleaded shortly after the twins were born. “If anything happens to me...promise me you won’t let mother and father raise them. Promise me you’ll get them out of Obersbourg and find someone who will love and nurture there.”
Anna had smiled back then at her little sister’s dramatic plea. Sara had always been the actress of the two of them. The rebel. The wild little princess who thumbed her nose in the face of tradition, laughed at the rigors of royal protocol.
Bracing against a fresh wave of pain, Anna drew herself erect. It was because of Ivan Striksky that Sara would never laugh again. The final proof had arrived yesterday. Gregory had sent the damning evidence over to the diner via messenger.
She was still trying to come to grips with the words in the fax sent by the attorney who had handled the estate of Marcus Dumond, Ivan’s horse trainer. Marcus had been much more than a horse trainer, as it turned out. Anna had known he had once been Sara’s lover. She hadn’t known that Marcus was the father of the twins. And now, because Gregory had ferreted out the truth, she had proof that the car crash that had killed both Sara and Marcus had been arranged by Ivan.
The rumble of deep, masculine laughter dragged her away from her thoughts of that devastating news and back to the reason for today’s celebration. Today was the day she had agreed to officially release the twins for adoption. Today was the day she severed her last tie to Sara.
She made herself shut out the ugly string of events that had brought her here and focused on the happiness around her. Blake was a good man. Josie a good woman. Both were all smiles as they stood side by side, each of them cradling one of the babies in their arms. And while she had agonized about her decision, in the end she knew she’d had no choice. It had been Sara’s wish.
Just like she’d had no choice but to attend today’s celebration. Thank God for Harriet, she thought, as she so often had in the past months. Sensing intuitively that Anna would need to draw on all her resources to keep herself together, she had volunteered to take William to a movie today.
“Anna?”
She blinked, automatically set a smile in place even before she realized it was Josie who had walked up beside her and lightly touched her arm.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” She broadened her smile, and even though her heart was breaking, opened her arms to little Miranda when Josie held her out to her. Tears filled her eyes as Miranda reached up and tangled her little fingers in Anna’s hair.
Life was so strange, she thought, smiling down at the happily gurgling baby. When Blake had finally managed to smuggle the babies out of Europe and into Texas, he’d run into the storm of the century while driving across the state with them. Josie had spotted his car in a washed-out ravine. Blake had been unconscious, the babies crying and hungry. Josie had managed to get them all home to her farmhouse, and during Blake’s recovery, while he’d struggled to regain his memory that had been temporarily