Cindy Gerard: Lone Star Prince

“Here’s your juice, Homer. And you’re drinking regular, not decaf this morning, right?”

“Gotta have the high octane this mornin’, Annie. Full day ahead a’ me. Movin’ the herd. From the sound of things we’ll be bucking stout sou’west winds and a boatload of dust. I’m gonna need all the caffeine I can get.”

As she filled Homer’s cup, she felt that little prickle of unease that sometimes crept up on her when someone looked at her in that I’ve-seen-you-before-kind-of-way. The way Homer was looking at her now.

“I just can’t get over how much you look like that fancy princess woman. Oh, what is her name, anyway?”

“Fergie?” she suggested and worked hard at manufacturing a teasing smile.

“Naw. That other one—the one from some foreign sounding place. You sure you ain’t some long lost twin got switched at birth?”

“Homer, Homer.” She forced a playful, chiding tone. “Last week you said you thought I looked like a movie star. I’ll tell you what, though—if you can figure out some way to make me into a princess, I’ll figure out a way to make you my prince.”

Homer laughed, blushed and tugged on his hat brim. “I’d be more frog than prince—and I don’t allow my Martha would much go for me running off with you. It’s a nice thought, though, huh?”

“You bet, Homer.” She laid a hand on his shoulder then walked away. “It’s a very nice thought.”

It was also a thought that, thankfully, didn’t occur too often. When it did, she generally handled it the same way as she had with Homer just now. She’d laugh, joke and walk away. So far it had worked. Yet the possibility always loomed that the day might come when her luck on that count would run out and someone would recognize her.

Refusing to think about that now, she answered Manny’s ding—he signaled with a little silver bell when an order was up—and delivered an omelette and a sweet roll. Then she quickly bussed two tables and raked in two dollars and some odd change in tips. As she headed back for Homer’s short stack and eggs, she was completely oblivious of the diner’s shortcomings when compared to the grandeur that had once been her life at Obersbourg Palace.

The Royal Diner was your basic greasy spoon café, nonalcoholic watering hole, town meeting place and coffee klatch all wrapped up in one. Just as unlikely as Anna becoming adept as a waitress was the fact that the diner had also become her refuge. She loved every inch of the place—from the worn and cracked dull-gray linoleum floor tiles to the faded red plastic on the booth seats to the scratched chrome strips edging the tabletops and the counter with its dozen stools.

She loved the steamy warmth of it. The smell of it. The sinfully juicy hamburgers that Manny cooked on his grill, the decadently thick chocolate malts that she had learned to make on the ancient malt machine. She even loved the thin film of smoke and grease coating the plate glass windows that Hazel, the owner, had tried to pretty up with muslin curtains.

She knew it wasn’t supposed to work like this. She knew that Gregory had set her up with this waitress ruse because he thought she would consider it menial and beneath her. A princess wasn’t supposed to mingle with, let alone wait on, the common folk. It was his subtle way, she supposed, of paying her back for what she’d done to him years ago.

She understood his motives. She even forgave him. Just like she forgave him for making himself as scarce as a snowstorm in West Texas. Even though his deliberate absence hurt, she figured he was entitled. He’d known she would be forced to take the waitress job—as 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.