Page 56 of Loyally, Luke
Maeve:If he doesn’t mind? He put a little box on the ground, gave you gloves, and helped you fulfill one of the things from your simple list? Plus he kissed you. I think he’ll MAKE time.
Ellie:Maeve, why am I crying right now? I’m not sad. I’m actually... happy? It feels like more than happy. I don’t know.
Ellie’s phone rang in her palm and she brought it to her ear as she nestled deeper into the crook of the tree, staring out at a horizon of wavy mountains.
“I am going to forgo my usual devil-may-care attitude and answer your question.” Maeve’s voice came through the phone. “Understand that you are not allowed to make fun of me after said sentimental moment, nor are you to expect a return to this type of talk, except in dire circumstances. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” Ellie said, chuckling through her response. “This conversation only happened in my mind.”
“Exactly.” Maeve drew in an audible breath as if bracing herself for the next sentence. “From the beginning, there’s been something different about this guy and the way you responded to him. He got under your skin in all the right ways, even the aggravating ones. This latest move only brings that point home all the more. Luke heard your heart and responded to it in a simple and beautiful way that shows he sees you... for you. No strings, as far as I can tell. From what you’vesaid through messages and phone calls, he seems a pretty honest kind of guy.”
“He does.” Ellie smiled at the memory of walking into work that morning and finding him mentoring not only one teenage boy but two. Jamie had brought a friend.
“So maybe you’ve convinced yourself that it was impossible that someone like him existed. That someone like him wouldn’t want someone like you for two reasons: either he was too good to overlook your past and still care about you, or the crown defined how people showed their care about you. Here’s a pretty clear example that the impossible can happen.”
“It’s still impossible, Maeve.” She leaned her head back against the tree. “I need to tell him who I really am before anything serious begins. He needs to know it’s impossible.”
“I know this is premature, but if Luke does turn out to be the man for you, what would have to happen for it to be a possibility?”
She’d tiptoed around the question in her mind, no answer resulting in a happily ever after. “I’d have to renounce my title as a working royal.”
“Which is not something you should have to do, especially after working so hard to get where you are now.”
Ellie sighed. “Find a way for my parents to accept him as my option.”
“Which they’ve done before. Your mother is a prime example.”
“Mother was a very special case of close friends to the royal family.” She looked up at the blue sky. “And if my past had been less tainted at this point, perhaps it would be a more viable option, but when they helped me through all this, my parents strongly encouraged me to find a husband with a widely known good reputation and strong Skymarian ties. I agreed to that.”
“You can change your mind, El.”
“Maeve, after all the ways they’ve supported me, this is all theyask. And it’s a good request for my future as a princess. The people need to see that sort of support for our country. Besides, I already know he wouldn’t choose a royal life, even if we could be together. It’s not him.”
“Sometimes the best people to come into our lives are the ones we least expect. The ones who we can’t see fitting, but they change everything. Even the things they don’t plan to change.”
A noise from the distance drew Ellie away from the conversation to see Luke coming across the field, hair tousling in the breeze, gaze focused on the horizon. Her heart squeezed. He was certainly unexpected. Wonderfully unexpected.
“I’ve got to go, Maeve.” Ellie kept her attention on Luke.
“Is he walking toward you through a field or something?”
Ellie sighed. “Kind of.” And with his flannel shirt casually open, blue T-shirt beneath, and his hands in his pockets, he reminded her of a few of the characters she’d seen in her recent binge-watching of various Hallmark movies.
He was the quintessential small-town hero.
The one she was supposed to end up with if her life really were a movie.
Maeve seemed to read her thoughts.
“It sounds like you need to have an important conversation with Likable Luke.”
But this wasn’t a movie. Ellie’s smile fell and she pinched her eyes closed. “Yes, I do.”
Chapter10
Going through a woman’s purse was not something with which Luke had a great deal of experience. Actually, he didn’t really want that sort of experience. A mixture of awe and terror had accompanied his perusal of Ellie’s massive bag, and he took the camera out as soon as he found it, pulling his hand back as if the mouth of the purse would close like a booby trap.
Maybe the intimidation was from being a southern boy whose mama had either used her purse as a possible weapon or protected it like a holy grail.
