by Laura Kenyon
So she did. And it was absolute heaven for a full fifteen minutes—until her baby started growing at an excruciating rate and Ruby told her that returning to Donner was the only way to save him.
“Are you sure he’s not hungry?” Penny asked as Rye replaced the crinkly piece of fabric with his fist again.
Belle deflated. “He is hungry,” she acknowledged, feeling both angry and ashamed at the same time—the exact combination of emotions she’d seen on Donner’s face at the arraignment. “I’m just stalling because this might be the last time I get to feed him for a while.”
“Why? Can’t you pump?”
“Yeah,” she said, glancing over at her stuffed duffel bag. “I can. I will.”
“So, you can just give the bottles to Snow and she’ll use them whenever you can’t be there,” Penny said, still glued to her phone. “Right?”
Belle wiped her eyes and scooped her baby back up into her arms. She’d had the exact same conversation with Snow a few hours earlier, when she called to get Belle’s instructions on diapering, feeding, burping, sleeping, singing, bathing, teething, reading, and all over mothering. But it wasn’t the physical act of nursing she was worried about losing, it was the emotional one. It was something she didn’t expect Penny—or Rapunzel, or even Snow—to understand. But there was something, oh, celestial about burrowing up with Rye and connecting with him in such a profound, intimate way.
“I mean, if you have the rings, isn’t it just like he’s in the next room?” Penny continued. “Only instead of walking through a regular door, you’ll be walking through a magical one.” She glanced up long enough to blink. “Sorry. Letitia’s leaning toward moving everything to Selladóre Castle, but there isn’t enough space. So she’s going through the guest list with a fine tooth comb and—”
She looked up again, read the look in Belle’s eyes, and immediately tossed the phone onto Belle’s bed. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking as if a hypnotist had just snapped his fingers in front of her face. She crossed the room and gave Belle a huge butt-out hug so as not to squish the baby. Belle hung onto her and pulled her closer, repositioning so that Rye was well out of harm’s way. “Just tell me what you need. Anything. Are you still planning on staying at Rapunzel’s? I should stay with you. How about that? We’ll swing by the Phoenix, pick up Beast and some pizzas, and have a girls’ pity party. The secret mommy and the reluctant queen. I’m sure Rapunzel won’t mind if we break into her liquor cabinet.”
Belle laughed through her tears and pulled away. “That sounds great, Pen. But you’ve got so much to do. Your coronation is in three days.”
“It’s fine,” she said as the phone chimed again. She tried to disguise her flinch by jiggling Rye’s tiny sneaker socks, but Belle wasn’t convinced.
“I really appreciate the offer,” she said. “But Beast can keep me company and, like you said, I’ll probably be walking through magical doors all night anyway.”
Penny twisted her mouth and stared at Belle as if she was a cryptogram in need of solving. “Okay,” she finally said. “But consider me on call, at any hour. I’ve been spending most nights digging into Angus Kane anyway, just in case the triad needs an extra boost. Did you know his mother used to work at Braddax Castle?”
Belle shook her head. That was weird, but she wasn’t sure how that really helped with the mission to break Rye’s curse.
“Well, he did. Before Donner was in the picture, but I still find it a little fishy. Plus, you know, the lawyer in me.” She shrugged and forced a laugh. “I may not have magical connections like Rapunzel and Dawn, but that doesn’t make me useless.”
“Oh, Pen,” Belle said just as Rye began to pull at her breast. “You’re never useless. You’re the one who found that loophole in Donner’s prenup and—”
“Yeah, but then I screwed it up by sitting on the details.”
“It’s okay,” she said, losing her focus as Rye began to lose his patience. “But do you mind giving us the room for just a few minutes? I don’t think I can hold him off much longer, and I kind of want to. . .”
She trailed off, unsure how to describe her emotional need to shove her boob into Rye’s mouth.
“Cherish the moment?” Penny filled in. “Not a problem. Take as long as you want. When you’re ready—” She grabbed her phone off the bed and jingled it. “Just holler.”
