Chapter Three
Gabriela had been just on the cusp between being a girl and being a woman when Enrique had last seen her. He had been on the same cusp, between boyhood and manhood. Of course, they both would have denied it. How grown-up they had felt at the heady ages of eighteen and nineteen!
That was eight years ago. That was a very long time not to see a person.
Of course she was changed, and yet he was startled by how the coltishness of her late teens had evaporated as completely as fog before a warm sun.
Her eyes were closed, and her expression was peaceful as she listened to her father’s calm voice.
Even in his grave illness—why on earth was he refusing the best medical care the world had to offer?
—Enrique noticed that Guido had no thought for himself.
He was weaving this beautiful tale of life and death as a gift to comfort those who loved him.
Marcello.
Himself.
And, of course, Gabriela.
Enrique took advantage of the fact her eyes were closed, and she did not yet know he was here, to note the changes in her.
The most obvious thing was that she had cut her hair.
On this island, most women had long hair that they wore proudly, and once she had had the most beautiful hair of all, straight and dark, dark brown, hanging in a shining wave nearly to her waist.
Still beautiful, the shimmering wave now ended at her chin. It was a chic, sophisticated cut that mirrored, he supposed, her success in the business world, her immersion in American culture.
When she’d left his island, Enrique had never seen her wear makeup, nor would he have felt her perfect features needed it.
But now he saw how makeup accentuated her beauty—a touch of shadow on her eyelids, a brushing of mascara on her lashes, a sweep of blush across her already high cheekbones and a glossy hint of color on her full, sensuous lips.
The memory of the taste of those lips blasted through his brain with scorching intensity.
And then, she opened her eyes.
Hazel. Huge. Amazing. A kaleidoscope of gold and green and brown.
But more. There was that look. As if she had never gone away at all.
That look that said, in all the world, she was the one who had always seen him, not as a prince so much as a fellow human being who longed for all the things that each member of the human family—with the possible exception of his mother—longed for.
Her eyes met his and he steeled himself against the feeling of his heart dropping further into the abyss.
Enrique felt as if he was a man who had wandered, lost, in the wilderness, and suddenly, when he had given up all hope, found the way home.
The feeling, he told himself sternly, was a flash, like a fire that had to be put out immediately, before it gained strength. Little fires, ignored, could burn down the whole world, if they were not checked.
Of course, he had thought he loved Gabriela, once upon a time, just like in stories that ended with happily ever after. Why couldn’t he, a prince, after all, have his own fairy tale?
And why, in his youth, wouldn’t he think that? That Gabriela would play the central role in his future happiness? He had grown up with her, they had chased each other through their childhoods, shared secrets, become the best of friends.
Once upon a time, ridiculously, naively, he had thought it could be more.
But, of course, it could not be. His destiny had been mapped out for him before he drew his first breath.
His destiny did not include the daughter of the olive grove keeper and the head of the kitchen.
Though, still, even knowing that, even having had that bitter truth shoved at him, over and over, he had been stunned to come home after completing his studies at a private school in Switzerland to find Gabriela, recently graduated from the island’s only high school, gone.
Without a word of goodbye.
With no answer to his increasingly pleading phone calls and letters.
He could still, in his mind, hear her recorded voice, at the end of too many rings: Hi, it’s Gabriela. Leave a message. I’ll get back to you! But she never, ever had, leaving him behind as completely as if he had never been.
Of course, now, nearly a decade later, he could see the good sense in her decision. Perhaps, if they had never kissed, never tasted the sweetness of each other’s lips, never shared that magical first together, they could have been friends.
But after that kiss?
Then what? She had known, with maturity beyond her years, that such an attraction was doomed.
He had known he was expected—no, compelled—to marry Princess Amelia from the island nation closest to theirs.
He had resigned himself to what the fates had deemed for him before he was even born.
And yet, now, looking deeply into those oh-so-familiar hazel eyes, he could feel his commitment to the order of his life absurdly shaken.
“Your Highness,” she said formally, scooting off the bed, and finding her feet. She smoothed her skirt around her legs, and inclined her head to him.
“Gabriela,” he said, his voice cool, not giving away the downward swoop of his heart at all, “You look well.”
“Thank you. As do you,” she said stiffly.
He deliberately turned his attention from her. “Guido, how are you?”
The man smiled tiredly and lifted a shoulder. Accepting his fate, surrounded by love, at peace in a way Enrique almost envied.
“Marcello,” he said more sharply than he intended, “please don’t suck your thumb.”
His son glared at him and took two more defiant slurps before removing his thumb from his mouth.
The thumb-sucking was a regression that had occurred after Amelia’s death.
Enrique—as with most things to do with raising a child as a single parent—wasn’t quite sure how to handle it.
One part of him was sympathetic, while another part felt, acutely, the responsibility of raising a young man who would, someday, be constantly in the public eye.
Everybody had advice. People skilled about all things childhood were on nanny staff. Outside experts had been consulted. And yet, in the end, he felt very alone with this journey.
“Your nanny is nearly out of her mind with worry,” he told his son sternly. Why hadn’t he said he was nearly out of his mind with worry?
“I don’t like her,” Marcello said, with that mutinous look on his face that had become more and more familiar since the death of his mother. He scowled at Enrique, his expression saying, And I don’t much like you, either.
His son’s inexplicable antipathy toward him cut like a knife. He could not understand what had caused it, and worse, he could not seem to overcome it.
Again, he was aware of the irony of being seen as one of the most powerful men in the world, and yet he could not even coax the most reluctant of obedience—never mind affection—from his five-year-old son.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand. “We will find Miss Penny.”
