His Jingle Bell Princess Read online

  “I’ll wash up,” Sam said.

  “This is nice,” Brock said. “An out of town client?”

  “This one’s going to Boston. They ordered a whole bedroom set.”

  “You really need to hire some help.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.” Sam lied. He used to have several employees, and his business had been growing, but these days he preferred to work alone.

  “Am I right in guessing demand has been going up and up since the television coverage?”

  “It didn’t hurt,” Sam answered over his shoulder as he made his way to the restroom.

  A local television station had included him in a piece on Maine small businesses. The segment on him happened to be picked up by a national network. Traffic on Sam’s website had taken an immediate spike, and orders had been pouring in steadily ever since. Customers now had a year-long waiting period.

  He knew an assistant would help him meet demand. But he wasn’t in this for the money. He needed to make a decent living for himself and his daughters, and he could do that by himself.

  “You should take on an apprentice.” Brock had followed him and stood in the open door of the restroom.

  “That would only slow me down.” Sam lathered up his hands.

  “Not if you also hired a couple more tradesmen. You’re highly skilled, Sam. You should teach your techniques to others.”

  “Maybe.” Sam twisted on the taps to rinse his hands.

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “That’s because you’re hassling me.”

  Brock held up his palms in mock surrender. “Fair enough. I’ll stop.”

  “Good.”

  “I hear you have a houseguest.”

  Sam’s thoughts jumped to Jasmine, a picture blooming in his mind before he could stop it. She’d gotten under his skin last night. So much so, he’d had a hard time falling asleep. He’d kept rehashing their conversations, alternating between feeling annoyed with her for showing up and guilty about his rude behavior.

  She must have formed a low opinion of him. But that was just as well. Maybe she’d avoid him now.

  “It’s all over town,” Brock continued, “that Belle rescued her from the airport. I hear she’s a ten.”

  “I thought the phones were down and everybody was snowed in.”

  How could gossip have made its way around town so efficiently? Sam had been forced to attach his snowplow blade to the front of his pickup truck to clear his own pathway to work this morning.

  “Main Street’s open. At least for the time being. There’s no letup in the snowfall yet, but enough people walked into town to keep things open. Christmas shopping doesn’t stop for a storm.”

  “Are the phones still out?” Sam asked, brushing past talk of Christmas. He hadn’t had a reason to check his cell this morning.

  “Everything’s down. We’re lucky we have local power. The state grid has taken a hit. There are a whole lot of blacked out areas between here and Philadelphia.”

  Sam dried off his hands. “Anything open for lunch?”

  Brock held up a paper bag. “I brought subs and soft drinks.”

  Sam was pleasantly surprised. He was happy to eat here in the shop. There were too many people he might run into in the Main Street restaurants, too many people who might stop by their table and ask how he was doing. He didn’t want to make up answers to that question. All he wanted was a little space.

  “So, tell me about her.” Brock led the way to Sam’s small, windowless office and parked himself at one of the two battered chairs set around a utilitarian table.

  The two men had shared countless lunches and after work drinks here, and Sam experienced a wave of nostalgia. It had been a long time since he’d sat across a table and talked to Brock. Astonishingly, it felt pretty good.

  “Her private jet took off and left her behind.” Sam could hear the mocking tone in his own voice.

  “So I hear. Is she some billionaire’s trophy wife?”

  Funny, that had never even occurred to Sam. He’d had no reason to check for a ring, but he’d assumed she was single. She certainly hadn’t struck him as the type to marry for money. Maybe that was because she struck him as the type who’d had money all her life.

  He took the chair across from Brock, stretching his legs beneath the table and rotating his shoulders. His muscles appreciated the break.

  “Didn’t sound like she married into it,” he said. “She told me the money had been in the family for generations.”

  Brock was clearly surprised. “You asked about her money?”

  “In a roundabout way.”

  Sam accepted a sandwich from Brock and helped himself to a cola, popping the top of the can before unwrapping the turkey bacon sub.