* * *
Belle held her breath as she stepped out of the car and saw the scorched bones of the Phoenix for the first time. It was a reaction that came partly from shock, but primarily from the overwhelming smell of char in the air. When she finally inhaled, a thick cloud of grit slammed into the back of her throat and clawed its way down.
“Wow, that’s pungent,” Penny said, shielding her mouth with an orange ikat scarf.
That’s the smell of my life eroding, Belle thought, too stunned to actually speak. To her, the whole scene looked less like the site of a fire than of a hurricane—followed by a gas leak that sparked an explosion that led to a raging inferno.
Not a single wall remained. The concrete beneath the stone veneered steps climbed their way to nowhere. In all directions, the wet, charcoal ruins of her former life saturated the grounds. The parking lot, which she’d declined to pave in deference to Mother Nature, now disappeared beneath a blanket of ash. The gold and purple sign they commissioned from the former front door hadn’t made it. Nor had the porch, the second floor, or the garden oasis Gray had created during his first days here—excluding the fire pit, of course, which stood in all its glory. And where there once was a border garden lined with colorful annuals, there now sat a berm of black rubble and a bright yellow line of “Crime Scene” tape—simultaneously the only unscathed object and the only one that didn’t belong.
Belle felt like a ghost, haunting her yet-to-be-discovered grave and assessing the life she’d left behind. Perhaps that’s what was going on. Perhaps she’d actually died in the fire and all of this was just the void between consciousness and eternity. Or perhaps this was all a dream, and all she had to do to wake up was find her body buried somewhere beneath that mound.
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Penny called as Belle dragged her feet through the ash and pushed the tape skyward. “I’m sure that line’s there for a reason. What if things are still smoldering? Maybe you should wait for Gray and—”
Belle closed her ears and dipped under. She had to see the damage for herself, and she was just as happy (if not more so) to do it alone. She’d already passed the first three stages of grief—shock, denial, and anger—at the hospital. The guilt stage officially started this morning, as she packed for Rye’s open-ended excursion to Tantalise, and bargaining … well, bargaining had always been there. In a way, it was what got her into this mess to begin with. If she’d just listened to Ruby at the outset—not tried to bargain with the universe for trivial things like independence, freedom, happiness—perhaps the curse wouldn’t have gotten this far. But what’s done was done. Acceptance. Stage seven. She could skip depression.
Her first few steps on the other side of the tape were steady. She had this. Everything under her feet right now could be replaced.
Her foot slipped on the base of a frying pan. Junk.
She looked down and realized she was standing on the stove. Replaceable.
Her new porcelain sink drowned beneath a mountain of debris, including a shattered mirror and two iron bookends from the guestroom above. Trinkets.
She looked up. Beneath the peach glow of a mid-sunset sky, the whole thing could have been so poetic—a sentinel chimney and three surviving stairs, shadows harkening back to a time when hope still existed.
Belle continued to walk the rooms, covering twice the real estate without the burden of stairs, for at least twenty minutes. She saw the fireplace where the whole battle started. She saw fixtures from the lounge and the bathroom beside the front desk. Her heel landed on the tarnished service bell, which responded with a sad, spiritless clink. At ti
mes, it seemed like the thousand degree flames had operated with no rhyme or reason whatsoever—pounding some items beyond recognition while leaving others almost intact—chunks of defiance in a sea of defeat.
Her gloom retreated for a beat when she discovered the safe untouched, but it contained only a few legal documents and a guest’s camera. Crammed beneath it, however, sat a box stuffed with magazines and notebooks she’d used in designing the inn. To her astonishment, only the sides had been scorched.
It was this discovery that finally gave her the strength she needed to step over the threshold of what used to be her bedroom. Maybe the bins filled with baby clothes had been shown the same mercy. Maybe she packed the nursery books tight enough to withstand the fire. Flames rose, right? Maybe the box under her bed—with her father’s letters, her grandmother’s broach, and the corduroy bear that survived all four of Cinderella’s hyperactive kids—had gotten lucky.
