Debbie

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“This is your captain speaking,” came a crackling voice over the intercom. “Please fasten your seatbelts. We are about to experience some minor turbulence.”

Debbie Jameson already had her seatbelt fastened. It was her first time in an airplane, and she wasn’t taking any chances.

But she wasn’t scared. She was on her way to Paris, and there was no way fate could be so cruel as to have her crash before she even got there. On the way back, maybe then she’d worry.

Debbie still could barely believe how lucky she was. Her entire life, ever since she’d been a little girl, she’d entered every contest and sweepstakes she’d ever come across. But she’d never won a thing. Until now.

One moment, she’d been living her boring everyday life, working in a boring everyday 7-11 in boring everyday Boonville, Tennessee. The next moment, she’d been informed that she’d won an all-expenses-paid weekend in Paris, complete with a free shopping spree!

Debbie had never even left Boonville before. She could hardly imagine what it would be like to stay in a fancy hotel, wear a gorgeous designer dress, stroll the streets of Paris, and eat delicious French pastries. The closest she’d ever come to any sort of French food was French fries!

She could hardly wait. True, it would only be two days. But it would be two days she’d treasure in her memory for the rest of her boring everyday life.

And, who knows? Maybe she’d meet a hot French guy and get rid of her virginity in a wild night of passion between her silk hotel sheets!

Do even super-fancy sweepstake hotels have silk sheets? Debbie wondered. She hoped that French ones did.

And would a hot French guy want to have anything to do with an everyday American? Would he even speak enough English to let her know that he wanted to get between her sheets?

Everyone thinks foreigners are glamorous, she thought. I sure do! And I’m American, so maybe that makes me a hot foreigner in France.

As for the language barrier, well, they did say that French was the language of love. If she did meet that hypothetical foreigner-loving hot French guy, presumably he’d be able to communicate with his bedroom eyes.

The plane suddenly dropped down. Debbie bit back a yelp. If she screamed, everyone in the cabin would stare at her for being a silly first-time flier who got scared at minor turbulence.

“This is your captain speaking,” crackled the intercom. “There may be some major turbu—”

The plane dropped again, farther and faster than the last time. Debbie again choked back a scream, but some other people didn’t. A can of Coke went rolling down the aisle.

Her heart thudding in her chest, she looked around, hoping for the reassuring sight of a cabin full of experienced travelers who weren’t alarmed in the slightest.

Everywhere she looked, every single person looked scared. A little girl sitting in a row all by herself looked terrified.

Why is that girl all alone? Debbie wondered, her maternal instincts kicking in. Why isn’t anyone comforting her?

Debbie leaned over. “Where’s your mom? In the bathroom?”

The girl shook her head. Debbie could hear that she was trying to sound grown-up as she said, “I’m by myself. I’m an ‘unaccompanied minor,’ so the flight attendants look out for me.”

Debbie sure didn’t see any flight attendants looking out for the poor kid. She craned her neck, but the only ones she could spot were strapped into seats at the back of the plane. Debbie shot them a shaming glare and jerked her head in the little girl’s direction, but they either didn’t see her or pretended not to see her.

Debbie turned back to the child. “Are you scared?”

Shamefaced, the girl nodded.

“Want me to come sit next to you?” Debbie asked.

“Yes,” the child said in a tiny voice.

Debbie unsnapped her seatbelt and stood up.

“Hey!” yelled one of the flight attendants. “Stay where you are!”

“I’m just moving to sit next to the little girl,” Debbie called back. “She’s all alone.”

“Well, sit back down,” snapped the flight attendant. “You’re not allowed to change seats. There’s turbulence—it’s dangerous. You could fall.”

“It’s OK,” the little girl said. “I’m fine now.”

“Are you sure?” Debbie asked.

“I’m sure,” the girl said.

Debbie wasn’t sure she believed her. She stayed where she was.

“Miss, sit down!” yelled the flight attendant. “Now!”

“Please, sit down,” begged the little girl. “I hate it when people yell.”

