by Laura Kenyon
“Well then it’s a good thing nothing scares me.”
“Seriously?” Belle rolled her eyes again. “I’ll give you the snake, but there’s no reason to pretend. Everyone’s scared of something.”
Gray shrugged. This was a thing with him, wasn’t it? Then he changed the subject. “How do you know I haven’t already lost my hope and spirit?”
“You haven’t.”
“You just met me. How do you know?”
Belle closed her eyes for a couple steps. She could feel him looking at her now, and cursed herself for starting this conversation at all. With just a few words, she’d opened herself up. She’d poked a tiny hole in the wall she’d been building, knowing that even a pinprick could eventually bring it down.
“Because you’re whistling,” she said quickly, then changed the subject.
In truth though, she could hear it in his voice—and see it in his step. There was bounce all around him, and she could use that kind of cheer in her life. But the last thing she needed was to get close to this guy. Not now. Not with Donner’s contract and Ruby’s prophecy threatening the life she wanted with her baby. What she needed was to get safely back to the inn, call Gray a tow truck, and lock the door.
But when they rounded the last bend and saw Rapunzel standing in the parking lot, she knew that wasn’t going to be an option.
Sporting an electric blue dress and a frosty blonde blowout, she was leaning against Ethan’s silver convertible while he fiddled with something beneath the hood. As they got closer, Belle noticed her friend’s latest hairdo also had thick fuchsia highlights. Evidently, finally accepting stability with a man hadn’t transferred to other aspects of her life.
Hoping to avoid any embarrassing questions, she sent Gray in through the side door to use the phone.
“Gosh is it five o’clock already?” she asked as Rapunzel embraced her and made eyes at Gray as he passed.
“Who’s the looker?”
Belle gave a dismissive shrug. “Long story.”
Rapunzel grinned. “Try m—”
But Belle called to greet Ethan before she could finish.
Rapunzel’s suitor waved from beneath the hood, then slowly emerged. “Hey boss,” he teased in that playful Stularian accent that made all of womankind melt. He gave her a warm smile and an even warmer embrace. “Sorry we’re so early. We can pop out for an hour if you’re busy. It’s only four, but someone wasn’t sure you’d be able to dress yourself.”
“Oh hush.” Rapunzel ran her fingers through his salt and pepper hair and gave him a look that made Belle feel filthy. They were still in the honeymoon phase—minus the wedding and honeymoon, per se. After a minute, her eyes finally veered back to Belle. She jerked away from her other half. “But don’t you change the subject. I want to know how you happen to be wandering through the woods with a handsome hunk of manhood. In a wet t-shirt, no less.”
Belle looked down and realized, for the first time, how she looked. Thank goodness she’d worn green instead of white. But still. Everything was puckered to her skin as if she’d been vacuum sealed. She felt like a beach ball with legs. Or a lollipop.
As quickly as possible (she did need to get ready for a party, after all) she gave up and explained how Beast had sprinted off, Gray had almost hit him, and his car was now making out with a tree. “Neither of us had phones, so he’s going to call from here. Then he’ll be on his way. That’s all.”
She didn’t like the way Rapunzel was looking at her, as if trying to bore into her mind with her eyes.
“I should really get ready for Snow’s. We’ll be an hour late by the time I shower and come to terms with my outfit.” She thought about the hideous dress hanging in the back of her closet. For some reason, maternity designers thought pregnant women should be wrapped up in bows, ribbons, and ruffles. And she’d just managed to ditch all that crap when she left Donner.
“We’ll stay here and keep your friend company.” Rapunzel gave a mischievous grin as she heard the front door close.
But Gray only made it a few feet before Nathan came zigzagging out behind him at full speed. What had he done?
“Is something the matter, Nathan?” Belle asked as he halted dramatically in front of her and gave his signature the-entire-world-is-completely-incompetent sigh.
“Is something the matter?” he repeated in his slow, sarcastic drone. “No, nothing’s the matter. I was just racing like this for the fun of it. Of course something’s the matter!”
