Page 50 of The Thing About My Prince

“What’re you doing over here all by yourself?” I ask the kid when I reach him.

“They didnae look over here,” he says quietly, keeping his voice below the level of the squeals and laughter of everyone splashing around behind us.

“Who didn’t what?” I’m not entirely sure what he said.

“This patch.” He waves his muddy little arms around to indicate the area we’re standing in. “No one’s been here yet.”

“Ah. You think the cow might be here?”

He shrugs and dunks his hands back under the surface and starts rummaging around again.

“I like your thinking.” I take a breath and plunge my arms in a couple of feet away from him, closer to the grassy bank. “You’ll go far with observation and thinking skills like that.”

A cheer goes up behind us, and my young friend’s face drops.

We turn to find someone about twenty feet away holding something in the air in triumph. But once they’ve wiped the mud off, it turns out to be a balled-up old sock that might have been there for years, rather than the elusive piece of planted treasure.

“I’m Lexi, by the way,” I tell the kid.

“I know. I’m James.” He moves a leg in circles, feeling out the murky depths with his foot. “Everyone says you’re here cos you’re Prince Oliver’s girlfriend.”

Lying is bad. Lying to a kid is absolutely awful.

So I ignore the comment.

“Do you like him?” I continue to feel my way around the bank, the mud now unpleasantly lodged under my fingernails. But hey, this is still research if I get to ask questions like this.

“Dunno. Me mam says he’s a loser who’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

My stomach involuntarily tightens. “That seems a bit harsh.”

Okay, maybe the public hated his partying days. But he’s a grown man now. Can they not get over it? Because aside from that, what’s not to like? He’s effortlessly charming, says things that make me think, and his hip-thrusting action is very?—

My hand brushes something soft and squishy. But, admittedly, everything under here is soft and squishy. But this does feel a lot more like wet wool than the twigs and rocks and Lord knows what else I’ve touched.

I get my other hand on it and feel it out. Yup, this really might be cow-shaped. And the things sticking up at one end might be horns.

I look back at James, whose young brow is furrowed with deadly serious concentration, drop the treasure, and wade quickly to the left, my feet becoming more numb by the second.

“Try over there, James.” I jerk my head back to where I just was. “It’s too difficult for me there. I’ll go over here where it looks easier.”

“Aye. Ye gotta have the right technique.” He proudly plows through the water to take over where my inferior searching skills have failed.

“Ma’am?” At the sound of the deep American accent, I look up to see Dane’s large, leather boot-clad feet on the edge of the bank. “I must insist you get out. For security reasons.”

“Security reasons?” I straighten and put my muddy hands on my waist before processing it was one of the few remaining clean parts of me. “I’m fairly sure everyone here is more concerned about finding the last piece of treasure than causing an international incident.”

“Gottit!” And there, over to my right, little James is holding aloft the muddy-as-all-hell knitted cow.

The expression on his face is the most magical combination of pride, happiness, and victory. And it makes me think of the kids his age in war zones around the world who do their best to create games and find joy wherever they can.

“Ma’am.” Dane’s hand waves in front of my face. “I need to get you out of there.”

“Congratulations, James,” I call, right as his mother slogs through the mud to his side.

I wink at her, and her scowl drops to an expression of mild disappointment that I might not be so bad after all. Then she reluctantly mouthsThank you, before heaping praise on her beaming son.

As Dane hauls me out of the bog, I’m more aware than ever of how very cold I am.