by Holly Jacobs
“Show off,” Jace muttered, though he was smiling.
Parker stood up and stuck her tongue out at him.
“Oh, that’s so grown up,” he countered.
The man running the game said, “Great shot, lady,” as he handed Amanda the frog.
“Thanks, Parker,” the girl said. “I know I’m probably too old for stuffed animals—”
“You’re never too old for stuffed animals,” Parker told her. “I collect Mickey Mouses. I still have the first one I ever owned. He definitely looks worse for wear, but I’ll never part with him.”
“Really?” Amanda said.
“Really.”
“Okay, enough of this. Who’s going to do the Whacky Shack with me?” Bobby asked, even as he took off toward the ride without waiting for a reply.
“Me,” Parker said, chasing after him. Amanda and Jace followed close behind.
“You’re like a little kid,” Jace said as they stood in line waiting for their turn.
“I love amusement parks. I can be anyone here. I’m anonymous. And Waldemeer is one of my all-time favorites. How about you?”
“Yeah, I like it, as well. I’ve been coming every summer since I was a kid. My dad worked for GE, and they had their company picnic here each summer.”
“It must have been great to grow up here, to do normal things like coming to an amusement park or going to the beach.”
Parker didn’t let herself regret things too often.
She knew she was lucky.
She had a family who loved her. She’d never wanted for anything materially or emotionally. And yet that didn’t stop her from yearning for the smallest slice of normalcy.
That’s what she’d found here in Erie. She’d found herself—Parker Dillon—at places like Waldemeer and Mercyhurst College, at the bookstore and the coffee-shop.
She’d found Parker Dillon and she wasn’t ready to leave the ordinariness of it all behind and go back to Eliason and Princess Marie Anna.
“You didn’t get to do things like this growing up?” Jace asked.
“When your dad’s running a country, even a small one like Eliason, and your mother’s involved in every charitable organization around, there’s just not a lot of time for normal things like amusement parks and beaches.”
She saw sympathy in his expression and hastened to add, “Hey, we had a pool at home, so it’s not like I didn’t get to swim. And I don’t want to make it sound like Mom and Dad didn’t pay attention to us—they did. But…” She trailed off, not sure why she was telling him any of this.
“But,” he said, “it wasn’t the same.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then, for the rest of the day let’s forget that you’re a—” He leaned closed and whispered princess in her ear.
A small shiver raced down her spine as his breath tickled her earlobe. And for a moment—just one small split second—she felt the urge to lean toward him, to get closer.
Because she wanted to lean closer, she forced herself to pull away as he continued, “Let’s forget that I’m a private investigator who’s working for your father.
Let’s even forget we’re grown-ups. Let’s just be Jace and Parker and have a good time.”
Just Jace and just Parker, hanging out with two kids at an amusement park.
Parker felt some tension disappear as she smiled and said, “You’re on.”
They’d reached the front of the ride’s line, and the kids took the first car.
“Guess that leaves us riding together,” Parker said, trying to sound nonchalant but feeling a sense of excitement that had nothing to do with the dark ride.
They climbed in the ladybug-shaped car and the attendant slapped the metal bar over them. The cars weren’t exactly spacious. There was no way they could share one and not touch. Thigh to thigh. There was nothing overtly sexual about the casual, chaste touch. And yet a spark of awareness fired through Parker.
The car moved through the doors and they were plunged into darkness. Room after room. Black lights. Supposedly scary props that were more funny than anything. When the car moved into a tilted room, Parker had no choice but to slide against Jace. His arm came over her shoulder, holding her close. Their bodies were plastered together.
In the oddly lit room, she could make out his expression. For a moment she thought he was going to withdraw his arm, but the moment passed and he pulled her closer.
“Parker,” he whispered. She thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he simply touched his lips to her cheek. Just the slightest brush before the car left the room and was suddenly back on an even keel. The moment disappeared just as quickly as it had come. Gone—almost as if it had never been.
Jace slowly lifted his arm, and Parker reluctantly slid back to her own side of the car, once again minimizing their physical contact.
“Jace,” she said, wanting to talk about what had just happened. Wanting to know just what he’d been thinking. Because maybe if she knew what he was thinking, she could sort out her own thoughts and her odd pull of attraction toward him. But at that moment, the car rolled into a room where a horn blared loudly, cutting off anything she might have said.
By the time the ride was over, she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what the almost kiss had meant.
“About what happened—”
He interrupted her. He grinned at the kids, who were waiting at the exit, and said, “What’s next?”
As Parker trailed the three of them through the park, that was her question, as well.
What was next?
Chapter Four
Jace wished he’d brought a camera along with him.
He wasn’t a big picture maniac. That was Shelly’s job. His sister was the one who had a camera at every holiday and event. If she were here, she’d have one today, as well, he was sure.
But she was stuck in an office, along with her soon-to-be ex, discussing how to bring their marriage to an end. It was a marriage that had been doomed from the start.
