Once Upon a Prince (3 page)

Her words vibrated through him—hot, exploding, bringing to life his own thoughts on love. “You almost convince me.”

“Then you’re as foolish as I am.” She broke a dead twig from the tree and crumbled the leaves in her hand. “I thought I’d found him.” Bits and pieces of dried brown leaves fluttered to the ground. “But I didn’t.” She breathed in a slow, quivering breath.

“Maybe he’ll come ’round.” If the man had half a wit. How could he walk away from her? From Susanna?

“He’s met someone else.” Her eyes glistened again, and the tip of her perfect nose reddened. “He said he found the right ring but not the right girl.”

“Oh, he said that? He’s an honest chap if not a bit brutal.”

She shook her head, tapping her chest with her fingers. “The worst part of this is realizing I was so focused on him proposing one day I never imagined my answer. When he so honestly said he’d found the right ring but not the right girl, I was mad. Hoo
boy, was I mad. But the more we talked, the more I realized … we were a high school romance plan gone wrong. Now all I can think is if he’d proposed”—she snapped another thin, dead twig from the tree—“I’m not sure I’d have said yes.”

“You’re not sure?” Nathaniel swallowed the
hurrah
pressing on his tongue. What right did the man have to this beauty if he’d break her heart with such a harsh confession?

“Argh. I don’t know.” Her gentle words bent and swayed with her Georgia accent. “I just hung on so tight …” She fisted the air. “He said I loved the plan more than him. But who does that? I told him he was crazy. But, Nate, he might just be right. I put all of my eggs in the marry-Adam-Peters basket and that was that. End of story.”

“So you don’t love him either?”

“Yes … no … I don’t know.” She squinted at him. “You’re pushy for just having met me.” Her laugh-cry escaped into the air between them. “Except I feel”—she fell against the wide, split base of the ancient tree—”peace. Something I’ve not felt in a long time. You know how you can hold on to something so tight … you’re so close you can’t even really see what you’re clinging to anymore?”

Yes, he knew.

“Then you finally let go, only to see your hands are all rope burned and the pot of gold at the end of your rainbow turned out to be a pile of candy wrappers glinting in the sun.”

Nathaniel snorted a light laugh but pulled it in, not sure she intended to be funny. “But now the future is yours to own, to mold.”

She examined her palms as if she expected to find rope burns. “What a waste.” She snapped her attention to him. “And look at me, telling all my woes to a complete stranger.”

“Not so strange, I hope. Just new.” Nathaniel had liked her a minute ago. He’d moved on to adoring her. “You’ve a career?”

“Not much going on in the landscape-architecture business
these days. People aren’t redoing their grounds. They’re saving money.” She peered at the twilight sky, then held out her hand for the wrench. “I’m sure you have other things to do than talk to me. I can change the tire.”

“It’s been a pleasure to talk with you.” Nathaniel walked to the flat and dropped to one knee. She’d kicked the old tire. He could kiss it. Because it had gone flat, he’d met the enchanting Susanna. “I envy you, Susanna. You have your life ahead of you, free to do whatever, start fresh, go wherever you want, do whatever you want.”

“Keep talking, bubba. I might start believing you.” She dropped the jack to the ground and shoved it under the car.

He loosened the lug nuts. “Consider some who have their lives planned for them from before they were born. No chance to make a change or go about as they please.”

“I don’t know anyone like that around here. Maybe Mose Watson, who’s set to inherit his daddy’s real estate business, but they’re millionaires, and I don’t hear Mose complaining.”

“But if Mose wanted to leave, could he?”

“Technically. Though his old man might have a conniption.”

She made him laugh. Inside and out. She made him forget the burden of having his future all planned, not just by his parents, but by five hundred years of history.

If he considered his destiny, in the deepest hours of night when he couldn’t sleep, the burden nearly stole his breath.

But for now, Brighton Kingdom and his very orchestrated future didn’t matter. Only the summer breeze slipping through Lover’s Oak and assisting Susanna mattered.

Nathaniel removed the lug nuts and then worked the flat tire from the axle. “My mates and I used to let off steam in our university years racing cars down country roads.” He let a memory rise in his soul and do the talking. “One of us always flattened a tire. But it was good to have a go at it with my mates.”

“Sounds like you miss it.” She peered at him through the golden wisps of her hair that had been freed from her ponytail.

“It was a different time. We were young and impetuous, thought we were invincible.”

“And now?”

