The Prince's Baby. Lisa Laurel Kaye

his appearance that morning, he was certainly off to a rousing start, in Lexi’s eyes. Drew, who’d had her life so well ordered, had the feeling that parts of it were breaking off and spinning out beyond her reach. Hanging on to part of it that wasn’t—the need for food—she parked the car. “Here we are at McCreedy’s.”

      They walked up to the small, family-owned grocery store that served Anders Point. Lexi went first, as usual, jumping on the black rubber mat at the entrance.

      “Open…in the name of Princess Lexi,” she commanded, pointing at the door. When it did, she giggled and called for Drew to catch up.

      Drew did, and after they went in she turned and pointed back at the door. “Close…in the name of the law,” she said. It did, Lexi giggled, and Drew wondered how many such simple, comfortable rituals in their everyday life together were about to be destroyed.

      

      Whit had found his old motorcycle where he’d left it in a corner of the outbuilding seven years ago, the last time he’d been at the Point for any length of time. After giving it a cursory tune-up and fill-up, he had slung his leg over the leather seat and taken off, faster than he knew he should, down the castle road, which curved its way to town along the bluff that dropped off straight into the Atlantic Ocean. But he could never go fast enough to outrun those old memories. There were reminders everywhere he looked.

      The first house he’d passed was hers.

      He’d known Drew almost all his life. When they were kids, they’d played together with Julie, during the summers that he spent on the Point. But that summer seven years ago, Julie hadn’t been around, and he and Drew had had a secret romance. What they’d had was powerful, which was what had made it so damn scary. It was real love, Whit knew now, because it had been unselfish. She had wanted a dream, but he’d wanted what was best for her—and that wasn’t a man like him, with his ponytail, motorcycle and crown that didn’t seem to fit. Not wanting to fail her, he had left her.

      After cruising the back roads most of the afternoon, he cut his speed as he entered the town, chugging along the quiet streets. A lot of road had disappeared under his wheels since he’d left town seven years ago. He wasn’t proud of his footloose reputation, but he had always been sure he had done the right thing by leaving Drew.

      Now he wasn’t sure about anything.

      He had just pulled into the only gas station in town when he heard a now-familiar voice.

      “Look, Mommy! It’s the prince!”

      He looked at the little grocery store next door, and first met Drew’s eyes, which went wide with dismay, before he saw Lexi. She was grinning up at him over a paper bag she hugged to the front of her while she stood on the sidewalk, her homemade crown still perched on her head.

      An urge to sweep her into his arms made a sudden, sneak attack on him. Instead, he got off of his cycle and bowed to her as he had earlier. “Princess Lexi, would you do me the honor of allowing me to carry your bundle?”

      Momentarily shy, she nodded and surrendered the grocery bag. Before Drew could protest, Whit took the bag she was carrying, too.

      “Which way to the royal carriage?” he asked.

      Lexi skipped ahead, pointing out a compact car that had seen better days, and lots of them. Whit felt a shaft of regret, thinking of all he could have provided for them, as Drew opened up the trunk.

      Lexi had apparently found her voice, for she began peppering him with questions.

      “Where did you come from?” she began.

      He stowed the bags in the trunk. “I rode here on my motorcycle from the castle. That’s where I’m staying, here at the Point.”

      She registered that information, then continued questioning. “But where did you come from in school this morning?”

      “I found your note in the gate.”

      “But were you under a spell? Was my kiss magic? Did it turn you from a frog into a prince?”

      Whit glanced at Drew, who was biting her lip. He went with his instincts.

      “I was already a prince, so your kiss couldn’t turn me into one,” he told Lexi honestly. When her face fell, he couldn’t help adding, “But I’ll be darned if it didn’t look like those frogs were smiling when you kissed them.”

      Lexi giggled, then abruptly asked him another question. “Are you a stranger?”

      When he hesitated, Drew interrupted. “Lexi, it’s time for us to go.” She slammed the trunk closed.

      “Could you wait a minute, please, Mommy? I just have to know this one thing,” Lexi told her firmly, but not impolitely. “Are you?” she asked Whit again.

      He thought about it. It was a complicated question, far more complicated than she could know. He was a stranger, yet he was bound to her by one of life’s closest connections.

      “Why do you want to know?” he finally asked her, hunkering down so that he was at eye level with her.

      “Because if you’re a stranger, I can’t do something I really want to do.”

      “You’d better ask your mommy, princess.”

      Lexi lost no time in appealing to Drew. “Is he, Mommy?”

      Whit watched a thousand shadows roll across the eyes of the woman he had once known so intimately, who was now a stranger to him.

      At last she swallowed and said, “I’ve known Whit since I was your age. He’s not a stranger.”

      That was all Lexi needed. She straightened her glitter-covered crown and, without hesitation, came up right beside him. He could smell the sweet fragrance of baby shampoo in her silky hair as she leaned toward him with a smile as innocent as youth, as wise as time. Then she planted her puckered lips on his cheek and left a tiny, damp kiss there.

      She and her mother were gone before he straightened up from his crouch. No doubt Drew had seen how shaken he was.

      Frogs aside, Lexi’s kiss was indeed magic.

      It had turned him into a father.

       Chapter Three

      Drew held on to Lexi a little too long that night when she hugged her at bedtime.

      But all the clinging in the world wouldn’t keep Lexi from being hurt, and it might let her daughter pick up on the fear that was flowing through her, cold as the ocean water outside. So Drew put on a determinedly cheerful smile as she said good-night and turned off the light.

      She had to tell Annah, who was staying with Lexi, where she was going; but luckily her friend wasn’t one to pry. Although Annah hadn’t grown up on the Point, she knew that Drew and Whit had been friends since childhood, so she thought it natural that they would want to get together now that he was in town.

      Drew decided that walking to the castle might calm her fears, and it did. More accurately, the crash of the waves and rush of the wind whipped up her courage. By the time she knocked on the front door of the stone castle, she could have taken on the world with her bare hands.

      Whit took a long time answering, so she knocked again, even more forcefully. A moment later the heavy door swung open.

      “Sorry,” he said as he let her in. “I didn’t hear your car come up the drive.”

      “I walked. It’s not far.”

      He looked at her for a moment. “I remember,” he said softly.

      Drew looked away, momentarily thrown by his words. She remembered, too. He had walked that same walk many times himself, sometimes going the other way in the middle of the night, hours after he had