Confessions of a Girl-Next-Door (6 page)

“Holly.” Nate murmured her name.

His use of her nickname was enough to
snap her back to the present. As much as she might wish things could be different, she was no longer an idealistic girl. She understood the futility of “if only,” and so she ended things before they could progress too far.

Afterward, Nate pressed the cold base of his beer bottle against his forehead and closed his eyes.

“Some things get better with age,” it sounded like he murmured.

She touched her lips. Indeed, they did.

“I wrote you a letter the first summer I didn’t come. I wanted to explain why I wouldn’t be here.”

He lowered his hand, opened his eyes. “I never got a letter.”

“That’s because I didn’t send it.” It was folded up and tucked in her bureau drawer along with the other mementos of their summers together. Seashells, a picture of the first fish she’d caught, an old-fashioned glass cola bottle they’d found during a hike on the beach.

“Why?”

Because I was a coward. Because I was heartbroken.
She sipped her beer, took her time swallowing.

“Because I didn’t think you would understand.”

“What I didn’t understand was how you could just not return. Or write back. You never wrote back, Holly.”

Guilt nipped hard as she recalled the letters Nate had written to her in care of the post office box her grandmother had set up. Gran had forwarded the letters faithfully, and Holly had read every one, her heart breaking anew when they’d finally stopped coming, although that was exactly what she’d expected to happen. What she told herself she wanted. Nate needed to move on with his life. Just as she was moving on with hers.

Hank snuffled loudly on the couch. Where the thunder hadn’t roused him, the sound of his own snoring apparently did the trick. His eyelids flickered and he pulled himself to a sitting position, then scrubbed his face and offered a sheepish smile.

“Guess I drifted off.” His gaze darted between the two of them. “Did I miss anything?”

“Just one hell of a storm,” Nate said evenly before heading into the kitchen.

Holly waited until the weather settled down to call her parents. She had been gone nearly eighteen hours. Her father would be irritated by her disappearance. Her mother would be livid. A small part of her hoped they would also be worried. Instantly, she felt guilty. Of course, she didn’t want them to worry. Besides, she was a grown woman. Wanting them to worry was childish, petty.

She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out her cell phone. While she’d been in the shower, Nate must have been in her room. The window had been closed and the bed remade with fresh linens. A pale lavender coverlet was turned down, revealing floral sheets beneath. Leftovers from his parents, no doubt. The other ones would have been perfectly fine, but she appreciated his thoughtfulness. If only she could be sure it was thoughtfulness. Recalling the conversation she’d overheard earlier, she wondered if hospitality had been at the root of his actions, or embarrassment.

She’s out of my league.

Long ago, Holly had come to terms with the fact that to some people—most people—she would always have a title before her name. Ultimately, that was why she hadn’t
been completely truthful with Nate when they were children.

When she’d started coming to the island at ten, her being a princess had been an afterthought in her mind. He was the son of northern Michigan resort owners. She was the daughter of European royalty. Later, she’d liked just a little too much that he saw her as a girl rather than, well, a goal. Even back then, the mothers of sons from around the kingdom had been busy trying to arrange meetings.

As if she hadn’t felt conspicuous enough.

“Winning your favor would be quite a coup,” Olivia had explained, when Holly had asked her mother about the fuss.

For the mothers or for the boys? she’d wondered. But Holly hadn’t bothered to ask.

She frowned now. Not at the memories of awkward first dances and dinners, but at her phone. She wasn’t getting a signal.

She was halfway down the stairs when Nate started up. They hadn’t finished their earlier conversation; instead she’d taken the easy way out and retreated upstairs after Hank’s untimely interruption.

They eyed one another warily now.

“Need something?” Nate asked.

“I was hoping to place a call to my parents, but my cell isn’t receiving a signal.”

“Only a couple of carriers work on the island and even then, service is spotty at best. You can use the phone in the kitchen,” he offered.

It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him she would be phoning abroad and certain charges would apply. But since she’d already offended him once by offering to pay for her room, she remained mum. Somehow, she would find a way to compensate him.

