Page 19

NINETEEN

Even the RPS agent had a milkshake.

When His Royal Majesty of Maine’s guess on what the girls had been permitted to eat proved to be the truth, I clung on to my temper long enough to feed the children, put them to bed, and make certain there were at least four agents keeping an eye on them. To keep my talent from erupting and seeking out the source of their misery, I took myself to the mud run, waited for the RPS to get into position to bail my ass out should I inflict injury upon myself again, and took out my frustrations on the obstacles.

Fury fueled me, and it took two complete circuits to wear myself out enough my talent settled to something I could manage.

Sometime through my first attempt, someone had summoned my sister, her husband, Madelyn, and Terry, all of whom lounged on chairs nearby to observe my efforts.

Even the RPS agent had a milkshake.

I wondered what he was doing back at the palace already, and once I determined I wouldn’t be self-combusting or taking anyone out unintentionally, I staggered over, sat on the grass, and groaned. “I thought you were tending to your wife’s every need, Terry.”

“I had been until His Royal Majesty of Maine crashed the party, sent his daughter to bed, and stole Dr. Stanton to make a treatment plan for your girls. Olivia has decided she’s their aunt, so you’re going to just have to call her your sister now. The last I checked, she was prowling the palace organizing anything she possibly can. The pregnancy hormones have taken over, and I decided it was a wise idea to swiftly retreat.”

As I generally viewed the Montana princess as someone who’d make an excellent sister, I saw no problems with Terry’s edict, although it concerned me he’d fled from his wife. “I didn’t already screw this up hitting the course rather than hovering, right?”

The RPS agent sighed, shook his head, and grabbed a bottle of water, twisting off the cap before handing it to me. “They’re going to be sleeping off breakfast, and they’re both passed out so hard the RPS agents are checking on them every few minutes out of paranoia. After you get cleaned up, you get to go work with Thunder.”

Madelyn sipped her wine glass, lifting it in salute. “I was told to keep an eye on all these royals. It seems they need adult supervision, and Terry’s off duty. He’s not allowed to be adult supervision. They only let him watch you on the course if he promised to have a milkshake and only intervene if you actually hurt yourself again. We’ve been discussing your performance.”

I was covered head to toe in mud but had somehow survived two passes of the course. As such, I grinned. “I thought I did pretty okay, honestly.”

“You beat my time on the second run,” Terry grumbled.

I regarded the agent with wide eyes. “No way.”

He nodded. “It’s true. Your first run, you were pretty slow, but it looked like you were getting warmed up. Your second run? Judging from your expression, the course had pissed you off, and you were going to teach it a thing or two about the stubbornness of New Yorkers. You did your kingdom proud—and you impressed a bunch of your court, who all fled back inside when you got near the end, in case you weren’t done being pissy yet.”

Damn. I’d been that obvious? “Yeah, I was pretty cranky when I came out here. It was the first thing I thought of that was physical.” I downed the entire bottle of water and allowed myself to flop, questioning why I had thought it had been a good idea to challenge the course twice. “Someone probably should have stopped me after once through.”

Terry chuckled. “Nobody was brave enough. You were still steaming a bit after your first run.”

“Should I apologize for that?”

“No, don’t. Everyone needs to see you’re human, and if your answer to stress is to go run off energy on the obstacle course, we’ll keep an obstacle course available year round. I did go ahead and book you for a comprehensive with Dr. Stanton after she has a rest. Once she’s done with the treatment plan for the girls, she’ll be off for the day. Jack’s going to be underfoot for today while everyone catches up on rest. He is confident he can handle us, and if he can’t, he has no problems with dragging somebody out of bed. The Hawaiians have arrived, and they brought one of their royal physicians with them to help take the load off. Apparently, two New Yorkers and two children in need of medical monitoring was more than Hawaii could handle.” Terry snickered. “They’re settling, and Monty is taking care of the integrations. Hiring for the girls will start in earnest tomorrow.”

Ethan chuckled and toasted me with his drink, a smaller version of Rachel’s milkshake. “And now that you’re off the course, I’m going to call my parents and figure out how best to get everyone sent over to California. News will start hitting the major outlets tonight. I asked the media to give us until then to get through their medical tests, and I fed them information on the results so people are aware of the situation. They’re cooperating, for which I’m grateful.”

