expression on his handsome face.
Two
Crown prince, indeed. “A college grad like you ought to be able to come up with a better line than that!” Allison huffed as she threw herself into her car and drove toward Diane’s house.
Maybe she’d hang around for an hour or two, help her sister with the day-care kids. She had been exhausted when she left the library, but her fury had energized her. If Cray was feeling better, she could give Diane a hand with the chores. Besides, delaying her return to the beach house might be wise. If Jay was feeling particularly pigheaded, he might try to intercept her again at her home. She didn’t think Jay...Jacob...whoever, would remember where her sister lived.
Allison pulled up in front of the tidy driftwood gray Cape Cod three blocks back of the water and halfway across town. She didn’t lock the car, but on second thought took the keys with her. Nanticoke was a small, peaceful town, but she didn’t believe in tempting fate or some teenager looking for a joyride. Just last week, two fifteen-year-olds too lazy to walk to school had “borrowed” her neighbor’s car. The police had found it parked in the high school parking lot. Dumb kids.
She let herself in through the kitchen door without knocking, plucked an apple from the red plastic bowl on the table and bounced down the cellar stairs to the finished rec room where Diane spent most of her days with her charges.
The children were clustered around her, sitting on a mat on the floor, while Diane read to them from a picture book with a comical bear on the cover. Allison crossed her ankles and lowered herself to the floor, munching on her apple, feeling her pulse slow to a calmer pace. Cray spotted her and pushed himself up from the floor. He toddled over, grinning and chattering unintelligibly, and trustingly dropped into her lap.
Allison wrapped her arms around her little boy and hugged him, rocking back and forth. “You make everything all right, you know that?” she whispered into the feathery tufts of dark hair above his ear.
He gurgled contentedly as she swept stray bangs off his forehead. His skin felt cool and the feverish glaze over his eyes was gone. She was relieved to see him looking better.
After the story was over, Diane deposited each child in a high chair. Allison helped her pour juice and pass out pretzels for a final snack of the day. She felt herself gear down another notch and chuckled softly. Times like this, she thought, a girl really has to keep her sense of humor.
“What’s so funny?” Diane asked.
“Hard to explain,” Allison replied, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“Try me.”
She drew a long breath. “I saw Cray’s father.”
Diane dropped the bag of pretzels. Crumbs scattered across the playroom floor. “Jay?” Her cheeks flushed red and her eyes narrowed dangerously. “That creep. The nerve of him crawling back now. What does he want?”
“I’m not sure,” Allison said, thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t trust him under the best of conditions. But he told me a weird story about his being a prince and living on a yacht.” She laughed out loud. “Prince of Elbia! You’d think he could come up with something more believable, if he wanted to impress a girl.”
Diane stooped to pick up the plastic bag that had split down one side. “Elbia? Isn’t that the postage-stamp-size country near Austria that’s been in the news lately?”
Allison shrugged. “Who knows. I don’t have time to keep up with international politics these days. Every spare moment I’ve either been cataloging the new books or taking care of Cray. Last Sunday, I even took him with me while I worked overtime.”
“Wait here,” Diane said. “Pass out another round of goodies, if there’s enough.” She shoved the bag into Allison’s hands.
A minute later she was back downstairs with a broom in one hand, a full pitcher of juice in the other and the New York Times tucked under one arm. She set down the pitcher and broom, and spread the paper on the table. “I know I heard something about a meeting at the United Nations, an Eastern European coalition...something like that.” She frantically flipped pages while Allison looked over her shoulder, wondering if her sister had gone mad. “The president was going to meet with delegates. One was this young...” She stopped flipping and pointed triumphantly at a photograph in the middle of the right-hand page. “There. Crown Prince Jacob von Austerand. Gee, I would never have connected him with some grad student from Connecticut but...” She wrinkled her nose, considering. “Alli, he does look a lot like Jay...with a couple of years under his belt.”
Allison snatched up the newspaper section. She stared at the black-and-white UPI photo of three men in expensive business suits. The tall wide-shouldered one shaking hands with the President of the United States was Jay, no doubt about it.
Her eyes dropped quickly to the caption, and she read it out loud. “Prince Jacob von Austerand of Elbia congratulates the president after his speech before the Eastern Unity Conference on Tuesday.”
“The creep,” Diane muttered, picking up the broom to sweep violently at the tile floor. “Egotistical playboy. People with money make me sick. They think they can do anything they want...doesn’t matter who gets hurt.”
Allison frowned at her sister, trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle, for which she seemed to have only half the pieces. Now that she focused on the scraps of news she’d heard over the radio or glimpsed on TV, she remembered hearing things about a playboy prince. He’d been linked romantically with Hollywood actresses, wealthy socialites, even one female rock singer. Was that Jay...Jacob? If so, how had she fit in with all those glamorous women?
“I—I can’t believe he’s who he says he is,” she stammered, her voice rising in panic. “Diane? How could I not have known? The man’s a public figure...a celebrity!”
Diane stopped sweeping and patted her arm. “Why would you know? Even if someone recognized him, he could easily pretend he just looked like the prince. Apparently, he likes playing games with women. He has a pretty wild reputation, you know.”
“I know...of course, I know. He’s right up there with the Kennedys and the British royals.” Allison suddenly felt deflated, hollow inside. She shook her head. “So I was just another amusing affair for him....”
“Apparently,” Diane said, using a wet cloth to wipe crumbs from a toddler’s chubby cheeks. “Hey, consider yourself lucky. Now that you know the truth, it should be that much easier to put the jerk out of your mind.”
“He was out of my mind, until he showed up at the library today.”
“Was he? Out of your mind, that is.” Diane cast her a skeptical look. “It’s not like you’ve been dating anyone else in the two-plus years since he disappeared.”
“That’s not because I’m hung up on him,” Allison insisted. “I just have to be more careful who I see, now that Cray’s around.”
“Right.” Diane rolled her eyes. “So, are you going to see him? Jacob?”
“Are you crazy? Of course, I’m not going to see him. There’s nothing that could make me set foot on that yacht or anywhere else he happens to be.”
The
