She was nothing like the other girls in town, nor was she popular among them. Elena didn’t dream of becoming rich, or of running off to New York or Rome or some other grand city she had heard the other village girls talk about. They only envisioned things based on stories they had heard. She had no interest in visiting the castle of a king, queen, and their spoilt son, much less drool after him. She had other dreams of following in her father’s footsteps, of owning her own land and farming it, of marrying a farm boy who loved the land as much as she did. Her ambitions were cultivated and nurtured on the island, and she had her sights firmly grounded on remaining where she was. Furthermore, she was anxious about leaving when she didn’t know what was really out there. She didn’t think she would fit in.

She had heard that the prince was coming to the village—that he was commanded to find a wife lest the royal family risk losing the crown to the Wyatts. Elena didn’t care for either of them. She merely wanted to ensure her father retained his land, and whichever of them could do it would have her loyalty. She didn’t care for much else.

When she learned of the decision, she wanted nothing to do with it. Her father had promised her she didn’t have to do anything and that the prince couldn’t force her to marry him if she didn’t want to. She was content with that. She had seen how the women had flocked to the house, and she hated the fact that he was so close to her father’s land. She wanted to avoid seeing him or running into him. She had gone to the meadow opposite her father’s farm to sit under her favorite old oak tree like she did every night when it was too warm to fall asleep. Or too noisy.

She didn’t plan on being disturbed, especially by the prince. Her heart skipped a beat when she turned and saw him, but it wasn’t because she was smitten. She was merely alarmed that he was there alone, with no guard or royal escort. Every time she had seen him there had been a fanfare and a parade. He had to have song and tribute or he wouldn’t pass through the village. She arched her brow and played with the stick in her hand, doodling in the patch of dirt at her feet. He didn’t move, and she turned her head slowly to check if he was still there. He was.

“Are you simply going to stand there?” she asked. It gave her great pleasure in speaking to him without fear of reproach or imprisonment. He was in her world, and for once, she had the upper hand.

“You would talk to your prince like that?” he asked smugly and took a few menacing steps closer to her.

She cocked her head to the side and looked up at him. “Nope. Not my prince.” She resumed her doodling. Elena’s head faced town as the drumbeats and howling got louder. “Dammit! Do they ever shut up?” she asked, more to herself than anyone else. “This is possibly the only village on the island this full of life at night,” she grouched.

She leaned back against the tree and stared ahead, almost completely oblivious to the prince. He didn’t mean anything to her. What did she care what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go, as long as he wasn’t doing it there?

“You’re not like the other women,” he said finally, but he didn’t come any closer.

“What do you mean?” Elena asked as if she didn’t know what he meant.

She was well aware she was the black sheep of the village. She wore baggy clothes most of the time, quite like the faded blue overalls she sported; she didn’t curl her hair but kept it caught in a bun at her nape, or under her straw hat when she worked in the fields; she didn’t wear perfume or make-up, and she hated high heels and fancy dresses. She didn’t consider herself a beautiful woman, though the village men thought otherwise. From time to time they had come on to her when they caught her unawares, but her father had taught her how to defend herself.

She didn’t have friends. She had before, but they were mostly boys, and when she wouldn’t date any of them, they started spreading rumors about kissing her or fondling her. She had gotten into many fights because of it, so now, she was friendless. The other women were jealous of her, but she didn’t know why. They had the pretty hair and fancy clothes—Elena had nothing but the farm and her animals. She wasn’t even sure she remembered how to socialize.

“I didn’t see you today,” Jason said as he moved a step closer to her. He eyed her suspiciously, and she wondered at the intrigue painted across his face.

“I didn’t know you expected to see me,” she replied smartly. She didn’t look at him but moved her head so she looked even further away.

“I expected to see all the women today.” He circled the tree so he was face to face with her again.

“All the women who are interested, I assume.” She could tell he expected her to fawn, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“And you weren’t? Come on!” His ego was showing, and Elena wasn’t flattered.

She turned her eyes slowly to him, a feisty remark ready on her lips. She didn’t expect him to be handsome, or to notice the way his eyes sparkled in the soft light, and she was caught up with the flames from her lantern flickering in their depths. She almost forgot what she wanted to say. She had never seen him this close before. She had thought he would be ugly, judging by his snobbishness.

