by Caroline Lee
This prince’s Pea won’t fit under the mattress…but the truth will!
Micah grew up in the Zapato orphanage, and is proud to take over Abuelo Zapato’s role of providing for the family—the children who have become his siblings—in Everland’s leather goods shop. Since being scarred in one of his brother-in-law’s gunfights, he knows they’re the only family he’ll ever have. And he’s at peace with that…until fate—or the Guild of Godmothers—drops two unexpected females in his path.
When his old childhood friend Penelope—Pea—shows up just in time to save him from a gruesome death, Micah is smitten. And when he sees her cuddling the new baby orphan, he’s in love.
But Pea isn’t in Everland on a whim; she’s there on a mission regarding Micah’s past, and refuses to tell him the truth. That secret is going to tear them apart, unless they get some help from a particularly dopey Godmother.
And that's when everything goes wrong…or does it?
Copyright © 2017, Caroline Lee
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
First edition: 2017
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Cover: EDHGraphics
Contents
ONCE UPON A TIME
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
Other works by Caroline Lee
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The Prince’s Pea
An Everland Ever After Tale
Dedication:
For Princess Wiggles, obviously.
Six months is my favorite stage—the cooing, clapping, wiggling, drooling, smiling, babbling…
All of it.
I love you, little one.
ONCE UPON A TIME
His head hurt. Why did his head hurt?
“What’s your name?” The little girl with the big eyebrows who’d haughtily asked him the question was just about his age, willowy with two black braids hanging down over her shoulders. She was the first one to approach him since the matron had pushed him into this basement room in the orphanage.
Something told him he shouldn’t answer, that he should ignore her and stick his nose up in the air like Father always said.
Wait…Father? He rubbed his temple. Yes. He couldn’t picture him in his mind, but there was a tantalizing memory of cigar smoke and peppermint.
But Father wasn’t here, was he? He was all alone, with a tremendous headache and no knowledge of who he really was. That’s why the officer had dropped him off here, after all.
The orphanage wasn’t scary, because he refused to let it be scary. But it was lonely. He’d never had a brother or sister—had he?—or seen this many children all together at once. So he decided to ignore whatever his father’s advice might’ve been, and respond to the girl’s repeated demands for his name.
“Michael,” he finally said. That much he remembered.
But she seemed unimpressed by his proclamation. “Michael what? You gotta have a last name.” When she put her hands on her hips like that, she reminded him of an exasperated Mrs. Potsdam, although much younger and much, much skinnier. Mrs. Potsdam didn’t wear her graying hair in pigtails, either. And Mrs. Potsdam didn’t roll her eyes with quite as much frustration as this girl did.
Who was Mrs. Potsdam?
He rubbed both of his temples now, trying to understand why he could picture the old woman’s kindly smile, but couldn’t remember who she was. He grew increasingly frustrated because, try as he might, he couldn’t remember his last name. Or Father’s name, or his address. All he got for his troubles was a pounding behind his eyeballs, which made him want to cry—half in pain, half in frustration.
But he wasn’t going cry. He didn’t cry when—when—when whatever it was that happened, happened, and he wasn’t going to cry now.
“I…I don’t know,” he finally admitted in a whisper. When he opened his eyes, he saw the girl’s expression had changed from exasperation to pity.
“Well, we already have three Michaels. They all have last names, so that’s what we call ‘em. We also have a Mickey, a Mikey, a Mike and a Mick. You’ll have to be something else.”
He blinked at her announcement. “I don’t have another name.”
“Don’t worry; it’s easy.” She waved one hand dismissively. “We just choose something. Like…” She cocked her head to one side and dropped her hand back to her hip as she considered him. “Micah.”
“Micah?”
“Yep. Like from the Bible. He was a prophet, you know. I just read his story last week.”
He was impressed. “You can read the Bible?” He could read too, but it was hard, and reading the Bible sounded harder still. And boring.
“Oh yeah.” She nodded. “I’m really smart. Everyone says so.”
“What’s your name?”
“Penelope, like from Greek liter’ture. There’s only one Penelope, so I get to keep my name.”
He frowned. “That’s not fair.” Why should he get a new name, and not her? “I’m going to call you something else.”
Her eyebrows both lifted in surprise. She really had impressive eyebrows—thick and black, two slashes across her pale forehead over her pea-green eyes.
It was those eyes which had first captured his attention. He’d never seen a color like them; they were clear and bright, but the exact color of cooked peas.
He’d always liked peas.
“If I have to be Micah, then you have to be Pea. Pea for Penelope.”
“That’s dumb.”
He shrugged. “You just gave me a new name.”
“Yeah, but a Bible name. That’s important. Way better than a vegetable name.”
He smiled shyly. “But I like peas.”