“I’m respectable and not so impetuous nor invincible.”

“Is that bad?” She tugged the spare out of the trunk and dropped it next to Nathaniel.

“At the moment, not at all.” He paused. “Not at all.” For a sweet Southern moment, he let the light and life of Miss Susanna Truitt sink into the most secret place of his heart.

B
y Saturday afternoon when Susanna had driven to the garage to get a new tire, half the island had heard about Adam finding “the right ring but not the right girl.” By Monday morning, the whole island had heard. So it seemed.

Susanna half expected to see it on the front page of the paper. It would make the Glynn Academy alumni news for sure.

Adam and Susanna, the couple most likely to be, aren’t
.

Driving to Gage Stone Associates, Susanna wished she’d said nothing more to her parents than “we broke up.”

But Mama … oh, Mama. She had her ways.

“What’s wrong? Mercy, Susanna. You look like who-shot-Liz.”

“Thank you, Mama. That’s what I was going for.”

Susanna had broken down this morning over a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, sitting in the Rib Shack’s kitchen. She’d cried and confessed every word, every wounding, piercing word in her conversation with Adam. She felt raw and real, holding nothing about their exchange as sacred.

But then she met Nate. That news she kept to herself. He’d been the silver lining on her dark Friday afternoon. Perhaps a little tap on her shoulder from God.

Don’t despair
.

She’d skipped church Sunday. Adam’s parents attended services at Christ Church, and Susanna couldn’t bear the thought of running into them. Not this soon.

Sunday evening, the family dinner at the Rib Shack had taken place as usual, the restaurant brimming with laughter and music, with family, with warmth.

Susanna intended to hole up from that event too until baby sister Avery insisted she go. At seventeen, Avery was wise, young, and exuberant. And on occasion, a great persuader.

Grandparents, aunts and uncles, and all the cousins straight down the line to third cousin-once-removed showed up at the Shack the first Sunday of each month. Daddy closed down the restaurant for the family gathering. Wasn’t hardly a soul who missed the ritual. Not even the Camdens, who might not actually be blood relatives of the Truitt-Franklin-Vogt clans. But they’d been around so long no one could remember.

Susanna had tucked her emotions behind her heart and hid in the shadows of the Shack’s deck, letting the family flow of conversation, laughter, and music drown out her reality for a few barbecue sweetened hours.

Then Monday morning arrived with Susanna’s alarm jolting her out of the best fifteen minutes’ sleep she’d had all weekend. She’d stared at the clock’s red numbers, working up an excuse to call in sick and stay in bed another day.

But she was out of Häagen-Dazs. And she was hungry for Mama’s eggs and biscuits. So she let her heart wake up and face the day.

In the parking lot behind the Gage Stone offices, Susanna dropped her forehead to the steering wheel. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get the tenor of Adam’s confession—“found the right ring but not the right girl”—out of her head.

Yes, she’d dialed him a dozen times, but she’d hung up before the call connected. What would she have said to him? “Take me
back … Please change your mind, Adam.” Or better, “Wait, I want to break up with you first. Ask me to marry you, go ahead. I’ll say no.”

Neither would make her feel better. Then Sunday at midnight, she went on a binge and purged everything from Adam on her phone, computer, and that crazy digital picture frame he gave her for Christmas two years ago.

Now that made her feel better. Much better. And she could finally sleep.

But the whole ordeal had caused a disturbance deep in her soul. Not about Adam, but about herself. How could she have been so blind? So foolish? Clinging to a man she didn’t really love.

A soft rap against her car window caused her to look up. Aurora. “Suzy-Q, you all right?”

Susanna fumbled for the window’s power button. “Aurora … hey.”

“You good, girl?” The woman rested against the car door.

“Yeah, sure, I’m good.”

“I heard.” Deep creases marked the contours of her weathered but wise face. Her gray eyes, steady and clear, watched Susanna.

“Hasn’t the whole island?” Susanna grabbed her satchel, popped open her door, and started for the office.

“Word gets ‘round.” Aurora fell in step with Susanna, her bare feet curling against the sharp gravel-and-sand parking lot.

“Aurora, where are your shoes?” Susanna pointed at the old woman’s bright red toes.

“Gave them away.” She hopped to the grass with an exhale. “My feet just aren’t toughened up. I got soft wearing shoes. But I’ll get them in shape.” The homeless woman spoke with the cultured voice of one who had once lobbied Washington, DC, politicians. With great success. Brisk and to the point. “A gal came through the camp. She wasn’t right.” Aurora tapped her temple. “Didn’t have any wherewithal.”