When Shelly had married Hal Roberts, Jace had worried and eventually told her that they were too different. It wasn’t just the fifteen-year age difference but the fact that Hal came from money and Shelly didn’t.
It was the same story with his parents. His father had left when Jace was five and Shelly nine. He’d left without a backward glance. Left their mom to struggle to provide for them. Went back to his life of comfort and never gave another thought to his family.
Jace’s mind was pulled from his dark thoughts of the past by Amanda and Bobby’s laughter.
It was something Parker had said. She was grinning at the two of them.
That’s what he wanted a camera for—to catch Parker’s smile on film.
Not the royal, public smile she’d worn in the pictures her father had sent him. Those were studio shots. Posed and poised. She’d looked cold, aloof…regal. And as he thought about it, he realized what she hadn’t looked was happy.
Watching her with Amanda and Bobby, she looked real. Her happiness was there not just in her smile but in her eyes.
For that one moment in the Whacky Shack, there had been more than happiness in her gaze. There had been questions—questions he couldn’t answer. Questions about their almost kiss.
But she seemed to have put the questions away and thrown herself into enjoying the day. She’d gorged herself right along with the kids. Cotton candy. Candy apples. Popcorn.
Right now she and the kids were sharing the biggest order of cheese fries he’d ever seen.
“You’re all going to be sick tonight,” he warned.
“Not me,” said Bobby. “Mom says I have a cast-iron stomach.”
“I wonder how she’s doing,” Amanda said, some of the joy of the day slipping.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said, although he wasn’t sure at all.
Shelly would never let on if she was less than fine. She’d just railroad through it. That’s what she’d done for years—toughed out a marriag
e that never really worked, until it came to a point where she couldn’t stand Hal’s infidelities any longer.
“Your mom’s strong,” Jace said, as much to remind himself as to reassure the kids.
“She’s got to be pretty incredible,” Parker said to Bobby. “After all, she has two incredible kids.”
“She is,” Jace said.
“She has to be,” Amanda said, her voice far too mature for someone who’d just turned thirteen.
“My dad doesn’t want to pay any child support and won’t let her have anything from the house. Not even her car. The judge ordered them to go talk to an…” Bobby paused.
“Arbitrator,” Jace supplied.
“Yeah. Arbitrator,” Bobby said.
“That’s why we’re living with Uncle Jace,” Amanda added.
“He’s going to let us work with him after we graduate,” Bobby said.
“From college,” Jace reminded the twins.
“Yeah, from college, even though we don’t need college,” Bobby grumbled.
Jace had to admire his nephew’s tenacious streak. Bobby got that from his mom. Stubborn and tough.
“Sure, you have to go to college,” Parker said. “I know Mercyhurst has a great criminal-justice program. You’d learn all sorts of useful things. Or what about a computer degree? Just think how helpful that would be to your uncle. You could hack into any computer and get him information to help his cases.”
“Hacking? Don’t give him any ideas,” Jace said in mock horror.
Bobby’s eyes lit up.
“Computers,” he mused. “I like computers.”
“See,” Parker said as she winked at Jace.
He shot her a smile of thanks.
“But thoughts of college can wait,” Parker announced. “I’m getting hot. Let’s head into the water park.”
“You just ate. You have to wait at least a half hour before you go swimming,” Jace teased.
“Who said anything about swimming? We’re sliding. There’s a difference.” Parker stole the last fry and popped it in her mouth. “Hurry up, the day’s a-wasting.”
Parker had denied her niceness last night, but Jace had just watched her not only distract his niece and nephew from their worries but encourage them to go to college. He knew he’d been right—Parker Dillon was a nice lady. She was nothing like the spoiled princess he’d expected to find.
He watched her with the kids and realized that if she were anyone else, he’d ask her out on a real date.
But despite the fact she could throw a ball and eat like a kid—despite the fact she had a smile that could light up a room and a laugh that made him stiffen with desire—despite the fact he hadn’t been so attracted to a woman in a very long time, he wouldn’t ever ask her out.
He’d like to tell himself it was because he was a professional and she was an assignment. Dating her would be a conflict of interest. But he was honest enough to admit that wasn’t it. If she wasn’t a princess, he’d conflict away, absolutely guilt-free.
No, the one fact holding him back was that despite the fact she liked pretending she was just Parker Dillon, she wasn’t. This woman laughing with his niece and nephew, tying him up in knots, was a princess.
Princess Marie Anna Parker Mickovich Dillonetti of Eliason.
She was royalty.
He was an ordinary guy, a working man. A man who liked his independence and privacy.
In spite of her insistence otherwise, she was a woman who would go back to her country and lead a very public life.
They came from two different worlds. After seeing what both his mother and his sister had gone through, Jace O’Donnell knew better than most people that social differences did matter.
He’d be the first to confess that he didn’t know much about what a princess did in her day-to-day royal sort of life—a life that wasn’t anything like his. He ran his own business, which meant he had a lot of freedom in what jobs he accepted. He didn’t answer to anyone but himself. But it also meant he was responsible for every facet of the business. Keeping books, lining up jobs and doing the actual footwork. He’d been busy before his sister had moved in. But now he mainly met himself coming and going.
