by Mindy Neff
And whoever happened to be with him garnered national headlines, as well.
Rick was an avid sports fan. He’d never had much interest in the tabloids, but newspapers were a different matter—an obsession actually for a man who tossed his ante in every bet pool available.
And she had a fairly good idea he’d have access to the sports pages in that cushy Mississippi penitentiary.
She couldn’t take a chance on him finding out her whereabouts. If he did, she might as well kiss her life—and the lives of her daughters—goodbye.
* * *
Not one to lay about in bed, Antonio wrapped the sheet around himself and gingerly sat up on the side of the mattress. So far so good. A little woozy, a sharp edge of pain, but manageable.
From the bay window facing the ocean, he watched a moody moment of changing light and drama. The bluster and blow of the coastal squall had passed, and for now the sea was calm and the winds quiet. To the east, a tranquil window of fleeting sunlight vied for position with the persistent after-grays, neither ready to concede the slowly clearing sky.
Sure enough, debris of the Diablo Plata were strewn on the pristine sand. He was sorry about the loss. It was a sweet sloop; he’d won two first-place cups in the sleek beauty.
From the looks of the pitiful remains, though, he was lucky to be alive.
The sound of little-girl giggles and the soft, Southern drawl of his hostess drew his attention. A cursory search of the room didn’t turn up his clothes, so he settled for a flowery kimono he found hanging from a hook on the back of the bathroom door. Chelsa’s obviously. It carried a hint of her scent. Citrus. The shoulder seams strained a bit, but he managed to get the robe tied at the middle to preserve his modesty.
Not that he was all that modest but there were niñas in the house.
He nearly collided with Chelsa in the doorway of the kitchen. As it was, the bed tray smacked him in the stomach—a stomach, he realized, that was tender. Obviously he hadn’t taken a complete inventory of his injuries other than the throbbing in his head.
He placed his hands over hers, steadying the tray. Milk sloshed over the rim of the cereal bowl.
“Careful,” he said, noticing that her hands trembled. Excitement? he wondered. Or fear. There was something about this woman that made him think of a damsel in distress.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
She wore a tank-style dress that hung from spaghetti straps and skimmed her body right down to her bare toes. He wanted to spend a good long while just staring at her, drinking in the soft cadence of her sexy Southern drawl.
But they had an avid audience and Antonio was a man who valued privacy when it came to intimacies and wooing. “A little bump on the head won’t keep me down.”
“Lord save me from macho men. Suit yourself.” She let go of the tray and stepped away. Good thing he had a decent hold on the plastic or there’d have been a mess.
Antonio grinned and set the tray on the table where the two little girls were spelling words with their alphabet cereal. “We meet again, mi bellas. May I join you?”
Emily giggled. Sophie, her pudgy cheeks full, simply looked up at him with round, innocent eyes.
“You’re wearing Momma’s robe,” Emily said.
“Ah, little goddess, you are astute to be noticing fashion at such a young age. Do you not consider it quite the thing?” He held his arms out to his sides like a European model on a runway, careful not to rip the satin.
Emily went off in another gale of laughter. Sophie, the solemn little cherub, popped the spoon out of her mouth. “Boys aren’t s’posed to wear flowers.”
“Sophie!” Chelsa scolded. Antonio noticed that she was making a valiant attempt to keep a lid on her amusement. Her enticing lips quivered charmingly at the corners.
It didn’t bother him a bit that the amusement was at his expense. “That is quite all right, little mermaid.” Sophie’s eyes widened in thought at the title. “Boys might object to the silliness of flowers, but when they grow up to be men, they soon learn that if they feel strong on the inside, the outside package doesn’t matter.”
Emily bobbed her head. “Cuz they’re secure in their mask’a’linty.”
He felt his brows shoot upward. “How old are you, goddess?”
“Six,” Emily said, straightening importantly in her chair.
“Ah, yes. That would explain why you know about such things as masculinity.” He spared a glance at Chelsa, who appeared resigned rather than scandalized by her daughter’s announcement.