  “What does that mean?”

  “She’s got a funny snobbery element to her. It’s like, she knows she shouldn’t be that way, and she’s trying hard to mingle with the peasants, but she just can’t help herself, you know?”

  “So, you asked?”

  “So, I asked.”

  Brock looked unimpressed. “Did she ask about your money?”

  Sam took the point. The more hours that went past, the worse Sam felt about his behavior last night.

  “She asked me what I did for a living,” he said.

  “And you told her.”

  “Of course I told her. I’m not ashamed of being a carpenter.”

  Brock looked genuinely astonished. “Why would you be?”

  “It felt a little funny last night. She had the private jet, and the perfect hair, makeup, what were obviously very expensive clothes. And no shoes. Does that seem weird to you? She had bare feet, with these pretty purple toenails. The whole outfit was beyond perfect, but what the heck happened to her shoes?”

  Brock gazed at him for a moment with an expression of puzzlement. “Did you ask?”

  “No, I didn’t. It seemed, I don’t know, too intimate a question.”

  “But you did ask her about her money?”

  “She said her father was well-known in her country, so I asked her if it was family money. She said it was in land, passed down through a bunch of generations.”

  “And you didn’t think that was too intimate?” Brock asked.

  “It didn’t seem like it at the time,” Sam said. Though, in retrospect, it had certainly been brash. He wasn’t usually one to pry into people’s personal lives.

  “What country?” Brock asked. “Where’s she from?”

  “Somewhere called Vollan in northern Europe.”

  “I’ll have to brush up on my geography.”

  “I guess.”

  Sam bit into his sandwich. The bun was fresh, the veggies crisp, and the bacon blended with the mayo to give a satisfying smoky flavor.

  “How are the girls?” Brock asked.

  “Good. They’re good. Belle likes having them with her.” Sam knew he was defending his living arrangements, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  “Libby keeps asking when you’re coming back.”

  “I have to finish the renovations.” Sam’s stomach clenched down, and the sandwich didn’t seem so appetizing anymore.

  “Need a hand?” Brock asked with studied casualness.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Sam.”

  “Don’t.”

  “You can’t put it off forever.”

  “I’m not putting it off.”

  Brock dropped his sandwich onto the wrapper, frowning as he rocked back in his chair. “You want me to do it? I can replace the wall for you.”

  “No!” Sam all but shouted. He set down his own sandwich. “This was a bad idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Talk to me, Sam.”

  “What is there to say?” Sam shot up from his chair, knocking it over backward with a clatter against the concrete floor. “She’s dead, and I killed her.”

  “That’s ridiculous, and you know it’s ridiculous.”

  “I should have been driving th
at night. We all know I should have been driving.”

  “You’d had a couple of drinks. You couldn’t drive.”

  “Then I shouldn’t have been drinking. I should have taken care of my family.” Sam’s voice went raw.

  “The trucker ran a stop sign.”

  Once again, Sam saw the bright lights, heard the air horn, felt the sickening thud of the impact. The world had spun in a circle, and for long minutes he didn’t know if all four of them were going to be killed.

  “I could have avoided it,” he said bleakly. “If I’d been driving, I could have avoided it.”

  “You don’t know that. It’s impossible for you to know that.”

  “But I do. I do know it.”

  Brock stood with him, coming close, clasping a hand tightly on his shoulder.

  Sam fought an urge to shake him off. Brock was his best friend, and he was trying to help. He was dead wrong, but Sam knew he was trying his best.

  “I know it’s pointless for me to say this,” Brock said. “But you’ve got to shake it off.”

  Sam stared at him. That was impossible. Brock had to know just how impossible that was.

  “Let’s say it was your fault,” Brock said.

  A huge weight suddenly lifted from Sam’s shoulders. Finally, after all this time, somebody besides him had admitted it.

  “Thank you.” His voice came out hoarse.