But embarrassingly, Marcello rebelled, folding his arms firmly over his chest, and nestling farther under Guido’s arm.
Everybody in the room had now been placed in a terrible position, by a five-year-old!
Guido either had to force Marcello away from him, which Enrique did not want him to do, or Enrique had to repeat his order and if it was not followed, this time, physically remove his son from the bed.
He really did not want a tantrum or tears in the Olivera cottage.
The family was dealing with enough without his unruly son bringing more drama to their household.
But in a blink, before either man had to decide what to do, Gabriela cocked her head toward the open window.
“Cello,” she said, wide-eyed, “do you hear that?”
Enrique tilted his head. Gabriela had already been invited to use the nickname? Miss Penny had not.
“Hear what?” the child asked. “Birds?”
“I’m sure I hear Geraldo in the garden,” Gabriela said. “Sometimes he climbs the olive tree—probably after one of those birds! But he’s become so feeble he can’t get back down. His claws are not working right anymore. Shall we go rescue him before you go with your papa?”
Papa.
Enrique longed for that more casual endearment from his son, but no, Marcello addressed him always, formally as Father.
Enrique debated this new parenting skill Gabriela had just presented him with: Was it okay to tell a little story—even if it wasn’t true—to get your child to do what you wanted?
There was no arguing with the result. His son left the bed and placed his hand in Gabriela’s with a trust that sparked some emotion behind Enrique’s eyes, though he deliberately hardened his features as Gabriela and Marcello moved by him and into the hallway.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Guido?” he asked quietly, when the two had left the room.
“You know what I want from you,” Guido said.
I do?
“Look after what is most precious to me.”
And he could have been talking about the olive groves.
But Enrique knew he wasn’t.
“I will,” he vowed, and he knew that was already true. He would look after the Oliveras as if it was a sacred duty.
Even if it added an extra layer of complexity to the rush of feelings seeing Gabriela again had caused in him.
He moved beside the man’s bed, and took his hand.
Just like that, years evaporated and he remembered being a little boy, and finding Guido for the first time.
Their relationship had strengthened as time went by, Guido acting as a mentor, passing on his formidable volume of knowledge about the trees of this island to the heir apparent, who felt it was his duty to know.
Again, Enrique felt emotion stinging behind his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Ach,” Guido responded. “For what?”
Suddenly, Enrique wasn’t sure. For the unruly behavior of his son? No, deeper, for a loss that this entire island would feel for a long, long time. That he would feel in his own heart for the rest of his life.
“There is nothing to be sorry for,” Guido said. “My beautiful angel, Gabriela, has come home. I was blessed with a visit from Cello. The birds are singing. Geraldo, the horrible, is stuck in a tree and soon I’ll have the pleasure of hearing the Crown Prince scrambling up a tree after him.”
Impossibly, Enrique found himself going from sadness to a shared chuckle with Guido.
“I thought the cat in the tree was just a story to persuade obedience from Marcello.”
Guido’s eyebrows shot up at the insinuation that Gabriela had lied. “Can you not hear the cat? He’s making quite a racket.”
Enrique tilted his head, and sure enough the cat was now howling piteous outrage at his predicament.
“Your Majesty,” Guido said, closing his eyes, “I fear I have failed you. You must learn to hear with your heart.”
Enrique stared at the beloved old face, and felt it was, somehow, not Guido who had failed him, but he who had failed Guido.
For it had been a very long time since he had listened with his heart.
He left Guido and gave Maria a quick pat on her shoulder as he went through her aroma-filled kitchen. She responded by laying her hand on top of his and leaving it there for a moment. In that simple gesture, he felt what he had always felt here in the Olivera house: welcome, a member of the family.
He went into the garden to find Gabriela and Marcello standing beneath the thick branches and foliage of the tree, looking helplessly up at the cat, who was loudly ordering his own rescue.
“We’re not tall enough, Father,” Marcello said sadly.
It felt good to have a problem to solve for his son.
“I can put you on my shoulders,” he said. “And then you’ll be tall enough.”
His son’s whole face lit up, and Enrique crouched down and Marcello scrambled onto his shoulders. “Don’t get scratched,” he warned his son.
“He won’t scratch me!” Marcello declared. “We’re friends.”
That cat was at least seventeen years old. He had been skulking around this garden since Enrique and Gabriela were children. Enrique was pretty sure Geraldo considered all humans his servants, not his friends.
He stood up, feeling the warmth of his son’s legs on his neck, the hands folded across his forehead, the small muscles bunching as Marcello stretched upward. Enrique savored the moment, more connected to his son than he had been since Amelia’s death.
“I nearly have him,” he shouted, squirming. “Geraldo, come.”
Enrique tilted his head and peered upward.
“He won’t listen to a dog command,” Gabriela said. She made a little clicking sound with her tongue, to try to encourage the cat over the one inch that separated him from Marcello’s eager grasp, but the cat sat frozen on the branch.
Marcello settled back on his father’s shoulders. “Darn! I still can’t reach. And he won’t come. Put me down!”
Enrique set his son down, and Marcello stepped away from him.
“I suppose he’ll figure out how to get down when he gets hungry enough,” he told his son.
Marcello gave him a disdainful look that said he didn’t understand anything, which felt uncomfortably close to the truth these days.
“I know what to do!” his son declared. He gazed intently between his father and Gabriela, clearly calculating.
“Yes, it will work,” he decided. “Put Guido’s little girl on your shoulders. It will work. I know it will!”