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But I can’t do that to Sylvie.
The man nods and gives me a winsome smile. His silly mustache goes crooked, and I bite back a laugh.
“Thank you,” he says with a nod.
“Welcome to West Virginia.”
The prince stares at me for one more moment, hesitating.
I lift the gate, though he hasn’t paid his toll. Then he puts his little car in gear and heads down the road.
I watch him disappear around the next bend.
My radio crackles. “Who was that guy?”
I think about telling Sylvie who that was. I really do. But I’m still not absolutely sure it’s the Favored Prince. Judging by the Party City mustache, he doesn’t want anyone to know where he is.
“I thought it was someone I knew. But he’s just another lost kayaker, Sylvie.”
5
Torben
I made it.
And now what?
Here I am, staring out the chintz-draped window in the fussy, neo-Georgian hotel room when every inch of me would rather be sitting in a tollbooth.
The Thistle Rock Inn has an old-world charm that my parents would love. It’s a bit stodgy and dated for my taste, but the remoteness is critical. The nearest Hilton won’t do. A bustling city hotel lobby where anyone can come and go as they please? I’d be discovered in moments.
Here, high up in the mountains where the GPS fails, it’s easier to stay hidden. Even if I’m discovered, the paps will get lost.
The only problem now? I’m cooped up in a sparsely populated resort, feeling restless.
Gods, I can’t breathe in this room.
I go downstairs to the lobby to stroll along the wide veranda overlooking the rose garden. Here, an elderly couple sits at a table and reads the newspaper together under an umbrella.
I nod at the couple when they look up at me, then tug my hat down closer to my eyes. They seem happy to be silent in each other’s company.
A twinge of longing hits me as I sit near the vine-covered railing. I failed to catch the tollbooth woman’s name, yet I presume she would not be comfortable with companionable silence, even at 6:45 a.m., when I relish silence with my coffee. The tollbooth lady is a chatty one.
Yet her chatter charmed me. And her whiskey-colored eyes and easy smile have me totally captivated.
The twinge grows to an ache when I look back at the elderly couple. The woman passes the paper’s sports section to her husband, and he smiles, takes the sports section, and hands her the global news that he’s just finished reading.
They don’t exchange words; they seem to know what the other is thinking.
I crave what those old people have.
I want the small, comforting moments in between bouts of chaos in a home full of children, joy, and laughter.
The woman reading the global news section of the paper suddenly looks up at me, eyebrows raised. She glances back down at the article, then back up at me again.
Uh oh.
I nod politely, then stand to stretch my legs, pivoting away from her. She’s right between me and the lobby entrance, so my only escape is to stare blandly at the garden, hoping she’ll give up and leave me alone.