Reluctantly, Debbie sat down and put her seatbelt back on. She’d rather have given that flight attendant a piece of her mind, but the woman’s yelling was obviously upsetting the poor kid. Maybe the best thing to do was just talk to her and take her mind off the turbulence.

“What’s your name?” Debbie asked.

“Chloe,” the girl murmured.

“That’s pretty. My name’s Debbie. How come you’re flying by yourself?”

“I’m visiting my grandparents in Paris,” Chloe explained, visibly calming down as she spoke. “Mommy’s French, but she fell in love with Daddy when he was visiting Paris, and she moved to America to marry him. I go every year. Usually Mommy and Daddy come with me. Sometimes just Mommy. But this year they could only afford one ticket, so when I said I wasn’t scared to fly alone, they decided to let me go by myself.”

“What a sweet story,” Debbie said. “Do you know how your parents met?”

“Sure!” Chloe’s fear was clearly forgotten as she went on, “See, Daddy loves sweet things, so he was in this pastry shop trying to order chocolate cake. But his French was so bad that it sounded like he was asking for—”

The plane dropped again, leaving Debbie’s stomach in mid-air. Chloe let out a shriek of terror.

The intercom broke in with a loud crackle. “We need to make an emergency landing in Rodica. Everyone, please stay calm. And hold on tight!”

Chloe burst into tears.

Before that, Debbie had been scared. But once she saw the little girl crying, all alone, she didn’t think of anything but protecting and taking care of her.

“It’s all right,” Debbie said soothingly. “I’ll hold on to you.”

She once again unsnapped her seatbelt and stood up.

The flight attendant bellowed, “Miss, sit back down now, or I’ll have you arrested when we land!”

“You do that!” Debbie shot back. She would have said more, but remembered that Chloe hated hearing people yell.

Ignoring the flight attendant’s threat, Debbie clung to the backs of seats and made her way through the pitching, plunging airplane until she finally managed to sit down beside Chloe.

Well, maybe she fell into the seat rather than sat in it, but it was the thought that counted. Debbie hurriedly clipped herself in and put her arms around Chloe.

“We’re going to be fine,” she told the sobbing girl. “Nobody’s going to get hurt. The captain knows what he’s doing. We’re just going to have a little adventure in... Rodeo? Radical? Redial?”

“Rodica,” Chloe whispered.

Debbie had never heard of it before the captain had said they were emergency-landing there. “Where’s Rodica?”

Chloe sniffled, then said, “Dunno.”

“Well, that’ll be extra-exciting, won’t it?” Debbie said firmly. “What’s more of an adventure than being in a country when you don’t even know where it is?”

That’s the most unconvincing “it’ll be an adventure!” argument since “taking out the trash is fun, fun, fun!” Debbie thought.

But it seemed to impress Chloe. That, or she just felt better when someone was holding her. She stopped crying and let Debbie talk to her about the cool adventure she was about to have as the plane continued to make its terrifying, jolting descent.

Part of Debbie was scared to death. But another part was able to set that aside to take care of Chloe. And yet another part thought, Maybe it really will be an adventure.

When the plane finally slammed down into the runway with a jolt that made Debbie’s teeth knock together, she and Chloe were the only ones who didn’t scream. A huge man with a bushy black beard let out the girliest shriek Debbie had ever heard.

Chloe giggled. “I’m not scared.”

“No,” Debbie agreed as the plane taxied to a halt. “You’re a very brave girl.”

Chloe shook her head. “Don’t need to be brave. Why should I be scared? It’s an adventure!”

“This is your captain speaking,” crackled the intercom.

Chloe cupped her hands in front of her mouth to distort her voice. “There may be some minor turbulence.”

“The next flight out of Rodica will not be until tomorrow night,” the captain went on.

Alarmed, Debbie scrabbled in her purse for the sweepstakes letter. She didn’t want to miss and entire day of the vacation of a lifetime—especially since it only lasted for one weekend.

To her relief, she found a line at the bottom that said, Your sweepstakes vacation begins once you arrive in Paris. If your plane is delayed, you will still get the full time.

The captain said, “You will all be given money for a hotel and food. Please enjoy the beauty of Rodica, which its people call the land of the dragon!”