“’Course she knows ’bout it,” Sophie inserted. “Cuz of the water babies.”
“The water babies?” Perhaps the bump on his head was more severe than he had first determined. He was suddenly and thoroughly lost in the conversation.
“Yep,” Sophie said, as if that were that.
He looked at Chelsa for clarification. She appeared to be waging a battle with herself over divulging information, as though she were guarding an international secret. Before she could come to a decision, though, Emily picked up the thread of explanation.
“Momma writes The Adventures of Water Babies.”
“The Adventures of Water Babies?” Dios, he was becoming a parrot.
“Children’s books, silly.”
His brows shot up again. He liked kids well enough—other people’s kids, that was—and these two little imps intrigued the hell out of him.
He grinned. “Yes, silly me. Of course they’re for children. That would be why I have never read them.”
“You could if you wanted. Momma gots lots of copies.”
“Girls,” Chelsa said. “I’m sure Mr. Castillo isn’t interested in—”
“Tony,” he corrected. “And I am interested. However, we have become sidetracked from the original subject of flowers and feminine wear and masculinity. And Emily was about to be so charming as to enlighten me.”
“Well,” Emily drawled, pleased to hold center stage, “when the water baby frog was messin’ around and fell off the lily pad, the wicked old cricket laughed at him and made fun. And the water baby should’a got all embarrassed cuz the ladybug with the flirty eyelashes was watchin’ him. But he climbed right back on the lily pad—even though his face was red and he was now wearing a daisy on his head like a lady’s church hat—and he winked at the ladybug and smiled real big like, just as pretty as you please. That’s cuz he was secure in his mask’a’linty—”
“Masculinity,” Antonio coached.
Emily nodded. “And the ladybug thought that was very special. The water baby didn’t get mad and he went right on wearing the flower like it was meant to be, and it was the cricket who felt like the silly one for acting so ugly and pokin’ fun.” She folded her hands primly in front of her on the table, suddenly looking much older than her years. “But I’m sure my little sister wasn’t makin’ fun of you in Momma’s robe.”
Sophie shook her head from side to side, sending her cap of frizzy blond curls swinging. She’d been as caught up in the tale as though she’d never heard it before. “Nuh-uh.”
Something warm and gentle passed through Antonio as he studied these three beautiful acquaintances he’d literally dropped in on. He liked the soft smile that transformed Chelsa Lawrence’s smooth features as she’d listened to her daughter regale him with stories. A story she’d evidently written. And he was more than a little in love with these heartbreaker cherubs who said whatever crossed their young minds.
“Of course you were not making fun,” he said to Sophie. “I am sure you both have excellent manners. Actually, it is I who should apologize to such fine ladies for appearing in the dining hall wearing nightclothes.” The tiny breakfast area was hardly formal, but he got a kick out of surprising reactions out of the children. “However, I could not find evidence of my own garments...I do hope I arrived with them?”
Both little girls giggled. “Momma taked ’em off you.”
Their mother flushed scarlet.
He
met her eyes, thinking it was a crying shame he hadn’t been awake and alert for the undressing. A first for him. When a beautiful woman stripped him naked, he liked to be a participant.
“They’re in the dryer,” Chelsa said.
“Still wet, I would imagine, since we as yet have no power.”
“Yes. I rinsed them by hand.”
“You should not have gone to the trouble. I could have done that myself.”
Her blond brows lifted, though her cheeks still glowed like the blush of a new peach. “A prince does laundry?”
“This lowly one does. I travel alone a lot. At sea, I do not carry the staff with me.”
“You should at least employ a crew.”
“At times I do. However, had I been sailing with a full crew, your bungalow would be bursting at the seams and I doubt you would possess enough garments to clothe them all.”
If he hadn’t been watching closely, he would have missed the slight tightening at the corners of her clear blue eyes. Obviously this woman wasn’t keen on having her privacy invaded. He wondered why. Those questions would best be asked in private, he decided. Whatever caused her to grow silent and wary, however fleeting, was probably something she would rather shield her little girls from.
