Page 6 of A Prince for Christmas

“Ah,” he said with a nod.

“You know, if you’re going to be spending any time here in Montana, you’re going to have to learn to love country music. Otherwise, you won’t understand half the conversations you hear.”

That made him laugh. I realized I’d only heard him laugh a couple of time, although he smiled often. I briefly wondered why, but my train of thought was cut off by Polly’s arrival. She had her boyfriend, Adam, in tow.

I stifled a sigh. I would have preferred to have Polly all to myself, but I knew she didn’t have much time with him. Although he was tall enough to be a basketball player, he was actually at MSU on a music scholarship and spent almost all of his free time practicing. A quiet boy, I always thought Polly liked him because he seemed content to indulge her endless talking without saying much himself.

Polly gave me a big hug, and after a bit of discussion, we decided to stay at the bar. Adam sat on the far side of Polly, who took her spot front and center, just the way she liked. Adam’s seat allowed him to follow along with our conversation or tune it out and think about whatever he thought of when he was quiet. He could even talk to the guy a couple of stools down or Nick, if he chose.

Polly and I hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks, although she was my best friend on campus. She had grown up on a ranch about ten miles from my parents’ place outside Snowy Hollow, so we’d known each other since we were kids. Throughout grade school and into high school, we had ridden the same school bus. By the time I got on the bus, she always had all kinds of gossip about everyone on the bus before I could get a word in edgewise.

Nothing had changed. After asking me how I was, she didn’t wait for an answer, but launched into an excited recap of everything she’d done and everything that happened since she last saw me.

Nick’s appearance made her pause. She looked him up and down like a mountain lion ogling a nice haunch of venison, then ordered a light draft beer. Polly was always dieting, although as far as I could tell her weight never varied much. Adam ordered a non-alcoholic beer—he was afraid alcohol might interfere with his violin practice.

While Nick was getting their drinks, Polly leaned over and whispered accusingly, “You never told me about that!”

I grinned, feeling somewhat self-conscious for some reason. “I haven’t seen you.”

“You have a cell phone,” she hissed. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I wanted to surprise you. His name is Nick, and he’s British. He’s over here for some kind of post-graduate work. I got to train him.”

That struck me as funny, since I’d resented Mr. McGregor making me do the training. However, I didn’t try to explain to Polly why I was smiling. Too complicated.

“What else have you been up to that you haven’t told me?” Polly asked, a look of mock suspicion on her face.

“Not much. I finally finished that team project, but Bella and I had to write Jim’s section since he didn’t do it. We weren’t about to to fail because of one person, but we let the teacher know.”

“That sucks. That’s why I’m headed for law school. No group projects to deal with.”

“I just don’t think I could handle moving to a big city. I love the ranch too much.”

“You could be a small-town lawyer and do wills and such.” Polly smiled. We’d had this discussion many times before.

“I don’t want to know all my neighbors’ business and not be able to talk about any of it.”

“That would be bad.” Polly nodded, clearly trying to imagine how awful it would be to have all those secrets and not tell them. She was planning to work in corporate law, where the secrets she handled wouldn’t be too juicy.

I glanced at my pina colada. Almost empty. One more wouldn’t hurt, and all that pineapple juice would probably serve as dinner. I pushed my glass to the far edge of the bar.

“So what are you and Adam doing later? Going out to dinner?”

“We’re going to grab hot dogs, then go to a recital at the School of Music. The question of the day is whether we go to Yeti Dogs or Paulie’s.”

“I’d take DQ over either of them,” I said.

“So where’s that boyfriend of yours?” Polly asked, a twinkle in her eye as she changed the subject.

“Playing Lacrosse, as usual.” I didn’t even try to hide my scowl. Polly knew all about my problems with Fred.

“You have a boyfriend?” Nick sounded surprised, and a little offended.

I looked up, surprised myself. I hadn’t realized that he had drifted back to our end of the bar. I felt my face heat, though I wasn’t sure why. “Yep,” I said, nodding and trying to play off my own confusion.

“When did this start?” his voice was almost demanding.

I bristled. We were friendly, and maybe a few flirtatious moments had passed while we were on the go, bustling around the restaurant, but nothing that could be construed as anything other than innocent banter.