She cleared her throat and looked away. “I wasn’t.” She took up her stick again.

“Right,” he replied smugly. He paraded himself in front of her like a prized piece at the carnival. “So, you are telling me you would rather wear ugly clothes and work in the mud than marry a prince?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. He laughed boisterously, loud and long, until he had to grip his stomach. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Elena felt insulted. What made him think because he was the prince she was supposed to trip over herself on her way to him? She had never liked the idea of him, and now that he stood in front of her, she knew her earlier preconceptions had been correct.

She silently stood while he laughed and straightened her overalls. “For someone with a rope around their neck, you sure are cocky.” She turned to leave.

His laughing stopped abruptly, and he made two steps and caught up to her. He grabbed her arm and forced her around. “Don’t walk away from me!” he commanded.

Elena didn’t take too kindly to that. She shrugged him off and brushed his hand aside. “Let go of me!”

“I can do as I damned well please,” he retorted.

Elena crossed her arms over her chest. “You may be the prince, but possibly not for long. You still need to marry someone—and not just anyone,” she reminded him. “Rumor has it you have to marry a village girl in order to remain a prince.”

Jason grimaced and clenched his jaw. His fists tightened into balls against his thighs, and his gaze moved to the rolling greens of the meadow, now black from the night that masked it.

Elena smiled when she saw that she was having an effect, and she got a rush of confidence that made her head swell. “If I were you, Prince Jason, I’d get down off my high horse. You’re the one in need of help.”

She walked away. He didn’t follow her, but when she looked back, he was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief, and her hand immediately clasped her throat like she couldn’t believe what she had just done. Who talked to the prince like that? At that moment, maybe only her. She quietly celebrated her victory over him, but she had a feeling he would be back. He’d lost, and it had pierced an opening in his inflated ego and had swelled her pride.

She was grinning from ear to ear when she got back to the farm. Nathan, her younger brother, ran out to meet her.

“Hey, what are you still doing up?” she asked as he leapt into her arms.

“I was waiting for you. Papa said you would be down by that tree.”

Elena laughed. “Yeah, I was down by that tree,” she said as she tickled him. He giggled and twisted in her arms, trying to escape the onslaught, until their mother, wondering what the commotion was all about, came to the door.

She was a small woman, and she still wore her apron on which she wiped her hands. “Come on in, you two,” she urged.

“You wanna go in?” Elena asked, as she bit his neck playfully.

“Mama, make her stop,” Nathan shouted as he wriggled some more in Elena’s hands.

“Sorry, can’t help you. You ran out here knowing she was going to do that.”

“Yes. Yes, he did,” Elena paused to reply.

“Stop. Stop!” Nathan cried, his laughter provoking tears.

“Okay,” I’m done,” Elena said as she set him on the ground.

He ran off as soon as he could and crashed into his mother, who still stood in the doorway. She laughed and ruffled the sandy blond hair on his head and went inside. Elena followed them in, tossing the stick aside as she got to the door.

Inside the cozy little house, the smell of freshly baked bread wafted to her nose and made her mouth water. She started for the kitchen, but her mother grabbed her by the arm and stopped her.

“Oh no,” she declared firmly, “not with those shoes or those dirty clothes.”

Elena looked down at herself and was embarrassed at the mess. She had been in the pigs’ sty earlier, and the mud still clung to the tail end of her overalls. Only then was she embarrassed that she had stood before the prince smelling like the pigs themselves.

“Just a little piece,” she teased and pretended to make for the kitchen. That was all the encouragement Nathan needed to jump onto her once more, hoping for a piggy back ride.

“Get out of my living room, missy.” Her mother laughed as her father walked into the room, the towel still draped around his neck as he dried the remaining water from his head.

“What’s going on in here?” he asked, though he wasn’t in the least bit angry.

They were a close family, and they played around with each other all the time. More than anything else, they were happy, which made Elena content in her modest lifestyle.

“Mom said I need a bath, but I don’t see what’s wrong with a little mud,” Elena said plainly, like she really didn’t get what her mother was saying.

“I don’t either, but she sent me packing, too, so I guess you gotta do the same.” He laughed.

