“Well, then, I’m glad you’re here to defrost for a bit. Soak up that sun, sweetie. You fly back the day after tomorrow, don’t you?” He rested one hand on the railing of the deck. “This week has gone by too quickly. Well, all the days seem to go by too fast anymore. The older you get, the faster the ride goes.” He sighed.
“Handsome.” I hooked one hand around his arm and hugged it to me, the way I had done when I was a little girl. “Are you worried about Honey? She still seems kind of ... I don’t know. Frail.” I felt unexpected tears gathering at the back of my eyes and I blinked them back. “Do you think she’s going to be okay?”
I waited for my grandfather’s usual blustering reassurances, but instead, he sighed. “I hope so, sweetheart. That virus last fall really took it out of her and shook me up, too. You know the two of us ... we’ve always been sickeningly healthy. Maybe we’ve been a little smug about it. I mean, we take care of ourselves, we eat better than anyone I know, and we’re active. Or we were. So I think when your grandmother had to go into the hospital, it rattled us quite a bit. We’re both still recovering—but don’t you worry. We’re going to be fine.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Nothing is going to keep us from that big shin-dig you and Nicky are throwing next spring.”
“I should hope not,” I sniffed. “I expect you both to be there, showing up all the lords and ladies with your good looks and sparkling personality. I can just see you in a gray morning coat, all dapper and suave.”
“You know it.” He patted my hand. “So tell me, Kyra. Are you really happy?”
I frowned. “What do you mean? With Nicky? Of course, I am. You know how much I love him. I can’t imagine living my life with anyone else in this world.”
“Yes. That’s one thing I’m certain of for you, too. No, what I really meant is, are you happy in England? With your work at Honey Bee? And with what you’ll be doing as a member of the Royal Family?”
I stared out at the ocean. With most grandfathers, I imagined that a quick, trite assurance would do the trick. But Handsome and I had always been honest with each other, and I knew he was expecting me to dig deep and tell him the truth.
“I’m starting to adjust to England. To London. It actually took longer than I’d expected—I thought as soon as I moved there, I’d fall in love instantly. But it’s a very different way of life. Still, Nicky’s been arranging for me to see more of it—we’ve gone to some museums in the off-hours, and sometimes I sneak out in sunglasses and jeans, with my hair up in a hat. London’s an amazing city, and now I’m starting to feel at home.” I paused. “But it’s mostly Nicky who makes it feel that way. Anywhere he is will always be my real home.”
Handsome smiled. “Now that’s exactly right, and just what I hoped to hear. On the job front, we’ve been hearing glowing reports about you from everyone who works at the London office. And all of us are impressed by what you’ve managed to do so far. Do you think you’ll need to cut your hours back, though?”
I drew my brows together, my forehead wrinkling. “I’d like to say no, but the truth is that between the engagements I’m going to have to handle and the wedding stuff, I might have to leave early a few days a week. I’m sorry, Handsome. I don’t want to let you and Honey down. But I just don’t see how I can manage to do everything and make everyone happy. I’m expected to work with this Lady Marjorie to learn how to be royal, and I have to figure out what sort of charities I’ll support and which engagements I can do—I mean, luckily Nicky’s not in the direct line, so he doesn’t have as much pressure on him as his cousins do, but we’re still expected to pull our weight and carry out anything we can.”
“Kyra.” Handsome’s expression was stern. “You stop that right now. You never have let your grandmother and me down, and you’re not doing so now. We had an inkling that things would go the way they have when you moved over there, so we already have plans in place to help things along. Now what you must promise me is that if the job becomes too much to handle with your other responsibilities, you’ll tell me. Don’t take on too much, sweetheart. I know you can do it all, but this is a time when you should be enjoying yourself. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I answered. “I don’t know yet, though. I love what I do. I hope I don’t have to give it up. But if Nicky needs me, too ... I guess I need to figure out that balance.”
“I have faith that you will.” Handsome hugged me close to him, and I took a deep whiff of his familiar, comforting aftershave. “We’re proud of you, Kyra. I may have said it before, but I feel that I can never tell you too much. You are an amazing young woman, and you impress us every single day. Never forget that.”
“I won’t.” A lump rose in my throat. “I love you, Handsome. I miss you and Honey so much. Maybe you could come over and stay in London after the wedding. It’ll be warmer then. I could spend some time with you, once all the fuss is over.”
His eyes lit up. “Could we go to see the ravens at the Tower? I’ve always wanted to do that, but Honey says the place gives her the gee-wilikers.”
I laughed. “Tell you what—we’ll arrange a special private tour so you and I can spend all the time you want with the ravens. And Honey can go shopping while we’re doing that. Everyone will be happy.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Standing, he gripped my shoulder and squeezed affectionately. “I’d better go check on your grandmother and see if she’d like to talk a short walk on the beach. The sunshine’s good for her, I think.”
I rose, too. “Is this a private stroll, or can granddaughters come along, too?”
“Granddaughters are always welcome.” He winked at me. “You can give us a rundown on what’s happening behind the scenes at the office in London, and then we’ll call that a business meeting. Best kind of meeting I can imagine.”
“And no one has to take any notes.” I sighed happily. “Let’s do it.”
That’s exactly what we did, and it was an idyllic hour, a time set apart from the rest of the world, with the sun, the sand, my grandparents and me.
Later, I would realize that hour was the calm before the storm.
“HELLO, MY NAME ISSHELBYRexland, and I’d like to speak to my best friend, the woman who used to love mucking around in the dirt but now spends her time having tea with the Queen of England.”
Laughing, I held my phone between my shoulder and ear as I reached to take a letter from my administrative assistant, sign my name and then return it to her. “Hey, I still love mucking around in the dirt. I just don’t have the opportunity or the time so much lately. And having tea with Her Majesty is fun, too. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
“Well, I’ll get right on that the next time I’m in London.” Shelby’s voice was dry. “I’m just happy to talk to you, finally. It feels like it’s been a hot minute.”
“Yes, I’m sorry about that. Between work and royal prep and the time difference, trying to figure out when to call is tough.” I sat down in my desk chair and gazed out the window onto the London streets. My office had a decent view, but today it was gray and rainy. Not exactly a picturesque day in the city. “I hoped I might see you when I was back in Florida at Christmas, but that didn’t work out. You didn’t end up coming home at all?”
“It was—it was kind of complicated.” Shelby sounded guarded. “Our research has been pretty involved lately, and I knew even if I could get away, it would only be for a few days. So I ended up staying in New Mexico. It didn’t make sense to try to fly to Florida.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. Shelby and I had always shared just about everything with each other, but I knew that since she’d begun the internship in New Mexico, there had been something different. I’d been chalking it up to my own radical lifestyle shift—being in a relationship with a member of the Royal Family complicated things, that was for certain—but now, I was beginning to think there was more to the story. Shelby had always been close to her family, and I couldn’t imagine her missing Christmas with them.
“Shel, are you okay?” I blurted out. “Do you want to talk about ... I don’t know, anything?”