Then again, he could be all wrong. Perhaps she was simply annoyed at having her vacation interrupted.
With his brain finally revving up to speed, another thought struck him like a lightning bolt straight from the gods. A question any respectable playboy was reluctant to voice, but Antonio knew he must. He glanced once more at her unadorned finger, then back to her clear, lake-blue eyes.
“I have apparently lost the last twelve hours or so of my memory, and it has rattled my decent manners. Perhaps it will appear unseemly and in poor taste if your husband were to return while I sit in your breakfast nook wearing your robe...?” He let the words trail off, but his sheepish smile soon faded.
The sudden silence in the small bungalow was strained and thick enough to cut with a machete. Outside, the surf rolled onshore and ebbed out. A gull wheeled overhead with a high-pitched cry, and its mate answered.
As though it were a prearranged, choreographed movement, Chelsea stepped behind her daughters and put a protective hand on each of their shoulders. Emily reached beneath the table and took her sister’s hand.
“I’m no longer married.”
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what to say, or how to say it. Had the man died? The protective circle the three Lawrence females presented told him something wasn’t right.
He wasn’t in any way prepared for four-year-old Sophie’s matter-of-fact declaration.
“My daddy got put in the jailhouse.”
Chapter 2
Out of the mouths of babes.
As though shocked into compliance, the power chose that exact moment to come on. The refrigerator hummed and lights flickered over the kitchen sink, competing pitifully with the morning sun.
Antonio wasn’t certain how to respond to little Sophie’s news. He lived by the motto Live And Let Live, and didn’t in any way hold the shady deeds of Chelsa’s ex against her—whatever they may be—but he was indeed curious.
However, Chelsa’s face had lost a good deal of its color, and the two little imps sitting as still as china dolls were way too solemn.
His gaze met Chelsa’s for just an instant. In her eyes he saw both shame and shoulder squaring strength. He’d speak with her alone. Later. In the meantime, a subject change was in order.
“Well, we now have lights on all of the subjects.” He flicked a finger down little Sophie’s nose. “And with the press of a button, the dryer will have me in decent clothes in no time. And I promise you, sirena, not a single flower graces my jeans.”
“What’s sirena?”
“Mermaid.” He glanced at Chelsa, noticing her grateful look that he’d managed to sidetrack her daughter.
“I don’t gots long hair like Ariel. But Emily does. And Momma,” Sophie said with pursed lips and a slight frown.
Ariel was the animated character in the little mermaid movie, he recalled. He looked at Sophie’s cap of short, frizzy curls and reached out to touch. Baby soft, silky, yet thick and unruly. A shorter version of her mother’s. And though he longed to run his hands through Chelsa’s hair, he didn’t think she’d stand still for it.
Right now, though, he had a tiny girl’s ego to attend to. And he was excellent at attending to feminine egos.
“Any mermaid should know when it is time to cut her tresses. You shall be the leader of a trend. And soon, all the mermaids in the sea will realize what a nuisance it is to battle long locks of hair, and they will fashion themselves after you.”
“Really?”
“I am certain of it. In fact, sometime I will tell you the story of a very good friend of mine, a beautiful heiress, who boldly left her sacred locks on the floor of a beauty salon in France.”
Sophie twined a finger in one of her many curls, her lip poking out. “Was it fuzzy?”
No. It was straight and silky. “Maybe a little. Fuzzy is quite chic.”
Sophie perked up.
Emily, anxious to be included, aimed a smirk at her sibling. “A goddess is more lovely than a mermaid.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Girls,” Chelsa warned.
“Beauty is universal,” Antonio inserted quickly before things could turn ugly. “We must not say that one shines brighter than the other.”
Sophie poked her tongue out at her sister who continued to smirk.
Chelsa rolled her eyes.
