The Princess Test

by Shirley Jump

  Had Daniel agreed to the picnic as a way of pumping Carrie for information? Or because he was genuinely interested in Carrie Santaro, the person? Only one way to find out, she decided, and that was to go.

  Still, she hesitated. She knew better than to trust him. A part of her, the part that had spent all her life not knowing if the people she met were true friends or merely looking to rub elbows with a royal, wondered about Daniel’s intentions.

  Trust. A lot of meaning in five little letters.

  Carrie glanced at the clock. She’d better hurry or she’d be late. She settled on a pale yellow dress with a cotillion of white flowers dancing around the skirt. She paired it with white flats and a short white sweater. It certainly wasn’t one of the fancy dresses or stiff suits she wore for royal appearances. This dress—something she had bought in a shop in downtown Winter Haven a few days ago—definitely better suited Carrie’s keep-it-simple philosophy. She kept her hair simple, too, leaving it down and slightly wavy around her shoulders.

  Then she packed a small container with some cheese, crackers and fresh grapes and put everything into a cloth tote. At the last second, she grabbed a bottle of her favorite Uccelli wine and added it to the tote bag. If Daniel tried to turn this into a life-as-a-princess interview, she’d change the subject to the one that really interested her. She had no intentions of letting him exploit her for his news program. She was there for Annabelle, nothing more.

  She walked the three blocks to the park, enjoying the warm day, cooled by a gentle breeze. If she closed her eyes, she could almost believe she was back walking the rocky shores of Uccelli while the gulls shrieked warnings and the terns danced in the surf. Except the air here lacked the tangy saltwater scent, and gulls were a rare sighting.

  The Winter Haven Town Park wasn’t very big, as parks went. A large gazebo with gingerbread-patterned trim anchored the park in the middle, while a bright-colored playground took up the eastern corner. A small pond held court on the western side, flanked by a half dozen picnic tables. Canada geese milled about the pond, picking at the grass and searching for stray bread crumbs. Children laughed while they climbed the jungle gym and their parents hovered nearby, ready to prevent a fall or a bruise.

  Everything here was so simple, so ordinary. Carrie loved the homespun nature of this small town, the way everyone seemed to know everyone else. No wonder her mother had loved it so much. A tiny whisper sounded in the back of Carrie’s mind. If Bianca had loved this town so much, why had she been so resistant to Carrie coming here herself?

  Yet the tourist trade was brisk, people drawn by both the beautiful, expansive lake and the friendly, bucolic atmosphere. Instead of hotels, the town had a varied selection of bed-and-breakfasts. It was almost like being at home.

  After only a week here, she could walk into nearly any store in Winter Haven and people greeted her by name. The residents didn’t see her as Princess Carlita, they saw only Carrie.

  It was the most liberating experience of Carrie’s life. No wonder Mama had loved it so much.

  Carrie strode down the paved path and rounded the corner of the twenty-foot-tall wooden gazebo. There, standing by the pond, was Daniel Reynolds and his daughter. Carrie bit back a laugh at the little girl’s fluffy purple dress and the rhinestone tiara sparkling in her golden curls. All little girls wanted to be princesses—except the ones who actually were royal.

  As Carrie approached, Annabelle turned and spied her. She dashed up the hill, waving her arms, her hair a wild cloud around her head, and jerked to a stop, teetering on her plastic heels. “Hi.” She dipped her head, a shy smile curving across her face.

  Carrie laughed. All that and one word. Carrie bent down to Annabelle’s level. “Hi yourself, Annabelle. I like your crown.”

  Annabelle beamed, and her fingers fluttered over the delicate silver plastic arches of her tiara. “Thank you.”

  “I like your shoes, too.”

  “Thank you. They’re my stick shoes.” Annabelle held out a foot for Carrie to see the tiny heel. Then she screwed up her face and stared up at Carrie. “Where’s your castle? Is your daddy the king? Did you get kissed by a prince?”

  Daniel stopped beside his daughter and ruffled her hair. “Goodness, you’re the girl of questions, little Belle.”