But then she saw the crumbled crib rungs … and the melted mobile … and the mutilated, black quilts that now hung like tissue paper over the destruction … and she realized the denial stage wasn’t even close to being over. Nor was anger. Or shock. And she was just hitting the edge of depression.
Suddenly, the contents of her stomach started to churn and a sickening feeling washed over her. Her ears began to scream like boiling lobsters as she doubled over, spilling her last hospital meal all over the hideous chrome collage Donner had brought just a few minutes before the world ended. She thought about crumpling to the floor and crying. She thought about curling up inside the sandstone shower she loved so much and waiting for Gray to come find her. She thought about picking up every solid, moderately heavy object she could find and bashing it against the chimney until her anger looked every bit as devastating as Donner’s.
But it was getting dark. Snow would be arriving in Tantalise any minute now and Belle wanted to be there to get him settled. So with all the strength she could muster, she pushed herself back up, hoisted the box of magazines into her arms, and clopped back down to the parking lot.
Penny’s car was still there, its headlights illuminating the crime scene all over again, but no one was in it. Belle dropped her souvenir on the hood and followed the ashen tracks down to the only other place she could be—Gray’s cabin.
“Find anything?” Penny asked, pulling back the door before Belle’s knuckles even touched it. Her olive complexion looked unusually pale in the moonlight—at least Belle wanted to think it was the moonlight. She didn’t want to live the rest of her life under a cloud of pity.
“Not really,” she said, stepping inside. “And please don’t look at me like that. I’m fine. There’s nothing up there that can’t be replaced. The only thing that really matters is on his way to Tantalise, sucking his hand and wondering what happened to—”
Belle’s tongue skidded to a stop as the rest of her sentence rear-ended it.
She hadn’t seen Gray for days—only days—but turning the corner and catching sight of him did something startling to her insides. He was looking the other way, tucking a fleece blanket into the corners of her favorite armchair, and draping a second one over the back just in case. She could have stared at him for another hour. Silent. A fly on the wall. No expectations or explanations or questions. Smelling the onions and tomatoes simmering in the kitchen. Feeling the heat rising up from within her and hearing the fire crackling inside the wood stove.
It was absurd to think she’d been more prepared to see her home in ashes than to face the man who’d stolen her heart. But then again, it wasn’t. The Phoenix was gone no matter what she did. Sure, she had the power to recreate it or forget it. But at the end of the day, nothing she did could reverse what had happened. She couldn’t stand by those stairs to nowhere, ring her neutered bell, and wish it all back. Her only option was to accept it.
With Gray, however, the options were as endless as the questions. She hadn’t prepared for this moment simply because she wasn’t sure how. She didn’t know whether to blame him for provoking Donner or apologize for bringing him into this mess. But more importantly, she didn’t know who she was going to see when he finally turned around: the flippant, cheeky drifter she first met in the woods; the sweet, chivalrous man who took care of her and talked her down when she was borderline suicidal; or the dark, tortured soul so convinced he was unfit for happiness that he blocked himself from feeling at all.
She was still debating what to say when Penny’s cell phone tore through the silence like a colicky baby in a church.
“Shit,” Penny snarled just as Gray looked up and the room shrank three sizes. “It’s Letitia. I’ll be right back. Gotta take this.”
Belle might have murmured something in return, but she honestly wasn’t sure. She was too busy staring ahead, a hostage to the figure standing in front of her.
Gray was wearing jeans, as usual, and a dark blue Henley with the sleeves rolled up. She saw his breath speed up as he straightened his legs and looked at her. She had a sudden flashback to that afternoon in the rain, with the flat tire. She recalled how the water soaked through his shirt and she realized lean was not the opposite of muscular. She felt her breath catch as he ran his hand through his thick, brown hair, and one side of his mouth began to curl.
“Hi,” she said, her voice like that shredded quilt back in the nursery.
“Belle,” he said, the same way he’d said it that evening as they dried off beside the fire. It had that same soft longing. It was still half sigh, half question. But this time, she locked her eyes on his and answered.
“Gray,” she said.
