The ones who had used and betrayed her. After all she had been through, it was a wonder she hadn’t lost her ability to trust entirely.
She saw him watching her and flashed him a smile.
“Your sister deserves to be happy,” Sam told the prince.
“I think so, too.” Then he added with a wry grin, “And if you ever do hurt her, I’ll have to hurt you back.”
Sam was quite sure, despite the prince’s smile, it was said only partly in jest. “I’ll keep that in mind, Your Highness.”
From across the tent a baby’s cry split the quiet murmur of conversation and they both turned to see Princess Melissa wrestling with two squirming bundles.
“I guess that’s my cue,” the prince said. He started to walk away, then stopped and said, “By the way, since we’re family now, you can drop the ‘Your Highness’ thing and just call me Chris.”
“After all these years of addressing you formally, that might take some getting used to.”
“Tell me about it,” Chris said with a grin before he walked off to rescue his wife.
Sam felt a hand on his arm and turned to see Anne standing there.
She slipped her arm through his and tucked herself close to his side and said excitedly, “Can you believe it, Sam? We’re married.”
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Do you think it’s odd that I’m so happy?”
“Not at all.” He leaned down to brush a kiss across her lips. “I would be worried if you weren’t.”
“How soon do you think we can sneak out of here? I’m guessing that we could squeeze in some alone time before we leave for our honeymoon.”
He was about to say, as soon as possible, when an explosion pierced his ears and shook the ground beneath his feet. Startled cries from the guests followed and Anne screeched in surprise. Sam instinctively shielded her with his body and looked in the direction of the sound as a ball of fire and smoke billowed up from the north side of the castle. At first he could hardly believe what he was seeing—his first instinct was to get Anne somewhere safe as quickly as possible—but before he had an instant to act, the entire area was crawling with security.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” Anne demanded, shoving past him to see, and when she saw the flames and smoke darkening the clear blue afternoon sky, the color drained from her face.
Security was already rounding everyone up and guiding them in the opposite direction, away from the blast.
“It’s him,” Anne said, looking more angry than afraid, watching as acrid smoke began to blow in their direction. “The Gingerbread Man did this.”
Threatening e-mails and occasional pranks were an annoyance, but this was a serious escalation. He was obviously out of control. If it was even him. “For all we know it could be an accident,” he told her.
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s him. And this time he’s gone too far.”
Six
As Anne had suspected, the explosion had been deliberate.
The device had been hidden in the undercarriage of a car that belonged to Sam’s aunt and uncle. The police bomb squad still had investigating to do, but as far as they could tell, the bomb had been detonated remotely.
Four other cars had been damaged in the blast and the castle garage had taken a serious hit. Four of the five doors would need to be replaced and the facade would require repair. Thankfully, no people had been seriously hurt. He’d had the decency to do it when there weren’t a lot of people close by. Or maybe that had just been dumb luck. A few maintenance people walked away with mild abrasions and first-degree burns, but it could have been so much worse.
Sam’s poor aunt and uncle, whose car had been sabotaged, were beside themselves with guilt. They felt responsible, even though Anne and her siblings assured them repeatedly that they were in no way being blamed. There was only one person responsible for this.
The Gingerbread Man.
They knew this for a fact now because shortly after the explosion he’d sent an e-mail to Anne via the security office.
Sorry I couldn’t make it to your wedding. Heard it was a blast.
“This has got to stop!” she told Chris, who sat slumped in a chair in the study, nursing a scotch. The wedding guests had all been driven home in the royal fleet—since their own cars had been casualties of the explosion—and most of the family had gone up to bed. Only she, Sam and Chris stayed behind to talk. Or in her case, castigate. She was so filled with nervous energy she hadn’t stopped pacing, hadn’t stopped moving in hours. “Someone could have been seriously hurt. Someone could have died! “
“You think I don’t know that?” Chris said, looking exhausted. “We’re doing all that we can. What else would you have me do? “
“You know what I think we should do,” she said, and his expression went dark.
“That is not an option.”
“What’s not an option?” Sam asked from his seat on the settee. He had been so understanding about this, considering his wedding day had literally gone up in smoke. But she had warned him that being with her could potentially suck him into this mess. And so it had. She shuddered to think what would have happened if the Gingerbread Man had waited until the guests were leaving to sink the plunger. She was sure Sam had considered the same possibilities.
“She wants us to try to draw him out so we can catch him,” Chris said.
“Draw him out how?”
“I assume by using one of us as bait.”
Sam turned to look at her. “You’re not serious.”
“Maybe I trust our security team to do their job. Besides, no one else has had a better idea. How long are we supposed to go on like this? Living like prisoners, in fear of what he’ll do next. He’s obviously escalating the violence.”
“Obviously,” Chris snapped. He rarely lost his cool, so Anne knew that he was much more upset about this than he was letting on. “And now we know what he’s capable of. He’s not just some twisted stalker. He made a bomb. He’s more dangerous than any of us anticipated.”
“Okay,” she acknowledged. “Maybe luring him out wouldn’t be such a hot idea after all.”
“I think that, in light of what happened, it would be best if you two canceled your honeymoon.”
“What!” she screeched, indignation roiling up in her like a volcano. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
“But you’re the one who suggested we go there, because it would be safe.”
She and Sam