  Annabelle squinted irritation at her father. “But Daddy, I gotta know. I’ll never be a princess if I don’t know how.”

  Carrie pressed a quick touch to Annabelle’s button nose. “You, sweetie, are already a princess.”

  Annabelle’s bright smile rivaled the sun. “I am?”

  “Uh-huh. Being a princess isn’t about being royal or being the daughter of the king or being kissed by a prince. It’s about being a good person, one who stands up for other people and takes care of them. A person who always stands up for what’s important to her.”

  Annabelle wrinkled her nose, thinking. “I take care of Whitney. I do a real good job with her.”

  “Whitney is Belle’s stuffed dog,” Daniel supplied. “She’s had her since she was a baby.”

  Annabelle frowned. “Daddy, I’m not a baby.”

  “I know, pumpkin, I know.” He chuckled, then gestured down the hill. “Annabelle and I set up quite the spread under that maple tree, if you’d like to join us.”

  “I’d love to.”

  Annabelle squealed with delight, then grabbed Carrie’s hand and practically dragged her down the hill to a red plaid blanket. An open cooler sat in one corner, and a stuffed animal sat in the other. Carrie dropped onto the blanket beside Annabelle and picked up the dog. “Is this Whitney?”

  Annabelle nodded. “She loves picnics.”

  “Me, too, Whitney,” Carrie said to the dog. “Nice to meet another picnic fan.” She handed the tan dog over to Annabelle, who clutched it to her chest in a tight hug.

  “Princesses have picnics?” Annabelle asked.

  “Not very often,” Carrie said, then thought of the last time she’d enjoyed something like this. She’d been ten, and had escaped the castle when her mother wasn’t looking, ditching the stuffy state luncheon she’d been expected to attend. Still clad in her floor-length satin dress, she’d run barefoot to the vineyards and had a wonderful hour eating lunch with the workers sitting on the grassy knoll overlooking the vines. By the time Tavo, the manager of the vineyard, was handing out cookies for dessert, the worried staff had found Carrie and brought her back to the castle. She’d kept her cookie clutched tight in her hand, but it was just a pile of crumbs when she crossed the threshold of the castle. “Not nearly often enough,” she added softly.

  Daniel sat down across from them and withdrew a stack of paper plates and several thick ham-and-cheese sandwiches from the cooler. He placed a bottle of sparkling water on the blanket, then flanked it with plastic cups and napkins. Carrie pulled her container out of her bag, removed the lid, then placed the cheese and crackers beside the sandwiches. Seemed this was going to be just a picnic. Good.

  Except a part of her was noticing Daniel’s blue eyes, the way his dark hair curled across his brow. Noticing very, very much.

  “You didn’t have to bring anything,” he said.

  “One thing my mother insisted on was that I never arrive empty-handed to an event. Even a princess should be a gracious guest, she’d say. So I brought grapes and cheese.” She reached into the bag, and pulled out the plastic containers, followed by the bottle of wine. She showed it to him, then let it slide back into the bag for now. “And a gift for the hostess, or in your case, host. Though I have to say, you’ve outdone me.”

  He shook his head, and for a second, Carrie thought Daniel Reynolds looked a bit embarrassed. “I have to give my mother the credit for that. I can barely make a PB and J for Belle.”

  “PB and J?” Carrie asked.

  “Peanut butter and jelly,” Annabelle said, then pulled another sandwich out of the cooler, one filled with the aforementioned ingredients. “It’s the yummiest sammwich ever. Here, try.” Annabelle yanked
the sandwich out of the clear plastic bag, sending a large squirt of jelly spraying onto Carrie’s skirt. It landed with a thick thud, and seeped purple juices into the pale yellow fabric.

  Annabelle’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, Princess Carrie. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”

  Carrie laughed and reached for a napkin to wipe off the worst of it. “Believe me, it’s okay. It’s just jelly.”

  “But I made your princess dress messy.” Annabelle pouted. “Sorry.”