“How much do you owe them for that level of favor?” I asked, aware the media tended to be ruthless.

“Nothing, surprisingly. The extent of their injuries and the fact you’re handling it personally was all they needed to know. However, I’m afraid you’re now the most wanted single dad in the world.”

Damn it. Somehow, I kept from glancing at Madelyn. “Terry, I need to be rescued.”

The RPS agent laughed at me. “You’ll be okay. Madelyn, this does put you in a bit of a spot, though. You will be photographed with him.”

I could feel Madelyn’s gaze on me. “Are you willing and able to reduce my ex to a crisp if he comes anywhere near me?”

Well, some questions were easier than others to answer. “Without hesitation. You might have to talk me out of punching him in the mouth first, but the reducing him to a greasy pile of ash part of things is something I’m willing and able to do. Do you want his teeth intact to identify the corpse?”

Madelyn stared at Terry with wide eyes. “Do I?”

The RPS agent saluted the woman with his milkshake. “It’s optional. He’ll just verify who he killed and why with Montana and another sensor, and it’ll be fine. Dental records can help with the identification of the body—if he was going to the dentist.”

Madelyn wrinkled her nose and made a rather disgusted face. “He really wasn’t. His breath was vile .”

“I go every three months because if I don’t, bad things happen.” I suspected one of my parents had some form of genetic issue with their teeth, as I battled more issues than normal for someone my age. “It’s a miracle I have any of my original teeth left at this stage.”

Rachel winced. “I’ve been told mine are going to be all crowned because my enamel is going extinct. They’re going to have to knock my ass out for the procedures because every time I go, I start hysterically crying.”

With how long my sister had been running around the Royal States and living in California with inadequate access to care, I wasn’t surprised by the verdict. “I’ll go with you. I’ve had some of the work done already. I want to say it’s not bad, but it’s awful, and I support you napping through the work if you can. I do not get to nap. Apparently, I’m a prince, and princes are supposed to be manly and are not allowed to cry because the dentist is armed with a loud drill.”

As desired, Rachel giggled. “Maybe if I watch Ian have the work done, I’ll stop crying at the dentist, Ethan.”

“We can try it, but I suspect you’re going to cry. It’s fine. If we have to send you off for a nap so the dentist can work without you sobbing, that’s what happens.” My brother-in-law smiled at my sister. “Just be glad that the dentist made it clear your milkshake habit had nothing to do with the state of your teeth.”

“Genetics,” Rachel spat.

“At least getting an appointment is easy,” I quipped.

The royal dentist was also a medical researcher, and he always kept the end of his day free in case one of us had some sort of issue. At my suggestion, Rachel had started booking in palace staff so everyone working for us received frequent dental care on our dime. As the dental care happened right down the street and was considered to be part of their duties and responsibilities, nobody batted an eye if one of us needed to steal a spot.

I was the most likely to steal a spot, as I had a troublesome molar scheduled to be yanked and replaced with something a little more sturdy.

Madelyn set her wine glass aside on a nearby folding table someone had brought out, grabbed her phone, and checked something on the device. “You’re due to go again, Ian.”

“I’ll go after we return from California. They’ll have to deal with a problematic tooth, and they’re going to see if they can extract and do an implant all in the same session to spare me some of the recovery time. Last I checked, they want to do my cleaning the day before, and then they’ll do the extraction. It won’t be a good time. I suggest you run away so you don’t have to deal with me whine and complain over a bland diet consisting of things I don’t have to chew and is served at room temperature.”

She wrinkled her nose, and she glared at her phone. “That sounds absolutely miserable. I will make certain the children are scheduled in first and that they are not exposed to terrible procedures so they don’t develop anxiety. You will just have to pretend like they haven’t assaulted your face with bone screws when you get your implant in.”

“I see you’re familiar with the process.”

“I had a broken tooth that had to be replaced.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if Madelyn had been given assistance breaking her tooth—and if she had, if anyone would really mind if I rearranged the bastard’s face before killing him. Rather than vocalize my thoughts, I lurched to my feet, heaved a sigh over the state of my clothes, and questioned everything. “I’m going to find the nearest hose, get most of this off, give myself a blow dry so I don’t make a huge mess of the palace, and then check on the girls. After I’m done checking on them, I’m going to visit Thunder, start working on him under saddle, assuming we have a saddle that fits him, and make a mental game plan for California. Terry? Can you ask if the ring the RPS has been using to ride in is available?”