Susanna paused on the sidewalk by Aurora. “So you gave her your shoes.”

“Well, I certainly couldn’t give her a pound of wherewithal.” The woman chuckled. “Though don’t think I didn’t try.”

“I have no doubt.” Of all the women on St. Simons Island, Susanna felt sure Aurora possessed more wherewithal than all of them combined. “You need money for more shoes?”

“Nope. Got all the money I need.”

The question was rhetorical. Susanna knew the woman had money. She just wanted her to spend a little to save her feet.

Aurora lived simply but wisely. Word was she’d amassed a small fortune before leaving DC to pitch a tent in the island woods.

“Woke up one day with the Lord tapping on my shoulder. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘This is what you want? To live with your boyfriend, drinking and drugging and lying?’ Girl, back then I could spin a lie to perm your hair. The trappings I thought I possessed actually possessed me. So I cracked … but in all the right places.”

“Get a new pair of shoes, Aurora.” Susanna smiled, swinging her black leather satchel at her feet. “You’re going to ruin your pedicure.”

“Don’t despise me my pedicure, Suzy-Q. You can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl. It’s my one splurge. I don’t think the Lord minds.”

“I don’t think he minds at all. Hey, get two pairs of shoes this time. One to wear, one to give away.”

“Maybe.” Aurora wore her gray hair in a ponytail. Loose ringlets adorned her neck and forehead. Ten years of living in the woods could not mask her classic, refined beauty. “He didn’t break your heart, did he? That boy … I can see it in your eyes.”

A brisk chill skirted along Susanna’s scalp and down her back. “What are you doing nosing around in people’s eyes?” Though she long suspected Aurora spent long days in her tent on her knees, hearing from God in ways others only dreamed of.

“Not nosing. But definitely seeing.” She pointed from her eyes to Susanna’s. “Got the gift, you know. It’s why I had to leave Washington. God opened my eyes and I could see the lies, see the darkness. Not feel … but
see
. Couldn’t take it anymore.”

“You never saw the good?”

Aurora smiled. Her teeth were white and even, another remnant of her days in DC. “I’m looking at the good right now.”

“I mean in Washington.”

“I’m not in Washington. I’m in St. Simons looking at you.”

More chills. Yet the fire of Aurora’s intense gaze made Susanna’s soul burn. “Is there something you have to say? Say it.”

“Okay. Thank the Lord for this deal with Adam. Finally, you can get going on
your
way and stop fooling around, waiting on him.” Aurora smacked her palms together, punctuating her declaration with such force Susanna jerked backward, squinting. “Know what your problem is, girl?”

“I only have one?”

Aurora’s big laugh held no restraint. “Touché.” She gripped Susanna’s arms. “You just wouldn’t break … wouldn’t let go. You clung so tightly. I see a bit of myself in you, darling. I was bound so tight God couldn’t even whisper my name lest I shatter. I had to let go. I had to crack.” She wagged her finger under Susanna’s nose. “That’s what you need.”

“I’m not sure I know how to crack. At least not in all the right places, Aurora.”

“He does.” She pointed toward the heavens. “And from what I can see, the first crack hit just right. Wasn’t too painful, was it?”

“You’re telling me God sent Adam to break up with me?”

“If he’d asked, would you have said yes?”

“No.”

“See … you knew all along, girl. Just like I did. Back in the day, drugging and sleeping around, I thought I was all liberated and free, but I was nothing but bound.” She gripped the air in
front of her face. “But I held on. To my reputation, my career, my fancy home, my clothes and jewels, my expensive car.”

“Your pedicures?” Aurora’s intensity challenged Susanna’s comfort and notion of God’s role in her life. “How do I hang on to my goals and plans without being so …”

“Uptight? You let him figure the outcome. We make our plans, but God directs our steps.”

“I have no plans, Aurora.” Susanna glanced up at her second-story office window. “Zip, zero, nada. They vanished with Adam.”

“Fantastic.” Aurora danced a jig along the sidewalk. “Now he can come.”

“Now who can come?”

“The one …” She covered her mouth with her long, slender hands and in an instant, the attitude and decorum of a DC lobbyist faded, and the innocent sweetness of a cracked woman emerged. “You only believe in ‘the one,’ don’t you, Susanna?”