She blinked those pea-green eyes once—which were fast outpacing her eyebrows for most noticeable feature—and smiled back.
So he became Micah, and she became Pea.
His headaches lessened as weeks turned into months, and only seemed to bother him again when he tried too hard to remember who he was, or why the officer had found him wandering in such a bad part of the city in too nice clothes.
The staff at the orphanage were already overwhelmed as it was, so Pea tried to teach him to read. He much preferred sitting and listening to her read; she was just a kid, but read almost as well as Mrs. Potsdam, whoever she was.
And then, after seven months at the orphanage, there was a call from the Children’s Aid Society for orphans needed out west. Micah didn’t want to leave Pea—who wasn’t chosen, probably because of her know-it-all attitude and those eyebrows—but he had to admit life out west with a family sounded better than growing up in an orphanage.
Still, the hardest part of the day he left was saying goodbye to Pea.
She’d become his best friend, and there was something telling him—despite the headaches—that he’d never had a friend before.
Standing there in the hall leading to the girls’ dormitory, she hugged him. It was the first time she’d hugged him, and it felt…nice. Like she would miss him. He hugged her back, then stood with his hands on her shoulders and looked seriously into those pea-green eyes awash with tears.
“I’ll never forget you, Pea.”
And he never did.
CHAPTER ONE
Summer, 1877
They were going to hang a man.
Penelope heard the news as soon as she stepped off the train at the dirty little station in Dilbert, Wyoming. How could she not? It seemed to be all anyone was talking about, and besides, there was a man literally yelling as he told a gathered group of rough-looking men how it had taken him and three buddies to subdue the poor victim.
“Poor victim” because he obviously wasn’t whom they thought.
According to the story being told—yelled—as Penelope walked about to stretch her legs, a group of miners had recognized Draven and had attacked him. They’d assumed the feared bounty hunter was in town to take down one of them—she wondered why no one else had stopped to question why they’d assumed that, but decided it wasn’t part of her mission, and thus she could ignore it. So they’d waited until the man had ordered his third whiskey at Dilbert’s disgusting-looking saloon, and four of them had jumped him. Then they bashed him over the head.
And now they were planning on lynching him. Right now, in fact.
Didn’t this town have a sheriff? Penelope tsked in irritation, over the fact she seemed to be the only level-headed person around here.
Draven? Brought down in a bar by a rifle butt to the back of his head? Preposterous! Plus, Penelope knew for a fact, as of last week, the man in question was out in Utah, following up on a lucrative bounty out there. There’s no way he could’ve made it to Dilbert this quickly, and no way he would’ve let his guard down long enough to be captured by a lynch mob.
A lynch mob who had just finished celebrating at the same sordid saloon, judging from the crowd of men pouring out into the street. And—oh dear—the one in the front was holding a rope already tied into a noose.
Well. Penelope sighed. It looked like it was up to her to do something about this. Especially since she had a horrible feeling about who this mob would really be hanging.
She flagged down the porter and requested her luggage. “I know this isn’t my destination, sir. I have just discovered I have rather urgent business here, which I assume will take up enough of my time so as to prevent me from being on the train when it departs.”
When he continued to complain about having to fetch her luggage, she drew herself up to her not-inconsequential height and gave up on impressing him with her manners. “Get out of my way, then.”
All she’d brought on this trip was a large valise and her rifle case, and she could easily fetch that herself. The longer she spent arguing with this man, the more time the mob will have to kill the other man.
Sure enough, by the time she’d climbed down once more, holding her two pieces of luggage and scanning the station platform with practiced eyes, almost ten minutes had passed since she’d first heard the news. Dilbert’s main street was almost empty, and the few citizens she did see were hurrying towards the western edge of town.
Blast! That’s where the lynch mob would be then.
Behind her, the train whistled as it chuffed its way out of town. Penelope straightened her shoulders, hefted her bags, and hurried westward, praying she’d still make it in time.
The mob had gathered just outside of Dilbert. Of course, this far in the back, it was hard to call it a mob. Here were the mothers and curious children, the shopkeepers and the prostitutes. Here, at the rear of the crowd, were the people who wanted to know what was going on but didn’t want to be involved. They weren’t the dangerous ones.
By lifting herself up on the toes of her very elegant—and increasingly dirty—boots, she was able to see the rest of the crowd, which stretched up to the trunk of a large tree. How unusual, to see a tree so large, this close to town. Perhaps it was a favorite picnic spot…or the local hanging tree.
Knowing what she would find when she reached the tree, Penelope began to elbow her way forward, not bothering with niceties. She only prayed she wouldn’t be too late.
