Once Upon A Prince

Tanner had almost forgotten about his bike-riding escort.

Almost, but not quite.

He was pretty sure that having met Shey Carlson, no one could ever entirely forget her.

Shey nodded in his direction and asked Marie Anna, “What about him?”

“Would you give him a ride to whatever hotel he’s staying at?” she asked.

“Sure,” Shey said with a shrug.

“Hey, watchdog, are you coming?” Parker asked the dark-haired man who’d been silent till now.

“Uh,” was his terribly articulate response. “Sure thing,” he said. “How about I drive?”

“Sounds good to me since I took the bus.”

“The bus?” Tanner asked. “My fiancée is riding public transportation?”

First Parker sends Shey to collect him at the airport, then she denies their engagement and now she was talking about riding a bus to work?

“You don’t have a fiancée,” Parker replied, “but if you were referring to me, then yes, I take public transportation. My father shut off my access to my trust and I’m broke. So I sold the car.”

“But, but…” he said, not sure what to add.

“Don’t worry about it,” the other man said. “I’ll see that she gets home all right.”

“Home,” Parker said to Tanner. “I’m home and you need to go home. Go back to Amar. There’s nothing for you here in Erie—especially not a fiancée.”

She walked out of the store followed by the dark-haired man.

The door slammed behind them with a certain sense of finality.

“Well, princy, that went well.”

“Tanner. My name is Tanner. If you can’t remember that, and insist on addressing me formally, Your Highness will suffice. Princy does not.”

Shey laughed. “Don’t get your boxers in a knot, princy.”

“Is it over?” came a soft voice from a small archway that led into what had to be the bookstore.

The woman was shorter than Shey. Curvier. Her hair was brown and she wore it in a simple shoulder-length bob.

“It’s over,” Shey said. “Cara, this is Parker’s supposed Prince Charming. I use the word supposed because so far, I haven’t found him all that charming.”

“Tanner,” he said. “Please, call me Tanner, Miss…”

“Phillips. Cara Phillips, but Cara’s fine.”

“Cara,” he said, rolling the R slightly. “It’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. “I’m sorry you had to come all this way for nothing, Tanner.”

“It’s not for nothing. Parker will be going home with me.”

“She agreed?” Cara asked, looking surprised.

“No,” Shey snapped.

“But she will eventually,” Tanner added. “She’ll see that our marrying makes sense.”

“Do you love her?” Cara asked.

“Pardon?” Tanner replied.

“It’s a simple question, Your High—Tanner. Do you love Parker?”

“Marie Anna, uh, Parker, and I are extremely well-suited. We both grew up knowing we have a duty to our countries. We were friendly when we were younger. I’m sure we’d be compatible.”

“Compatible is nice,” Cara said, taking a step closer, her expression earnest as she continued, “but love is important. Do you love her?”

“I’ll learn to love her.” Even as Tanner said the words, he hoped they were true. He wouldn’t want his child, their future children, growing up in a loveless home.

“I know that there are any number of things you can learn,” Cara said. “Most things, in fact, you can learn with simply a good mind and a good book. But love? You can’t learn to love someone, you can’t just study them hard enough and discover you love them. There has to be a spark, something to build on. You’d know if you and Parker had it. We’d know if you had it. You don’t.”

Tanner had thought he liked Parker’s friend Cara far more than Shey, but as she voiced his hidden fear, he found he much preferred Shey’s cut-to-the-chase comments to Cara’s softer, more insightful ones.

“How dare you walk in and think you can know what I feel?” he asked, assuming his best royal tone, one that was guaranteed to make people think twice before arguing with him.

But Cara didn’t back down. Didn’t even blink. “I dare because Parker is my friend. I dare because I’ve seen what a compatible relationship looks like. I dare because I may not know you, but I do know that having power and money doesn’t make a person happy, love does. You deserve that as much as Parker does.”

“I—”

She cut him off with a small, soft smile. “Good night, Shey. I was ready to lock up next door when the commotion started. Now that it’s over, I’ll be going. I’ll see you in the morning. And it was nice meeting you, Tanner.”

With that, Cara turned and walked back into the dim bookstore.

“Wow,” Shey said. “I wonder what’s got into her?”

“What do you mean?” Tanner asked.

“I mean, that’s the longest string of words that I’ve ever heard Cara utter in front of a stranger. In front of most people she knows well, for that matter.”

“Lucky me,” Tanner grumbled.

He’d like to totally discount everything the woman had said as nonsense, but he couldn’t. She hadn’t said anything he hadn’t thought himself.

“So now what?” he asked his reluctant hostess.