“Oooh,” Chloe squealed. “Rodica has dragons! I wanna see one!”

Debbie tried not to laugh. “I don’t think he meant real dragons. It must be a local legend.”

“I bet he meant real dragons,” Chloe said stubbornly. She peered out the window. It was a bright sunny day, showing an airport, green hills beyond that, and, farthest in the distance and rising beyond the hills, some delicate spires like a fairytale castle.

A flight attendant—not the one who had yelled at Debbie—came to walk the little girl off the plane.

“We’re going to get you on the phone with your grandparents,” the flight attendant said kindly. “Maybe you have a relative here you can stay with.”

As they disembarked, Debbie asked the nice flight attendant, “Is it OK if I stay with her for a bit? Just to make sure she’s all right?”

“I want Debbie!” Chloe chimed in.

“Sure,” said the flight attendant. “I saw you taking care of her. Are you a mom?”

“Not yet,” Debbie said.

The flight attendant smiled. “Are you trying?”

“No. I...” Debbie blushed, and hurriedly finished, “...I’m not married.”

She could hardly say, “I’m a virgin” in front of a child, even if she was willing to inflict that level of embarrassing TMI on the flight attendant. Which she wasn’t.

“Some day,” the flight attendant said cheerfully, and made the call.

Chloe’s grandparents picked up the phone. The flight attendant spoke to them in French, apparently explaining what had happened, then passed the phone to Chloe, who also broke into fluent French.

After she hung up, Chloe said, “Debbie, I have an aunt in Rodica! I’ll stay with her until the next flight.” Then, looking sad, she said, “But she said she has a really small apartment. There won’t be any room for you.”

“Oh, I don’t need to stay with your aunt,” Debbie assured the little girl. “I get a free hotel room, remember? But it was sweet of you to ask.”

Debbie collected her hotel and restaurant cash, then waited with Chloe until her aunt, a plump woman in a flowered dress, arrived to pick her up.

“Bye, Debbie!” Chloe said. “I’ll see you on the plane to Paris!”

“See you, Chloe,” Debbie said.

As Chloe walked off with her aunt, she said, “The captain said there’s dragons here!”

“That’s right,” her aunt replied. “If you’re lucky, you might even see one!”

Smiling, Debbie went outside to hail a taxi into the town.

The driver stared at her, then said, “I hadn’t known you’d left Rodica.”

Baffled, she said, “I’ve never been here before. I was on my way to Paris, but my plane had to make an emergency landing.”

The driver stared harder, then gave a sudden laugh. “Are you American?”

“Yes. Do you have a hotel you’d recommend?”

He laughed again.

What was so funny? Spinach stuck in her teeth? Her shirt on backward? Americans were totally hilarious?

The cab driver must have noticed her embarrassment, because he quickly wiped the grin from his face. “Yes. I’ll drive you there.”

She sat back in the taxi as it wove its way along narrow roads through the forested hills. Debbie hoped the flight into Paris would be less eventful. But she couldn’t complain. She’d thought she’d get an all-expenses-paid weekend in Paris, and instead she’d gotten not only that, but an all-expenses-paid day in Rodica!

Wherever Rodica was.

She explained to the taxi driver how she’d unexpectedly ended up in his country, and admitted that she’d never heard of it. He didn’t seem surprised.

“We don’t get very many tourists,” he explained. “People visit from the neighboring countries—Doru, Loredana, Brandusa, and Viorel. But only a few from other areas, and hardly any from America. We are a small country—small, but beautiful.”

“It really is beautiful,” Debbie agreed.

They had reached the city by then, but it didn’t look like any city she’d ever been in before. She was used to buildings made of concrete and glass, crowded parking lots and dingy sidewalks, tacky billboards and neon signs. The buildings in Rodica were made of stone or brick, the signs were painted on wood, and the roads were made of cobblestone. It looked like an illustration in some much-loved book from her childhood, forgotten until now.

“The pilot said you call it the land of the dragon,” Debbie said. “Why is that?”