A divine disturbance rumbled through Susanna. She felt exposed and vulnerable. She’d never told anyone her belief in “the one true one.” Well, until she blabbered it to Nate on Friday night.

“Aurora, what are you talking about?”
Please don’t start talking nonsense
. Susanna ached to hear something good, profound. But Aurora straddled worlds, the natural, the supernatural, and the slightly nutty. At any given moment she slipped out of one into the other.

“One. Only one.” Aurora flung wide her arms. “You’re free, Suzy-Q. And now get ready.” She tipped her face toward the heavens. “Believe. He’s coming …” She sucked in a quick breath of surprise. “He’s here, oh joy, he’s already here.” Aurora patted her hands together and danced a jig.

“All righty then.” What had started out as an encouraging, sane conversation had gone cattywompus in the span of a sentence. “I’ll see you, Aurora. Don’t forget to buy shoes.”

“I’ll see you first, Suz. And get that Adam-boy the rest of the
way out of your heart. Let go. Let
goooo
.” She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers at Susanna. “God will fill your heart with wonders you never dared
dreeeaaam
.”

“O–okay?” Dreams? Susanna couldn’t conjure up one. Did she even have any? No, she had plans. Dreams were for fairy tales and romantics. She was practical, patient and … dreamless.

From her bag, her phone pinged. It was Gage’s text tone.

“Listen, Aurora, I need to run.” She flashed the screen for her to see. “Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m right as rain.” Aurora smiled, all perfect and sane, then hopped across the parking lot toward the woods, disappearing between the trees and brush.

“Aurora?” Susanna dashed after her, suddenly missing her divine confidence. “Get a pair of shoes, will you? Aurora?”

But she was gone.

“Aurora?”

How did she do that? Disappear in the mist.

Susanna’s phone pinged again.

Gage. Like his staff meeting of five
had
to start at nine o’clock sharp. When Susanna made it to the second-floor landing, he was waiting for her.

“Well?” He folded his arms and searched her face.

“Well what?” She pushed past her boss—and friend—lowering her satchel to her desk.

“How’d it go?” Gage fell against the ornately carved doorframe, motioning toward her left hand. “How come I’m not blinded by bling?”

“I thought we had a meeting.” Susanna reached for her University of Georgia mug sitting on the credenza. Time and use had faded the logo and the UGA looked more like IGI. And the bulldog mascot no longer had a nose.

“Yeah, we have a meeting but I wanted to see the bling. Adam came home, right? You left early Friday to meet him.”

“I need coffee.” Susanna slipped past Gage and down the stairs. She’d held herself together while talking to Aurora, but Gage’s inquiry encroached on her emotional fortress. He’d been her friend, and Adam’s, since the romance began and had been on the sidelines, watching, occasionally coaching, for twelve years.

“Suz, what happened?” Gage’s steps thundered down the stairs after her.

“Nothing happened.” Susanna ran into Myrna, the office manager, when she reached the bottom.

“Gage, leave the girl alone.” Myrna smacked her gum and glanced at her clipboard schedule. “Susanna, your ten o’clock appointment cancelled.”

“Glenn Cowger? No.” Was it too late to join Aurora in the woods? “Did he say why?”

“Not a peep, darling. And I tried to get something out of him.” She peered at Susanna. “You don’t look half bad for a woman who got dumped.”

Susanna made a face. “Yay me. So, did you ask Cowger to reschedule?”

“Shug, look who you’re talking to. Me. Myrna.” The woman with the henna-rinsed hair and the countenance of a marine on duty curled her lip. “Of course I asked him. Gave him ten ways to Sunday to reschedule, but he’d have none of it. Said he’d think on it, would call you later.”

“Great.” Susanna glanced at her boss. “Scratch Cowger Homes off our morning meeting.”

“Let’s not give up so easily,” Gage said. “Get a plan together,
Suz. Myrna, pull files on the other architects in the region. Let’s see if we can figure out who else Cowger is considering. Also, pull the city building permits. Wonder if he’s run into a snag. Tell Clark and Alexis we’re postponing the meeting for ten minutes.”

Myrna went into action. “On it, boss. And, Suz, don’t worry about Adam, he’ll come around.”

“Ugh, I’m so glad my personal life is out there for all to comment on.” Susanna started for the kitchen. She really needed coffee. Gage trailed after her.

“Do you have any idea who Cowger—”

“Come on, Gage, he’s clearly made another choice.”