“Nathan, I’m really in a rush so —”
“Oh, it’s a nightmare! All the water smells like rotten eggs! It’s putrid. The kitchen sink is unusable. Anyone in the lounge has to go back to their rooms to use the facilities. I almost lost my lunch on the phone—and not because I tried your egg-and-pickle monstrosity. I lost that much earlier.”
“Rotten eggs, huh?” Gray repeated, stepping between them. “How old’s the water heater?”
Nathan reared back and gawked as he would at a skunk wearing a tuxedo. He gave Gray a quick once over and then threw his hands up in an “I can’t interact with this” sort of way.
Belle chewed on her lip and looked at Rapunzel. “We didn’t think we had to replace that yet. And the cost was already getting pretty high, so…” She was suddenly desperately aware of how badly she needed a shower, how her hair must look like a bird’s nest, and how she hadn’t put a single spot of makeup on all day. “Pun, how long did Trudy say she lived here?”
Rapunzel made a snorting sound and crossed her arms. “Trudy? Well, she looked around eight hundred.”
“It’s an old heater,” Belle translated, glancing at Gray. “Do you know what’s wrong with it?”
He picked at his fingernails and nodded. All eyes were fixed on him. “Rotten eggs smell means rust. Probably needs to be replaced, but—”
“How much does that cost?” Belle swooped her hand up and rested it over her heart. She needed to make money right now, not lose it.
“For a regular house, about $500,” Gray said. Belle exhaled. “But for a commercial operation like this with, what, ten bathrooms that—”
“Seven.”
“Okay, seven bathrooms that could all be used at once? You’re looking at around four grand.”
Belle gasped and immediately focused on the ground. She could feel Gray staring at her. He was probably wondering how someone with her royal title could be so upset over the cost of replacing a water heater that was essential to her business. She was probably coming across as a high maintenance, maladjusted diva who expected everyone else to fix her problems. She’d rather him think that than the truth.
“I can probably flush it out for now,” she heard him say. “It’s a temporary fix, but it might hold for a few months. Can your shower wait twenty minutes?”
She nodded, still staring at the ground. When she finally raised her chin to thank him, his eyes caught hers and a flush of heat rushed through her face. She prayed it wasn’t visible.
* * *
An hour later, after a perfectly fresh—though slightly cold—shower, Belle hustled out of the bathroom and raced to her bedroom window. She peeled apart the curtains and saw Rapunzel’s car. No one was around it. Perhaps the tow truck and come and gone. Perhaps she’d seen the last of Gray.
That’s when a thin tingling of regret crept up her spine. Had she been ungrateful? He seemed like a very nice man, after all. A bit cocky, perhaps. But he hadn’t lost his temper about his car. He’d saved her from a poisonous snake. He’d kept the water heater running for another few months. Yet she’d treated him as if he was Donner’s twin. He was a farm boy on his way to get eaten up by the world, and she’d taken the first bite. She shook her head and slammed the curtain closed.
“Geez,” Rapunzel said, poking in and then kicking the door shut behind her. “You’re not dressed yet?”
Belle only got a few scattered syllables out before her friend plopped down at the foot of the bed and yanked Beast—who’d reclaimed his e
arlier position—from his daydreams. He greeted the intruder with a grunt, a stretch, and a high-pitched yawn.
“So that Gray,” she said, slipping a flask from her purse and shooing Beast away when he tried to inspect it. “He’s quite a handyman, huh? Fixed Ethan’s car while you were in the shower too. Some carburetor problem he’s been having or whatnot. Just reached his hand right in there and switched around a few wires. Ethan nearly had a heart attack. Said he could have been electrocuted on the spot.”
Belle felt another flash and pulled her towel tighter. She was starting to think that man had a death wish. “So I assume he’s gone?”
Rapunzel’s lips curled into a loaded smile before she plugged them with the flask. “You sound disappointed.”