“Because the royal family can become dragons.” He spoke with complete seriousness. Debbie stared at him, waiting for him to laugh, but he didn’t. She couldn’t tell if he was pranking the tourist, or if it was a legend that locals actually believed.

The cab pulled up outside of a homey-looking hotel. “Your inn, madam.”

The wooden sign read Welcome Inn. She laughed. Hotels with cute punning names apparently were universal.

She walked into the lobby. The man at the front desk was drinking a mug of coffee and yawning. Without looking up, he mumbled, “Welcome to Welcome Inn.”

Then he looked up. His eyes nearly popped out of his head, and he dropped the coffee mug. The innkeeper fumbled to mop the coffee and bow at the same time, exclaiming, “You honor us with your presence!”

Debbie hadn’t ever stayed in a hotel before, but she was pretty sure even the people at the fancy ones in the US didn’t talk to customers like that.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, she thought, and decided to roll with it.

“The honor is mine,” she said. “Um, can I have a room for one?”

“Of course. Of course!” The innkeeper snatched up her bag, then indicated a guest book. “Please, will you sign your name? Otherwise my wife won’t believe it!”

“Believe what?”

“That you were really here, of course!”

Debbie had no idea why it would be so weird for a hotel to have guests, but she obediently signed the book. The innkeeper, who had been peering over her shoulder, made a strange spluttering noise.

She turned around, and caught him with an equally strange look on his face. Then he smoothed it out and smiled at her. “Welcome to Welcome Inn... Debbie. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

He showed her to a cozy room with a patchwork quilt on a comfy bed. Debbie flopped down on it and yawned. She did want to explore Rodica. But she was tired, too...

The last thing she noticed before her eyes closed was that the patches on the quilt were shaped like dragons.

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Debbie awoke to warm golden light. She yawned and blinked, briefly disoriented. Where was she? Then her vision came into focus.

A fire-breathing dragon loomed above her!

She recoiled with a gasp, her arms flailing. The dragon was going to eat her!

The dragon wasn’t moving. It hung suspended over her bed, its flame caught in mid-billow, its emerald wings outstretched and motionless.

Also, it was flat.

Debbie giggled as she realized that the dragon was just a mural painted on to the ceiling over the bed. A strange choice of decoration, certain to alarm unsuspecting sleepers. It seemed like a practical joke. Or maybe it was like the taxi driver had mentioned, and the inn usually only got tourists from the surrounding countries, who were presumably just as fond of dragons as the Rodicans apparently were.

It was a little weird, but charming once you got used to it. Debbie had enjoyed fairytales when she was a little girl. She’d always loved the dragons and had been sorry the knights slew them instead of befriending them, even if they did eat virgins.

At least when a dragon’s around, virgins are in demand, she thought glumly. It’s not like anyone else wants them.

She still didn’t see what was so outrageous about not throwing herself at the first guy who’d tried to seduce her. Or the next guy. Or the next. She wasn’t committed to saving herself for marriage. She just wanted something better than a fumble in the back seat of a car or a night in a sleazy motel, and someone better than a guy who didn’t even pretend to want more than a one-night stand.

But all those “not this time” and “not this one” added up to being that dreaded thing, a virgin. And once she confessed to that, even nice guys got nervous and backed off.

I definitely need a hot Frenchman, she thought. Or maybe a hot Rodican. A hot Rod!

Stifling another giggle, she splashed some water on her face, brushed her hair, and went out.

The innkeeper again did a weird double-take at the sight of her, then wiped it off his face and provided her with a map of the city. He indicated a tiny castle, and said, “The royal palace. It’s walking distance if you have comfortable shoes. Just follow the main road toward the spires.”

Debbie had been hoping to buy a pair of pretty shoes in Paris, but the unglamorous sneakers she wore were definitely comfy. “Thanks. I’ll go check it out.”

It was afternoon, and the lowering sun lit the city with a lovely glow. She happily wandered around, admiring the sights and following the main road. The delicate spires of the palace rose high in the distance. She couldn’t wait to see the palace. It had to be amazing.

“I can’t believe I’m going to see a palace,” Debbie murmured to herself. “Me, a 7-11 clerk from Tennessee!”

