Because Joey is a pain in the ass, she follows me to my rented SUV. So does the blonde. Viktor trails us all.
“If you’re thinking of kidnapping Gracie, you better also be planning on having your intestines turned inside out and scattered in the slop bins at that big hog farm over in Carlisle County,” the blonde says.
Gracie snores in my arms. Viktor reaches the automobile first, because that’s what he does, and he opens the back door.
“If you’d thought to perhaps allow her to sleep sometime in the last two days, it would be unnecessary for me to provide her with a ride home,” I reply.
Joey slides into the front seat uninvited.
“Excuse me, madam,” I say to the blonde. And I put every ounce of haughty royal dignity into the glare I give her.
“Pretty sure there’s never been an excuse for you,” she replies.
“There’s no sense fighting her,” Joey tells me with a smirk. “She knows where Gracie lives.”
“You’re damn tootin’ I do.”
“Shut up and get in the car, Peach,” Joey says.
Viktor meets my eyes over the door. If I tell him to get rid of her, he will. But we both know I won’t, because I know the only person to blame for Gracie not sleeping is Murphy.
But it’s rather difficult to be angry with anyone when I have her in my arms.
She sighs in her sleep, and gravity pulls her limp arm from around my neck to dangle at her side.
“In we go then,” I say.
The blonde has already climbed into the SUV’s backseat from behind the driver’s door.
“If you touch her boobs while I’m watching, I’ll give you a split in your other lip.”
Viktor’s mouth twitches in a smile, which he hides a moment too late with his paper coffee cup.
I put Gracie in the backseat and settle in beside her while Viktor climbs into the driver’s seat to take us the short distance to her little cottage. The blonde doesn’t speak. Joey doesn’t speak. Viktor doesn’t speak.
Gracie hiccups in her sleep.
Her cottage is ridiculously charming in the pale early morning light, painted a soft pink with white gingerbread trim, a wooden rocking chair swaying with the breeze on the tidy porch. I lift Gracie and carry her up the front steps. Joey opens the door without a key, and my blood pressure spikes.
Joey stifles a smile. She’s sporting dark smudges around her eyes as well, watching me with a keen attentiveness as though waiting for me to make a wrong move.
I suspect our definitions of wrong are similar. Not identical, but similar.
The cat rowls when we walk inside. I carry Gracie directly to her bedroom, but her bed is covered with a pile of laundry and assorted bags. Her cat swishes along beside me.
Joey makes no move to corral the animal nor clear Gracie’s bed. Nor does Peach.
Peach.
Quite the name. I don’t believe it fits.
With the bedroom out of the question, I return Gracie to the living room and settle her on the sofa, which is less cluttered but still not clean.
My eyeball twitches, followed by my nose.
There’s a rather large amount of cat hair in this room.
Gracie rolls onto her side, one hand tucked under her cheek, dark lashes lowered. The cat leaps delicately beside her, then climbs her legs, to her hip, and finally settles across her rib cage, its paws kneading into her shirt.
She smiles in her sleep.
I know that smile.
It was the same smile on her lips when I left her in my bed two mornings ago.
I’ve no wish to leave her now. I drop to my knees beside the couch and brush the hair off her forehead, because I can’t not touch her. My fingers catch on something sticky, and I realize she’s sporting frosting globs in her hair.
She’s an utter mess.
And she’s never been more beautiful.
“You’re still in a pickle, aren’t you?” Peach says.
Joey’s being uncharacteristically quiet.
I don’t like it.
“I’m nearly unpickled, madam,” I reply.
“Giving up hockey and your crown to move to Goat’s Tit?” Peach asks.
“Down, girl,” Joey says.
I peer at her as I continue to stroke Gracie’s hair, frosting globs and all.
I hardly expected my defense to come from Joey—she’s hellishly determined to shelter Gracie for the rest of her natural life.
“She’s been complaining about you,” Joey tells me.
“I’ve noticed.”
“Not Peach. Gracie.”
My shoulders stiffen and my fingers still. “I’m quite done with the games, and regardless of how long it takes my father to sort his own affairs, this betrothal business is no longer an issue. I will not marry Elin. No matter the consequences.”
“The only potential consequence of any of this will be your Parliament putting pressure on your father to remove himself from the throne so that your brother can take over.” Joey shrugs. “Your family’s too popular to be run out by a man who doesn’t believe women should be doctors.”
I’m unsure if I’m to be impressed or worried that she’s been studying my country, my family, and Austling in such depth.
“Rather astute observation,” I concede as I stroke Gracie’s hair once again—it seems I can’t help myself.
I don’t believe Austling’s feelings on female doctors is public knowledge. The man isn’t popular, but he’s not a public enemy either, and in Stölland, objecting to female doctors would definitely make one a public enemy.
