"You should have told us you were coming." With a pleased smile, the buxom Elena marched over to embrace him. Stepping back, she held him at arm's length, studying him critically.
"You look a little thinner than when I last saw you. What are they feeding you up at that palace?"
"Leave the man alone," Santiago chided his wife as he came to clap a hand on Tomas's shoulder. "You'd better come on in. She's going to start cooking up a storm."
"That's good because I'm yet to break my fast." He hefted the bags he had brought with him. "And I come bearing gifts."
Blushing in delight, Elena hugged him again. "You're such a blessing. Come in, please."
While Elena bustled around the homely kitchen preparing the meal, Tomas and Santiago retired to the back porch overlookingthe majority of the land and sharing the packet of cigars he had brought with him.
"It's been a good year," Santiago remarked, puffing out smoke, dark eyes narrowed as it filtered upward. "The winter's going to be brutal." He muttered something in Spanish as he continued to eye the crops. "I'm thinking of adding chickpeas come spring."
Tomas cast the man an amused glance. "I thought you were cutting back."
Santiago sent a furtive look over his shoulder to make certain his wife was not within hearing distance. "I keep telling Elena that, but aside from being on the wrong side of sixty and legally blind in one eye, I'm perfectly healthy. What else am I going to do?" he complained. "Sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs?"
"You could try taking a cruise. Or buying a boat and taking up fishing."
The older man's response was an indelicate snort.
"I'm not cut out for that sort of thing. The kids are grown, the grandchildren are teenagers who hardly visit, because they claim the place is too isolated for them." He shook his head and puffed some more.
"They prefer the city. If we want to see them, we have to traipse all the way to Madrid, which means going out of our way. The wife is more eager than I am to travel. I love this place." He glanced at the young man who had made it possible to have a home and make a life for him and his family.
He knew what people thought of the prince. He had read the various magazines and how they classified him. But he knew better. Tomas was not like his wretch of a father, even though the king had tried his bloody best to mold the boy into his own image. The prince had a heart of gold and a compassionate nature a mile wide.
"You have something on your mind."
Leaning back against the soft, well-washed cushions in the ladder-back chair, he lifted a brow. "Which implies that my mind is usually empty?"
Brushing that aside, Santiago stretched his legs out and faced the prince squarely. "Whenever you drop by for an unscheduled visit, I know something is bothering you. You're not that difficult to read."
"I could take umbrage with that. I had no idea I was this predictable."
"I've known you since you were in diapers," Santiago pointed out.
It occurred to Tomas that the man seated next to him was the only person who could get away with talking to him this way. Santiago and his wife did not see him as a prince, but as a human being, someone who was more than his title.
"Something you constantly remind me of," he said dryly. Tilting his head back, he glanced at the leaden sky and wondered if they were going to get some rain. His mind drifted back to last night and the woman he had reluctantly left in bed.
"I met someone."
"She's special."
It was a statement, not a question, and proved how much the man knew him.
"Surprisingly so. She's not my usual type."
"You mean she's not one of those false and snotty society types who's after you for what you can do for them." The scorn in the man's voice had Tomas smiling.
"Something like that," he acknowledged. "She works for my mother."
"I see. An employee."
Tomas turned his head and met the man's gaze.
"I never usually-" He sighed softly. "This is uncharted territory for me. She wants to keep our relationship a secret."