  Brock’s hand squeezed tighter, as if he could pull Sam out of his misery.

  “I don’t want you to feel this way.” Brock’s voice was as raw as Sam’s. “I hate that you feel this way. If it was Melanie. I don’t know. I might feel exactly the way you do. And I might blame myself. And maybe you could have avoided it if you’d been driving. But it doesn’t change anything. You have two young girls depending on you.”

  Sam’s throat closed up at the thought of his daughters.

  “You’re all they’ve got. I’m not asking you to forget. I’m not asking you to turn on a dime. I’m asking you to take one small step. Go back to your house. Tear something down. Put something up. Do one small thing, just one small thing to get past the logjam.”

  Sam knew he couldn’t do it. But he nodded anyway. He was willing to lie to his best friend to get out of this conversation.

  Brock gave a cold chuckle. “You’re the worst liar in the world.”

  Sam didn’t have an answer for that.

  “It doesn’t have to be today, and it doesn’t have to be tomorrow.” Brock let go of Sam’s shoulder and moved back to his chair at the table. “But I’m going to ask again. I’m going to ask again, because it’s my duty as your friend.”

  “Okay.” Sam could agree to that.

  It wasn’t anything different than he’d been telling himself for weeks now. Get back into his house and begin to repair what he’d broken.

  Chapter Three

  “You could help us build a snowman,” Amelia said from where she was kneeling backward on a sofa, arms propped along the back, gazing out the bay window into the front yard.

  The question turned Jasmine’s thoughts to what Darren or Costa Rhys, the head of her security detail, would think of her leaving the house unprotected in these circumstances. She knew they’d tell her no. They’d definitely tell her to stay put.

  But neither Darren nor Costa were here right now. And there was no way to ask their permission, since the phones and Internet had been down since last night. She remained grateful that Nolan had been able to get a message to her plane through air traffic control. If he hadn’t, her father and the entire royal security service would be in an uproar.

  Here in Tucker, nobody knew or cared who she was. The world was white beyond the window, with thick snowflakes falling steadily to earth, weighing down tree branches and piling up in the yard. The sun had to be up there somewhere, but she sure couldn’t see it.

  Here and now, she was on her own. She could romp in the snow or do anything else she wanted, and they’d never even know about it. It was quite liberating.

  “Jasmine?” Sophie prompted.

  Both girls had turned their heads to look at her, anticipation in their expressions.

  She considered her answer. Nobody knew she was a princess. As far as anyone here was concerned, she was a perfectly ordinary person. Surely there was no more danger to her in the front yard than there was to Amelia and Sophie.

  “Sure,” she said. Why not? “I’d love to build a snowman.”

  Both girls shrieked in delight and bounced off the sofa.

  As Jasmine stood, she thought of a practical problem. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything suitable to wear.”

  “There are tons of old clothes in the basement,” Amelia said, skipping across the room to take Jasmine’s hand.

  “We play dress up down there all the time,” Sophie said.

  “It’s Sophie’s favorite game,” Amelia said, tugging Jasmine toward the hallway.

  “Will there be something to fit me?” asked Jasmine. She was only five-feet-four, but the girls were less than four feet tall.

  “There’s all kinds of old stuff down there,” Sophie said, running ahead and sliding on her sock feet on the polished wood floor. She grasped the handle on a wide, white door and pulled it open.

  The girls seemed to know exactly what they were doing, so Jasmine allowed them to lead her down a wide flight of stairs. The room was big and utilitarian, bright, with white painted walls and small windows near the ceilings. The wooden rafters were exposed, and pillars supported the structure of the house.

  “Over here,” said Amelia.

  She let go of Jasmine’s hand and led the way past shelves full of books, stored furniture, and stacks of large plastic bins, flipping on light switches as she moved. They passed through a doorway to a room that was obviously a play area. It was scattered with toys, bright area rugs, mini furniture and a big plastic playhouse.