  Carrie laid a hand on Annabelle’s arm. A light, quick touch. “It’s okay, Annabelle. Even princesses get dirty sometimes.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” That was part of the appeal of working in the vineyards—she could get dirty, sweaty even, and no one cared. It was probably why Carrie had always been into hands-on activities. For a while, she’d ridden horses, then found it more fun to help in the stables. There’d been times she’d joined the landscapers in setting out annuals, other times when she’d headed for the vineyards for harvest time.

  “When I’m in the castle,” she said to Annabelle, “I have to look perfect all the time. Every hair, every thread in its place. There are always attendants, which are like helpers, hovering nearby, ready to fluff and nitpick. It did make me crazy, I have to say.”

  “Really?” a wide-eyed Annabelle said.

  “Yes. And sometimes, all I wanted to do was run off to my room and change into jeans and flip-flops like other girls my age.”

  When she’d planned the trip to Winter Haven, she’d gone on an all-day shopping spree and filled her suitcase with nothing smacking of royalty. She glanced down at the purple blotch and hoped in a weird way that it never washed away.

  Daniel was regarding her with a curious glance. She couldn’t decide if it was interest or distrust. “You sure you don’t want to go home and change?” he asked. “In case another reporter comes by or something? Being covered in jelly and at a picnic in the park is the kind of thing they love to splash on the front pages.”

  All her life, her parents had done their level best to keep the media’s focus off Carrie’s wild antics. Since she was the “spare” heir, their attention had usually been on Carrie’s older sisters anyway. As a result, the media had painted her as the third daughter who lived in the shadows of the two elder bright stars of Mariabella and Allegra, with a few blips about her antics off castle grounds.

  No more of that, Carrie decided. She was going to make her mark on the world. As herself, not as a princess.

  She smiled, then reached forward, swiped another glob of jelly off the edge of the sandwich and smeared it along the edge of her skirt. “Let them,” she said. “Because I’m not the princess they think I am.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NOT the princess they thought she was. Daniel sat back on the blanket and regarded Carrie. That was a curious turn of phrase. Was she outright admitting she wasn’t the real Carlita Santaro?

  He decided not to press the issue. If he did, she might clam up and then he’d never get the information he needed. Instead, he handed out the ham-and-cheese sandwiches, poured the water and waited. Biding his time, he decided, was the best course of action. Because right now, Annabelle was making a hell of an interrogator.

  The problem? He was having a hell of a time concentrating. Every time Carrie smiled, he wanted to make her smile again. He was supposed to be objective, to keep a clear head, and he kept on getting distracted by the little dimple winking with every smile. He found himself watching her mouth as she talked, wondering what it would be like to kiss her. If she would taste as sweet as she looked, if she would curve into his arms, or push him away.

  He shook off the thoughts. He didn’t need a relationship right now. Maybe not ever.

  Annabelle gobbled her sandwich and ran off toward the swing sets. In seconds, she was swinging back and forth, singing a song about princesses.

  “Your daughter is adorable. And quite the character,” Carrie said, laughing.

  She had a light, lyrical laugh. Almost like a song, he thought. Damn, he kept getting distracted when he really needed to focus.

  “Yes, she is.” Daniel cleared his throat. “You must miss castle life.”

  Carrie’s gaze went to something distant. Because she was carefully concocting her answer? Or because what he’d said had bothered her? “No, I really don’t. I was never cut out for the royal thing.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She splayed one hand across the pale yellow skirt of her dress and brushed at imaginary lint. For whatever reason, she was delaying her answer. The cynic in him said it was because she was working on a lie. The intrigued man in him wondered if even princesses tired of their life of luxury.

  He could relate to the grinding yoke of expectations. Hadn’t he been expected to follow in the steps of his grandfather and father? They’d come attached to his name, to everything he did. There were times when he wondered what his life would have been like if he’d been a landscaper or an artist.

  But the woman across from him, sitting so composed and serene, had a regal way about her. It was as if it was in her bones, part of her blood. Even though she was at a picnic, sitting on a blanket under a tree with jelly on her skirt.

  “I’m not princess material,” she said after a long while. “Though I tried really hard to be.”