Antonio leaned back in his chair and laughed, the exuberance reminding him that ghouls were still having a grand fiesta in his head.
“You should rest,” Chelsa said quietly, setting a glass of juice before him along with a couple of pain relievers. He could tell she was still upset that her daughter had aired a piece of their dirty laundry, but she hid it well beneath a steady armor of poise.
Before she could withdraw her hand, he reached for it, drawing her knuckles to his lips. “Thank you, bella. You have been very gracious to care for me.”
She leaned close, her citrus scent enveloping him like a rich cloud of invigorating tranquility. “Flattery may work on my daughters, but I’m much older and wiser.”
“Ah, no, querida, a woman is never too old for flattery. Especially when it is genuine.”
“Your reputation precedes you, Prince Antonio. You’re notorious for passing out compliments. Too much of a good thing tends to get diluted.”
“You wound me,” he said, pressing a hand to his heart. He liked this woman more and more every minute. “I see I must endeavor to counter your cynicism.”
Chelsa drew back, smiling in spite of herself. Those flashing white teeth and dimples were hard to resist. He was a man who liked to have fun and rarely took himself seriously. Oh, how she’d like to live such a carefree existence. But responsibilities and the nerve-racking edge of anticipation kept her feet on solid ground and her guard up.
“You could try,” she said. “But every drop of that cynicism has been earned. The hard way.”
The playful spark in his eyes turned serious. “I do not doubt that it has been earned. But it should not be so.”
She had a hard time looking away from those penetrating dark eyes. There were deeper layers to Antonio Castillo that the headlines couldn’t begin to uncover.
But Chelsa didn’t have the luxury of plumbing those depths. Because the sooner he was out of their lives, the safer she and the girls would be.
He was way too visible. And she was doing her level best to be invisible.
“Perhaps I should call and notify someone of my whereabouts.”
Chelsa went to the wall phone and lifted the receiver, then replaced it. “Phone’s still out. You’d have a better idea than me of how fast your utility people move.”
“About as swift as molasses. The islanders share a universal creed, I think. No one hurrie
s.”
“Will your family be worried?”
“They are not expecting me, no. And they rarely keep track of my comings and goings.”
“You’re kidding. With your status?”
“I told you, I am only the spare.”
“Why do you do that?”
“What?’
“Discount your importance.”
He shrugged. “It was not my intention to discount myself. It is simply a joke started when I was young and which I have carried over into adulthood.”
She wondered if he’d carried it a bit too far, and if he did, indeed believe himself only an extra appendage to the royal family. “I guess my sense of humor’s not up to speed these days.”
“I would be happy to help you correct that.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Unable to help it, she laughed. “Do you always joke around?”
“Always. Life is much too short to be glum. There are places to go, new experiences to be had, friends to make...bellas to woo.”
She shook her head. The man was incorrigible. “I’ll bet you’ve left a string of broken hearts across two continents.”
“Ah, no. That would be bad of me. I am very careful not to cause heartache and strife. When I bid a woman adiós, it is with the knowledge that I have gained a new and lasting friendship.”
Incredible as it seemed, she believed him. He had a gift for gab and a charm that wouldn’t quit. His playful spirit wouldn’t allow him to deliberately hurt someone. And she imagined he chose his companions based on the relativity scale of how they would handle a good time with no strings attached.
Although he managed to appear as though she had his complete attention, his gaze kept straying to the window.
“There’s not much left of your beautiful yacht that’s salvageable.”
He glanced back at her. “I noticed. Perhaps I could find a large enough piece to fashion a surfboard sail.”
“I could help,” Emily said.
“Me, too,” Sophie chimed in, not one to be left out.
Chelsa, reaching for a mug, nearly knocked the ceramic in the sink. “You girls have lessons to do before you make any heavy plans.” There. Certainly that was reasonable enough. She hadn’t shouted, hadn’t let loose the terror that nearly overwhelmed her every time she imagined her girls out of her sight. Vulnerable. A target of revenge.
