“Is Rowena in her office?” he asked Tricia.
“She’s home sick today. Caught the flu. It’s nearly impossible to avoid in this line of work. I swear I spend ninety percent of my life fighting the sniffles.”
“Cowin!”
Colin turned to see Dylan hobbling over excitedly, faster than a walk, but not quite a run. Despite all the kid had been through in his short life, he sure seemed happy all the time.
“Hey, bud,” Colin said, surprised when Dylan threw himself at his legs, hugging them hard. For a kid so frail-looking, he had one hell of a grip.
He gazed up at Colin, frowned and said, “Mommy sick.”
“I know. Do you think I should go back to the mansion and check on her?”
Dylan’s eyes lit up. “Me, too! Me, too!”
“No way, kiddo,” Tricia said. “You know your mommy wants you to stay down here with me.”
His lower lip curled into a pout and Tricia pried him from Colin’s legs, scooping him up onto her hip. Then she grinned at Colin and said, “I’ll bet, if you ask nice, Colin would give Mommy a kiss for you.”
“Kiss Mommy! Kiss Mommy!”
“But don’t girls have cooties?” Colin asked.
Dylan giggled. “Not mommies.”
The little girl Dylan had been playing with called his name, so he wiggled out of Tricia’s arms and hobbled back to the sandbox.
“It’s a little late in the game to be worrying about cooties, don’t you think?” Tricia said. “What with all the swimming you two have been doing. But don’t worry, my lips are sealed. This is the happiest I’ve seen her in a really long time.”
And he was happy to be the person making her happy.
“I brought these for the day care,” he said, handing Tricia the box. “It’s just some old books I thought the children might like.”
“Thank you, Colin!” She looked at the address on the label. “You ordered them all the way from England?”
“Actually these are the books I had when I was a boy.”
“That’s so nice of you to do. Are you sure you don’t want to save them for when you have kids?”
“I’m sure.” He didn’t know if he would ever have children of his own. That would require settling down, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do that. He had a friend from the army who had started his own private security firm, and he wanted Colin to come work for him. He hadn’t given him an answer yet, but now that he was nearly recuperated, he had to give some serious thought as to what he planned to do next.
“Well, I should go,” he said, walking to the gate. “Enjoy the books.”
“Hey, Colin?” Tricia said.
He turned back to her.
“Rowena seems tough, but she’s actually very vulnerable.”
He’d figured that out pretty early in the game. “I know that.”
“I’ve never seen her so happy, but this is also a very difficult time for her. If you take advantage of her, or hurt her, royal or not, I will hunt you down and make you pay.”
He didn’t bother to point out that two people rarely went into a relationship of any kind expecting to hurt each other, yet it did happen from time to time.
He walked back up to the mansion, running into Betty on his way past the kitchen.
“I don’t suppose you’re on your way upstairs,” she said.
“I am, actually.”
“Could you do me a favor? I don’t know if you heard, but Rowena isn’t feeling well. Could you stop by her suite and give her these?” She dropped a stack of clean linens and blankets in his arms. “With the rain coming my arthritis is bad, especially going up and down all those stairs. Would you mind?”
“No, not at all. As long as you don’t think she’ll mind.”
“I think we both know the answer to that,” Betty said, giving him a wink.
“Did Rowena tell you…?”
She smiled and patted his arm. “She didn’t have to.”
And by sending Colin up with the linens, she’d given him the perfect excuse to see her.
“Thanks, Betty.”
She just smiled. “If she needs anything, you tell her to call down.”
Colin walked upstairs and knocked on the door to Rowena’s suite. He heard an incoherent mumble from the other side and, assuming it was an invitation, he let himself in. The television was on and Rowena was curled up in a ball on the couch, an afghan tucked tightly around her, eyes closed, looking pale and listless.
“Caught a bug, have we?” he said.
Her eyes fluttered open, and when she saw that it was him standing there, she gasped and pulled the covers over her head, mumbling from underneath, “What are you doing here?”