Lisa Laurel - The Prince's Baby

The idea that this replacement lover had left Drew alone to raise his child had filled Whit with anger. It had never dawned on him that there was a chance that Drew’s little girl might be his, because he had figured Lexi to be four or five at most. When she had announced this morning that she was in first grade, it had been his first hint at the truth. Then, when she had looked up at him, the resemblance he’d seen had told him the rest.

Drew’s little girl didn’t have a daddy because he was her daddy.

There would be no nine-month waiting period for Whit. Fatherhood had been thrust upon him. And he knew precious little about first-grade girls in general, and even less about his daughter in particular. Lexi had done six years of growing up without him, and already had her own set of likes and dislikes, quirks and charms, fears and strengths, none of which he knew anything about.

He thought about that, and decided it wasn’t quite true. He knew she was fascinated by royalty; seemed to think, in fact, that she was a princess, without knowing that it was true. He knew she had her mother’s courage and stubbornness, having seen her facing a crowd of dubious peers with nothing but the strength of her own conviction. He knew she was vulnerable, too. That was why he had come to her rescue, before he had even known she was his. Something more than the words in red crayon had spoken to him when he’d read that note.

Had she needed rescuing in the past, when he wasn’t there to do it? Would he get to do it again, to feel that rush of protectiveness, to bask in the warmth of a gap-toothed smile that made him feel ten feet tall?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know where Drew would want to go with this; not only had she kept Lexi a secret from him all this time, but she had also made no secret of why. What’s more, he didn’t know where he wanted to go with this. It was too new to him, too foreign to his life, too earthshaking.

But from the first moment the discovery had rocked his world, one fact had remained unshaken, solid to the core. He had first put this immutable fact into words for Drew: he could not walk away and forget he had a daughter. Beyond that, everything else was still trembling from the aftershocks. If things ever fell into place, he might have a clue as to what he was going to do.

By late afternoon Whit was beginning to feel like a tiger in a cage. He had to go somewhere—anywhere. Grabbing his battered leather jacket, he slammed out of the castle and let habit take his feet around back, to the outbuilding.

The distant rumble of a motorcycle through her office window, a sound out of place in Anders Point, captured Drew’s attention. Life in crisis or not, she was the sheriff; and although here in this small New England town that meant more paper pushing than outlaw chasing, she still would have to find out which local teenager had gotten himself a new toy and then lecture him about not launching himself off the edge of the bluff by taking a curve too fast.

And it could happen, Drew knew. When she was a teenager, she herself had ridden the curvy roads overlooking the ocean on the back of a motorcycleWhit’s motorcycle. Somehow she had survived those wild and carefree days.

These days, Drew had a hard time remembering she had ever been wild and carefree. Mature and responsible had been her style for the past six years, since Lexi had been born. If her job as the town’s only elected official wasn’t quite what she had aspired to once upon a time, at least it provided a steady income. If that income was just enough to get by on, at least her hours were flexible. If the demanding life of a single mother wasn’t her fairy tale come true, the rewards of having Lexi made it all worthwhile. Luckily she had the help of her friend Annah, for moral support as much as for emergency baby-sitting. All in all, she was managing. She had hardly wasted time these busy years wishing for her prince to come back to her. Far from it. But like it or not, here he was.

She had to try her best to hang on to her disappointment and hurt, her down-to-earth realism and down-East practicality, because coming face-to-face with her past was too much to handle without them. Without them, she was very much afraid that the awareness she’d felt earlier, during that first unguarded moment when she’d looked at Whit, might spring up in their place.

And that would be a mistake she couldn’t afford to make, for her sake and for Lexi’s.

As it turned out, the prince was all that the kids talked about after school, as Drew stopped traffic for them during crossing guard duty. The younger ones were wide-eyed; the sixth-grade girls jabbered excitedly about how “cute” the prince was; even the boys decided that the whole thing had been “way cool.”

From where Lexi sat on the curb, waiting, Drew could see her eyes shining. After she had taken the last group across, Drew went over and sat next to her.

“Mommy, did you hear what happened today?” Lexi asked.

“Actually, I saw it,” Drew told her.

“You were there? You saw the prince appear, like magic?”

With a wistful smile, Drew pulled her little girl onto her lap and enfolded her in a hug. After a few minutes Lexi shifted restlessly, so Drew set her back on the curb.

“There was no magic,” she said gently. “This is real life, Lexi, not a fairy tale. And Whit Anders is a real man.”

“A real prince,” Lexi said decidedly.

Drew clamped down on all the responses unfit for six-year-old ears. Instead she said, “Your teacher told me about your behavior over the past few days.”

Lexi looked at her with big green eyes. “I know, and I’m sorry. It was just so important, Mommy.”

“I trust that this won’t happen again?”

“Oh, no,” Lexi assured her happily. “Because now the prince finally came.”

Ugh. Drew bit back her frustration and asked, “Lexi, why don’t you tell me why the prince came to your school?”

Lexi’s expression turned earnest. “Well, you see, I needed a prince. So I wrote a note to King Ivar.”

No surprise. Lexi had taken a shine to the king at Erik and Julie’s wedding. “You asked King Ivar for a prince?”

“Yes, in a note, and I put the note in the gate when we walked up the castle road to pick flowers. And a prince did come! I just knew he would, Mommy.”

Drew sighed. “Lexi, why do you need a prince, anyway?” she asked.

“To be my champion, of course,” Lexi said seriously.

“Your champion?”

“Like the knights that ladies have in stories. My prince will be like that.”

Her prince. Her little girl didn’t have a father, so she wanted a prince to champion her, someone strong and fearless to stand beside her and fight for her. Drew’s heart ached. She took Lexi’s hand, and they walked to the car and got in.

Drew pulled away from the school. “And you think Whit is going to be your prince?” she asked, fearing the inevitable.

To her relief, Lexi frowned. “I don’t know if he’s the one yet. He has to prove himself. This is very important, you see.”

Remembering the stories they had read, Drew felt as if she was finally catching on. “Lexi, are you going to test him, to see if he’s worthy of being your prince?”

“Yes.”

Great. Since his appearance that morning, he was certainly off to a rousing start, in Lexi’s eyes. Drew, who’d had her life so well ordered, had the feeling that parts of it were breaking off and spinning out beyond her reach. Hanging on to part of it that wasn’t—the need for food—she parked the car. “Here we are at McCreedy’s.”

They walked up to the small, family-owned grocery store that served Anders Point. Lexi went first, as usual, jumping on the black rubber mat at the entrance.