To Dance with a Prince by Cara Colter Page B

the palace something in him had opened.
    He had made a decision to embrace whatever the day held.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter if you want to or not. Andy does.”
    â€œBut why does he?” he asked.
    â€œBecause he likes having fun .”
    â€œOh, I see. There’s nothing stuffy or stodgy about our man, Andy.”
    â€œExactly,” she said, and beamed at him with the delight of a teacher who had just helped a child solve a difficult problem. “Andy, you and I are about to give new meaning to Dancing with Heaven .”
    â€œI don’t know the old meaning, Molly.”
    â€œYou’ve never seen Dancing with Heaven ? It’s a movie. A classic romantic finding-your-true-self movie that has dance at its heart. It starred Kevin McConnell.”
    He didn’t care for the dreamy way she said that name.
    â€œI’ll have to put watching Dancing with Heaven on your homework list.”
    â€œAndy doesn’t like homework.”
    â€œThat’s true.”
    â€œHe likes playing hooky. But when he’s at school?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œHe winks at the teacher and makes her blush.”
    â€œOh-oh,” she said.
    â€œHe likes motorcycles, and black leather, driving too fast, and breaking rules.”
    â€œMy, my.”
    â€œHe likes loud music and smoky bars, and girls in too-short skirts and low-cut tops who wiggle their hips when they dance.”
    â€œOh, dear.”
    â€œHe thumbs his nose at convention. He’s cooled off in the town fountain on the Summer Day celebrations, disobeyed the Keep Off signs at Landers Rock, kept his hat on while they sing the national anthem.”
    â€œThat’s Andy, all right.”
    â€œHe likes swimming in the sea. Naked. In the moonlight.”
    Unless he was mistaken, Meredith gulped a little before she said, “I’ve created a monster.”
    â€œYou should be more careful who you run away with, Molly.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œBut they say every woman loves a bad boy.”
    Something in her face closed. She frowned at the road. Kiernan realized how very little he knew about her, which was strange because he felt as if he knew her deeply.
    â€œDo you have a boyfriend?” He hadn’t thought to ask her that before. There were no rings on her fingers, so he had assumed she was single. Now he wondered why he had assumed that, and wondered at why he was holding his breath waiting for her answer.
    â€œI’m single.” Her hands tightened on the wheel.
    â€œI’m surprised.” But ridiculously relieved . What was that about, since if ever there was a man sworn off love it was him? Why would he care about her marital status?
    Only because, he assured himself, he didn’t even want to think about her with a bad boy.
    She hesitated, looked straight ahead. “I became pregnant when I was sixteen. The father abandoned me. It has a way of souring a person on romance.” He heard the hollowness in her voice, but he could hear something more.
    Unbearable pain. And suddenly his concern for protecting his own damaged heart evaporated.
    â€œAnd the baby?” he asked quietly. Somehow he knew this woman could never have an abortion. Never.
    And that adoption seemed unlikely, too. There was something about the fierce passion of that first dance he had witnessed her performing that let him know that. She would hold on to what she loved, no matter what the cost to her.
    He glanced at her face. She was struggling for control. There was something she didn’t want to tell him, and suddenly, with an intuition that surprised him, he knew it was about the shadow that he so often saw marring the light in her eyes.
    He held his breath, again, wanting, no, needing to know that somehow she had come to trust him as much as he had come to trust her, even if it was with the same reluctance.
    â€œIt was a little girl. I kept her,” she whispered. “Maybe a foolish thing to do. My