“Thank you.”

He nodded and started up. Two steps past her he stopped. “Do your parents know where you are?”

“Not exactly.” The note she’d had Henry give Olivia just said that Holly was safe and would be in touch with contact information.

“Does anyone?”

She offered a half smile. “You do.”

He frowned. “This island is a good place to get away, Holly, but people here read newspapers and own televisions. We’re not backward.”

“I never said you were,” she replied defensively.

“But you thought it.”

She folded her arms. “You don’t know what I think.”

“You’re right. Sorry.” The apology turned empty when he said, “I don’t know you well enough.”

She swallowed, a little unnerved by how badly it hurt for him to say so. There was a time when she’d thought he was the only person on the planet who remotely got who she was.

Nate continued. “Look, all I’m saying is that even Hank thought you looked familiar and he’s hardly the sort to pay attention to the news, much less the tabloids.”

She lifted her chin a notch. “As you said earlier, I managed to hide in plain sight when I was a girl.”

“Yeah, but as
you
said earlier, you were decked out in shorts and pigtails back then.”

“I left my tiara home for this trip, too,” she said dryly. “And I didn’t pack a single ball gown. I think I can fit in. Before the flight over with Hank, a woman in town told me I looked like Princess Hollyn. We both laughed. After all, what would Princess Hollyn Saldani of Morenci be doing here?”

“It’s not the French Riviera,” he agreed on a drawl.

“No. It’s far more appealing.”

Her satisfaction at his surprise was short-lived.

“Never been there, so I wouldn’t know.” With a shrug, he continued up the steps.

“W
HERE
in God’s name are you?” Olivia boomed as soon as she came on the line, her tone far more threatening than the earlier thunder.

Just as Holly had suspected, it wasn’t worry that had her mother’s voice rising a couple of octaves, but outrage. Holly brought the receiver back to her ear and replied, “I’m safe.”

“That’s not an answer, Hollyn.”

“And I’m not a child, Mother.”

“Then stop acting like one and return home immediately. You have obligations. You have functions to attend, some of which we have already had to postpone or cancel.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her mother’s tone moderated and lost the Texas twang it acquired whenever Olivia was good and upset. “When can we expect you?”

“As I said in my note, I won’t be gone
long. I’ll be home in a week.” Holly wasn’t sure what made her add, “Or closer to ten days.”

“Hollyn!”

She held the phone away from her ear again, missing part of what her mother was saying. What she caught when she brought it back was “People are depending on you.”

Holly’s shoulders sagged even as her chest grew tight. “I know they are, Mother.”

“I might have expected a stunt like this when you were in your teens, but you’re a grown woman. I know it’s different, but when I was your age, I was already wearing the Miss Texas crown and had competed nationally. I was living up to my obligations.”

Vastly different, and that was your choice.
But Holly didn’t say the words out loud. She had no desire to rehash what was a very old argument and one she apparently had no hope of ever winning. In addition to knowing best, her mother was always right.

“Where are you?” Olivia asked a second time. “I’m assuming that you are no longer in Morenci. We’ve already checked all of your usual haunts and hideouts. Discreetly, of course, since the photographers have been on the lookout for you as well.”

“Actually, I’m no longer in Europe. I’m in America.”

“Heart Island.”

Holly was sure her mother issued the words through clenched teeth.

“Yes.”

“Why in God’s name would you go there?”

Olivia had never understood either Gran’s or Holly’s attachment to the island. There was nothing to do on that rugged patch of land, she claimed. No department stores to shop at, no fancy restaurants to dine in, no culture whatsoever to be had unless one went to what remained of a British fort, one of the last holdings from the War of 1812. The fort itself had burned to the ground, but some of its foundation remained, and a large, green historical marker rose in the center, explaining the place’s significance.

Big whoop, to use Olivia’s old vernacular.

“It’s peaceful here,” Holly said. Even as the storm rumbled in the distance, she knew that to be true.

“It’s peaceful at that discreet little spa that’s tucked up in the hillside just outside Cannes.”