“If it’s not, it will be. We can shuffle the schedule around you. You can’t shuffle your schedule around the girls for the next few days, so you’ll get priority access. Don’t mind the audience when you’re riding. Until Thunder settles, it’ll be your default.”

“I can handle some babysitters. It’s been long enough since I’ve ridden that I’ll need them. Do we have a riding instructor in?”

“We do. We’ve got a Texan RPS instructor in. You go get cleaned up, I’ll get your lesson planned and everyone to the arena. Madelyn, stay with him. He should be fine, but we like to keep a close eye on the touchy New Yorkers during stressful events, and if His Royal Highness is stressed enough he’s beating me at the mud run to work out his energy, he could go from fine to exhausted. Just give me a call if he has any issues.”

Madelyn hopped to her feet, picked up her wine glass, and saluted the RPS agent. “He’s in good hands, so don’t you worry. What clothes do you want him in for riding?”

“Let him destroy one of those suits he hates. He’s due to be fitted, and I’m pretty sure even his clothes are a source of baggage at this point.” Terry got to his feet. “Your Majesties, if you want a turn at the mud run, go for it. You could both use some exercise. Do it as a pair. Try not to fling your wife off the net because you can. If you make it through it once and then want to try to beat Ian’s time, you get an extra milkshake before bed.”

Rachel whooped, surged to her feet, and bolted for the mud run. “You snooze, you lose, Ethan!”

I gave it five minutes before the pair turned the obstacle course into a flirtation fest, resulting in the royals heading to their suite to work out their energy in private. Shaking my head over the whole situation, I headed in the direction of the garden in search of a hose.

* * *

My little girls might run the kingdom out of chicken noodle soup, and my first real task as a father was to stand my ass in the kitchen and learn how to make it for them. The chefs, upon learning I intended to roll my sleeves up and dive in, waged an amusing thumb war battle amongst themselves to decide who would be stuck teaching me. At first, I feared their enthusiasm was to escape, but the first elimination, which resulted in disappointment from the loser, corrected my initial impression.

“You can help teach me how to make ice cream,” I whispered to the woman when she came close to me during her regular duties. “If chicken noodle soup excites them this much, ice cream is going to drive them both wild.”

“Once they get clearance to have it, I’d love to teach you how to make it,” she replied, and she grinned at me. “Most of us came from a teaching school, and we love having chances to help others learn how to cook.”

I regarded her with interest. “I am sure the palace is full of staffers who would love to learn how to cook but don’t have the time they’d like. I’ll talk with my sister about it. If you all just want people to teach, we can find you people to teach—including volunteers at the shelters and soup kitchens in the city.”

“We love a good challenge.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Soup kitchens have limited ingredients. That is the ultimate challenge for a good chef.”

I feared I had sparked a flame, one that would somehow find a way to bite me in the ass later. “Since you were the first eliminated, why don’t you make up a proposal about how the royal kitchen can help improve things for soup kitchens? Include ingredient lists, how we can help the soup kitchens and shelters, and include orphanages in the outreach.”

If my little girls faced starvation, they weren’t the only ones, and I could throw my weight around as the heir to make change happen. I’d just have to dance around so my sister didn’t catch me in the act until it was time to involve the politicians.

“I can do that. Thank you, Your Highness.”

“In the kitchen, just go with Ian, especially if the girls are underfoot. Ideally, they won’t realize they’re princesses for at least five years,” I muttered.

She laughed. “You can call me Lily if you’d like.”

“I prefer names over titles unless I’m trying to convince the physician to leave me alone,” I quipped.

While it took ten minutes, Vincent LaRonde, the palace’s lead chef for all things European cuisine, emerged as the victor and sent everyone off to start preparing for lunch and dinner. I’d caught the older man in the kitchen, late at night, battling recipes that typically took wine for alternatives good enough for me and my sister, something that’d earned my trust.

My sister remained clueless about the man and his choices.

I suspected Vincent had been the mastermind behind the honeyed salmon recipe when he’d first come to the palace as a prep chef.

He wasn’t that much older than me.

“I had no idea thumb war was such serious business in a kitchen,” I informed him while several of the other chefs began hauling over bags of vegetables and setting them in the prep station for us to work with.

The current prep chefs would move their stations elsewhere in the kitchen until we finished making soup for the girls.

