Page 21 of A Valiant Prince

She laughs and shrugs. “The dough feels good on my joints,” she says with a wink. I shake my head and sit down at the old oak table.

“When does Pops get home?” I ask.

“He should be home any minute,” she says. “Will you be able to stay long?”

I shake my head. “No. Unfortunately, I have some business to attend to. I just wanted to stop in and see you,” I say.

“What business is that, dear?” she asks.

I haven’t told them. They have no idea that their grandson is the heir to a European throne or that their daughter was the secret queen of a small country called Montelandia.

“Are you going to invite your friend in, or does she have to stay in the car?” my nana asks with a raised eyebrow.

I curse under my breath. That woman doesn’t miss a thing…except when it came to her daughter.

“I wasn’t going to be long,” I explain. She gives me a sharp look.

“Eddie, you came all this way. The least you can do is stay for dinner,” she scolds.

I sigh. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go get her,” I say as I stand to walk toward the front door.

I’m greeted by an entertaining sight. Anna is not in the car any longer. She is standing next to it speaking to my pops. She points to the tree in the front yard, and he nods enthusiastically. She whistles or bird calls, and he does the same. A small bird flies over to the light post on the side of the driveway, and she snaps a photo of it with her phone and shows him. He nods and smiles at her.

“Come on in,” he says to her. “No point in waiting out here. Besides, if I know my Vera, she will insist you both stay for dinner.”

Anna smiles at him. “I’d like that, Mr. Winters,” she says.

He chuckles. “Please call me Ned or Pops,” he insists.

She grins and links her arm through his. “Well, Pops, it would be my pleasure to stay for dinner,” she says as they begin to walk toward me. I step forward, and she looks up at me. I can see she is unsure if going with Pops was the right thing to do.

“Looks like we’ll be dining here,” I say to her.

Pops leans over and winks at her. “See, I told you so,” he says with a chuckle.

They look like old friends, bosom buddies from another lifetime. I open the door for them, and we all walk back into the kitchen to sit. Nana has put the bread in the oven. She washes her hands and turns to greets us.

“And you must be Anna,” she says with a warm smile as she embraces her.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Winters,” Anna says, her voice muffled against my nana’s hair.

“Oh no, please call me Vera or Nana,” she says.

She clasps her hands with Anna’s. “Very well, thank you for having me for dinner, Nana,” she says.

Nana is delighted and ushers us with glasses of tea into the living room. She pulls out a photo album, and I groan.

“Nana,” I say pointedly.

She tosses her hand at me. “Pay no attention to him. He almost never brings girls home. So, he’ll just have to suffer through,” she says as she sits down next to Anna and begins to show her photos of me.

Ten embarrassingly long minutes later, Anna stops my grandmother. “When was this taken?” she asks.

My grandmother looks down and before she can answer, I say, “At Camp Wittakundi.”

Anna freezes. “Y-you went to Camp Wittakundi as a kid?” she stammers and leans over to get a better look at the photograph. It’s one of the few that I was allowed during my pre-teen/teenage years.

“Oh, yes. Eddie went every year for gosh, let me see, three or four years, Eddie?” Nana asks me.

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