Oh, thank God. She breathed the silent praise when she reached the front of the group of casual bystanders, and the rear of the angry mob. Because these men in front of her? Definitely angry mob. And—per her prayer to the Almighty—they hadn’t committed their offense yet. For the moment, they seemed content to shake their impromptu weapons and yell insults about Draven, one of the West’s most feared bounty hunters.
Under the tree’s largest limb, stood a wagon hooked up to a skittish-looking horse, whose eyes rolled fearfully at the sight of so many angry men wielding pitchforks and rifles and rope. There was an unsavory man holding onto its reins, but he looked ready to yank on its head at any moment. And when he did, that wagon would lumber forward, severely inconveniencing the man with the bound hands standing in the rear of it, the noose around his neck also tied to the tree limb above him.
The man who, even now, scanned the crowd with those gorgeous so-dark-they-were-almost-black eyes she remembered so well. Did he look confused? Frantic? Scared? It was hard to tell from this distance, but she would know him anywhere.
It was Micah. It had to be. He looked too much like that serious little boy from so long ago. She’d spent months searching for him, and it was cruel to find him here, like this.
And somehow—impossible, considering the dozens of people there—he lifted his eyes and met hers. Was there a spark of recognition? A glimmer of hope? Penelope cursed under her breath, wishing she was closer to him, because then she’d be able to better hear the accusations the men were hurling at him.
But she didn’t miss the way one of them grinned cruelly and yanked hard on the rope, pulling Micah up onto his toes and stretching his neck. The rope bit into his skin and she saw the grimace that flickered across his expression, even from this distance. If he survived this—if she could save him—he’d carry that scar for life as well.
If? To hell with that! She would save him. She had to.
Penelope dropped her valise and scanned the men around her. Picking the cleanest-looking one, she tapped him on the shoulder smartly. When he turned, she smiled. “Excuse me, sir. Be a dear and hold this for me?”
Without waiting for his agreement, she hefted her rifle case into his arms. It was her own design, an elegant mahogany Mr. Prince had made for her as a Christmas present one year. She flicked the latches and opened the lid, revealing her pride and joy cradled in velvet.
The Prince lever-action .45 Long Colt had a twenty-four inch barrel, and every inch had been etched with decorative swirls and designs. She lifted it out of the case and smoothly loaded it from the collection of cartridges which sat nestled in their own velvet box under the rifle’s lever.
The whole process took only a few heartbeats, and when she looked up, the gentleman holding her case was staring dumbly at her. She offered him a grateful smile, then in one easy motion, turned back to the tree and lifted the rifle to her shoulder.
It fit like it belonged there, like it was an extension of herself. It had been made especially for her, and someone like her shouldn’t have been able to afford it.
Ahhh, the benefits of working for a gun manufacturer.
But this wouldn’t be as easy as shooting a target at Mr. Prince’s shooting range. In the moments since she’d looked away, the man at the horse’s head had led the animal—and the wagon—away from the tree. Micah now dangled from the noose which had been wrapped around his neck, his legs kicking inefficiently to find purchase on a ground impossibly far away. His face turned red, then purple, as his bound hands clawed at the rope at his throat. He’d never be able to reach the kn
ot at the back of his neck, not in time. He twisted as he struggled, and Penelope prayed he wouldn’t disrupt her aim.
And, as if he’d heard her silent prayer, Micah’s eyes met hers once more. Maybe he didn’t see her. Maybe he only saw the rifle. Maybe he knew what she was trying to do, or maybe he was praying she was a Good Samaritan who could put him out of his misery. Either way, his eyes locked on the rifle and he froze, halting his struggling, halting his desperate attempt for air.
He was trusting her. It was a heady feeling, and she wouldn’t squander it.
Penelope exhaled and squeezed the trigger, reveling in the power of the weapon in her arms. There was no recoil worth noting, no jarring to throw off her aim. Just a smooth, graceful, beautiful tool. She rarely needed a second shot with this weapon, because she rarely missed.
Today was no exception, despite the unpredictability of her target, which was only a small rope fifteen yards away. Her bullet bit into where it hung from the tree branch, slicing the rope in two and dropping Micah—coughing and sputtering—to the ground.
His throat burned, his head ached, his chest felt like there was a thick leather band around it, and his hands throbbed from being tied so tightly in front of him. But all Micah Zapato could think was, Pea?
That was it. Just her name, ringing incredulously through his mind.
Dios mio, when he’d seen the woman—tall and far too elegant for a town like Dilbert—in the crowd, he felt his heart skip in something besides fear. It was the same lurch the traitorous organ gave every time he’d seen a dark-haired woman with green eyes during the last two decades. But this time the woman had Pea’s unfortunate eyebrows, too.
He’d almost laughed at himself, sure he was hallucinating in his moment of impending death, because there was no way Pea had grown up to be so…so damn beautiful. Even those brows were gorgeous.