His eyebrows shifted like a sideways “S” and then flattened. His front knee flinched. He opened his arms and charged forward as she prepared to be scooped up into his arms. But something changed in him mid-stride.
“It’s so good to see you,” he said, plunking both his hands on her shoulders. She automatically tightened. He ran his thumb against her cheek and gave a hopeful smile. But his eyes didn’t follow through. His eyes looked sadder than ever. “You must be starving. I made that stew you like. Beef this time.” His hands slipped away. “Sit. I’ll bring it to you.”
And then he was gone. The air inside Belle’s lungs went stagnant. Pots and pans clanged in the kitchen. Penny tapped her shoulder and said something about velvet shoes and a cobbler. Could she take Belle to Rapunzel’s now? Was Beast ready to go?
Beast? The word sparked like a stick of phosphorus, dissipating the mental smoke and forcing the air to recirculate. She flew into the kitchen.
“Where’s Beast?” She squeezed the counter. Gray looked up, one hand wrapped around a pasta bowl while the other fisted a ladle. Belle’s started to flutter. “Rapunzel said you were taking him. Is he here? He usually greets me at the door. Or is he— Is he mad at me for leaving him? Did—”
“Deep breath,” Gray instructed before heaping two large scoops into the bowl.
But Belle kept going. “Where is he? Did you tell him I was coming to get him today? He’s always on alert. If he didn’t hear my voice, he definitely would have heard the car door or the engine or—”
Gray’s one-sided smirk made her want to fling the stew all over him—piping hot, right from the burner. She stomped forward. Their eyes caught. And there it was. In that moment. With his amusement over her mania, his refusal to diagnose the worst before it came to be, and his serenity neutralizing her rage. There was normalcy.
And then there was a bark.
She looked at Gray.
A second bark.
She about-faced and ran, as fast as her overtaxed legs would carry her. Out of the kitchen. Past the living room. Down the hall.
By the time her fingers hit the doorknob, the barking had been replaced by a slow, heart-wrenching whine. She laughed. It sounded nothing like a baby’s cry, but to Belle it had exactly the same effect. Let me in, it said. Take care of me. Feed me. Love me. She pulled back the door. Let me jump all over you.
Before she hit the floor, sh
e saw a huge silver tail, two massive front paws, and a wide pink tongue that could have served twice as much stew as Gray’s ladle. There was fresh dirt, hot breath, sharp nails, and the most exuberant greeting she’d ever received in her entire life.
Chapter Thirteen
RAPUNZEL
“Ethan is an amazing uncle, but he was born to be a father.”
“No one marries the girl from down the street anymore.”
“Uncle Ethan and Aunt Rapunzel.”
From the moment she slipped out of her travel clothes to the minute she rolled off her mattress the next morning (kicking Ethan’s chest in the process—completely accidental), Elisa Wilkins’ words played on a never-ending loop inside Rapunzel’s head.
Her vision of the future had changed a lot since Ethan came back into her life. She’d changed a lot. But her opinion on marriage—that faithfulness should come from the heart rather than a legal contract or a diamond cuff—really hadn’t. And children? Dear God. That idea only crossed her mind once every twenty-eight days. And by some stroke of divine luck, it never lingered.
“Just relax,” Rapunzel told her reflection, all hazed up below a smiling decal reminding her to Wash your hands, Flush the potty, Brush your teeth. She considered finding a pen and adding Shut the door, a skill which Ethan’s nephew had yet to grasp, but didn’t want to be rude. So instead, she closed her eyes and tried to give herself a pep talk. “Take a deep breath,” she said. “You’re getting all worked up over nothing. This is what family does—they meddle. Ethan knows exactly who you are.”
She nodded, a self-convincing nod, and then flipped her head over to tackle her sopping wet hair. The rubber duck wallpaper disappeared, replaced by her unmanicured toes (the one thing she couldn’t fit in before leaving) and a picture of a rainbow in front of a waterfall. But no sooner did she begin toweling out the dampness than another voice piped up and asked the question she’d been trying to keep down. Ethan might know who you are, it said. But what if you don’t know who he is?