Even though babysitting Parker was his main priority, he had a couple other clients whose cases he was trying to squeeze in. And on a totally personal level, he was looking into Shelly’s ex.
He didn’t have time to date right now. And even if he did, the woman who was so at ease with his niece and nephew was still far too different for him to ever date.
But not so different they couldn’t spend a day at the water park, he told himself.
He was going to take his own advice. For today, he was going to forget everything except that she was Parker and he was Jace. They were just two people sharing a day with the kids.
“Come on, Uncle Jace,” Bobby called.
Amanda and Parker both added their urgings for him to hurry.
“Okay, let’s go have some fun,” he said.
Just for today, he warned himself.
But Jace realized it might be easier to warn himself than to heed that warning.
Parker couldn’t remember when she’d had such a good time.
She’d hated to see the day end when they’d dropped the kids off at Jace’s house. He lived in a small brick home in Glenwood Hills. She wished they would have gone inside. She’d have liked to see more.
She did meet his sister, Shelly. The woman was all smiles as she listened to the kids rattle on about their day. But behind the happy facade, Parker thought she saw pain and wondered just how the day had gone.
“Tough day?” Jace had asked quietly.
Shelly had just shrugged and gone back to talking to the kids about Waldemeer.
Jace had given her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
It was a small gesture, but Parker had noticed it. It had touched her and made her miss her older brother. It had been a couple years since she’d seen Michael, though they talked on the phone. It wasn’t the same.
Her mom had said he might visit while he was in the States on whatever princely mission his father had sent him on. If only he was coming just to see her and not to try to make her come home.
She felt a sharp jab of homesickness, followed by a stab of guilt. She might have left her responsibilities behind, but Michael couldn’t. As the only son and future king, he would always be forced to live his life in a fish-bowl, have his every action scrutinized by the press. There was never a question of career paths for him. He would be king.
As the only other child, she’d at least had options. Oh, she’d been just as scrutinized. All her little childhood mishaps and rebellions had been written about and exaggerated. But she’d escaped. Her family had helped her find a piece of normalcy for college, and she just couldn’t go back.
She realized they’d pulled into her driveway. Jace turned off the car.
She didn’t want to go in the house, hated to end the day.
It had been special.
Magical even, although she laughed at herself for even thinking such a description.
“So, are you going to invite me up tonight?” he asked softly.
Her first inclination was to say yes.
But he worked for her father. Basically he was the enemy. So instead she asked, “Why are you so insistent on coming into my apartment?”
“You learn a lot about a person by viewing their home,” he said. “Maybe I want to know more about you.”
“What if I feel you already know more than you need to know?” she asked, mainly because it was true. Jace O’Donnell knew more about her than she was comfortable with.
Today she’d talked about growing up, about how isolated she’d sometimes felt from the rest of the world.
That wasn’t like her. It wasn’t normal.
But nothing had been normal since her father had shut off her trust.
She was working for a living now.
She had an unwanted fiancé chasing
after her.
And a private investigator who knew too much that wasn’t in the file.
“Maybe you know a lot already?” she ventured.
“Not enough,” Jace said. “The more I learn, the more I want to learn. You’re not what I expected.”
“I know, the whole a-princess-should-live-in-a-castle thing.” She was used to the old fairy-tale-princess stereotype. “But in the interest of teaching you more, not only do I not live in a castle, I’ve never made a deal with a dwarf, never had a grown man climb up my hair, never fallen into an enchanted sleep.”
“That’s too bad,” he said with a grin she could barely make out by the faint glow of the streetlight. “If you fell into an enchanted sleep, I could try kissing you awake.”
She didn’t want to talk about kissing Jace.
Oh, the idea of kissing Jace had crossed Parker’s mind more than once, especially since that almost incident in the Whacky Shack. But she knew things between them could never work out.
She wasn’t about to take any more chances. She really should go.
“Thanks for the great day.” She started to reach for the door handle, but he took her hand, stopping her.
“Invite me up,” he whispered, not taking his hand from hers.
The slight touch made Parker’s system snap and sizzle. She wanted to break the contact but didn’t want Jace to know he was affecting her, so she stood quietly as his finger traced a small pattern on her palm.
He was still talking, she realized, and she struggled to concentrate on what he was saying rather than what he was doing.
“It’s not the job, it’s just… I don’t want the night to end. You’re not what I expected and I want to know more for me, not for your father, not as a private investigator. Just for me.”
“Okay, so maybe you’re not what I expected in a stalker.”
“How so?”
“Hey,” she chortled, “I refuse to feed your overdeveloped ego by listing your finer qualities.”
There. She’d given herself an opening and pulled her hand away, hoping he wouldn’t realize his touch disturbed her so.
He simply grinned and said, “I have finer qualities? I like the sound of that. Tell me more.”
“You’re not going to be quiet and leave me be until I invite you up, are you?” she asked, trying to sound put out. She didn’t think she’d exactly succeeded.
