Page 26 of The Stolen Princess
Grady must’ve been thinking the same thing, because he asked, “Do you think the princess is here?”
“Arco said she’d be here, so I guess she is.” But Drake didn’t see anyone who looked like she could be a princess. Instead, he saw regular women wearing gray working-class dresses.
Grady slowed to a stop in front of a booth selling pots and food. He picked up a small bag of pine nuts labeled,cinnamon, and smelled it. “I love these things.”
Drake’s mouth stretched into a frown as he studied Grady. “You can get those anywhere.”
Grady shook his head, making his chin length brown hair flow back and forth. “Once we leave for the camp, I won’t be able to get them. I’m going to buy some.”
The man behind the booth saw his eagerness and began placing other food items in front of Grady.
“I’d like to look at your cast iron pots,” Grady said to the man. “And do you have salt?”
The seller placed a few different sized pots in front of them. “No salt here.”
“I’ll go down the next aisle and get salt,” Drake said, moving on. “I’ll meet up with you at the inn.”
He didn’t wait for Grady’s answer. He rounded the corner, looking at a booth seven tables wide. A variety of food, spices, herbs, seeds, and treats were lined up across the counters. Behind the tables, dresses, pants, shirts, blankets, and cloaks hung on outstretched clotheslines. The banner on the middle table said,The Tolsten House Shop. He could buy the salt there, but he preferred not to support Tolsten House or the king. He’d rather give his money to someone from the working class.
Drake continued down the aisle, looking at each booth. He stopped in front of one with bottles of medicines and spices, picking up a glass bottle with the wordsaltscribbled across it in wobbly handwriting.
“How much for the salt?” he asked the worker who had her back to him.
The girl spun around, and her vibrant blue eyes went wide.
“Mya?” he said, unable to hide his excitement. For the last month, Drake hadn’t been able to get the girl out of his head, and here she was, standing in front of him selling salt. “Is this your booth?”
She looked both ways like she was nervous about something then her eyes glanced back to him. “Do I know you?”
Her words were like a slap to the face. “You don’t remember me?”
She looked down, rearranging the bottles in front of her for no reason at all. “No. I’ve never seen you before.”
Drake raised his eyebrows. “You’ve never seen me?”
She peeked up at him, shaking her head. “Nope.”
He didn’t understand why Mya would pretend that she didn’t know who he was.
“You shot me in the arm about a month ago. How could you forget something like that?”
An indifferent expression fell across her face as she continued to rearrange the products in front of her. “It doesn’t sound familiar.”
Her complete dismissal of him and the time they’d spent together bugged him. Women didn’t usuallyforgethim. “It doesn’t sound familiar?” he repeated.
She stopped with the rearranging and looked up, meeting his gaze. “No. I’m an excellent shot, so me shooting someone in the arm doesn’t sound likely. Unless, of course, it was on purpose.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed in on her as she bit back a smile. He’d been involved in enough interrogations to know the girl was lying to him, but what he couldn’t understand was why she would pretend like they had never met before.
Fine.
Drake could play this game too.
“I guess I must be confusing you with someone else,” he said.
Mya scratched the side of her neck. “Yes, I think so.”
“Yes, some crazy woman who doesn’t know how to handle a gun.”