His Royal Majesty of Maine thought I’d get three or four more days of quiet before the peace came crashing to a halt and the girls recovered enough to want to get into trouble. In the meantime, my job would be to provide soup for them whenever they woke up, feed them as much as they would eat, help them bathe, and put them back to bed. While I questioned the three to five times a day of taking a bath, the girls loved soaking in the tub and playing with rubber duckies together.

I suspected the routine was more about their emotional health than their physical health, and if bubble baths with rubber duckies worked, they’d get bubble baths with rubber duckies.

The first bath I’d navigated with some help from Maine’s king. The second one, I’d developed a hint of wisdom and summoned Madelyn to assist, especially with the scrubbing portions. Danielle allowed me to help her without issue, but May flinched.

I read between the lines, beginning the search of a therapist that would be able to help them both overcome the consequences of abuse.

No matter how often I’d been struck, no matter how many times my parents had attempted to break me through physical violence, neither of them had ever tolerated even the hint of sexual assault or any form of sexual abuse. If even a hint of a rumor of sexual violence had happened in their court, it had been dealt with immediately and without mercy towards the accused.

Back then, New York had liked making Montana dance to its tune, and due to the nature of the accusations, Montana had participated without hesitation.

My parents had been many things, but they had made it clear from the start: New Yorkers only accepted willing partners.

Even Sylvia, while pushy, entitled, and spoiled, had understood that.

Some days, I missed my sister despite all her flaws. Every time I questioned if I might ever be a decent person, she had reminded me of what I wished to avoid becoming. And because of her—and my parents—I had picked a different path.

All my siblings had played their parts in the man I’d become.

“The hardest thing in the world is to be a good father,” Vincent informed me in a gentle voice, and he rummaged through a huge paper bag labeled as sweet onions, setting five of them in front of me. “You’re going to have it harder than most fathers. Those girls need the sort of gentle hand I don’t think most people are capable of giving them. Me? My brats cause me trouble, and I will raise my voice at them and sharpen my tone. They, spoiled little shits that they are, laugh at me. But they know where the line is, and they toe it because I am raising them to do so. I want them questioning my edicts as a parent. I also want them to respect my authority as the payer of bills, bringer of life, and the person who cooks them food they like rather than torturing them with foods they dislike. We don’t waste food in my house, and I’ve found I can absolutely win most arguments by informing them what the consequences of their behavior will be. Last night, we had clam linguine. Do you know what all my children hate? Clams. Even my wife hates clams. You know what everyone ate? Clams.”

“What did your wife do to get punished, too?”

Vincent laughed. “I didn’t immediately go into work yesterday upon hearing news of the kids. She yelled at me.”

I raised a brow. “It was your day off. You get those.”

“Ah, yes, but I am the master of all things soup. She was abused as a child, and she took her stress out on me. So, she requested punishment about an hour after we had our spat.”

Even I recognized when the man had gotten the wrong kind of idea regarding the sort of punishment his wife wanted. “Vincent.”

He grinned. “In good news, you just passed one of my tests. You recognized one of the common pitfalls of being a father. When a mother figure comes along, you will need to identify dangerous situations like that. And yes, she got what she wanted, but only after suffering through clam linguine first. We’re trying for another kid, although luck hasn’t been with us so far. Our youngest is a year and a half old, and we usually wait two years before adding to the fray. She’s worried about menopause, so we started a few months ago.”

“Make an appointment with Dr. Stanton or Melody,” I suggested. “It might have to wait until after my trip to California, but between the two of them, I’m sure they can handle any issues. And if you are concerned there might be complications during the pregnancy, just notify HR that your wife needs some extra care.” That was standard in the palace, although I found myself reminding hopeful parents-to-be to use the benefits we offered.

Times had changed since my parents had abandoned ship, and the palace staff often forgot that.

“I’ll do that, thanks. So, what do you know about cooking?”

“I can handle following instructions on prepackaged foods without issue. I use the kitchen at my apartment with frightening regularity, but I don’t know how to make anything from scratch.”

“You’re much better than the other royal disasters roaming around this palace, so that’s good enough. I’m going to teach you how to properly cut all the vegetables, because you’re probably doing it wrong. Texture is a big deal to kids, so learning how to cut vegetables properly will heavily lessen the risk of texture rejection.”