  “This is our tickle trunk,” said Sophie, straining to lift the lid of a massive maple wood chest.

  Jasmine quickly reached out to help, leaning the heavy lid against the wall behind it.

  The girls dug through the pile of clothes inside.

  “Do you play here often?” Jasmine asked, taking in all the possibilities of the big room. She could imagine dozens of games and adventures children could have in all this space. If today’s weather was any indication of normal during the winter, it was wise to have an indoor play space for children.

  “More when we were little,” Amelia said without looking up. “Now we usually go to our friends’ houses.”

  “You have a lot of friends?”

  Sophie nodded, helping to search through the clothing. “But they live farther away from Grandma’s, so we have to drive.”

  “Libby used to be right next door.”

  “Libby is one of your friends?” Jasmine asked.

  “Our best friend,” said Amelia. “But then Mommy…”

  The girls glanced at each other.

  Jasmine crouched down between them. “I was very sorry to hear that your Mommy died.”

  “She was pretty,” Sophie said in a soft voice.

  “She’s in heaven now,” Amelia said.

  “Yes, she is,” Jasmine agreed.

  “Daddy’s sad,” Sophie said.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, too.”

  Jasmine’s thoughts moved to Sam and the wall he’d immediately thrown up when they met. It was obvious he was hurt and angry, and she was clearly an unwanted and very temporary presence in his life. Still, even knowing that, there was something about him that called to her, something that made her want to know him and help him. It didn’t make sense, but the urge was strong all the same.

  When they’d accidentally collided yesterday in the kitchen, she’d felt a surge of heat, a sexual awareness she’d never experienced before. It could have been because Sam was a fit, attractive man. By any definition, he was a sexy man. Then again, maybe it had nothing to do with Sam himself.

  The me
n in her country would never touch her that way. They’d never accidentally bump into her. They respected a significant perimeter around any member of the royal family.

  “These are really big,” Amelia said, drawing out a pair of black and white checkerboard slacks and holding them up. “They might fit you.”

  Jasmine banished the memories of Sam’s touch, focusing instead on the girls and their planned snow adventure. The slacks did look as if they might fit.

  “This would be warm,” Sophie said. She’d found a roomy black sweatshirt with a faded gold sports logo on the front.

  “It looks rather big,” Jasmine said, thinking she’d swim in it.

  “But it’s warm,” Amelia said. “And it’s cold outside.”

  Jasmine supposed she didn’t need to be fashionable to build a snowman. As she contemplated the sweat shirt, her attention was caught by a flash of color in a corner of the room. She saw it was a rack of extravagant dresses, pinks and mauves, along with black and white, next to jewel tones of blue and green. She moved to get a better look at them.

  “Are those some of your dress-up clothes?”

  “They’re mostly from when Grandma was a girl,” Amelia said.

  “Belle wore these?” Jasmine was surprised. Belle had struck her as a very practical woman. “They’re very beautiful.”

  “She was a dancer,” Sophie said. “We’re allowed to wear them now.”

  “Sophie really likes them,” Amelia said.

  “You don’t like them?” Jasmine couldn’t imagine now any little girl wouldn’t fall in love with such a fun array of costumes.

  “They’re not very practical,” Amelia said with a sniff.

  “They’re not supposed to be practical,” Sophie said.

  Jasmine lifted one of the hangers, examining a deep green dress. The full, tulle skirt sparkled with sequins. The top was satin, with a scooped neckline, held up by cap sleeves.

  “That one’s too big for us,” Sophie said. “But this is my favorite.” She showed Jasmine an aqua gown with a full, flowing skirt, a floral top, and short, bubble sleeves.

  “Will you try it on for me?” Jasmine asked, seeing Sophie’s enthusiasm.

  “I like this one,” Amelia said, choosing a navy blue gown with crisscrossed silver beading. Dress-up might not be her favorite game, but it was clear she didn’t want to be left out.