Page 15 of A True King

“Go back to the cottage just past theirs,” she commands.

Logan and I give her a curious look. She doesn’t have time to explain as the car reverses back down the lane and comes to a stop. She pops out while Cain struggles to get in front of her.

Logan is on her heels a moment later and I struggle to get out after them. “What are you doing?” I ask loudly as I slam the car door and stare up at the small home. It’s only one story and has a door with a square window in it.

“I’m finding Mia,” Anna huffs as she knocks on the door.

An elderly woman answers. “May I help you?”

“Hello, Mrs. Simpson? My name is Anna and I’m friends with Mia Edgewater. I was just up at the Edgewaters’ home, and I remembered Mia had once mentioned you told her about a place you liked to vacation in the Caribbean. Well, she’s not home and Marilyn couldn’t remember it. So, I’m terribly sorry to just barge in on you like this, but I just couldn’t resist stopping to ask on my way out.”

Mrs. Simpson looks shocked by both Anna’s strange question and by her entire entourage. I know the minute she realizes who we are, and I grimace as her eyes widen.

“Oh, dear. Oh, my. You’re Princess Susanna of Norddale!” she exclaims. “Please, please, come in.”

Anna turns and sticks her tongue out at me. I glare at her, and Logan groans. Grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary, she waltzes inside, and we follow.

Mrs. Simpson motions to some chairs in a front room and we sit as she picks up a photo sitting atop a piano.

“This is Stewart and me on our last trip to Vieques. It’s the one I showed to Mia a few years ago. I told her all about this little guesthouse overlooking a cliffy shoreline. And how there were barely any tourists there and it was so peaceful. And the beaches are just gorgeous.”

She hands Anna the photo.

“It looks lovely. This is an island off Puerto Rico, yes?”

Mrs. Simpson nods and launches into the story of how she found it through a friend of a friend. We sit and politely listen.

“And then we ended up going and we just fell in love with it. We typically go every year, but Stewart had to have a procedure this year, so we didn’t go. Hopefully, they found someone to rent it. We were supposed to be on holiday there all this month.”

Anna looks at me and I know at that moment exactly where Mia is. But I have no idea how Anna figured this out.

“Well, thank you so very much for sharing this with me. I’ll have to check it out someday,” Anna says with a grin as she stands and shakes Mrs. Simpson’s hand.

“It was lovely meeting you all. Feel free to stop by and visit anytime you are in town,” Mrs. Simpson adds as she shows us the door.

We pile back into the car and begin heading toward the airport. Anna doesn’t even bat an eyelash in my direction as she taps away again on her phone.

“You gonna share how you knew that?” I finally ask.

She glances over her phone at me and shrugs. “It didn’t dawn on me until we were pulling up to the Edgewaters’ house that I should check out the three neighboring properties. I did a remote search on the neighbors and the info came back that the Simpsons had been regularly going to Puerto Rico for the last twenty years. I figured it was worth inquiring since I’m sure the Edgewaters know where their neighbors vacation, and if Mia knew…well, it could be a possibility.”

“I think she’s there,” I confess.

Anna sets her phone down in her lap and looks over at Logan. I feel a silent conversation occur between them. Sighing, Anna looks back up at me.

“I’m pregnant.”

I feel my face scrunch in confusion. “What?”

“I’m pregnant. Baby, in here,” she says, motioning to her belly.

“What? When? How?” The words spew from my lips without any thought behind them.

Anna rolls her eyes. “Well, when a man and woman love each—”

I glare at her, and she stops speaking.

Logan clears his throat. “It’s early. We only found out three weeks ago. We were going to wait at least another week or two before saying anything.”

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