Once Upon A Prince. Holly Jacobs

cut him off with a small, soft smile. “Good night, Shey. I was ready to lock up next door when the commotion started. Now that it’s over, I’ll be going. I’ll see you in the morning. And it was nice meeting you, Tanner.”

      With that, Cara turned and walked back into the dim bookstore.

      “Wow,” Shey said. “I wonder what’s got into her?”

      “What do you mean?” Tanner asked.

      “I mean, that’s the longest string of words that I’ve ever heard Cara utter in front of a stranger. In front of most people she knows well, for that matter.”

      “Lucky me,” Tanner grumbled.

      He’d like to totally discount everything the woman had said as nonsense, but he couldn’t. She hadn’t said anything he hadn’t thought himself.

      “So now what?” he asked his reluctant hostess.

      “Now, I’m going to pour you a cup of coffee and close up the shop. Then I’ll take you to your hotel. Tomorrow, if you’re smart, you’ll be on a plane leaving Erie.”

      Tanner didn’t reply. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew that he wasn’t ready to leave Erie just yet.

      Shey brought him the coffee, then bustled around the store turning off coffee machines, cleaning out carafes, then gathering up the sandwiches and snacks from the refrigerated case.

      She hefted a tray full of items.

      “Here, let me help you,” he said, as he started to rise from his seat.

      “I don’t need help,” she snapped. “I’m quite capable of handling this on my own.”

      “Fine,” he said, sinking back into the seat as she took the tray and disappeared into the back.

      Cara’s words played over again in his mind.

      She was right, love was an essential ingredient in a marriage, an ingredient his parents’ marriage had been lacking.

      Tanner realized that Shey had been gone more than a few minutes. He got up and walked toward the kitchen, inching the door open slowly to see what she was doing.

      He expected her to be cleaning or something, instead, she was standing at the back door, the tray of food now nearly empty.

      There were people lined up and she was handing out the sandwiches and cookies.

      “Leo,” she said, “did you go to the clinic about that cough?”

      An old man wearing tattered clothes, said something softly that Tanner couldn’t make out.

      “Good,” Shey said. “If you hadn’t, I’d have dragged you there tomorrow. You’d have had to ride on the back of my bike.”

      The man laughed at that, the laughter punctuated by a harsh, rasping cough.

      “You be sure you go to the shelter tonight. I don’t care how warm it is. You need to sleep inside and take your medicine.”

      The old man nodded, then moved aside, replaced by a younger, yet equally disheveled-looking man.

      Slowly, Tanner let the door close and went back to his seat.

      He might not have known Shey Carlson long, but he knew she’d resent his witnessing her act of kindness.

      Nonetheless it intrigued him.

      Shey intrigued him.

      No matter what she thought, Tanner wasn’t getting on a plane in the morning.

      As a matter of fact, he wasn’t going back to the hotel tonight.

      He pulled out his cell phone and keyed in Emil’s number.

      “Yeah, boss?”

      “You all have the night off,” he told his guard.

      “What do you mean, night off?” Emil asked, displeasure in his voice.

      “I won’t be coming to the hotel tonight.”

      “May I ask where you’ll be spending the night?”

      “No, you may not.”

      Emil laughed. “Fine, I won’t ask. I’m nothing if not discreet. I’ll let Tonio and Peter hit the town. Peter’s dying to introduce himself to the female residents.”

      “I imagine he is,” Tanner said with a hint of laughter. Peter was a ladies’ man.

      “I’ll be in all night though, boss,” Emil assured him. “If you have any problems, you call. You know your father would have a fit if he found out you were wandering about a strange city without a bodyguard.”

      Shey walked into the room and Tanner smiled, “I think I can handle myself, Emil.”

      Emil, more of a friend than a guard, just sighed. “But I’m here if you need me.”

      “Thanks.” Tanner shut the phone and put it in his pocket.

      “Are you ready to go?” Shey asked.

      “I’m ready,” he answered, rising from his seat.

      Tanner Ericson was more than ready, but he wasn’t sure Shey Carlson was.

       CHAPTER TWO

      Fifteen minutes later, Shey punched Parker’s number into the phone as she glared at the man sitting in her recliner, staring out her living-room window.

      Shey knew that Parker had caller ID, so she wasn’t surprised when her friend’s salutation was, “Thanks for picking up Tanner.”

      “There’s a problem,” Shey told Parker without preamble.

      The problem heard her and simply smiled.

      “What now?” Parker asked. “Who else could my father send?”

      If it were only as simple as dealing with Parker’s father. Shey and Cara had years of experience helping their friend circumvent her father’s dictates.

      “Not your father, your prince,” Shey told her.

      There was a small sigh of relief before Shey asked, “Okay, so what did Tanner do?”

      “It’s what he didn’t do…he didn’t leave.”

      “And I’m not going to,” Tanner said softly.

      Shey put a hand over the receiver and said, “Listening to other people’s conversations is just rude. I’d have expected better from a prince.”

      “I live to shake people’s expectations,” he said with an unprincely grin.

      “What do you mean?” Parker asked over the phone.

      “I mean, His Royal Painness and his goons—”

      “His goons?” Parker asked.

      Shey realized she hadn’t had a chance to mention Tanner’s three henchmen, so she explained, “He brought bodyguards, three of them. Anyway, they have rooms at the new hotel on the bayfront, but princy here won’t go. He says he’s staying with me.”

      “Why on earth would he want to stay with you?”

      “Because he said he figured you’d come rescue me and he’d get to talk to you.”

      “Do you need me to rescue you?” Parker asked.

      Shey had spent her life taking care of herself, not simply because it was her nature, but because it was necessity. After her father died, her mother worked at least two jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Shey had to learn to be self-sufficient, because if she hadn’t learned to look out for herself,