Alpha Squad: Prince Joe / Forever Blue

Jules.

Be a dear, Jules, and ring the office. Veronica had murmured those words in her sleep, and since then, Joe had been wondering, not without a sliver of jealousy, exactly who this Jules was.

“Who’s Jules?” Joe asked.

“Jules,” Veronica repeated. “My brother. He conveniently married my best friend. It’s quite cozy, really, and very sweet. They’re expecting a baby any moment.”

Her brother. Jules was her brother. Why did that make Joe feel so damned good? He and Veronica were going to be friends, nothing more, so why should he care whether Jules was her brother or her lover or her pet monkey?

But he did care, damn it.

Joe leaned forward. “So that’s why Wila didn’t come on this tour instead of Brain-dead Ted? Because she’s pregnant?”

Veronica tried not to smile, but failed. “Don’t call Prince Tedric that,” she said.

He smiled at her, struck by the way her eyes were the exact shade of blue as her dress. “You know, you look pretty in blue.”

Her smile vanished and she stood. “We should really get started,” she said, crossing to the dining table. “The food’s getting cold.”

Joe didn’t move. “So where did you and Jules grow up? London?”

Veronica turned to look back at him. “No,” she replied. “At first we traveled with our parents, and when we were old enough, we went away to school. The closest thing we had to a permanent home was Huntsgate Manor, where our Great-Aunt Rosamond lived.”

“Huntsgate Manor,” Joe mused. “It sounds like something out of a fairy tale.”

Veronica’s eyes grew dreamy and out of focus as she gazed out the window. “It was so wonderful. This big, old, moldy, ancient house with gardens and grounds that went on forever and ever and ever.” She looked up at Joe with a spark of humor in her eyes. “Not really,” she added. “I think the property is only about four or five acres, but when we were little, it seemed to go to the edge of the world and back.”

Night and day, Joe thought. Their two upbringings were as different as night and day. He wondered what she would do, how she would react if she knew about the rock he’d crawled out from under.

Veronica laughed, embarrassed. “I don’t know why I just told you all that,” she said. “It’s hardly interesting.”

But it was interesting. It was fascinating. As fascinating as those gigantic houses he’d gone into with his mother, the houses that she’d cleaned when he was a kid. Veronica’s words were another porthole to that same world of “Look but don’t touch.” It was fascinating. And depressing as hell. Veronica had been raised like a little princess. No doubt she’d only be content to spend her life “happily ever after,” with a prince.

And he sure as hell didn’t fit that bill.

Except, what was he doing, thinking about things like happily ever after?

“How about you, Joe?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Where did you grow up?”

“Near New York City. We really should get to work,” he said, half hoping she’d let the subject of his childhood drop—and half hoping that she wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t. “New York City,” she said. “I’ve never lived there, I’ve only visited. I remember the first time I was there as a child. It all seemed to be lights and music and Broadway plays and marvelous food and…people, people everywhere.”

“I didn’t see any plays on Broadway,” Joe said dryly. “Although when I was ten, I snuck out of the house at night and hung around the theater district, trying to spot celebrities. I’d get their autograph and then sell it, make a quick buck.”

“Your parents probably loved that,” Veronica said. “A ten-year-old, all alone in New York City…?”

“My mother was usually too drunk to notice I was gone,” Joe said. “And even if she had, she wouldn’t have given a damn.”

Veronica looked away from him, down at the floor. “Oh,” she said.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Oh.”

She fiddled with her hair for a moment, and then she surprised him. She looked up and directly into his eyes and smiled—a smile not without sorrow for the boy he’d once been. “I guess that’s where you learned to be so self-reliant. And self-confident.”

“Self-reliant, maybe. But I grew up with everyone always telling me I wasn’t good enough,” Joe said. “No, that’s not true. Not everyone. Not Frank O’Riley.” He shook his head and laughed. “He was this mean old guy who lived in this grungy basement apartment in one of the tenements over by the river. He had a wooden leg and a glass eye and his arms were covered with tattoos and all the kids were scared sh—Scared to death of him. Except me, because I was the toughest, coolest kid in the neighborhood—at least among the under-twelve set.

“O’Riley had this garden—really just a patch of land. It couldn’t have been more than twelve by four feet. He always had something growing—flowers, vegetables—it was always something. So I went in there, over his rusty fence, just to prove I wasn’t scared of the old man.

“I’d been planning to trample his flowers, but once I got into the garden, I couldn’t do it,” Joe said. “They were just too damn pretty. All those colors. Shades I’d never even imagined. Instead, I sat down and just looked at them.

“Old Frank came out and told me he’d loaded his gun and was ready to shoot me in my sorry butt, but since I was obviously another nature lover, he’d brought me a glass of lemonade instead.”

Why was he telling her this? Blue was the only person he’d ever mentioned Frank O’Riley to, and never in such detail. Joe’s friendship with Old Man O’Riley was the single good memory he carried from his childhood. Chief Frank O’Riley, U.S.N., retired, and his barely habitable basement apartment had been Joe’s refuge, his escape when life at home became unbearable.

And suddenly he knew why he was telling Veronica about Frank, his one childhood friend, his single positive role model. He wanted this woman to know where he came from, who he really was. And he wanted to see her reaction; see whether she would recognize the importance old Frank had played in his life, or whether she would shrug it off, uncaring, uninterested.

“Frank was a sailor,” Joe told Veronica. “Tough as nails, and with one hell of a foul mouth. He could swear like no one I’ve ever known. He fought in the Pacific in World War Two, as a frogman, one of the early members of the UDTs, the underwater demolition teams that later became the SEALs. He was rough and crude, but he never turned me away from his door. I helped him pull weeds in his garden in return for the stories he told.”

Veronica was listening intently, so he went on.

“When everyone else I knew told me I was going to end up in jail or worse, Frank O’Riley told me I was destined to become a Navy SEAL—because both they and I were the best of the best.”

“He was right,” Veronica murmured. “He must be very, very proud of you.”

“He’s dead,” Joe said. He watched her eyes fill with compassion, and the noose around his chest grew tighter. He was in big trouble here. “He died when I was fifteen.”

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

“Frank had one hell of a powerful spirit,” Joe continued, resisting the urge to pull her into his arms and comfort her because his friend had died more than fifteen years ago. “Wherever I went and whatever I did for the three years after he died, he was there, whispering into my ear, keeping me in line, reminding me about those Navy SEALs that he’d admired so much. On the day I turned eighteen, I walked into that navy recruitment office and I could almost feel his sigh of relief.”

He smiled at her and Veronica smiled back, gazing into his eyes. Again, time seemed to stand totally still. Again, it was the perfect opportunity to kiss her, and again, Joe didn’t allow himself to move.

“I’m glad you’ve forgiven me, Joe,” she said quietly.

“Hey, what happened to ‘Your Highness’?” Joe asked, trying desperately to return to a more lighthearted, teasing tone. She was getting serious on him. Serious meant being honest, and in all honesty, Joe did not want to be friends with this woman. He wanted to be lovers. He was dying to be her lover. He wanted to touch her in ways she’d never been touched before. He wanted to hear her cry out his name and—

Veronica looked surprised. “I’ve forgotten to call you that, haven’t I?”

“You’ve been calling me Joe lately,” he said. “Which is fine—I like it better. I was just curious.”

“You’re nothing like the real prince,” she said honestly.

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

She smiled. “Believe me, it’s a compliment.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Joe said. “But I wasn’t sure exactly where you stood.”