She’d be back to serving up slushies next week. But right now, she was in Rodica, with a wad of Rodican money in her pocket that the airline had given her. And she was going to enjoy the hell out of it.

The delicious smell of baking bread and roasting meat wafted out of a narrow side road. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since the night before—the plane had made its emergency landing before breakfast, and she’d slept through lunch. She followed the smell, hoping it came from a restaurant. She had no idea what people ate in Rodica, but whatever it was, she wanted some.

A man stepped out from the shadows and stood directly in her path. Startled, she looked up at him.

He was tall and strikingly handsome, with chiseled, masculine features—strong jaw, high cheekbones, bold eyebrows. His hair was glossy and black, and his eyes were a gorgeous light amber. Debbie had never seen eyes that color before.

She couldn’t stop staring at him, taking in all the details. He was dressed in beautifully tailored clothes in what had to be some sort of traditional Rodican style— black linen pants, high black boots, a white shirt, and a long black coat that swirled around his ankles and was embroidered around the cuffs and hem with tiny golden dragons breathing puffs of crimson flame. He wore several gold rings, but none, she couldn’t help noticing, were on his ring finger.

And he was staring at her too. Those stunning amber eyes were fixed on her as if she was the most amazing and wonderful thing he’d seen in his entire life.

“My God,” he muttered. “I thought you were Princess Eugenia.”

His voice was deep and dark and dusky. Incredibly sexy. She could have kept listening to it forever. It was only belatedly that she realized what he’d said.

“No,” Debbie replied. Had he really mistaken her for a princess? Or was that just someone’s first name, like Princess Smith or Princess Jones? “I’m Debbie Jameson, from Tennessee.”

He shook his head, but the gesture seemed more one of amazement than of denial. “Incredible. You look so much like her.”

“Oh!” Debbie exclaimed, suddenly realizing why everyone had given her such funny looks. “The taxi driver and the innkeeper probably thought I was Princess... What was her name?”

“Princess Eugenia,” the man said. “I have no doubt that they did. The resemblance is astonishing.”

“Who is she?” Hesitantly, not wanting the hot guy to laugh at her, she said, “Is she really a princess, princess? Or is that just her name?”

He didn’t laugh, but he did smile. It wasn’t a mocking smile, but one which invited her to smile along with him. The expression transformed his face, making him not merely handsome, but likable. “She really is a princess princess. She’s the princess of Doru, and she’s visiting Rodica... Well, she was visiting Rodica. I’m not sure if she’s still here.”

“Wow. A real princess.” Debbie loved the idea that she resembled one, incredible as it seemed. “I never thought a princess could look like me.”

“What did you expect a princess to look like?” the man inquired.

“Blonde hair, down to her ankles. Big blue eyes. Even skinnier than me, but with giant boobs—” She broke off, blushing, and hurried on to get past the awkwardness of having blurted out the word “boobs” to this hot and clearly also very classy guy. Especially since her own were sadly tiny. “Uh, I mean extremely slim but also extremely curvy. In some places. Places on top.”

The hot, classy guy’s mouth had been quivering for her entire recital, as if he was trying not to crack up. At that, he did laugh. “Only those imported American dolls are rail thin but with an enormous bosom. I mean the—what do you call them? Bobbies?”

Debbie laughed too. “Barbies. So Princess Eugenia really looks like me?”

“She really does. I would not have known you were not her, but for...” He trailed off, and she was certain that he substituted something else for what he had originally intended to say. “...your clothes.”

Then he swept into a magnificent bow. “I am sorry, I have forgotten my manners. I am Prince Victor of Rodica. And I am in desperate need of a favor which only you can provide.”

Debbie’s jaw dropped at the word “prince.” But she didn’t doubt him for a second. Those expensive clothes, the elegant manners, and most of all, his unmistakable air of command: those were the signs of a man who was born to rule.

Then she recalled his second sentence. “A favor? You need a favor from me? I’m a 7-11 clerk. What in the world could I do for a prince?”

Prince Victor held her gaze in his. Those incredible amber eyes of his looked completely serious as he said, “You could marry me.”