Belle retreated to her closet and began sliding dresses along the racks. It was a good-sized walk-in, large enough for her to hold both arms out and twirl around, but it fit barely two percent of what she’d had at the castle. Thankfully, she’d given most of those horrible costumes away.
“If you wanted to skip the party and hang here with him, I’d totally understand.”
In the closet, Belle froze with the dress halfway off the hanger. So he hadn’t left yet. Great.
She peeked out only to catch Rapunzel with her head tilted all the way back, draining the last bit of liquid from her flask.
“What?” She mimicked Belle’s disapproving expression. “You have your energy supplements, I have mine. And I have this horrible feeling Snow’s gonna serve us some pesticide-, fungicide-, herbicide- and alcohol-free vegan wine. Though you might actually enjoy that in your current state. Honestly Belle, I could never be pregnant. No alcohol, no sushi, no espressos. No thank you.”
A one-two punch knocked the inside of Belle’s belly. She closed her eyes, rested one hand over the bump and smiled. It was a bit early for a first-timer to start getting such strong kicks, but she’d felt them every day since Donner’s uninvited visit three weeks earlier. Right now, she was pretty sure her baby was calling bullshit on her Aunt Rapunzel’s claim. She put on a good show, but deep down she was a baby-loving sap just like everyone else. Belle would prove it when she asked her to be the godmother. She could hardly wait to see her face.
But for now, staring into the mirror, the look on Belle’s own face was of pure mortification.
“I feel like a hippopotamus,” she said, emerging from the closet with a pink bow wound just beneath her chest.
Rapunzel waved the idea away and approached with a proud smile. “Nonsense. You look radiant.” She placed a flower in Belle’s chestnut brown waves. At least her hair had looked better in recent weeks. More lustrous. “I guess it’s true what they say about that pregnancy glow.”
She looked at her shoes—white ballet flats to match her white purse. “Thanks Pun.”
“Good thing you had Gray around to fix the water. Funny how things work out, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She picked up her shawl and followed her friend into the hallway. “I probably should have been nicer to him, but I’m just so scared.”
Rapunzel flipped her head back. “How so?”
“I can’t even risk having feelings for anyone now,” she continued. “It’s best if I just stay away from all men entirely.”
Rapunzel murmured something inaudible. Belle took it to be agreement.
“That’s why I don’t want someone living in that cottage. Unless it’s a woman. I just don’t think my heart could handle—”
“Oh my gosh I’m sorry!” Rapunzel stopped dead in her tracks and spun around. “Please don’t be mad. I didn’t think of it that way.”
Belle gave an appreciative smile. “Aww, it’s okay Pun. I know you were just looking out for me. No harm done.”
“Well, actually…” she fiddled with her electric blue fingernails, which were painted to match her dress. “When you were in the shower, I was talking to Gray and … see, it’s gonna take at least four days to fix his car. And he was just traveling through so he doesn’t have a job or a place to stay.” She ran her hands behind the base of her neck. “And he knows how to fix things. And you know I’m good at reading people. He’s already got loads of respect for you.”
As she listened to her friend go on, Belle wondered if it was just her body trembling, or Rapunzel hadn’t noticed a minor earthquake.
“Spit it out,” she wanted to say. But she knew exactly where this was heading. She heard the next words before they even began to form on Rapunzel’s lips. Before she saw Gray, leaning against a doorframe and chatting with Ethan like they were lifelong friends.
“After all, it was your dog that totaled his car. It’s the least you could do,” she heard Rapunzel say.
“Huh?”
“Well you said you wanted to thank him properly. I think giving him a few hot meals and saving him the cost of a hotel room is a good start.”
Belle clutched the wall just as Gray saw her and flashed that crooked, half-wink grin.
She returned a flat, close-mouthed smile and hissed at Rapunzel, who explained that she’d already given him keys to the cabin—and that he was already listing projects he could do around the inn.
“He’ll earn his keep. He doesn’t want to just sit around for a week.”
Belle’s head pounded. “A week? You just said four days!”
Rapunzel flinched. “Give or take.”
