What a Man's Gotta Do

“So you should ask him if he’d like to have dinner with us.”

Us. Meaning her parents and Mala and Steve and Sophie—whose first Thanksgiving this would be, since they didn’t do Thanksgiving in Carpathia—and their five kids and her two.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not that mean. Besides, he has other plans.”

“You know this, or you’re only trying to get me off your case?”

“Yes.”

Footsteps creaked overhead. “You know somethin’?” Bev said, “I’ve got half a mind to go up there and ask him myself.”

Mala opened her mouth to protest, when suddenly, she didn’t care anymore. What the hell did it matter to her if Eddie King accepted her mother’s invitation? He certainly didn’t need her protection. And with all those people around, it wasn’t as if they’d even see each other. Probably. Besides, her parents had been inviting strays to holiday dinners for as long as she could remember. So big fat hairy deal.

“Fine,” she said. “Go ask.”

Which Bev did. Mala listened, heard faint voices upstairs, then her mother’s slow, steady descent on the outside stairs.

“You’re right,” Bev said when she came in. “He can’t make it. Says he’s got plans.”

So how come she felt disappointed rather than relieved?

And what kind of holiday plans could a man have who didn’t know anybody in town? And how was this any of her business?

Mala shook herself, yanked open the dishwasher to stack another half dozen dishes inside. “So who was on the phone?” she asked her mother.

“The phone?” her mother said from the kitchen table. “Oh, right. Nobody. A hang up. Which is so rude. Geez. I mean, if you get a wrong number, the least you can do is say ‘sorry’ or something, y’know? And when the hell you gonna get Caller ID, anyway?”

Mala just sighed.

Chapter 4

“So,” Mala said to her sister-in-law as she scraped leftover mashed potatoes into a plastic store ’n’ save bowl, swearing softly when a blob landed smack on the front of her new fur-blend sweater, “how’d you enjoy your first Thanksgiving?”

Amazingly, it was just the two of them in her brother’s kitchen. Sophie and Mala had combined forces to convince Bev, who’d done most of the cooking, to go play grandma and let them clean up; the living room reeked of football-crazed testosterone; and the kids were…elsewhere. The old country house was cozy and filled with laughter and leftover feast smells, and for the moment, Mala could almost believe she was as content as she would have everyone believe.

Raking one hand through her short, ash brown hair, Sophie chuckled. “I think I’m bloody glad it only comes once a year,” she said in her almost-English accent, ripping off a length of aluminum foil to cover what was left of the auxiliary ham. Her square jaw and angular features prevented her from being pretty in any traditional sense of the word, but her quick smile and the love that constantly radiated from her gentle gray eyes made her as appealing as anyone Mala had ever met. “Otherwise, I’d be big as a house from overeating. Not that I won’t be that in a few months, in any case.”

She patted her slightly bulging belly underneath the floppy red sweater, then wrinkled her nose, obviously tickled with her condition. Sophie and Steve had only been married since July, but having just turned thirty, the princess was thrilled about her pregnancy.

“And with those hips you don’t have,” Mala said pointedly to her skinny sister-in-law, “you’ll look like you swallowed a torpedo.” She opened the refrigerator, frowning at the already jam-packed interior. The ceiling shook as many small feet stormed down the upstairs hallway, accompanied by shrieks of varying degrees of intensity. Neither woman so much as glanced up. “I hate to break this to you, honey, but you can either get the rest of the turkey in here, or everything else. Not both. And no, that wasn’t a call for help, bozo-hound,” she said to the grinning oversize mutt wagging his entire rear end at her feet. She gently shoved at the dog with her knee. “Go away, George.”

“Oh, come here, you big goof,” Sophie said, collapsing into a kitchen chair. Wearing an expression that could only be translated as, “Yes!”, the dog pranced across the linoleum floor to gobble down whatever it was his mistress was offering. “You should really get the kids a dog,” Sophie said, making kissy noises at the beast.

“Uh, no, I really shouldn’t.” Mala stacked the homeless containers back on the counter, then leaned against it. “So how’re you feeling these days?”

“Oh, fine. The morning sickness only lasted a week or so, thank God. So I’ll be really up for when Alek and Luanne bring the children after Christmas.”

“Really? I can’t wait to meet them.”

“They feel the same way, I gather.” Sophie smiled down at the dog, who’d plopped his muzzle in her lap. “I know it seems a bit precipitous, but Alek’s quite keen to introduce Luanne to Steven and your parents. I think he hopes it will relieve her mind somewhat about marrying into a royal family.”

“If it doesn’t frighten her off completely,” Mala said wryly.

But then, the circumstances surrounding the reunion of Sophie’s older brother, Prince Aleksander Vlastos, and the Texan born-and-bred Luanne Evans Henderson was the stuff of soap operas, involving a secret baby and a marriage-of-convenience gone wrong, a tragic race-car crash that had taken Luanne’s husband’s life, a love denied for more than a decade. Due to the delicacy of the situation, Mala knew the couple weren’t planning on a wedding for some time. But just a few weeks ago they’d agreed, for both their son’s sake and the simple fact that they couldn’t stand the thought of being separated a minute longer, to live under the same palace roof with Sophie’s and Alek’s octogenerian grandmother and Carpathia’s reigning monarch, Princess Ivana.

Next to all that, Mala’s family seemed excrutiatingly dull.