“Danielle and May are so starved at this point that I don’t think they care what the texture is as long as they’re being fed,” I admitted, and I sighed. “We suspect they only know how to eat soup right now.”

“In good news, soup is excellent for them. We can balance their nutritional needs well enough, and they’ll stay hydrated. You’re winning most of the battles and the war with this as a starting point. We’re going to make cheating soup to start with.”

“Cheating soup?” I asked, eyeing the onions. “My version of cheating is opening a can, Vincent.”

He chuckled, went to the kitchen pantry, and pulled out several boxes of liquid chicken stock. “After dinner, we will be making mass batches of chicken and beef stocks for the freezer. We’ll condense it, so all you’ll have to do is take it out of the freezer, add some water, and bring it up to a boil so the vegetables can cook. Today, we’re using boxes from the store. We just don’t have the time to make the stock properly, and this is good enough.”

“This looks deceptively simple.” I eyed the boxes of stock. “Isn’t that the hard part?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. The stock is the hard part. First, we’re going to dice the onions. As the girls aren’t used to chewing much, we’ll work them up to chicken stew from soups. By the time we introduce stews to them, they’ll be used to having large enough pieces in their soup to be worth chewing. For now, we have extra cutting ahead of us.” Vincent proceeded to show me how to slice an onion, following the rib lines of the onion for the initial cuts before cutting them into tiny squares. The carrots, at least, were cut in a way I expected, relieving me that I’d accidentally gotten something right. The garlic threw me for a loop, especially upon learning I wasn’t supposed to just smash them with my knife and throw them in with the onions.

The garlic was to be sauteed last, and only until it became slightly fragrant.

Unlike my home cooking adventures, he had me prepare all the ingredients in advance, including the chicken, which we’d be pan roasting as legs and thighs. “Why not breasts?”

“The breasts are something we’ll use later as they gain a little weight. Dark meat has a higher fat content, which is what they need right now. Normally, I would make the soup with breasts, but they need the dark meat right now. The breasts have more protein, but they’re going to be getting their protein from shakes for the next few days, so we don’t have to worry about that quite yet.”

I eyed the pile of vegetables, which formed mountains in each of the preparation bowls. “This appears to be a rather insane amount of soup.”

“We’re going to be freezing a lot of it, as I want you to be able to stagger in here in the middle of the night, hit the freezer, and have them eating something within twenty minutes. And if you get peckish in the middle of the night, you’ll have a snack within your skill levels. For the next six months, we’re going to have a chef in the kitchen around the clock, and we’ll reevaluate things then. We absolutely do not mind royalty in the kitchen learning how to be independent people. We do mind if the royalty run a high risk of burning the palace down.”

“I’m the first to admit that I’m all right with someone being around making certain I don’t burn the palace down from trying to cook .” I pointed at the pile of onions. “But why so many onions?”

“I am not sure why Dr. Stanton asked for there to be a high percentage of onions in the soup,” he admitted. “But it’s sweet onions, they’re tasty, and I can make this work, especially once we caramelize them. But first, we’re going to shake jars for twenty minutes or until we have butter, whichever comes first.”

“We’re going to do what?”

“We’re making butter. It’s fun, relieves stress, and tastes better than the shit that comes from the store. We need the butter to caramelize the onions. Just trust me.”

I considered the man through narrowed eyes. “This is appeasing the fact we couldn’t make stock for this, isn’t it?”

Vincent bowed his head, sighed, and after a few moments, he nodded. “It really is. We have plenty of butter in the refrigerator.”

“If making butter makes you happy, then I guess we shake jars until butter appears. But are you sure this is how this actually works?”

“It is. And wait until it starts solidifying but hasn’t turned to butter quite yet. I’m going to end up losing a jar to you, mark my words.”

“Are you really sure we need butter?” I asked, unable to keep the doubt out of my voice.

“I’m sure. Just trust me.”

“If someone tells me that butter wasn’t needed for the recipe, we’re taking this to the mud course,” I warned.

Vincent snickered. “Go ahead and try me at the mud course if you dare, Ian.”

“What do I get if I beat you?”

“Cooking lessons three times a week with your children,” he offered.

“Should you beat me, I’ll send you and your family on a two week vacation, fully paid. I am not letting some chef beat me.”

“You are going to regret this, but I’ll be kind and give you the cooking lessons anyway.”