Without another word, Belle hurried past reception, sprinted through the front door, shuffled down the stairs, and dove into the back seat of Ethan’s car. She paced her breath every step of the way, planning to unleash it all on Rapunzel the moment they were safely on the road.
Chapter Eight
SNOW
Snow White plucked two pies from the oven, knocked the door shut with her hip, and floated to the tiers of hand-sliced shelves around the window. Her husband Griffin had made them from the trunk of her mother’s poisoned apple tree. He’d sliced the awful plant into slabs, polished them to a high gloss, and hung them whimsically around the front kitchen wall to remind Snow that even the darkest force could be defeated, and every dream had a chance of coming true.
On most days, the shelves held little more than fresh wildflowers and a few jars of homemade jam. But today was different. Today, carrot muffins lined the windowsills, curried cauliflower perched atop the mantel, and orzo-stuffed peppers huddled in groups beneath the spice rack. Today, chopped peppers dangled off coat hangers and a vat of poached pears balanced over a misshaped chickpea casserole. Today, food cascaded from every inch of their two-bedroom cottage in the woods.
That’s because today, all of their friends and half the required dignitaries were coming to Tantalise to celebrate her husband’s birthday—and hear the joyous news that had been trying to leap from her throat for days. Their adoption application had been approved. After years of trying and failing to make a pregnancy stick (the most devastating consequence of her mother’s psychosis), she and Griffin would be the proud parents of triplet baby boys in barely a month.
They weren’t exactly sure how to do it with their current lifestyle. Griffin had floated the idea of moving back into Tantalise Castle, but they’d converted that into a spiritual learning center and would feel horrible kicking everyone out. Besides, the thought of walking the same halls down which she’d once fled her mother was too much to bear. No. They would just have to expand in the forest—sparing as many trees as possible.
The world outside Tantalise would scoff at it, of course. They’d call her “Queen of the Chipmunks,” or “the backwoods regent,” and ask whether she planned to regurgitate food for her young. But the trees were part of her spirit now—far more than marble columns ever had been. And the people of her kingdom admired the simplicity of it all. That was all that mattered.
At this precise moment, however, she had to admit one of those ridiculously long palace tables would have come in handy. Determined to find a place to set her pies, Snow leaned carefully to the right and used her toes to pull open the r
efrigerator door. But even if she evicted the almond milk, tofu and hummus, the shelves still wouldn’t be deep enough. With just the two of them and no meat in their diet, a full-size refrigerator never seemed necessary. “The back yard is our refrigerator,” Griffin always said. “Nothing starts to go bad till it comes off the stem.”
Yet another thing they’d have to change.
“There are two rhubarb pies on a towel on the bed,” she told Griffin as she poked through a mass of fluffy hydrangeas and found him barefoot in a sea of summer grass. This was how he always started his Saturdays—stretched out in the garden; centering his aura; breathing in the sun, the flowers, and the freshly rolled herbs he grew and dried in the cellar. “Try not to sit on them. We’re all out of storage space.”
“Pies, huh?” Griffin repeated as Snow dropped beside him, unleashing the fragrance of crushed flowers. “Do they have gluten?”
Snow sighed and lay back. Emerald blades of grass curled up and around her ebony hair. The dream catcher necklace Angus Kane had presented to her when she became Queen fell to one side. “They’re for our guests, so yes. One day of wheat won’t kill you.”
Griffin used the momentum of his gasp to roll into a seated position.
“Well, I can’t force all our beliefs on them. But there are peach tarts with almond flour too. And eggless zucchini cupcakes.”
He raised one pudgy arm and rubbed his half-bald head. “That’s my girl.” Then he kissed her on the cheek.
Snow sighed and motioned toward the smoke swirling from her husband’s pinched fingers. He carefully passed the contents over to her and gave a mellow grin. She didn’t bother reminding him that he was responsible for setting up the tables, running music from inside the den, and trimming the native plants back from the walkways. He’d get to it before the party was in full swing, and pressure wouldn’t make him move any faster.