Another argument that Holly couldn’t win. Her and Olivia’s views on what constituted
a relaxing sojourn were just too different, which explained why her mother had been bored to tears the couple of times during Olivia’s childhood that Gran had taken her camping. Fishing, beachcombing, hiking trails—those things had amounted to torture in Olivia’s book.

As Gran used to say, “I guess my love for the outdoors skipped a generation.”

And Olivia’s love for wearing fancy gowns and a crown had skipped a generation, too.

“Phillip has called several times already,” her mother said now.

Holly wanted to feel elated at the news or at least suitably guilty that the man she’d been linked with for the past several months was anxious to reach her. What she felt was … nothing. There was a great black hole in her emotions where Phillip was concerned.

They’d met more than a year ago when his company had been awarded one of the kingdom’s highest honors for its environmental record. Her mother had insisted Holly call him personally after the award ceremony to invite him to the special dinner for honorees held at the palace.

She’d done so, and she’d sat next to him in the palace’s opulent dining hall. They’d talked, laughed. It had been enough to convince Olivia of their suitability, especially given his flush bank account and impeccable breeding.

After that, Phillip had turned up at all sorts of events at the queen’s urging. Holly was used to her mother’s machinations. She’d seen no harm at first, despite Olivia’s claim that it was time Holly settle down and marry.

“You’ll be thirty before you know it.” That warning first came not long after Holly turned twenty. These days it was her mother’s stock phrase.

Phillip was handsome, thoughtful and accomplished. He treated Holly like the queen she would someday become. Both in public and in private he said all of the right things. He did all of the right things, too, deferring to her position, all while making it clear he was in no way without authority.

Yet, if he never called her again, Holly would easily forget he existed. That wasn’t right, but it was a fact. One that only she seemed to think mattered. Even Phillip had
changed the subject the few times she’d tried to broach it with him.

“You had plans to attend the opera for the opening night of
Madame Butterfly
last evening,” her mother was reminding her. “His family box remained dark. We issued a press release saying you’d fallen ill, which also helped to explain your earlier absence from the annual garden show, but you know how easily rumors get started and then spread, Hollyn. I’m sure they are already swirling.”

“Yes.” And her mother was only too happy to help them along when it suited her agenda. Hence the widespread notion that an engagement to Phillip was imminent, even though Holly had been dragging her feet in accepting his proposal of marriage. “I’ll call him later. Apologize.”

Holly would, too. Phillip was a decent man. He deserved that much.

“He’s worried about you. And a little hurt.”

Holly felt a twinge of guilt. No matter her feelings—or lack of them—where Phillip was concerned, she hadn’t intended to make him worry or hurt his feelings. “Phillip said that?”

“Well, not in so many words,” her mother
replied. “But I could hear it in his voice. You took off without a word to anyone, including him.”

“Did you tell him the truth? Or does he also think I’m unwell.”

“I thought it best to tell him the truth, just in case your image winds up in the tabloids, completely refuting our claims of illness. After all, the two of you are betrothed.”

Holly’s guilt evaporated. Annoyance took its place. “Phillip and I aren’t betrothed. Yes, he’s asked, but I haven’t said yes, Mother.”

A moot point, apparently. This was yet another decision being made by forces beyond Holly’s control. Olivia’s next words made that much clear.

“But you will. He’s perfect for you, Hollyn. So much more pragmatic than you are, my dear,” she said on a sigh. “That’s exactly what you need. He’ll help keep your feet planted firmly on the ground. Together, the two of you make an excellent team.”

A team?

How lovely. And how romantic. But to her mother’s way of thinking, when it came to the marriage of her only daughter, true love wasn’t as important as bloodlines and tradition.

Olivia had her reasons, and Holly understood them even if she wasn’t quite willing to bow to them any longer. Her parents’ romance had been scandalous and deemed unacceptable by the older guard, including Holly’s father’s parents. Even though both of them were deceased now, Olivia was still desperate to toe the line and make her daughter do the same.