Free Pregnant with the Prince's Child by Raye Morgan Page B

frowned. That and a half-crown coin might get him a pint at the local pub.
    Hey. He smiled wryly to himself. Maybe it actually would. Maybe people did give princes free food and drink just for showing up at their place. If so, it might actually be worth something.
    But he had to get serious and be practical. Did he really want to become a prince and go to live in the castle with the rest of the royal family? Offhand, he didn’t think he was suited for the job. It seemed superfluous. He had half a mind to tell them to take their royal crown and… Well, if he did turn it down, he probably wouldn’t be quite that rude about it. But he was tempted just to say no.
    And yet, he didn’t want to be too impulsive. What if there were more to it? What if he could step in and find an important job to do? What if being royal could really put him into a position where he could make a difference?
    Probably a pipe dream. Still, this was all sort of interesting, being tapped as a possible lost prince and all. It wasn’t quite as good as being a war hero, of course, but it was something. He’d been told he’d done some pretty good things in the war, and he hoped that was true. But what good did it do if you couldn’t remember it?
    When you got right down to it, it all seemed so pointless. He’d never wanted to be a prince. Most of his childhood had been spent wanting desperately to be a football star. As that dream died, others took its place. He wanted to be a fireman. Then an astronaut. And finally he’d settled on architecture. He’d had a thriving business, but the war had loomed and he remembered thinking being a spy would be great fun. They told him that was exactly what he’d become, though he didn’t remember it at all.
    But a prince? No, that had never been on his horizon and he wasn’t really sure what royalty did beside stand around and look important. Was it really a full-time job? Or were you allowed to follow other pursuits on the side? Someone would have to explain all these little details to him at some point, and then he would make the final determination whether he would submit to the royal rigmarole or not.
    Still, it wasn’t really filling his mind with eager thoughts. In some ways, it seemed almost irrelevant. His own two lost years were more of an obsession. That was what he couldn’t stop thinking about. Where had he been? What had he done? Whom had he offended? Whom had he made love to?
    Two years. A lot could happen in that amount of time. He could remember how excited he’d been to begin his military career. He’d prepared himself in every way he could think of. He’d worked out and read books and agonized over his own belief system. He’d filled out the paperwork.
    And then—nothing. It was as though he’d walked through a door into another world and stayed there for two years. Now he was back and he wanted to retrieve what he’d lost.
    Loss. The word resonated with him. Yes, that was what he was feeling, why he was so restless and dissatisfied. He felt loss—and not just of time and experience. He felt a deep, dark, aching loss in his soul. He needed someone. Something was missing.
    He started to stand and the pain hit him like a knife in the back. Gasping, he fell back down onto the bench. For the moment, pain was all there was.
    Janis was muttering to herself as she hurried through the house toward the backyard. She’d overslept and then she’d had to deal with a little bit of morning sickness, something she hadn’t had until recently. Now she didn’t know where Mykal was and she was furious with herself.
    “If I’m going to make a fool of myself hanging around here, I might at least do a good job of keeping tabs on the man,” she muttered aloud. “What is the point if I’m not even vigilant?”
    She’d woken up, pulled together her clothes and dashed through the house finding absolutely nobody. He had to be outside. She was out the door and into a garden that must have been