The Lost Princes: Darius, Cassius and Monte. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ pulled up and leaned on one elbow, watching her. “I think sleep is going to be hard to find for a while,” he said dryly as Cici began to whimper. “We might as well both get up.”

      She rose and went to the baby and by the time she’d pulled her up and turned back, he was up and putting on his sweater.

      “I’ll go down and get some food,” he said. “I’m sure you’re hungry by now. Fish and chips okay for you?”

      “More fish?” She wrinkled her nose.

      “It’s good for you.” He hesitated. “I could probably find an American hamburger somewhere, if that’s what you want.”

      “No, actually I like fish and chips just fine. As long as the fish isn’t kippers.”

      He grinned. “Don’t worry. They don’t make them that way too often.”

      He left the room and she sighed, feeling a delicious sort of tension leave with him. He’d said it didn’t mean a thing, but she was beginning to think he’d been fooling himself. For her, it was meaning more and more all the time.

      The fish and chips were okay and so was the pint of ale he brought back with them. But now it was time to tend to Cici and hope to convince her to go back to sleep so that they could get some rest, as well. After a half hour of pacing back and forth with a baby softly sobbing against her shoulder, Ayme had a proclamation to make.

      “I’ve decided I’m not going to have any children,” she said with a flourish.

      “Oh.” David looked up from the evening paper he’d picked up with the fish. “Well, it might be best to hold off until you get married.”

      She glared at him. “I’m not going to do that, either.”

      He smiled. “Right.”

      “I’m serious about this,” she insisted. “Babies take over your life. It’s unbelievable how much work they are.”

      “It’s true.” He had some sympathy for her state of mind. He’d been there himself. “They do monopolize all your time. But that doesn’t last forever.”

      “It certainly seems to last forever on the day you’re doing it.”

      He leaned back. “That’s just for the moment. Before you know it, they’re heading out the door with their friends and don’t need you at all anymore.”

      She gave him a long-suffering look. “How long do you have to wait for that lovely day?”

      “It takes a while.”

      “I’d be marking off the days on my calendar.”

      He grinned. “It can be hard, but think of the rewards.”

      “What rewards?”

      Cici stirred in her arms, stretching and making a kitten sound. He watched as Ayme’s fierce look melted.

      “You see?” he said softly.

      She smiled up at him ruefully. “Yeah, but is it all really worth it?”

      He shook his head. How the hell had he become the family practices guru here? Still, she seemed to need some sort of reassurance and he supposed he could do that at least.

      “Once you have one of your own,” he told her, “I think you’ll figure that out for yourself.”

      He rose and took Cici from her, and as he did, he thought of what Monte had told him. He’d thought from the beginning that there was a sense of sorrow lingering in her gaze, something deeper than she was admitting to. Why hadn’t she told him about her parents? She must have a reason. Or maybe, as Monte hinted, it was a sign that he shouldn’t trust her.

      But what the heck—he didn’t trust anybody, did he?

      “Ayme, you’ve said you don’t know much about your birth parents and you don’t know much about Ambria. What exactly do you know?”

      She scrunched up her nose as she thought about it. “Just a few things I’ve picked up casually over the years.”

      “You should know more.”

      She looked at him and made a face. “How much do you know?”

      “I don’t know as much as I should, either. I should have learned more.”

      “So we’re both babes in the woods, so to speak.”

      He nodded, though there was obviously a vast gulf between what he knew and what she did. “Why weren’t you more curious?”

      She didn’t answer that one, but she had something else on her mind.

      “You were adopted just like I was,” she noted. “Didn’t you ever feel like you had to…I don’t know. To prove to your parents that they should be glad to have picked you?”

      He stared at her. “Never,” he said.

      She shrugged. “Well, I did. I was always trying so hard to make them proud of me.”

      He could see that. He could picture her as a little girl in her starched dresses with patent leather mary janes on her little feet.

      Cici had finally fallen asleep and he laid her down in her little car seat bed before he turned toward Ayme again.

      “And were they?” he asked softly, his gaze taking in every detail of her pretty face. “Proud of you, I mean.”

      “Oh, yes. I was the perfect child. I made straight As and won awards and swam on the swim team and got scholarships. I…I think I did everything I possibly could.” A picture swam into her head. She’d entered the school district Scholars’ Challenge, even though she was the youngest competitor and she was sure she had no chance. Jerry, a boy that she liked, had tried out and hadn’t made it. He mocked her, teased her, made her miserable for days, saying she’d only made it on a fluke, that she was going to be the laughing stock of the school.

      By the time the night of the competition rolled around, she didn’t like him much anymore, but he had succeeded in destroying her confidence. She went on stage shaking, her knees knocking together, and at first, she didn’t think she could hear the questions. She panicked. Jerry was right. She wasn’t good enough. She looked to the side of the stage, ready to make a run for it.

      Then she looked out into the crowd. There was her mother, looking so sweet, and her father, holding a sign that said Ayme Rocks. They were clapping and laughing and throwing kisses her way. They believed in her. There was a lump in her throat, but she turned and suddenly she knew the answer to the question, even though she thought she hadn’t heard it right. She was awarded ten points. She wasn’t going to run after all. A feeling of great calm came over her. She would do this for her parents.

      She won the trophy for her school. Her parents were on either side of her as they came up the walk at home. Suddenly, her mother stepped ahead. She threw open the doors to the house, and there inside were friends and neighbors tooting horns and throwing confetti—a surprise celebration of her win. It was only later СКАЧАТЬ