“Okay, fine,” Elena relented and pretended to sulk as her shoulders sagged and her lips curled into a pout. When she returned to the living room, washed and smelling like a rose bed, she found her family huddled around the fire playing games.

“Oh, it’s game night, isn’t it?” she said and clicked her tongue. “I almost forgot.” Three pairs of eyes turned to her at once. “What?” Elena shrugged. “I’m not allowed to forget even one time?”

“Not when it was your idea,” her mother replied dryly. “We’re going to start over, so get those players.”

“What are you playing? Oh, parcheesi.” She grinned. “Gimme a sec, I need to get some bread.”

She hurried to the kitchen and returned shortly with a piece of fresh bread in her hand, chewing her first bite. They were half way through the first game when Nathan broke the silence with questions about the prince.

“Are you going to marry Prince Jason, Elena?” he asked, his innocent brown eyes turned to her with concern, like it had been weighing him down all day.

“No!” Elena fired back.

Her father gave her a curious stare when he saw her blushing. “She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.” Her father answered Nathan, but he looked at Elena, giving her the answer as well.

“But he is the prince. He can make you,” Nathan responded in his seven-year-old innocence.

“No, he can’t,” her father replied forcefully. “That is for Elena to decide.”

“Don’t worry, little bro,” Elena told Nathan cheerfully. “I’m not going to leave you.”

He grinned and rolled the dice, his worries forgotten for the time being. But his question had acknowledged the elephant in the room, and now that it was out there, it became impossible not to talk about it.

“Did you see him?” her mother asked.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Olivia,” her husband fired. “What does it matter? There are plenty of girls in the village. He can have his pick of them.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Olivia defended. “I merely asked if she’d seen him.”

“I did,” Elena replied, and all eyes were on her again. “Not deliberately. I was under the tree when he walked up.”

“What, just now?” her father wanted to know.

“Yeah,” she told them. “It was no big deal.”

But it was. They had told her she didn’t have to do what she didn’t want to, but who knew for sure the limitations of the order given to the prince? For all they knew, he could swoop in and take any girl he wanted, and they feared it would be her. They had already lost a son when he’d left on his first tour in Afghanistan. They couldn’t bear to lose Elena too. They had been close, Aiden only two years older than her, and his death had crushed her. She hadn’t really gotten over it yet. She still wore his overalls and slept in his bed.

Her mother was quiet for a moment. “What was he like? What did he say?”

Elena sighed. “He was every bit the snob we thought him to be. I don’t know, but it’s like he expected me to bow to him. He was actually surprised that I didn’t fling myself into his arms and beg him to marry me.”

Her parents said nothing, and they didn’t have to. She had a pretty good idea of what they were thinking. By being different she had actually captured the prince’s attention, and if he forced her to marry him, she wouldn’t have much of a choice. Elena focused even more on the parcheesi board as she tried to occupy her mind with the game. She would never marry the prince, and that was all that mattered. Why would he want her, anyway, when he could have anyone else?

“You don’t have to worry about anything,” she tried to reassure them. “I came in here smelling of pig’s feed and mud. I’m sure the prince didn’t find that attractive.”

“Yeah, and who wants a woman with that much mouth on her?” her father smiled. “You would give him hell.”

“That I would,” Elena said proudly and grinned. “Now, can we get back to the game? Nathan is getting bored.” Nathan yawned and rubbed his eyes, punctuating the truth in Elena’s words.

“I think that’s it for the night,” her mother said as she stood and helped him to his feet. “I’ll see you in the morning, sweetie,” she said as she lowered her head and kissed the top of Elena’s.

“Night, Mom,” she smiled.

“I guess my night is over too. Night, kiddo,” her dad told Elena. He leaned over to her and whispered. “I’d never let him marry you if you don’t want to.”

Elena smiled. “I know, Dad,” she said and flung her arms around his neck. “That won’t be a problem.”

But that night, as she lay in her bed, his image haunted her even though she had been so sure earlier that she wanted nothing to do with the prince. She kept seeing his black eyes every time she closed hers, tossing and turning, and against her better judgement, she wondered what he was doing at that moment. When she fell asleep, he followed her into her dreams.