“I have no idea if your family is actually that popular. Gracie’s convinced you are though.”
“His Majesty does indeed enjoy high favorable ratings,” Viktor confirms. “As does His Highness, Crown Prince Gunnar.”
Peach sends daggers out her eyeballs at him.
He feigns indifference and sips his coffee. I rather suspect he’s punch-drunk enough on lack of sleep that he’d be quite happy to have a reason to wrestle either of these women to the ground.
Viktor’s rather testy when I’ve run him too ragged.
“What was Gracie’s complaint?” I inquire. I’m sitting on her carpet just to be near enough to touch her, terrified I’ve made some inexcusable error, and that I’ll lose her as soon as she’s gotten enough sleep to throw me aside.
“That you think she’s smart.”
“She is bloody smart.”
Joey smirks. “Damn right.”
“Must chap your hide that she prints ugly-ass penises on cookies for a living,” Peach says.
Would I rather she not be subjected to genitalia the likes of which Murphy and Lavoie have sent her for printing upon her pastries? Yes. But shall I fault her for her ingenuity? Never. “She’s found a niche market and capitalized upon it. The American dream, no?”
“Penises are just body parts.” Joey shrugs. “Gracie wanted to be a nurse when she was little. She’d line up her Barbie, her Baby Bixby, and whatever stray dogs we happened to have, and she’d bandage them and splint their arms and put eye patches on them. Body parts are body parts.”
“Shut up,” Gracie mumbles, and I’m not entirely certain if she’s asleep, or merely too tired to keep her eyes open.
“She is smart,” Joey says.
Gracie lifts a middle finger. The cat takes advantage of the moment to slink under her arm, and they both sigh contentedly when she hugs it close.
I press a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep, love,” I murmur.
She hiccups. I sneeze.
Joey pinches her lips together as though she’s stifling a smile.
Peach doesn’t bother. She laughs out loud. “Oh, they’re quite the pair, aren’t they? Problem with cats, your royal pain-in-the-assness?”
Nothing a little allergy prescription won’t solve.
My phone buzzes.
Not my father. Nor any of my family. Nor the prime minister himself.
No, Elin’s ringing me.
I answer, bracing myself. “Good morning.”
“I just handed the authorities the file my father has been compiling to blackmail your family, including falsified reports and planted evidence. You’re quite welcome. Enjoy your freedom. I certainly shall. And tell that woman thank you for the pep talk. But I can afford my own plane ticket.”
Before I can reply, the line goes dead.
I dial back instantly but get voicemail.
“Your Highness?” Viktor asks.
“Leave it to the women to solve all the world’s problems,” Joey muses, which I take to mean the entire room heard the call.
“Peanut butter wontons,” Gracie murmurs.
I kiss her once more and rise. She needs to sleep in a bed. For several hours. Or days.
And I’ve a feeling my time is limited before my phone shall ring again. And again. And again.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Peach asks as I open Gracie’s bedroom door again.
Joey laughs.
She actually laughs.
I fear the world may stop spinning at any moment.
“His Royal Cleanliness is going to fold Gracie’s laundry so she has a place to sleep,” she tells Peach.
“You know how to fold laundry?” Peach demands.
“His Highness is also skilled in sorting it and running a laundry machine,” Viktor says.
I do believe he’s baiting the woman. Fascinating.
I hadn’t noticed the frosting stains dotting Peach’s shirt and trousers until he pointed them out, and she’s beginning to glower at my guard as though she’d like to teach him a thing or two about manners.
Joey rises too. “Come on, Peach. Thirty-two more orders to go out before Monday.”
I meet her eyes.
“Do not fuck this up,” she says softly. “My tolerance level for anyone who hurts Gracie is very low.”
Gracie snores softly, and once more, my smile finds me rather than the other way around. “I shan’t take her from you,” I promise. “Her, nor the babe.”
She mutters something that sounds like, “You better fucking not,” and she pulls Peach out the door.
I clear Gracie’s bed, my sinuses clogging with each subsequent inhale, but I rather don’t care if I can’t breathe.
All I care about is wrapping her in my arms as I lie down beside her after moving her to her bedroom.
“Your father…jerkhead…” she mumbles.
“Agreed.” I kiss her crown again, because I cannot help myself. She’s warm and soft and smells of sugar and spice, and she owns my heart, whether she knows it or not. “He can sod off.”
She burrows closer. “Love you,” she whispers.
I wrap her tighter while my throat closes for reasons beyond the damned cat walking up my legs.
Love is not something with which I have much practice.
But if being ready to abandon my family, my country, and even hockey to live with this woman is love, then I’m clearly madly in love with her.
And quite happy about it to boot.
