Fifteen months later…
ANAIS HELD PIPPA, her six-month-old daughter, to her chest as she stood beside King Philip behind a wide red ribbon spanning the entrance of Hero’s Welcome, the project she and Quinn had dreamed up on their honeymoon and spent the months since building.
“Daddy and Be-Be are in trouble…” Anais murmured in sing-song fashion to Pippa and Philip, scanning the road behind them for signs of movement before she turned back to the crowd of citizens, soldiers and cameras there for the opening.
Life was so good she could hardly believe it from day to day, sometimes minute to minute. Even when her husband was late for their big dedication day.
“Where are they?” Philip muttered through his dutiful smiles.
“School…” Anais started to answer, but then she heard running behind her and turned to see Quinn and Ben Nettle racing toward them.
Even when irritated with him, her heart never failed to beat faster when she saw him.
“Sorry,” Quinn panted, kissed her cheek, and then reached for his daughter. “Test ran late.”
Pippa went eagerly into Quinn’s arms, and Anais couldn’t blame her. Hands free, she fetched the oversized ceremonial scissors for Corrachlean’s Bachelor King to use, if the autumn sky held back the rain until he’d finished the dedication speech.
Ben joined a pregnant Rosalie on the other side of the ribbon, still using his chair on university days. He’d gotten steady enough with both prosthetics to walk her back down the aisle last month, but it was still work for him to move around for long periods on them. He’d get there and, in the meanwhile, he and Quinn tackled university together.
Rejoining her perfect little family, Anais tucked in close to Quinn as Philip went over the assets of Hero’s Welcome—the country’s first specialized community for wounded veterans to assist them in readjusting to private life with their new challenges.
“How did you do?” she whispered to Quinn while Pippa alternated between shoving her fist into her own mouth and shoving into Daddy’s.
“Goog…” he garbled around the slobbery baby fist, then pulled it from his mouth and made faces at her to keep their strong-willed baby from making her displeasure known about formal duties.
“Show me your grade later, and I’ll give you a reward,” she cooed in his ear. The man was a terrible influence on her, tempting her to goof off and flirt with him at their big opening.
Philip, who’d ascended about four months after the wedding, didn’t mind so much when they goofed around. He was still getting used to the position, which he’d inherited unexpectedly when King Thomas, after a couple of months of relatively good health, didn’t wake one morning.
“Dr. Anais Corlow will be operating the community clinic.”
She stopped quietly misbehaving when she heard her name and waved briefly, smiling. Philip had stopped calling her Princess in favor of Doctor at her request, even if she was technically stuck with the title until Philip married and produced an heir. Something he’d better get on with if he didn’t want her to start funneling women in his direction.
After talking about the clinic, Philip went down the list.
Mrs. Rosalie Nettle—Job Center Administrator
Lieutenant Benjamin Nettle—Counselor.
“Prince Quinton Corlow…in charge of making faces to amuse Princess Pippa, until he graduates, and then something with physical therapy.”
Quinn had the grace to look fleetingly chagrined at his introduction, but rebounded with a quick smile.
He’d be a great part-time PT. He had other jobs that came first: devoted husband, delighted daddy, and sometimes reluctant but ever-faithful diplomat.
Philip left off the names of the operators for the community’s amenities. Aunt Helen at the salon, Mom at the community center, and those operating the market, butcher, bakery, pharmacy, bank, and post office. But they had it all, a fully functioning community.
Philip cut the ribbon and, after the applause and photos, Quinn stopped goofing around with Pippa long enough to announce, “There’s food and drink at the community center, and several of the differently equipped cottages are available for tours. Finally, Princess Pippa has graciously made herself available to drool on anyone who gets too close. At the community center. We’re following the food.”
He made her laugh every day. He never wavered when she got overwhelmed by some aspect of royal life, which blessedly was happening with less frequency.
She’d never felt she truly belonged anywhere, so they’d built a place where she unquestioningly belonged. They’d sold the penthouse and the townhouse, and built their new home within the community.
Wayne wasn’t even a ghost on her horizon anymore. The longer she spent with her new family, the better life got, and the less Wayne Ratliffe mattered at all.
Her family and her purpose gave her the kind of peace that came in second to the joy of Quinn’s morning wake-up attacks, and Pippa’s strawberry curls and stormy gray eyes.
* * * * *