  For a second, his heart went out to her. He knew what it was like to try to live up to expectations that kept rising. To try to achieve an impossible goal. Wasn’t that what working in television was all about? Always trying to top what had come before? And on top of that, being part of the Reynolds legacy.

  Did she understand that, or was this all part of an elaborate ruse? His instincts said she was real, but his instincts had gotten fuzzy in the last year.

  “So your mother vacationed here before,” he said, leading into but not quite asking a question.

  Carrie nodded. “It was before I was born. My sisters had gone on a vacation with my grandparents, a couple weeks on the Amalfi Coast, and my mother decided to take a vacation of her own.”

  “Did she do that a lot?”

  “Not at all. Palace life is one of those all-consuming things. I think she spied her chance at a getaway and grabbed it before some ribbon cutting or benefit dinner got in her way.” Carrie laughed.

  “And you? Doing the same as your mother?”

  A shaky laugh escaped her. “This is sounding suspiciously like an interview.”

  “Not at all. Just me getting to know you.”

  She raised a suspicious brow. “Really? Why?”

  “Because it’s not every day that a man meets a princess. A beautiful princess, at that.”

  “Flattery.” She waved off the words.

  “Truth. If this was really an interview, I’d take notes or have a recorder. I don’t have either.” He put out his hands to prove the point. “Though, if you ever reconsider, it would be really interesting for the public to get to know an unconventional princess.”

  She laughed. “Unconventional? Me?”

  “You seem like one to me. So unconventional, it’s almost hard to believe you’re royalty.” He watched her face for a reaction to the accusation, but Carrie’s remained pensive.

  “Unconventional,” she repeated. “I like that.”

  She said the words softly, drawing him in, making him feel bad for swinging the conversation around to what he ultimately wanted from her. He reminded himself that he was a journalist, and a journalist always puts the story first. Hadn’t his father drummed that into him?

  “And that’s the side of you I want to portray in an interview,” he said. “Don’t you think the world should get to know the real you?”

  “The real me.” She considered his words for a long moment, then flashed another one of those million-dollar smiles his way. “Okay. Let’s do the interview.”

  “Great.” He’d just landed his first piece for Inside Scoop. Maybe now he could finally begin to relax and feel l
ike life here in Indiana was going to work out for him and Annabelle. Still, a vague sense of unease, as if he’d left something undone, or more, he was taking a wrong turn, plagued him. It was just this past year, he’d decided, catching up with him. He needed to focus on his job. “I promise, it’ll be okay, and it won’t be some fluff piece. We can set it up for—”

  She put up a hand. “I have one condition.”

  “A condition?” Here it came. No questions about her as the princess. No focus on her connection to the royal family—or lack thereof. That would do him no good. He’d get more mileage out of the story of the dog nursing a litter of kittens.

  “I want to focus on the real reason I’m here in America,” Carrie said. “And nothing else.”

  She’d left him at a loss for words. Not for long, Carrie was sure. Well, good. She’d wanted to turn the tables on the reporter, and turn this situation to her advantage. She wasn’t wild at all about the idea of being interviewed—the media had always seemed like more of a curse than a help—but if she was going to do this, then she wanted to retain control.

  That meant no more fluff pieces on the life of a royal. She’d use this interview to increase the popularity of Uccelli’s wines and in the process, build her case for taking over the vineyard’s marketing and sales department. And Daniel Reynolds was the key to that plan.

  Annabelle dashed over, interrupting Carrie’s thoughts. Her hair had fallen out of its crown and was flying about her face in a wild halo, the tiara tangled and dangling on one side. “Let me fix that,” Daniel said as he reached for her.

  Annabelle jerked back. “No, Daddy. I don’t want you to.”

  He pulled a comb from his back pocket. “I don’t want your hair getting caught on the swings. Let me—”

  “No, Daddy.” She shied back, pressing a palm to her unruly curls. “It ouches when you brush my hair. I want Grandma to do it. She doesn’t ouch.”

  A look of helplessness and regret came over Daniel’s face, and Carrie saw him struggle to find something to say. Last night at the library, and today, she had seen the walls between father and daughter. There was a disconnect here, one that she could relate to. Too well.